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More "Odds" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but what's the odds? They knew this fellow would try to stir up trouble. Whenever it comes right down to a question of defending Americanism and our constitutional rights, it's justifiable to set ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... to the seconds, but those of the experienced men and of the domestics who looked at them understood at once how great were the odds on Hlawa's side. The German wielded the heavier axe and his shield was cumbersome. Below the shield were visible his legs which were longer, though not so strong nor active as the sturdy and tightly ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... turn-up with the Commandant's lady, and the pips with the Archbishop of Warsaw. Proposed three times, one for the king, the Governor drew ace; the Governor was already three and the ten. When the Governor scored king, the Archbishop gave the odds, drew knave queen one hand. The count offered to propose fourth time. Governor refused. King to six, ace fell to knave, queen cleared on. Governor lost, besides bets with the whole etat-major; the Secretary gave his bill; the Commandant's lady pawned her jewels; ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... about four feet apart. They number off, odds forming one team and evens the other. A ball, eraser or some object is given each team on opposite side of the circle. At a signal the teams pass the object to the right to members of the same team only. ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... empty cell, And had half mind to buffet Master Nokes, Standing with finger laid across his palm In argumentative, appealing way, Distraught, of countenance most woe-begone. "See!—the two swords. As I 'm a Christian soul!" "Odds, man!" cried one, "thou 'st been a-dreamin', man. Cleave to thy beer, an' ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... wire, grabbed it, and heaved. It came free. Swiftly his fingers explored it. About eight feet. That was good. Probably it had been buried when the part of the reef nearest the hotel had been filled in with trash to make a parking area. He had noticed odds and ends of junk around. He ran over to Scotty and told him what else was needed and they both hunted until they found a jagged piece of metal that would suit. It weighed about two pounds, and it had ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... confidence in him and his profession. Gladly now he accepted this failure to relieve him of his precious burden, and this offer of company. He resented however the reflection on the monastery kitchen—"Not so! Nor is this foolish priest so at odds with the cook as not to find a bit of mountain whale (flesh) in the soup. Repletion is the aim and object of a monastic existence."—"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed the fellow. "Yet the honoured Shukke Sama would breakfast so close to Edo town! Good sir, deign to leave the matter to me. Both are in ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... will seek to support moderate and modern governments, especially in the Muslim world. We will continue assuring Muslims that American values are not at odds with Islam. Indeed, the United States has come to the aid of many Muslims in the past—in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo, to name a few. The United States will work with such moderate and modern governments to reverse the spread of extremist ideology ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - February 2003 • United States
... June morning Browning was crossing the Piazza San Lorenzo, when the market-folk had all their curious wares of odds and ends spread about on tables. At one of these he chanced on "the square old yellow book" which held the story of the Franceschini tragedy, which the poet's art transmuted into his greatest poem, "The Ring ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... from a further scrutiny of the list that his own few belongings were hardly wanted. He had not been so well equipped since he left Heidelberg to rush to his mother's death-bed. Nevertheless, having already gathered in a valise some books, photographs, letters, and other odds and ends, he went to ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... little handful of riflemen would have been riddled with bayonets. On the other hand, nothing but the confidence inspired by the consciousness of the power they wielded could have enabled such a handful to hold their ground as they did in the face of such overwhelming odds. Two companies of infantry in their rear, who were intended as a support, fired one volley ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... of the boundless prairie, to that rugged mountainous section of Arizona, where many fabulous fortunes have been won through the discovery of rich ore. The Broncho Rider Boys find themselves impelled, by a stern sense of duty, to make a brave fight against heavy odds, in order to retain possession of a valuable mine that is claimed by some of their relatives. That they meet with numerous strange and thrilling perils while enlisted in this service, can be readily understood; ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the idea of killing the two guards—or as many as there might be. Perhaps this was because they were sure to be rascals whose lives one could not value very highly, especially as against that of the Countess. Nor did I feel greatly the odds against me, in regard both to their number and to my inexperience in such business. Perhaps the apparent confidence of Mathilde in my ability to dispose of them—a confidence based on my being a gentleman and they underlings—infected ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... her dam for a thousand guineas if she's set her heart on a man. Odds bodikins, if she comes not you won't lose. I shall and it'll be the devil's own bad luck. No have, no pay. D'ye see that my ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... the habitation of the two Englishmen, where this escaped man had been kept. As the chief Spaniard said, had they been all there the damage would not have been so much, for not a man of them would have escaped; but the case differed now very much, for two men to fifty was too much odds. The two men had the happiness to discover them about a league off, so that it was above an hour before they landed; and as they landed a mile from their huts, it was some time before they could ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... ever will be a portrait of Henrietta Armine. Come now, my dear Glastonbury,' he continued, with an air of remarkable excitement, 'let us have a wager upon it. What are the odds? Will there ever be a portrait of Henrietta Armine? I am quite fantastic to-day. You are smiling at me. Now do you know, if I had a wish certain to be gratified, it should be to add a portrait of ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Tell him we're capital troops in our own little way in the mountains; would never do in pitched battles,—skirmishing's our forte; and for cutting off stragglers, or sacking a town, back them at any odds." ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... of the settlers of Jamestown, and fitted them to cope with the perils and hardships of the wilderness, and to battle with hostile aboriginal tribes, also fitted their descendants for new struggles on a wider field and against more desperate odds. The courage and fortitude of men and women alike rose to the occasion, and in those scenes of danger and carnage, the presence of mind displayed by women especially, have been frequent themes of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... proceeding of a new memorial, a new effort to procure attention, a new examination of evidence, a new report, a new bill, and again utter neglect. But the brave woman continued. She was really fighting alone and at terrible odds another Tennessee campaign for the rightful recognition of ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... antiquated shop-window under its projecting story, and Hepzibah herself, in a gown of rusty black silk, behind the counter, scowling at the world as it went by! This mighty contrast thrust itself forward as a fair expression of the odds against which she was to begin her struggle for a subsistence. Success? Preposterous! She would never think of it again! The house might just as well be buried in an eternal fog while all other houses had the sunshine on them; for not a foot would ever cross the threshold, nor a hand so much ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and sacking steamers carrying bullion and valuable merchandise were hatched with a frequency that gave a phase to local commerce that was anything but comforting, and more than one brave Yankee or British sailor went to his death fighting yellow thugs against overwhelming odds. The public decapitation of a handful of these murderers appeared to place ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... On the Wednesday following, as I wandered aimlessly along Piccadilly, at odds with Fortune and myself, but especially with myself, my eye encountered ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... was a colossal one, by all odds the largest that had ever entered into his dreams of what life held for him—that he, Jan Thoreau, should learn to read and write, and do other things like the people of the far South, so that he might help to make ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... lived, and where the Cibots were porters. Remonencq, who had come to Paris with the intention of being a porter, ran errands between 1825 and 1831 for the dealers in curiosities on Boulevard Beaumarchais and the coppersmiths on rue de Lappe, then opened in this same quarter a small shop for odds and ends. He lived there in sordid economy. He had been in Sylvain Pons's house, and had fully recognized the great value of the aged collector's treasures. His greed urged him to crime, and he instigated Madame Cibot in her theft at the Pons house. After receiving his share of ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... imagination and the intellect. There're some things you have to have at a dinner, but at a lunch there is nothing you are obliged to have, and nothing you may not have if you want it. And if you don't mind, I'd like you to ask old Miss Panney. I've been a good deal at odds with her since I have known her, but I'm satisfied now, and if there is anything I can do to make her satisfied, I'm more than ready. Besides, when I do get up anything extraordinary in the way of a meal, I like to ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... amount (she averred) of two cart-loads. She tossed it, bit by bit, over the west wall of the churchyard, where in time it became a mound, covered high with sting-nettles. If you poke among these nettles with your walking-stick, the odds are that you turn up a scrap of rusty iron. But there exists more explicit testimony to Zeb's wedding within the church—and within the churchyard, too, where he and Ruby have rested ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... arising to his full height, "you must go in." He pushed her through the door and stood in the narrow entrance, awaiting the onslaught. "They outnumber me," he laughed, "but it is a dark night. That reduces the odds. You see, sweetheart, that while in the gloom they may hit friends, yet if it comes to sword play I can't possibly hit any one else but them." He actually chuckled as he rolled back the sleeve on his right arm. "They won't use ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... hadn't been burning people for about thirty years now, the same not being considered smart any longer in the best religious circles. I also tried in a delicate manner to convince her that her boy would never end it all by any free act of his. I offered to bet her a large sum of money on this at any odds she wanted—she could write her own ticket. I said I knew men well enough to be certain that with this one it would be a long life but a merry one. Gee! The idea of ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... toward their breasts. As to the verdict there was no doubt. Those who knew the character of the judge opined that this young gentleman would "get it hot," notwithstanding that this was his first offense. Odds were taken that he would have fourteen years. "At all events," said one of the small officials, in answer to eager inquiries, "more than he could do on his head." With this enigmatical reply of the oracle its astonished questioners were compelled ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... fortunate conclusion, occurred about four years later. It grew out of another war, which, happily for us, was not on our borders, but in the heart of Europe, where the Hungarian race had risen in insurrection against the hated power of Austria. Their desperate valor in the face of tremendous odds excited the sympathy of the American people, and fired the heart of Captain Mayne Reid, who buckled on his sword once more, and sailed from New York with a body of volunteers to aid the Hungarians in their struggles ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... cheer up!" cried Ardan. "It's not all over yet by long odds. Who can say what is still in store for us? Another bolide may shunt us off our ellipse and even send ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... and dark. Trenton found the buckboard at the door, and he put his camera under the one seat—a kind of a box for the holding of bits of harness and other odds and ends. As he buttoned up his overcoat he noticed that a great white steamer had come in the night, and was tied up in ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... them outface their naked enemies—who were always looking out for their own swarthy skins—and come forth unscathed from situations wherein death seemed the only means by which they could emerge; which made them win in many a grim fight where the odds were ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... and they turned, facing back, and charged once more, no longer in close formation, but every trooper fighting as he could. Complete as the surprise had been, the men of the Seventh realized now the odds against them, the desperate nature of the fight. Out from the sheltering tepees poured a flood of warriors; rifles in hand they fought savagely. The screams of women and children, the howling and baying of Indian ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... in these sorts of bargains means that a man can look after his interests. "A man who is ready to pay you anything you ask will pay nothing," old Sechard was saying to himself. While he tried to follow his son's train of thought, he went through the list of odds and ends of plant needed by a country business, drawing David now to a hot-press, now to a cutting-press, bragging of its usefulness ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... again in an instant and was defending himself from the attack of half a dozen thugs. He put up a splendid fight, but the odds were too great, and in a few minutes he was down on the ground, unconscious ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... the instinct of his nature,' returned Gondremark. 'But you exaggerate the peril. Think, madam, how far we have prospered, and against what odds! Shall a Featherhead? - but no!' And he blew upon his fingers lightly ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the detective service, and he went into another walk of life. But we kept in touch with each other by writing occasionally. A week or so ago I was astonished to receive a letter from him, written on all sorts of odds and ends of paper and in an envelope plainly manufactured by himself. It contained ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... and Artaphernes, from the Cilician shores against the devoted coasts of Euboea and Attica. And after largely deducting from this total, so as to allow for mere mariners and camp followers, there must still have remained fearful odds against the national levies of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... kinds of odds and ends—lead pencils, blank-books, an old slate pencil wrapped in gold paper which Billy insisted on using to draw pictures on a slate—he made this squeak so that Maida clapped her hands over her ears. They found single pieces from sets of miniature furniture, a great many ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... Yes, it was all hers, bought and paid for, and she still had money for all her needs and to do those things she wanted to do. She turned away and looked back into the little parlor with its simple furnishings, its mannish odds and ends upon the wall. She heard the sounds of the old housekeeper busy in her heavy, blundering way with the domestic work of her home. She had so many plans for the future, and every one in its inception had given her ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... had the last horse died down the canyon? Casey decided that he would go and see, though he was not hankering for exercise that day. He took a long drink of water, somewhat shamefacedly filled a new canteen that lay on a pile of odds and ends near the tent door, and started down the canyon. It couldn't be far, but he might want a drink before he got back, and Casey ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... to three he is the strictest and best business man in the city. If you spoke to him then of the True Blue Athletic Club he wouldn't know what you were talking about. But after three o'clock he'll take any odds you like to offer, from matching pennies ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... Sir Ralph, to attack that bridge," I gave no thought as to whether the defences were too strong to be carried or not; or if he entrusted the command of a post to me, and said, "Defend it against all odds until I come to your assistance," he knew that it would be done, but more than that I never pretended to; and I deem not that, as I have grown older, I know more of such matters than I did when I was in ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... in all the odds and ends of wine left from the dinners of the week. To the untrained tongue, it is a fearful pleasure to partake thereof. Prather makes up his iniquitous debauches after the same recipe: absorbing the yellow journals and the orange ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... says, 'I'll jus' move me music back a mile,' he says, 'an' peg away, an' th' longest gun takes th' persimmons,' he says. 'Tis this way: If ye an' I fall out an' take rifles to each other, 'tis tin to wan nayether iv us gets clost enough to hit. If we take pistols th' odds is rayjooced. If we take swords I may get a hack at ye, but if we take a half-nelson lock 'tis even money I have ye'er back broke befure ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... the dread toilette was over. Not exactly what you would call comfortable, but they had spent enough time over it. The Rector's underwear, at odds with the stringency encircling it, was all lumpy, and what looked like tumors could be seen standing out under the "Jew's" stockings. And those trousers! They were so tight around the middle that the poor man could hardly breathe. His helmet, far too small for his head, kept slipping ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... arrived which was to decide the momentous question, the banks of the lake were decked with the beauty and culture of the land, and fair hands "staked their odds," and fair lips became familiar ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... person I proved, that as a vehicle for emotion the American university game will serve. What else is such a game for? In the match I witnessed there were some really great moments, and one or two masterly exhibitions of skill and force. And as "my" side won, against all odds, I departed in ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... improve things generally in and about Europe, if only I had a free hand. I should not propose any great fundamental changes. These poor people have got used to their own ways; it would be unwise to reform them all at once. But there are many little odds and ends that I could do for them, so many of their mistakes I could correct for them. They do not know this. If they only knew there was a man living in their midst willing to take them in hand and arrange things for them, how glad they would be. But the story is always the ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... was making no such heavy weather of it. He was even so busy that little odds and ends of his work were turned over to David, crusts for which the latter was as grateful as the Lazaruses always have been. But this ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... costs us. Nor is it in Books alone, nor in Books chiefly, that we are made conscious of our strength as Men; Life is the great Schoolmaster, Experience the mighty Volume. He who has made one stern sacrifice of self has acquired more than he will ever glean from the odds and ends of popular philosophy. And the man the least scholastic may be more robust in the power that is knowledge, and approach nearer to the Arch-Seraphim, than Bacon himself, if he cling fast to two simple maxims—"Be ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and introduced a new system of worship. Tradition further relates that as his end drew near, this mythical Odin assembled his followers, publicly cut himself nine times in the breast with his spear,—a ceremony called "carving Geir odds,"—and told them he was about to return to his native land Asgard, his old home, where he would await their coming, to share with him a life of feasting, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... odds where you died?" said Doctor Johnson. "If it hadn't been at St. Helena it would have been somewhere else, and you'd have found death as stuffy in one ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... usually regarded as constant and instinctive. That such disregard now prevails is an assertion for which President Angell did not find it necessary to point to any evidence. It is universally admitted. Friends of Prohibition and enemies of Prohibition, at odds on everything else, are in entire agreement upon this. It is high time that thinking people went beyond the mere recognition of this fact and entered into a serious examination of the cause to which it is to be ascribed. Perhaps I should say the causes, for of course more causes ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... mother-in-law," and Poke's voice was properly modified, "got scared clean to pieces. Not bein' used to our ways out here," he added brightly. "Any way they've got the spare bed room. An' my room an' Ma's ... well, Ma's got a real bad cold an' she's camped there for the night. But, shucks, boys, what's the odds, when there's fire in the fire place an' grub in the grub box an' as fine a line of licker as you can find any place I know of. An' a deck or two of cards an' the bones to rattle for them that's anxious to make or break quick ... Hap ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... to take part in the fighting themselves, being without weapons, they watched with interest the maneuvers of the officers and the gallantry with which the Belgian cavalry stood up against what at first were plainly overwhelming odds. ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... is only Near-Sport to one who has whanged the Wise Ikes that mark up the Odds. Steve went to it because there was nothing ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... Siward, who shot forward like an arrow, his opponents gathering about him in full cry, amid laughter and excited applause from the gallery, where Grace Ferrall and Captain Voucher were wildly offering odds on the blue, and Alderdene and Major Belwether were ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... to architectural beauty, being about as handsome for a house as Abner Holden was for a man. There was a dilapidated barn, a little to one side, and the yard was littered up with a broken wagon, a woodpile and various odds and ends, giving the whole a very ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... were rushed across the Free State to rescue Cronje from Roberts, and who were then sent to meet the relief column at Fourteen Streams, and were then ordered back again to harass Roberts at Sannahspost, and who, at last, worn out, stale, heartsick, and hopeless at the unequal odds and endless fighting, fell back at ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... though Puddock was an agreeable fellow, and exerting himself uncommonly (for Cluffe, like other men not deep in the literae humaniores, had a sort of veneration for 'book learning,' under which category he placed Puddock's endless odds and ends of play lore, and viewed the little lieutenant himself accordingly with some awe as a man of parts and a scholar, and prodigiously admired his verses, which he only half understood); he fancied, I say, although Puddock was unusually entertaining, that Miss Gertrude ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... persons have named some date for our arrival at New York, and backed it for more or less; finding that these days were selected more in accordance with the desires of the betters than their judgment, I selected an outsider, and took the longest date named for my day, August 20th. The odds fluctuate daily in the market, according to the view the knowing ones take of the weather: these bets form a subject of interest and banter which ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... have to stomach on his return to Paris, the ridicule it would incumb him to live down. It had been a fine thing to breathe fire and blood and vengeance to Tressan yesterday, to tell him of the great deeds he would perform on his return. It was odds he never would return. They would send another in his place, if indeed they sent at all. For, after all, before he could reach Paris and the force required be in Dauphiny, a fortnight must elapse, let them travel never so quickly. By that time they must be singularly sluggish at Condillac if they ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... galore. We are going to Cape Town with the prisoners; to Harrismith; to Winberg; to the Transvaal on another campaign, etc. Definite orders came to move the next morning. In the evening an unusual flood of odds and ends of rations was poured on us; flour, a little biscuit, a little fat for cooking, diminutive hot potatoes, a taste of goose, commandeered the same day by the mounted gunners, a little butter from the same source, besides the usual sugar, cooked meat, and tea. Drawing from this cornucopia ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... because I found later that one of Mr. Pulitzer's most embarrassing peculiarities was the sudden revelation from time to time of a mental state entirely at odds with the occupation of the moment. In the middle of an account of a play, when I was doing my best to reproduce some scene from memory, with appropriate changes of voice to represent the different characters, Mr. Pulitzer would suddenly break in, ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... now changes from Mr. Ludolph's luxurious apartments in one of the most fashionable hotels in the city to a forlorn attic in De Koven Street. It is the scene of a struggle as desperate, as heroic, against as tremendous odds, as was ever carried on in the days of the Crusades. But as the foremost figure in this long, weary conflict was not an armed and panoplied knight, but merely a poor German woman, only God and the angels took much interest in it. Still upon ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... that much I wouldn't farm it out for less'n six, anyway. And I don't see where this De Soto comes in. Sounds like he might have played first base for the Beanies; but he's been dead too long for that. What odds does it make if I don't know the capital of Nevada? I ain't lookin' for ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... gone abroad within three months after mobilization nothing would have saved "Black Mick"[2]—if within six months it was about even odds. At nine months all the N.C.O.'s, a good many of the men, and even one or two subalterns might have tried to save him; while after a year, if any one had dared to lay hands on him, he would have been rent in twain by the entire Regiment. ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... fellows that get it the worse," said the other philosophically, "and it's always the fellows you think are safe too. I could have bet on Kirk. Six months ago I'd have given you any odds you wanted that he ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... before she was leaving Reno, as we were dropping the last of the little silver toilet articles into her small traveling bag, and gathering up the odds and ends here and there, the telephone rang. At Eileen's request I answered. A manly voice said: "Mr. Holbrook speaking; I would like to come and pay my respects to Mrs. Reed if she has a few minutes to spare, and will permit me!" Of course she would, poor girl; ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... It then appeared to me he had much to gain and very little to lose by an operation, and further, he was in much better health than he had been for some time. I pointed out to him that there was a risk and that if the operation failed he would be totally blind, but that there were very long odds in his favour, and that I was willing to take the risk if he was. He asked one question: 'If you were in my place would you have it done?' I said certainly I would. That quite decided him and all that remained to be done was to fix a time. General ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... of Phaedrus to the fact that when we talk of iron and silver the same objects are present to our minds, "but when any one speaks of justice and goodness, there is every sort of disagreement, and we are at odds with ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... songs and psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the Psalms of David, and the diviner words of his Son and Lord, with homely odds and ends and scraps ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... trudged on. The flies were beginning to annoy us once more. I put on a couple of cigarettes. All the men had ransacked odds and ends from their pockets, and the result was a line of men smoking as hard as they could, and enveloped in a haze of bluish white smoke. But the flies refused to budge. Smoke had no effect on ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... are over there at Olmutz," he said, quickly. "Here, the Russian guards; there, the united corps of Kutusof and Buxhowden; farther on, the vanguard under Prince Bagration. If they should advance now rapidly, resolutely, directly toward my front, the odds would be too overwhelming; if they should tarry, or if I should succeed in causing them to hesitate until I have got my Bohemian corps in line, I should defeat them. Let us try it, therefore; let us feign inactivity and timidity, so that they may not become active. Cunning is the best ally of a general; ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... to try to get them to the ranch house. You boys will have to make a snow camp, and hold the herd from drifting at all odds. Don't let them sneak on you. Keep pushing them from the south. You see, they're all turned that way now with their tails to the wind. As soon as they get cold they will begin to move. Don't let 'em ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... Lake City, which Ogden was glad to include in his Western holiday, we found both Mormon and Gentile ready to give us odds against rain—only I noticed that those of the true faith were less free. Indeed; the Mormon, the Quaker, and most sects of an isolated doctrine have a nice prudence in money. During our brief stay we visited the sights: floating in the lake, listening to pins drop in the gallery of the Tabernacle, ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... considerable odds," said the man, rubbing his hands; "sure you must have good reason to hope, when you are willing ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... shook off his stupor to say: "Unless I win the contest, I shan't have any resources beyond the five thousand I get under the will, and a thousand or so I have in bank at Saint X—and what little I could realize from my personal odds and ends. Isn't there some way the thing ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... growth," says Shakespeare, but that depends upon whether the competition is sharp and close. If the weed finds itself distanced, or pitted against great odds, it grows more slowly and is of diminished stature, but let it once get the upper hand, and what strides it makes! Red-root will grow four or five feet high if it has a chance, or it will content itself with a few inches and mature its ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... encouraged their men after this fashion. Phormio, meanwhile, being himself not without fears for the courage of his men, and noticing that they were forming in groups among themselves and were alarmed at the odds against them, desired to call them together and give them confidence and counsel in the present emergency. He had before continually told them, and had accustomed their minds to the idea, that there was no numerical superiority that they could not face; and the men themselves had ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... all right," Venner said. "When we get into the cellar it's any odds that we find the door of the stairs locked. I don't suppose the grating has been forgotten. You see, it is not such an easy matter to get the British workman to do a job on ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... bread to eat. There was not enough for two, but Hilda must not starve. That was the secret which no one, not even Hilda herself must ever understand. During the first years, it had not been so hard to live. There had been a few poor jewels to sell, a few odds and ends that had brought a little money. While Hilda was a little child it had been easier, for she had needed but few clothes and, being little, had needed to eat less. But at last there had come a day when Frau von Sigmundskron, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... all sure," said Primus, who, prudent general that he was, thought no odds could be too great against an enemy. "S'pose I speak to Missa ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... it would make me quite sick, asking the young lady's pardon, by reason I should always think I was preparing for the small-pox. My notion is quite of another nature; the first thing I do is to have a good fire; for what I say is this, if a man is cold in his fingers, it's odds if ever he gets warm in his purse! ha! ha! warm, you take me, Sir? I mean a pun. Though I ought to ask pardon, for I suppose the young lady don't know what I am ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the pace moderate, at first, but had speeded up toward the end. None grew more haggard, toil-worn, or emaciated than he. With blistered hands, sweat-blinded eyes, parched mouths and fevered souls these men fought against all the odds of destiny. Half naked they strove, oppressed by heat, sun, flies, thirst, exhaustion. Tobacco was their only stay and solace. The Master, however, only chewed khat leaves; and as for "Captain Alden," ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... equipment, including the layouts from the Colonial Inn in Florida, and the Beverly in New Orleans, both of which were closed, and taught the residents how to shoot craps and play the wheel, with the house putting up sugar against precious stones and metals. With such odds, it was not necessary to fake the games more than ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... think of all the opportunities I wasted. You know only too well what a miserable little rubbish pile of learning I possess, but what you don't know is how I have studied and toiled and burned the midnight tallow in trying to work over those old odds and ends into something useful for my girls. If they have made such progress under a superficial, shallow-pated thing like me, what would they have done under ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... were purely patrician. It was the county town, and contained six thousand inhabitants, two hotels, and a court-house. It had also two or three business streets and half a dozen churches, all very much at odds with each other and each seriously inclined to disbelieve in the probable salvation of the rest. The "first families" (of which there were eight or ten, with numerous branches) attended the Episcopal Church, the second best the Presbyterian, while the inferior classes, who could scarcely ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... thirteen large ships, appeared outside, and after an exchange of pledges of peace and amity with the English intruders, entered on the 20th. On the morning of the 24th, however, a fierce encounter was begun, and Hawkins and Drake, stubbornly defending themselves against tremendous odds, were glad to escape with two shattered vessels and the loss of L100,000 treasure. After a voyage of terrible suffering, Drake, in the "Judith," succeeded in reaching England on 20th January 1569, and Hawkins followed five days later.[48] Within a few years, however, Drake ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... first penetrated the Western wilderness of America they found the tribes of Shoshone and Comanche at odds, and it is a legend of the springs of Manitou that their differences began there. This "Saratoga of the West," nestling in a hollow of the foot-hills in the shadow of the noble peak of Pike, was in old days common meeting-ground for several families ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... were beyond comparison more rigorous and prejudicial to commerce; and the same effect would result to the inhabitants—as it appears, inevitably. For, not being able to suffer the lesser burden, they could ill endure the greater; and the damage would exceed the benefit by many odds, since in the two or three years that it would take to obtain the decision, even though it were as favorable as that regarding the two per cent, either it would have cost your Majesty the loss of the Filipinas, or you would have spent in their conservation almost ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... then went out of the room. He ate a lonely meal, not of the lobster—he kept that for another occasion—but one made up of cold scraps from the pantry. He wandered uneasily about the premises, quieted Job's wails for the time by a gift of eatable odds and ends tossed into the boathouse, smoked, tried to read, and, when it grew dusk, lit the lamps in the towers. At last he walked to the closed door of his ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of drawers for man—In mahogany, walnut, or painted. This piece should conform with or match other furniture in room. Brushes, comb, box for odds and ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney
... was the creed which the children drew in with their breath, as may be said; it was such a grand faith that caused Nick to develop into a sturdy, self-reliant, brave lad, who expected to take his own part in the battle of life without asking odds from any one. ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... simultaneously with the Deputy's cry of "Bring him in!" And almost instantly the Deputy, followed by Ashby and others, entered, dragging along with him the unfortunate Jose Castro. The rough handling that he had received had not improved his appearance. His clothing, half Mexican, the rest of odds and ends, had been torn in several places. He looked oily, greasy and unwashed, while the eyes that looked around in affright had lost none of their ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... the coast all you can," said the doctor, "and be ready, should we want them, to supply us with powder and odds and ends to replenish our stores, you will be doing us inestimable service. Whenever we go to a coast village we shall leave some sign of our having been there—a few words chalked on a tree, or a hut, something to tell you ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... informal censorship is at once established. The photoplay reporters can then take the enthusiasts in hand and lead them to a realization of the finer points in awarding praise and blame. Even the sporting pages have their expert opinions with due influence on the betting odds. Out of the work of the photoplay reporters let a superstructure of art criticism be reared in periodicals like The Century, Harper's, Scribner's, The Atlantic, The Craftsman, and the architectural magazines. These are our natural custodians of art. They should reproduce the most exquisite ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... course. I ought to be; bet five ponies with Craven that you would cheat the gallows yet. He gave me odds of three to one, and I thought it a pretty ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... suppose, natural, and its development is connected with some curious results. One of the favourite objects of ridicule of the past essayists was the virtuoso. There was something to them inexpressibly absurd in a passion for buying odds and ends. Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay made a special butt of Dr. Woodward, possessor of a famous ancient shield and other antiquities. Equally absurd, they thought, was his passion for fossils. He made one of the first collections of such objects, saw that they really had a scientific ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... that he had removed the bandage, gently clipping away, with a pair of scissors, the hair that stuck to it here and there, Burroughs, the assistant surgeon, had turned up with hot water and a number of odds and ends, and Wilson took the sponge ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... seated, or rather reclining, against the blanched log; her brown arm embracing an outstretched limb; half supported on one leg—the other crossed carelessly over it in an attitude of repose. Beside her on the log lay a wicker pannier, filled with odds ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... priest had been able to manufacture himself. But the stove had been a present from Allan Mowbray. The walls were whitened with a lime wash which disguised the primitive plaster filling in between the lateral logs. There were some photographs pinned up to help disguise other defects. There were odds and ends of bookshelves hung about, all laden to the limit of their capacity with a library which had been laboriously collected during the long life of Mission work. Four rough chairs formed the seating accommodation. A table, made with a great expenditure of labor, and ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... young lady," he said, easily, stretching himself out more comfortably in the rock shadow. "Then I will remain here with you; it makes small odds." ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... latter was a present from an old forest friend of his father's, who had visited them the previous winter, and which, by good luck, Louis had in his pocket,—a capacious pouch, in which were stored many precious things, such as coils of twine and string, strips of leather, with odds and ends of various kinds—nails, bits of iron, leather, and such miscellaneous articles as find their way most mysteriously into boys' pockets in general, and Louis Perron's in particular, who was a wonderful collector of such ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... she tried to remember what they had talked about. She knew that the conversation had been to her as a draught of sparkling wine. All her little affections were in full play to-night, the little odds and ends of worldly knowledge she had gleaned from Ella and Ella's friends, the humor of Emily and Peter Coleman. And because she was an Irishman's daughter a thousand witticisms flashed in her speech, and her eyes shone like stars under the stimulus of another's wit and ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... place, and upon this the vikings descended. So prompt and silent were they, that the men of the place had barely time to seize their arms and defend their homes. They fought like lions, for well they knew that there was no hope of mercy if they should be beaten. But the odds against them were overwhelming. They fell in heaps, with many of their foes underneath them. The few who remained to the last retreated fighting, step by step, each man towards his own dwelling, where he fell dead on its threshold. Swart himself, with a few of the bravest, had driven back that ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... faithful to the end, reported a leak. The pumps were instantly set in motion, and we watched their progress with an intense interest. She had seemed to us like an old-time knight in armor, battling against fearful odds, but still holding his ground. We who watched, when the blow came which made the strong man reel and the life-blood spout, felt our hearts faint within us; then again ground was gained, and the fight went on, the water lowering somewhat ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... and among others Mr. Percy, would not allow that the English translation deserved to be called miserable. "The wrong side of the tapestry we cannot expect should be quite equal to the right side." said he: "Voltaire pointed out a few odds and ends here and there, which disfigured the work, and required to be cut off; but upon the whole, if I recollect, he was satisfied with the piece, and complimented Mr. Hill upon having preserved the general design, spirit, and simplicity ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... a good-sized one, was opened. Chloe had before starting put all the provisions in the house into it, and it contained three loaves, five or six pounds of bacon, a canister of tea and loaf-sugar, a small kettle, and two pint mugs, besides a number of odds and ends. The kettle Dan had, by Chloe's direction, filled with water before leaving the river, and this was soon placed among the ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... hear much of a man, of whom he had heard his father speak, but who had slipped entirely from his mind. It was Jefferson Davis, a native of Kentucky like Abraham Lincoln. He had been a brave and gallant soldier at Buena Vista. It was said that he had saved the day against the overwhelming odds of Santa Anna. He had been Secretary of War in the old Union, now dissolved forever, according to the Charleston talk. Other names, too, began to grow familiar in Harry's ears. Much was said about the bluff Bob Toombs of Georgia, who feared no ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... event of our interference to dictate peace would need to be supplemented by the armies and navies of the United States. Such interference would almost inevitably lead to the establishment of a protectorate—a result utterly at odds with our past policy, injurious to our present interests, and full ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... less interesting than ever when Rose had tripped away. A gusty breeze was blowing fitfully, whisking bits of straw and odds and ends of paper about. The watering cart went by, leaving a cool wake of shining mud. Here and there a surrey, loaded with stout women in figured percales, and dusty, freckled children, started on its trip from Main Street back ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... it as men go, a manly fellow!—but it was the hardness of his lot that touched her heart. Like many a good woman before her, she was carried away by compassion for the dogged youth struggling against such hopeless odds. ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... towards it we managed to wrench off the padlock from the door and enter. It was, we discovered, the reputed sepulchre of the Ashanti kings. Without, it was guarded by all sorts of fetish-charms, extraordinary odds and ends, animals' claws, broken pottery, scraps of tin, bits of wood, stones and human bones. Within, by the aid of a lamp we found burning were revealed several great coffers clamped with copper and iron, each resting upon two big stools of carved cotton-wood. Jars and ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... alternatives alone presented themselves, to fight or to yield. To add to the hopelessness of their position the Earl of Gloucester, with his army, was now joining Prince Edward by the upper Worcester road. De Montfort knew that against such odds the fight would be a hopeless one, and urged his supporters to flee while there was yet time, and not to lose their lives in an unavailing struggle; but none would desert their leader in the hour of peril. "Then," exclaimed the Earl, "may the Lord have mercy on our ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... pain lest the Title shou'd give Offence to some, whom I am unwilling to disoblige; yet I hope be more Judicious, when they see the design will allow it both their Pardon and Approbation: for 'tis more than a little odds, had I call'd it the Fifteen Plagues of Whoring, whether the young Gentlemen most concerned in it, would have given themselves the trouble to peruse it. As they are Children in their Actions, they must be dealt with like Children, and have their Horn-books Gi[*?]ou the ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... spear aside, strode across the room, and raised the girl to her feet. "The Sangraal," he said, forgetting in his agitation the few odds and ends of Old English he ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... in encyclopaedical lore tells us that the best accredited authorities are at odds with regard to the birth or death of individuals in the enormous ratio of from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of the whole number in the biographical dictionaries. The Portuguese poet Camoens is said by some authorities to have been born in 1517, and by others in 1525; a discrepancy of eight years. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... their reason for the time being, and heedless of shells and bullets, mounted the first German parapet. We killed many of them, but it is fair to say they didn't give in. They quickly had reinforcements, and we were compelled against heavy odds to yield the trench to the enemy. Angry fighting continued, and our game now was to lure as many of the Germans towards our lines as possible so that we could mow them down with our guns. On they came, many hundreds of them, and as quickly ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... half old man, and both parts of him were evil now that she could guess the whole story. Cordova campaigned through the country, racing his horse at fairs or for side bets. For two reasons he kept the animal systematically undernourished: one was that he was thereby able to get better odds; the other was that only on a weakened Alcatraz would he trust himself. At this she did not wonder for never had she seen such almost human viciousness of ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... that; but as she's in London and we're over here, it's not much odds anyway. Well, have you found the right sheets? Give them to me if you have and then ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... not mistake you for an amazon," returned the young man smiling, perceiving that she checked her words by a sudden effort. "All I expect from you is the triumph of reason over female terror. I shall not conceal that the odds—perhaps I may say that the chances, are against us; and yet the enemy must pay for my ship, ere he has her! She will be none the worse defended, Alida, from the consciousness that thy liberty and comfort depend in some measure on our exertions.—Would ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... either he liked, or well knew how to dispose of, it might afford him some diversion to take a reading of them, for the purpose of enquiring farther into the particulars of the Welsh gentleman's history—which undoubtedly was a wee mysterious; consisting of matters lying heads and thraws; and of odds and ends, that no human skill could ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... down below. Those in the Great Aquarium came from Weymouth. They were dredged up with the white pipes or tubes sticking to oyster-shells, old bottles, stones, and what not, like bits of maccaroni glued on to old crockery sherds. These odds and ends are overgrown, however, with weeds and zoophytes, and (like an ugly house covered by creepers) look picturesque rather than otherwise. The worms have small bristles down their bodies, which serve as feet, and help them to scramble up inside their tubes, when they wish to poke ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... and Corse, and Commodores Hunter and Tucker, of the Confederate States' Navy, ranking on shore duty as Brigadiers, were captured, together with their respective commands, almost to a man, after a desperate and sanguinary struggle against immense odds. Those officers were all sent to Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, where they remained in prison until some time in August, 1865, when they were allowed to return to their ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Saxon characters, was sufficiently legible. Steeped in pickle to hasten a precocious antiquity, it was then consigned to the corner of a broker's shop, where the antiquarian eye of Gough often pored on the venerable odds and ends; it perfectly succeeded on the "Director of the Antiquarian Society." He purchased the relic for a trifle, and dissertations of a due size were preparing for the Archaeologia![212] Gough never forgave himself nor Steevens for ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... withered is the garland of the war, The soldier's pole is fall'n: young boys and girls Are level now with men; the odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... bad to worse. The owner of the run—it was called Salisbury Plain—spoke a word of warning, and I tried to pull up, tried to take to the work again, and forget myself in it; but—ah, well, dearest, thank God you would not understand that you cannot know what a man is like when he is at odds with fate, and is ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... is—in the middle o' the fo'c's'le deck! Well, I figure they 'ave what's left o' our foremast crowd locked in the fo'c's'le. Aye, I figure there is some o' them left. If Carew 'ad meant to make a clean sweep at once, we'd not be down 'ere. So—if we can get into the fo'c's'le and join our lads, the odds won't be so great against us. Be great enough, though, even if most o' our 'ands are safe; swiggle me, fifteen o' them, and the blighters 'ave the use o' our own guns, out of ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... disorder, there has been hurried packing, there are odds and ends upon the ground. There is no one in that room behind you! ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... who can afford to indulge in it. The tracks west of Louisville are all closed. The skeleton hand of the gloom distributor has put padlocks on the gates. Even if Old Man Curry was with us to-day, his sphere of action would be limited, unless he elected to play a game where the odds would be so immeasurably against him that he would be beaten long ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... did not last long, for I soon understood what the matter with me was, and remained lying on the sofa with a racking headache and my limbs relaxed as I stared dully at the stamp on the package of tobacco, the Pipe-tube coiled on the floor, and the odds and ends of tobacco and confectioner's tartlets which were littered about. "Truly," I thought to myself in my dejection and disillusionment, "I cannot be quite grown-up if I cannot smoke as other fellows do, and should be fated never to hold a chibouk between my first and second fingers, or to ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... war won distinction by his skill and valor. He was with Joe Lane and his gallant Indianians at Juamantla, and his name was specially mentioned among those whose fiery onsets had broken the lines of the swarthy foe, and won against such heavy odds the bloody field. He was seldom absent from church on Sunday morning, and now and then his inquiring, thoughtful face would be seen in my smaller audience at night. One unwelcome fact about him pained me, while it deepened my ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... In this strong, plain setting the occasional happy word shines like a cut jewel. A really good stylist is like Beau Brummell's description of a well-dressed man—so dressed that no one would ever observe him. The moment you begin to remark a man's style the odds are that there is something the matter with it. It is a clouding of the crystal—a diversion of the reader's mind from the matter to the manner, from the author's ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Sutherlan', what we're growin' till, than that neep-seed there kens what a neep is, though a neep it will be. The only odds is, that we ken that we dinna ken, and the neep-seed kens nothing at all aboot it. But ae thing, Maister Sutherlan', we may be sure o': that, whatever it be, it will be worth ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... passionately. "And hasn't my love lasted? Have I ever thought of any other woman since the day I met you? Haven't I been fighting against odds ever since to be able to come to you an honest ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... and soon came near enough to see that she had caught a Tartar; for the vessel was the French frigate "La Vengeance," mounting fifty-two guns. Although a more powerful vessel than the American, she continued her flight; while the gallant Truxton, caring nothing for the odds against him, kept on in hot pursuit. All the remainder of that day, and until noon of the next, the chase continued, with but little change in the position of the ships. "A stern chase is a long chase," thought the jackies on ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... fort it was halted at the head of the regiments already stationed, and the line of battle formed. The prospect was such as might daunt the courage of old and well-tried veterans, but these soldiers of a few weeks seemed but impatient to take the odds, and to make light of impossibilities. A slightly rising ground, raked by a murderous fire, to within a little distance of the battery; a ditch holding three feet of water; a straight lift of parapet, thirty feet high; an impregnable position, held ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... trust him more and more. In the face of his marvellous instinct, man is not infrequently struck dumb as he watches. A dog's patience is a thing to study, as well as one from which to learn many a fair lesson. His pluck and courage are almost proverbial. In many a case the odds against him seem not to make the slightest difference: he will fight on to the end; let his master only lead, he will follow to ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... gained his camp he transferred part of it to his saddle-horse. Even so, he was compelled to abandon a portion of his outfit—pick and shovel and gold-pan, extra food and cooking utensils, and divers odds and ends. ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... ashamed of," Helen answered vigorously, "and everything to be proud of. He's put up a plucky fight but the odds are too strong against him and he's going to lose unless you come to ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... provinces, the timid policy of the Association was decried with bitterness, and the men who struggled, against great odds, to identify the whole island with Mr. O'Brien, and pledge it to sustain him to the last, were subjected to the most virulent denunciations. Because the compromised resolution was moved, seconded, and spoken to by them, the whole country ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... the stranger, "because this is one of the few games of patience that has been reduced to a scientific gambling basis. The odds, allowing for the usual advantage to the banker, have been determined at five to one. Say I'm the banker. I sell you the pack for fifty-two pennies, and I pay you five pennies for every card you get out. Five to one. Do ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... which it now most certainly is, for I am writing any thing but "Newton Forster," and which will account for this rambling, stupid chapter, made up of odds and ends, strung together like what we call "skewer pieces" on board of a man-of-war; when the wind is foul, as I said before, I have, however, a way of going a-head, by getting up the steam which I am now about to resort to—and the fuel is brandy. All ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... present master as a young man, and was perfectly familiar with all the events of his career. From various conversations, at odds and ends of spare time, I discovered that Doctor Dulcifer had begun life as a footman in a gentleman's family; that his young mistress had eloped with him, taking away with her every article of value that was her own personal property, in ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... now realised. With a steady hand he pushed back the gold to the duke, who pressed it upon him with friendly glances from his kind little eyes and an urgent whispered entreaty, and took his leave, saying that to-night the dice and he were at odds. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the structure is complete (Plate XIII). Resting on the cross-beams, just below the rafters, a number of loose boards are laid to form a sort of attic or storage room where all unused articles, and odds and ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... I kill him here, Nagaina will know; and if I fight him on the open floor, the odds are in his favour. What am ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... hallucinations known to him, Mr. Gurney is said to have decided that the chances against a death coinciding with a hallucination, were forty to one,—long odds. {194a} But it is clear that only a very large collection of facts would give us any materials for a decision. Suppose that some 20,000 people answer such ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... exclaimed Wilson, "we are going it some in here. You certainly are taking big chances butting in. I didn't think you had the nerve. It's a hundred to one against me, but I've beaten bigger odds than that. You get up that chimney and I'll plant myself in the chest. Quick, ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... the worst of the gods, Beyond all odds, It cannot be denied, oh! Is that first of matchmakers, That prince of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... try to get them to the ranch house. You boys will have to make a snow camp, and hold the herd from drifting at all odds. Don't let them sneak on you. Keep pushing them from the south. You see, they're all turned that way now with their tails to the wind. As soon as they get cold they will begin to move. Don't ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... Scots lords," he cried, and I trow a look of amusement played round his lips even at that solemn hour, "now is the time for those featherbeds of thine. There are five and fifty of them; odds take it, if they be not enough to stop ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... all fours, now on tiptoe): Hear the tales he lends his lip to— Little hints of heavy scandals— Every friend by turns he handles: All that women or that men do Glides forth in an inuendo (sic)— Clothed in odds and ends of humour, Herald of each paltry rumour— 40 From divorces down to dresses, Woman's frailties, Man's excesses: All that life presents of evil Make for him a constant revel. You're his foe—for that he fears you, And in absence blasts and sears you: You're his friend—for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... sank to a tender whisper. He loved this motherless girl who was fighting the battle of life single-handed against overwhelming odds, with all the strength of his nature. He had loved her ever since she had reached woman's estate. In asking for a return of his affections now he fully realized the cruelty of his course. He knew that the future—his future—was ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... mainly contributed to the successful issue of the war. In the first part of the struggle the scene lay wholly among the low lands and cities of Holland and Zeeland, and the war was strictly a defensive one, waged against overpowering odds. After England threw herself into the strife it assumed far wider proportions, and the independence of the Netherlands was mainly secured by the defeat and destruction of the great Armada, by the capture of Cadiz and the fatal blow thereby struck at the mercantile ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... the other side, to see my magisterial friend, Old Smith, and his two daughters, busy with fishing-rods. The girls were tastefully dressed— but more to catch admiration than fish; two very showy handsome girls they were and I could not help thinking in my secret soul that there were not much odds to be risked on the late favourite Alice, against such a spanker as Monimia Smith. As for Sibylla, she despised gold and acres in comparison with genius and mustaches; and therefore, I concluded, she intended to be the second horse to her sister, and keep ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... and I do not count anywhere in particular on anything. The best way, I suspect, for a librarian to deal with me is not to try to classify me. I ought to be put out of the way on this subject, tucked back into any general pigeon-hole of odds and ends of temperament. If I had not felt that I could be cheerfully sorted out at the end of this page, filed away by everybody,—almost anybody,—as not making very much difference, I would not have spoken so freely. There is not a librarian who has read as far as ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... think we ought to gamble recklessly with such high stakes, nor commit our hopes to a frail craft, like the wise men who went to sea in a bowl; we should have no fair complaint against Fortune, if her arrow or dart did not precisely hit the centre; the odds are ten thousand to one against her; just so the archer in Homer—Teucer, I suppose it was—when he meant to hit the dove, only cut the string, which held it; of course it is infinitely more likely that the point of the arrow will find its billet in one of the ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... between them was a common revolt against the traditional notion that the way for a woman to effect her will in the world was by "influencing" a man. They wanted to hold the world in their own hands. They contemned the "feminine" arts of cajolery. They wanted no odds from anybody. There wasn't a real man-hater in the crowd, they were too normal and healthy for that. But they didn't talk much about men; never, as far as Rose knew, about men—as such. Was the topic suppressed, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... to overpower the defender; for it is assumed that the cannon of propriety in the second instance will be satisfied when the defender has fought to the extent of his physical valour. In the first instance, as the defender has matched his very soul against the mere body of the tyrant, the odds are that the soul in the latter will be awakened, and the girl would stand an infinitely greater chance of her honour being protected than in any other conceivable circumstance, barring of course, that of ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi
... chalks:" wagers were sometimes determined by he who could reach furthest or highest, and there make a chalk-mark.—Long chalks, great odds. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... said Mrs. Backhouse, patting Milly kindly on the shoulder, for she was a good-natured woman, and it wasn't her way to be angry long. "I don't know what I'm to give John for his supper, that I don't. I had nothing in the house but just those little odds and ends of meat, that I thought would make a nice bit of broth for supper. And now he'll come in wet and hungry, and there'll be nothing for him. Well, we must do with something else, I suppose, but I ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to hurt you none. How much you got, three dollars? An' how much odds you got to get before you'll ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... can live without one. The odds are too hard on us. My lady ought to take into account I behaved respectful when I was obliged to do my lord's orders and remove her from our haunts, which wasn't to his taste. Here I'm like a cannon for defending the house, needs be, and all inside ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was eaten in a somewhat awkward silence, broken by odds and ends of talk which were obviously spoken and replied to, not for the purpose of conversation, but to fill up time. Both father and son were as unhappy as men could very well be, and yet the ancient custom which forbids the Anglo-Saxon race to talk about unpleasant ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... rounds" from a rifle. The crew, on being told to abandon her, tumble into their boats with such haste that they capsize two out of three. "Fortunately," says E11, "they are able to pick up everybody." You can imagine to yourself the confusion alongside, the raffle of odds and ends floating out of the boats, and the general parti-coloured hurrah's-nest all over the bright broken water. What you cannot imagine is this: "An American gentleman then appeared on the upper ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... away sped ship Gudruda, Left her lord in foeman's ring; Brighteyes back to back with Baresark Held his head 'gainst mighty odds. Down amidst the ballast tumbling, Ospakar's shield-carles were rolled. Holy peace at length they handselled, Eric must ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... at heart, yet something cheered that with such fearful odds against them they had not all been utterly destroyed. A dreadful tempest ensued, which for two nights and two days tossed them about, but the third day the weather cleared, and they had hopes of a favourable ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... interest. The younger, as we know, had made some name for himself by his Joannis Philippi, Angli, Responsio of 1652, written in behalf of his uncle, and under his uncle's superintendence; and it is probable that both the brothers had in the interval been doing odds and ends of literary work. There are verses by both among the commendatory poems prefixed to the first two parts of Henry Lawes's Ayres and Dialogues for one, two, or three Voices, published in 1653, as a sequel to that ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... more have gone and my journals have never been written up, save in chance scraps. The Wanderer is quite as interesting as ever! I took the odds to L2 with him over a race run at Newmarket, and he paid promptly. He puts out little signs of improvement—sprouts of gentility—at times: but one heavy spell of gin and Shakespeare takes him back to the old level again. Still, he is more amusing than the dandies; in fact, I do not think ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... modifications of the same type, and this theory he developed, testing it at various stages as Nature was more and more displayed to him. It fell to his lot to bear the brunt in a struggle against heavy odds which lasted many years. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Caldigate was not legally married to her daughter. Every glance of Hester's eye, every motion made with her hands, every little shake of her head, declared her purpose of fighting for that one fact, whatever might be the odds against her. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... absent-mindedly, thinking the while of the signal for the second sequence. "I thought the odds ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... all the plain, "Ye Greeks, be men! the charge of battle bear; Your brave associates and yourselves revere! Let glorious acts more glorious acts inspire, And catch from breast to breast the noble fire! On valour's side the odds of combat lie, The brave live glorious, or lamented die; The wretch who trembles in the field of fame, Meets death, and worse ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... appreciation of the splendid service you have done and are doing to the young manhood of our country in this lecture and this book. I have never heard a presentation of the subject which takes hold so deeply upon thoughtful men, and your book is by all odds the best thing in print on this subject. Your scientific, yet popular method and the absence of vague moralizing are convincing and inspiring in their effects. I trust we may hear you ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... Col. Swinton, have made great sacrifices to defend against tremendous odds a line that could only be maintained by making these sacrifices; but the fact that the situation has been relieved is no reason for assuming that the enemy has abandoned his intention of pressing through to the sea. The writer points ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... one instance suffice. A man, happening to drop down at the door of White's, was lifted up and carried in. He was insensible, and the question was, whether he were dead or not. Bets were at once given and taken on both sides, and, it being proposed to bleed him, those who had taken odds that he was dead protested, on the ground that the use of the lancet would affect the fairness of the bet.[B] In the matter of play, things have now much changed since the time when Mr. Thynne left the club at White's in disgust, because he had won only twelve hundred guineas ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... play with it and finally hide it. If I didn't know that it isn't so, because it couldn't possibly be so, I should think that Blacky was some relation to certain small boys I know. Always their pockets are filled with all sorts of useless odds and ends which they have picked up here and there. Blacky has no pockets, so he keeps his treasures of this kind in a secret hiding-place, a sort of treasure storehouse. He visits this secretly every day, uncovers his treasures, and gloats over ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... several ways one trade helped the other. The larger images being dug out of the hollow part of the canoes; and all knotty odds and ends reserved ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... upside down against the wall in a cold place, confidently awaiting the freezing of the water, in which event it was to be hoped that the puppet sermonizer would burst, like a pitcher under similar odds. But John Wesley never burst, to the disgust of a broader mind and the offended wonder of ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... East India Voyage gives, among other necessary items, "72 calico shirts; 60 pairs of stockings; 18 pairs of drawers; 24 pairs of gloves; and 20 pairs of trousers"; together with uniform, saddlery, and camp equipment; and such odds and ends as "60 lbs. of wax candles and several bottles of ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... in every direction for troops. Nothing was forgotten. Nothing that he could do was left undone. Unceasingly he urged action upon Congress, and at the same time with indomitable fighting spirit he planned to attack the British. It was a desperate undertaking in the face of such heavy odds, for in all his divisions he had only some six thousand men, and even these were scattered. The single hope was that by his own skill and courage he could snatch victory from a situation where victory seemed impossible. With ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... if I wrote anything on board ship? Nothing but odds and ends of doggerel. Since I have been here I have written some verses on the beautiful American autumn, which have been published with commendation. I am thinking of writing a prose story, if ever again I can get two minutes and a half of leisure.... ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Then he told me his parents left him enough money to live without working. He never did a solid hour's real work in his whole life. With his talent and his personal attractions he might become a famous musician if he had some odds to fight against or some person to encourage him and make him do his best. He said he knows he never developed his talent to the full extent but that since he knows me he is playing better than he did before. I wonder if I really am an inspiration to him. I suppose a genius does ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... compact mass, and by unerring aim and rapid firing kept their foes at bay while, slowly retreating, they ascended an adjacent hill. Here for five hours they maintained the conflict against such fearful odds. The superior skill of the English with the musket rendered their fire much more fatal than that of their foes. Many of the savage warriors were struck down, and they bit the dust in their rage and dying agony, while but five or six of ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Gates till now, thou us impow'rd To fortifie thus farr, and overlay 370 With this portentous Bridge the dark Abyss. Thine now is all this World, thy vertue hath won What thy hands builded not, thy Wisdom gain'd With odds what Warr hath lost, and fully aveng'd Our foile in Heav'n; here thou shalt Monarch reign, There didst not; there let him still Victor sway, As Battel hath adjudg'd, from this new World Retiring, by his own doom ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... embarrass an attacking foe, and in particular any charge of cavalry. The place selected was some six miles from Poitiers, and possessed so many natural advantages that the Prince felt encouraged to hope for a good issue to the day, albeit the odds were fearfully to ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... had always overrun her dress allowance, although she had never failed to be sweetly penitent about it, and Nina had always placed an undue emphasis on things. Her bedroom before her marriage was cluttered with odds and ends, cotillion favors and photographs, college pennants and small unwise purchases—trophies of the gayety and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... luther, with the hair on,—and then look at yourn. White oak ain't bass, is it? Every man's hand ain't so black as mine, and every woman's ain't so white as yourn, but there's always difference enough to show, and there's just as much odds in their doin's and dispositions as there is in their hands. I know what women be. I've wintered and summered with 'em, and take 'em by and large, they're better'n men. Now and then a feller gets hitched to a hedgehog, but most of 'em get a woman that's ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Dartmouth was unusually trying; the route which we took to Plymouth was by odds the worst of equal distance we found anywhere. We began with a precipitous climb out of the town, up a very steep hill over a mile long, with many sharp turns that made the ascent all the more difficult. We were speedily lost in a network of ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... when I state, that, notwithstanding all the extraordinary expenses of the seizures, and of the protracted and complicated litigation, the rent was paid by the autumn of 1842. There as nothing owing by Ring save a sum of L1 and odds, connected with the expenses of a summons which had been decided against him on some technical point ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... Here is one of the three men whom we had named as possible actors in this drama, and he meets a violent death during the very hours when we know that that drama was being enacted. The odds are enormous against its being coincidence. No figures could express them. No, my dear Watson, the two events are connected—MUST be connected. It is for us to find ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The fragrance of his youth's dear rose. To him The hills have bared their treasure, the far clouds Unveiled the vision that o'er summer seas Drew on his thirsting arms. This last thing known, He can court danger, laugh at perilous odds, And, pillowed on a memory so sweet, Unto oblivious eternity Without regret yield his victorious soul, The blessed ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... from his pocket, Harley leaped through a doorway draped with rich Persian tapestry, and I came close on his heels. Outside was darkness. A strong draught met us; and, passing along a carpeted corridor, we never halted until we came to a room filled with the weirdest odds and ends, apparently collected from every quarter of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... and youthfulness of blood, a malady incident to young men, physicians call it caprice. Nothing else. He, that slighted her, knew her value: and 'tis odds, but, for thy sake, Margaret, John will yet go to his grave a bachelor. (A noise heard, as of one drunk ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... an aid in this direction. Where a sufficient amount of one kind of food is left over to form the basis of a soup or to serve as a seasoning, it can be used in every way the same as fresh material. When, however, there is but a little of various odds and ends, the general rule to be observed is to combine only such materials ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... an unnatural cheerfulness, as is their wont when they cannot breathe without choking, when the gas has to be lighted at what should be the hour of daybreak, when the vapour lies thick in places, and will not move from contact; though now and again the darkness, where the sky was once, seems at odds with a languid something, that may be light, beyond. Then, fires within, heaped with fresh coal, regardless of expense, to keep the fog at bay, contribute more and more through chimney-pots without to the unspeakable opacities overhead, and each seeming ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... and fetched a chair, a bookcase, a bird-cage, and several small odds and ends. The bookcase and the bird-cage refused to go ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late; And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... they are introduced to the viands, all thought to partake of;—which have arrived too late, and are now displayed in their primitive state—a picture of still life; whilst the guests—a picture of disappointment—have to put up with odds and ends, concocted to meet the emergency, ending with a series of plum-dumplings, in place of the legitimate large pudding. However, the indigent relatives, who prefer the cold corners, and take "any part," declare themselves well satisfied:—all ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... times when cautioning one's self is quite as useless as if somebody else had cautioned one; my reason leaped with the rapidity of intuition; I merely sat and looked on at what it was doing. All sorts of odds and ends, words I hadn't understood, looks and silences I hadn't interpreted, little signs that I had thought nothing of at first, but which I had gradually, through their multiplicity, come to know meant something, all these broken pieces ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Yates himself. One would imagine that here, at least, a conscientious relater of events would have an easy task. Alas! such is far from being the fact. The case of Yates was by all odds the most complex and bewildering of the four. He was deeply and truly in love with both of the girls. Instances of this kind are not so rare as a young man newly engaged to an innocent girl tries to make ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... of both sections. By a proclamation of war, we shall effectually play into the hands and gratify the disunionists of both extremes. Civil war consolidates the South as a unit for disunion. The gallant southern men who have so nobly battled for the Union against great odds, will then be overpowered and forced into the ranks of the defenders of the South. While the South will thus be undivided and stand in solid phalanx, what will be our ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... Lathrop fought with unflinching courage, pouring out a leaden hail into the onslaught that again and again seemed as if it must drive the attacking force back. But fighting at such desperately uneven odds could not in the nature of things last long. There came a minute when Billy, turning to reload, found that before he could snatch up a handful of cartridges a huge Arab was ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... heard that laugh, and all of us tried hard to smother the sound, or at least to ignore it. Every one talked at once, loudly, and with exaggerated decision, obviously trying to say something plausible against heavy odds, striving to explain naturally that an animal might so easily conceal itself from us, or swim away before we had time to light upon its trail. For we all spoke of that "trail" as though it really existed, and we had more to go upon than the mere marks of paws about the tents of Joan and the Canadian. ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... The odds were greatly against him, as in addition to other circumstances, he was nearly seventy years of age, and, of course, unable to contend with his enemies in running. The house was more than a mile distant, but the children, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... horse," I said. "He's worth ten thousand. But if you've two or three hundred to pay for my soiling the shoulders of your shirt, I'm willing to let the odds stand so." ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... mob emotion, error. The question whether this or that man is great or small is one which only posterity can answer. A silly begging of the question, for doesn't posterity also make mistakes? Shakespeare's ghost has seen two or three posterities, beautifully at odds. Even today, it must notice a difference in flitting from London to Berlin. The shade of Milton has been tricked in the same way. So, also, has Johann Sebastian Bach's. It needed a Mendelssohn to ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... those who have died for their country is Admiral Ting Ju Chang, a gallant soldier and true gentleman. Betrayed by his countrymen, fighting against odds, almost his last official act was to stipulate for the lives of his officers and men. His own he scorned to save, well knowing that his ungrateful country would prove less merciful than his honorable foe. Bitter, indeed, must have been ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... and there is no doubt that, under the impulse of that remarkable quality, British valour, which utterly despises odds, they would have hurled themselves recklessly upon the savages, when the horrified old trader threw himself on Barney's neck and implored him not to fight; for if he did they would all be killed, and if he only kept quiet the savages would perhaps do them no harm. At the same moment about fifty ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Casting the dice in the presence of the assembly, unacquainted as I am with artifices of any kind, he vanquished me artfully. It is, therefore, O Bhimasena, that we have been overwhelmed with this calamity. Beholding the dice favourable to the wishes of Sakuni in odds and evens, I could have controlled my mind. Anger, however, driveth off a person's patience. O child, the mind cannot be kept under control when it is influenced by hauteur, vanity, or pride. I do not reproach thee, O Bhimasena, for the words thou usest. I only regard that what hath befallen ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... well be avoided, unless we go out and drive them off, in open battle. For the last, they are too strong, to say nothing of the odds of risking fathers of families against mere vagabonds, as I suspect these savages to be. I have told them to help themselves to meal, or grain, of which they will find plenty in the mill. Pork can be got in the houses, and they have made ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... all kinds of odds and ends—lead pencils, blank-books, an old slate pencil wrapped in gold paper which Billy insisted on using to draw pictures on a slate—he made this squeak so that Maida clapped her hands over her ears. They found single pieces from sets of miniature furniture, a great many dolls, rag-dolls, ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... officials had little independent discretion; interminable delays, lack of initiative, red {199} tape, nepotism, followed inevitably. Here and there officials strove strenuously to better conditions, but the odds were against them. Practically no Grand Trunk stock was held in Canada; it was not even quoted on Canadian exchanges; Canadians regarded the road entirely from ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... learned—Helene, Beryl, perhaps Marie, Phyllis, Estelle, or merely Jane— It makes no odds to me. I hymn you, maiden, none the less; I toil in rhyme and metre; yes, From noon till eve I bear the pain Of this prolonged poetic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... around it with a little warning shout and hurled it back at Siward, who shot forward like an arrow, his opponents gathering about him in full cry, amid laughter and excited applause from the gallery, where Grace Ferrall and Captain Voucher were wildly offering odds on the blue, and Alderdene and Major Belwether were ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... the little hallway past what Madison knew to be the Patriarch's bedroom, and stopped before the next door, which was open. Madison remembered the room, when nearly two weeks ago now the Patriarch had shown him through the cottage, as a sort of store-room full of odds and ends. Mr. Higgins, too, evidently had known it only in that guise, for he whistled softly and ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... chances of reaching the lines before we would have to land. Our height was 9000 feet, and we were just over nine and a half miles from friendly territory. Reckoning the gliding possibilities of our type of bus as a mile to a thousand feet, the odds seemed unfavourable. On the other hand, a useful wind had arisen from the east, and V., a very skilful pilot, would certainly cover all the ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... the recognition of the prince and the artificial ethnical formation of the principality would be pledges of security for France. But in 1813 Baden joined the coalition, and since then that nation created of odds and ends (de bric et de broc) and always handsomely treated by us, had not ceased to take a leading part in the struggles against our country. The grand-duke Frederick, grand-duke by the will of Napoleon, has done France all the harm he could. But French opinion ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... was so absurd. They both maintained that they had been there, but both felt sure the other one was either crazy or obstinate beyond reason. They were wretched; it was perfectly ridiculous, two friends at odds over such a thing; but there it ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... Fitzgerald, and yet stood in awe of him as well. A man who could spend a fortune and be content to live on odds and ends for the rest of his life must be a poor creature. But, on the other hand, there was that uncomfortable sense of breeding about him which once, when Captain Fitzgerald had risen to a situation of dignity during their preliminary conversations about Theodora's hand, had made Josiah ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... painted upon it disappeared from view, disclosing to Frank's startled eyes a bulletin blackboard, such as is used in almost every poolroom, for the chalking up of entries and the announcement of jockeys and weights and odds. ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... not; it is odds if I laugh at all. I wish we were to moor alongside mother, instead of running into ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Duchess Helena of Russia, he wore no jewel save the diamond- studded star presented to him by the Czar. At the reception given by the "English Colony" to Sir Walter Scott, the great sculptor wore a modest thistle-blossom in his lapel, which caused Lord Elgin to offer odds that if O'Connell should appear in Rome, Thorwaldsen would wear a sprig of shamrock in his hat and say nothing. The thistle caught Sir Walter, and the next day when he came to call on the sculptor he saw a tam-o-shanter hanging on the top of an easel and a bit of plaid ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... curious now for the odds and ends I've been able to pick up here and there for my old friend," Vanderdecken declared; "I got him the horn of Hernani, the harpoon with which Long Tom Coffin pinned the British officer to the mast, the long rifle of ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... know too, that you may judge of the influence you have over her if she swallows her reasons and accepts you. For my own part I would take odds against it. She saw Lydia in Cardell Chase and heard ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... a pity she should take such megrims into her head, when she might ha' stayed wi' us all summer, and eaten twice as much as she wanted, and it 'ud niver ha' been missed. She made no odds in th' house at all, for she sat as still at her sewing as a bird on the nest, and was uncommon nimble at running to fetch anything. If Hetty gets married, theed'st like to ha' ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... resemblance of path or trail leading out. If it were to come on moonlight—as luckily it won't—we'd had but a poor chance to get past them without being seen. And that would signify a fight against awkward odds—numbers, arms, everything. We must steal past somehow, and so the darkness ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... an individual taken at random will be so affected is only one in a million. Let the population consist of sixty millions, composed, we will assume, of ten million families, each containing six members. On these data, Professor Stokes has calculated for me that the odds will be no less than 8333 millions to 1 that in the ten million families there will not be even a single family in which one parent and two children will be affected by the peculiarity in question. But numerous instances ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... confidence in this young "General," as he was hereafter termed by the Chinese. To take a handful of men, not stronger than a full-sized English regiment at that time, to transport them in one day fifty miles, and to capture a city with overwhelming odds against him, exhibited capacity combined with promptness of action equal to anything recorded in the annals of the greatest soldiers. His predecessor, with an army numbering 7500—for he had a large force of Imperial ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... he said to himself, as he smiled pleasantly. "I could bring down the chief and one more easily; but that wouldn't scare the rest away. Odds are too heavy, and one don't want to be taken and hanged. They are so particular about a policeman being hurt! Never mind; I daresay my luck will turn—fool as I was to try that dodge on about those two going off with the smuggled loot. I'll ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... Richelieu and Mazarin. And the spirit of D'Artagnan was still bred in them, in the France of Poincare, for they are the dwelling- places of young men in the cuirassiers and the chasseurs who had been chasing Uhlans through the passes of the Vosges, capturing outposts even though the odds ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... into the sun, of course. The odds were infinitely against such a happening. It pounded past the sun, shrieking its news, and hurtled on out to the illimitable emptiness beyond. It was still squealing when it went ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... whether in the dark or the light I don't pretend to know, not being informed on the point. Have a care, Hugh. It seems to me you're going to step into a quarry hole, or over a precipice. How my old flesh quakes, to be sure! If it was only a fair, flat field and open day, with any odds you like against me, it would be nothing; but this abominable Goat's—Hah! I knew it! Help! ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... they called it "the feast of the great god." The method of celebrating it was near the house of the chief, in a leafy bower which they erected especially for that purpose, hung round about with hangings in their fashion, namely, the Moorish, which were made from odds and ends of pieces, of various colors. The guests assembled there, and the sacrifice having been prepared (on those occasions of a feast usually some good fat pig), the catalona ordered the girl ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... regret at the death of an innocent woman, and a faint detached pity for her misfortune in crossing my path. I carefully considered my position, and certainty that there could be no evidence against me dispelled any fears for myself—but my cold-blooded sanity realized that the odds were tremendously against a recurrence of the same good fortune, and that the avoidance of the opposite sex must become the chief care of my life. Then I went to bed, and slept soundly. The discovery of Colette d'Orsel's body early the next morning provided the sensation of the ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... see?" asked Diksey, who had laughed even harder than the others. "That's a joke. It's by odds the best joke I ever made. You walk with your legs, and so that's the way you walk, and your legs are the ways. See? So, when you mend your legs, you mend your ways. Ho, ho, ho! hee, hee! I'd no idea I could make ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... vers, a rule very strictly adhered to in both countries. Having had their drink and probably Sklat ("I drink your health") to their respective friends, each takes a small plate, knife, and fork from the pile placed close at hand, and helps himself to such odds and ends as he fancies before returning to the dining-table to enjoy them. Generally four or five things are heaped on each plate, but as they are only small delicacies they do not materially interfere with the appetite. Usually in summer the ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... not-every-day-of-the-week-to-be-attained benefit of finding out where he is. Unless, indeed, as I suspect, the old rascal plays ventriloquist (as big grasshoppers do when you chase them), and puts you on a wrong scent, by crying 'Fire!' out of saints' windows. Still, the odds are if you prick lustily enough, you make ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... badly wounded. Lieutenant Trippe, of the Vixen, in No. 6, ran alongside of one of the enemy's large boats, which he boarded with only Midshipman John Henley and nine men, his boat falling off before any more could get on board; thus was he left, compelled to conquer or perish, with the odds of thirty-six to eleven. The Turks could not withstand the ardour of this brave officer and his assistants; in a few minutes the decks were cleared, and her colours hauled down. On board of this boat fourteen of the enemy were killed, and twenty-two ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... nines, and seventeens? Do these odd numbers refer to the nine companies of Doubters, and eight of Bloodmen, who were under the command of five fallen angels—Diabolus, Beelzebub, Lucifer, Legion, and Apollyon? Fearful odds against a poor fallen sinner, five evil spirits, or nine classes of doubts, or these nine doubts united to eight kinds of Bloodmen ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sir. Nineteen sail, all cruisers, and only twelve of the line. He has one two-decker, and two frigates more than we can muster; just a Frenchman's odds, sir." ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a day when—for the first time in his life—Lancelot inspected his wardrobe, and hunted together his odds and ends of jewelry. From this significant task he was aroused by hearing Mrs. Leadbatter coughing ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... to be had in that part of the wood; twigs and branches from the dead tree, fragments of bark, odds and ends of dry brush. Close by stood a white birch. The thin, paper-like covering hung loose on its stem, like grey-white curls. Archie could pull off large pieces, and he enjoyed this so much that he pulled till the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... was a one-story affair, with a small loft overhead, for the storage of extra oars and odds and ends of boat lumber. Up into the loft went the two boys and opened the tiny window at either end—-thus letting in some needed fresh air. Then they took the rank-smelling flour paste and poured half of the stuff into an old paint can ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... out fishing, I used to carry back in my basket, buried in a couch of grass which kept them cool and fresh. Once in the house again I would begin to think of something else, and so my mind would become littered (as my room was with the flowers that I had gathered on my walks, or the odds and ends that people had given me) with a stone from the surface of which the sunlight was reflected, a roof, the sound of a bell, the smell of fallen leaves, a confused mass of different images, under which ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... "I think I know that now. Yesterday, I wouldn't have but I've been picking up odds ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... the sharpest, the Puritan temper brooking no infractions of law and order. There were uneasy and turbulent spirits both among the crew and passengers, and in the beginning swift judgment fell upon two young men, who, "falling at odds and fighting, contrary to the orders which we had published and set up in the ship, were adjudged to walk upon the deck till night, with their hands bound behind them, which accordingly was executed; and another man for using contemptuous speeches ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... in the barn at the Briars Uncle Tucker was at work rooting up the foundations upon which had been built his lifetime of lordship over his fields. In the middle of the floor was a great pile of odds and ends of old harness, empty grease cans, broken tools, and scraps of iron. Along one side of the floor stood the pathetically-patched old implements that told the tale of patient saving of every cent even at the cost of much greater ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
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