"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their somewhat hazardous passage from one ship to the other. The "Thisbe" had but slight way on her; the hawser was consequently somewhat slack, and the weight of the people on it brought it down into the water. The lieutenant and several of the men clung on, but the midshipman was by some means or other washed off. Unable to swim, he cried out loudly for help, but no one could afford it, till Ronald let go his own hold of ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... again! And the havoc did not slack, Till a feeble cheer the Dane To our cheering sent us back;— Their shots along the deep slowly boom:— Then ceased—and all is wail, As they strike the shatter'd sail, Or in conflagration pale Light ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... thinking. Nothing interested him; he never looked at the papers, never cared to hear a word of news. His eyes more unsteady, his lips looser, his neck thinner and longer, he looked more than ever like a puppet whose strings hung slack. How often would Ginevra have cast herself on his bosom if she could have even hoped he would not repel her! Now and then his eyes did wander to her in a dazed sort of animal-like appeal, but the moment she attempted response, he turned into a corpse. Still, when it came, that ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... be as quiet as that, Ned. She has only to slack away her cables and drift with the tide that turned half an hour ago, we have got to tow out and set sail. However, the night is dark, the wind is off shore, and everything is in our favour. Do you see if there be anyone ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... spar just below where I had whipped it with my line. My expectation was that as the spar parted and fell it would be held hanging by my tackle until I could get down to the deck again and lower it away; and that really was what did happen—only as it fell there was a bit of slack line to take up, and this gave such a tremendous jerk to the cross-trees that I was within an ace of being shaken out of them and of going down to the deck with a bang. But I didn't—which is the main thing—and I did get my mast. It was a good deal heavier than my boat could stand, and I had ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... cried Ben. "They're drowning, and want our help; so, whether enemies or friends, we'll try to haul as many of the poor fellows ashore as we can get hold of, and give them dry jackets, and a warm welcome afterwards. Slack away, mates!" And he plunged into ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... silt. It has so much that the moment it stops to rest it throws down as much of the load as it can. When it gets moving, regularly under way, it has to pick it up again. But the longer it stops the more it throws down; and the slower it moves the less it picks up again. Inside the tub it is always slack water, so whatever falls there stays there. That's why the tub has filled up so quick. Nearly a foot and a half in three weeks! Why, Ted, a raise of a foot and a half along the outer slope of this cove, and we could dike ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... were eager to exert themselves with the utmost zeal." Here also, however, he was biding his time for obvious reasons; for to his wife he writes, "I have done them all like honour, but it is because I would not have the world believe that there were officers slack in their duty. Without a thorough change in naval affairs, the discipline of our navy will be lost. I could say much, but will not. You will hear of it from themselves;" that is, probably, by their mutual recriminations. Such indulgent envelopment of good and bad alike in a common ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... sure to remind us of that. I was thinking that, if we wanted any help in the house while he is here, we could perhaps get Mary Higgins. She is very slack of work, and is a good girl, and would take pains to do her best, I am sure, and would sleep at home, and need never come upstairs, so as to know who ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... treated Adams as a paid attendant and in such a manner that Adams one morning lifted him from his bed by the slack of his silk pajamas and all but drowned him in ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... While waiting for slack water, in which to lift their heavy nets from the bed of the bay, the Chinese had all gone to sleep below. We were elated, and our plan ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... things without ceasing to ply his paddle. His objective lay some six miles up-stream. But when he came at last to the upper limit of the tidal reach he found in this deep, slack water new-driven piling and freshly strung boom-sticks and acres of logs confined therein; also a squat motor tugboat and certain lesser craft moored to these timbers. A little back from the bank he could see the ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... our own personal life and work, and to the growth of Christianity in the world, and let us not be staggered because either are so slow. 'The Lord is not slack concerning His promises, as some men count slackness. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.' How long will that day be of which a thousand years are but as the morning twilight? Brethren, you have ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... discomposing enough to the angry aggressor. "Like a beaten dog!" he said to himself, rallying contempt to withstand compunction. Observation set him wondering on Christian's exhausted condition. The heavy labouring breath and the slack inert fall of the limbs told surely of unusual and prolonged exertion. And then why had close upon two hours' absence been followed by open hostility ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... good shape, but it may not bend truly; so file a notch with a small round file in each tip half an inch from each extremity, running the groove straight across the 'back,' and slanting it across the sides away from the tips toward the middle or handle of the bow. Make a strong string of slack-twisted shoe-maker's thread, with a loop in each end, so that when the string is put on the bow by slipping the loops into the nocks, it will bend the bow so much that the middle of the string is five inches from the handle. If the bow when thus bent is too stiff in any ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Special War Correspondent, who is counting the butter at Copenhagen, that great activity is manifesting itself among the officers and men of the German Slack-Water Fleet. This is owing to the fact that they are learning a new German National Anthem which has just been introduced into the Fleet, set to an old English tune. A rough translation of the chorus ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... the crew is, "setting up" rigging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack, (which is continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and after the rigging is bowsed well taught, the seizings and coverings replaced; which is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a connection between different ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... did go to Mr. Kenyon's—who had a little to forgive in my slack justice to his good dinner, but was for the rest his own kind self—and I went, also, to Moxon's—who said something about my number's going off ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... as tall, but appeared shorter and even more muscular because his shoulders and head were hunched forward. His even coarser face was characterized by vacuously slack mouth and blue eyes empty of any expression except an occasional brief frown ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... in spite of it. The distorted joints of the cripple do not help him to fight. The firm is not rich because its business is done by tragedians and walking-gentlemen, but in spite of them. If the doctor fails to give his medicine, if the fighting grows too rough for the cripple, if business grows slack, or if some good business man with competent assistants starts a strong opposition—what happens? What must inevitably happen? Why, the sick man dies, the cripple gets the worst of it, and the theatrical firm of merchants ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... might take a grudge against the clergy and cry out, if admonished by them, what can a mere clerk know about it? But his relations with his prince remained undisturbed. He saw with joy how the latter was beginning to gather up the reins which his gentle-minded father had allowed to grow too slack, and he hoped that if God would grant a few years of peace, John Frederick would take in hand real and important reforms in his government, and not merely command them but ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... Pelop's shoulder. I could tell ye How smooth his breast was and how white his belly; And whose immortal fingers did imprint That heavenly path with many a curious dint That runs along his back, but my rude pen Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men, Much less of powerful gods. Let it suffice That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes, Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his That leaped into the water for a kiss Of his own shadow and, despising many, Died ere he could enjoy the love of any. Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen Enamoured of his beauty had he been. His presence ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... Must Go!" was once the cry of those who deemed him slack, But now there's not a single scribe of that unruly pack Who is not glad in every sense ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... turned a slack, empty face upon the partner of his joys. "I—I never s'posed that girl ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... since, sir, Sorter quiet and queer; Him and me goes together, He's what they call cashier. Style, that 'ere, for a boot-black,— Made the fellers laugh; Jack and me had to take it, But we don't mind no chaff. Trouble!—not much, you bet, boss! Sometimes, when biz is slack, I don't know how I'd manage If 't wa'n't for little Jack. You jest once orter hear him: He says we needn't care How rough luck is down here, sir, If some day we git up there. All done now,—how's that, sir? Shines like a pair of lamps. Mornin'!—Give it to Jack, sir, He looks ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... come from Cousin Helen; how Daisy White had four kittens as white as herself; how Dorry had finished his water-wheel,—a wheel which turned in the bath-tub, and was "really ingenious," papa said; and Phil had "swapped" one of his bantam chicks for on of Eugene Slack's Bramapootras. It was not till they were all seated round the tea-table that anybody demanded an account of the visit. Elsie felt this a relief, and was just thinking how delicious every thing was, from the sliced peaches to the ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... and Nellie, Let us study BOTTICELLI When we feel the gnawing craving to be smart; If we want to be de rigueur We must educate the figure To show the downward trend of "plastic art." The outline should be slack, Slippy-sloppy, front and back, Till bodice, skirt and tunic—every stitch— Seems to call for the support Of the handy-man's resort— That naval gesture termed the "double hitch." The shoulders must be drooping. The knees a trifle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... had see the lady dance on the slack-wire in the street at night. They throw a bright light on her and she float through the air something beautiful, like a bird! They have a dancing bear, like in the old country, and two three merry-go-around, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... we slack in our companionship in these courses. Our imagination is slower and clumsier than the French—rarer also, by far, in the average English mind. The only man of power equal to Dore's whom we have had lately among us, was William Blake, whose temper fortunately took another turn. ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... "What was it, iron ore?—no, that mud that the river leaves when it rises—'Gumbo' the people call it. Some fellow found by accident that it became red flint when fired, and was making a fortune selling it to the railroad." To burn it, he used the slack coal from the Jonesburg mines nearby, which until then had also been waste. I put a handful of the stuff in my pocket; and, after the conductor left us, I turned the whole enterprise over to the Goodwin ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... But his legs, slack and unsteady, gave way beneath him, as if any prolonged exertion were beyond his power. He ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... name....' There came a jagged spurt of flame; The window seemed a furnace door That gave upon a bed of ore; The thunder rumbled out the muttered Words that his failing tongue had uttered— Another flash, a rending crack— The old man crumpled like a sack; I felt his stringy arms go slack. How could he sit so dead, so still! While wind snouts snuffed ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... managers attended at the opening, but the attendance of all others was cruelly slack. To hear the attack, the people came in crowds; to hear the defence, they scarcely came in t'ete- 'a-t'etes! 'Tis barbarous there should be so much more pleasure given by the recital of guilt than by the vindication of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... the trio went to sleep, the man on the carriage bench, the woman and child on the floor. She was what is euphemistically called a "cook" in Tonking; just another name for an arrangement so often resulting from the lonely life of Europeans among a slack-fibred dependent alien population. It is the same thing that confronts the stray visitor to the isolated tea plantations of the Assam hills, where young English lads are set down by themselves, perhaps a day's journey from the ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... stopping; "here, Margherita; here's a brave cloak for thee, my girl: silver enow on it to fill thy purse, if it ever grow empty; which it may, if ever the Plague grow slack." ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... getting out of his magnificent motor, is now seeing his new volume of poems through the press. Under the arresting title of The Soul of a Passivist they will shortly be published by the firm of Coddler and Slack. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... Then followed a lurch to the right, and the cob gave himself another hitch to keep his master upon his back, progressing afterwards at a steady walk, balancing his load: for Dyke was fast asleep, with the reins slack and his chin down upon his chest, and kept in his place by the natural clinging of his knees, and the easy movement of the sagacious beast he rode. But all at once he lurched forward, and instinctively clung to the horse's neck, with the ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... the 'chevalier's' only daughter, a slack-wire artist; the other, Signor Scarmelli, a trapeze performer, who is ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of Drew's blazing anger in his face, for the Mexican's mouth went a little slack and his hand came up in an involuntary gesture as if to ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... stillness closing us in like a wall. A heavy wooden post, with a pulley attachment, stood behind where we rested, probably fitted there for hauling up heavy bales of cotton. Creeping back, I wound the slack of the rope about its base, drawing it as tight as possible, and then placed the end in the hands of the observant and wondering priest, who continued to creep after ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... out of the fashion—a category including always many of the best things—and if approached in slack times, the great dealers will occasionally afford bargains, but in general the economically minded collector, who is not necessarily the poor one, must intercept his prey before it reaches the capitals. That it makes all the difference from whom and ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... were to reward the near side horse; the thong—the thong after three twists, which appears in his hand to have been placed by the maker never to be altered or improved ...... and if the off-side horse becomes slack, to see the turn of his arm to reduce a twist, or to reverse, if necessary, is exquisite: after being placed under the rib, or upon the shoulder point, up comes the arm, and with it the thong returns to the elegant position upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... reasons for not thinking too harshly of the Devil. Most of it was an abridgement of some verses Jurgen had composed, in the shop when business was slack. ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... all held aloof from him and none would be entrapped by him save those who were ignorant of his character; but, for all this, he failed not daily to suffer insult and exposure from Allah's creatures. By reason of this his trade became slack and he used to go to the shop of his neighbour the barber Abu Sir and sit there, facing the dyery and with his eyes on the door. Whenever he espied any one who knew him not standing at the dyery-door, with a piece of stuff in his hand, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... indefinable suggestion of a nautical past. If you tried to fix it, you found yourself narrowed down to explaining it by the blue jersey he wore in lieu of shirt and waistcoat. (He buttoned his braces over it, and tucked its slack inside the waistband of his trousers.) Or, with luck, you might learn that he habitually slept in a hammock, and corroborate this by observing the towzled state of his back hair. But the suggestion was, in fact, ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fish, we shall proceed to deal with each in order; and at the outset we remark, that when you have hooked a fish, it is a safe general rule to waste no unnecessary time in bringing him to the landing-net or gaff, and thence into the boat. When playing a fish, never allow the line to get slack, unless, indeed, when he leaps into the air,—then you must give him rope; but so soon as he gets into his native element, feel his mouth instantly. Always play your fish to windward of the boat if there is some one sharing it with you, as this allows him to go on casting to leeward. ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... happened, and not a word said, except that now and then she said, 'Keep it up, Boy, keep it up, sweetheart; we'll save him!' I kept it up. Well, when the dark shut down, in the rugged hills, that poor little chap had been tearing around in the saddle all day, and I noticed by the slack knee-pressure that she was tired and tottery, and I got dreadfully afraid; but every time I tried to slow down and let her go to sleep, so I could stop, she hurried me up again; and so, sure enough, at last ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... deed in this world of ours! Unheard of the pretence is. It plainly threatens the Great Powers; Is fatal in all senses. A just deed in the world! Call out The rifles! ... be not slack about The National Defences.' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... alongside, you understand. They haul the boat off a little and wait. The water flies over her in sheets. Cloete's senses almost leave him. He thinks of nothing. He's numb all over, till there's a shout: Here he is! . . . They see a figure in the fore-rigging waiting—they slack away on the grapnel-line and get him in the boat quite easy. There is a little shouting—it's all mixed up with the noise of the sea. Cloete fancies that Stafford's voice is talking away quite close to his ear. There's a lull in the wind, and Stafford's voice seems to be speaking very ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... slack day. The strain of meeting Simpson will be sufficient for us. I do hope he comes in a yachting cap—we'll send him back if ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... that all city-people must have noticed, which is often illustrated in our experience of the slack-water gentry. We shall know a certain person by his looks, familiarly, for years, but never have learned his name. About this person we shall have accumulated no little circumstantial knowledge;—thus, his face, figure, gait, his mode of dressing, of saluting, perhaps even of speaking, may be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... throw hundreds and thousands at each other in play, and call it a Comfit Battle or Battaglia di Confetti (that's real Italian). And he wanted to get up that sort of thing among the village people—but they were too beastly slack, so he ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... his native home. 425 This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me." He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up An oaken staff by me yet unobserved— A staff which must have dropt from his slack hand And lay till now neglected in the grass. 430 Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared To travel without pain, and I beheld, With an astonishment but ill suppressed, His ghostly figure moving at my side; Nor could I, while we ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... very heart and core of the trade." Dr. Surtaine leaned forward, to tap with an earnest finger on his son's knee, a picture of expository enthusiasm. "Here's the theory. You see, along about March or April people begin to get slack-nerved and out-of-sortsy. They don't know what ails 'em, but they think there's something. Well, one look at that ad. sets 'em wondering if it isn't their kidneys. After wonder comes worry. He's the best little worrier in the trade, Old ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... from under the bed and leaped up on his lap with the rabbit. The man gave a great shout and start of terror, and sprang, and the Cat slid clawing to the floor, and the rabbit fell inertly, and the man leaned, gasping with fright, and ghastly, against the wall. The Cat grabbed the rabbit by the slack of its neck and dragged it to the man's feet. Then he raised his shrill, insistent cry, he arched his back high, his tail was a splendid waving plume. He rubbed against the man's feet, which were bursting out of their ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... female labour in the clerical department, prevented him from obtaining another situation, so he had been obliged to fall back upon flower painting. He was a married man, but he said, 'While I could make a fair week's money, things were comfortable, but when orders fell slack I was requested to go, as my room was preferable to my company, and being a man of nervous temperament I could not stand it, and have been here ever since'—that was for about ten weeks. He managed to make enough for his board and lodging by the ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... again warming to her subject. "I don't believe in imported labour. If you have men by the week, they must lodge. And the lodger is as the ten plagues of Egypt in a village. If a man comes by the day, he is tired and slack. His heart is not in his work. He does as little as he can. Moreover, in either case, the wife and children suffer. He's certain to take them home short money. He's pretty safe, being tired in the one case, or, in the other, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... demands of inspired verse. But during these years of decline he wrote much golden prose. He was a regular and highly valued contributor to the Academy, the Athenaeum, the Nation, and the Daily Chronicle. One can hardly fail to be impressed by the mere industry of a writer of reputed slack habits of work. The published volume of his selected essays is literary criticism, as learned and allusive as Matthew Arnold's, and as nicely poised, with the advantage of being poised in more ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... whom it is intended or to those duly authorized to receive it, and the postmaster-general who permits the department to exceed that simple duty and intermeddle with the rights of the people should not only be impeached and removed from office in one time and two motions, but taken by the slack of the pantalettes and pitched headlong into the penitentiary. It appears that the indignant people assaulted the nigger postmaster. That is indeed to be regretted; still I can but wonder that they do not shoot the ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... balls that fell in fiery rain on Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. Yet, if I but tell the tale as it came to me, others may feel as I did the thrill of the rushing of the keel through dashing salt water, the swing of the great white sail above, the flapping of the fresh wind in the slack of it, the exhilaration of moving with power like the angels, with the great forces of nature for muscles, the joy of it all expanding, pulsing through you, till it seems as if the sky might crack if once you let your delight go free. And some may catch, too, that other thrill, of the hidden ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... of the dancers give themselves to the saxophone. Their feet keep a rendezvous with the umpah umps. Their thoughts dance on the slack wire of the clarinet. Their veins beat time to the whinny of the derby wreathed cornet. The fiddles and the drums are partners for their arms and their muscles. But their hearts embrace shyly the Mother Aphrodite. Their hearts listen ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... around and see me a week from now. And leave your address with Rosey. I don't know, though, as we can afford to pay you quite the same salary at first, even if we can work you in—the season's been very slack. But I'll do what I can for you. Come in and see me in about a ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... child, though inclined to be melancholy (and in later years prone to self-analysis). At preparatory school was fairly forward in studies, at public school somewhat backward, at University suddenly took a liking to intellectual pursuits. Throughout he was slack at games. Has never been able to learn to swim from nervousness. Can whistle well. Has always been fond of reading, and would like to have been an author by profession. He married at 24, and has had two children, both of whom showed ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... from the court? No notice? shall I not know the cause Of these my secret and suspitious ils? Accursed brother! vnkinde murderer! Why bends thou thus thy minde to martir me? Hieronimo, why writ I of they wrongs, Or why art thou so slack in thy reuenge? Andrea! O Andrea, that thou sawest Me for thy freend Horatio handled thus, And him for me thus causeles murdered! Well, force perforce, I must constraine my-selfe To patience, and apply me to the time, Till Heauen, as I haue hoped, ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... braced themselves against the shock. The spectators, running nearer, now perceived that the lariat was tied round each man's waist as well as wrapped over his pommel. Soldier Cap weathered the jolt, next plunged suddenly closer, and in the instant of the slack, unwound the rope from his saddle and leaped to the ground. In two leaps more he had Sombrero about the neck. They fell together, rolling and fighting, while Sombrero's horse reared and plowed the soil with them. Dragoons and Cossacks heaped themselves on all three. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... I grant he's rather young,—but I should say it's the best thing for him. A decent woman—and you have proved not one thing against her—a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and stop him getting slack. She'll make him responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie, I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,"—his voice grew sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell's conceit, "and, really, you ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... the General kindly to the O.O., "it's not quite perpendicular, it's a bit too low; wants a stronger prop, wires are a bit slack, the vane itself wants looking to, and the whole thing is in rather a bad position, but otherwise ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... Mrs Jefferson, "let's see what this new era will bring about. There's a grand opening for it, and it has this advantage— people are much more dissatisfied with old creeds, and much more eager for new, than they have ever been. The reins are slack, if only there's a firm and ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... reports that are without foundation and threats that go without fulfilment, and so much occupied besides by the raging troubles of my own wame, that I have been very slack on politics, as I have been in literature. With incredible labour, I have rewritten the First Chapter of the Justice Clerk; it took me about ten days, and requires another athletic dressing after all. And that is my story for the month. The rest is ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seemed to come a slack in the storm. The ship rode more easily, and Bob began to take heart. A little later Mr. Carr came down into the cabin. He breathed a sigh of relief as ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... he has got squaws and baggage with him, a red-skin never goes at a walk, and the horses will keep on at this lope for hours. That is right. Don't sit so stiffly; you want your legs to be stiff and keeping a steady grip, but from your hips you want to be as slack as possible, just giving to the horse's action, the same way you give on board ship when vessels are rolling. That is better. Ah! here comes Pete. I took this way because I knew it was the line he would come back by—and, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... it, as far as the slack of the telephone wire of the receiver at my ear would permit. Annenberg had worked with amazing care and neatness on the list, even going so far as to draw at the top, in black, a death's head. The rest of it was elaborately prepared in ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... their footsteps made no noise in the yielding sand, and all was silence save for the plash of the waters along the shores. Far down the river were the reflections of one or two twinkling lights, and close under the bank in the slack-water a few stars were peeping at their own images, but no boat was there, and the captain led still farther to a little copse of willow, and there, in the shadows, sure enough, was a row-boat, with a little lantern dimly burning, half ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... left behind by its stouter brethren in the race for existence. The old mill hummed away through the day, and often late into the evening if time pressed, upon the grists which added a thin, intermittent stream of tribute to the family income. Whenever work was "slack," Friend Barton was sawing or chopping in the woodshed adjoining the kitchen; every moment he could seize or make he was there, stooping ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Boys, I know what you'll do: you'll just keep back the Rint. Now down with your cash, never think of the jail, For Erin's true patriots the Virgin is bail; She'll rain down bank notes till the bailiff is blind— Still you're slack! Then I'll tell you a piece ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... mind had hardly dismissed this subject before he remarked: "Dum cur'ous that towline breaking. I overhauled every foot on't. I'd a bet my bottom fo'pence on its drawin' ten ton. Haul in the slack end 'n' let's hev ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... couldn't hardly keep from eatin' of her up. An' she behaved consid'able well for a few months, as long 's the novelty lasted an' the silk dresses was new. Before Christmas, though, she began to peter out 'n' git slack-twisted. She allers hated housework as bad as a pig would a penwiper, an' Dixie hed to git his own breakfast afore he went to work, or go off on an empty stomach. Many 's the time he 's got her meals for her 'n' took 'em to her on a waiter. Them secesh fellers'll wait ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gives an idea of finish to the writer that is very peaceful. Of course, it's not really so finished as quite a rotten novel; it always has and always must have the incurable illogicalities of life about it, the fathoms of slack and the miles of tedium. Still, that's where the fun comes in; and when you have at last managed to shut up the castle spectre (dulness), the very outside of his door looks beautiful by contrast. There are pages in these books that may seem nothing ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with the vacant face and the back like a grasshopper; "I be a reg'lar born Christian and my mother afore me, and that's what few gals in the Yard can say. Thomas will take to it himself when work is slack; and he believes now in our Lord and Saviour Pontius Pilate who was crucified to save our sins; and in Moses, Goliath, and the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... said Henry. 'Here are these fresh forces all aglow within their first zeal, and unless they are worse captains than I suppose them, they will attempt some mischief ere long—nor is any time so slack as cock-crow.' ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bank of a dry river, and thick rattan jungle bordered the opposite side; he thought he was safe, and he plunged down the crumbling bank. We were a little too quick for him, by taking a double turn round a tree with the slack end of the rope just as he descended the bank; the effect of this was to bring him to a sudden standstill, and the stretching of the hide rope threw him upon his knees. He recovered himself immediately, and used extraordinary efforts to break away; tightening the rope ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... plantation-building, where our most advanced outposts had their headquarters. The flash revealed to me every point of the situation. I saw at once where I was, and how I got there: that the tide had turned while I was swimming, and with a much briefer interval of slack-water than I had been led to suppose,—that I had been swept a good way down stream, and was far beyond all possibility of regaining the point I ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... carrying the end of his rope with him. He did not make the mistake of making the end fast to his own body as he might have done in some circumstances. Instead he threw the rope over the rock, taking one quick turn about it. He had no more than taken that turn when the slack on the rope was suddenly taken up and ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... for sleep begin to grien, Their joints to slack frae industry a while; The leaden god fa's heavy on their een, And hafflins steeks them frae their daily toil; The cruizy too can only blink and bleer, The restit ingle's done the maist it dow; Tackman and cottar eke to bed maun steer, Upo' the cod to clear their drumly pow, Till waukened ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... inquired her name, and found that this charming lady was Bertalda, the adopted daughter of one of the principal lords in the neighbourhood. I observed that her eye was upon me too, and as is the way with us young knights, I had not been slack before, but I now fought more bravely still. That evening I was Bertalda's partner in the dance, and so I was again every evening ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... more. I had now no alternative; I therefore remained silent, seeing not one white man on board who said a word on my behalf. I hung in that manner from between ten and eleven o'clock at night till about one in the morning; when, finding my cruel abuser fast asleep, I begged some of his slaves to slack the rope that was round my body, that my feet might rest on something. This they did at the risk of being cruelly used by their master, who beat some of them severely at first for not tying me when he commanded them. Whilst I remained in ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... erase the stain from the honour of his family. But hard facts soon restored the equilibrium of his naturally prudent soul. The worst feature of the army was not that it had been beaten, but that it had not been commanded. The reins of discipline had been so slack that licence and indulgence had sapped its fighting strength. The tyranny of circumstances demanded a peaceful sojourn in the province, and Albinus resigned himself to ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... lapsing aeons change the nature of The whole wide world, and all things needs must take One status after other, nor aught persists Forever like itself. All things depart; Nature she changeth all, compelleth all To transformation. Lo, this moulders down, A-slack with weary eld, and that, again, Prospers in glory, issuing from contempt. In suchwise, then, the lapsing aeons change The nature of the whole wide world, and earth Taketh one status after other. And what She bore of old, she now can bear no ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... he himself has understanding in counsel and wisdom, and the people no longer show us favour in all things. Nay come, before he assembles all the Achaeans to the gathering; for methinks that he will in nowise be slack, but will be exceeding wroth, and will stand up and speak out among them all, and tell how we plotted against him sheer destruction but did not overtake him. Then will they not approve us, when they hear these evil deeds. Beware then lest they do us a harm, and drive us forth from our country, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... the hospital, but John Storm did not come. At seven she was ringing at the bell of a little house in St. John's Wood that stood behind a high wall and had an iron grating in the garden door. The bell was answered by a good-natured, slack-looking servant, who was friendly, and even ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... rattling down the steep village street at a great pace, traces hanging slack; past the factor's house, the "Company's" store, the blacksmith shop and the "French outfit"; with a dash and a clatter that brought every inhabitant running to the hotel. Most of them were already there; for the arrival of the mail ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... controversial tract of the day, nothing could escape the notice of these scrutinisers." In further revelations of his method he says, "When, indeed, we happened to turn aside to the towns and places where the aforesaid paupers had convents, we were not slack in visiting their chests and other repositories of books; for there, amidst the deepest poverty, we found the most exalted riches treasured up; there, in their satchels and caskets, we discovered not only the crumbs that fell from the master's table for the little ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... to sea when she was captured, and in the slack water she had not drifted at all. He went ahead slowly, and soon had the bell to stop her; but he expected this, for the channel was narrow, and it required considerable manoeuvring to get the steamer about. Then he happened to think of the guns on the Seahorse ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... following morning, when the wind and sea still continued unabated, so destroyed the bergs on which our sole dependance was placed, that they no longer remained aground at low water; the cables had again become slack about them, and the basin we had taken so much pains in forming had now lost all its defences, at least during a portion of every tide. After a night of most anxious consideration and consultation with Captain Hoppner, who was now my messmate in the Hecla, it appeared ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... said Mr. Cram to the attorney and his companion, "and I'll bring Tom to you in a minute. He's having a lush with some of his pals; though I thought we were going to have a mill, for Jack Perkins, who is to be hanged o' Monday, roused out his slack jaw at him for some quarrel about a gal, and Tom don't bear such like easily. Howsumdever, they made it up and clubbed a gallon. Stay, I'll get you a candle end;" and leaving them in the dark, not much, if the truth must be told, to the satisfaction of John Ayliffe, he rolled away ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... in the bows of the leading boat, glanced over his right shoulder and beheld his line of followers, all in perfect order, extend themselves and close the mouth of the Cove. Ahead of him—ahead but a few yards only—he heard the slack tide run faintly on the shingle. From the dark beach came no sound. Overhead quivered the expectant stars. He lifted his sword-arm, and from point to hilt ran a ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... signs, that his bonds might be loosed. The officer shook his head and refused, but he allowed some of his soldiers to slack the cords on one side, whereby Gulliver was able to feel more comfortable. After this, the little people drew out the arrows that still stuck in his hands and face, and rubbed the wounds with some ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... long and 5-1/2 inches wide—this will be a. convenient size—stick two pins into the board 5-1/8 inches apart, pass a loop of thread 14 inches in circumference round these, and run the point of a pencil round the pins in the path which it has to take when confined by the slack of the loop (Fig. 180). Fret-saw along ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... then that's inconsistent with the steam-crusher of the sale. That's the trouble with this brig racket; any one can make half a dozen theories for sixty or seventy per cent. of it; but when they're made, there's always a fathom or two of slack hanging out ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... In four hours' time we march To join Lord Essex—see your girths are slack'd, Your pistols prim'd, your beasts fed, and your souls Watching for grace, the word is "Kill and slay"— 'Twere best all eat, for ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... when work is slack and members are unemployed, will advocate shorter hours at the same rate of pay so as to make room ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... too well built, and as she kissed the flashing waters she began to float, the stern part dipping lower till she was level, and the ropes grew slack, when all the men gave a cheer as she glided along beside the steamer, tugging at the rope which was made ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... which the perilous roadstead outside this harbor shall be transformed into a secure anchorage of sixteen hundred acres. Past events warrant us in believing that these improvements will be pursued with no slack hand, until astonished Europe finds another Cherbourg, a safe harbor, ample means of repair, and frowning guns to repel all invaders. Imprudent Young France, indeed, whispers now that Algiers makes the Mediterranean a French lake. But ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... wall, and the long train of a woman's gown upon the floor, and then, between the loops of the hood, the edge of Mrs. Tailleur's white face, dim, but discernible. She sat sideways, leaning against the wall, in the slack, ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... some mens' slaves was caught on another man's place he was allowed to whoop them and send them home and they would git another whooping. Some men wouldn't allow that; they said they would tend to their own slaves. So many men had to leave home to go to war times got slack. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... as one could see there was no sign of humanity, not a soul upon the solitary road, not a living thing upon the desolate hills that rose on either side in jagged points to the sky. Corona talked a little with the head-keeper who rode beside her with a slack rein, letting his small mountain horse pick its own way over the rough path. He told her that few people ever passed that way. It was the short road to Saracinesca. The princes sometimes sent their carriage round by the longer way and rode over the hills; and ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... a man's past life. Not that I've been a Don What's-his-name. Far from it. Costs a bit too much, that game. You simply can't do it on sixty quid a year, paid monthly, and that's all there is about it. Not but what I don't often think of going it a bit when things are slack at the office and my pal in the New Business Department is out for lunch. It's the loneliness makes you think of going a regular plunger. More than once, when Tommy Milner hasn't been there to talk to, I tell you I've half a mind to take ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... Edwin, hardly knowing what he did, and certainly not knowing why he did it, walked quickly out on to the floor, seized the huge hook attached to the lower pulley of the tackle that hung from the roof-beam, pulled up the slack of the rope-bandage on the hind part of the machine, and stuck the hook into it, then walked quickly back. The hauling-rope of the tackle had been carried to the iron ring of a trap-door in the corner near Big James; this trap-door, once the outlet of the interior ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... arms, but the woman shook herself free. "I sha'n't faint—no—I sha'n't faint," she gasped, "the cellar—look—look—" She ran forward and raised the head of the dead man. When the officers saw the dangling slack wire disappearing through a hole in the floor they grasped the situation. "The passage outside!" cried Deborah, directing operations; "the trap-door," she ran to it, "fast bolted below, and ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... horse-pistols, were in good condition, and all loaded. There were additional oars, in case of accident, and that little sail called trinquet, which assists the speed of the canoe at the same time the boatmen row, which is so useful when the breeze is slack. When Aramis had seen all these things, and appeared satisfied with the result of his inspection, "Let us consult, Porthos," said he, "to know if we must endeavor to get the bark out by the unknown extremity of the grotto, following the descent and the shade of the cavern, or whether it be better, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... bird in the hand," he chuckled, hugging his slack frame, "an' it ain't fur you to be givin' orders—it's fur me. An', anyway, I guess we ain't a-goin' to be able to make a trade—leastwise not on yore terms. But we'll do business all right, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... the command, and some men would go down into the smother of the lee rail and haul in or slack away sheets, while others at the mastheads would shift top- ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... so sure," growled the other, watching him suspiciously. "You've been lying low for a long time, and it's not like you to slack off except when there's ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... its weather eye open in this matter, however, for a small minority felt that these men would not ruin themselves. Accordingly, the act of grant reserved to the commonwealth the right to compel the adoption of a complete system of slack-water navigation from Easton to Stoddartsville if the service given by the company did not meet "the wants ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... swordfish began to leap. Then it was almost a straightaway race. This fellow was a greyhound leaper. He did not churn the water, nor dash to and fro on the surface, but kept steadily leaping ahead. He cleared the water thirty-nine times before he gave up leaping. Then he sounded. The line went slack. I thought he was gone. Suddenly he showed again, in a white splash, and he was not half as far away as when he went down. Then I felt the pull on the line. It was heavy, for he had left a great bag ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... lawyer took out a writ against him. It would have been well for Tom if he had paid the money at once, but he went on dallying and compromising with the lawyer, till he became terribly involved in his web. To increase his difficulties work became slack; so at last he packed his things upon his carts, and with his family, consisting of his wife and three daughters, fled into Montgomeryshire. The lawyer, however, soon got information of his whereabouts, and threatened to arrest ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... measure of success, to ease the smart of my own pain by furthering the pleasure of others; in these ways, to which I added such skill as I had gained on the violin, making it one of my chief occupations, when work was slack, to play to such as loved music, and more especially any who were infirm in health, or in sorrow by one reason or another. It was a humble path I chose, my dear; but I never clearly saw my way to a loftier one, and here I could ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... the full, crushing horror of the affair come home to the American, for events had crowded one another so closely that his mind was confused; but when, in the halting yellow glare, he saw those two slack forms and the crooked, unnatural postures in which death had left them, his consciousness cleared and he strained at his ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... he held the best gun of Jimmie Time; in the other—there seemed to be a well-gripped connection with the slack of a buckskin shirt—writhed the alleged real doughnuts of a possibly Peruvian character. The captor looked aloft and remained vocal, waving the gun, waving Jimmie Time, playing them together as cymbals, never loosening them. It was fine. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... mule to a wagon, if he be wild or vicious, keep the lariat the same as I have described until you get him hitched up, then slack it gently, as nearly all mules will buck or jump stiff-legged as soon as you ease up the lariat; and be careful not to pull the rope too tight when first put on, as by so doing you might split the mule's mouth. Let me say here that I have broken thousands of four and six-mule ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... and occasionally a small advance upon the last July rates is paid on such sorts suitable for that branch, but there is almost no demand for export, the consumption of the article in foreign countries being this year unusually slack. The shipments to Russia, since the opening of the season, amount to only 2,209 chests, against 3,439 chests during the same time last year. A public sale was held yesterday, in Liverpool, of about 400 chests of East India, and 120 serons of Caracas. Of the former about 100 ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... sheep on the one hand, or the goats on the other. His pages are the record of sentences passed, not the presentation of human characters in all their fulness and colour; and the consequence is that even now and so soon, in spite of all their rhetorical brilliance, their hold on men has grown slack. Contrast the dim depths into which his essay on Johnson is receding, with the vitality as of a fine dramatic creation which exists in Mr. Carlyle's essay on the same man. Mr. Carlyle knows as well as Macaulay how blind and stupid a creed was English Toryism a century ago, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... down stream, and a schooner, having but little of wind and less of tide to help it along, was rocking listlessly in the long swell. In the shadow of the slack sails a man sprawled upon the schooner's deck, while against the old-fashioned tiller ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... place, for the due consideration of this subject, such of the Assistants as may be here present in Boston, and to advise with them thereupon, when and where I shall hope to be favored with the presence and counsel of my friend, whose zeal is never slack in aught that may redound to the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... hard down, but she would not obey. He tried at once to get in his sails, but the surf was running very strong, and presently a heavy sea broke clean over her. Then came confusion and dismay: the flapping of the wet, half-lowered sails, and the whipping of the slack ropes, making all effort useless. There was no chance of her- holding. Foot by foot she was being driven towards the rocks. Sailors stood motionless on the shore. The lifeboat would be of little use: besides, it could not arrive ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... railroad company, has heavy fixed charges. He has to earn the interest on his capital, he has to keep his mill in repair, he now and then has to meet the demands of the times and purchase improved appliances, and he has to keep a certain number of employes, whether business is brisk or slack. He might, therefore, if he saw fit to employ the logic of railroad managers, earn revenue enough to meet his fixed charges from the business which his regular customers give him, and then do any business coming ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... advocates of "preparedness," our cheerful chemists, our scientific "intellectuals"—all our materialistic thinkers hard- shell and soft-shell,—took the position of Flaubert, just presented; reproached us bitterly for our slack, sentimental pacificism; and urged us with all speed to emulate the scientific spirit of our enemy. There is nothing more instructive in this correspondence than to observe how this last fond illusion falls away from Flaubert under the impact ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... before him. This Galors, who I think merits some scrutiny, was a bullet-headed, low-browed fellow, too burly for his monkish frock (which gave him the look of a big boy in a pinafore), with the jowl of a master-butcher, and a sullen slack mouth. His look at you, when he raised his eyes from the ground, had the hint of brutality—as if he were naming a price—which women mistake for mastery, and adore. But he very rarely crossed eyes with any one; and with the Abbot he had gained ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... they were at the fork in the way, and, leaving the trail to Cragg's, the girl pulled into the grass-grown, less-traveled trail to the south, which entered the timber at this point and began to climb with steady grade. Letting the reins fall slack, she turned to her mother with reassuring words. "There! Now we're safe. We won't meet anybody on this road except possibly a mover's outfit. We're in the ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... Under the slack management of previous administrations, the conditions of the Rainbow mine and mill had rapidly deteriorated. In the mine a hundred sticks of powder were used or wasted where one would have sufficed. Hundreds of feet of ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... of a month things were looking bad. Harry had besieged the New York headquarters of the Columbus River Slack-water Navigation Company with demands, then commands, and finally appeals, but to no purpose; the appropriation did not come; the letters were not even answered. The workmen were clamorous, now. The Colonel and Harry retired ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... vegetable diet of the poor. These were all attended to with a tenderness and patience that spoke well for the charity of Sister Anne and her assistants, and indeed before long Dame Lilias perceived that, however slack and easy-going the general habits might be, there were truly meek and saintly women among ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be fine. Birds are flyin' high; flowers ain't got much scent in 'em; the sheep are grazin' with their heads to the wind; cattle are quiet. Mother's clothes line's saggin' betwixt the poles; spiders' webs are slack, too, an' thar's crowds of 'em on every bush. This mornin', when I looked out, great white mountains of cloud were banked up in th' sky. 'Fore I'd dressed an' got out, the clouds had melted clean away. All them signs mean ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... With a slack bridle his horse was left to refresh himself on the sward, while Carlos proceeded to the execution of a design that had been matured in his mind ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... forever before the Bancroft crowd left. Dalgetty's eyes followed them out of the bar—four men and the woman. They were all quiet, mannerly, distinguished-looking, in rich dark slack suits. Even the hulking bodyguard was probably a college graduate, Third Class. You wouldn't take them for murderers and kidnappers and the servants of those who would bring back political gangsterism. ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... who had just pulled in all the slack of the rawhide lariat, and had made it fast about his own left arm, seemed wholly unaware of his ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... sort were in all her loving letters. Often and often when I have been slack in fucking a woman, and my prick not answering when called on, I had only to conjure up some of these scenes with my mother when my cock would spring to the stand instantly, to the immense satisfaction of my momentary ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... sewage purification which appears to possess several substantial advantages. Chief among these are simplicity in construction and operation, economy in first cost and working and efficiency in action. This system is the invention of Messrs. Slack & Brownlow, of Canning Works, Upper Medlock Street, Manchester, and the apparatus adopted in carrying it out is here illustrated. It consists of an iron cylindrical tank having inside a series of plates arranged in a spiral direction around a fixed center, and sloping downward at a considerable ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various |
