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More "Tricky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "he has come at last to his senses. And I'm very glad he has, very glad indeed. It's time he did. I think I made my displeasure sufficiently clear at the exceedingly tricky way he and the Baron conducted themselves at Palm Beach. And the Baron was no better than Philip. Indeed, I think he was very much worse. If Philip hadn't wandered about in the garb of Herodotus and murmured that impertinence about 'frost in Florida' it wouldn't have been so ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... of a high nature, you become connected with people of the same mental caliber and you are able to help yourself. If your thoughts are tricky, you will bring tricky people to deal with you, who ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... the sort of place for a tricky old French woman to make a fortune in," he said to himself: "these people are simple enough to believe any thing;" and Dr. Eben went to his room, and tossed the lavender blossoms down on ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... his head with an evil grin, according to his custom when well struck, he found it followed practically instantaneously by another. The swab was about the quickest thing that ever got into a ring. He was like one of these bloomin', tricky, jack-in-the-box featherweights, instead of a steady lumbering "heavy". And the Gorilla allowed himself to be driven to a corner again, and let his head sink forward, that the incautious youth might ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... in the army the time of the Zulu war. Great hardship we got in it and plenty of starvation. It was the Dutch called in the English to help them against the Zulus, that were tricky rogues, and would do no work but to be driving the cattle off the fields. A pound of raw flour we would be given out at seven o'clock in the morning, and some would try to make a cake, and some would put it in a pot with water and be stirring it, and it might be eleven o'clock before you would ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory
... the vast bearings of the real conspiracy made Philippe a man of great distinction in the eyes of Carpentier and Mignonnet, to whom his self-devotion seemed a state-craft worthy of the palmy days of the Convention. In a short time the tricky Bonapartist was seen to be on friendly terms with the two officers, and the consideration they enjoyed in the town was, of course, shared by him. He soon obtained, through their recommendation, the situation in the insurance office that old Hochon had suggested, which required only ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... You know how she acted; she had made up her mind she wouldn't go. Only she was tricky about it. She knew I had my eye on her, so she got ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... always heard that the Fox family was terribly sly and tricky. Still, Tommy was most polite. Really, she didn't ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the Tucson trail, and, not understanding why he turned them from their routine, walked asunder, puzzled at being thus driven in the wrong direction. They went along a strange up-and-down path, loose with sliding stones, and came to an end at a ledge of slate, and stood about on the tricky footing looking at their master and leaning their heads together. The master sat quiet on his horse, staring down where a circular pool lay below; and the sun rose everywhere, except in his mind. So ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... her and taking note of what she saw, so that she gave an indescribable effect of enjoying the gallop just as much as her rider, but in a different way. All in all, Gray Peter was a glorious machine; Sally was a tricky intelligence. Gray Peter's heart was never in doubt, but what would Sally's ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... the indispensable water-hole. It is short, but tricky. Teeing off from just outside the bathroom door, you have to loft the ball over the side of the bath, holing out in the little vent pipe, at the end ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... beyond the Khatkan to the barren ground where leopard and rock ape had ceased to be. "This magic is a tricky thing, sir. It builds and feeds upon a man's own imagination and inner fears. Lumbrilo, having triggered ours, need not strive at all, but let us ourselves raise that which ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... but they were truculent, surly fellows, both, and had been fretting all morning over the simple way in which they had been trapped, and so were inclined to make themselves disagreeable. Bastien Lagrange, who had always known them as two particularly tricky, unreliable customers, had preserved a discreet silence during the long drive, despite their endeavours to drag some information out of him. From what they knew of Douglas they felt in no way apprehensive of their personal safety, so, after the manner of mean men, they determined ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... Shepherd talked, the twilight had deepened into darkness, the fire had died down, and the corners of the room were filled with mysterious tricky shadows that danced with the flickering flames on the hearth. Jean looked fearfully over her shoulder. There was a creepy feeling in the back of her neck, and Jock's eyes were as round as door-knobs. The ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... so I was anxious to make them while I could see. I looked at the moon—I could count on some light from her for an hour or so after sundown. But although I knew the last ten or twelve miles of my drive fairly well, I was also aware of the fact that there were in it tricky spots—forkings of mere trails in muskeg bush—where leaving the beaten log-track might mean as much as being lost. So I looked at my watch again and shook the lines over Peter's back. The first six miles had taken me nearly fifty minutes. I looked at the ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... surprise of everybody, neither side scored until the last quarter, and then both sides made a touchdown, Cartwright first! A high tricky wind spoiled both attempts to kick goal, and time was called with a score at 6-6. Cartwright had held State to a tie, for the first ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... trouble, because he knows the joinings and the difficulties of them, and these nevertheless afford us some pleasure, because they test the sharpness of our wits, and engross, our attention; so also these questions, which seem subtle and tricky, prevent our intellects becoming careless and lazy, for they ought at one time to have a field given them to level, in order that they may wander about it, and at another to have some dark and rough passage thrown in ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... winsome lass, I want no tricky wine, But amber nectar bring to me, Whose rich bouquet will cling to me, Whose spirit voice will sing to me From out the mug divine So, here's your toll—a kiss—away, You Hebe of the Rhine! No goblet's gold means cheer to me, Let no cut glass get ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... pilots who had been taken prisoners swore that no fleet could ever get through the Traverse, a tricky bit of water thirty miles below Quebec. But, in the course of the summer, the British sailing masters, who had never been there before, themselves took two hundred and seventy-seven vessels right through it with greater ease ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... to the First Army Corps under Sir Douglas Haig, an Irish and Scotch group of regiments, were the most successful of all. The bridge at Pont Arcy had been destroyed, but still one of its girders spanned the stream. It would have been tricky walking, even under ordinary circumstances, but nerve racking to attempt, when from every hill and wood and point of land, Maxims, machine guns and a steady rifle fire are concentrated on the man crossing that one girder. By the afternoon, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... that you have obviously landed in another time-track. One that is parallel to—but just a slight bit different from the one you formerly knew. To you, we seem to be the same officers as in that world; but of course, we're not. It isn't the same universe. Hyperspace is tricky stuff, as our men are finding out. You've just got bounced around by one of the trickiest ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... Even had the distance been less, it seemed to them that this was stretching the long arm of coincidence almost too far, but they did not say so; in fact, they both thought it wiser to abstain from any comment at all. The next hole was some three hundred and fifty yards, with several extremely tricky hazards, but, contrary to all reasonable expectations, both King Sidney and the Marshal distinguished themselves by doing it ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... flat, told to the absolutely simple hearted, and to the Teller, after explanations were over, it seemed that the Listener had in some way cut open modern genius and exposed a little tricky mechanism working on a view point ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... implied, but only knowledge and skill; 'craft,' indeed, still retains very often its more honourable use, a man's 'craft' being his skill, and then the trade in which he is skilled. 'Artful' was skilful, and not tricky as now. [Footnote: Not otherwise 'leichtsinnig' in German meant cheerful once; it is frivolous now; while in French a 'rapporteur' is now a bringer back of malicious reports, the malicious having little by little found its way into the word.] Could the Magdalen have ever ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... that I micht gae to America lang before the time came. I'd offers—oh, aye! But I was uncertain. It was a tricky business, tae go sae far frae hame. A body would be a fool to do sae unless he waur sure and siccar against loss. All the time I was doing better and better in Britain. And it seems that American visitors to Britain, tourists ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... Bob would repeat to her, spontaneously and gushingly, every new thing that they said, or did. And if Bob still had a nurse hanging about, she would have an eye and an ear and something to say to mother, too. If one of these boys happened to be tricky and deceitful, resentful and cruel, mother would be sure to know about it very quickly. She could straighten out Bob's feelings with regard to any of those things before real damage occurred; and she could see to it that such contamination was ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... his pocket and cuddled the bowl of his pipe. "If she's a woman, she's a heart-balmer if she gets the chance. They all are, down deep in their tricky hearts. There isn't a woman on earth that won't sell a man's soul out of his body if she happens to think it's worth her while—and she can get away with it. But don't for any ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... is spirited; but that is not a fault," Rhoda said. "He looks all right to me. But that little flea-bitten grey is a tricky one. You can tell that. See how her ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... desks ranged along the walls, With books and inkstands crowned; Here on this side the large girls sat, And there the tricky boys on that— See! how ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... to have if he and his family were to live, not in decency and comfort, but in something less than squalor. She did not put the question because she wished to spare her father—to spare herself the shame of hearing his tricky answer—to spare herself the discomfort of squarely facing ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... movin' into action, they was needed very sore, To learn a little schoolin' to a native army corps, They 'ad nipped against an uphill, they was tuckin' down the brow, When a tricky, trundlin' roundshot give the knock ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... man has," she thought. "He looks like a combination of a snake and a fox. I never before saw such tricky eyes. He is rather good looking, but there is something about ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... cautioning him to guard the closest secrecy. Two days afterward the letters arrived, and I directed my protege to spread the news as much as possible, to tell all the warders he saw and to show them his letters. We had at that time in the prison a wideawake but tricky fellow named George Smith. He had been clerk to an important firm of auctioneers in London, and had been sentenced by probably the most savage judge on the bench, Commissioner Ker, to fourteen years' imprisonment for receiving a quantity ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... said, meditatively, 'but one or two are very much out. By Jove! that's a tricky bend there.' He took a bearing with the compass, made a note or two, and sprang with a vigorous leap ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... said the Distressed One; "I will be bail for him, and I know that Malambruno has nothing tricky or treacherous about him; you may mount without any fear, Senor Don Quixote; on my head be it if any harm ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... how the Lower Normandy peasant, cunning, deceitful and tricky, understands and tells of the struggle between the great ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... a little trouble with the languige. Its tricky. A lot of these French words is the same as ours only they dont mean the same thing. Like "Pan" an "We" an "Mercy" an "Toot sweet." As soon as I find what the words stand ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... going to keep us away from the corral, somehow. You remember he said he'd come back to get us to help him bring in some steers. Of course, you and he might be in cahoots on this, but Scott's tricky so I'm giving you some of the benefits of the doubt." Charleton turned in his saddle to favor Douglas ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... see how the wig can have been useful. I feel that Addison must have left it on the bedpost and tied up his bald pate in a tricky bandana after the fashion of Mr. Prior or Mr. Gay, one of whom, if I remember rightly, did not disdain to sit for his picture in that frolic guise. The wig, which adds age and ensures dignity, would have been out of place there; nor is it possible that The Beggar's Opera ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... avoid by going around, or better yet not even bother about, since he can lick any ship we have. That's not the answer," I told him. "This Pepe is smart and as tricky as a fixed gambling machine. That's his strength—and his weakness as well. Characters like that never think it possible for someone else to outthink them. Which is what I'm ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... still time—consider. We are going to beard the lion in his den. He is tricky, distrustful and savage. It may mean for us slavery, torture, or death. Meroe, let me finish alone this trip and this enterprise, beside which a desperate fight would be but a trifle. Return to my father and mother, whose daughter ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... that the protective devices of the suit were functioning at full efficiency. Then all three went out to the flitter. A tiny speedster, really; a torpedo bearing the stubby wings and the ludicrous tail-surfaces, the multifarious driving-, braking-, side-, top-, and under-jets so characteristic of the tricky, cranky, but ultra-maneuverable breed. But this one had something that the ordinary speedster or flitter did not carry; spaced around the needle beak there yawned the open muzzles of a ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... But he said she was clever, and she is, if pertness and a ready tongue counts for cleverness. I suppose he pays her for what she tells him about Forbes, but he'd better save his money and fight on the square. I don't like this tricky politics, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... anxious that Beth should be educated, and therefore the books were produced every morning. Mrs. Caldwell had tried in vain to teach Beth anything by rule, such as grammar. Beth's memory was always tricky. Anything she cared about she recollected accurately; but grammar, which had been presented to her not as a means to an end but as an end in itself, failed to interest her, and if she remembered ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... "'Tis early days yet, hows'ever—time enough, my sons—plenty time!" promised Un' Benny Rowett, patriarch of the fishing-fleet and local preacher on Sundays. Some of the younger men grumbled that "there was no tellin': the season had been tricky from the start." The spider-crabs—that are the curse of inshore trammels—had lingered for a good three weeks past the date when by all rights they were due to sheer off. Then a host of spur-dogs had invaded the whiting-grounds, preying so gluttonously on the hooked fish that, haul in ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... racing about South Africa had made him homesick for the sight of the gophers by the wayside, and the endless panels of wire fencing along which we rushed. (The Prairie has nothing to learn from the Veldt about fencing, or tricky gates.) ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... guides through the upper part of the country, by a route unnecessarily circuitous and roundabout, and one that required many days' journeying; but, as soon as the straight road was indicated to him by a freedman, a Syrian by nation, he quitted that tedious and tricky road, and, bidding his barbarian guides farewell, he crossed the Euphrates in a few days, and arrived at Antiocheia,[384] near Daphne. There he waited for Tigranes, pursuant to the king's orders ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... was irresolute, vacillating and tricky. "A study of the foreign policy of the Protectorate," writes Mr. Gardiner, "reveals a distracting maze of fluctuations. Oliver is seen alternately courting France and Spain, constant ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... steam-drifters into harbour. Hence the price of fish: quotations very high; business nil, or next door to it. Our bay however, by a fortunate freak of the weather, has been amply calm for our little undecked drifters, though squalls off land have made sailing tricky in the extreme. We have seen the snow on the distant hills but none has fallen here. We have had the ground-swell, rolling in from outside, but ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... Am I to withdraw because you have been discarded? Why should I not borrow from this tricky ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... goods man, sailing on our old tack of conversation, "sometimes makes it hard for us, you know. I once had a case like this: One of my customers down in New Orleans had failed on me. I think his muhulla (failure) was forced upon him. Even a tricky merchant does not bring failure upon himself if business is good and he can help it, because, if he has ever been through one, he knows that the bust-up does him a great deal more harm than good. It makes 'credit' hard for him after that. But, you find lots of merchants who, when business ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... craze is in full swing. Ponting's mastery is ever more impressive, and his pupils improve day by day; nearly all of us have produced good negatives. Debenham and Wright are the most promising, but Taylor, Bowers and I are also getting the hang of the tricky exposures. ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... much of paper in that Con-o-way. Court House. Got more paper in there than the house worth! Have to step to Con-o-way all the time. Struggle and starve myself out for these fifteen acres. Thirty miles to Con-o-way. Thirty miles back by the course I travels. All them tricky mens try to go and get old Ben's land sign to 'em. That's the mainest thing take me to Con-o-way every week. They all talk so sugar mouth till my name down; then when my name write is another thing. When I in too much trouble, I just has to ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... placed slantwise across the roads, where sentries stood with fixed bayonets, and through which no one could pass unless the laisser passer was produced. Some of those barriers were quite tricky affairs to drive through in a big ambulance, and reminded me of a gymkhana! It was quite usual in those days to be stopped by a soldier waiting on the road, who, with a gallant bow and salute, asked your permission to "mount ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... am I? But I prefer the bright morning; moonlight's a tricky, elusive thing, apt to dazzle and mislead one. However, does Mrs. Chudleigh intend to remain long? ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... Lady Ashton may be supposed to possess to the celebrated Dame Margaret Ross, the reader must not suppose that there was any idea of tracing the portrait of the first Lord Viscount Stair in the tricky and mean-spirited Sir William Ashton. Lord Stair, whatever might be his moral qualities, was certainly one of the first statesmen ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... preachin' about business shrewdness and how it paid, and how mean and tricky in little deals we Rubes was, and yet we didn't appreciate how to manage big things, till I got kind of ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... after another of the boys fell victim to the pony's powers. Finally, when the little animal's triumph seemed complete, Grant stepped into the ring and sprang upon his back. A tremendous tussle for the mastery immediately ensued, but though he reared and shied and kicked, the tricky little beast was utterly unable to throw its fearless young rider, and amid the shouts of the audience the clown at last stopped the contest and ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... recognized by tricky habits, constant crying, and other unusual characteristics. It was customary to recover the true child in the following way: The changeling was placed upon an iron shovel over the fire, when it would go shrieking ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... face flushed, and tears sprang to her eyes. She stood looking sadly down upon the money for a moment, then, with a weary sigh, replaced it in her purse, together with the ticket, and left the shop without a word; while the tricky pawnbroker looked after her, a smile of cunning triumph wreathing his coarse lips, as he gleefully washed his hands, behind the counter, with "invisible soap in ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... came the beginning of the real fun, when Mary turned up at Brownberry after dark one night in a proper tantara, with her eyes rolling and her bosom heaving like the waves of the sea. She'd come over Dart, by the stepping stones—a tricky road for an old woman even by daylight, but a fair ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... took up his paper-knife and tapped it against the edge of the table with one of the tricky movements familiar to thoughtful men when they ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... time, and not fasten their craft to the shore in a shallow creek when the river was at a stand or falling; it takes experience to learn some of the tricky ways of these western rivers; but once understood the cruiser is not apt to be caught a second time. Maurice snatched up the second pole and threw his weight upon it, while Thad also strained himself to the utmost; they could feel the boat move ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... granted; and the valet mounts the dickey— That gentleman of lords and gentlemen; Also my lady's gentlewoman, tricky, Trick'd out, but modest more than poet's pen Can paint,—'Cosi viaggino i Ricchi!' (Excuse a foreign slipslop now and then, If but to show I 've travell'd; and what 's travel, Unless it teaches ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the papers were ready and the shares of stock divided between the principals, an injunction was served on Dad by a tricky company in New York which claimed prior rights to the patent. This has held up everything so that Dr. Evans is not sure whether he will ever realize anything out of his invention or not. Of course, we are fighting the legality of Ratzger ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... now, tell me why you invented all this tricky yarn, complicating it by bringing in the sham journey to ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... tricky old man," exclaimed the skipper, hotly; "the idea of going and leaving a boy on our hands like that. I'm surprised at ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... It was tricky work, too, and troublesome. At first the ground was good stiff clay that the spades bit out in clean mouthfuls, and that left a fair firm wall behind. But that streak ran out in the second day's working, and the mine burrowed ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... altogether clear on this point; but Shannon, seeing that he was later to prosecute Stener himself for this very crime of embezzlement, and that Steger would soon follow in cross-examination, was not willing to let him be hazy. Shannon wanted to fix Cowperwood in the minds of the jury as a clever, tricky person, and by degrees he certainly managed to indicate a very subtle-minded man. Occasionally, as one sharp point after another of Cowperwood's skill was brought out and made moderately clear, one juror or another turned to look at Cowperwood. And he noting this and in order to impress them ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... relative. John was only my half-brother, you know, and he lived but six months after he married her. She is clever enough and tricky enough to be ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... hand fell upon his arm and he followed its leading, blindly, to find himself pushed through a narrow doorway and down a flight of tricky, wooden steps, at the foot of which, silhouetted against a street light, a tall policeman was on guard. He laid masterful ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... wishes others to believe them: on the contrary, the speaker is mostly only anxious rather to be considered humble, and consequently virtuous, and seeks that his self-blame should redound to his honour. Self-dispraise in general is no more than a tricky kind of boasting. It reminds me of oarsmen who turn their backs on the very place which with all the strength of their arms ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... me away. I may not care to take the case when I hear it, so what's the use of letting everybody know who I am?" Then he switched round in his chair, rose, and held out his hand. "Mr. George Headland, of the Yard, Mr. Bawdrey. I don't trust Mr. Narkom's proverbially tricky memory for names. He introduced me as Jones once, and I lost the opportunity of handling the case because the party in question couldn't believe that anybody named Jones would be ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... The question whether it is ever politic for a playwright to keep a secret from his audience is discussed elsewhere. What I have here in mind is not an ordinary secret, but a more or less tricky ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... trivial questions, gentlemen, all those tricky questions!" cried Mitya enthusiastically. "Or there's simply no knowing where we ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... means your success, his failure, your failure. If you were in charge of a highly complicated machine, you would not allow it to be ruined by careless misuse. You may have married a healthy animal, but animals are tricky and uncertain. He is still your lover and he will do anything reasonable for you, if you "go about it in the right spirit and in the right way." Be sure you "go about it in the right way." Be tactful, be patient, don't ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... little difficult to manage, sir, at times. She left Charleroi willingly enough, but she's tricky, and it is our duty to deliver her to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... and essayed extenuation. "It was—er—unworthy of me, of course; foolish—pig-headed—tricky, I suppose. I got mad. I'd nothing to sell, and the declaration is a farce when they examine after it. So I left them to find what they chose. I'm terribly sorry, for you seem to hate it so. But it's an idiotic and impertinent ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... picking than stealing," said he. "Tricky picking too, Raffles, but innocent enough ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... arts of these modern Sinons; and between them, though without any fixed purpose of doing so, they impressed my youthful mind with a sincere aversion to the northern inhabitants of Britain, as a people bloodthirsty in time of war, treacherous during truce, interested, selfish, avaricious, and tricky in the business of peaceful life, and having few good qualities, unless there should be accounted such, a ferocity which resembled courage in martial affairs, and a sort of wily craft which supplied the place of wisdom in the ordinary commerce of mankind. In justification, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... for every mile, but also a heavy general fee for the whole journey. If he was found without his ticket of leave, he was at once arrested. But it was when he came to a bridge that the exactions grew insufferable. The regulations were somewhat tricky, for the Jew was specially taxed only on Sundays and the Festivals of the Church. But every other day was some Saint's Festival, and while, in Mannheim, even on those days the Christian traveller paid one kreuzer if he crossed the bridge on foot, and two if on horseback, the Jew ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... weeds and asked him just what tools he'd need. It was a simple question, predicating a simple answer. Yet he didn't seem able to reply to it. He scratched his close-clipped pate and said he'd have to look things over and study it out. Windmills were tricky things, one kind demanding this sort of treatment ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... me. They developed the stuff to fight off fungus on Venus, where one part in a billion did the trick. But it was tricky stuff; one part in ten-million would destroy the chlorophyll in plants in about twenty hours, or the hemoglobin in blood in about fifteen minutes. It was ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... wait a second. We got to be tricky about this." She was excited and tremendously in earnest. "If she gets to know I've been holding out the hat to you, we're wasting time. Give me the money, see? I'll make up a peach of a story about ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... account for the power and authority over certain minds exercised by this surprising production? I do not think it is exactly the wit in it. The wit is often entirely superficial—a mere tricky playing with light resemblances and wordy jingles. I do not feel as though it were the humour in it; for Byron is not really a humorist at all. I think it is something deeper than the mere juxtaposition of burlesque-show jests with Sunday-evening sentimentality. I think it is the downright ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... time he promised to be back again. The Lord High Chancellor, looking down with a displeased and dubious expression, replied that he must acknowledge that Kohlhaas' presence was more necessary just then than ever, as the court, on account of the prevaricating and tricky tactics of the opposition, required his statements and explanations at a thousand points that could not be foreseen. However, when Kohlhaas referred him to his lawyer, who was well informed concerning the lawsuit, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... best not to be. Rather tricky work, though, getting back. I've got to climb two garden walls, and I shall probably be so full of Malvoisie that you'll be able to hear it swishing about inside me. No catch steeple-chasing if you're like that. They've ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... "It's a very tricky and complicated affair indeed. However, I think we shall pull it off. Er—might I send ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... noticeable were the usual thickets of thorny, dry, and scraggy trees, seen even on the edge of the mesa. They are called guisachi, and in the vernacular of the common man the word has been utilised to designate a sharper. A man who "hooks on," as, for instance, a tricky lawyer, is called a guisachero. It is the counterpart of the "lawyer palm" among ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... about the stocky little fourteen-year-old chap, that we would often keep him longer with us, and treat him to a glass of anisette to hear his opinion of the writers whose work he handled. He was an amusing cross between a tricky little Paris gamin and a real child, and he hit off the characteristics of the various writers with as keen a touch of actuality as he could put into his stories of how many centimes he had won that morning at 'craps' from his ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... was not cheerful. When I got as far as Tuz I found a friend in charge of the dump there, and he let me draw what I wanted, so I turned back to try to get to the bridge by dark. One car after another got in trouble; first it was a puncture, then it was a tricky carburetor that refused to be put to rights; towing-ropes were called into requisition, but the best had been left behind, and those we had were rotted, and broke on every hill. Lastly a broken axle put one ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... misunderstood orders; the paperers have defalcated, and the universe generally comes to a pause. It is no matter in what faith I was nurtured, I am now a believer in total depravity. Contractors have no conscience; masons are not men of their word; carpenters are tricky; all manner of cunning workmen are bruised reeds. But there is nothing to do but submit and make the best of it,—a horrible kind of mechanism. We go forthwith into a chrysalis state for two weeks. The only sign of life is an occasional lurch towards the new ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... about quite serious things. In war, each country's soldiers are always the most courageous in the world. The other country's soldiers are always treacherous and tricky; that is why they sometimes win. Literature is ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... it, and he punched it out. One of those tricky special Company combinations. Kurt Borch ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... drawing a deep breath as the sound of wheels at last died away. "Everyone does want him now—and no mistake! That Sammyadd has done us again! Tricky brute! For any sake, let's ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... not stir a hair's-breadth to attack you,' I answered. 'Why should I, when I bear you no ill-will? If you come against me, however, I will assuredly beat you out of your saddle, for all your tricky sword play.' I drew my broadsword as I spoke, and stood upon my guard, for I guessed that with so old a soldier the onset would ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wrote, "who are so wise in the ways of those tricky things called nerves, must know that it was only a mild hysteria that made me say those most unladylike things. I have written Norah all about it. She has replied, advising me to stick to the good-fellow role but not to dress the part. So when next you see me I shall be a perfectly safe and ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... Martian alkaloids were tricky things, and bracky smoke contained a number of them. It would take Earth at least ten years to discover and synthesize the right one—and it would still probably cost more than it would to import the weed from Mars. As long as the source of that weed was here, ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... up eggs for breakfast, but here are other things," he mutters as he rummages in his market-basket. "That memory of mine is pretty tricky; sometimes I can't remember things any better than I can find them when they are right under my nose. I've just found a line from Emerson that I've been hunting for two days—'The worm striving ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... would take Grunty Pig to uproot the old apple tree? Although Jolly Robin thought and thought, he could think of no one whom he might ask. To be sure, there was Tommy Fox, who was known to be an able digger. But Jolly Robin didn't trust him. Tommy Fox was tricky. And there was Billy Woodchuck, who came from a famous family of burrowers. But everybody knew that old dog Spot had chased him into his hole that very afternoon, and was watching Billy's ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... provided an ideal golf-course, which prospers though the little town is somnolent. It is here that St. Ives visitors do most of their golfing, and the ground is described as "a natural seaside course, with charming views in all directions. The holes are rather short and tricky, and put a premium on local knowledge. Last, but not least, Lelant can boast a climate absolutely ideal for golf in winter." Lelant Church is interesting, but has lost its fine old bench-ends and screen. It is connected ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Wilberforce was there and had opportunity to observe his old and honored friend in the first flush of his new dignity. Here are his comments: "Gladstone, as ever, great, earnest, and honest; as unlike the tricky Disraeli as possible." To Dr. Trench the Bishop wrote: "The nation has decided against our establishment, and we bow to its decision, and on what tenure and conditions it is to be held, remains confessedly ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... One could hardly quote them all in an English Review. While dwelling on the system of bold misrepresentation adopted by Professor Whitney, Professor Steinthal calls him—"That vain man who only wants to be named and praised;" "that horrible humbug;" "that scolding flirt;" "that tricky attorney;" "wherever I read him, hollow vacuity yawns in my face; arrogant vanity grins at me." Surely, mere words can go no further—we must expect to hear of tomahawk and bowie-knife next. Scholars who object to the use of such weapons, whether for offensive ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... thing, he had learned just how far away one of these dreadful guns could be and still hurt the one it was pointed at, and to always keep just a little farther away. Also he had learned that a man or boy without a terrible gun is quite harmless, and he had learned that hunters with terrible guns are tricky and sometimes hide from those they seek to kill, so that in the dreadful hunting season it is best to look sharply before approaching ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... own opening, reasoning of course that as they had never heard of Stavlokratz they would not know of his opening; and with probably a very good hope of getting back his pound he played the fifth variation with its tricky seventh move, at least so he intended, but it turned to a variation unknown to the students ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... good, although tricky. In a case of aroused interest he could absorb an astonishing number of dates, or figures, or lines of poetry, at first glance or hearing. But he could also drop them as if he had never heard of them the moment his interest was gone. And they always seemed to drop out of ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... insisted, and as the old wolf was no great master of tricky argument, he was obliged ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... presently, reconsidering, he replied: "Well, you may go; but you must go on your ponies: it's too dangerous to go a-foot. And in any case, if the trail leads you up to the loose rocks or into the big timber you must stop. You know what a tricky beast Big Reuben is. If he sees that he is followed he will lie in hiding and jump out on you. That's how he caught Jed ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... have perfected a pigeon post. Even so, I cannot help thinking they would have been wiser to train the birds, while they were about it, to deliver the letters nearer the ground. Getting your letters out of those boxes must be tricky work even to the average ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... did take him to school with me once—what a tricky young rascal I must have been! He walked to the school-house door with me, and I forced him in—much against his will it was, but I always made him mind me. I seated him in the master's chair, and ordered him to stay there, while I went to my seat. Of course the boys all laughed, and ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... letters came, there was high wrath in Kostkov. The Lord John raved and swore. He blamed everybody, but most of all Stanislaus and the tricky Jesuits who, he said, were back of the whole scheme. He wrote to Cardinal Osius that he would not rest until he had broken up the Jesuit college in Pultowa and driven every schemer of them out of Poland. As for Stanislaus, ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... left Fensalir. In a few moments Loki appeared on the eastern side of Valhalla and plucked a bit of mistletoe from an old oak that shaded Woden's palace. No one saw him, for he was as sly as a fox and as tricky. Hiding the mistletoe in his hand, he hurried back to the circle of gods who were ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... swordsman—resourceful and extremely tricky. In fact, he seemed never to have heard that there existed such a thing as a code of honor, for he repeatedly outraged a dozen Barsoomian fighting customs that an honorable man would rather ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... caused by the sledge drivers who joined us late at night from Bakaritza with oats. Left at 8:40. Billeting party given an hour's start, travelling ahead of the point to get billets and dinner arranged. Marching hard. Cold sleet from southeast with drifting snow. The Shackelton boot tricky. Men find it hard to navigate. Road very hilly. Cross this inlet here. Down the long hill and up a winding hill to the crest again which overhangs the stream that soon empties into the big Dvina. To the left on the ice-locked beach are two scows. It is warmer now for the road winds between ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... discovered gas there, was one of the most trusting wealth-investing communities in the world. She had her simple rules of business conduct which years of usage had consecrated into all-powerful precedent, but her brokers and capitalists, however fearful of all things quick or tricky, had never previously figured as candidates for what in Western parlance are described ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... of course, Jack," he said, in his confident, convincing way. "But why should it? The danger is great, but nothing more than we're up against every day we set out for the clouds to give battle to a tricky Hun ace, who may send us down to our death. And I assure you we'd have at least a fighting chance to get across. What do you ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... bound fur de buryin'-groun', but how come you got separated frum the hearse?' Purfessor, that mare's entitled Christian name is Mittie May. Did you ever hear of ary thing on fo' laigs, ur two, w'ich answered to the name of Mittie May that wuz tricky?" ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... pride; despise him, and at once his audacity gives way; he speaks; shrug your shoulders and he is silent. You must not discuss with him; however good a reasoner you may be, you will be worsted, for he is a most tricky dialectician." ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... at Gulmarg is very good, the 18-hole course being exceedingly sporting, and tricky enough to defeat the very elect. Jane and I had conveyed our clubs out to Kashmir, knowing that they were likely to prove useful. I had also taken the precaution to pack up a box or two of balls, but I found my labour all ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... already told tales that promised this last thing should come to pass; how he was become fat-souled, grasping, and tricky, using his sacred office to enlarge his wealth, seizing the canons with their precious growths of wood, the life-giving waterways, and the herding-grounds; taking even from the tithing, of which he rendered ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... was of course forbidden me on account of that cursed system of caste which prevails from Peshawur to Rangoon and from Cashmere and Thibet to Cape Cormorin and Ceylon. The road was macadamized and shaded by rows of immense trees. The tricky and balky horses (Mongol ponies) delayed us considerably, but it was very amusing to see the methods employed to coax or coerce them. A groom held in his hand a piece of bamboo about two feet in length, at the extremity of which was fastened a strong looped horsehair cord, which was twisted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... is not difficult to see why Marcius is considered to have been a simple-minded and straightforward character, while Alkibiades has the reputation of a false and tricky politician. The latter has been especially blamed for the manner in which he deceived and outwitted the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, by which, as we learn from Thucydides, he brought the truce between the two nations to ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... tried to be very kind indeed to him, and when he faltered that she could not possibly care for him, she reassured him so vaguely as to fill him with wild gusts of hope and herself with a sense of pledges. He told her one day between two sets of tennis—which he played with a certain tricky skill—that he felt that the very highest happiness he could ever attain would be to die at her feet. Presently her pity and her sense of responsibility had become so large and deep that the dream hero with the blue eyes was largely overlaid and ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... regular frog-raising business couldn't go about it as slow as that," said the other, "though I have shot a few o' the big uns that way, 'cause they was too tricky to be grabbed with my hand net. If you stay with me a spell we'll get more'n one mess o' frog legs, if ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... your bedroom, for instance, where it will entertain your sleepless hours, if you are unfortunate enough to have any. You will probably like very indifferent drawings at first, the pretty, the picturesque and the tricky will possibly attract before the sublimity of finer things. But be quite honest and feed on the best that you genuinely like, and when you have thoroughly digested and comprehended that, you will weary of it and long for something better, and so, gradually, ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... laughed over this. The idea of Bland biting his tongue tickled him and served to blur his antagonism for the tricky aviator who had played so large a part in his salvaging ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... and boys "showed off" in their canoes in the shallow water under the bank, and in their bathing suits. They showed the more or less anxious parents just how skillful they were in the management of the tricky craft. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... on brothers. They are too tricky. But how about Hal Crane? He is always interested in our troop doings, and besides he's a good scout himself. I think I would ask him," ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... in his hands. He righted the rocket, balanced it. Began the tricky task of landing. It took all of his talent, all of his training. Ponderously, the ship settled into the iron sand; slowly, the ...
— The Hills of Home • Alfred Coppel
... news that influential persons opposed to Pierre Lanier had conspired to procure his arrest along with that of William Dodge. To outwit these enemies both of the Laniers and her husband must disappear. Their tricky foes would watch the mails and harass the Dodge family. For the present all writing must cease, and the Dodge family move. This removal must be prompt, and nothing was to be said about it. She did as advised. Her surprise was great at being conveyed in a roundabout way for ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... in the flitter seldom spoke. Raf kept his attention on the controls. Sudden currents of air were tricky here, and he had to be constantly alert to hold the small flyer on an even keel. His glimpses of what lay ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... be a very tricky thing for the superstitious. At dinner a night or two ago I happened to say that I had never been in danger of drowning. I am not sure now that it was true, but I still think that it was harmless. However, before I had time to elaborate my theme (whatever ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... this: I am longing for a real church home, where I can feel at one with, and in fellowship with real Christians. Pastor Jones, there are so many professing Christians who are Christians only in name. I cannot fellowship them. They engage in questionable practices; they are dishonest and tricky; they use bad language; and their bent is more toward pleasure than religion. My soul really craves a church home. Can you offer me such where I shall have ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... spark running through a length of fuse, the length depending altogether upon the time required to reach a point of safety after the fuse is lighted. The cap is really more dangerous to handle than is the dynamite itself. The cap is a tricky thing that may go off at any jar or scratch or at a spark from pipe or cigarette. You can, if you are sufficiently careless of possible results, light the twisted paper end of a stick of dynamite and watch the ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... jealous bridegroom. Merry Melodious MOZART! Old-fashioned he may be, like not a few of the best melodies and the best stories. Elegant Countess is Madame EMMA EAMES. Can she possibly ever have been Rosina, Dr. Bartolo's tricky ward! What a change matrimony makes in some folks! Old Dr. Bartolo bears not much resemblance to the other Dr. Bartolo, and Don Basilio, a kind of Ecclesiastical lawyer, is quite a rollicking wag as compared with the Basilio of the Barber of Seville. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... May spew deep discord when we least expect. I have it! well 'tis known that Wisdom's bird, While winging daily flight, hath hovered o'er Our foes politic, and hath often shunned To make her nest in Democratic boughs. 'Twere well to seek from out the tricky foe One who shall balance, like the flying wheel, The various acts of Francos and his crew And so most shrewdly curb the critic tongues That wag within the jaws of foes most keen, Thus hiding well, from all the thoughtless world. The deep intent which labors in our breast. ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... Rambouillet's men to the stable where the deaf man's bay was standing, bidding him pay whatever was due to the dealer, and bring the horse to the south gate; my intention being to mount one of my men on it, and furnish the woman with a less tricky steed. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... another time, and not fasten their craft to the shore in a shallow creek when the river was at a stand or falling; it takes experience to learn some of the tricky ways of these western rivers; but once understood the cruiser is not apt to be caught a second time. Maurice snatched up the second pole and threw his weight upon it, while Thad also strained himself to the utmost; they could feel the boat move ever so little, but it ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... Mr. Vesey, the good old vicar, his invalid wife, and a pair of excitable Yorkshire terriers, Splutters and Shutters, thus curiously named for the sake of rhyme, it is to be presumed. They were brothers, and as tricky a pair as one could meet, ever up to their eyes in mischief from morning until night. Indeed, Splutters and Shutters kept what would have been a still, staid household in nearly as great a ferment as did the captain's crew the Bunk across ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... men, I say, who with uncommon zeal Seek their own fortunes on the road to heaven; Who, skilled in prayer, have always much to ask, And live at court to preach retirement; Who reconcile religion with their vices, Are quick to anger, vengeful, faithless, tricky, And, to destroy a man, will have the boldness To call their private grudge the cause of heaven; All the more dangerous, since in their anger They use against us weapons men revere, And since they make the world applaud their passion, And seek to stab ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... minutes the Grand Duke Vodkakoff had been engaged, subject to his approval, at a weekly four hundred and fifty by the Stone-Rafferty circuit. And in a quarter of an hour Solly Quhayne, having pushed his way through a mixed crowd of Tricky Serios and Versatile Comedians and Patterers who had been waiting to see him for the last hour and a half, was bowling off in a taximeter-cab to the Russian ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... she might have left one for him before going away. He saw nothing addressed to himself, but on the ground, where it had evidently dropped, was an open note. Joe could not help reading it at a glance. To his surprise it was signed by Sanford, the tricky law clerk. ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... long spell of plucky cricket, a stand not masterly but dogged and judicious, in which many a ball outside the off-stump was allowed to pass unmolested, and a few were unfortunate in just beating the edge of the bat. On the tricky wicket Teddy's work was cut out for him, and beautifully he did it. It was a treat to see his lithe form crouching behind the bails, to rise next instant with the rising ball; his great gloves were always in the right place, always adhesive. Once only he held them up prematurely, and ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... our intention to pass the Dover Straits before dawn. Though our intelligence bureau issues the most alarming reports as to the frightfulness of the defences here I was agreeably surprised at the ease with which we passed. Von Weissman, to whom I had hinted that we might find the passage tricky, rather laughed at my suggestion, and described to me his method, which, at all events, has ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... very tricky thing," answered Holmes thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... seed, an' that you looked like a born gentleman, an' one thing anuther. I couldn't heer all that passed betwixt 'em, but he wus as nigh a' explosion as I ever seed 'im git without goin' off. You'd better look out. He won't do to meddle with. He's a bad egg—an' tricky." ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... of place for a tricky old French woman to make a fortune in," he said to himself: "these people are simple enough to believe any thing;" and Dr. Eben went to his room, and tossed the lavender blossoms down on ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... all the two-year-olds" in that first lesson, spent all evening handling them, and the Quarters looked on as he tested their tempers, for although most proved willing, yet a few were tricky or obstinate. All evening he sat, poring over the tiny Primer, amid a buzzing swarm of mosquitoes, with the doggedness all gone from his face, and in its place the light of a fair fight, and, to no one's surprise, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Church Leap," he replied. "I've got too much respect for my bones. It's awfully tricky; I've gone down from below it. You don't get such ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... special matter of the problems which he sent to Tartaglia by the bookseller Juan Antonio, Cardan made a beginning of that tricky and crooked course which he followed too persistently all through this particular business. In his letter he maintains with a show of indignation that he had long known these questions, had known them ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... prosecutor took up his paper-knife and tapped it against the edge of the table with one of the tricky movements familiar to thoughtful men when they give themselves ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... "Hard, grasping, tricky, men call me that to my face—sometimes. Well—Why not? Does it make any difference? Did it make any difference with you? If I had thought it would— But it didn't. Lies, trickery, words! They served with you. They ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... guess not, strannger, as how should they—a mean, tricky, catchpenny, skulking set—that makes money out of everybody, and hain't the spirit to spend it! I do hate them, now, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... tin of English "Brasso" from a pocket-flap, and began to rub a lamp. At the far, far end of the long shed four men were standing with their backs to her, round a car. The globed lamp was tricky, and the chamois-leather would slip and let her bark her knuckle on the bracket. But the glow, born in the brass, grew clearer and clearer, till suddenly, stooping to it, she looked into a mirror and saw all the garage behind her and the long rows of ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... produced: that is through the imaginary process known as maternal impression, prenatal influence, etc. Belief in maternal impressions is no novelty. In the book of Genesis[24] Jacob is described as making use of it to get the better of his tricky father-in-law. Some animal breeders still profess faith in it as a part of their methods of breeding: if they want a black calf, for instance, they will keep a white cow in a black stall, and express perfect confidence that her offspring will resemble ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... and the one next with the green tiles belongs to Hanly, the tobacco trust fellow, you know, and this whopper on the next square is where Albertson lives. He made his pile out of railroad stocks—he's one of the banking firm of Albertson, Jacobstein, Moss & Company. Awfully clever fellows, but too tricky for me, I give them a wide berth when I go out to ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... boys fell victim to the pony's powers. Finally, when the little animal's triumph seemed complete, Grant stepped into the ring and sprang upon his back. A tremendous tussle for the mastery immediately ensued, but though he reared and shied and kicked, the tricky little beast was utterly unable to throw its fearless young rider, and amid the shouts of the audience the clown at last stopped the contest and ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... scraggy trees, seen even on the edge of the mesa. They are called guisachi, and in the vernacular of the common man the word has been utilised to designate a sharper. A man who "hooks on," as, for instance, a tricky lawyer, is called a guisachero. It is the counterpart of the "lawyer palm" among the shrubs of ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... success, his failure, your failure. If you were in charge of a highly complicated machine, you would not allow it to be ruined by careless misuse. You may have married a healthy animal, but animals are tricky and uncertain. He is still your lover and he will do anything reasonable for you, if you "go about it in the right spirit and in the right way." Be sure you "go about it in the right way." Be tactful, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... he discovered, of vacuum-suits, and they were tricky to get into and felt horrible when one was in. Struggling, Cochrane thought ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... carefully and slowly you send the answering message at the enemy's head. If you have great luck a faint groan or a distant shout of pain may reward your efforts; but you can never be quite sure whether you have got home on your rival or not. Loophole shooting is very tricky, and the very best shots fire by the hour in vain. I have seen ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... a man, "Is he active and capable?" Yes. "Industrious, temperate, and regular in his habits?" O Yes. "Is he honest? is he trustworthy?" Why, as to that, I am sorry to say that he is not to be trusted; he wants watching; he is a little tricky, and will take an undue ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... should have a theoretical and practical knowledge of the structure and workings of the mechanism employed. Many tendencies of the present day work against successful voice-training—worst of all, perhaps, the spirit of haste, the desire to reach ends by short cuts, the aim to substitute tricky for straightforward vocalization, and much more which I shall refer to again and again. They hurt this cause; and I am deeply impressed with the conviction that, if we are to attain the best results in singing and speaking, we must betake ourselves in practice to the methods ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... ye whipped, and unless ye change your manners I will have ye up before their next sitting. Meantime, saddle Joggles as soon as supper is done, and take this paper over to Brunswick, and post it on the proclamation board of the Town Hall. And no tarrying, and consulting of tricky lawyers, understand. If ye are not back by nine, ye shall hear ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... have acted, in a degree, the part of a demagogue. Yet he is not to be classed with those tricky and dishonest men, so common in our times, who play upon popular prejudices which they do not share, in the expectation of being elevated to honors and office. Mather's position, convictions, and temperament alike called him to serve on this occasion as the organ, exponent, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... firmly, "these tricky ways do not suit me. Monsieur Arbillot proposed yesterday that I should do what you advise. He even offered to inform this gentleman of my relationship to Claude de Buxieres. I refused, and forbade the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... negotiable. I think that by dint of patience and tactful management, many refusers may be taught to repose sufficient confidence in their riders to make an effort when required, but that can be done only by gentle means and easy tasks. Old tricky offenders cannot be cured of this or any other vice. A lady who is hunting on a doubtful jumper should be careful not to upset other horses by letting her refuser perform in front of them, but should show consideration ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... rest for his overworked brain. But there was one among his episcopal duties which wearied him to disgust. Every day he had to listen to parties in dispute and give judgment. Following recent Imperial legislation, the bishop became judge in civil cases—a tiresome and endless work in a country where tricky quibbling raged with obstinate fury. The litigants pursued Augustin, overran his house, like those fellahs in dirty burnous who block our law-courts with their rags. In the secretarium of the basilica, or under the portico of the court leading to ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... course, knew quite well that such matters did not settle themselves, but he seems to have imagined that all he had to do was to sit tight and that matters would have to come his way. The tricky and shuffling behavior to which he descended would be unbelievable of a man of his standing were there not an authentic record made by himself. The suspense finally became so intolerable that the Cabinet acted ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... and tricky god was Loki, always on the look-out to play some wicked prank which was sure to bring trouble upon himself or others. It was, indeed, a wonder that the other Asas put up with him so long in Asgard; but then, you ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... intensified by civilisation, and the antagonism between them increased. City life tends to produce Jacobs, and its Esaus escape from it as soon as they can. But Jacob had the vices as well as the virtues of his qualities. He was orderly and domestic, but he was tricky, and keenly alive to his own interest. He was persevering and almost dogged in his tenacity of purpose, but he was not above taking mean advantages and getting at his ends by miry roads. He had little love for his brother, in whom he saw an obstacle to his ambition. He had the virtues and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... Atlantic. "'Tis early days yet, hows'ever—time enough, my sons—plenty time!" promised Un' Benny Rowett, patriarch of the fishing-fleet and local preacher on Sundays. Some of the younger men grumbled that "there was no tellin': the season had been tricky from the start." The spider-crabs—that are the curse of inshore trammels—had lingered for a good three weeks past the date when by all rights they were due to sheer off. Then a host of spur-dogs had invaded the whiting-grounds, preying so gluttonously on the hooked fish ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... difficult to manage, sir, at times. She left Charleroi willingly enough, but she's tricky, and it is our duty to deliver her to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... "They say that Terry's been practicing with a pair of French pistols during the past two months and hopes to use them at the meeting. Old 'Natchez,' the gunsmith, tells me one's a tricky weapon ... discharges now and then before ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... longer suspected the loyalty of my old comrade. The angry expression was assumed; but the counterfeit had a design, far different from that which I had attributed to it. It was Sure-shot himself—still tricky as true. ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... you have obviously landed in another time-track. One that is parallel to—but just a slight bit different from the one you formerly knew. To you, we seem to be the same officers as in that world; but of course, we're not. It isn't the same universe. Hyperspace is tricky stuff, as our men are finding out. You've just got bounced around by one of the trickiest things ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... than that other greater one; for on top of an open ridge, a short distance west of us, we saw a solitary horse, tethered, and feeding composedly, as if he had nothing to fear out here amongst the hills. Part of us keep our eyes upon him, lest his tricky owner should get the alarm and remove him; whilst others plunge into the coppice which fills the intervening hollow, and soon reappear on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... sure, though. We can only guess where Jack is concerned. He goes his own way always, tricky and furtive and lonelier than any other human being I have ever known. It is loneliness that looks out of his eyes, really, even when he is mocking and sneering," the ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... not yet. That would be so much worse. I have to be so tricky to save Royal, and if she suspected me I would lose everything. Not that I care for her old hundred dollars now. I wouldn't even take ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... feeling very peaceful with the world, watching the fire. Whatever Farnsworth would have to show to-night would be far more entertaining than watching T.V.—my custom on other evenings. Farnsworth, with his four labs in the house and his very tricky mind, never failed to provide my ...
— The Big Bounce • Walter S. Tevis
... a chip of the old block all right." Gertrude remembered with a twinge of apprehension what McAlister had said about her father's "pile." "But you must be prepared for war—underhanded, tricky, politicians' ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... was dead, he had left two sons behind him, every whit as cunning and tricky as their father. The elder of the two was a fine handsome creature, who had a pleasant manner and made many friends. The animal he saw most of was a hyena; and one day, when they were taking a walk together, they picked up a beautiful green cloak, which had evidently been dropped by some one riding ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... what sort of a prize or blank answer he may draw. What the gypsy meant effectively was, "How do you account to the Gorgios for knowing so much about us, and talking with us? Our life is as different from yours as possible, and you never acquired such a knowledge of all our tricky ways as you have just shown without much experience of us and a double life. You are related to us in some way, and you deceive the Gorgios about it. What is your little game of life, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... Burris. I got too much of paper in that Con-o-way. Court House. Got more paper in there than the house worth! Have to step to Con-o-way all the time. Struggle and starve myself out for these fifteen acres. Thirty miles to Con-o-way. Thirty miles back by the course I travels. All them tricky mens try to go and get old Ben's land sign to 'em. That's the mainest thing take me to Con-o-way every week. They all talk so sugar mouth till my name down; then when my name write is another thing. When I in too much trouble, I just has to step up to Con-o-way and see Mr. Burris. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... wiped her eyes, was a pot-pourri of sentiments. "Humph! Can't say I like the idea much, kind of too tricky." ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... only knowledge and skill; 'craft,' indeed, still retains very often its more honourable use, a man's 'craft' being his skill, and then the trade in which he is skilled. 'Artful' was skilful, and not tricky as now. [Footnote: Not otherwise 'leichtsinnig' in German meant cheerful once; it is frivolous now; while in French a 'rapporteur' is now a bringer back of malicious reports, the malicious having little by little found its way ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... to trust the Algerian girls," observed Captain Barbassou sententiously! "They're as tricky as your ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... as they had been the only sailors in the world who could handle large ships, all other nations had been in need of their services. As soon as the others too had learned how to handle a rudder and a set of sails, they at once got rid of the tricky Phoenician merchant. ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... moved towards the starting-post, he reflected calmly on the means he would employ for winning, and considered his three rivals critically, calculating the strength and science of each of them. Paolo Caligaro was a tricky devil, as thoroughly versed in all the knavery of the stable as any jockey; but Carbonilla, although fast, had little staying power. The Duke di Beffi, a rider of the 'haute ecole' style, who had come off victorious in more than one race in England, was mounted on ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... head upon which the brown hair curled slightly. The eyes were turned away, but the Secretary knew they were blue and that there was something in the face which appealed to strong men for protection. He shook his head slowly. The tricky little god was making sport of him, James Sefton, the invincible, and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the time of the Zulu war. Great hardship we got in it and plenty of starvation. It was the Dutch called in the English to help them against the Zulus, that were tricky rogues, and would do no work but to be driving the cattle off the fields. A pound of raw flour we would be given out at seven o'clock in the morning, and some would try to make a cake, and some would ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory
... who are in many matters ahead of us, have perfected a pigeon post. Even so, I cannot help thinking they would have been wiser to train the birds, while they were about it, to deliver the letters nearer the ground. Getting your letters out of those boxes must be tricky work even ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... of this wonderful horse, for I learned to love him as one loves a friend who has endured the "ordeal by fire" and has not been found wanting. My wife's chestnut stallion was a trifle smaller than Kublai Khan and proved to be a tricky beast whom I could have shot with pleasure. To this day she carries the marks of both his teeth and hoofs, and we have no interest in his future life. Kublai Khan has received the reward of a sunlit stable in Peking where carrots are in abundance ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... did make some demands upon her attention. It had a disconcerting way of changing from sharps to flats; trouble being caused by the singer failing to change also. Cecilia took her through it patiently, going over and over again the tricky passages, and devoutly wishing that Providence in supplying her stepmother with boundless energy, a tireless voice and an enormous stock of songs, had also equipped her with an ear for music. At length the lady ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... and Lady Salisbury, at Hatfield. Bishop Wilberforce was there and had opportunity to observe his old and honored friend in the first flush of his new dignity. Here are his comments: "Gladstone, as ever, great, earnest, and honest; as unlike the tricky Disraeli as possible." To Dr. Trench the Bishop wrote: "The nation has decided against our establishment, and we bow to its decision, and on what tenure and conditions it is to be held, remains confessedly ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... work "Die kuenstliche Beschraenkung der Kinderzahl" (The Artificial Limitation of Progeny)[235] claims that Socialism is playing a tricky manoeuvre by its opposition to Malthusianism: a rapid increase of population promotes mass proletarianization, and this, in turn, promotes discontent: if over-population is successfully checked, the spread ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... and she will soon be herself." He said this so naturally that Dave was thrown a little off his guard. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Dunn was not at home, having gone away to visit a sister in Albany. It was because of her absence that the tricky doctor had invited Dave to come to the house. Had she been at home his schemes would have ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... having begun to speak too impulsively; and she was disturbed, realizing in what tricky stuff she dealt. What had been on her lips to say was, "Because it's happened before!" She changed to, "Because it's so easy to spoil anything—easiest of all to ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... are so wise in the ways of those tricky things called nerves, must know that it was only a mild hysteria that made me say those most unladylike things. I have written Norah all about it. She has replied, advising me to stick to the good-fellow role but not to dress ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... is such a lot I want to say that I don't know where to begin. Perhaps you'll think it queer I should write instead of telling you, but I have found it hard to talk to you, hard to say what I mean in any clear sort of way. Speech is a tricky thing when half of one's mind is dwelling on the person one is trying to talk to and only the other half alive to what one is trying to express. The last time we were together it was hard for me to talk. I knew what I was going to do, and I didn't like to tell ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... into action, they was needed very sore, To learn a little schoolin' to a native army corps, They 'ad nipped against an uphill, they was tuckin' down the brow, When a tricky, trundlin' roundshot ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... has performed this feat for about the tenth time, he concludes that it was madness for him, a mere raw amateur at the business, to think that he could manage a complicated, tricky bed of this sort, that must take even an experienced man all he knows to sleep in it; and gets out ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... elapse. He knew it was well over an hour later when he unlimbered the torch to cut an escape-hole in the barrel. This, he knew, would be tricky. He could easily burn himself. The heat would ...
— The Stowaway • Alvin Heiner
... lively Peace-Negotiation, which is of more concernment to us than any Battle. "Congress at Augsburg" split upon formalities, preliminaries, and never even tried to meet: but France and England are actually busy. Each Country has sent its Envoy: the Sieur de Bussy, a tricky gentleman, known here of old, is Choiseul's, whom Pitt is on his guard against; "Mr. Hans Stanley," a lively, clear-sighted person, of whom I could never hear elsewhere, is Pitt's at Paris: and it is in that City between Choiseul and Stanley, with Pitt warily and loftily ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the bettor as Shanklin started to sweep the money away with one hand and gather in his tricky dice with the other. For Hun never left those dice any longer on ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... but spirited horses; droves of small donkeys, their masters perched on their cruppers, almost on their tails, their legs almost touching the ground, ready to be used in case the tricky animal falls or jibs, or even indulges, as it often does, in a roll in the dust of the road. In the East the ass is neither contemned nor considered ridiculous as it is in France; it has preserved its Homeric and biblical nobility, and every one bestrides it without hesitation, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... the dustman might delve; the Employers' Liability Act is a tricky business and I am only insured against my own death—which always seems ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... orders; the paperers have defalcated, and the universe generally comes to a pause. It is no matter in what faith I was nurtured, I am now a believer in total depravity. Contractors have no conscience; masons are not men of their word; carpenters are tricky; all manner of cunning workmen are bruised reeds. But there is nothing to do but submit and make the best of it,—a horrible kind of mechanism. We go forthwith into a chrysalis state for two weeks. The only sign of life is an occasional lurch towards the new house, just sufficient ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "Egad, then," said he, "I shall want to be there to see. In spite of his pudding-bag shape he handles the sword as well as any man in England. I have crossed with him at Angelo's. And he has a devilish tricky record, Richard." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... despise him, and at once his audacity gives way; he speaks; shrug your shoulders and he is silent. You must not discuss with him; however good a reasoner you may be, you will be worsted, for he is a most tricky dialectician." ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... I like to hear you talk," approved Elfreda. "I don't mean the 'wise and superwise Elfreda' part. I'm not so conceited, I hope. But it is high time you let that Kathleen West meander along to suit her own tricky little self. She hasn't an iota of Overton spirit nor a shred of conscience, and instead of appreciating your kind offices she is far more likely to repay you by dragging you into something unpleasant. I could see by Miriam's expression when you told ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... behaved in this matter much in the style of a tricky Van Buren politician, making a great bluster of words, and privately intending to do nothing. He was running for Congress at the time on the Van Buren ticket, and it is quite likely that the expenses of the campaign had exhausted his funds. That he should never ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... to England, and led a rather shady life; and I believe was finally killed while fighting in Algiers. He was a curious compound. If he had only been a man of honour, he would have become a great man. But his tricky, unscrupulous nature was ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... thoughts are of a high nature, you become connected with people of the same mental caliber and you are able to help yourself. If your thoughts are tricky, you will bring tricky people to deal with you, who will try ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... without a word from outside for the girl whose nerves were fraying with the suspense. The old woman and the little girl had served them with a meal which would have been judged delicious in any European hotel and though Arlee's nerves were tricky her young appetite was not and she ate and talked with a determined little air of trying to dissipate ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... he knew cattle, horses, rattlesnakes and storms—by having them mixed in with his everyday life. He couldn't tell you where or when he had learned that Indians are tricky. Perhaps his first ideas on that subject were gleaned from the friendly tribes who lived along the Chisolm Trail and used to visit the chuck-wagon, their blankets held close around them and their eyes ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... high carnival. There was a big chair on each side the hearth, and between them a tiny red rocker with flowers painted on the arms of it. That was the clearest of all. There were persons in the large chairs, one a silent Scotchman who, instinct told him, must have been his father, and the other—oh, tricky memory that faltered when he wanted it to be so clear!—was the maddest, merriest little mother that ever came back to haunt a lad. By holding tight to the memory he could see that her eyes were blue ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... he did. I really feel hurt, now, to think he might be as tricky as that other dealer," ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Mrs. Ferry, and the fostering encouragement of the congregation, the school was in great repute, and it was pleasant to observe the effect of mental and religious culture in subduing the mischievous, tricky propensities of the half-breed, and rousing the stolid apathy ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... idea, or he'd been more careful what he said. All criminals are reckless in little ways; that's how they betray themselves and give us a chance to catch them. However, I haven't caught this fellow yet, and he's tricky enough to give me a long chase unless I act boldly and get my evidence before he suspects I'm on his trail. That must be my programme—to act quickly and ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... and keeping an eye on Ulysses, who had now got the bow in his hands, and was turning it every way about, and proving it all over to see whether the worms had been eating into its two horns during his absence. Then would one turn towards his neighbour saying, "This is some tricky old bow-fancier; either he has got one like it at home, or he wants to make one, in such workmanlike style does the ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... Gulmarg is very good, the 18-hole course being exceedingly sporting, and tricky enough to defeat the very elect. Jane and I had conveyed our clubs out to Kashmir, knowing that they were likely to prove useful. I had also taken the precaution to pack up a box or two of balls, but I found my labour all in vain, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... opportunity, and Keith crept forward, alert and ready, his teeth clenched, his hands bare for contest. Even although he surprised his antagonist, it was going to be a fight for life; he knew "Black Bart," broad-shouldered, quick as a cat, accustomed to every form of physical exercise, desperate and tricky, using either knife or gun recklessly. Yet it was now or never for all of them, and the plainsman felt no mercy, experienced no reluctance. He reached the table, and straightened up, silent, expectant. For an instant there was no further sound; no evidence of movement ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... be smoked like a ham, fer all these tricky bordermen," roared Legget. Drawing his knife he hacked at the heavy buckskin hinges of the rude door. When it dropped free he measured it against the open space. Sheathing the blade, he grasped his ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... obvious void, and which break off abruptly at the third chapter, owing to the premature decease of the said periodicals. On this occasion Marriott cut in with a few sage remarks on the subject of uncles as a class. 'Uncles,' he said, 'are tricky. You never know where you've got 'em. You think they're going to come out strong with a sovereign, and they make it a shilling without a blush. An uncle of mine once gave me a threepenny bit. If it hadn't been that I didn't wish to hurt his feelings, I ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... defined as a legal knave, a lawyer who practises in an unprofessional or tricky manner. Kahn was all that—and still more. If he had been less successful, he would have been the black sheep of the overcrowded legal flock. Ideals he had none. His claws reached out to grab the pittance of the poverty-stricken client as well as the fee of the ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... and of disgorging them one by one by simple contractions of the stomach. From time to time individuals are seen who possess the power of swallowing pebbles, knives, bits of broken glass, etc., and, in fact, there have been recent tricky exhibitionists who claimed to be able to swallow poisons, in large quantities, with impunity. Henrion, called "Casaandra," a celebrated example of this class, was born at Metz in 1761. Early in life he taught himself to swallow pebbles, sometimes ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... same time cautioning him to guard the closest secrecy. Two days afterward the letters arrived, and I directed my protege to spread the news as much as possible, to tell all the warders he saw and to show them his letters. We had at that time in the prison a wideawake but tricky fellow named George Smith. He had been clerk to an important firm of auctioneers in London, and had been sentenced by probably the most savage judge on the bench, Commissioner Ker, to fourteen years' imprisonment for receiving a quantity of stolen silverware, which he had his ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot, "and send up the sergeant when I ring: he shall look after this tricky Englishman whilst we are at ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... of a fisherman, as Toby well understood. Indeed, he knew more about the habits of the tricky bass than any of the boys in Chester; for as a rule they had been content simply to angle with a worm, and take "pot-luck," while Jack had read up on the subject, and even done more or less fancy fly fishing ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... thus, reproachful, spoke: "O son of Peteus, Heav'n-descended King! And thou too, master of all tricky arts, Why, ling'ring, stand ye thus aloof, and wait For others coming? ye should be the first The hot assault of battle to confront; For ye are first my summons to receive, Whene'er the honour'd banquet we prepare: And well ye like to eat ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... casual person who would take it. Was there coal, was there petroleum or gold, was there rich soil or harborage, or the site for a fine city, these obsessed and witless Governments cried out for scramblers, and a stream of shabby, tricky, and violent adventurers set out to found a new section of the landed aristocracy of the world. After a brief century of hope and pride, the great republic of the United States of America, the hope as it was deemed of mankind, became for the most part a drifting ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... fuse, the length depending altogether upon the time required to reach a point of safety after the fuse is lighted. The cap is really more dangerous to handle than is the dynamite itself. The cap is a tricky thing that may go off at any jar or scratch or at a spark from pipe or cigarette. You can, if you are sufficiently careless of possible results, light the twisted paper end of a stick of dynamite and watch the dynamite burn like wax in your fingers; ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... this to be done. A negro would become, in character much like the family who owned him, i.e., an honest, moral and kindly master would have slaves of like qualities, while a cruel, dishonest master would usually affect his slaves so that they would be tricky ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... his ax. Hazel had seen the type in use among the coast Siwashes, twenty-five feet in length, narrow-beamed, the sides cut to a half inch in thickness, the bottom left heavier to withstand scraping over rock, and to keep it on an even keel. A rude and tricky craft, but one wholly efficient ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the wallet, and decided against it. The motions required would be a little tricky, and he wasn't sure he could manage them without letting go of the post entirely. At last he decided to let the cop get his wallet. "Inside coat ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... bride answered: "I don't know about that; but the Japanese must be awfully tricky, for Pinkey says so and the captain of the ship, who hates every inhabitant of the Empire, said the banks had ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... rascals as well as I do, Frank, you'll understand that they often do just what everybody never dreams they'd be silly enough to try. That's the tricky part of the game, you see. Ordinarily that woods is the last place we'd think of looking for Jules. It ought to have an evil name for him, and make him shun it. You see, that's the way we'd just naturally dope ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... English minister, Lord Castlereagh, finally persuaded the Austrians, Prussians, and Russians, to allow the French diplomat, Talleyrand, to take part in their final meetings. Now Talleyrand was probably the most slippery and tricky diplomat of all Europe. He had grown to power during the troublous days of the latter part of the French Revolution, and had guessed which party would remain in power so skillfully that he always appeared as the strong friend of the winning side. Although he had served ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... his business, filled up with gas and oil, loaded on an extra can of each, strapped his box of dynamite upon the seat beside him where he could keep an eye on it—just as if that would do any good if the tricky stuff meant to blow up!—and started back at three in the afternoon. He would be half the night getting to camp, even though he was Casey Ryan and drove a mean Ford. But he would be there, ready to start work at sunrise. A man who is going to marry a widow with two ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... means he is a rebel born, hating constraint and believing with Stendhal that one's first enemies are one's own parents. No doubt, after bitter experience, Wedekind discovered that his bitterest foe was himself. That he is a tricky, Puck-like nature is evident. He loves to shock, a trait common to all romanticists from Gautier down. He sometimes says things he doesn't mean. He contradicts himself as do most men of genius, and, despite his poetic temperament, there is in him much of the lay preacher. I have ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... swift fingers of the girl flashed back and forth, both men watched, not too obviously, the profile shadowed by the dark, abundant, shining hair. The picture of her was an intimate one, but Tom's tricky imagination tormented him with one of still nearer personal association. He saw her in his own house, before his own fireside, a baby clinging to her skirt. Then, resolutely, he put the mental etching behind him. She loved his friend Beresford, ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... to understand Sisters; they are so strange, so tricky, uncertain as collies. Deep down they have an ineradicable axiom: that any visitor, any one in an old musquash coat, in a high-boned collar, in a spotted veil tied up at the sides, any one with whom one shakes hands or takes tea, is more important than the most ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... more sublime; but Niagara is constant, and therefore its immense strength has been easily set to a task. The Mississippi is so irregular that one tends unconsciously to personify it by calling it tricky. To find the causes of its sudden changes one must go back hundreds of miles to the mountains east and west. Seeming to delight in destruction, it tears down or eats away the checks that are put upon it. Only a mind never discouraged, a mind capable of discovering and comprehending ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... in need of anything after the kindness you have shown me, and you're quite wrong in having any such idea about me. I'm ready to give away my whole soul for you, and by no means to do anything tricky. You're getting on in years; Agrafena Kondratyevna is a very gentle lady; Olimpiada Samsonovna is an accomplished young lady, and of suitable years; and you've got to spend some thought on her. But now such are the ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... to go, then?' Quentin asked. This accidental magic was, he perceived, a tricky thing, and ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... a baleful glare. "You should ask—with as much experience as both of us have had with these tricky motors. I choked it down, that's all. That same little fault has sent many a pilot home in a wooden box. Go get me a piece of that wire. We'll fix the skid, somehow, and when I get to Le Bourget I'll set her down on two points. And listen! From ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... the use of letting everybody know who I am?" Then he switched round in his chair, rose, and held out his hand. "Mr. George Headland, of the Yard, Mr. Bawdrey. I don't trust Mr. Narkom's proverbially tricky memory for names. He introduced me as Jones once, and I lost the opportunity of handling the case because the party in question couldn't believe that anybody named Jones would be likely to ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Before the War, ten of eleven exploration ships sent into the galactic center had disappeared without a trace. Somewhere, buried deep in the billions of stars that formed the galactic hub, was a race that was as tough and tricky as we were—maybe even tougher. This was common knowledge, for the eleventh ship had returned with the news of the aliens, a story of hairbreadth escape from destruction, and a pattern of their culture which was enough like ours to frighten any thinking man. ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... at the fort, I secured a crew to man it. But oh, what worry and annoyance it was! These Great Slave Lake Indians are like a lot of spoiled and petulant children, with the added weakness of adult criminals; they are inconsistent, shiftless, and tricky. Pike, Whitney, Buffalo Jones, and others united many years ago in denouncing them as the most worthless and contemptible of the human race, and since then they have considerably deteriorated. There are exceptions, however, as will be ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... that do not get expression until their minds are more mature; they even accept contradictory facts in their experience. There was one of the deacons who was as kind as possible, and Philip believed was a good and pious man, who had the reputation of being sharp and even tricky in a horse-trade. And Philip used to think how lucky it was for him that he had been converted and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Mr. Julian will doubtless be defending theirsel's, and what is to hinder a musket or so from going off behind their backs? There will be a reward oot and Brown Bess is tricky at the best of times. I am judgin' that the Princess will rather be for coming with us than for standing ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... he repeated. "I thought when I set eyes on you that you were a tricky fellow. But this caps all!" Why, he suddenly raised his voice and stood up, "what do you mean by coming here with such a yarn? I've a mind to ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... just what tools he'd need. It was a simple question, predicating a simple answer. Yet he didn't seem able to reply to it. He scratched his close-clipped pate and said he'd have to look things over and study it out. Windmills were tricky things, one kind demanding this sort of treatment and ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... there is no knowing how to steer for them; they are so tricky. At one moment they are all on the larboard, the sea on the other side of the vessel being perfectly calm, and the next instant they have crossed over and are all on the starboard, and before the captain can think how to meet this ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... ones—silver with a very bad alloy. Then he wanted a pretty cotton-print handkerchief for a miserable silver bead. With such people it is impossible to strike a bargain. These Barbary Jews are the hardest and most tricky dealers in the world. Ibrahim has been laid up with a bad leg for five months, and intends going to Kuka when he gets better. He wanted me to sell him some mastic, but I refused. He said he wished to have ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... little best not to be. Rather tricky work, though, getting back. I've got to climb two garden walls, and I shall probably be so full of Malvoisie that you'll be able to hear it swishing about inside me. No catch steeple-chasing if you're like that. They've no thought for people's convenience ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... it is so. The great flow of female consciousness is downwards, down to the weight of the loins and round the circuit of the feet. Pervert this, and make a false flow upwards, to the breast and head, and you get a race of "intelligent" women, delightful companions, tricky courtesans, clever prostitutes, noble idealists, devoted friends, interesting mistresses, efficient workers, brilliant managers, women as good as men at all the manly tricks: and better, because they are so very headlong once they go in for men's tricks. But then, after a while, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... them you simply can't believe in them. Do you remember how you divorced your wife? It's nearly twenty years ago, and I dare say you have forgotten it all; but I remember it as though I'd divorced you yesterday. Good Lord, what a lot of worry I had over it! I was a sharp fellow, tricky and cunning, a desperate character. . . . Sometimes I was burning to tackle some ticklish business, especially if the fee were a good one, as, for instance, in your case. What did you pay me then? Five ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... one with, and in fellowship with real Christians. Pastor Jones, there are so many professing Christians who are Christians only in name. I cannot fellowship them. They engage in questionable practices; they are dishonest and tricky; they use bad language; and their bent is more toward pleasure than religion. My soul really craves a church home. Can you offer me such where I shall ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... his jaw thoughtfully. "A bit tricky but not too difficult," he replied. "It's mostly a job of adapting the sonarphone arrangement from ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... an easy feller, and green to the ways of them tricky sheepmen," said Dad. "You let him off in that first fight with a little crack on the head when you'd ought to 'a' laid him out for good, and you let Hector Hall go that time you took his guns away from him. Folks in here never could understand ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... for nearly six days now. Not even sent me a telephone message. But I'm not complaining as maybe the caller may have a lot of things to keep him busy. But I would like a word just so I won't forget you. I don't want to do that but you know these stage dames do have sort of tricky memories. So it might be a good idea to give mine a jolt. A post card will do it and a letter do it better, and I guess yourself would do it best ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... was working up its strength, and Drake was commissioned to weaken it as much as possible. But, on the 8th of February, 1587, before he could sail, Mary was at last beheaded, and Elizabeth was once more entering on a tricky course of tortuous diplomacy too long by half to follow here. As the great crisis approached, it had become clearer and clearer that it was a case of kill or be killed between Elizabeth and Mary, and that England could not ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... between a cough and a laugh. "Oh, he's a lady-killer, all right! The girls in here are always making eyes at him. You won't be the first." He threw some sheets of music on the piano. "Better look that over; accompaniment's a little tricky. It's for that new woman from Detroit. And Mrs. Priest will be ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the woods is young Mink, His coat is so lovely one never would think That'd he do naughty things, but we've often been told He is tricky and wicked and ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... have had her bottom scrubbed and we would have had her up to racing pitch, with every bit of sail just so and her trim gauged to a hair's depth, but that did not matter so very much now. The Johnnie was in shape for a hard drag like this, and for that we had to thank the tricky Sam Hollis. We began to see that after all it was a bit of good luck our vessel not being home in time to tune up the same as ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... that," said McIver. "The Interpreter didn't send you—oh, no—he simply made you think that you ought to go. That's the way the tricky old scoundrel does everything, ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... hand it should be remembered that Maynard was a man eminently qualified to sow violent animosities, and that he was a perpetual thorn in the flesh of the political barristers, whose principles he abhorred. A subtle and tricky man, he was constantly misleading judges by citing fictitious authorities, and then smiling at their professional ignorance when they had swallowed his audacious fabrications. Moreover, the manner of his speech was sometimes as offensive as its substance was dishonest. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... endeavoured to explain the tragic tale on this principle. Whatever resemblance Lady Ashton may be supposed to possess to the celebrated Dame Margaret Ross, the reader must not suppose that there was any idea of tracing the portrait of the first Lord Viscount Stair in the tricky and mean-spirited Sir William Ashton. Lord Stair, whatever might be his moral qualities, was certainly one of the first statesmen and lawyers ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... African Dutch President and whilom enemy, sailing from a Persian port under the Serbian flag to relieve from the Turks a body of Armenians in a revolutionary Russian town." "Let the reader," he adds, "pick his way through that delirious tangle, and envy us our task who may." After pursuing the tricky course of this astounding adventure I confess myself lost, not in its mazes, thanks to an excellent map, but in profound admiration for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... conning over something as you walked, your lips working and muttering, your hand flung out this way and that as you got a speech into order in your mind; you were doubtless inventing one of your crooked questions, or pondering some tricky problem; never a vacant mind, even in the streets; always on the stretch and in earnest, bent on advancing in ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... made guesses. I couldn't know that they were right. When you tried to kill me, you confirmed every one. Now, when we land on Orede I'm going to get you to try to put me in touch with your friends. It's going to be tricky, because they must be pretty well scared about that ship. But it's a highly desirable thing to ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... "Aw, but them steamers! Tricky, they is, and unsyfe ... No, yer gryce, the W. Stryker Packet Line Lim'ted, London to Antwerp, charges four pounds per passyge and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... all around; that must mean a hundred thousand or two for your folks. But I hope you keep your eye out for that tricky Squire, Fred. If there's any loop-hole for treachery he'll find ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... all in me, while mine was far away. Despondency had got hold of me. Fortune, in her merriest mood, seeming bent on fooling me fairly, had opened a door and shown me the prospect of fine doings and high ambitions realised. The glimpse had been but brief, and the tricky creature shut the door in my face with a laugh. Betty Nasroth's prophecy was fulfilled, but its accomplishment left me in no better state; nay, I should be compelled to count myself lucky if I came off unhurt and ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... foreign policy Cromwell was irresolute, vacillating and tricky. "A study of the foreign policy of the Protectorate," writes Mr. Gardiner, "reveals a distracting maze of fluctuations. Oliver is seen alternately courting France and Spain, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... Anse commented. "Always did hear as how Apaches were meaner'n snakes but they wasn't stupid. Keep a tame gunrunner to work for 'em—that sounds like th' tricky sorta play they cotton to. If it is so, th' man who gits Kitchell may jus' rid this country of some of them ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... wisht there was, lad," the sergeant answered soberly. "Pass me up me rifle, like a good b'y, forinst we start! I see be the black-and-gold button on me ar-rmy mule thot he's a Landstrumer, an' they's tricky b'ys, at times!" ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... shown in 67 is a new English face designed by Mr. C. R. Ashbee for a prayerbook for the King. Interesting as it is, it seems in many ways too extreme and eccentric to be wholly satisfactory: the very metal of type would seem to postulate a less "tricky" treatment. ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... broke out now from the cocoons, and the queen bustled from one to the other, assisting, cleaning, encouraging; for it is a tricky job for an insect to come out of its chrysalis-case. The queen's work, however, was really done; for, though for a day or two, till their cuirasses and wings hardened, these new young worker-wasps ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... was esteemed a man of personal integrity, ancient Leaguer and tricky politician though ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the most disappointed one of the whole party, for he had been so sure of his game; while he had been doggedly persistent for over three years in trying to hunt down the tricky woman, who had imposed upon Justin Cutler, and it was a bitter pill for him to swallow, to discover, just as he believed himself to be on the verge of success, that he was only getting deeper into ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... did not give forth its sharp sound from contact with the leader's head, for he had to do with a clever cudgel-player as well as one who had often proved his power as a tricky wrestler in contests with the best men of the neighbouring farthest west county. Nic's blow was cleverly caught on as stout a cudgel, and the next moment his left arm fell numb ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... how the wig can have been useful. I feel that Addison must have left it on the bedpost and tied up his bald pate in a tricky bandana after the fashion of Mr. Prior or Mr. Gay, one of whom, if I remember rightly, did not disdain to sit for his picture in that frolic guise. The wig, which adds age and ensures dignity, would have been out of place there; nor is it possible ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... the colonel; "but, still it's well to be on the lookout for him. He's rather a tricky sort ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... clearness of statement, and for an easy and straightforward method of speech he had few superiors. His language was excellent, his manner that of a man who had something to say and was intent upon saying it. He was at no time a tricky orator, nor did he aim at rousing the feelings, but in the clearest possible manner he would make his points and no amount of prejudice was sufficient to resist his conclusions. He was a great reader, and reflected on all ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... as tricky as Pope himself when it suits his purpose to be so, the Essay on Man was intended to form four books, in which, as part of the general design, the Moral Essays would have been included, as well as Book IV. of the Dunciad, but to have welded these Essays, which were ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... could get. Shann's slight body was an asset as he wedged through the narrow mouth of a cleft and so back into the cliff wall. The climb before him he knew in part, for this was the path the wolverines had followed on their two other escapes. A few moments of tricky scrambling and he was out in a cuplike depression choked with brush covered with the purplish foliage of Warlock. On the other side of that was a small cut to a sloping hillside, giving on another valley, not as wide as that in which the camp stood, but one well provided ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... drift by about ten o'clock or ten-thirty, Mr. Parker. I know he will not cause you any more inconvenience than he finds absolutely necessary, sir. He's tricky, but ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... was good, although tricky. In a case of aroused interest he could absorb an astonishing number of dates, or figures, or lines of poetry, at first glance or hearing. But he could also drop them as if he had never heard of them the moment his interest was gone. And they always seemed to drop out of sight when he left school ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... mysteries of half-meaning!" I think it is always quite plain what Mr. Shaw means, even when he is joking, and it generally means that the people he is talking to ought to howl aloud for their sins. But the average representative of them undoubtedly treats the Shavian meaning as tricky and complex, when it is really direct and offensive. He always accuses Shaw of pulling his leg, at the exact moment when ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... left together. Jones paid his note. People began to believe that it was not prudent to borrow money of Squire Moses, for he was "tricky" as well ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... settlers over at McDowell, in the Verde Valley to the west, and other settlers away up the Verde toward Camp Sandy. Then Sowerby swore his stock was run off, and Bennett presently remained the only ranchman to stand up for them. The agent declared them contumacious and tricky. Other whites—Arizona white was then a reddish-brown—added their evil word to the official's. It was the old adage over again: "Give a dog a bad name," etc., and the department commander had sent for scouts to coax them in, before despatching troops ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
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