"Quandary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... neutralized the bitter in that smaller note, and touched him very much. Then he drew up an arm-chair, and beckoning Polly to take it, said in a sober, steady tone, that surprised her greatly, "Whenever I was in a quandary, I used to go and consult grandma, and she always had something sensible or comfortable to say to me. She 's gone now, but somehow, Polly, you seem to take her place. Would you mind sitting in her chair, and letting me tell you two or ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... thought very highly of this person and had pensioned him. Formerly he lived up in the country with his family, but at present was old, penniless, and alone in the city. Now that her parents were dead she was in a quandary about keeping up her father's obligation to the old man. Out of her $8 a week it was hard to make both ends meet. She had to pay her own board and for this man also. She found that he needed to be taken care of in every way; she had to wash his face and dress him, he was so helpless. ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... Winton next came up to Bury Street, she was in a quandary. To confess that Fiorsen was here, having omitted to speak of him in her letters? Not to confess, and leave him to find it out from Aunt Rosamund? Which was worse? Seized with panic, she did neither, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... away from his interview with Dave, he was beyond a doubt in a quandary. His plans against the English were many, and evidently he was much worried, thinking Dave knew much more than was the fact. It had galled him to let the summer pass without striking the cherished blow, but he had great hopes for the summer to come; and history has already recorded ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... very kind to me when I needed it, you were a companion to me when I was more miserable than I ever thought any human being could be. I was in a quandary then—in a very difficult position. I took a plunge. In a way I ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... servants' dining-room he found the head footman, who presided, in something of a quandary as to where he should place him. Emilia, Miss Wellington's maid, had of course lost no time in imparting to all with whom she was on terms of confidence, that the new chauffeur was the same with whom her mistress had flirted on the General. Consequently, Armitage ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... was in a quandary. To raise a cry of warning, he felt sure, would mean his instant death; and yet, should he remain silent if he was asked any questions concerning his companions he ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... his shoulders, and no hint of resolve shadowed itself in his own face. His expression was as of one in a quandary. ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... come in," called the old lady from the upper hall, "come right up here. I'm in a terrible quandary!" ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... quandary. Ordinarily he would have sided with the burgomaster of Masolga, but there were several considerations which made him pause. In the first place, he did not like the burgomaster, for he was very dictatorial and few ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... words—12,000 more than Huck Finn. But I don't know what to do with it. Mrs. Clemens thinks it wouldn't do to go to the Am. Pub. Co. or anywhere outside of our own house; we have no subscription machinery, and a book in the trade is a book thrown away, as far as money-profit goes. I am in a quandary. Give me a lift ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... grateful for this puff, and often brought more cocoa-nuts. The same great supervision was extended to the bananas, the bread-fruit, the cucumbers, the melons, and even the squashes, and always with the same results to the editorial larder. Once, however, this worthy did get himself in a quandary with his use of the imperial pronoun. A mate of one of the vessels inflicted personal chastisement on him, for some impertinent comments he saw fit to make on the honest tar's vessel; and, this being matter ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... listen. Mbonga looked toward him. The chief was in a quandary. He did not know which medicine was the better. "What does your magic tell you?" he asked of ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I was slicing my drives all the time, I should be miserable. I should be torn between the desire to go back to London and have a lesson with the professional and the desire to stay on honeymooning with you. One can't be happy in a quandary like that." ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... of the Blue Country, the Boolooroo determined to have him patched, but for some time he could find no other Blueskin to patch him with. No one had disobeyed a command or done anything wrong, so the king was in a quandary until he discovered that a servant named Tiggle had mixed the royal nectar for Cap'n Bill, who had been ordered to do it at the time of his capture. This was sufficient excuse for the Boolooroo, who at once had Tiggle made a prisoner and brought ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... Here was quandary. I looked at Bell, but God forgive me, it was not with the old trustfulness. He was on the top shelf but one, just in line with the eyes, with gilt front winking in the firelight. I had set him thus conspicuous with intention, because ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... a quandary. Some natures would have embraced them all, but his heart only sought the one 'sweet face' that had haunted him so long, and in his perplexity he sought our counsel. It was finally arranged that he should answer the ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... get settled somehow, to get out of the quandary he found himself in. But how? He felt unable to move his limbs. He had seen a little creature caught in bird-lime, and the sight was a nightmare to him. He began to feel mad with the rage ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... found myself in a quandary. I had determined to make a long tramp inland, and if necessary to ford or swim streams, and I could not determine whether or not it would be wise to take Walkirk with me. I concluded at last to take him; it would be awkward to leave him behind, and he might ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... a cruel suggestion, that," the woman cried. "I wish to be her friend, I am her friend. If I could only tell you everything, you would understand at once what a terrible situation, what a hideous quandary I am in." ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the lady. "Good gracious! Supposing things were as you thought and Deleah had waited to welcome him home! What a quandary we should have been ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... mile and then pass 150 men, ignorant of their whereabouts, silently and in single file through a gap into No-Man's-Land ere dawn broke and our bombardment started now seemed impossible. It was a serious quandary. To go on might be to compromise not only the operation, but the lives of 150 men, who would be discovered in daylight and in the open near the enemy. But to go back was to jeopardise the reputation ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... was apparent. Yet the fact that the locked suit-case only contained books and that nothing had been found in our possession—thanks to the forethought of Duperre—the police now found themselves in a quandary. The man in the white spats whom we had seen in the Bois identified Madame as Marie Richaud, a Frenchwoman who had lived in Philadelphia for several years, and who had been implicated two years before in the great frauds on the Bordeaux branch of ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... In his quandary he hit on a plan involving new peril for himself and doubtless some agitation to his little neighbor. He would not detach the nest from its branch, for how could he ever attach it to another branch in a way satisfactory to that finicky ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Jimmy himself was in a quandary. It looked as if he would have to let one girl go to save the other, when he saw one of the canoe paddles floating within reach. He gave it a swift ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... allowed to qualify for the Bar. Case after case was referred to her with the hope that if she could not solve it, she might submit it to her cousin's judgment. In this way, excellent legal advice was forthcoming which drove the Home Office officials from one quandary ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... fragment of a blank-verse poem which. I once meditated, but got no farther. The E. I. H. has been thrown into a quandary by the strange phenomenon of poor Tommy Bye, whom I have known, man and madman, twenty-seven years, he being elder here than myself by nine years and more. He was always a pleasant, gossiping, half-headed, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... be in such a quandary because you knew nobody you could make your women-folk out of! Do you mind that, and how we both laughed at the notion of your having to ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... Senator was in a quandary. What could he do? How begin? What gesture would be the most fitting for ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... on, we had neither of us the courage to contradict our first account of ourselves; and what was extremely pleasant, the young lad seemed as perplexed as I was how to evade lying together, which was so natural for the state we had pretended to. Whilst we were in this quandary, the landlady takes the candles, and lights us to our apartment, through a long yard, at the end of which it stood, separate from the body of the house. Thus we suffered ourselves to be conducted, without saying a word in opposition to it; and ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... Magistrate hesitated, and a frown showed his annoyance. "To tell you the truth, Captain Vyell, you put me in a quandary. I do not like to refuse you—" Here he glanced ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Marshall-Smith, on the contrary, advanced a step or so, until she stood close to her sister-in-law. "Barbara, I'd like to see you a few minutes without the children," she remarked in the neutral tone she always had for her brother's wife. "A rather unpleasant occurrence—I'm in something of a quandary." ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... quandary I am in," said the bookkeeper, miserably. "That must be attended to at once. Why couldn't you ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... my sister Sally hasn't sent Tom to look for us, or I am much mistaken," he exclaimed to himself rather than to his companion. "Poor soul! she's been in a precious quandary at our not returning sooner, and has been fancying that we shall be melted by the rain, or carried off the cliffs by the wind, though ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... secret police made a series of simultaneous raids upon Dr. Calero's and Valenzuela's homes and the house where the dynamite was cached. They arrested everyone in the houses. But once the arrests had been made, the Mexican Government found itself in a quandary. To bring the prisoners to trial would involve foreign governments and create an international scandal; so Cardenas personally ordered the secret ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... And then the Knight Weakhart was more afraid of being alone with the Princess than he had been of the giant. But she rose up, and dried her tears, and thanked him. And then the Princess and the Knight were in a grave quandary; for, of course, she could not go back to the den of that wicked witch, Cathel, and she had nowhere else to go. And so Weakhart, with many tremblings, asked her to go with him to a cavern in the woods, ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... answered him in the composite language, and in a manner that did not excite the slightest suspicion, I did so unconsciously. In spite of the quandary in which I found myself upon coming face to face with an inhabitant of Mars, I outwardly remained perfectly calm, nor did it require any effort to appear so. The brain, in such an emergency, followed instinctively its natural habit. ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... legal tutelage. Perhaps Andrew Fraser may have been already coached upon his course by his unrelenting kinsman. And there is a fortune waiting for father and son in the perquisites." Madame Louison fell asleep in a vain quandary as to the precise age when men ceased to value wealth and to sell their souls for gold. That question was still undecided when the steamer Sparrow Hawk sped ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... await instructions. And Edward Henry was placed in a new quandary. He knew not whether the small bedroom in the suite was for a child, or for his wife's maid, or for his valet. Quite probably it would be a sacrilegious defiance of precedent to put a valet in the small bedroom. Quite probably Wilkins's had a floor ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... inspired. As in the old Hindoo account of how the world was supported, the earth was said to be held up on pillars, and the pillars on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and when the defender of the faith was asked what, then, did the tortoise rest on, he sought to save himself in his quandary, by roundly asserting that "it was tortoise all the way down";—so the defender of the infallibility of the Scripture has to take refuge in "inspiration all the way down." But if this be so, ought not the modern scripture editors and revisers, translators and Biblical ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... between England and Holland. The latter country was secretly in sympathy with the revolted colonies, but eager at that time to maintain officially friendly relations with England. Consequently, when Jones arrived with his prizes, the Dutch authorities were in a quandary, much aggravated by the action of the British minister in Holland, Sir Joseph Yorke, who demanded that the "pirate's" prizes be delivered up to England. He reiterated his demand to the States-General in the following language: "I only ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... case might be better than before; if he should prove to be an enemy, I must act prudently and try to befool him. I must discover his intentions before making mine known. He, also, must be in a great quandary. ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... courtesy—for Gimblett was conscious of his own weakness in the matter of strong waters—but as he waited and waited, the one sup became two, and two three, and at length more than half the contents of the bottle had moistened his gullet, and maddened him for more. Gimblett was in a quandary. If he didn't finish the flask, he would be oppressed with an everlasting regret. If he did finish it he would be drunk; and to be drunk on duty was the one unpardonable sin. He looked across the darkness of the sea, to where the rising and falling light ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... quandary as to his best course of procedure. For a moment he considered going for Griscom and arming himself with a bar ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... prospect of such honor accorded me, and greatly touched, too, that my old friends should welcome me back so gladly, but I was in a quandary what to do: whether it would be more dignified to stay Bourbon in the middle of the road and await their approach, or whether ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... spoke with such tremendous concentration of mental energy, and with such evident sincerity of conviction, and he had so plainly put Professor Pludder to rout, that the President, no less than the other listening statesmen, was thrown into a quandary. ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... in a quandary, "nothing, I suppose. Siner was excited; you know how niggers are. We can't afford to send every nigger to the pen that breaks the law." He stood studying Peter out of his close-set eyes. "Here's your deed, Peter." He shoved it back under the grill. "And lemme give you a little friendly advice. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... chin. He seemed to be in some sort of quandary. First he scrutinized me from under his shaggy brows with a sharp gleam of suspicion; then his features softened and, with a side glance at the young woman who called herself Eunice, (perhaps, because she was worth looking at, perhaps ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... arduousness, hardness; controversy, disagreement, objection, cavil; predicament, quandary, dilemma. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... enquired of the agent of Jones's Express whether he had a trunk for W. A. Jackson, shipped from Galveston, Texas. He examined his book and said that he had not received such a trunk, but that possibly it had been sent and detained in the New Orleans office. I was now in a quandary; I was afraid to go to New Orleans and ask for the trunk, as I knew the Adams and Jones's Express occupied the same office in that city. Could it be possible that the company had suspicions of the trunk ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... in a quandary. I'm almost determined to put it in the market. Sell it. Be rid of it. It has always been a source of annoyance to our family. However, I'll settle nothing until I return to London. I'll go in a few days—much sooner ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... Putting Things" includes also the things which one might have expressed worse, and covers the cases where a dexterous choice of words seems, at any rate to the speaker, to have extricated him from a conversational quandary. As an instance of this perilous art carried to high perfection, may be cited Abraham Lincoln's judgment on an unreadably sentimental book—"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like"—humbly imitated by two eminent men on this side of the Atlantic, one ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... very thick all along the river's bank, and there were many good hiding-places; but Mr. Fox stood ready to head him off either way he ran. Bumper was in a quandary just what to do. ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... and denounced as heretics by that Church, if, in short, they were of one and the same faith as the Anglicans are to-day? We pause for a reply. Of course we know that Anglicans are very hard pressed, and in a quandary, and that some allowance must be made for drowning men when they stretch forth their trembling hands to clutch at straws. But really the claim to continuity, however vital to them, should hardly ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... Bank at the beginning of the siege. This sum the Boers had at one time considered was as good as in their pockets. It was believed the greater portion had since been absorbed by the natives, who were in the habit of burying the money they received as wages. In this quandary, Colonel Baden-Powell designed a paper one-pound note, which was photographed on to thick paper of a bluish tint, and made such an attractive picture that the Government must have scored by many of ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... in a quandary. It was a regular transaction, and it was by no means unusual to pay out money in this way. It was only the largeness of the sum which made him hesitate. He disappeared into his office and came back with two ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... they were naked, his maker demonstrates how his very words convict him of guilt, and inquires whether they have eaten of the forbidden fruit. Unable to deny his transgression, Adam states he is in a quandary, for he must either accuse himself wrongfully or lay the guilt upon the wife whom it is his duty to protect. When he adds that the woman gave him the fruit whereof he did eat, the judge sternly demands whether Adam was bound to obey his consort, reminding him that woman ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Desmoulin and myself, but M. Zola, I know imbibed, mainly for the good of the house, 'a small lemon plain.' Then we ascertained that the young lady at the bar had neither stamps, nor paper, nor envelopes, and so we were again in a quandary. Fortunately I recollected a little stationer's shop in the York Road, and leaving the others in the saloon bar, I went in search of ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... the choice fruits and buds she picked for him, repaid her caresses with scratches, screams and snarls or received them in the most indifferent manner in those rare intervals when he did not violently resent them. Myla was in a quandary. Should she restore him to his mother by taking him back to the windfall? Should she desert him in the treetops, or should she cast him to the ground and thus be rid of him quickly and without trouble? No! ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... but order his life on a common pattern and face an unrelieved futility of years. He remembered, with a grim amusement, the excellent advice he had given Peyton Morris, Peyton at the verge of falling from the approved heights into the unpredictable. If he had come to him now in that quandary, what would he, Lee, have said? Yet all that he had told Peyton he still believed— the variety of life lay on the circular moving horizon, there was none at hand. But now he comprehended the unmeasurable longing that had, for the time, banished every other consideration from ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... hold of my sympathies and secured my friendship. (More of him anon.) I had been here four or five days without seeing our guide, the boy with my satchel, containing my valuables, particularly the bills of lading of my houses. I was in a quandary and anxiety about it, not knowing what to do, when one day as I was going to dinner, something pulled my coat from behind, and looking around, what should I see to my great joy and satisfaction but the native ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... however, the more piquant the situation for one who was in it; and there were moments of a sleepless night in which Langholm found nothing new to regret. But he was in a quandary none the less. He could scarcely meet Mrs. Steel again without a word about the prospective story, which they had so often discussed together, and upon which he was at last free to embark; nor could he touch upon that theme without disclosing ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... a quandary. She had heard all the rumours that were going about, but she knew that they had been kept from Mary Grant, and she thought that if Blake meant to talk business he might shock or startle ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... doing wrong in every way, and if I trim it cleanly off, as it should be done, I stretch the skin to such an extent that my dog is completely out of shape, and though formerly a 'pug' he speedily becomes a 'greyhound.' In fact, I am in a quandary, and do not know what ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... was in a great quandary at having to answer this question, and I thought that I was rightly served for having opened my mouth at all: I said however, They are not the same as absolute beauty, but they have beauty present ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... I went on silently, Medical Center found themselves in a mild quandary. They could hardly put another woman on my trail because I was already emotionally involved with the missing Catherine—and so they decided to use me in another way. I was shown enough to keep me busy, I was more ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... quandary. He had no wish to quarrel with his useful Washington ally; he recognized the reasonableness of his complaint. Yet what could he do? Much as he himself desired the marriage, his son was obstinate and showed little inclination to settle down. ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances, imagined a most intelligent way of escaping ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... was in a quandary. Then his brow cleared. True, he had no leash. Yet, if chains, like bows of ribbon, were barred from the ring, he could maneuver Chum every bit as well with his voice as with any leash. So that ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... the Faringfields one snowy night a week later, when, for some reason or other, I was out late in our back garden. This person, instead of knocking at the door, very cautiously tried it to see if it would open, and, finding it locked, stood timidly back and gazed at it in a quandary. Suspecting mischief, I went to the paling fence that separated our ground from the Faringfields', and called ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the poor girl sacrificed. She was like a Christian maiden in the Roman arena. That is what Ambrose Tester meant by telling me that public opinion was on his side. I don't think he chattered about his quandary, but people, knowing his situation, guessed what was going on in his mind, and he on his side guessed what they said. London discussions might as well go on in the whispering-gallery of St. Paul's. I could of course do only one thing,—I could but reaffirm my conviction ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... Ethne was in a quandary. She knew that she must answer, and at once and without ambiguity. In addition, she must ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... ask the emperor for the rite of baptism? Not he; it would be too much like rendering homage to a prince no greater than himself. The haughty barbarian found himself in a quandary; but soon he discovered a promising way out of it. He would make war on Greece, conquer priests and churches, and by force of arms obtain instruction and baptism in the new faith. Surely never before or since was a war waged with the object ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... from San Francisco, where she has a mother, who ought to be notified and the daughter at once sent home to her; but I'm in a quandary how to proceed so as not to incur ill-feeling with the politicians of that neighborhood. [He was a candidate for reelection.] What would ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... very large revenue at once and which in the course of a few years would provide a sinking fund sufficient to extinguish the loan of L600,000. The offer was so favourable to the State that it placed the Government in a quandary.{50} The attitude of the Volksraad, too, was distinctly hostile to the dynamite monopoly; and on top of all came the representations of the Imperial Government upon the subject. It became necessary to do something to save the threatened ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... demands that Nathan shall answer him on the spur of the moment which of the three great religions then known—Judaism, Mohammedanism, Christianity—is adjudged by reason to be the true one. For a moment the philosopher is in a quandary. If he does not pronounce in favour of his own religion, Judaism, he stultifies himself; but if he does not award the precedence to Mohammedanism, he will apparently insult his sovereign. With true Oriental tact ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... on the narrow ledge of rocks in a quandary as to what course they should pursue. Below them was the steep, rocky incline of the hill and behind them was the cave containing they knew not what. At their feet lay their comrade, unconscious and helpless. It was a situation that ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... went along. Aside from the ardent and unquenchable love that existed between them, the explanation may be found to a certain extent in Tazewell's love of humor. When Watkins Leigh's amusing letter of Christopher Quandary appeared in the Enquirer,—a paper, by the way, which, after the feud in the Jefferson administration, he never took in, thus showing that, if the democrats remembered his shortcomings, he did not forget what he deemed theirs—I took the number around to him, and he laughed heartily at its hits. ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... idea. There was no farmhouse in sight, and Harding was in a quandary. He thought a moment and then ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... was too shrewd to press him with questions, and so perhaps betray his own hand. As a matter of fact, the famous detective was in quite a quandary over the case, because of his conviction that some big game was secretly afoot, and his utter inability to strike ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... a quandary. He could see no way of warning the unsuspecting captain; and yet, even while he waited, the cowardly gang who thus purposed to desert their shipmates might carry ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... wish, I urged an answer; but she, artfully avoiding my question, insisted on our immediate return. Being in a quandary as to what to say or do, I went after the horses, which was a simple proposition. On my return, while we were adjusting the garlands about the necks of our mounts, I again urged her for an answer, but in vain. We stood for a moment between the two horses, and as ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... after the slaves below," said Archie; "the poor fellows must have been in a fearful quandary while ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... himself straining farther and farther away from those Federalist moorings at which, it must be confessed, he had long swung very precariously. The constituency which he represented was indeed in a quandary so embarrassing as hardly to be capable of maintaining any consistent policy. The New England of that day was a trading community, of which the industry and capital were almost exclusively centred in ship-owning and commerce. The merchants, almost to a man, had long been the most Anglican ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... he was not needed; also to see that a message was sent to the wife and children of the dead man telling them he would have to be buried in the Canyon where he was killed. These errands were to be attended to over the local phone, but for some reason the wire was dead. I was in a quandary. Just having recovered from a prolonged attack of flu, I felt it unwise to go out in several feet of snow, but that ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... "bought." This is now the current word in West India newspapers. So a few years since in New-York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and even now in New-Jersey servants are "bought" as really as in Virginia. And the different senses in which the same word is used in the two states, puts no man in a quandary, whose common ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Kingdom of God is nigh when the teacher gives the name of the author of the information that he is passing on. With every desire to fulfil the rabbinical precept and acknowledge the sources of this booklet, I find myself in a quandary. If I make my acknowledgments duly I must begin with my grandmother and Culpeper's Herbal. Following upon those come the results of my own and friends' practical experience. After this I should, perhaps, give a list of the ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... quandary. He did not quite know what to do. To give an alarm—to let the audience know something had gone wrong with the trick—that the professor was in danger of being burned to death—to even utter the word "Fire!" might cause a terrible panic, even though the ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... amusement at the perturbation of the garrison and a natural curiosity as to what so untimely a visit might portend. It was apparent that Mungo was for once willing to delegate his duty as keeper of the bartizan to the first substitute who offered, but here was no move to help him out of his quandary. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... yes, but why? [He is but lately from the ploughshare and cannot help her. In this quandary her eyes alight upon the bag. She is unfortunately too abandoned to feel her shame; she still thinks that she has the choice of weapons. She takes the speech from the bag and bestows it on her servitor.] Take this to Mr. Venables, please, and say it is from Mr. Shand. [THOMAS—but in the end we ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... was in a quandary, for the time was short. In his embarrassment he took council with Mme. Colbran Rossini, who was then at Bologna with her husband, the illustrious composer. It happened that Ole Bull's lodging was in the same palazzo, and Mme. Rossini had ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... on poor Bumpus, who found himself in a quandary, hardly knowing which course would be the worse for him to pursue, tag at the heels of these two adventurous comrades, and meet with what danger they might unearth; or stay there alone with ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... pinnace. As the sloop came up, the Indians opened the fight with fire-arms and spears; but Gallop's crew responded with their duck-guns with such vigor that the Indians deserted the decks, and fled below for shelter. Gallop was then in a quandary. The odds against him were too great for him to dare to board, and the pinnace was rapidly drifting ashore. After some deliberation he put up his helm, and beat to windward of the pinnace; then, coming about, came scudding down upon her before ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... father moved slowly about her with his hands in his pockets and something in his step that seemed, more than anything else he had done, to show the habit of the place. She turned her fevered little eyes over his friend's brightnesses, as if, on her own side, to press for some help in a quandary unexampled. As if also the pressure reached him he after an instant stopped short, completing the prodigy of his attitude and the pride of his loyalty by a supreme formulation of the general inducement. "You've an eye, love! Yes, there's money. No ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... him for his kindness and went on my way very well content. But when I sat down to copy off the order I was put in quite a quandary. Traveling men meet such men as Harris frequently. He gave the order because he was friendly to the house, but he had not asked for prices on anything. What was I to do? I had several prices, for my figures were elastic, to offer trade, according as the buyer was a close one or not, and just ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... by Masterson, with the pistol in his grasp, they began to ascend the pathway. Dick was in a quandary. But he decided that the only way to tackle the problem was to take the bull by the horns. As Masterson reached the mouth of the cave the boy dashed out like ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... I was in a quandary, and grew, in one second, hot all over. Uncertain what amount of knowledge I ought to admit, I took refuge ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... a quandary. He was not afraid of the Braddocks, but he was distinctly alarmed over the intervention and attitude of David Jenison. That aggressive, determined young man had made a threat which struck something like terror to his heart. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... itself, having recovered its feet, it stood for some seconds flapping its huge ears, and apparently in a kind of quandary—as if taken aback by the unexpected accident that had befallen it. Not for long, however, did it continue in this tranquil attitude. The arrow still sticking in its trunk reminded it of its purposes of vengeance. ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... did not answer. He was in a quandary. It did not seem possible that the two nations pointed out by the seal and the wax could be engaged in such dirty business. He hoped to prove to his own satisfaction that ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... off the gingerbread; And makes me ask myself the reason why On earth I have so many fish to fry? The fact is, what I touch must have a risk Of failure, or it wouldn't suit JIM FISK, I'll conquer this, too—keep a secretary To help me out when I'm in a quandary. I will not budge! My banner is unfurled, Proclaiming FISK the Problem ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... outer gate, followed by a sentry-like tread in the tunnel, cut short our quandary, and the colonel's tall figure emerged from the ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... home harbor of Kamchatka. Meanwhile a hurricane caught Pushkareff's ship, chopping the wave tops off and driving her ahead under bare poles. When the gale abated, the ship was off Kamchatka's shore and the Cossack in a quandary about entering the home port with proofs of his cruelty in the cowering group of Indian women huddled above the deck. {87} On pretence of gathering berries, six sailors were landed with fourteen women. Two watched their chance and dashed for liberty in the hills. On the way back ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... a quandary. To remain would place me in great peril, yet I was anxious to know the result of the meeting between the two men. They were the prime movers in my father's downfall, and nothing must be left undone to bring them ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... North America for thousands of miles. To send her away without discovery seemed difficult. To retain her at Beaumanoir in face of the search which he knew would be made by the Governor and the indomitable La Corne St. Luc, was impossible. The quandary oppressed him. He saw no escape from the dilemma; but, to the credit of Bigot be it said, that not for a moment did he entertain a thought of doing injury to the hapless Caroline, or of taking advantage of her lonely condition to add to her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... mother's dinner-party. She was in a quandary about me, I saw, and to save words I offered to go over again and stay with the little Graeme. So it came to pass, one time being precedent of another, that in all the merrymakings I had small share, and spent the greater part of those bright days in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... suddenly stepped out of perfect obscurity into splendour. During the interval at the full dress rehearsal, while other members had dispersed to revive their jaded nerves with lunch, I remained seated on a pile of boards on the stage, in order that no one might realise that I was in the quandary of being unable to obtain similar refreshment. An invalid Italian singer, who was taking a small part in the opera, seemed to notice this, and kindly brought me a glass of wine and a piece of bread. I was sorry that I was obliged to deprive him of even his ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... The quandary was trying. Finally he concluded to stay where he was. The stranger might bring somebody back with him—possibly the lost child—such Lael was in ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... omitted altogether, the judge and jury might not feel the loss so bitterly. Perhaps they might prefer it and the question for the lawyer is whether it is better to satisfy the client or the jury. In this quandary the lawyer may forget that the main point is to win the battle. When the case is lost the client does not care at all how brilliantly the lawyer looked, acted, ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... alight, but Paul did not leave the car. Locke was in some quandary what to do. To attempt to enter the house without Paul's seeing him and raising the alarm would, he realized, be impossible. Therefore he waited for nearly half an hour before his patience was rewarded by seeing Balcom ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... Patricians in a quandary. With riot in the streets and war beyond the walls they were at the mercy of the commons. They were forced to promise a mitigation of the laws, declaring that no one should henceforth seize the goods of a soldier while he was in camp, or hinder a citizen ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... crooked work?" asked McKeever. He pushed back his chair. Fernand, studying his lieutenant in this crisis, approved of him thoroughly. He himself was in a quandary. Westerners fight, and a fight would be most embarrassing. "Do you ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... she professed a steadily increasing passion for Mr. Britling. And to profess passion for Mr. Britling was to put him under a sense of profound obligation—because indeed he was a modest man. He found himself in an emotional quandary. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... filters, or Thorpe's (which are dearer), Have ever distill'd, To the summit was fill'd, Lay stretch'd out before him—and every nerve thrill'd As scores of young women Were diving and swimming, Till the vision a perfect quandary put him in;— All slightly accoutred in gauzes and lawns, They came floating about him like so ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... matter to contemplate—a most hazardous extremity in any event. If spared from the fury of their troops, by ordering the execution, their death was certain at the hands of Judge Terry's avengers. In this quandary, the Executive Committee were as anxious for a safe way out, without blood or sacrifice, as any of the friends of Terry. Secretary of State Douglass came to San Francisco. He persuaded ex-Senator Gwin to interpose on Terry's behalf. Gwin dispatched Sam. J. Bridges, Appraiser-General, ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... in this quandary, he met his Jewish broker. He did not hesitate to address him, and, featherhead as he was, did not fail to tell him the plight ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... mistress requires a solemn promise that the servant will come on a certain day, and as often as not the day arrives without her. Our young lady has been round to a number of mistresses and 'priced' their places; she will not wilfully put you in a quandary, but if, after having engaged herself to you, she hears of another situation where there is less work or more wages, she takes it in preference, and leaves you to manage as best you can. Even when you have got her and found her suitable, you can never tell at what moment she will be pleased ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... mind remained in a chaotic condition. I had not succeeded in forming any plan. What a quandary, Sir! Oh! what a quandary! Here was I, Hector Ratichon, the confidant of kings, the right hand of two emperors, set to the task of stealing a dog—for that is what I should have to do—from an unscrupulous gang of thieves whose identity, abode and methods were alike unknown to me. Truly, Sir, ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... quandary, and looked at Miss Pomeroy. She saw his perplexity, and quickly made matters easy ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... however, at the river-bank; for, search as he might, he could not find a canoe nor a craft of any kind. Now, he was indeed in a quandary. It would be worse than useless to return to the Indian camp, that might at any moment be repeopled. He dared not go up the river, for that way lay the hosts of Pontiac; nor could he cross it and make his way to the fort. There was obviously but one course to pursue, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... a quandary," began the little lady who was used to having her own way, "and we hope you will help us out. With Polly's birthday coming on the eighteenth and Leonora's on the twentieth, and we planning for separate parties, it is strange I didn't think of it sooner. Probably it wouldn't ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... relapsed into silence, but when he attempted the passage again the next day he was attacked by a similar, though greater, fire. He was now in a terrible quandary. He did not wish another such desperate battle as that which he had been forced to fight on the Lower Mississippi. He might win it, but there would be a great expenditure of men and ammunition, and at this vast distance from New Orleans ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler |
