"Nick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Old Nick has more influence with York than I have. He crosses the street when he sees me. I like him about as much as he likes me. He's boss of his own show—his directors cut no ice. Anyway, it's none of my business. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... them automobiles. You won't ketch me with an automobile—no, nor a motor-boat, neither; nor any other of them durn things that's goin' to set me livin' like as if I was shot out of the cannon's mouth. What's the good of bein' whizzed through life as if the old Nick himself was at your heels—workin' faster, eatin' faster, dyin' faster? I see ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... drawn this sword—you may draw it and feel, For this is the blade that I bore that day— There's a notch even now on the long grey steel, A nick that has never been rasp'd away. I bow'd my head and I buried my spurs, One bound brought the gliding green beneath; I could tell by her back-flung, flatten'd ears, She had fairly taken the bit in her teeth— (What, Jack, have you drain'd your namesake dry, Left nothing ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... in the nick of time, and proud as old Lenz was of his pension and its situation, it was not the unrivalled prospect (as stated in the hotel advertisements) that stopped him. It was the sight of a most lovely girl leaning over the stone wall at the foot of the ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... heathen Rome; yet the deposit it has permanently left behind it in the English language is not inconsiderable. 'Lubber,' 'dwarf,' 'oaf,' 'droll,' 'wight,' 'puck,' 'urchin,' 'hag,' 'night-mare,' 'gramary,' 'Old Nick,' 'changeling' (wechselkind), suggest themselves, as all bequeathed to us by that old Teutonic demonology. [Footnote: [But the words puck, urchin, gramary, are not of Teutonic origin. The etymology of puck is unknown; urchin means ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... of dismay as she sees his face wrung by despair. Eileen turns her head away with a little cry, as if she would hide her face in the bedclothes. A sudden fierce resolution lights up Murray's countenance—hoarsely.) You're just in the nick of time, Miss Gilpin! Eileen! Listen! You'll believe Miss Gilpin, won't you? She knows all about it. (Eileen turns her eyes questioningly ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... tearing the flesh of his thigh. Sheer surprise relaxed his muscles for the fraction of an instant. Roaring Dick lowered his head, rammed it into Bob's chin, and at the same time reached for the young man's gullet with both hands. Bob tore his head out of reach in the nick of time. As they closed again Roaring Dick's right hand was free. Bob felt the riverman's ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... customers he was irreverently called by a diminutive of that name. The principal part of his business undoubtedly came from the side of the establishment with the short name; but it was known to the stable-fraternity that on occasion "Old Nick" would make an advance to a needy borrower who was "down on his luck" of at least fifteen per cent, of almost any article's value. Saddles, bridles, watches, pistols, scarf-pins, and all the indiscriminate belongings of a race-track population were to be found in his "store." And ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... on. That fellow Nick Ward, is a noted blackleg and ruffian: had his nose broken in a fight and is sensitive on the ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... and pompous Visitor, and next to the dishevelled Prioress, adding: "And now, Sir Commissioner, for all that I have done in the cause of justice I ask pardon of you who wear the King's grace and majesty as I wore old Nick's horns and hoofs, since otherwise the Abbot and his hired butchers, who hold themselves masters of King and people, will murder me for this as they have done by better men. Therefore pardon, your Mightiness, pardon," and he kneeled ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... foolish dames who travel with their trinkets and fal-lals. At the sight of my barkers her ladyship screamed and fainted. This made things as easy as an old glove. Click! and the necklace was in my pocket and I was galloping back to Hounslow as if Old Nick himself was ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... small, came just in the nick of time, because of the Saratoga-trunk scheme not proving a success. In less than one hour after I had made the deal, the landlord asked me to pay in advance. I immediately flew into a rage and demanded him to make out my bill for what we had had and receipt it in full, ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight! Warlocks and witches in a dance; Nae cotillion brent new frae France, But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, Put life and mettle in their heels. A winnock-bunker in the east, There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast; A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, To gie them music was his charge; He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl, Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.— Coffins stood round, like ...
— Tam O'Shanter • Robert Burns
... head was that of a slight, strong creature who was not a man. Lightfoot, wild with love and anxiety, had shot past Old Mok just as he laid down his bundle of arrows, and, when she saw her husband's peril, had leaped forward with arrow upon string and slain his latest assailant in the nick of time. Now, with arrow notched again and a face ablaze with murderous helpfulness, she hovered near, intent only upon sending a second shaft ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... smart game, or a paying one—something as knocks 'em, dear boy, No matter, mate, whether it's mustard, or rhymes, or a sixpenny toy; They'll be arter you, nick over nozzle, the smuggers of notions and nips, For the mugs is as 'ungry for wrinkles as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... where they sat, and a light patch had appeared at it. "He's staring! Lord, how he's staring! I say, can you see this?" Erik called out, holding up a gin-bottle. Then, as he drank: "Your health! Old Nick's health! He smells, the pig! Bah!" The others laughed, and the face at the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Elizabeth sat down in deep despondency to write to her mother, and then lingered awhile with the letter before her, her head in her hands, pondering with emotion what she and Philip owed to George Anderson, who had, it seemed, arrived by a night train, and walked up to the hotel, in the very nick of time. As to the accident itself, no doubt the guide, a fine swimmer and coureur de bois, would have been sufficient, unaided, to save her brother. But after all, it was Anderson's strong arms that had drawn him from the icy depths ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... courteously military—that of an established superior indifferent to the deferential attitude he must needs enact. His curt nick of the head, for a response to the visitor's formal salutation, signified the requisite acknowledgment, like a city creditor's busy stroke of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... come about in the very nick of time to avoid disaster. As matters stood I was hopeful. "With any sort of luck we ought to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... came to a meadow in which was a flock of fine fat geese, on which he smiled and said, "I come in the nick of time, you are sitting together quite beautifully, so that I can eat you up one after the other." The geese cackled with terror, sprang up, and began to wail and beg piteously for their lives. But the fox would listen ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... the edge of the large blade of his penknife a nick, triangular in shape, which left an unmistakable groove in the wood every time he cut into it. That little groove shows, to the naked eye, on the end of the shortened slat and on the handle of the dagger. If you ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... the poor sedan, the batter'd Frame-work, nobody there nor here could ever Lift it, painfully neck to nick adjusting.' ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... rendezvous[68] to go round. Then they were compelled to resort to the substitutes of the Indians. Among some tribes the bark of the red willow, dried and bruised, was used; others, particularly the mountain savages, smoked the genuine kin-nik-i-nick, a little evergreen vine growing on the tops of the highest elevations, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... fierceness. Forgetting where she was for the instant, she stared dumbly at them until called to life and action by a scream from the locomotive's whistle. Then she sprang from the track just in the nick of time. She actually laughed as she saw two grayish-white wolf-tails bob here and there among the sage brush, as the wolves took flight ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... that Young Nick hasn't enough petrol to get on as far as—anywhere. That will give us more minutes. Brown Buddha, as your adored one calls him, has crawled humbly but swiftly off to obtain a new supply. Sir Lionel, already in a vile temper for reasons which I may have time to explain, is bursting with rage ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... or did not live in the basin of the Delaware at the most remote times of which we have any knowledge, we meet with traces of his occupation in the same latitude at more recent periods. At Long-Nick-Branch is a shell-mound that extends for half a mile, and in California there is a yet larger kitchen-midding. It measures a mile in length by half a mile in width, and, as in similar accumulations, excavations ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... whigs had united in small parties, and were styled by the Skinners, in derision, the 'Cow-boys.' One of the most active and energetic of these bands, ever ready for any species of patriotic duty, was led by Nicholas Odell. Nick, as he was familiarly termed, though entirely uneducated, was one of the shrewdest men to be found; for Nature had gifted him where cultivation was wanting, and he became, in consequence, a most formidable and dangerous enemy in the service he had ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... Where'd you get that horse?" called Nick Hammond as he approached his father and Dr. Morris, as they were talking at the ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... "Nick don't work straight from the shoulder, Mr. Kendrick; but he's got a long arm with a lot o' elbows in it." McCorquodale shook his head. thoughtfully and looked serious. "There was a guy named Weiler ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... apprentices winked and whispered, and lolled out their tongues at him as he passed. "Oh, but that must be as good as a May-Fair day,—sober Nick Alwyn's maiden flight of the shaft! Hollo, puissant archer, take care of the goslings yonder! Look this way when thou pull'st, and then woe to the other side!" Venting these and many similar specimens of the humour of Cockaigne, the apprentices, however, followed their quondam ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... me nick ah keeng e mah me quom ah kik e kewh me zeh ah mik e newh me squeh ahn doohm e qua me tigk ah nungk I yahdt nah maih ah owh kah yawsk ne gigk ah pa ke tahn ne peh ah pweh ke quis ne peeng ah sin ke nwazhe ne sing ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... jester, indeed, he seemed more ridiculous that came to a feast of his own accord than he that was invited; but to well-bred and civil friends it is more obliging for men of the same temper to come at the nick of time with other friends, when uninvited and unexpected; at once pleasing both to those that invite and those that entertain. But chiefly you must avoid going to rulers, rich or great men, lest you incur the deserved censure of being impudent, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... and Salmon of Dublin, had been treated there. This was a hit at me; but there are certain situations in which people can't dictate their own terms: and, 'faith, I was so pressed now for money, that I could have signed a bond with Old Nick himself, if he had come provided with a good ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Edwin, with an air of comprehension. He did not, however, comprehend. He only felt that the boy was wonderful. Imagine the boy saying that! He bent lower. "Come on up," he said. "I'll give you a hand. Stick your feet into that nick there." ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... had said. "For fifteen years you have lived the life of a recluse—a useless recluse, mind you. And why? Because of pride,—sheer pride. Those who had known you in the strength of your manhood, those who had known you as Nick the dare-devil, should never see the broken cripple. Pride forbade it. You preferred to run to cover, to lie hidden there like a wounded beast, rather than face, like a man, the odds that were ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... shining passes belief. And that row of glass windows tipped toward the sky Are rubies and carbuncles when the day is dry. Oh, my! Oh, my! They have coppered up the bottom, And the copper nails Stand about and sparkle in big wooden pails. Bang! Clash! Bang! "And he swigg'd, and Nick swigg'd, And Ben swigg'd, and Dick swigg'd, And I swigg'd, and all of us swigg'd it, And swore there was nothing like grog." It seems they sing, Even though coppering is not an easy thing. What a splendid specimen ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... arrival," said Sir Lionel, still reflective. "You know, Emily, the little twelve-horse-power car I had sent out to East Bengal was a Mercedes. If I could drive her, I can drive a bigger car. Everybody says it's easier. And young Nick has learned ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... since me tenth birthdye, but Hi knows a hangel w'en Hi sees one, an' lawst night Hi missed a 'ole bar on the snare fer lookin' up at 'er just once. Hi never see a brunette look so habsolutely hinnocent. Th' Ol' Nick's peekin' out o' brunettes' faces, somew'eres, mostly. Don't know w'at she myde me think of—m'ybe wreaths o' roses red an' pink, an' m'ybe crowns o' di'mun's—but Hi missed a 'ole bar on th' snare ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... sword again, Ken saw the glitter in his savage eyes, and thought it was all over when, in the very nick of time, a revolver spat and turned the fierce ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead? She 'as ships on the foam—she 'as millions at 'ome, An' she pays us poor beggars in red. (Ow, poor beggars in red!) There's 'er nick on the cavalry 'orses, There's 'er mark on the medical stores— An' 'er troopers you'll find with a fair wind be'ind That takes us to various wars. (Poor beggars!—barbarious wars!) Then 'ere's to the Widow at Windsor, An' 'ere's to the ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... corner, as the shades grew thicker, Four eyes waxed brighter, and two pulses quicker; Ten minutes more of quiet talk unbroken, And heaven alone can tell what might be spoken! But it was not to be, for fates unequal Compelled—but this anticipates the sequel. Just in the nick of time, King Arthur rose From his sedate post-prandial repose, And called for lights. Along the shadowy aisles His pages' footsteps pattered o'er the tiles, Speeding to do his errand, and at once Four tapers flickered from each silver sconce. The scene was ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... "Nick Hargus is one of the most persistent offenders, and we might as well dispose of him first, since you've met the old wretch and know what he's like on the outside," she explained. "Hargus was in the cattle business in a hand-to-mouth way when we came ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... immobility of the man whose money had come in the nick of time to save him from utter ruin, his voice died out in ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... many a fat oath you've bolted in your time. Now on the nick of your conscience, Val darling, how many Bibles did you wear out, by a long and honest course of hard swearing?—eh—ha! ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... exclaimed, turning in my tracks and addressing a small brown-leafed beech. "What! little Hyla, are you still out? You! with a snow-storm brewing and St. Nick due here to-morrow night?" And then from within the bush, or on it, or under it, or over it, came an answer, Peep, peep, peep! small and shrill, dropping into the silence of the woods and stirring ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... Warren attacked Ewell at the hour, but were unsuccessful. Hancock's assault upon Hill was completely successful, although Longstreet arrived in the nick of time to save Hill. But Hancock's attack was with his right wing under Birney, and Longstreet struck the left of Birney's command. Where were the two divisions of Gibbon, posted for the very purpose of looking out ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... me owld eyes not to seen it, whin me own fingers sewed it, an' me own han's hoong it aboot the little crather's nick?" ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... "In the nick of time, Ralph!" exclaimed Lord Tamerton, clasping his hand warmly. "We are trying to create a mediaeval atmosphere in keeping with our surroundings, and as host I was about to announce in the approved manner of Chivalry that the Champion of to-morrow's hunt shall be ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... blockhead who will spoil everything. However, as we have nobody else, we must make use of him. But where shall we find him?—Ah! here he is in the very nick ...
— The Flying Doctor - (Le Medecin Volant) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... very near being the end of Young Grumpy, for the one-eyed gander would have bitten and banged and hammered at him till he was as dead as a last year's June bug. But happily the Boy and the white dog came running up in the nick of time. The gander dropped his victim and stalked off haughtily. And poor Young Grumpy, after turning twice around in a confused way, ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... not say he was but little hurt? Had the blow struck him fairly in the back, as it was meant to do, doubtless it would have put an end to him; but Poole was to the rescue, poor lad! He threw himself on the mulatto in the nick o' time. The knife had barely grazed Mr. Rivers on the shoulder; but young Tomas never let go his hold of it. He and the faithful lad rolled together on the ground—and Poole never rose again. His body was ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... that there were three distinct aristocracies in Washington. One of these, (nick-named the Antiques,) consisted of cultivated, high-bred old families who looked back with pride upon an ancestry that had been always great in the nation's councils and its wars from the birth of the republic downward. Into this select circle ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... and stood looking with crimson cheeks and quicker-coming breath at this young man who came upon her in the nick of time. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... come out of their caves, given one war-whoop, and made a show of descending upon the besiegers, those precious friendlies would assuredly have turned tail and bolted. But the Matabele in the security of their caves made no such sign, and Baden-Powell called up the Cape Boys and the Maxims in the nick of time. In a few minutes the guns were in position on what looked like inaccessible crags, and the Cape Boys shouting and cheering were floundering through bogs, leaping over boulders, and firing with firm hand wherever firing was of use. The fight was now begun in earnest, and B.-P., on ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... line to any bough near to a hole where a Pike is, or is likely to lie, or to have a haunt; and then wind your line on any forked stick, all your line, except half a yard of it or rather more; and split that forked stick, with such a nick or notch at one end of it as may keep the line from any more of it ravelling from about the stick than so much of it as you intend. And choose your forked stick to be of that bigness as may keep the fish or ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... did we have when we were married? Why, little girl, you just got through saying that the happiest days we ever spent were up there in the woods when money was so scarce that we knew the date on every dollar we owned—and every scratch and nick on them—and the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... not daring to complain to her father, who was entirely ruled by his new wife. When her daily work was done she used to sit down in the chimney-corner among the ashes; from which the two sisters gave her the nick-name of Cinderella. But Cinderella, however shabbily clad, was handsomer than they were ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... clean, and tolerably sharp. Ercole looked at it critically, drew the edge over his coarse thumb-nail to find if there were any nick in the steel, and then scratched the same thumb-nail with it, as one erases ink with a knife, to see how sharp it was. The point was like a needle, but he considered that the edge was dull, and he drew it up and down one of the brown barrels of ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... Ay, Husband, now you have nick'd the Matter. To have him peach'd is the only thing could ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... educators, a long talk with the young Maharaja of Kasimbazar, a financial appeal to my father, and lo! the shaky foundations of Ranchi began to be righted. Many donations including one huge check arrived in the nick of time from my ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... promptness, immediateness. V. be prompt, be on time, be in time; arrive on time; be in the nick of time. Adj. timely, seasonable, in time, punctual, prompt. Adv. on time, punctually, at the deadline, precisely, exactly; right on time, to the minute; in time; in good time, in military time, in pudding ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that the waters in the immediate vicinity of Chance Along were neither the most dangerous on the coast, nor the most convenient for the salving of wreckage and fast-drowning cargoes. So he established stations at Squid Beach to the northward, and at Nolan's Cove to the southward, and ordered Nick Leary and Foxey Jack Quinn to take up their abode in the new huts; Nick at Squid Beach, and Foxey Jack at the Cove, had to keep a sharp look-out for ships during bad weather and at night. Should either of them remark any signs of a vessel ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... the end of the week that Dick Rover came into contact with Tad Sobber, a stocky youth, with a shock of black hair and eyes which were cold and penetrating. Sobber was with a chum named Nick Pell, and both eyed Dick in a calculating manner which was ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... ones, have been defeated, in all ages, by inferior numbers. The Romans lost a great battle in the north of Italy to Hannibal, the Carthaginian, by this neglect alone. Now, this divine elixir gives in one moment force to the limbs and ardour to the spirits; and taken into Hector's body at the nick of time, would, by the aid of Phoebus, Venus, and the blessed saints, have most likely procured the Greeks a defeat. For note how faint and weary and heart-sick I was a minute ago; well, I suck this celestial cordial, and now behold ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... nick of time the cowboy swung his legs up around the limb. The horrible claws of the grizzly swept through the air not a foot below where he had hung. Frank shuddered at the consequences had anything happened to bring Reddy within reach of such a ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... upon the sackbut; guards in full armour; a pell-mell of unofficial citizens ever prancing along the edge of the pageant, huzza-ing and hosanna-ing, mostly looking back over their shoulders and shading their eyes; maidens strewing rose-leaves; and at last the orchestra crashing to a climax in the nick of which my neighbour turned to me and, with an assumption of innocent enthusiasm, whispered, I shouldn't wonder if this were Barrett.' I suppose (Mr. Barrett at that instant amply appearing) I gave way to laughter; but this didn't matter; the applause would have drowned ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... out of society, what need have I for an assumed name? As for my Christian name, it's so detestably ugly that I hate the sight and sound of it. Here, they know me as The Lodger. Will you have that? or will you have an appropriate nick-name? I come of a mixed breed; and I'm likely, after what has happened to me, to turn out a worthless fellow. Call me The Cur. Oh, you needn't start! that's as accurate a description of me as any ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... certain metallic gleams in it—like time-veiled copper and brass. His flawless frame was covered with tight-banded muscle. There was no appearance of fat. His skin was smooth—without wrinkles. He was young; about forty years, or less. But there was the nick of a tusk-stroke in one ear; and a small red devil ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... lithe little lady is arrayed in the ordinary garb of the nineteenth century with what is technically termed a 'pannier,' and large open sleeves, each of which, I fear, she must have found considerably in the way, as also the sundry lockets and other nick-nacks suspended from her neck. However, there they were. We put her in a cupboard, which had a single Windsor chair in it, and laid a stoutish new cord on her lap. Then came singing, which may or may not have been intended to drown any noise in the cupboard; ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... some kind unseen hand was stretching forth in the hour of my need, somebody's deft fingers snatched the tangled web that had gone so far astray in the weaving, and in the nick of time made a hazardous effort to smoothen the silken threads for the busy loom that waits not for the slow or ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... Church offices were sold and bought for gain, That Pope had hoped to find Rome here again; For Oaths and Blasphemies did ever Ear From Belzebub himself such language hear? What scorning of the saints of the most high, What injuries did daily on them lye, What false reports, what nick-names did they take Not for their own ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... venerable beard, stained his limbs with henna, and called himself Abdullah of Bushire, a half-Arab. In this disguise, with spear in hand and pistols in holsters, he travelled the country with a little pack of nick-knacks. In order to display his stock he boldly entered private houses, for he found that if the master wanted to eject him, the mistress would be sure to ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... curious need to wreck his own life in order that he might parent Brian with success, he must not make a mess of it. Once, accidentally, John said, he had almost shipwrecked Brian's life and Brian had stepped out—just in the nick of time. He must not do that again. Brian had suffered enough from ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... on 1st July, after a heavy night's rain, a voice from the high wet grass, about a hundred yards distant, cried out to the sentries in Arabic, "Don't fire! I am a messenger from Rionga to Malegge!" (my former nick-name). ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... accurate, and as spirited as it is true. The constable, Sellick, is an original character, and as minor figures where will we find anything better than Miss Wansey, and Mr. P. Pipkin, Esq. The picture of Mr. Dink's school, too, is capital, and where else in fiction is there a better nick-name than that the boys gave to poor little Stephen Treadwell, "Step Hen," as he himself pronounced his name in an unfortunate moment when he saw it in print for the first time in ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... many modern critics and painters almost dislike Raphael is the very reason for which he was so greatly revered. Coming in the nick of time, at the close of an epoch of investigation, himself a man of wide culture and quick intellect but of no special originality or emotional power, he learned from all his predecessors what they had to teach and, ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... first, diving at the word into a dirty and narrow lane. There was no pursuit. Mr. Mac-Morlan and the soldiers had appeared in the nick of time. The smugglers had enough to do to provide for their ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... deprive her of a customer, or suggest what became of the self-consuming tea and sugar, and other general trifles. That would have been agreeable. The bashful, winning, glorious curiosity, with which little Ruth, when fiery-face was gone, peeped into the books and nick-nacks that were lying about, and had a particular interest in some delicate paper-matches on the chimney-piece; wondering who could have made them. That would have been worth seeing. The faltering hand with which she tied those flowers together; ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... out here in 1880. I figured there better land out here and I followed her in 1881. We paid our own ways. Seem like the owners ought to give the slaves something but seem like they was mad 'cause they set us free. Ma was named Viney May and pa, Nick May. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing and natural manner; the Little Boys' Dance has been liked by some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which Old Nick will fetch away at the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and obeyed, and the two went off to the Library, where they found Mrs. Delville and the man who went by the nick-name of The Dancing Master. By that time Mrs. Mallowe ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... to a certainty," said the smith, who, as the reader may have noticed, had no goodwill to the Highland race. "I will wager on Old Nick, of whom I should know something, he being indeed a worker in the same element with myself, against Catharine on that debate: the devil will have the tartan, that ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... said Mason, "it looks as if you had been quarrelling. I guess I came just in the nick of time." ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... for a second, made a snatch at his collar; and, clutching hold of it, in the very nick of time, saved him by a miracle—had he been carried overboard, no earthly power ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... think you're stupid," said the wife angrily. "You ought to have cut a nick in the right one ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... cried, "I'll no' hae my dog scaret wi' bogles, and running down Auld Nick as if he were a hare. The ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... poor Nick, an honest creature, Of faithful, gentle, courteous nature; A parlor pet unspoiled by favor, A pattern of good dog behavior, Without a wish, without a dream, Beyond his home and friends at Cheam. Contentedly through life he trotted, Along the path that faith allotted, Till time, his ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... 'usbind, an' I can't say more than thet. Mr. Footley thinks a deal of me, 'e does! Why, only the other dy as I was goin' inter 'is shop 'e says "Good mornin', Mrs. 'Odges." "Good mornin', Mr. Footley," says I. "You've jest come in the nick of time," says 'e. "This gentleman an' myself," pointin' to another gentleman as was standin' there, "we was 'avin' a bit of an argument. Now you're a very intelligent woman, Mrs. 'Odges, and a good customer ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... usual by putting the captive Lydian prince on a pyre, threatening to burn him if he will not reveal the place of the Princess's flight, and actually having the torch applied. Of course Cyrus turns up at the nick of time, has the fire put out, rates the King of Assyria soundly for his violence, and apologises handsomely to Croesus. The notion of an apology for nearly roasting a man may appear to have its ludicrous side, but the way ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... was thinking of giving the comfortable mother that admonition which the policeman had so narrowly escaped? I know not what would have happened if the merry goddess, seeing things rushing to this dreadful climax, had not stopped the train in the nick of time at a wayside station and caused a breathless lady, pushing parcels before her, to clamber in. The mother's surprised stare was of necessity diverted to the new-comer. A parcel thrust into Priscilla's hands brought her back of necessity ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... with Nick Pringle, or East with someone else," she said quizzically. "There's always four quarters to the compass, even when Abe Hawley thinks he owns the world and has a mortgage on eternity. I'm not going West with Bantry, but there's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... on beholding it, shivered with dread, And screamed, as he turned away quick; Not an old woman saw it, but raising her head, Dropp'd a bead, made a cross on her wrinkles, and said, "God help me from ugly old Nick!" ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... installed as general reader for a neighborhood of several thousand men, everything of this kind was immediately brought to me, to be read aloud for the benefit of everybody. All the older prisoners knew me by the nick-name of "Illinoy" —a designation arising from my wearing on my cap, when I entered prison, a neat little white metal badge of "ILLS." When any reading matter was brought into our neighborhood, there would ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the way I'm going to do it. I'll take care of Gipsy, you'll see—make it easy for her, but nick in Leonora for more than ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... for Stannard the hostiles would have gotten away, not only with Mrs. Bennett, but with Harris. Harris made a hare-brained attempt to rescue her single-handed. He only succeeded in running his own neck into a noose. Your wisdom, and God's mercy, sent Stannard just in the nick of time, and there's the whole situation in ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... the accident; and then of Jack Duane, and of his political career in the stockyards, and his downfall and subsequent failures. Marija listened with sympathy; it was easy to believe the tale of his late starvation, for his face showed it all. "You found me just in the nick of time," she said. "I'll stand by you—I'll help you till you can ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... exclaimed at this. He was not hard on the captain. Nothing was further from his thoughts. Friend! Of course he was a good friend and a faithful servant. He begged Powell to understand that if Captain Anthony chose to strike a bargain with Old Nick to-morrow, and Old Nick were good to the captain, he (Franklin) would find it in his heart to love Old Nick for the captain's sake. That was so. On the other hand, if a saint, an angel with white ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... have been nick-named, as Chicago, the Windy City; Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, etc. The hostess requests her guests to wear something suggestive of the nickname of the city represented. Each guest writes on a piece ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... fringe of crowd, down c., exhibit especially all the symptoms of epilepsy, whooping-cough, and other ailments.] You love not me. [The crowd makes an ugly rush. LOR. appears likely to be dragged down and torn limb from limb, but raises one hand in nick of time, and continues:] Yet I deserve your love. [The yells are now variegated with dubious murmurs. A cobbler down c. thrusts his face feverishly in the face of another and repeats, in a hoarse interrogative whisper, 'Deserves our love?'] Not for the sundry boons I have bestow'd ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... Old Nick, who taught the village school, Wedded a maid of homespun habit; He was stubborn as a mule, She ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... me," said she rousing herself, "you're going to hurt me,—don't sir, it hurts," all in a groggy tone and in one breath. I inserted a finger between the lips of her quim, and tried gently to put it up, but felt an impediment. She had never been opened by man. I then put my prick carefully in the nick, and gave the gentlest possible movement (as far as ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... old. They were full of nicks as well as wood-knots, and the appearance of some of the former gave Code an idea. He went carefully over the boards, sticking his thumb-nail into them and lifting or pressing down as the shape of the nick warranted. For they resembled very much the depressions cut in sliding covers on starch-boxes whereby such covers can be ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... "Nick—that is, Nicholas, sir," replied the elder Burr with an apologetic cough, due to the insignificance of the subject. "Yes, sir, he's leetle, but he's plum full of grit. He can beat any nigger I ever seed at the plough. He'd outplough me if ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... went over heaple steeple There I met a heap o' people; Some was nick and some was nack, Some was ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... allow it to trouble them whether the highest or the lowest priest had said it, or had done it in God's Name or in his own. They looked on the works and words, and held them up to God's Commandment, no matter whether big John or little Nick said it, or whether they had done it in God's Name or in man's. And for this they had to die, and of such dying there would be much more to say in our time, for things are much worse now. But Christ and St. Peter and Paul must cover all this with their holy names, so that no more infamous cover ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... And, in the nick of time, a troop of United States cavalry came dashing up to capture the renegade Indians, who surrendered; Blake also getting pictures of the dash ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... will reach Gangoil sooner than he could the mill. You are better here, and we will send for Mrs. Medlicot as soon as the men have had a rest. How was it all, Mr. Medlicot? Harry says that there was a fight, and that you came in just at the nick of time, and that but for you all the run ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... the enemy of our souls. But the thought will wondrously lighten the burden that we have to carry, and the tasks which we have to perform. 'But for a moment,' makes all light. There was an old rabbi, long ago, whose real name was all but lost, because everybody nick-named him 'Rabbi Thisalso.' The reason was because he had perpetually on his lips the saying about everything as it came, 'This also will pass.' He was a wise man. Let us go to his school and learn ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... 'tracted Cap's 'tention, an' so he jist set down in massa's chair an' took a smoke. Bimeby Cap thought,—'Ef massa come an' ketch him!'—an' put down de pipe an' went to work, and bimeby I smelt mighty queer smell, massa, 'bout de house, made him tink Ol' Nick was come hissef for Ol' Cap, an' I come back into dis yer room an' Massa Reuben's letters from Indy was jist most done burnt up, he cotched 'em in dese yer ol' brack han's, Mass Roger, an' jist whipt 'em up in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... wound was in the body, for the gash made by the entry of the enormously broad spears used by the Kukuanas generally rendered recovery impossible. In most instances the poor sufferers were already unconscious, and in others the fatal "nick" of the artery was inflicted so swiftly and painlessly that they did not seem to notice it. Still it was a ghastly sight, and one from which we were glad to escape; indeed, I never remember anything of the kind that affected me more ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... page, About twelve years of age, For so little a boy was remarkably sage; And, just in the nick, to their joy and amazement, Popp'd the gas-lighter's ladder close under the casement. But all would not do,—Though St. Megrin got through The window,—below stood De Guise and his crew. And though never man was more brave ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... five minuts, bekaze the breath of her kiss was not gone from my mouth, I must go through the married lines on my way to quarters an' I must stay talkin' to a red-headed Mullingar heifer av a girl, Judy Sheehy, that was daughter to Mother Sheehy, the wife of Nick Sheehy, the canteen-sergint—the Black Curse av Shielygh be on the whole brood that are above groun' ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... school, I had the narrowest escape possible of intruding myself into another place of accommodation for distinguished people; in other words, I was very nearly being sent to college. Fortunately for me, my father lost a lawsuit just in the nick of time, and was obliged to scrape together every farthing of available money that he possessed to pay for the luxury of going to law. If he could have saved his seven shillings, he would certainly have sent me to scramble for a place in the pit of the great university theater; but his purse was ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... is this?" demanded one of the elder gentlemen. "Have you a private battery concealed about your person with invisible wires distributed throughout the city, that you seem to arrive at any and every spot just on the nick ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... yell followed, and a young chief rushed towards the strait, with frantic cries, as if bent on leaping across the chasm. He was followed by a hundred warriors. Mark now made the signal to Juno. Not a moment was lost by the undaunted girl, who touched off her gun in the very nick of time. Down came the grape, hissing along the Reef; and, rebounding from its surface, away it leaped across the strait, flying through the thickest of the assailants. A dozen more suffered by that discharge. Waally now saw that a crisis ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... seeing an electric-motor car running for the first time, exclaimed: "Well, well, Ould Nick must be pullin' ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... was old enough I was sent to Tregony grammar school, my father being determined to give me a schooling befitting the position he hoped, in spite of his misfortunes, I should some day occupy. Now Nick Tresidder had been attending this same school for some months when I went. For this I was very glad, because I thought it would give me an opportunity for testing him. I had not been in the school a week, however, when my father came to fetch me away. The reason was that Richard Tresidder ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... some of his time with the little chap after that. He would bring books and read to him in his mother tongue, or tell him wonderful stories. The poor little chap was so happy to see him and always used to kiss 'Uncle Nick,' as Karl taught the boy to call him. And when the little fellow died, Karl wept just as though the lad had been his own kin, and insisted upon following ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo
... they have various sorts of baskets; some are made of the same materials as their mats; and others of the twisted fibres of cocoa-nuts. These are not only durable but beautiful; being generally composed of different colours, and studded with beads made of shells or bones. They have many little nick-nacks amongst them; which shews that they neither want taste to design, nor skill to execute, whatever they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... during the year St. Nick, as he was commonly called, was busy manufacturing and preparing wonderful toys to be distributed throughout the country among the children who were deserving. In order to know to whom the presents were ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... I'm shavin' next mornin' I connect with the big idea. Do you ever get 'em that way? It cost me a nick under the ear, but I didn't care. While I'm usin' the alum stick I sketches ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... "Old Nick will have me anyhow," I thought to myself as I drove home amid the shadows. The hum of the cicadas was still, and dozens of rabbits, tempted out by the cool of the twilight, scuttled across my path and hid in ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... a prophecy of victory. Bradley ran up his Napoleons on the right in the nick of time, and, although only one of them could be brought to bear, it was enough; the grape raked the Confederate left, broke it, and the battle was over. In five minutes more their whole array was scattered, and the entire ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave a lustre of midday to objects below; When what to my wondering eyes should appear But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick! More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name. "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!— To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, Now, dash away, dash away, dash away ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... me down as a bull might a wolf, but I was much too quick for him, and each time I side-stepped his rushes he would go lunging past me, only to receive a nick from my sword upon his arm or back. He was soon streaming blood from a half dozen minor wounds, but I could not obtain an opening to deliver an effective thrust. Then he changed his tactics, and fighting warily and with extreme dexterity, he tried to do by science what he was unable to do by brute ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... time by a violent wrench on the bridle rein she turned him swiftly toward the open cliff. Quick as she had been, however, Alvarado's own movement was quicker. He struck spur into his powerful barb and with a single bound was by her side, in the very nick of time. Her horse's forefeet were slipping among the loose stones on the edge. In another second they would both be over. Alvarado threw his right arm around her and with a force superhuman dragged her from the saddle, at the same time forcing his own horse violently backward with ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... enquiries, the passage in Thackeray's lecture occurred to me where he mentions having been shown Eliza's Diary by a "Gentleman of Bath." I wished to find out who this was, when my faithful friend wrote to the novelist and sent me his reply, which began, "My dear Primrose"—his charmingly appropriate nick or pet name for Elwin, who was the very picture of the amiable vicar. It resulted in the gentleman allowing me to look ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... tacked to plaster walls and the furniture submitted to the hard usage demanded by war. An old man conspicuous by his civilian clothes wandered about the yard here and there, picking up some stray implement or nick-nack, hanging it up on a wall or ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... bulwarks, with many a rough jest and many a scrap of criticism or advice. "Higher, Wat, higher!" "Put thy body into it, Will!" "Forget not the wind, Hal!" So ran the muttered chorus, while high above it rose the sharp twanging of the strings, the hiss of the shafts, and the short "Draw your arrow! Nick your arrow! Shoot wholly together!" from ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this beautiful Romance to the young gentleman in question. As I cannot find, however, that he is known among his friends by any other name than "The Tripe-skewer," which I cannot but consider as a soubriquet, or nick-name; and as I feel that it would be neither respectful nor proper to address him publicly by that title, I have been compelled to forego the pleasure. If this should meet his eye, will he pardon my humble attempt to embellish with the pencil the sweet ideas ...
— The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman • Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray
... Rock-scorpions are right. They have pounced upon the derelict like wolves. I almost wish I was there to see the effect when they realize they have been fooled, and they find that that craft is loaded with stones. It was just done in the nick of time; they might have compelled us ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... it?" said Sholto, eagerly. "Mind, if you refuse, and will not give it up after promising, I will nick that lying throat of ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... garment in which the pattern reversed itself in back and front. Such a state of mind was inconceivable to the patient toiler, who rounded every corner with her scissors as carefully as if an untoward nick meant destruction, and pinned and repinned half-a-dozen times over before she could satisfy herself of the absence of crinkles. Peggy was ready to be "tried on" before Eunice had half finished the first process, and though she went obediently at the first ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... room, "he'll never learn anything so long as he lives. I declare he has tired me all out, and I used to teach school in Trivoli township, too. Taught one whole winter in district number three when Nick Worthington was county superintendent, and had my salary—look here, Mary, what do you find in that English grammar to giggle about? You go to bed, too, and listen to me—if Rollo can't read that whole book clear through without making ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... carry mostly wiskey, and that was breaking the law, too! Them soldiers catch the man with that whiskey they sure put him up for a long time, less'n he put some silver in they hands. That's what my Uncle Nick say. That Uncle Nick a mean Negro, and he ought ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... somewhat after the fashion of the Hawkshaws of "yellow back" fame, who, if our memory serves us right, were so punctual that their appearance anywhere was described as being in the "nick o' time," only in this instance he was expected and did not "drop from the ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... child's faith saved him." Another says: "How quick the lad was! His courageous leap saved him." Another says: "Bless the child! He was in awful danger, and he just barely saved himself." Another says: "That man's word just reached the boy's ear in the nick of time, and saved him." Another says: "God bless that man! He saved that child." And yet another says: "That boy was saved by blood; by the sacrifice of that ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... be H.M. sloop Porcupine. She hove to when she neared us, and sent a boat on board. She had heard the report of our guns, and hastened to the scene of action, just in the very nick of time to save us. The lieutenant complimented the captain and crew on their gallant defence, and hastened on board the sloop again, to make his report. The boat soon returned, with a gang of hands to assist in repairing ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... gateway, it arrested the entrance of a pony phaeton driven by a lady with a servant seated behind. It was doubtful whether the recognition had been mutual, for Mr. Casaubon was looking absently before him; but the lady was quick-eyed, and threw a nod and a "How do you do?" in the nick of time. In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, it was plain that the lodge-keeper regarded her as an important personage, from the low curtsy which was dropped on the entrance ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... soldiers:[Footnote: See Jean-Christophe—I, "Revolt."] she wrote to tell him that she was going to be married: she gave him news of his mother, and sent him a basket of apples and a piece of cake to eat in her honor. They came in the nick of time. That evening with Christophe was a fast, Ember Days, Lent: only the butt end of the sausage hanging by the window was left. Christophe compared himself to the anchorite saints fed by a crow among the rocks. But no doubt the crow was hard put to it to feed ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... himself with knives and saws; he breaks things and loses things, and chases the hens about—disobeys all the time. Every day there is some fresh disaster and fresh chastisement. Two weeks ago he was all but run over by the big station motor—pulled out from the wheels in the nick of time; that scar across his forehead will remain for life, a memento of childish naughtiness. Alberto understands me thoroughly. He is glad to see me. But a certain formality must be gone through; every time we meet there ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... life to him—parted company wid her on the spot; said he would take part wid the masther and the other two, and tould her to her teeth that he did not care a damn about the property, and that she might leave it as a legacy to ould Nick, who, he said, desarved it better at her hands than ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... From Book II of the "History of Rome." Translated by D. Spillan and Cyrus Edmonds. "Cocles" was a nick-name meaning the "one-eyed." With this story every school-boy has been made familiar through ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... us. This, however, occurred in an aged Macacus cynomolgus, kept in confinement whose moustaches were "remarkably long and human-like." Altogether this old monkey presented a ludicrous resemblance to one of the reigning monarchs of Europe, after whom he was universally nick-named. In certain races of man the hair on the head hardly ever becomes grey; thus Mr. D. Forbes has never, as he informs me, seen an instance with the Aymaras and Quichuas ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... none too gently. A poor devil in a waiter's costume stretched out his arms to me, yelling in a foreign dialect: "You take de food from my babies!" The next moment the club of a policeman came down on his head, crack. I heard Mary scream behind me, and I turned, just in the nick of time. Carpenter was leaping ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... he said. "We'll keep Nick informed but he ought to remain where he is. We'll still want our men in the basic positions of power after ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... then the "old nick" was to pay, "Truth indeed is stranger than fiction," His prayers were so tedious and long, People slept, till the benediction. And then came another, on trial, Who actually preached in his gloves, His manner so awkward and queer, That we settled ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... them," said she, "and just in the nick of time. He was on the inside in the campaign of '96, and I remember one night he came to dinner at our house and told us that the Republican party had raised ten or fifteen million dollars to buy the election. 'That's ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... his tumbler. ''Tis a question to be solved on general principles, as Colonel O'Halloran said that time he was asked what he'd do if he'd been the Book o' Wellington, and the Prussians hadn't come up in the nick o' time at Waterloo. 'Faith,' says ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... pins behind doors to make decent folk dance, jig, cut, and shuffle themselves to death—splitting the hills as ye would spelder a haddy, and playing all manner of evil pranks, and sinful abominations, till their crafty maister, Auld Nick, puts them to their mettle, by setting them to twine ropes out of sea-sand, and such like. I like none of your paternosters, and saying of prayers backwards, or drawing lines with chalk ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... little vessels of water, and bundles of rags to answer for sponges. Another corner was occupied by the umpire, a foul-mouthed, loud-tongued Tombs shyster, named Pete Bradley. A long-bodied, short-legged hoodlum, nick-named "Heenan," armed with a club, acted as ring keeper, and "belted" back, remorselessly, any of the spectators who crowded over the line. Did he see a foot obtruding itself so much as an inch over the mark in the sand—and the pressure from the crowd behind was so great ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... conclave? And it is no use going on at me about that bucket of water I tilted over down the ladder on to Nick Jones; it stood so handy, and wanted such a little push, that I just could not help doing it," the boy answered in a sullen tone. He had been in mischief on board the steamer, escaping with a warning from the captain and a lecture from ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... t' three hundred and fifty rupees? Thot's what I can scarcelins tell yo', but we melted it—we melted it. It was share an' share alike, for Mulvaney said: 'If Learoyd got hold of Mrs. DeSussa first, sure 'twas I that renumbered the Sargint's dog just in the nick av time, an' Orth'ris was the artist av janius that made a work av art out av that ugly piece av ill-nature. Yet, by way av a thank-offerin' that I was not led into felony by that wicked ould woman, ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... you," said Betty gleefully, noting with pride how splendid he looked in his uniform. "You don't seem at all glad to see us. Mrs. Watson," remembering her manners in the nick of time, "this is a friend of ours from Deepdale—Allen Washburn. He didn't know ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... the time of William the Conqueror. These maybe fine things in their way, and, like an antique jewel, they may serve very well to wear on special occasions, or to treasure as an antiquary would do some rare coin or "auld nick-nacket." But the magnates of Glasgow have a juster and more legitimate cause for pride; their ambition is of a less ornamental, but far more useful kind. The Youngs, the Napiers, the Elders, the ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... chasing through the undergrowth as if the very Old Nick was after him, swinging his cap as he ran, and shouting out some words which ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... only in the nick of time, for a second later and the big mammal of the ocean would have struck the ship and split it ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... water-fowl, a creature whose mysterious habit of living upon the surface of the pond as well as underneath made the children's nick-name a necessity. And now it was attempting a raid on land as well. But land was not its natural place. Something certainly had happened, or ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood |
