"Short-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... business is running short-handed, and no big office or bank is open between the hours of ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... hesitating in an odd embarrassment; he plainly felt that here was information bound to be distasteful, and set about imparting it with a painful diplomacy. "The cap'n—Cap'n Pendarves, your grandfather, sir, was, as you might say, short-handed, you being in foreign parts, and old John Behenna having slipped his cable 'long about the last o' May, as I was telling you; and so the cap'n he ups and ships these here—and—and, in fac', Mr. Nick, one of 'em's a woman!" He drew a long ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... be short-handed at the time the privateer was captured, owing to her boats having been sent in chase of a suspicious craft during a calm. Some of the French crew were therefore left on board to ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... said Mrs Trimble, once more shuddering at the prospect of being left short-handed. "What I was going to say to you was, that now you've been here six months, and are not a forward young man, and don't drink, I shall raise your wages, and give you thirty shillings a month instead of twenty. How will that ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... night, and before the child had crawled away, they pushed out of the cave, and let the flood-tide take them round the Head. They meant to have landed at Bridlington Quay, with a tale of escape from a Frenchman; but they found no necessity for going so far. A short-handed collier was lying in the roads; and the skipper, perceiving that they were in liquor, thought it a fine chance, and took some trouble to secure them. They told him that they had been trying to run goods, and were chased by a revenue boat, and so on. He was only too ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... to a friend in the North, {46} saying: "Dear Miss Ludlow: If you care to sail into a good hearty battle, where there is no scratching and pin-sticking, but great guns and heavy shot only used, come here. If you like to lend a hand when a good cause is short-handed, come here." Could any brave man or woman resist a call like that? It was a call to arms, a summons to a good soldier of Jesus Christ. The problem of a soldier is, not to find a soft and easy place in life, with plenty to get and little to do, but "to take his share of hardship," and ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... of news should be missed by my paper; always to be ready to reel off a column of readable "copy" on any subject whatever; always to be prepared for any duty that might turn up—these were among the necessary qualifications for my post. Then, as the Journal was short-handed, it sometimes fell to my lot to undertake tasks which usually lie outside the reporter's sphere. Sometimes I had to take a turn at sub-editing, and sometimes I had even to write a leader. My first attempt at leader-writing for the Journal was on a momentous occasion—the ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... went on to describe how he himself had been deputed to bring the San Juan into port with the wounded on board, while the captain and the rest of the crew by Drake's orders attached themselves to various vessels that were short-handed, and how the English fleet had followed what was left of the Spaniards when the fight ended at sunset, up ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... early days at sea it was no unusual thing for a man-of-war to be short-handed through scurvy after a cruise of a few weeks, and in a voyage across the Atlantic as many as twenty per cent of the crew are known to have perished. To give some of his own experiences in the Navy: On 4th June 1756, H.M.S. Eagle ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... ordinarily it would not be, sir. But my father—I am the captain's son—knowing you were coming and what you were coming for, waited for you as long as he could. Just now he is extremely busy, sir, doing what he can—short-handed—for the sick and dying." The captain's son, in spite of himself, began to warm up. "Those hundreds of people down yonder, sir, are homeless, friendless, dumb—you may say—and in his personal care. He has left me here to see that your every proper wish has every attention. Gentlemen, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... bundled the Spaniards into the boat and left ten Englishmen to take their places, apologizing to Captain Sol for leaving him so short-handed. The Industry generally had a crew of twenty-five or thirty men. Then the officer got into the boat and rowed away. Captain Sol was to take the Industry to Gibraltar, which was right on the way to Leghorn, too. And it was pretty near, so that he ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... thought the lad a fool," he said. "Now I know that he will not be so short-handed as I thought. Some of you who are his crew will have an easier time at the oar with these slaves ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... any company hours," said Miss Sally, "and we haven't just now any servants for company manners, for we're short-handed in the fields and barns. When yo' came I was nailing up the laths for the vines outside, because we couldn't spare carpenters from the factory. But," she added, with a faint accession of mischief in her voice, "yo' came to talk about ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said the seaman, touching his forelock. 'I'm just off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I wants a rest. I thought I'd get it either with ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... I say," she answered. "Fishermen are scarce. My father was in business here for twenty years and most of the time he was running short-handed. You can get plenty of men to ride on your boats but they ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... going to the mission at Marash—to stay a year there and help, before returning to the States. They warned me in Tarsus that the trip might be dangerous, but I know how short-handed they are at Marash, and I wouldn't listen. Besides, they picked the best men they could find to bring me on the way, and I started. I had a Turkish permit to travel—a teskere they call it—see, I have it here. It was perfectly ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... cracked, leaky; sprung; warped &c (distort) 243; lame; injured &c (deteriorated) 659; peccant &c (bad) 649; frail &c (weak) 160; inadequate &c (insufficient) 640; crude &c (unprepared) 674; incomplete &c 53; found wanting; below par; short-handed; below its full strength, under its full strength, below its full complement. indifferent, middling, ordinary, mediocre; average &c 29; so-so; coucicouci, milk and water; tolerable, fair, passable; pretty well, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... crew, having recovered from the effects of their hardships, fell into the work of the ship, and took their turns with the Yankee seamen. The brig was short-handed; but now, trimmed and handled by a full crew with the Proserpine's men, who were first-class seamen, and worked with a will, because work was no longer a duty, she exhibited a speed the captain had almost forgotten was in ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... action now, and the casualty to B. has left us short-handed—moreover we're helping out another battery which has lost two officers. As you've seen by the papers, we've at last got the Hun on the run. Three hundred passed me the other day unescorted, coming in to give themselves up as prisoners. They're the ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson |
