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Surreptitious   /sˌərəptˈɪʃəs/   Listen
Surreptitious

adjective
1.
Marked by quiet and caution and secrecy; taking pains to avoid being observed.  Synonyms: furtive, sneak, sneaky, stealthy.  "A sneak attack" , "Stealthy footsteps" , "A surreptitious glance at his watch"
2.
Conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods.  Synonyms: clandestine, cloak-and-dagger, hole-and-corner, hugger-mugger, hush-hush, secret, undercover, underground.  "Cloak-and-dagger activities behind enemy lines" , "Hole-and-corner intrigue" , "Secret missions" , "A secret agent" , "Secret sales of arms" , "Surreptitious mobilization of troops" , "An undercover investigation" , "Underground resistance"






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"Surreptitious" Quotes from Famous Books



... for two pockets of newer material on either side of the front. These proofs of unheeded Scriptural warning, being far different in size, gave the entire garment a sinister, cross-eyed effect, which did not fail to catch the eye of the most casual observer. After a surreptitious examination of the aforesaid pockets, Mary discovered that one was occupied by Miss Bumps' ample handkerchief, and the ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... mother, and with a faint blush drew out the piece of work from under her apron, and sewed with head depressed a little more than necessary. On this her mother drew a piece of work out of her pocket, and sewed too, while Richart read. Both the specimens these sweet surreptitious creatures now first exposed to observation were babies' caps, and more than half finished, which told a tale. Horror! they were like little monks' ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... the kitchen was pleasantly and rather condescendingly excited, and a little censorious, for the reason that nobody in the kitchen had ever before lived in a house the master of which being a parent of adult children took surreptitious lessons in dancing; the thing was unprecedented, and therefore of course intrinsically reprehensible. Mr. Prohack guessed the attitude of the kitchen, and had met Machin's respectful ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... the "gossip benches" are filled. The old men smoke their pipes and doff their caps to "the American" with the cheery welcome of friends who knew and spanked him with hearty good will when as "a kid" he absconded with their boats for a surreptitious expedition up to the lake. Those boats! heavy, flat-bottomed, propelled with a pole that stuck in the mud and pulled them back half the time farther than they had gone. But what fun it was! In after years a steam whistle woke the echoes of these quiet waters. It was the first one, and the last. ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... assisting prisoners to carry on a surreptitious correspondence with people outside," he retorted, in the tone of a man who ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... Time, one day In his study, so they say, Was indulging in a surreptitious nap, When from his drowsy dreams He was wakened, as it seems, By a timid but persistent ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... agents are even now watching that bank. The bank would never give up the sealed packages contents unknown, save on surrender of the carefully drawn receipts." And then Berthe remembered her own secret work at Calcutta. The Grindlays knew of the surreptitious attempts made by the plausible Hugh Fraser to withdraw the deposit long before the baronetcy episode. And Berthe laughed, in memory of her capture of the receipts in the old days at Brighton, while ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... until the actual day of the meeting, they had been in the custody of the gunsmith from whom he had bought them. The gunsmith, however, M. Devismes, said that this was not the case; and another witness declared that he had seen de Beauvallon having a little surreptitious practice with them in ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... soft cheeks with his brown fingers, Safti remained motionless for a long time, during which it seemed to the Princess that he was looking away from her at some distant object. She watched his frightful and surreptitious eyes, that never told the truth, she heard the distant Arab's everlasting song, and her dream became a nightmare. At last Safti ...
— The Princess And The Jewel Doctor - 1905 • Robert Hichens

... mare, throwing every now and then swift and surreptitious glances at her new treasure. She was fearful lest the young man leading his pony on the foot-track at her side should think her ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... city. A majority of the sketches appear'd first in the "Democratic Review," others in the "Columbian Magazine," or the "American Review," of that period. My serious wish were to have all those crude and boyish pieces quietly dropp'd in oblivion—but to avoid the annoyance of their surreptitious issue, (as lately announced, from outsiders,) I have, with some qualms, tack'd them on here. A Dough-Face Song came out first in the "Evening Post"—Blood-Money, and Wounded in the House ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... Casting surreptitious glances at the bookshelf, where he looked to see the life of Jesse James, he was astonished and somewhat reassured to discover a title like "Fossil Fishes of the Old Red Sandstone of the British Isles." It was unlikely, he reasoned, that a man who voluntarily read, for instance, "Contributions ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... wry mouth, shrugged, and didn't bother to answer with more than a nod. He allowed a slight expression of contempt for supervisors who asked silly questions to show. He caught the surreptitious wink of the operator at the next panel, behind the supervisor's back. The disturbance was beginning to attract attention. In response to the wink he pulled the dogged expression of the unjustly nagged ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to have collected & publish'd them; and so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diverse stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos'd them: even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them. Who, as he was a happie ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare

... a central depository be established for the purpose of holding and safe-guarding the possessions of each and every person was primarily intended to prevent the surreptitious use of real money. This project met with almost universal opposition. The "rich" preferred to hang onto their money, thereby running true to form. While professing the utmost confidence in the present integrity of the banker ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... one who made most of his sales to kids, Rick thought. He noticed that the peddler was eying the bag Scotty had picked up, and was trying to be surreptitious about it. Anyone would be curious about someone carrying a moldy bag, but why try to conceal that curiosity? On impulse, Rick said, "There's a trash can, Scotty. Throw the bag away and let's go." To the peddler, he added, "We're doing our bit ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... have loved to raise horses, thoroughbreds and saddlers, but for obvious reasons that had been impossible. But he went his jaunty way, waxing his moustaches, squandering his money on fancy neckties, taking his surreptitious nip with all the gay bravado of thirty years before, and getting seedier and seedier. He was a dandelion withering on the stalk. He had long since given up hope of being anything else but bookkeeper in the "Golden Rule," and indeed it was only the stock which he ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... were taken in a somewhat surreptitious way, and the takers generally wore an absent-minded look, as if the purloining was not quite intentional on their part. But they were all good customers of the grocer, and the abstractions were doubtless looked on by him as being in the ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... gave a suppressed chuckle, which I think no one heard but myself. I was vexed with his levity, but, nevertheless, gave him a warning nudge with my toe, in payment for the surreptitious salt. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... is more unseemly than that a great multitude should find its way out and in, as ants and wasps do, through holes; and nothing more undignified than the paltry doors of many of our English cathedrals, which look as if they were made, not for the open egress, but for the surreptitious drainage of a stagnant congregation. Besides, the expression of the church door should lead us, as far as possible, to desire at least the western entrance to be single, partly because no man of right feeling would willingly lose the idea of unity and fellowship in going up to worship, which is ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... so deep in the crack that Elfride could not pull it out with her hand, though she made several surreptitious trials. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... and demi-tasse. Groups of carefully corseted women stood now beside the invitational plush divans and peacock chairs, paying twenty minutes after-dinner standing penance. Men with Wall Street eyes and blood pressure, slid surreptitious celluloid toothpicks, and gathered around the cigar stand. Orchestra music flickered. Young girls, the traditions of demure sixteen hanging by one inch shoulder-straps and who could not walk across a hardwood ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... pleasure I hear that you have procured a correct copy of 'The Dunciad,' which the many surreptitious ones have rendered so necessary; and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will be attended with a commentary; a work so requisite, that I cannot think the author himself would have omitted it, had he approved of the first appearance ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... work. She came down timidly, not daring to look to right nor left, but concentrating her attention on the stairs. She passed along the landing outside the drawing-room door, and Hilda, opening the door a little wider, had a full surreptitious view of her back; and George Cannon, farther within the room, also saw her. They watched her disappear on her way to find the basement and the formidable Sarah Gailey. Hilda was touched by the spectacle of this child disguised as a strapping woman, far removed from ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... fun in this, so I crawled back, and when I tried the experiment again, it was with a bit of candle in my hand, and a surreptitious match or two. What I saw, when with a very trembling little hand I had lighted one of the matches, would have been disappointing to most boys, but not to me. The litter and old boards I saw in odd corners about me were full of possibilities, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... befallen others; and this, I am willing to believe, did really happen to Dr. Browne: but there is, surely, some reason to doubt the truth of the complaint so frequently made of surreptitious editions. A song, or an epigram, may be easily printed without the author's knowledge; because it may be learned when it is repeated, or may be written out with very little trouble; but a long treatise, however elegant, is not often copied ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... nothing in the appearance of this sylvan proprietor and newspaper capitalist to justify Grant's suspicion of a surreptitious foe. A handsome man scarcely older than himself, in spite of a wavy mass of perfectly white hair which contrasted singularly with his brown mustache and dark sunburned face. So disguising was the effect of these contradictions, ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... must have read my thoughts in my face. She fixed her small implacable eyes on mine for one quelling instant, then she looked at Robert. Her nephew was obviously afraid to meet her eye; he coughed uneasily, and handed a surreptitious potato to the puppy who ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... sounding lash That echoes through the Carribean groves. Incessant is the War of Human Wit, Oppos'd to bestial strength; and variously Successful: in these happy fertile climes, Man still maintains his surreptitious power; Reigns o'er the Brutes, and, with the voice of Fate, Says "This to-day, and that to-morrow dies." Though here our Shambles blazon the Renown, The Victory, and Rule, of lordly Man; Far wider tracts within the Torrid Zone Own no such Lord: where Sol's intenser rays Create in bestial hearts ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield

... conception according to the difference in its use, and the directions for determining this place to all conceptions according to rules, would be a transcendental topic, a doctrine which would thoroughly shield us from the surreptitious devices of the pure understanding and the delusions which thence arise, as it would always distinguish to what faculty of cognition each conception properly belonged. Every conception, every title, ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... he said, "are the nudges and the nods and the surreptitious glances of the silly women who think that one cannot see them looking. I hate being ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... into Papa Dupont's mind in respect of herself was wholly devoid of sympathy. She was just a little bit afraid of him, and she despised him without measure. And this contempt was founded on something more than his weakness for taking numerous and surreptitious nips (surreptitious, at least, until they became numerous) while presiding over the zinc in the pantry between the restaurant proper and the kitchen; and on something more than his reluctance to ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... stern disapproval of these was tempered in time by the fact that she freely shared them with us. We were not surprised to discover also, though these revelations came later, that the old house-keeper had difficulty in keeping buttons on the child's frocks, and that Katrina was addicted to surreptitious consumption of large cucumber pickles behind her geography in school hours. These were small faults of an otherwise beautiful nature, and stimulating to our youthful fancy in the possibilities they suggested. Unquestioningly we accepted Katrina as a being to ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... I have to say that I have not interpolated my author's dreams with any surreptitious ones of my own; but have laid a faithful abstract before the economic reader, who might not be well pleased to pay seven pounds sterling for a body of raving. I have indeed omitted many circumstantial pictures of his intuitions, because they could only ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... could fit in with a life where, in one sense, he did not belong. It was not part of her sorrow that he had given himself to painting and sculpture. In her soul she believed this might be best for him in the end. She had a surreptitious, an almost anguished, joy in the thought that he and John Grier could not hit it off. It seemed natural that both men, ignorant of their own tragedy, believing themselves to be father and son, should feel for each other ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... garantiajxo. Surety, to be garantii. Surf sxauxmo, mar—. Surface suprajxo. Surfeit supersati. Surge ondego. Surgeon hxirurgiisto. Surgery hxirurgio. Surly malgaja. Surmise konjekti. Surmount venki. Surname alnomo. Surpass superi. Surprise surprizi. Surrender kapitulaci. Surreptitious kasxa. Survey (land) termezuri. Survey vidadi, elvidi. Surveyor termezuristo. Survive postvivi. Susceptible sentebla—ema. Susceptibility sentemo. Suspect suspekti. Suspend pendigi. Suspense (uncertainty) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... prudent maxims, and the thoughtlessness of a sister was the best possible text for a moral homily. The tense rigidity of her character, too, sometimes required a little unbending, and she had, therefore, no special aversion to an occasional surreptitious novel. But this she would indulge only in private; for in her mind, the worst quality of transgression was its bad example; and she never failed, in public, to condemn all such things with becoming and virtuous severity. Nor must this apparent inconsistency ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... is not a word in favour of a work which has been received by the reviewers with a chorus of kindly commendation. "The critical battery opens with a round-shot." "Another complete translation is now appearing in a surreptitious way" (p. 179). How "surreptitious" I ask of this scribe, who ekes not the lack of reason by a superfluity of railing, when I sent out some 24,000—30,000 advertisements and published my project in the literary papers? "The amiability of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... empty, except for one agitated Junior, who was in too great haste to notice anything. Gwen scuttled into the Fifth exactly five seconds before Miss Douglas, and sat down at her desk, exhausted but congratulating herself. She contrived to write a surreptitious note to Netta, and to pass it, neatly rolled into a ball, on the waste-paper tray. Its tenor was calculated to be ambiguous to outsiders, but intelligible to ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... by any means as tightly fastened after the writing as before; nor did the writing of two or three illegible words seem beyond the resources of very humble legerdemain; in fact, no legerdemain was needed, after a surreptitious loosening of the screw which, considering the state of the frame of the slate, could have been ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... not reply. Perhaps he felt that his sister was more consistent and stanch to the Puritan principles than he was himself in this matter; but he did not rescind his decision. And after a surreptitious meal behind the pantry door together on the morrow, whilst Mistress Susan was engaged upstairs over the weighty matter of the linen to adorn the festal board that evening and on Christmas Day itself, the pair stole quietly off about eleven o'clock, leaving word with Martin ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... sighed her companion, and the two of them, who had been taking surreptitious glances in mirrors, enclosed in the flaps of their bags, ceased "primping," until they could be sure whether or not there ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... perfect effect; as it appeared that Jim, in order to give dramatic intensity to the fractiousness of Clarence's horse, had inserted a thorn apple under the neck of his saddle, which Clarence only discovered in time to prevent himself from being unseated. Urged forward by ostentatious "Whoas!" and surreptitious cuts in the rear from Jim, pursuer and pursued presently found themselves safely beyond the half-dry stream and fringe of alder bushes that skirted the camp. They were not followed. Whether the teamsters suspected and winked at this design, or believed that the ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... and bulky arms he shows, } His lifted fists around his head he throws, } Huge caveats to the inadvertent nose. } But DARES, who, although a sinewy brute, Had not of late increased his old repute, Looked scarce like one prepared for gain or loss, And scornful of the surreptitious "cross;" Rather the kind of cove who tackled fair Would think more of the "corner" than "the square." ("Ah! bust him, yes!" SAYERIUS here put in, "He meant to tie or wrangle, not to win. I'd like to—well, all right, I will not say: But 'twasn't so at Farnborough in my day.") ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various

... the steps. She was rather glad to see him, for the feeling had come over her that she was quite unknown to all these people. This is a feeling to which even the greatest are liable, and it is most unpleasant. For the heart of the celebrated is apt to hunger for the nudge of recognition and the surreptitious sidelong glance which convey the gratifying fact that one has been recognized. Paul Deulin would serve to enlighten these benighted people, and some little good might yet be done by a distinct and dignified attitude of disapproval towards ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... Dick having relieved him of his encumbrances, he retreated behind the shelter of Mrs. Peyton's welcome. The latter judiciously gave him time to recover, and when she turned to him he was engaged in a surreptitious inspection of Miss Verney, whose dusky slenderness, relieved against the bare walls of the office, made her look like a young St. John of Donatello's. The girl returned his look with one of her clear glances, and the group having presently broken up again, Mrs. Peyton saw that she had drifted ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... Mary Lou said frankly that it was easy enough to see where THAT marriage would end, but Susan read more truly the little bride's flashing blue eyes and the sudden scarlet in her cheeks, and she won Freda's undying loyalty by a surreptitious pressure ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... full of clothes. She understood that he was preparing to leave, and that he had probably decided to go without seeing her. She saw that the decision, from whatever cause it was taken, had disturbed him deeply; and she immediately concluded that his change of plan was due to some surreptitious interference of Mr. Royall's. All her old resentments and rebellions flamed up, confusedly mingled with the yearning roused by Harney's nearness. Only a few hours earlier she had felt secure in his comprehending pity; now she was flung back ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... the king had chosen this messenger whose heresy was notorious, but whose power had as yet protected him from the machinations of the priest. Lu-don cast a surreptitious glance at the thongs hanging from the ceiling. Why not? If he could but maneuver to entice Ja-don to the opposite side ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... a deep need of some word from Mary V, was Johnny. He was beginning to worry, to grow restive down here in the wilderness, seeing nothing, doing nothing save kill time between those short, surreptitious flights across to the notched ridge and back again. Two weeks of ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... that of the dead members of his family. As a promising boy, he had been bought by the Ephrata brotherhood and bred into the fraternity. With the audacity of youth he had conceived a great passion for Tabea, and now that his apprenticeship was about to expire he amused her with surreptitious notes. To-day, for the first time, Tabea began to think of the possibility of marrying Scheible, chiefly, perhaps, from a vague desire to escape from the convent, which could not but be irksome to one of her spirit. Scheible was ambitious, and it was his plan, ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... thin voice of his wife, as she threw a surreptitious glance at Reuben's shoes to see if they were quite clean enough for such ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... pitiful ghosts of the hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed" as is peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket (with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as she skulked in the hall, ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... God, and not the voice of God Himself. Very grave doubt rests on any form of goodness which is in opposition to your mother; it may be good for others, but can scarcely be so for you. I know of a girl who got under High Church influence at school, and who, in pursuit of spiritual good, gets surreptitious High Church books and newspapers, under cover to a friend. Another got under Low Church influence, and refuses to please her mother by dressing prettily or going out. It seems to me that both girls read their ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... among other things, a set of aphorisms entitled "The character of a Christian in Paradoxes and seeming Contradictions." It had so chanced, however, that, before he had published this Part II. of his Memorials, a surreptitious edition of the aforesaid Aphorisms had found its way into print, with no author's name attached (July 1645). Hence a strange result. Palmer died in 1647, aetat . 46; and in the following year—though his Memorials, containing the "Christian ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... bunk or slipped unostentatiously into his hand or pockets, and received by him in short eloquent silence (sort of an aside silence), and partly as a matter of course. Every now and then there would be a surreptitious consultation between two of us and a hurried review of finances, and then one would slip quietly ashore and presently return supremely unconscious of a book, magazine, or parcel of fruit ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... cadet. As he spoke he looked at Reff Ritter, but that individual merely scowled, and took surreptitious whiffs at a cigarette ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield

... making less chatter and bustle in corridors and stairways. Stillness reigned everywhere as if the sobering influence of the Sabbath had invaded even this exclusive domain of the unholy rich. The uniformed attendants, having nothing to do, yawned lazily in the deserted halls. Some even indulged in surreptitious naps in corners, confident that they would not be disturbed. Callers were so rare that when some one did enter from the street, he was looked upon ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... but they could not touch him; he shared the air they breathed, but he was different. . . . Would the skipper go for the engineer? . . . The life was easy and he was too sure of himself—too sure of himself to . . . The line dividing his meditation from a surreptitious doze on his feet was thinner than a thread in a ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... is conceded to be an excellent measure. A single provision of the bill has been the subject of charges and imputations that the silver dollar was, in a fraudulent and surreptitious way, "demonetized" by this act. There is not the slightest foundation for this imputation. The bill was sent to me as chairman of the committee on finance, and submitted to the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... to a low precipice, not more than three or four hundred yards off, sat the missing explorer, with book on knees and pencil in hand—sketching; and there, seated on the top of the precipice, looking over the edge at the artist, skulked a huge Polar bear, taking as it were, a surreptitious lesson in drawing! The bear, probably supposing Alf to be a wandering seal, had dogged him to that position just as Benjy Vane discovered him, and then, finding the precipice too high for a leap perhaps, or doubting ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... tone. If Mr. Sadrock did not make use of the words that I attribute to him how could I have set them down? Because I was writing unobserved all the time he was talking, and I could produce the notes if they were, to others, legible enough for it to be worth while; surreptitious writing must necessarily be indistinct at times. As for the question of time and place, that is a mere quibble. Mr. Sadrock was alive when we had our talk, and I am sorry if I have misdated it. The talk ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various

... about the Five Chimnies and Jenny's whim. At a bill of fare, and the science how dinner should be put before him, he was then, as since, unrivalled; yet more to his good memorial, he knew how a dinner should be put before other people. For one day, as he was beginning to revel in a surreptitious banquet in the Bowling-alley, his share of the mess Lord Edward gave to the relief of want, which then happened to be wandering by the window.—"This ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... carpet and the window curtains of an unoccupied room, cast an evil suspicion upon the Cognata, and she never appeared after the discovery of the theft. We suspected her of having invented some dishes of which we were very fond, and we hated her for oppressing us with a sense of many surreptitious favors. Objectively, she was a slim, hoopless little woman, with a tendency to be always at the street-door when we opened it. She had a narrow, narrow face, with eyes of terrible slyness, an applausive smile, and a demeanor of slavish patronage. Our kitchen, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... the publication of a work which had been circulated without his sanction, but in vain. Even the first complete edition, which was issued in 1581, seems to have been without his consent; for the author complains that he was compelled, by the surreptitious publication of parts of his poem, to finish the work in haste, and he wished for more time to elaborate the plot and polish the style. In the later editions, no less than seven of which appeared the same year, Tasso seems to have been ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... of the morning Nance practised her part, getting used to the clumsy suit of fur, learning to adjust her mask so that she could see through the little, round, animal eyes, and keeping the other girls in a titter of amusement over her surreptitious imitation of ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... Lem and Gimpy and Stretch were the talking members, he readily consented to a reopening of business for a scrutiny of the various accounts which represented the boys' earnings at selling papers and blacking boots, minus the cost of their keep and of sundry surreptitious flings at "craps" in secret corners. The inquiry developed an available surplus of three dollars and fifty cents. Savoy alone had no account; the run of craps had recently gone heavily against him. But in consideration of the season, the house voted a ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... versions and perversions. The comic sheet of the metropolis, Vanity Fair, enframing the witty scintillations of "Artemus Ward," George Arnold, and a brilliant band, complained that this "nigger comedian" used or anticipated their best effusions. On the whole the public saw in the surreptitious flight of the ruler into his due seat only a farce, in keeping with his jesting humor—he was regarded as a Don Quixote in figure, but a Sancho Panza, for his philosophic proverbs, widely retailed and considered opportune. So the indignation proper toward the forced ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... late hour, when not a third part of the house remained, and those who required a fuller house, amid darkness and confusion, were neither seen nor heard, they made a protest,—of which the king approved as little of the ambiguous matter, as the surreptitious means; and it was then, that, with his own hand, he tore the leaf out of the journal.[A] In the sessions of 1614 the king was still more indignant at their proceedings. He and the Scotch had been vilified by their invectives; and they were menaced by two lawyers, with a "Sicilian ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... whispering in class, either under the teacher's nose, if he happens to be unobservant or indolent, or behind his back, if he happens to be vigilant and strict. And as the child is forbidden to talk about things which are wholesome and interesting, it is but natural that in his surreptitious conversations he should talk about things which are less edifying, things which are trivial and vulgar, or even unwholesome and unclean. Children are naturally obedient and truthful; but in their attempts to find outlets for healthy activities which are wantonly repressed, they will ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... his disappointment was softened by a timely remittance of ten dollars from his mother, which he spent partly in surreptitious games of billiards, partly in overloading his stomach with pastry and nearly ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.

... see, let me ask in a hurried parenthesis,—how the tone of this household might easily have been a different one, and pervaded differently its auxiliary department? How, in that case, it might have been nothing better than a surreptitious scrap of silk or velvet, that would have lain in Bel Bree's work-basket, with a story about it of how, and for what gayety, it had been made; a scrap out of a life that these girls could only gossip and ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... travel backward and imagine himself that young scamp who stole his passage from Albany to Buffalo, at which thought the blood rolled again into his face, and he felt an instinctive desire to go at once and seek out the proper authorities and pay for that surreptitious ride. Moreover, he resolved that being an honest man now it was his duty so to do, and that it should be the first item of business to which he would attend after leaving the cars. Then he glanced about him to see if he could establish his identity with the little ragged boy. A ...
— Three People • Pansy

... Cape Melville, Puerta Princesa, and Bongao (October 15, 1903) in order to assist the scheme for preventing smuggling between these extreme southern islands and Borneo. Hitherto there had been some excuse for this surreptitious trade, because inter-island vessels, trading from the other entry-ports, seldom, if ever, visited these out-of-the-way regions. In February, 1903, appropriations of $350,000 and $150,000 were made for harbour works in Cebu and Yloilo respectively, although ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... to think out every phase of a thing and put it into just the right words before giving it to the world. So, many a Cerebral who does little talking outside his intimate circle does a good deal of surreptitious writing. It may be only the keeping of a diary, jotting down memoranda or writing long letters to his friends, but he will write something. Some of the world's greatest ideas have come to light first in the forgotten manuscripts of people of this type who died without showing their ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... sitting-down appliances with cushions, to drape the curtain of modesty before the grating of restriction, to carpet our stone flooring, to supply our leisure hours with literary nourishment, to secrete stealthy cakes and apples for bodily solace, to enjoy surreptitious and not over-hazardous corridor outings when others are locked up, to write and receive any sort of letters at any times, without having them first read and stamped ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... lines marking out the game, the holes being made to receive pegs. While inspecting the ancient oak furniture in the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam I became interested in an old catechumen's settle, and was surprised to find the game diagram cut in the centre of the seat—quite conveniently for surreptitious play. It has been discovered cut in the choir stalls of several of our English cathedrals. In the early eighties it was found scratched upon a stone built into a wall (probably about the date 1200), during the restoration of Hargrave church in Northamptonshire. This stone ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... gave the beauty twenty minutes' annoyance. Then appeared a young man, ill-dressed, red-haired, and shy. Carelessly as he greeted the mother and daughters, his entrance, however, transformed them. The mother forgot fatigue; the beauty ceased to yawn; the younger girl, who had been making surreptitious notes of Kitty's costume in the last leaf of her guide-book, developed a charming gush. He was the owner of the Magellan estates and the historic Magellan Castle; a professed hater of "absurd womankind," and, in general, a hunted and self-conscious ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... which the essay is ascribed to Dryden, may be called a surreptitious publication: it carries no authority. The testimony of Lockier, which is to the same effect, was never published by himself. It was a scrap of conversation held thirty years after the death of Dryden, and reported by another from memory. The reverend Thomas ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various

... in this resolution, Isabella did not refuse to coincide in their plans for securing her succession. To this measure Henry himself consented, thus appearing tacitly to acknowledge the truth of the reports that Joanna was a surreptitious child, and for a brief period Castile was delivered from the horrors of war. Once declared heiress of Castile and Leon, Isabella's hand was sought by many noble suitors, and her choice fell on Ferdinand, the young King of Sicily, and heir-apparent ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... shocked, and whose morals could not be injured by such a composition, it was certainly Lord Sandwich himself; but his zeal as a minister to support his chief kindled in him a sudden enthusiasm for the support of virtue and decency also; and, having obtained a copy by some surreptitious means, he now made a formal complaint of it to the House, contending that the use of the name of the Bishop of Gloucester as author of the notes constituted a breach of the privileges of the House. And he was seconded by the bishop himself, whose ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... opened a market for their whale oil, and we have made a good treaty of peace with Morocco. But with Algiers we can do nothing. An American paper has published a letter, as from me to the Count de Vergennes, on the subject of our productions of tobacco and rice. It is surreptitious and falsified; and both the true and untrue parts very improper for the public eye. How a newswriter of America got at it, is astonishing, and with what views it had been altered. I will be much obliged to you ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... bleak, hungry, comfortless passage of time, and I am willing to let it go at that. We managed to secure a buffalo steak for breakfast. No man needed to starve in that country during those days of plentiful game; but we were handicapped by the necessity of doing our hunting in a very surreptitious manner. However, we didn't starve; the worst we experienced was an occasional period of acute hunger, when we didn't dare fire a shot for fear of ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... of salvation and daily bread) were closed and quiet, as safely shut and sound asleep as the churches; but deeper in the town there was light and life and merry, evil industry,—screened, but strong to last until morning; there were haunts of haggard merriment in plenty: surreptitious chambers where roulette-wheels swam beneath dizzied eyes; ill-favored bars, reached by devious ways, where quavering voices offered song and were harshly checked; and through the burdened air of this Canaan wandered ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... frailties which poets may possess, makes it the more contemptible, they feel, for the public to wrap itself in the cloak of hypocrisy before casting stones. The modern poet's weakness for autobiographical revelation leaves no secret corners in his nature in which surreptitious vices may lurk. One might generalize what Keats says of Burns, "We can see horribly clear in the work of such a man his whole life, as if we were God's spies." [Footnote: Sidney Colvin, John Keats, p. 285.] The ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... irresponsible or unscrupulous purveyor of news to such sheets as Mr. Labouchere's Truth had never dared to reflect upon the Princess of Wales' beauty of character and life sufficed long before the accession of His Royal Highness to the Throne to kill even the surreptitious stories which always float upon the surface of society regarding persons in Royal positions. In this connection may be quoted the interesting reference to the subject made by Mr. G. W. Smalley, the ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... Starr," Prudence cried crossly one day, when she intercepted one of these surreptitious glances, "you march right up-stairs and shut yourselves up for thirty minutes. And if you ever sit around and stare at me like a stranger again, I'll spank you both. I'm no outsider. I belong here just as much as ever I did. And ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... the painting-shop—a gimcrack ladder with hand-rail, attached somehow externally to a wall—had at length betrayed it. That the accident had happened to himself, and not to a lad balancing a plankful of art-lustre ware on one shoulder, was sheer luck. And now the odd-man, with the surreptitious air of one engaged in a nefarious act, was putting a new tread on the stairs. Thus devoutly are ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... she listened to his request, Mary smiled again in sphinx-like fashion, and there was still on her lips an expression that caused the official a pang of doubt, when, at last, the two were left alone together, and he darted a surreptitious glance toward her. Nevertheless, he pressed on his ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... philosopher, who is for curing men of the futile and mischievous passion of love, surprises a woman in the arms of her serving-women in a state bound to offend all a lover's susceptibilities. The citoyen Brotteaux read the lines, though not without casting a surreptitious glance at the golden pate of the pretty girl in front of him and enjoying a sniff of the heady perfume of the little slut's hot skin. The poet Lucretius was a wise man, but he had only one string to his bow; his disciple Brotteaux ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... cantos was written, 1711, as is said, in a fortnight, and sent to the offended lady, who liked it well enough to show it; and, with the usual process of literary transactions, the author, dreading a surreptitious edition, was forced ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... no," I hastened to assure her, giving Peggy a surreptitious kick to divert her thoughts from laughter. "Only you must realize, Aunt Olivia, that this is a very great surprise to us." "I thought it would be so," said Aunt Olivia complacently. "But your father will know—he will remember. I do hope he won't think ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... This surreptitious treaty was transmitted to Washington, and under a misapprehension of the manner in which it was secured, was ratified by the Senate, on the 3d of March, 1825, the last day of Mr. Monroe's administration. Gov. Troup, acting under this treaty, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... thought, and could not see any possible treaty that would leave it open for her to have quasi-surreptitious dinners with Ramage or go on walking round the London squares discussing Socialism with Miss Miniver toward the small hours. She had tasted freedom now, and so far she had not felt the need of protection. Still, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... slighter when he returned with a sack of lentils, a basket of eggs, some pounds of honey and many misgivings as to whether he should announce this last commodity to the curator or introduce it surreptitiously. To begin his probationship with a surreptitious act would disgrace him in the eyes of the prior, whose good opinion he valued above all. So did his thoughts run on till he came within sight of a curator, who told him that sometimes, on the first day of probationship, honey and ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... a little fragrance and air of the visitor still in the room, a little disturbance of the usual arrangements, a surreptitious, quite unjustifiable look as of pleasure in Elinor's eyes, which were less expanded, and if as liquid as ever, more softly bright than before. Something white actually lay on the sofa, a small garment which Mrs. Dennistoun ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... the measure is defeated. This neglect of duty may be disguised under affected but unsubstantial provisions, so as not to appear, and of course not to excite any alarm in the people for the safety of the Constitution. The State leaders may even make a merit of their surreptitious invasions of it on the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... answer the bell. He suddenly understands no English at all. He bangs all the doors. He spends his spare moments in devising all kinds of petty annoyances, damp and dirty sheets, accidental damage to property, surreptitious draughts. And to vex one boy san is to antagonize the whole caste; it is a boycott. At last the tip is given. Sudden sunshine, obsequious manners, attention of all kinds—for ever dwindling periods, until at last the boy san attains ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... in the same position from noon till midnight, fasting, in separate rooms. The bride is attended by ladies, and the groom by men. They may not see each other till the night of the fourth day. In Egypt, the groom cannot see the face of his bride, even by a surreptitious glance, till she is in his absolute possession. Then comes the ceremony, which he performs, of uncovering her face. In Egypt, of course, this has been accentuated by the seclusion and veiling of women. In Morocco, at ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... came up to the next door I observed that its hinges had also been freshly lubricated, and was not surprised when it opened without a sound. When I stepped through it, I was in the curtained alcove off the library. Truly, there had been some secret, surreptitious flittings in ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... is certain that he put a box on a high stool in the back room, and learned the printer's case, and fed the job presses at odd times, and edged on to the pay-roll without ever having been formally hired. In the same surreptitious manner he slipped a cot into the stockroom upstairs and slept there, and finally had it fitted up as a bedroom, and so became ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... found out the address of the young lady's father, hurried off thither, and told him all about it. Anne is a thoroughly good creature; but she has little sympathy with love-making, still less with surreptitious love-making, and she would as soon think of accepting the part you are so good as to assign to her as of ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... affirmed that he had really a very small appetite, but the food furnished by that colonial blue-stocking, Anne Bradstreet, was not fit to eat, the bread being black and heavy and sour, and he only took an occasional surreptitious bite to keep himself from starvation. But it was proved that he had feasted not only himself, but comrades, and that a neighbor, who had a "great fat Turkey against his daughter's marriage" hung up in a locked ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... is a chance for Necessity to exercise her maternal function. And she has responded nobly. A progeny of new substances have been brought forth and, what is most encouraging to see, they are no longer trying to worm their way into favor as surreptitious surrogates under the names of "leatheret," "leatherine," "leatheroid" and "leather-this-or-that" but come out boldly under names of their own coinage and declare themselves not an imitation, not even a substitute, but "better than leather." ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... of the last word I saw Marakinoff start violently. The hand at his side made a swift, surreptitious gesture, so fleeting that I hardly caught it. The red dwarf stared at the Russian, and there was amazement ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... gay as he threaded his way through the crowds along Broadway. Somehow a tremendous load had been lifted from his shoulders He would no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he could look the world frankly in the face. The genuine agony he had endured during the past three weeks loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a fool—and there was no fool like an old one. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... anti-toxic fluid which is excreted whenever dangerous pathogenic bacilli attempt to enter the pharynx or larynx, constituting in fact the ever watchful sentinels of the oral and nasal portals through which an entrance into the human organism might be surprised by its ever active surreptitious enemies—the bacteria ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... the bewildered chieftain; "'tis said thou wearest the badge of our house, and art thyself under some surreptitious disguise." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... we sinned in Adam, or whether the Trinity were separate as persons or as attributes; but who drew little portraits of their dearest Academy boys on the margins of their lecture-books, and passed these to their particular intimates in surreptitious interludes between doctrines. ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... occupied by the Princess and her party. In spite of the fact that he was a gentleman, born and bred, he could not conquer countless impulses to look at the flower-face of the royal auditor. They were surreptitious and sidelong peeps, it is true, but they served him well. He caught her gaze bent upon him more than once, and he detected an interest in her look that pleased his vanity ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... Prince declared, with a sharp ring of authority in his tone. "It is your own folly, for which you have to pay. You went secretly to Emil Sachs. You paid surreptitious visits to your husband, which were simply madness. You have involved us all in danger. For our own sakes we must ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... visitor explained, "so far as regards my choosing this somewhat surreptitious form ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... assured myself, in the stiff garden of periodicals which gave one of the ormolu tables the air of a stand at a station. The impression he made on me personally was such that I wished him to read it, and I corrected to this end with a surreptitious hand what might be wanting in the careless conspicuity of the sheet. I am afraid I even watched the result of my manouvre, but up to luncheon ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... overtime," said Mr Clayhanger; and then he added, in a voice still lower, and with a surreptitious glance at Miss Ingamells, the shop-woman, who was stolidly enfolding newspapers in wrappers at the opposite counter, "See to it yourself, now. He won't want to talk to her about a thing like that. Tell him I told you specially. Just let ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... the same copper plates, the making of them into cards for the purpose of play bears indication of what might be termed a "domestic" manufacture. For some time the game was interdicted in Bologna, and it is possible that this may have induced a surreptitious production and illicit sale of the cards. Fortunately, the interdict did not prevent the preservation to us of this ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... woman to admit that her husband had his failings, and Mary Lou said frankly that it was easy enough to see where THAT marriage would end, but Susan read more truly the little bride's flashing blue eyes and the sudden scarlet in her cheeks, and she won Freda's undying loyalty by a surreptitious pressure of her fingers. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... be remarked, in passing, that Miss Cerinthy Ann was at this very time receiving surreptitious visits from a consumptive-looking, conscientious, young theological candidate, who came occasionally to preach in the vicinity, and put up at the house of the Deacon, her father. This good young man, being violently ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... to steal, like a shadow, across the hall, and, impressed by his surreptitious manner, his old and valued friends instinctively followed his example. All three of them, then, with long steps and theatrical pauses, were stagily upon the move, when suddenly the door that led to the servants' quarters swung open and Mrs. Fancy Quinglet ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... the whole question of Socialism and government ownership or operation. All we ask is, that they be given due knowledge and instruction. Furthermore, if Socialism be true, it should not fear open and complete examination. If the truth is the truth, it must prevail in the end. Therefore the surreptitious and secret attempt to foist Socialism upon an unsuspecting people savors much of the lack of sincerity and of belief in its real truth on the part of its own advocates. At least they should stop making their appeal mainly to the uninstructed foreign-born and ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers

... The surreptitious goldsmith had slept for two hours when the stealthy apprentice let himself quietly into the dark and cheerless house. He bore on his back a heavy bag of flour, and carried on his arm a big basket filled with minor packages ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... interval, with a little surreptitious offering of wine (hidden under his coat); and with a selection of ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... everybody's cat and everybody's dog, and will carry them home if he finds them straying. He is on speaking terms with everybody's servant-maid, and does them all a thousand kind offices, which are repaid with interest by surreptitious scraps from the larder, and jorums of hot tea in the cold wintry afternoons. On the other hand, if he knows so much, he is equally well known: he is as familiar to sight as the Monument on Fish Street Hill to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various

... always been one of her great solaces—not that she was often permitted any personal contact with the poor: only to sit at a window watching them as they flocked into the court, to be relieved by her servants under supervision from some officer of her warders, so as to hinder any surreptitious communication from passing between them. Sometimes, however, the poor would accost her or her suite as she rode out; and she had a great compassion for them, deprived, as she said, of the alms of the religious houses, and flogged or branded if ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Smyth was seated beside Miss Durwent and was ogling one of Lady Durwent's maids. Then he remembered that he had heard some voice in his ear for several minutes past, and, growing curious, took a surreptitious glance, to find that it ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... If Percy were in fault and had been guilty of any wrong-doing, he must be made to confess; if not, it would still be expedient that it should be known why a sum of money, so large for such a boy, should have been conveyed to him by a servant in such a surreptitious manner. If no information on the matter could be obtained from either Lena, Percy or Hannah, he should feel it only right to write to Percy's father and place it in his hands; and in any case Hannah must be repaid. The story of the ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... now: had moved up from the uncanny to the impossible, from the impossible to the enraging. Surreptitious search of the Chief's room had shown nothing but the one locked drawer. They had taken advantage of the Chief's being laid up in Antwerp with a boil on his neck to sound the cabin for hidden wires. They had asked the ship's doctor anxiously ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... MELANCHOLY, a book once the favourite of the learned and the witty, and a source of surreptitious learning, though written on a regular plan, consists chiefly of quotations: the author has honestly termed it a cento. He collects, under every division, the opinions of a multitude of writers, without ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... surprised, because I knew that Hemlock Holmes had not yet put in his best licks,—that is to say, had not yet pulled off any of his deepest cogitations and deductions. Just as I happened to see him slipping his little old cocaine-squirter back in his pocket after a surreptitious shot in the arm (while our party was entering the drawing-room on the left side of the front corridor), Lord Launcelot evidently thought it incumbent upon him to kid Holmes for the lack of results so far; ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... Wyatt was a severe blow to the enemies of the old Harvey faction. Anthony Panton entered a protest against the change of administration, claiming that it had been brought about by surreptitious means and that no just complaint could be made against Governor Wyatt.[314] At his petition Berkeley was ordered to postpone his departure for Virginia until the matter could be investigated further. Upon signing an agreement, however, to protect the interests of Wyatt and his friends, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... Balmy gladly consented; it was therefore arranged that they should go to bed early, breakfast soon after six, and then walk to Sunch'ston. My father then went to his own room, where he again smoked a surreptitious pipe up ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... force. We held our guns and our breath while these big animals, by a most fortunate chance, passed by us to the windward of the ant-hill, not more than thirty feet away. If they had passed to the leeward side they would have got our wind and trouble would have been unavoidable. I took a surreptitious snap-shot of them after they had passed by, and for the first time in some minutes took a ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... in hand, acting in turn as corporals, platoon sergeants, and company commanders. The gentleman with the eyeglass had charge of my platoon, and from the start he cast surreptitious glances at a little red brochure which he held in his hand, and mumbled words as if trying to commit ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... of their hatred. The workman knew that Apollonius would have liked to have put him in the penitentiary, if he could. As the two now stood facing each other at parting, the workman measured the other with his eye. It was an evil, lurking glance, a grimly surreptitious glance that asked Fritz Nettenmair, without intending to be heard, whether he was ready for something which the workman did not name. Then he said, in a hoarse voice which would have struck the other but that Fritz Nettenmair ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... adventure, and the pair were so fascinated and absorbed that one of the farm-servants went bawling 'Master Richard' about the outlying buildings for two or three minutes before they heard him. When at last the call reached their ears they had to wait until it died away again before the surreptitious host dare leave the barn, lest his being seen should draw attention ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... require a detailed description. Everything succeeded excellently. The only reminiscences of his escapade were a few cuts in his coat, which went unnoticed, and the precious book of notes, to which he applied himself with such vigour in the watches of the night, with a surreptitious candle and a hamper of apples as aids to study, that, though tired next day, he managed to do quite well enough in the exam, to pass muster. And, as he had never had the least prospect of coming out top, or even in the first five, this satisfied ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... a low conception of angels. I can't imagine one meeting a man in this surreptitious fashion. Really, Buck, when you come to think of it, it is almost as bad as—as—what you did at ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... "Oh, the underhand, the surreptitious villain!" he cried out. Then he turned his pink face towards Susanna. "Lady, beauteous lady, vision of loveliness," he saluted her, bowing to the ground. "But oh, to think of that dark, secret villain! He 's gone and made your acquaintance without waiting for me to introduce ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... though there was a freedom in the new mate's manner which made the redoubtable skipper of the Osprey regret her change of crew, and to treat him with more civility than her proud spirit quite approved of. There was but little wind, and the barge merely crawled along as the captain and mate, with surreptitious glances, took ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... their cousins the Masai who inhabit the district beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them out to see us, but they allowed no rude expressions of astonishment or savage criticism to pass their lips as we trudged wearily in front of them. Not even when old Infadoos with a surreptitious motion of the hand pointed out the crowning wonder of poor Good's "beautiful white legs," did they suffer the feeling of intense admiration which evidently mastered their minds to find expression. They fixed their dark eyes upon this new ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... that they unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the night, I reproached one whom I found sitting by a campfire, cooking a surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin, "O no, Gunnel, da's no work at all, Gunnel; dat only ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... her old friend, and gave little finishing touches to his comfort in the shape of a foot-muff and an extra lap-robe, and held his hand for a minute in both hers,all with very few words and yet saying a great deal. And when Dr. Maryland reached home, he found that a basket of game had in some surreptitious ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... his visitors with a graciousness that awoke wonder in the minds of his staff. His marked preference for the American girl did not escape attention. Some of the bolder young officers indulged in surreptitious grimaces, and all looked with more or less compassion upon the happy-faced beauty from over the sea. Marlanx surveyed Baldos steadily and coldly, deep disapproval in his sinister eyes. He had not forgotten the ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... Schley concentrated a great deal of attention upon the woman mimicked. Many people, accepting the American's cleverness as a fashionable fact, also accepted her imitation as the imitation of a fact more surreptitious, and credited Lady Holme with a secret leading towards the improper never before suspected by them. They remembered the break between the Holmes and Carey, the strange scene at the Arkell House ball, and began to whisper many things of Lady Holme, and ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... intensity. When she was ten she "drew" the cat and the dog, the hens and chickens, and colored the sketches with the paints her mother provided. Whatever appealed to her sense of beauty was straightway transferred to paper or canvas. Then for the three years before her mother's death there had been surreptitious lessons from a Portland teacher, paid for out of Mr. Lord's house allowance; for one of his chief faults was an incredible parsimony, amounting almost ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin



Words linked to "Surreptitious" :   covert, concealed



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