United States or Northern Mariana Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"What is it?" "Look in there!" Joyce snatched a candle and held it close to the opening made by the books. Then she gave a long, low whistle. "What do you make of it?" demanded Cynthia. "Just what it is! And that's as 'plain as a pikestaff' a keyhole!" Cynthia nodded. "Yes, but what a strange place for it back of those shelves!
No further trace of money, and opinion still divided as to what they really did with it: many people in W. firmly convinced that they had it safely planted, and have gone to it." To Brereton the whole affair was now as plain as a pikestaff.
"Well, I give it all up," said Flambeau at last boisterously. "My brain and this world don't fit each other; and there's an end of it. Brown threw up his bothered brow and rapped on the spade handle with an intolerance quite unusual with him. "Oh, tut, tut, tut, tut!" he cried. "All that is as plain as a pikestaff.
"How so?" "The shots the attack on the barn the fire all so much humbug to get us down there a diversion. During that time they were tying up our two men and the business was done." "What business?" "Carrying off the wounded man, of course!" "You don't mean to say you think ?" "Think? Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff!
Craven took out a note-book. "No! The quarrel itself is as plain as a pikestaff. The men are asking for a mere pittance, and must get it if they are to live. It's like all these home industries, abominably ground down. We must go for them! I mean to go for them hot and strong. Poor devils! did you read the evidence in that Bluebook last year? Arbitration? no, indeed! let them live first!"
The press teemed with tracts and pamphlets, written in language "as plain as a pikestaff," against the immoralities of the theatres, those "seminaries of vice," and calling down the judgment of God upon the cost and the monstrosities of the dress of both men and women; while the town roared on its way, warned by sermons, and instructed in its chosen path by such plays and masques as Ben Jonson's "Pleasure reconciled to Virtue."
Never has the hoof of the mule left its trace in these windings; man himself can with difficulty stand upright there, even with the hempen boots which can not slip, and the hook of the pikestaff to force into the crevices of the rocks. In the fine summer months the 'pastour', in his brown cape, and his black long-bearded ram lead hither flocks, whose flowing wool sweeps the turf.
Your English friend over there will give you letters to the English Ambassador; he is Lord Fitzdoggin cousin of the Duke's. And I will give you some papers that will be of use. I know lots of people in Petersburg. Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff. Besides, you know the proverb, mitte sapientem et nihil dicas. That means then when you send a wise man you must not dictate to him." "You flatter me.
"'Divil a whole head will be left in the parish, if they dhrink all the whiskey; and there's stacks of pipes, and lashin's of tobacky, with tay and cakes, and the house in a blaze with mould candles. Is the road azy to find? continued he. 'For I'm goin', mylone, where I never was afore. "'It's as plain as a pikestaff to the very door.
He took a great fancy to the Clark twins and made all manner of fun for the children by pretending that there was only one of them. “Goodness; how you do fly about!” he would say ruefully to Dorothy, “An instant ago you were standing close beside me,” or “How can you be here on the couch,” he would say to Mabel, “when there you are as plain as a pikestaff standing up in the corner?”
Word Of The Day