It was a small, square room, and looked very cosy and comfortable with its red window-curtains, well-filled bookshelf, and many little knick-knacks that adorned the walls and mantelpiece.

But that ingenious knack of forgery, for which he was expelled the Dublin-University, and a detection since in evidenceship, have been his ruin.

I have heard people say of a writer in explanation of his success: "Oh, well, he has the literary knack.

I observe, that the most prevailing ornaments here are family portraits: almost every dwelling, even among the lower kind of tradesmen, is peopled with these ensigns of vanity; and the painters employed on these occasions, however deficient in other requisites of their art, seem to have an unfortunate knack at preserving likenesses.

40 For all those pretty knacks you compose, Alas!

I have known him for many years; we were at school together, and have always seemed to have the lucky knack of bobbing up to the surface simultaneously without prior arrangement.

And besides, I think the Gilmans would scarce trust him with us; I have a malicious knack at cutting of apron-strings.

He carved for us with his knife, with an especial knack for willow whistles.

Should the day be propitious, a run is now assured, unless some unforeseen occurrence, such as the fox going to ground, necessitates a draw for a fresh one; but in any case, owing to this marvellous knack of hitting off the line at the first check, our huntsman generally contrives to show a run some time during the day.

At first, until I acquired the destructive knack, the tearing of one drugget into strips was a task of four or five hours.

" "And a very disagreeable knack it is.

Hearken this, ye dainty perruquiers, "who look so brisk, and smell so sweet," and have such an exquisite knack of chirruping, and lisping, and sliding over the smooth edge of the under lip,and, sometimes, agreeably too,"an infinite deal of nothing,"ye who clip and anoint the hair of Old England's curled darlings!

I may add that Mr. Taynton had, as I knew, an extraordinary knack of imitating handwritings; I have seen him write a signature that I could have sworn was mine.

He's wrapped to the heels in a snow-y white sack; The trees he has lad-en till read-y to crack; He whis-tles his trills with a won-der-ful knack, For he comes from a cold coun-tree.

A child has a knack of making experiments in life, generally healthy in motive, but often intolerable in a domestic commonwealth.

You have an incomparable knack of frying.

This will give you confidence in yourself, and that indefinable "knack" of handling your psychic weapons that comes only from practice.

When he was fifteen years old he was conducting his father's public garage in a town not far from Denver; at that age he knew as much about motors as the men who built them, and he had, moreover, the invaluable knack of putting his finger immediately on a piece of erring mechanism and, with the aid of a bit of wire and a pair of pliers, setting it to rights.

As a writer Paine has no merits of a lasting character, but he had a marvellous journalistic knack for inventing names and headings.

For example, perhaps one Gentleman's metaphorical knack of preaching comes of the sea; and then we shall hear of nothing but "starboard" and "larboard," of "stems," "sterns," and "forecastles," and such salt-water language: so that one had need take a voyage to Smyrna or Aleppo, and very warily attend to all the sailors' terms, before I shall in the least understand my teacher.

Ford would have given half the hooks and lines in his box, if he could have caught from Dick or Dab the mysterious "knack" they seemed to have of coaxing the biggest of the finny folk to their bait, and then over the side of the boat.

We do not mean to insinuate that a really well-dressed Frenchwoman is not better dressed than most English women, or that the French have not a peculiar knack of putting on their clothes to the best advantage; for there is no doubt upon the matter.

He likes to solve problems, and has a phenomenal knack for it.

His wigs were generally burnt in front, from his shortsighted knack of reading with his head close to the candle; and at the Thrales, the butler stood ready to effect a change of wigs as he passed into the dining-room.

His nasal toneswhich had a singular knack of irritating her as a rulestruck quite pleasingly on her ear, as a welcome interruption to the conflict of her thoughts.