For leisurely indifference, followed by a business-like grab, nothing can beat a toad.

Miss Bennett arrived as usual with the parcels, looking pleasantly business-like and important.

"Since you are very business-like, you had better have a witness!

I had heard so much about their meekness that I never dreamed that they would fight; but it turned out that they did, and they went about it in such a business-like way, that I could not help smiling at them.

"A very business-like, common-sense sort of a woman," the lawyer remarked to his son.

Pooh, pooh,' and he shook himself as if to throw off a weight; and, with a face once more quiet and business-like, asked, 'And now, my dear sir, what of my nephew?' 'As for that young lady, sir, of whom you spoke, I can assure you, once for all, as her clergyman, and therefore more or less her confidant, that your nephew has not the slightest chance or hope in that quarter.' 'How, sir?

"That's quite business-like, Andy.

The familiar words of command brought him round in prompt obedience, and there before him he saw Madame Gilbert sitting up in her bed, pointing a most business-like automatic pistol straight for his heart.

At her council-board she was an entirely different woman from what she was among her courtiers: there she would tolerate no flattery, and was controlled only by reason and good sense,as practical as Burleigh himself, and as hard-working and business-like; cold, intellectual, and clear-headed, utterly without enthusiasm.

A business-like elastic band encircled its covers, as a precaution against pages becoming loose with much turning; and inside you would have found scarcely a chapter unpencilled,texts underlined, and sermons of special helpfulness noted by date and preacher on the margin,the itinerary of a devout human soul on its way through this world to the next.

[Illustration: When she emerged a very business-like Peggy had taken the place of the lounger in the hammock.]

"The first improvement I should like to call your attention to," she began, in the most business-like tones she could muster up, "is the self-starter.

At nine o'clock in the morning everything was ready to receive the enemy, the men taking a short and well-deserved rest in their trenches, while we officers were called to the colonel, who acquainted us with the general situation, and, giving his orders, addressed us in a short, business-like way, appealing to our sense of duty and expressing his firm belief in our victory.

She had even served an Indian squaw with coloured calico of an astonishing pattern, had clicked off the proper number of yards in the most business-like fashion, and then had demanded: "What next, if you please?" in a manner as collected as if she had served an apprenticeship behind a counter.

He himself seriously contemplated suicide, and consulted his friends as to the propriety of such a step in the gravest and most business-like manner; though, with our modern notions on the subject, such a consultation has more of the ludicrous than the sublime.

The air of the room was exceedingly business-like, and not in the least even suggestive of religion, except in the matter of a single statue of Our Lady of Lourdes on a bracket on the wall above the President's head.

He just inclined his head a little, with a grave and business-like courtesy, and waved the other back into his chair.

John Saltram said with a forced cheerfulness, drawing his chair up to the table and assuming a business-like manner.

Lapo Cercamorte's blood-smeared visage turned business-like.

what's this?" demanded one of the policemen in a brisk, business-like tone, swinging his locust, and looking sharply about him, as if in quest of some desperado upon whom to vent his wrath.

If Jimmie is business-like and somewhat indifferent, he is behaving himself.

The business-like Malone makes the following observation on the transaction: 'Had he asked 1,000, or even 1,500, guineas the booksellers, who knew the value of his name, would doubtless have readily given it.'

His extremely business-like air reassured her.

Watching them gave him many suggestions for handling his own tin soldiers in a more business-like fashion.

" Stillman began rubbing his palms together with what was intended to be business-like briskness; he stepped up and down the dark hall, peering right and left.