He liked my boldness, for I was impatient of the rule-of-thumb ways of some of our fellow-traders.

The disdainful pity of the deductive experts for the rule-of-thumb methods of the police is not to be compared with the vigorous scorn of the official detective for the rival who has not had the benefit of police training.

" "That is a rule-of-thumb deduction," said Crewe, with a kindly smile.

Clearly there is a pressing need of scientific agriculture, to replace or supplement the rule-of-thumb methods in which the ryot is a past master.

The building was one of the old regime, which meant that its floor was of wide and rather uneven painted boards, its ceiling low, its windows small, and its general lines of an irregular and sagging rule-of-thumb tendency.

Paget made a capital sailor, and, though the old Maltese captain of former days was dead, his two sons, lads then, were dexterous sailors in the rough-and-ready, rule-of-thumb manner of the Levantine boatman, knowing nothing of navigation and little more of geography than Ulysses himself.

He therefore decided in effect that it ought to be settled by the rule-of-thumb method of 'cutting the painter'; and, since he was the chief official in the Colonial Office at a critical time, his decision, whether it was right or wrong, was not unimportant.