Mirabeau was in the habit of ridiculing them as the triumvirate; but they were crafty and unscrupulous men, skillful in procuring information; and, having obtained intelligence of his negotiations with the court, they retaliated on him by hiring pamphleteers and journalists to attack him, and narratives of the treason of the Count de Mirabeau were hawked about the streets.

So they fought up and down the hall for an hour and more, neither striking the other a blow, though they strove their best to do so; for both were skillful at the fence; so nothing came of all their labor.

Once when Eric's sandal came untied Ivra knelt to fix it, for she was still more skillful with knots than he.

In diplomacy they did not prove themselves in the long run as skillful as the newcomers, who by degrees secured from them the land over which they had previously exercised sovereign rights.

Up to the mid-century then, despite assailants, the classical school held its supremacy; for its literary art was incomparably more skillful than that of its enemies.

"We know already that he is brave in battle and skillful on the trail, and now we will see how he can sit for days and nights without anything to eat, and not complain.

"He is the most skillful of all their men in the forest, the one whom they call St. Luc.

The piece we played was Garrick's boiled-down version of "The Taming of the Shrew," and he, as Petruchio, appreciated the humor and everything else far more than I did, as Katherine; yet he played badly, nearly as badly as I did; and how much more to blame I was, for I was at this time much more easy and skillful from a purely technical point of view.