If he had refused to shoot me I don't see how I could
decently have continued his acquaintance."
"I wish, Cassy," said Legree, "you'd behave yourself
decently."
The truth is, that living or dead, if but
decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose.
Meanwhile I spent as much time as I
decently could at her side; but it was impossible to monopolise her, and the rest of my time there was no difficulty in filling up, you may be sure, in so gay a place.
"They can't bake bread anywhere,
decently; and they all freeze in their houses, during winter, like a lot of mice in a cellar.
Then we returned to the National Saloon and spent no more than we could
decently avoid spending for the comfort and warmth.
Such was then the extent of knowledge possessed by every American on the subject, and of which no one could
decently profess ignorance.
And it would be ten times better for your uncle (to go no farther afield) if he were dangling
decently upon a gibbet."
What?" he added with renewed irritation, "I beg you to dress your men
decently."
How artfully he deals with it, how
decently, how wholesomely, those who know Venetian society of the eighteenth century historically, will perceive when they recall the adequate impression he gives of it without offence in character or language or situation.
Cecily took the wishbone in her trembling little hands and began her backward pacing, repeating solemnly, "I wish that we may find Paddy alive, or else his body, so that we can bury him
decently." By the time Cecily had repeated this nine times we were all slightly infected with the desperate hope that something might come of it; and when she had made her nine gyrations we looked eagerly down the sunset lane, half expecting to see our lost pet.
Father Snail could not speak, he was too much affected; and so they gave them as a dowry and inheritance, the whole forest of burdocks, and said--what they had always said--that it was the best in the world; and if they lived honestly and
decently, and increased and multiplied, they and their children would once in the course of time come to the manor-house, be boiled black, and laid on silver dishes.