The moment I was in the presence, even in the darkest night, I could feel those yellow eyes upon me, and knew their owner was watching for a pretext to spit out some venom on me.

Brown was ALWAYS watching for a pretext to find fault; and if he could find no plausible pretext, he would invent one.

Sometimes, after palming off a particularly fantastic and outrageous lie upon me, he was so`full of laugh'that he had to step aside for a minute, upon one pretext or another, to keep me from suspecting.

Marseilles is filled with half pay officers, who are daily, under one frivolous pretext or other, getting up quarrels with the royalists; from hence arise continual and fatal duels among the higher classes of persons, and assassinations in the lower.''

under pretext of trading along the coast, these men, who are in reality smugglers, will prefer selling me to doing a good action.

As soon as his engagement with the patron of The Young Amelia ended, he would hire a small vessel on his own account for in his several voyages he had amassed a hundred piastres and under some pretext land at the Island of Monte Cristo.

Maximilian leaped at one bound into his crop of lucerne, which he began to pull up in the most ruthless way, under the pretext of being occupied in weeding it.

The pretext of an opera engagement was so much the more feasible, as there chanced to be on that very night a more than ordinary attraction at the Academie Royale.

Both the count and Baptistin had told the truth when they announced to Morcerf the proposed visit of the major, which had served Monte Cristo as a pretext for declining Albert's invitation.

Nothing more is wanting than to arrest the count as a vagabond, on the pretext of his being too rich.''

In 1730, their affairs were in so great disorder, that they were altogether incapable of maintaining their forts and garrisons, the sole purpose and pretext of their institution.

The great increase of their fortune had, it seems, only served to furnish their servants with a pretext for greater profusion, and a cover for greater malversation, than in proportion even to that increase of fortune.

For goodness' sake don't you ever on any pretext set your foot over the threshold at night, for it's as much as your life is worth.'

Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review the acts and position of the general and State governments, and the spirit of the people to discover a pretext for conformity.

Foreigners were not, then, permitted to buy land or businesses in Bermuda, lest their governments use protecting those interests as a pretext for invasion.

Under the pretext of visiting her mother, she traveled to Düsseldorf and registered at the Dumont Theater, having prearranged an audition the same day.

They were particularly opposed to protective legislation, which they saw as being in practice restrictive legislation, which kept women out of better-paid jobs on the pretext of health and welfare considerations.

Under the pretext of being angry over Viezca's imprisonment the people of Anahuac organized a resistance under Travis.

Reputedly seen by Aderca himself as the best of his creations, "A fost odată un imperiu" has for a pretext the life of Grigori Rasputin, the political guru whose influence preceded the Russian Revolution.

On July 15, the government of Emile Ollivier declared war on Prussia, nominally over the Hohenzollern candidature for the throne of Spain, the pretext for France to declare war in order to satisfy France's increasing unease and desire to halt Prussian expansion in Europe.

On the pretext of helping him search for his family, Wang Li invites him to play basketball at 'First University' as the new star of its basketball team.

So when Vaud revolted and declared a republic, the French had a pretext to invade the entire Confederation.

Bern's refusal to accept a government led by the French supported Reform or Peace Party provided a pretext for an invasion.

On May 17, 2013, Point resigned from his position as Chair on the pretext that lawsuits commenced by the children of missing women prevented him from fulfilling his mandate.

In 2003, a.s.h was the topic of a series of "Wired" articles under the pretext of examining the group's role in the deaths of several depressed individuals.

When O'List didn't show for the next rehearsal, Manzanera was asked to come along, on the pretext of becoming the band's sound mixer.

Lucifer there defended the Bishop of Alexandria (Athanasius) with much passion and in very violent language, thus furnishing the adversaries of the great Alexandrian with a pretext for resentment and further violence, and causing a new condemnation of Athanasius.

Acting on the pretext, the Republic took over the city by the year 1420, and it was to remain under Venetian rule for 377 years (1420–1797).

The burning of Newark was to be the pretext for the British to carry out several outrages later.

Criollos felt that soon any pretext would be enough to lead to the outbreak of revolution.

To put an end to these activities, the Junta assembled Cisneros and all the members of the Royal Audiencia on the pretext that their lives were in danger, and sent them into exile aboard the British ship "Dart".

Under this pretext began allied intervention in the Russian Civil War with the United Kingdom and France sending troops into Russian ports.

Benito Mussolini used this incident as a pretext to invade Ethiopia, which led to the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.

Opposition to Sergii was used as a pretext to close many churches and sending clergy to exile.

This had been the pretext for immediate war, which was won by the British.

The same pretext was used to deny her enrollment in the Psychiatry course at her own alma mater's School of Medicine.

The pretext for the pogrom included a minor Soviet air attack on the city on 26 June 1941, two days after Romanian and German forces attacked the Soviet Union.

The Indonesian invasion of East Timor began on 7 December 1975 when the Indonesian military invaded East Timor under the pretext of anti-colonialism.

The nationally acclaimed New College would close within seven years under the pretext of financial hardship over the protestations of some of the country’s leading academic, political, and social figures of the era.

During his reign, the Emperor Manuel I Komnenos occupied the southern provinces of the kingdom on the pretext that the king's brother, Béla (the "Despotes" Alexius) lived in his court.

He was constantly harassed by the Nationalist Party and, unable to manage political crises, he resigned on December 11, 1925 on the pretext of poor health.

He ordered Bigan's execution through extraction of the heart 比干剖心, under the eerie pretext of curiosity "whether the Sage's heart has seven openings".

This strict interpretation appears to have been merely a pretext to avoid angering the Soviet and Nazi German governments, as it was abandoned after fifteen months.

He is actually seeking a pretext to get rid of Mr. Larson, because he disapproves of the way he teaches.

In this scenario, the convocation would be viewed as a pretext for the show of strength.

This was a pretext to explain R-Truth's absence during his suspension as a result of his violating of the Wellness Policy.

Frederick's invasion of Saxony in 1756 was used as a pretext for war, being denounced by both Sweden and France as a violation of the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, of which they were both guarantors.

Graem fakes a distress signal from the plane, giving Logan the pretext to shoot it down.

Lenin jumped at the opportunity and used it as a pretext to attack the church.

Michael comes up with a plan to hit Sollozzo and McCluskey: on the pretext of settling the dispute, Michael accepts their offer to meet in a Bronx restaurant, retrieves a planted handgun and murders them.