ready excuse

They also provide a ready excuse for voters so inclined.

There it was then - decision not entirely out of her hands, but the ready excuse at hand.

Alan tried repeatedly to reach Anne, but the maid always had a ready excuse.

At the same time, they said, the complicated system also provides a ready excuse for the agency when its officers want to withhold information.

If so, she had a ready excuse: she was an artist, and artists didn't follow rules.

Rushing by, a half-dozen women had a ready excuse.

And Tarn had no doubt of the ready excuse prepared for that particular tragedy.

They took little comfort in the ready excuse.

Feuds also provided ready excuse for particularly murderous raids or pursuits.

Many of the prospective jurors came with ready excuses to get out of serving on what will certainly be a lengthy trial.

The small kitchen had appealed to her, a ready excuse for not whomping up five-course dinners.

Graham had a ready excuse, however.

This gave Ford a ready excuse for not naming anyone as a defendant, who might then have a lawyer show up to court on their behalf.

If the maharaja refused the seer now, every parent would have a ready excuse to refuse to draft his children into the coming war.

A few odd days of film work slotted neatly round that weekend, leaving her no ready excuse apart from cowardice.

If he arrives late, he does so with apologies - and a ready excuse about fighting "the Republicans in Washington."

He had a ready excuse, saying that he was stressed from work and that "the only way to blow off some tension is to speed."

He had been trying to climb the cliff; the birds' eggs were just a ready excuse in case he were discovered.

They have a ready excuse in the form of engineers' reports and in managing agents who counsel them to err on the conservative side.

And even with visits you can't be sure action will be taken about complaints: "Oh, she's confused because of her dementia", is a too ready excuse.

When the Yankees looked ragged on Sunday, they had a ready excuse: they were trying too hard to give Roger Clemens his 300th victory.

Bradley, who conceded that his 12-year-old daughter, Theresa Anne, is the basketball player of choice in the family these days, also had a ready excuse for the men's loss.

She figured if she was seen she always had the ready excuse that she hadn't been able to sleep and had gone outside to take some night air.

Her rose and white countenance flushed very slowly a deeper rose, but her eyes did not waver, and she found a ready excuse for her colour.

Republican officials denied any connection with the incident, and some implied that the Democrats, themselves, had done it to provide a ready excuse in case Mr. Zebrowski lost.