"Oh, not a great deal more than a smattering," he replied airily --a truthful answer, inasmuch as a vocabulary consisting simply of ~"quanty costy"~ and ~"troppo"~ cannot be seriously considered much more than a smattering. Fortunately she made no test of his linguistic attainment, but returned to her former subject.英文原著 · 《His Own People》
But I say, Trent, you ought to have waited for it. After she had seen her father and talked with him she must have understood you better. I shall write to her."
But Trent shook his head. "No," he said sternly, "it is too late now. That moment taught me all I wanted to know. It was her love I wanted, Fred, and - that - no use hoping for that, or she would have trusted me. After all I was half a madman ever to have expected it - a rough, coarse chap like me, with only a smattering of polite ways! It was madness!英文原著 · 《A Millionaire of Yesterday》
So we began at the beginning, with the glass case nearest the door; and in a moment I discovered that I knew far more about its contents than our pallid guide. He had some enthusiasm, but the most inaccurate smattering of his subject. He mixed up the first murderer with quite the wrong murder, and capped his mistake in the next breath with an intolerable libel on the very pearl of our particular tribe.英文原著 · 《A Thief in the Night》
"Why, of course--a smattering; or how could I read Pliny, and Celsus, and ever so much more rubbish that custom chucks down before the gates of knowledge, and says, 'There-- before you go the right road, you ought to go the wrong; _it is usual._ Study now, with the reverence they don't deserve, the non-observers of antiquity.'"英文原著 · 《A Woman-Hater》
He had only a smattering in the way of musical training, but the airs he played took better than classical music would have done. Even Jefferson Pettigrew enjoyed listening to "Home, Sweet Home" and "The Last Rose of Summer," while the miners were captivated by merry dance tunes, which served to enliven them after a long day's work at the mines.英文原著 · 《Cast Upon the Breakers》
This reverend gentleman, being both learned and jolly, became by degrees an indispensable ornament to the new squire's table. Crotchet himself was eminently jolly, though by no means eminently learned. In the latter respect he took after the great majority of the sons of his father's land; had a smattering of many things, and a knowledge of none; but possessed the true northern art of making the most of his intellectual harlequin's jacket, by keeping the best patches always bright and prominent.英文原著 · 《Crotchet Castle》