A hole-and-corner life in some obscure community.    From Wordnet, Princeton University. 

Adjective : The political situation was full of hole-and-corner intrigue. ,She was living a hole-and-corner existence of daily drudgery.    From Dictionary.com. 

I don't like this hole-and-corner business, Rosanne.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blue Aloes Stories of South Africa] Reference

Don't squirrel it away as a shady hole-and-corner Hertfordshire country-house cabal.    From Wordnik.com.  [Tony Blair: The Next Labour Prime Minister?] Reference

Meanwhile, the ethical life as viewed by Kant accordingly shrinks ever further into a powerless, hole-and-corner existence.    From Wordnik.com.  [Man or Matter] Reference

It was so unlike Tony to resort to any hole-and-corner business such as this -- slipping out of the house, as he believed, unknown to any one.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Vision of Desire] Reference

Sooner or later I should have to go to B. for more money, but it seemed hardly decent to do so yet, and in the meantime I must exist in some hole-and-corner way.    From Wordnik.com.  [Down and Out in Paris and London] Reference

Given how badly he has played his hand and given the hole-and-corner way he has gone about it, the electorate are unlikely to draw a favourable conclusion on the matter.    From Wordnik.com.  [Now You See Macavity, Now You Don't] Reference

And it's a hole-and-corner business at the best, isn't it?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Story of the Treasure Seekers] Reference

But such is the wretched trickery of hole-and-corner Buffery!.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Pickwick Papers] Reference

Yes, a hole-and-corner fame within a space no bigger than your hat.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Immortal Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877] Reference

And as one privileged to assist at times in that hole-and-corner work.    From Wordnik.com.  [No Man's Land] Reference

Maybe, some little deadly act of meanness, some hole-and-corner treachery?.    From Wordnik.com.  [Zuleika Dobson, or, an Oxford love story] Reference

He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-corner sort of way.    From Wordnik.com.  [Fifty "Bab" Ballads: Much Sound and Little Sense] Reference

There's not a thing in it but noble hole-and-corner work and not a guinea for your pains.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Highwayman] Reference

I says, 'just as it's that of the law, that we don't countenance hole-and-corner business.    From Wordnik.com.  [In the Mayor's Parlour] Reference

But this hole-and-corner way of doing warfare damps all enthusiasm and stifles recruiting.    From Wordnik.com.  [My War Experiences in Two Continents] Reference

LA locals The Monolators will be continuing their Monday Night Residency at the hole-and-corner.    From Wordnik.com.  [LAist] Reference

The call might not come, of course; the war might be short, a hole-and-corner affair soon ended.    From Wordnik.com.  [In the Wilderness] Reference

You can say or print almost anything so long as you are willing to do it in a hole-and-corner way.    From Wordnik.com.  [Collected Essays] Reference

The Swiss had had enough of electioneering tricks, hole-and-corner revolutions, and paper compacts.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 1 of 2)] Reference

It was obvious that we had many friends, that we were not going to be tried in a hole-and-corner fashion.    From Wordnik.com.  [Prisoner for Blasphemy] Reference

At last Eleusius broke in upon Acacius -- 'Any hole-and-corner doings of yours at Sirmium are no concern of ours.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Arian Controversy] Reference

Give them but a sealed box, or some hole-and-corner to hide their act in, and they will then enjoy their "liberty!".    From Wordnik.com.  [Character] Reference

We lived apart and met in sordid hole-and-corner ways, stole week ends and did all the things that are absolutely fatal.    From Wordnik.com.  [Traitor's Purse]

I want no hole-and-corner confession, which may afterwards be useless, but an open avowal before the most approved witnesses.    From Wordnik.com.  [Hilda Wade, a Woman with Tenacity of Purpose] Reference

I won't believe -- I can't -- that you like this underground, hole-and-corner existence, this life that is dishonest all through.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Wharf by the Docks A Novel] Reference

But it was principally the professors of Zurich University whom Princess Caroline coaxed out of their hole-and-corner Zurich habits.    From Wordnik.com.  [My Life — Volume 2] Reference

We had better have your story blazoned out once more to the world than that you should live your life in this hole-and-corner fashion.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Master Mummer] Reference

I do not approve of hole-and-corner marriages, but where the gentleman has to take up an official position some allowance must be made.    From Wordnik.com.  [Round the Red Lamp] Reference

There had been no regular rehearsals yet, but private preparation, of the hole-and-corner kind I have described, had been going on for a week or so.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Master of the Shell] Reference

And yet, as methinks, it should be a strange case wherein a true man should not go boldly and honestly to the maid's father, and ask her of him, with no hole-and-corner work.    From Wordnik.com.  [Joyce Morrell's Harvest The Annals of Selwick Hall] Reference

'Profiting by your hint,' pursues Jasper, 'I have had some day - rambles with the extraordinary old fellow, and we are to make a moonlight hole-and-corner exploration to-night.'.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Mystery of Edwin Drood] Reference

"These things are talked of, hole-and-corner fashion.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Paradise Mystery] Reference

I don't believe in the theory that they're planted in some hole-and-corner of the coast. ".    From Wordnik.com.  [Ravensdene Court] Reference

"Look here, Rayton," was the firm reply, "I want to chuck this infernal hole-and-corner business.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Zeppelin's Passenger] Reference