"Crimp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... weeks there's to be a handicap fur two-year-olds. It's worth three thousand to the winner. It's the best baby race at the meetin'. Hamilton'll come in awful light 'n' he'll get five pounds apprentice allowance fur Micky; but it'll put a big crimp in my roll to pay the entrance. I studies over it some 'n' I gets cold feet. It takes three hundred bones to sit in. I've about decided it's too rich fur my blood, when next work-out day comes 'n' Hamilton works four furlongs, with Micky up, like a cyclone. ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... where, having no friend to advise him, he fell into bad company, soon spent his guineas, found no means of being introduced among the players, grew necessitous, pawned his clothes, and wanted bread. Walking the street, very hungry, not knowing what to do with himself, a crimp's bill was put into his hand, offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind themselves to work in America. He went directly, signed the indentures, was put into the ship, and came over; never ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... and Mr. Hawkins loves me. Good by, Jim; take care of yourself." You couldn't have gotten a better jolt on the B. & 0. You will pardon my suppressed merriment, but that girl certainly made you look like a trailer. Never mind, Jim, old pal, we have all had a crimp put into us at one time or another, and if you work hard and observe good hours you'll get over it in four or five years. It's ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... he had done! But too late. I had my hand on my shooting iron in my pocket after that, I can tell you! He was spoiling to hit back—he is now—he's not wasting to-night. But all that matters for the moment is that we've put a crimp on him and he ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... refused to take such complaints to the office. I never approached the boss with a demand that I did not think was right. Some of the men thought we ought to be vindictive and take every opportunity to put a crimp in the business for the owners. I envied the owners (we've all got a touch of that in our system), because they were rich and were making profits. I knew what their profits averaged. By calling fussy ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... hard heart that values nothing is the only wear, and 'tis evident Scripture so enjoins it. My glass tells me I am still a personable woman, and 'tis open to me to find amusement in making a lover—and myself—happy if so I choose—and if 'twere not so dull a pastime. And there is crimp and quadrille for the asking, and the new game that is just ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... to do him any real harm," growled Shalleg, "but I'm going to put him out of the game, just as I was kept out of it by his tattling tongue. I'm going to make him fail to show up to-morrow, and the next day, too, maybe. That'll put a crimp in his record, and in the Cardinals', too, for he's been doing good work for them. I'll say that about him, ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... the bell, the same now adornin' a Presbyter'an church an' summonin' folks to them services. I tells you, gents, the thoughts of that Willow Run, an' we not able to save so much as a quart of it, puts a crimp in that commoonity they ain't yet outlived. It 'most drives 'em crazy; they walks them banks for months a-wringin' their hands ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to stand by. If not—well, by the sacred photograph of Mary Ann, here's one roping that won't be an undiluted pleasure. Now listen. I'm something of a high private, when it comes to war, but no man is much more than one man, if the other side's blood is bad. Give 'em to me cold, and I can throw a crimp into 'em, for I don't care a hoot at any stage of the game, and they do. But when they're warm—why, a hole between the eyes will stop me just as quick as though I wasn't Chantay Seeche Red. Are you with me? You never took longer chances in ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... the lay of the land down to the last sage brush," declared the foreman. "But we will put a crimp in Megget's plans that he will not forget. My men are asleep by the fire, so there is no use waking them till ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... Sundayish atmosphere about the village as Antony passed through it, with Josephus now at his heels. Men lounged by cottage doors, women gossiped across garden fences. The only beings with an object in view appeared to be children,—crimp-haired little girls, and stiffly-suited small boys, who walked in chattering groups in the direction of a building he rightly judged ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... you wish a Marcel wave," was the reply, "but just for an ordinary crimp we sell a good many of the ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... never crimp my hair—it hurts the color, don't you know," explained William Philander. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... not be surprised to see Creole belles on the fashionable Prado—perhaps Cuban-Spanish. Cuban-English or Cuban-German blondes—promenading with Negro officers in gorgeous uniforms; or octoroon beauties with hair in natural crimp, riding in carriages beside white husbands or lighting up an opera box with the splendor of their diamonds. There was a wedding in the old cathedral the other day, attended by the elite of the city, the bride being the lovely ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... her bureau and began to crimp her hair with grim resolution. Her mother came and knocked at her door. "I'm not coming to breakfast, I've got a headache," she said, and added to herself, "I sha'n't go down and get the smell of ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... was certainly awful discouragin'. She was tryin' to speak o' Mr. Shores, but she kep' trailin' back to herself, 'n' when she said 't she'd never had time to crimp her hair since her weddin' day she jus' broke right down. I cheered her up all I could. I told her she couldn't with a clear conscience blame any one but herself 'n' she'd ought to say her prayers of ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... of my size, and I saw things that I shouldn't have seen—a docker crushed upon one of the docks and brought out on a stretcher dead, a stoker as drunk as though he were dead being wheeled on a wheelbarrow to a ship by the man called a "crimp," who sold this drunken body for an advance on its future pay. Sam told me in detail of these things. There came a strike, and once in the darkness of a cold November twilight I saw some dockers rush on a "scab," I heard the dull sickening ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... killing berg; men set apart from all the creeping children of the solid earth, and trained to seize the winds from heaven for their wings, to meet with grim contempt the embattled powers of sky and wave, and then, alas! on land to become the puny sport of merchant, crimp, and ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Mrs. McChesney. Christmas coming on kind of puts a crimp in the show business. Nice little bill on at the Majestic, ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... straight, slender figure and the poise of her head. "Old Lady Lamson" was over eighty, and she dressed with due deference to custom; but everything about her gained, in the wearing, an air of youth. Her aggressively brown front was rumpled a little, as if it had tried to crimp itself, only to be detected before the operation was well begun, and the purple ribbons of ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... put a crimp in that! The Sheriff man is to give evidence yet! Eleanor, y' better not wait! A'm goin' t' do some plain speakin' t' y' father's honor, but 'tis not talk for a woman's ears! Y've heard y'r ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... which I was ordered to march was standing, as I have said, in the courtyard of the farm, with another dismal vehicle of the same kind hard by it. Each was pretty well filled with a crew of men, whom the atrocious crimp who had seized upon me, had enlisted under the banners of the glorious Frederick; and I could see by the lanterns of the sentinels, as they thrust me into the straw, a dozen dark figures huddled together in the horrible moving prison ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ward politician, leader of some brigade of "lambs" or "smashers," at the wind of whose clubs the party bosses and the mayor were supposed to tremble, and (what hurt nothing) an active and reliable crimp. His front quarters, then, were noisy, disreputable, and not even safe. I have seen worse frequented saloons where there were fewer scandals; for Tom was often drunk himself; and there is no doubt the Lambs must have been ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was even more dismayed at the prospect than was his son, for upon him fell the necessity of raising the money. "Hell of a note," the old fellow grumbled, "when a wet well puts a crimp in us! A little more good luck like this and ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... ye citizens, and join our stern Verein: We're the ones that put the crimp in whiskey, beer and wine; Booze is gone and soon we'll make tobacco fall in line, And then ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... of suicide, for my little vanity sheet is a sort of social mirror, that all who look therein may die of laughter. By the way, I had to run those base squibs about you; but, by George! I'm going to make a retraction in next Saturday's issue. I'll put a crimp in friend Ames that'll make him squeal. I'll say he has ten wives, and eight of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... determine whether a female is hopeless or not upon the subject of marriage. Her humors had begun to ferment and to clear off into that thin vinegar serum which engenders the exquisite perception of human error, and the equally keen touch with which it is reproved. Time, in fact, had begun to crimp her face, and the vinegar to sparkle in her eye with that fiery gleam which is so easily lit up at five and thirty. Still she loved Felix, whose good-humor constituted him a butt for the irascible sallies of a temper more nearly allied to his brother ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... feeling pretty good by this time, he could not let a gentleman treat without returning the compliment, you know. My partner and the lad got to guessing for fun, and then proposed to wager the wine. I lost a bottle, and so did my partner. While we were drinking my partner put a crimp in the baby ticket, but took good care that the English lad saw him do it. Then he wanted me to bet money on the ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... nor with a merchant concerning exchange; nor with a buyer, of selling; nor with an unmerciful man, of kindness, etc." I could have added one thing more: nor with an attorney about compounding a lawsuit. The ejectment of Lord Strutt will never do. The evidence is crimp: the witnesses swear backwards and forwards, and contradict themselves; and his tenants stick by him. One tells me that I must carry on my suit, because Lewis is poor; another, because he is still too rich: whom shall I believe? I am sure of one ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... it to London, where, having no friend to advise him, he fell into bad company, soon spent his guineas, found no means of being introduc'd among the players, grew necessitous, pawn'd his cloaths, and wanted bread. Walking the street very hungry, and not knowing what to do with himself, a crimp's bill[51] was put into his hand, offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind themselves to serve in America. He went directly, sign'd the indentures, was put into the ship, and came over, never writing a line to acquaint his ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... annual meeting. Well, you put a crimp in me then. Just by passing that dividend you dropped me so flat that I lost every dollar ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... round of self-imposed sentinel duty. "If I could only climb the sahuaro," he thought, "and fly my red shirt as a flag, to let the Rurales know I've flanked the enemy, it might hurry them along in time to put a crimp in these devils before they get me. But it'll have to be 'Hold the Fort' without any 'Oh, Say Can You See?' business. Anyhow, I'm flying the rattlesnake flag of Bunker Hill, 'Don't Tread on Me!' Whether the Rurales see it or not, I've saved their hides. If the Apaches had got to this fort first, ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... 'em, and a satchelful of money in real bills will simply dazzle him. A cheque wouldn't serve the purpose; he'd be suspicious of it, and he'd come down to investigate, and someone would be sure to crimp our deal." ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... activities with the Alliance. Starr regretted the death of Estan, but he kept thinking of the good that would come of it. He kept telling himself that the shooting of Estan Medina would surely put a crimp in the revolution. Also it would mark Luis for a mate to the bullet that reached Estan, if that hotheaded youth did not ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... dry. "You know the answer to that as well as I do. We have just two alternatives; either we get out of here—find some place to hide in, then find some way to put a crimp in their plans; or we get out of here for good. It's twenty feet, not twenty thousand, from that window to the ground, but I think a head-first dive would ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... into the current that, fresh from its plunge of four hundred feet in sixteen miles, ran briskly. Everything was in readiness. I meant to put a crimp in the vanity ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... dream, all right—one of your princess-cut girls, with the kind of clothes on that would make a turkey-red check-book turn pale. But you couldn't fool me, even if she had put a Marcelle crimp in that carroty hair of hers, and washed off the freckles and biscuit flour. You can't change Irish-blue eyes, can you? And when you've come to know a voice that's got a range from maple-sugar to mixed pickles, you don't forget it, either. Know her? Say, I was ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... the good work go on with a rush!" called out Jack. "Not so much danger now, because I've put a crimp in that timber's threat to fall. It's securely wedged. Everybody ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... Capuchin, Coss-Lettuce, Curl'd; the Genoa (lasting all the Winter) the Imperial, Lambs, or Agnine, and Lobbs or Lop-Lettuces. The French Minion a dwarf kind: The Oak-Leaf, Passion, Roman, Shell, and Silesian, hard and crimp (esteemed of the best and rarest) with divers more: And here let it be noted, that besides three or four sorts of this Plant, and some few of the rest, there was within our remembrance, rarely any other Salleting serv'd up to the ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... pages to announce his intention of holding a levee in my honour. I prepared for my first presentation at court, attired in my best, though in it I cut a poor figure in comparison with the display of the dressy Waganda. They wore neat bark cloaks resembling the best yellow corduroy cloth, crimp and well set, as if stiffened with starch, and over that, as upper-cloaks, a patchwork of small antelope skins, which I observed were sewn together as well as any English glovers could have pieced them; whilst their head-dresses, generally, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... hill back yonder and turned the fire o' the gugus so's we could get up into the pass. He makes me think o' Lawton. There's the boy for me. If we had a few more generals like Lawton we'd put a crimp in these niggers so quick it would look like a spasm." Having delivered himself of this safe prophecy, Mr. Rogers glared about him for opposition. None forthcoming, he proceeded, with a satisfied snort, to ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... my wig you are envying me, my dear,' replied she quietly, 'there's nothing easier than to have the own brother of it. It was made by Crimp, of Nassau Street, and box and all ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... non-cohesive gold foil, No. 6; upon this place a sheet of No. 4; upon this place a sheet of White's globe tin foil, No. 4; upon this another sheet of Abbey's non-cohesive gold, No. 4; upon this a sheet of No. 6. Cut into five strips and crimp; the crimped strips are cut into pieces a little longer than the depth of the cavity to be filled; some of the strips are rolled into cylinders, others are left open, because easier to use in starting a filling. The color of this combination is slightly less yellow than pure ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... agin you, Scraggsy," said Mr. Gibney affably, "but I wouldn't a-had you no more now than I would when we was runnin' in the green-pea trade. It's because you ain't got no imagination, and the Maggie ain't big enough for my purpose. Havin' the Maggie sort of puts a crimp in my plans." ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... want to put through. The fools! And after last night nearly havin' finished everything! I told 'em—you heard me—that everybody's to keep under cover now. But they think they've got a soft thing, and they say they're goin' to it. I've got to put a crimp in it, and you've got to ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... that the world was full of a number of exceedingly pleasant things that might be had for the taking, and no questions asked. So when he felt the bee sting of gossip, he threw back his head, squared his face to the wind, put an extra kink of elegance into his raiment, a tighter crimp into his smile and an added ardor into his hale greeting, did some indispensable judicial favor to the old spider of commerce back of the brass sign at the Traders National, defied the town, and bade it ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... will of course be at once withdrawn. This, however, you were expecting, and as his leg goes back your hand goes up to the high hanging guard, covering your head from his cut. This cut stopped, he is at your mercy, and you may cut him in halves or crimp his thigh at your leisure. This position is ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... some news," said a pretty brunette named Leonie as she leaned over her cushion to crimp some rose petals. "Poor Caroline is very unhappy about that fellow who used to wait for her ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... word. He's a terror. I've seen him get six of his men out of a San Francisco crimp's house, an' I s'pose you 'aven't bin to sea ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... am sure, would Harrie. She stole out to him that evening after the bridal finery was put away, and knelt at his feet in her plain little muslin dress, her hair all out of crimp, slipping from her net behind her ears,—Harrie's ears were very small, and shaded off in the colors of a pale apple-blossom,—up-turning her flushed and ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... and has gone and gotten us suspended from the team! He's raised a terrific rumpus about football in general and has tried to get the big game of the year with Edgewood canceled but he can't get away with that. He's influential enough to put a crimp in the team, though, and to put a crimp in us in particular, by getting the board to have us kicked off the eleven just when we're needed most. I hope you won't think I'm handing myself bouquets on purpose but I'm the best backfield ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... put a crimp in Casey Ryan's spine is good enough for anybody. Bring her out here and show me how yuh work the damn thing. Guess she'll hold six Bohunks, won't she—with sideboards on? I'll run 'er around a coupla times b'fore I start out—and that's all ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... small seasoned hamburgers exceedingly thin and, using them instead of slices of bread, sandwich in a nice slice of American Cheddar well covered with mustard. Crimp edges of the hamburgers all around to hold in the cheese when it melts and begins to run. Toast under a brisk boiler and serve on soft, ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... bankruptcy, anyway—since this new Carrow Point deal is about through. They haven't got any money—you know that, Ba'tiste. It's cheaper for them to shut down for six weeks than to try to keep running. That fifty thousand they lost on that snowplow just about put the crimp in 'em. It might cost a couple of hundred thousand more to keep the road open. What's the result? It's easier to quit. But ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... a license to faint if you felt that way," he comforted awkwardly. "It was the smoke and the heat, I reckon; they were enough to put a crimp in anybody. Did Man say about when he would be back? Because I ought to be moving along; it's quite a walk to ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... entitled, "The Devil won't let Landsknechts come to Hell." Lucifer, being in council one evening, speaks of the Lanzknecht as a new kind of man; he describes his refreshing traits of originality, and expresses a desire to have one. It is agreed that Beelzebub shall repair as a crimp to a tavern, and lie in wait for this new game. The agent gets behind a stove, which in Germany would shield from observation even Milton's Satan, and listens while the Lanzknechts drink. They begin to tell stories which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... you what I think, Vermin!" Mr. Wentz winced. This perversion of his name had darkened his childhood days and he never had outgrown his antipathy to it. "I think," Toomey went on, "that you're shaky as the devil—that Neifkins' big loss put such a crimp in you that an honest bank examiner could close your doors! I'll bet my hat against a white chip that even a boys'-size 'run' could shut your little two by twice bank ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... old salts chew their quids at ease—those snug permanent Under-Secretaryships, those pleasant asylums in the Treasury or the Mint! Picture to your mind the dark den in Downing Street, where the Whipper-in confers in secret, and have you not at once before you the shipping-office, and the crimp, and the "ordinary seaman" higgling for an extra ten shillings of wages, or begging that his grog may not be watered? And, last of all, see the old lighthouse-keepers, the veteran First Clerks who serve every Administration, and keep their lamps bright for all parties—a ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... hours, during which I, for one, had my bottom sheathing grievously rubbed, and a considerable botheration at crossing the Ferry at Passage, safe in our inn at Cork. I soon found out that the object of my superior officer was to gain information amongst the crimp shops, where ten men who had run from one of the West Indiamen, waiting at Cove for convoy, were stowed away, but I was not let further into the secret; so I set out to pay my visit, and after passing a pleasant evening with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Job ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... ruffles ran up and down, and over and across, and three times round. Being white, the garments were of course changed daily. In the intervals of baby-tending, the mother snatched a few minutes here and a few minutes there to starch, iron, flute, or crimp a ruffle, or to finish off a dress of her own. This "finishing off" was carried on for weeks. When her baby was asleep, or was good, or had its little ruffles all fluted, and its little sister's little ruffles were all fluted, then would she seize the opportunity to stitch, ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz |
