"Poor devil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on. How many men there were on her lower deck! Were they really negroes, or had they blackened their faces, as men sometimes do when they are going to hang a poor devil in the woods? On the upper deck are two others whose faces do not seem to be blackened. But a moment later they are the most fearful sight of all; for only too plainly does the fugitive see that they are the same two men who stood before the doorway of his ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... world. Except for the hoarse roar of the water under the huge thin-leafed trees, not a sound was stirring. 'One thing,' he seemed to hear himself mutter as he turned with a shiver from the morning air, 'it won't be for long. You can, at least, poor devil, wait the last act out.' If in this foolish hustling mob of the world, hired anywhere and anywhen for the one poor dubious wage of a penny—if it was only his own small dull part to carry a mock spear, and ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... you keep that in mind! You ta' care, my dear. It's on'y natural, if you have kids, they'll take after their father. And I'd sooner see them laying dead before me than bring up drunkards to be a curse to some other poor devil. They'll not escape it. It's ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... said she'd marry anybody to get away from this house. I should not have recognized you: your head is no longer like a walnut. Your aspect is softened. You have been boiled in bread and milk for years and years, like other married men. Poor devil! [He disappears ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... announces after runnin' through the bunch. "And maybe I'm not tickled to get it back! Catch me forgetting to lock that safe again! But I thought no one knew. Allston must have seen me moving the picture and guessed. Well, I'm not sore. Poor devil! I'll call up the District Attorney's office right away. He gets those tickets to Australia, ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... dislike to Clayton," said Jimmie Dale whimsically. "He's too patently after free advertising, and I'm not going to help along his boost. You can't have it, old man, so let's think about something else. What'll they do with that bit of paper that's on the poor devil's forehead up ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Some poor devil at the unknown other end might be in dire need of succor. The very franticness of the instrument's wild clashing betokened something ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and it had been in his possession thirty-six hours. Thirty-six hours is not long, to be sure, when life runs smoothly with slight incidents to emphasize the figures on the dial, but it may seem long to the poor devil on the rack. ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... shabby, rough, 'n' dirty, an' our feelin's out of tune, An' it's hard on fellers for'ard that was used to go saloon; There's a broken swell among us — he is barracked, he is chaffed, An' I wish at times, poor devil, for his own sake he was aft; For they'd understand him, aft, (He will miss the bath-rooms aft), Spite of all there's no denyin' that there's finer ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... stare had failed of its effect, his words now interpreted it and gave it significance. The lawyer's jauntiness dropped off, as if a modicum of respect for this man had found its way into his calculating soul. Here was no poor devil of a conductor, but the mayor of Warwick, a very different person; and though he was surprised in an adventure of gallantry, he intended to carry it off with a high hand, as nobody's business but his own. Cobbens reflected that the mayor's companion might ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... for a married man, Harvey," said he, "as I do for a half-starved dog. I'm always going out of my way to feed some of these cast-off dogs around town, so why shouldn't I do the same for a poor devil of a husband? I'll make you comfortable until you get into Davis', but don't you ever let on to these damned women that you're a failure, or that you're strapped, or that that measly little wife of yours gave you the sack. No, sir! Remember who you are. You are my nephew. I won't say as I'm proud ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... King William be hanged!" replied the sergeant, who was naturally a good-natured, but out-spoken fellow—"sooner than I'd take up a poor devil of a beggar that has enough to do to make out his bit and sup. Go on about your business, poor devil; you shan't be molested. Go to my uncle's, where you'll get a bellyfull, and a comfortable bed of straw, and a winnow-cloth in the barn. Zounds!—it ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... said Cary, rather reluctantly. "But I warn you that my sympathies are steadily going over to Hagan. The poor devil does not look to have a dog's ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... doubt. Even a Clarion reporter couldn't imagine that. It's all intra-atomic energy, all right—some poor devil trying our stunt without my horseshoe ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... silent prayer. The door flew open, and the porter sent in my name. I had soon the honour to be invited into the park, where Mr. John was walking with a few friends. I recognised him at once by his corpulency and self-complacent air. He received me very well—just as a rich man receives a poor devil; and turning to me, took my letter. "Oh, from my brother! it is a long time since I heard from him: is he well?—Yonder," he went on,—turning to the company, and pointing to a distant hill—"Yonder is the site of the new building." He broke ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... Andy began to think they were using Jack Dwyer and his daughter very ill, but what business had he to think of offering himself, "a poor devil like him"? But, the silence still continuing, Andy took heart of grace; and as the profit and pleasure of a snug match and a handsome wife flushed upon him, he got up and ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Prince, holding out his hand. "I have to go up to town in any case, for there is a poor devil of an East India Company's officer who has written to me in his distress. If I can raise a few hundreds, I shall see him and set things right for him. Now, Mr. Stone, you have your life before you, and ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... though the paper does not say so, that was not his reason. The poor devil killed her not because she had been untrue, but because he loved her. He killed the thing he loved the best out of sheer affection. Unfortunately, for his virtues, he loved her innocently, ignorantly, as most ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... have known, that the 'tall blonde' who had engaged Number Seven would not occupy it. How did he know that? And he must have relations with the man who met me on the Champs Elysees. How could that be? Remember, he's a poor devil of a foreigner living in a Latin-Quarter ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... in my life until the accident occurred. Seems to me the poor devil leaned out to see the fun and overbalanced. Felt responsible, only natural, and made inquiries. He died at six ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... chair. Then all the men spoke to one another something after this fashion, "The drum-horse hasn't hung over the mantelpiece since '67." "How does he know?" "Mildred, go and speak to him again." "Colonel, what are you going to do?" "Oh, dry up, and give the poor devil a chance to pull himself together." "It isn't possible anyhow. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... each other with curiosity. The bronzed face and honest eyes of the soldier betrayed nothing. "Are you going to marry her at last?" thought Ashe. "Poor devil!" ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is the tide of passion, whose fountains are in our own nature! Our virtues are the quick-sands, which shew themselves at calm and low water; but let the waves arise and the winds buffet them, and the poor devil whose hope was in their durability, finds them sink from under him. The fashions of the world, its exigencies, educations and pursuits, are winds to drive our wills, like clouds all one way; but let ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... it was because the Battersea people were more humane and charitable than their neighbours. There was a time when those fields were of no value; now they're worth a mint of money, they say. The body of a poor devil, who was drowned in the river, was washed on shore on those banks, and none of the parishes would be at the expense of burying it. The Battersea people, though they had least right to be called upon, would not allow the poor fellow's ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the expense of this poor devil, a shot happened to take us between wind and water, and (its course being through the purser's store room) made a terrible havoc and noise among the jars and bottles in its way, and disconcerted Mackshane so much, that he dropped his scalpel, and falling ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... them: in fact, there were three swollen figures in that mix-up. And the fourth was advancing on a smaller figure that turned and ran. Ulana! In a flash he was after them. Tom Farley would have to look out for himself, poor devil. With two of them against him, the ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... permission, or thinking it necessary to use much ceremony with a poor devil of a painter who could not pay his rent, the agent of the law lifted the portrait from the nails on which it hung, to carry it to the window, and examine it at his leisure. But his hands were stiff and clumsy, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... that he was kind hearted and it struck me, quick as a flash, that my play was generosity. People somehow who are free at heart admire this trait in others. When a man has once been liberal and knows what a good feeling it gives him on the inside, to do a good turn for some poor devil that needs it, he will always keep it up, and he has a soft spot in his heart for the man who ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... when Audrey Beardsleyism was the rage and Oscar Wilde a lion in "sassiety" gay plaid stockings in Persian or Audrey Beardsley designs sold as high as $7.50 a pair, enough I should say to enable a poor devil like me to live a week. But this is not all. For spring or June brides of the "swell London sassiety set," fine white silk stockings cost $22.50 a pair must go with a wedding gown and trousseau equally as extravagant, the climax of fashion's freakish ways being ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... that worthy uncle pronounced precisely the same words, while setting free a mosquito that annoyed him, but which he thought himself at liberty to thee and thou: 'Go, poor devil,' he said to it, 'the world is large enough to ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... a mile higher when, coming to a flinty piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other forefoot. I then got out of the chaise in good earnest, and seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it. The look of the house, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... to take him, and when he asked about the passage-money, he answered, "What! you want to pay passage-money? What would my master say if I took anything from a poor devil like you? No, no, the rich merchant Jussuf of Balsora, who has twenty such ships on the sea, takes no ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... our lads from Bergamo and Brescia; and the order from the Council was, 'Go and do the business!' which means, 'Go and earn your ounce of Austrian lead.' They went, and we gave fifteen true men for one poor devil of a curst tight blue-leg. They can play the game on if we give them odds like that. Milan burns bad powder, and goes off like a drugged pistol. It's a nest of bunglers, and may it be razed! We could do without it, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... my pile and was coming home. I had left ten years before because a selfish woman, whom I imagined I loved, jilted me for a wealthier man. That wound had healed, and when I left Honduras, I did not think that I had an enemy in the world, unless it was some poor devil of a disgruntled native workman I had been forced to discharge, or somebody ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... Sinister combination for a poor devil of an actor-manager—author and agent. What's this you're givin' me? Well, only up to the top—On my honour, boy, only up to the top!" He nodded over the brimming glass with a knowing "Well, chin-chin!" and ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... "Poor devil!" cried Brown. "Here, Cochrane, tell them to let him go. We can't let him be butchered like this in front of us. Say that we will find the money amongst us. I will be answerable for any ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by all the vile names they could think of, to show their lack of respect, and finally commanded him never to return to this vicinity. Calling on Christ and the Virgin, they applied fire to the wood. "The poor Devil then fled roaring in a fury, and making the ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... their opinion,—the authentic seriousness of men betting at Tattersall's, or about to receive judgment in Chancery. There is in the Englishman something great, beyond all Roman greatness, in whatever line you meet him; even as a Latter-Day Augur he seeks his fellow!—Poor devil, I believe it is his intense love of peace, and hatred of breeding discussions which lead no-whither, that has led him into this sad practice of amalgamating true ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... endless story of the silly old woman that showed the ruins'; but Scott answered, 'There is a pleasure in the song which none but the songstress knows, and by telling her we know it all ready we should make the poor devil unhappy.' Lockharts ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... hospital, bruised and bloody wretches complaining of ill-treatment by their officers, drunkards, desperadoes, vagabonds, and cheats, perplexingly intermingled with an uncertain proportion of reasonably honest men. All of them (save here and there a poor devil of a kidnapped landsman in his shore-going rags) wore red flannel shirts, in which they had sweltered or shivered throughout the voyage, and all required consular assistance in ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that the poor devil should kill himself. He left it on Christmas Eve, too—a pleasant time for a man to ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... much of an ordinary P. & O. flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about ghosts developed itself. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, and killed him, poor devil. Write him off to the System—one man to do the work ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster—the pride of the regiment —to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.—Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Olive; the woman in you, I mean. Opdyke is morally bound to hold it all in, when you're in sight and hearing. No man that's half a man will squeak before a woman, and Opdyke's all man, fast enough. Yes, poor devil, he does have his bad days, like all the rest of us. However, the rest of us can arise and lick somebody, if the spirit moves us; and poor old Opdyke has to lie still and take it out in swearing. He does swear, too; and now and then his ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... as a writing-man. It's finished. [Hanging his head.] I'm sorry to break faith with her people; but she may take me, if she will, on her own terms—a poor devil who has proved a duffer at his job, and who is content henceforth to be nothing but ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... arms, and to lay themselves flat on the ground, between this place and the head-quarters." "What the devil!" cried Matta, "an ambuscade? God forgive me, I believe you intend to rob the poor Savoyard. If that be your intention, I declare I will have nothing to say to it" "Poor devil!" said the Chevalier, "the matter is this; it is very likely that we shall win his money. The Piedmontese, though otherwise good fellows, are apt to be suspicious and distrustful. He commands the horse; ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... tray of refreshments,—something or other is sure to happen. "Sentite," said some one the other day to me. "Yesterday, I was looking out of my window, when I saw —— coming along. 'Phew!' said I, making the sign of the cross and pointing both fingers, 'what ill-luck will happen now to some poor devil that does not see him?' I watched him all down the street, however, and nothing occurred; but this morning I hear, that, after turning the corner, he spoke to a poor little boy, who was up in a tree gathering some fruit, and no sooner was out of sight than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... it, and felt it too; he didn't seem over half pleased, you may depend. He was the District Schoolmaster, and he told me he was takin' a spell at boardin' there, for it was their turn to keep him. Thinks I to myself, poor devil, you've brought your pigs to a pretty market, that's a fact. I see how it is, the Bluenoses can't cipher. The cat's out of the bag now; it's no wonder they don't go ahead, for they don't know nothin'; the 'Schoolmaster ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... of that which started me on it. I seemed to see it all clear at a glance. There were his height and hair and figure, about the same as my own. No one could swear to his face, poor devil! I brought down this suit of clothes, and in a quarter of an hour Barker and I had put my dressing gown on him and he lay as you found him. We tied all his things into a bundle, and I weighted them ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... elation. "I did make good, but I went through hell first, and I very nearly failed. It may be the same with him. If so—well, poor devil, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... monotonously "for wind," quite convinced that the next breeze would be due to their efforts. A fat old man sang all night long in falsetto in three notes; it was unbearably silly and irritating, yet one could hardly stop the poor devil and rob him of his only pleasure in that dark night. We felt damp, restless and sleepless, and tried in vain to find some comfort. Next evening we reached the entrance of Tesbel Bay, and the wind having died down, we ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... hedge around him, and around all that he hath on every side. You have blessed the works of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land; and if, after all this, he cannot afford you a little gratitude, he must be a poor devil indeed. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he'll curse thee to ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... have read your letter in to-day's "Nature," "mit Ehrfurcht und Bewunderung." And the best evidence of the greatness of your achievement is that it extracts this expression of admiration from a poor devil whose brains and body are in a colloid state, and who is off to Brighton for a day or ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... would be right,' cried Somerset; 'and my dear Challoner, I am so relieved to hear of his demise, that I will— Well, after all,' he added, 'poor devil, he was ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... dinner; he had squeezed the last drop out of the little coffee-pot, and I wondered with amusement whether he would have the moral courage to remain where he was now that his ostensible pretext was gone and that the waiter was beginning to loiter round his table as a hint that he ought to go. Poor devil, I could see that he was growing uneasy; he shuffled his feet, and the glances he threw at me became yet more furtive and reproachful. Still I gave no sign; I don't know what spirit of sarcasm and teasing possessed me. He stood ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... he looked, poor devil! Hillard had not taken particular notice of him during the past week's excursions. Giovanni had aged ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... "Poor devil!" said Blaydes, tipping the end of his cigarette into the fire-"he's in love with a girl who's been in prison three times. He thinks she'll kill herself—and he can't influence her at all. He takes it hard. Well, now ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Stranger.—"Poor devil, if you ask my pockets,—pockets, which are the symbols of man; Dare-devil, if you ask my heart. [Surveying me from head to foot.] The world seems to have smiled on you, Mr. Caxton! Are you not ashamed to speak to a wretch lying on the stones? ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is, he was out of sight. The tail of his plane stuck up to show what a real header he had taken. I found out later that he got out of that smash with a broken leg and a bad shake-up, but when I was standing there by that machine, waiting to go up, I thought the poor devil who had the tumble ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... don't know what to make of me—a man of my position sitting here! Poor devil! to spend your days in spying on your fellow-creatures! Poor devil! But you don't know that you 're a poor devil, and so ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I knew his value, and I took the poor devil on the spot, without pestering him with any more questions. No need to ask him to explain himself. The facts speak for themselves in these cases. The old story, my good friend! There's a woman at the bottom of it, ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... incredible, but undeniable theory. In spite of his own wilful disbelief in the faith of mankind, here he was sitting by one poor devil's bed while he kept his weather eye out upon the rough river in the interests of another—a murderer! He pondered on the question of whether any one kept faith with him. His mind cried out angrily, "No!" but on second thought, in spite of himself, ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... lover, of whom each Forsyte thought: 'Poor devil! looks as if he were having a bad time!' Their kind hearts beat a stroke faster for that poor, waiting, anxious lover in the fog; but they hurried by, well knowing that they had neither time nor money to spare for any suffering ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of being frank so that a poor devil usually thinks you want to marry him, and then there's the devil to pay. You know it ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... of gentle birth; Quinola will deliver your letter to you with asking a maravedi, without obliging you to do anything unworthy of you, and he expects that you will refrain from desiring the services of a poor devil who carries under his wallet ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... goodness keeps off enemies. What ignorance of life she crams into a dozen words. As for those poor countrymen of mine, they are just the people that carry back to Germany all the awful tales of my goings-on. Do you know, there was once a poor devil of a musician who had set my Zwei Grenadiere, and to whom I gave no end of help and advice, when he wanted to make an opera on the legend of the Flying Dutchman, which I had treated in one of my books. Now he curses me and all the Jews together, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... that of all the lands I know (you will see in a minute how I connect this piece of prose’ with the isle of Cyprus), there is none in which mere wealth, mere unaided wealth, is held half so cheaply; none in which a poor devil of a millionaire, without birth, or ability, occupies so humble a place as in England. My Greek host and I were sitting together, I think, upon the roof of the house (for that is the lounging-place in Eastern climes), when the former ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... but you have just returned from hell. What could they say if you told them? They would be embarrassed, polite, forbearing, kindly, and smiling, and they would mention the matter afterwards as a queer adventure with a poor devil who was evidently a little over-wrought; shell shock, of course. Beastly thing, shell shock. Seems to ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... paint, and he wants to paint, well!—then he seems to me another instance of the charming way in which a kind Providence has arranged this world. I am sorry for him, tout bonnement! If I could give the poor devil a hand out of the mud, I would; if not, well, then, no sermons! I take him as I find him; if he annoys me, I call in the police. But as to hiding my face and canting, not at all! That is your English way—it is the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the abuse cite particular instances; they name the persons and their workmen who will be disturbed, while the poor devil of a reformer can only refer to the general good, which must insensibly diffuse itself among the masses. This does not have the effect which ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... give him this. The infinite, the insatiable desire of the human soul, which can never be wholly satisfied, which can never reach its term, this is the passion which possesses Faust, this is the rock upon which the hopes of the poor devil are shipwrecked, the poor devil who in the limitation of the merely critical and negative temper cannot understand that Faust can never be satisfied, will never say to the moment, 'Verweile doch, du bist zu schoen.' For the drama ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... "Poor devil," muttered Lingard, profoundly moved by the tragic enormity of the act. "I suppose there was ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... me? Remember me to Mengaldo, Soranzo, and all who care that I should remember them. The letter alluded to in the enclosed, 'to the Cardinal,' was in answer to some queries of the government, about a poor devil of a Neapolitan, arrested at Sinigaglia on suspicion, who came to beg of me here; being without breeches, and consequently without pockets for halfpence, I relieved and forwarded him to his country, and they arrested him at Pesaro on suspicion, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... up L., puts it on and then turns up trousers. Footsteps heard in flies, then goes to the window R., pulls curtain aside and opens the shutters of the window nearest the fire. A flood of moonlight streams in from R. Clock strikes twelve.) By Jove, what a lovely night. That poor devil did get a fright, and no mistake. (Crossing down to fireplace for his cap which is on the mantelpiece. MALCOLM, BELDON and GEORGE return—the door closes after them.) Well, no sign ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock
... much inclined to laugh as he contemplates the new-comer, and reflects on the precautions he has taken. A poor devil of an Indian peon, in coarse woollen tilma, tanned sheepskin trousers reaching only to the knee, bare legs below, guaraches upon his feet, and a straw hat upon his head; his long black hail hanging unkempt over ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... anything worry the poor devil. Let him consider the bill for costumes chalked off. Here, put this ten dollars to the best advantage you can use it for any little necessaries that may ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... are used to seeing these little family conspiracies," said Popinot. "Not a year passes without a number of verdicts of 'insufficient evidence' against applications of this kind. In our state of society such an attempt brings no dishonor, while we send a poor devil to the galleys who breaks a pane of glass dividing him from a bowl full of gold. Our Code is ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... said in a voice new to St. Ange's knowledge of Jock; "you're not the fellow to grudge a poor devil an hour or so of heaven. There's the hope of an eternity of it for you; but for me there's going to be only—the memory of this hour. Shake hands, old man, and take this from me, straight. Keep yourself fit to touch. Lay hold of that and never ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... "The poor devil, standing there with his stick and his game leg, and his face working, said, 'Mabel, Mabel, believe me, it kills me to say it, but I am, absolutely. The girl's got no home. She only wants to keep ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... easily. But when he returned after Blenheim, the young lady of sixteen, who had appeared the most beautiful object his eyes had ever looked on two years back, was now advanced to a perfect ripeness and perfection of beauty, such as instantly enthralled the poor devil, who had already been a fugitive from her charms. Then he had seen her but for two days, and fled; now he beheld her day after day, and when she was at Court watched after her; when she was at home, made one of the family party; when she went abroad, rode after her mother's ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... him; he frowned and changed the subject. He was charged with a commission; his uncle, the cure, had spoken to him of a poor devil who was unable to earn his daily bread. He lived in such and such a place; he had been there himself and was interested in him; he hoped ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... sort of thing he would do. Such a murderer might easily have sense enough to know that to leave the money and valuables was the safest thing. I tell you frankly, I wouldn't have a hand in hanging a poor devil who had let daylight into a man like Sig Manderson as a measure of ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... rebel's neck, secured it there by a double knot, drew the cravat over his own shoulders, and the aide-de-camp holding up the rebel's heels, till he felt him pretty easy, the lieutenant with a powerful chuck drew up the poor devil's head as high as his own (cheek by jowl), and began to trot about with his burden like a jolting cart-horse,—the rebel choking and gulping meanwhile, until he had no further solicitude about sublunary affairs—when the lieutenant, giving him a parting ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... of surprise ran through the crowd, and sharp censure followed fast. What! a cibolero,—a poor devil, of whom nothing was known, aspire to the smiles of a rico's daughter? It was not a compliment. It was an insult! ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... useless to try to get in by either window; both were high and small; the best spot for an attack was the door. Unless he was hard pressed, he must not shoot; women were concerned, and the fort or Clark's might be stirred to unreasonable retaliation in their name; for example, there was that poor devil of a cow-puncher at Dodge who had been riddled simply for slapping his wife.... Obviously, the shack must be occupied without the shedding of blood. But what of his safety? "I'll jus' have t' chance it," he said, and hunted for something to ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... the captain, "we must take away the ladder, that we may not compromise the poor devil ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... for example, is a captain of dragoons and already mated. And maybe Monsieur V is a young baron whose family won't stand any nonsense about him—families are different. And as for Monsieur A—well, let us put him down for a poor devil of a student who cuts no figure at all. But Monsieur X—ah, that is different! he is pounced upon in the bosom of his family. It is Monsieur X who has the scrupulous and ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... didn't shoot him. He was too far gone, poor devil, to shoot anybody.... It was the Belgian captain that he left.... He was lying there, horribly wounded. His servant was with him; they were ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... came out of the womb of the grave as naked as I came from my mother's; so that six months afterwards, when I remembered, one fine morning, that I had been Colonel Chabert, and when, on recovering my wits, I tried to exact from my nurse rather more respect than she paid to any poor devil, all my companions in the ward began to laugh. Luckily for me, the surgeon, out of professional pride, had answered for my cure, and was naturally interested in his patient. When I told him coherently about my former ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... is a poor devil who never thought of anything except escaping from the crowd of those who are dying of hunger. Gavaut never had any ideas except at his elbows. Does anybody take him seriously in the political world? You may be sure that he never gave an illusion to any ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... steadily in the face until she grew crimson red; and then staring round at every man who formed her circle, until, MA FOI, I stared them all away. I instructed Magny to say, everywhere, that the Countess was madly in love with me; which commission, along with many others of mine, the poor devil was obliged to perform. He made rather a SOTTE FIGURE, as the French say, acting the pioneer for me, praising me everywhere, accompanying me always! he who had been the pink of the MODE until my arrival; he who thought his pedigree of beggarly Barons of Magny was superior to the race ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sung sundry snatches of martial airs, gave Dumiger a contemptuous, indignant glance, and stalked out of the cell, taking care to rattle the bolts and bars as a punishment to Dumiger for not gratifying his curiosity. Poor devil, it was his only amusement to ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... rain poured down, rustling on the ivy and dripping from the eaves. I thought of the convict out upon the bleak, cold, shelterless moor. Poor devil! Whatever his crimes, he has suffered something to atone for them. And then I thought of that other one—the face in the cab, the figure against the moon. Was he also out in that deluged—the unseen watcher, the man of darkness? In the ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... they pass their time on the land which they attack in filling their stomachs every day; this is the reason why they come to the land of Egypt, to seek their sustenance, and their intention is to install themselves there; mine is to catch them like fish upon their bellies. Their chief is a dog, a poor devil, a madman; he shall never sit down again in his place.'" He then announced that on the 14th of Epiphi he would himself conduct ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... chin fell, and his fat face lost colour. "Poor devil!" he said, staring at me like one fascinated. "They have took his ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... them sooner or later. But one need only cross one's threshold to find one adventure—the adventure of a new, unknown fellow-creature, full of suspicion, full of cloudy malice, full of secretive dreams, and yet ready to respond—poor devil—to a ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... "Poor devil!" he said, when the whole story of Trent's transgression and its consequences had been revealed to him. "What a ghastly stone to hang round a man's neck for the term of his natural life! If they'd shot him, it would ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... be, made of brass, so as that they may not feel the importunity of people of business, who expect to be heard and despatched at all hours and at all seasons, come what will, attending only to their own affairs; and if the poor devil of a judge does not hear and despatch them, either because it is not in his power, or it happens to be an unseasonable time for giving audience, then they grumble and backbite, gnaw him to the very bones, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that mirror. Like a slew in the evening. But it isn't worth being a slave for. I'm not going to be a Mr. Riggs. Poor devil, he's more of a servant than any of these maids. Certainly am sorry for that poor fish. He'll have a chance to take his coat off and sit down and ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... deep slumber. His battered hat rolled from the bench to the ground. The young man lifted it, placed it over the frowsy face and moved one of the grotesquely relaxed limbs into a more comfortable position. "Poor devil!" he said, as he drew the tattered clothes closer ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... us that the land an't poached—and if there be some excuse for a poor devil who is out of work, there be none for you, who call ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... no such poor devil as that comes to—no poor drifting sea-weed of the universe. Man has a soul; which, if he will, puts him beyond fortune's finger and the future's spite. Don't whine like fortune's whipped dog, Frank, or by the heart of a true friend, I will ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... see a living soul," said Jeannin, "and I very much fear that the poor devil who gave that yell ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Exeter gaol! This is unlucky. Poor devil! He must now be unpeppered.[39] We are all well. Wordsworth is well. Hartley sends a grin to you? He has ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... right thing, Hugh," he said, with the admirable casual manner he possessed of treating subjects which he knew to be delicate. "Nancy's a fine woman. Poor devil!" This in reference ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... quite right, old lady! All the doctors and medicines in the world could not have pulled him through after the drink and the snow had had their way with him for so many hours—poor devil! Well! I'll go back to bed now, and finish ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... their dug-outs, and I shouted: "Is anyone there?" And a voice, "Yes, one; but I'm wounded," came faint up the narrow stair; And my man was descending before me, when sudden a cry! a shot! (I say, this cake is delicious. You make it yourself, do you not?) My man? Oh, they killed the poor devil; for if there was one there was ten; So after I'd bombed 'em sufficient I went down at the head of my men, And four tried to sneak from a bunk-hole, but we cornered the rotters all right; I'd rather not go into details, 'twas messy that bit of the fight. But all of it's beastly messy; let's talk ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... n'avait pas de veine—pour une fois qu'il a pris un bain...." (Poor devil, he was unlucky! To come to such grief for once taking ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... 'Poor devil, I dare say he has had a bad time. But I was a fool not to draw out of that. It was all very well when I was a bachelor. But here I am as a married man faced with an indefinite liability and nothing to meet it with. I don't know what is to become of ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... "Poor devil!" sighed Remsen. "Three hours more of work, I dare say, before he stumbles, half blind, into bed. And all for what, Joel? That or—that?" He pointed with his pipe-stem to where Jupiter shone with steady radiance high ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... his hand found a lump under the cloth. He drew out the apprentice magician's book. The poor devil had never achieved his twenty lifetimes, and this was probably all that was left of him. Hanson stared at it, reading the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... England.) "The ink looks old, and it's not metallic ink. The parchment's as old as Methuselah—I'll take my oath on that. There's even different ink been used for the map and the margin notes. But that's new blood or my name's Mike! That blood's not a week old! Phew! I bet it's that poor devil Mukhum Dass! Now— let's figure on this: Mukhum Dass burgled my house, and was murdered about an hour afterward. I think—I can't swear, because he didn't let me hold it, but I think that tube in Gungadhura's hand was the very identical one that I hid under the cellar floor—that Mukhum ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... shouts the gryf issued his hideous, challenging bellow and charged them. The warriors fled in all directions while Tarzan belabored the beast across the snout with his spear in an effort to control him, and at last he succeeded, just as the gryf was almost upon one poor devil that it seemed to have singled out for its special prey. With an angry grunt the gryf stopped and the man, with a single backward glance that showed a face white with terror, disappeared in the jungle he had been seeking ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in a low voice that frightened her. "I'll rot in a gaol first!—I'll swing on a gallows!—I'll die in a ditch! Take care as you don't give me something to swing for! Yes, you, with your pale face, and your high-handed ways, and your cold, cruel heart that can send a poor devil to the other end o' the earth with a 'pleasant trip, and here's your health, my lad,' like as if I was goin' across to Lambeth. And yet you stand there as beautiful as a hangel; and I—I'm a fool, I am! And—and I don't know what keeps me from slippin' my knife into ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... 'Don't trouble. The poor devil's half dead with exhaustion. I told him he might sleep till I called him. I don't want much, and I ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... people. It is not good to judge, and yet I can't help picturing it all to myself. I see a sleek old sinner, who has gone through this life perfectly satisfied with himself, edging his way in and sidling over where the sheep are. Then in comes this poor devil who went to jail this morning—that was his first trip, but the road is easy when you have been over it once—and he, having been herding all along with the goats, naturally wanders over that way. Then at the last moment I see the Good Shepherd shooing the ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... He had stripped that garment from his shoulders and had tossed it on a bush when he had decided on combat. "If I should stop to argue the matter with myself just now I should find myself flattering his good judgment. I have robbed a poor devil for a whim. Thank God, I went at it brutally and frankly. There was no 'high finance' sneak-thieving about that job. I sent him away with his face smarting. They sent me away with ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... withdrawal. "I'm sure you would not, still more certain you cannot, do harm. And be mindful of my prophetic words: Whatever's done, old Blaize will have to be bought off. There's the affair settled at once. I suppose I must go to the chief to-night and settle it myself. We can't see this poor devil condemned, though it's nonsense to talk of a boy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sisterhood then living on Mount Hecla. They were put to a nonplus, and summoned the Devil to their relief. To him the English presented their petitions, and explained their sad case; and he, upon certain conditions, promised to befriend them, and to give them a language. The poor Devil was little aware of what he had promised; but he is, as all the world knows, a man of too much honor to break his word. Up and down the world then he went in quest of this new language: visited all the universities, and all {217} the schools, and all the courts ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... third small tin; altogether he was giving the poor devil only about a cupful when a quart would have been all inadequate. Again the keen black eyes that seemed clearer now and like a bird's probed at him. Again and as before, the ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Mr. Keane's cook, was once pulling an oar in an Atuona boat, when they spied a stranger in a canoe with some fish and a piece of tapu. The Atuona men cried upon him to draw near and have a smoke. He complied, because, I suppose, he had no choice; but he knew, poor devil, what he was coming to, and (as Joe said) 'he didn't seem to care about the smoke.' A few questions followed, as to where he came from, and what was his business. These he must needs answer, as he must needs ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of your own self and that other dearer self, who is walking in evil ways? Why, I know a man whose son was hanged the other day; hanged on the gibbet; think of it. If you be quivering while the surgeon cuts away that right arm, remember the poor devil in the hospital yesterday who had both ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... time, yes, Lois," he said, turning his face from her, "I am ashamed to remember it now, since you have spoken. If you love me, you would understand what all the wonders of Mr. Gessner's house meant to a poor devil, brought up as I had been. It was another world with strange people everywhere. I thought they were more than human and found them just like the rest of us. Oh, that's the truth of it, and I know it now. Our preachers are always calling upon the rich to do fine things for the poor, but the rich ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... of man that deceives himself as to his own aspect in the eyes of others. Be as kind as she might, Amy could not set him strutting Malvolio-wise; she viewed him as a poor devil who often had to pawn his coat—a man of parts who would never get on in the world—a friend to be thought of kindly because her dead husband had valued him. Nothing more than that; he understood perfectly the limits ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... something worse," he said. "This thing has been preying on the poor devil's mind—'phone an ambulance, ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... for I expected nothing of moment, beyond a poor devil of a Jacobite captured, or a "sma' still" raided and its rude whisky drunk by the red-coat raiders until they were ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... some time at him, then said something in a feeble whisper, which the clergyman interpreted—"He wishes you—" looking at Dad—"to get what's in his swag if he dies." Dad nodded, and his thoughts went sadly back to the day he turned the poor devil ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... the deal, and what timber we expected to trade for. When I told him Lige Smith and Jack Jackson were going to help me, he looked scared and asked me if I thought they would split on him. He was so excited I thought him cowardly, but the poor devil had reason enough, I supposed, to want to keep the transaction from the ears of his father, or worse still—the bishop. He seemed easier when I assured him the boys were square, and immensely gratified at the news that I had already ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... "Poor devil! But I guess you're right," muttered Little, and helped by willing hands they clambered over the gunwale and fell panting into ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the same black abyss yawned before him and he felt himself sinking into it, deeper and deeper, while his voice rambled on smoothly and cheerfully: "Yes, of course I thought I'd lost the ring; no wedding would be complete if the poor devil of a bridegroom didn't go through that. But you DID keep me waiting, you know! I had time to think of every horror that might ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... done anything for Tom. But he took the law into his own hands. He disappeared—we were at Shorncliffe then if I remember rightly. The chap had joined to get abroad, and he told me all his harum-scarum ambitions once. I hope the poor devil was in time to ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... gentle, easy inspirations, which thou breathest round the wig of a prating advocate, or the tete of a tea-sipping gossip, while their tongues run at the light-horse gallop of clishmaclaver for ever and ever—come and assist a poor devil who is quite jaded in the attempt to share half an idea among half a hundred words; to fill up four quarto pages, while he has not got one single sentence of recollection, information, or remark worth ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Go, poor devil, get thee gone; why should hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... Apaches had lighted a fire in the road close to the wagons. Evidently they were going to begin some cooking on their own account, and were even now distributing the provisions they had found. Two of them had released Manuelito from the mule, and the poor devil was now seated, bound and helpless, on a rock by the roadside, looking too faint and terrified to live. The captain's field glass revealed a sorry sight to the old soldier's eyes as he peered down at ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... see that pig of a Morin. Well, there he is, the darling!" And she planted herself in front of the bed, with her hands on her hips. I told him how matters stood, and he begged me to go and see her uncle and aunt. It was a delicate mission, but I undertook it, and the poor devil never ceased repeating: "I assure you I did not even kiss her, no, not even that. I will take ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... stood and howled, the Cockney crouched and trembled in the upper bunk, his terror-stricken gaze fixed on that awful figure, with eyes rolled back, that howled and howled. It was hard on him, too, the poor devil of a Cockney. His own reason was not any too firmly seated, and the wonder is that ...
— The Road • Jack London
... worthy of your tackle," pursued Sir Ulick—"A mule, a bull, and two lean horses. I pity the foremost poor devil of a horse, who must starve in the midst of plenty, while the horse, bull, and even mule, in a string behind him, are all plucking and munging away ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth |
