"Scamp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dr Vesey Stanhope! Dr Vesey Stanhope's daughter, of whose marriage with a dissolute Italian scamp he now remembered to have heard something! And that impertinent blue cub who had examined him as to his episcopal bearings was old Stanhope's son, and the lady who had entreated him to come and teach her child the catechism was old Stanhope's daughter! ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... to an English gentleman on particular business at a ferry slip in Dublin, waiting for the boat. A boy, also waiting for it, several times came up to shew some books he had for sale, and really annoyed my friend by importunity, who suddenly turned round and exclaimed, "Get away, you scamp, or I shall give you a kick that will send you across the river." In an instant the reply came—"Whi-thin thank yur hanur fur thit same—fur 'twill just save me a ha-pinny." They are quick to a degree—and have great activity ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... this low, depraved parasite, the African black seemed quite a striking figure,—a scamp, if you like, yet full of character. He was a dervish, with drunken habits and a fierce nature when under the influence of drink, but with many good points when sober. On one occasion an Englishman was attacked by a crowd of Persians, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... promptly gave him a slap. "You mean scamp!" she cried. "What an awful rumpus you're kicking up! I simply brought you along with me to look at things; and lo, you put on airs;" and she beat Pan Erh until he burst out crying. It was only after every one quickly combined in using their ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Ratoneau, glaring at him with savage fury, "I believe you have played me false and arranged the whole affair. Your scamp of a son has escaped the prison he richly deserved, and you have plotted to marry him to your cousin's daughter. I always thought you as clever as the devil, monsieur. But look here—and you too, madame, ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... ball, but extracted. I would be all right if that lazy Irish scamp would only give me half enough to eat. By the way, Wayne, of course I never got the straight of it, for there are half-a-dozen stories about the affair flying around, and those most interested will not talk, but one of your special friends, and to my ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... on a stool by the fireplace, looked up from her sewing. "Abe, you big scamp. You get that ceiling nice and white, or I'll be ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... and Basil went daily to a branch establishment of Rodenhurst, kept by Miss Roscoe for boys under twelve; and Martin learnt his letters at home, and trotted about the house and parish in Beatrice's wake. He was a sweet little scamp, and the apple of her eye, for she had brought him up from babyhood, but she sometimes felt it would be an intense relief when he was old enough to go to ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... curls all streaming,—no wonder Phil Elderkin, who was tall of his age, thought her handsome. So it happened that the inquisitive Reuben, not finding any cloven feet in his furtive observations, but encountering always either the rosy Suke, or "Scamp," (which was Nat's pet fighting-dog,) or the shoemaker, or the round-faced Mr. Boody himself, could justify and explain his aunt's charge of the tavern wickedness only by distributing it over them all. And when, one Sunday, Miss Suke appeared at meeting (where she rarely went) in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... Moore Carew), Loversedge, Mansfield, Martin, Light, Lee, Barnett, Boswell, Carter, Buckland, Lovell, Corrie, Bosvill, Eyres, Smalls, Draper, Fletcher, Taylor, Broadway, Baker, Smith, Buckly, Blewett, Scamp, and Stanley. Of the last-named family there are more than two hundred, most of whom are known to the author, and are the most ancient clans in this part ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... loud in wishing to know "who's dat knocking at de door?" and Master Tom, deep in the bill, with Mr. Rat, who is there described as a "scamp"—an unknown term to Tom, for he asked its meaning; observing that Uncle Brick said Captain de Camp was a scamp. This question remained unanswered; for no one heard it except the Captain, who felt a great itching to pull a young monkey's ears, but did not. The cat (a sort of Puss in Boots, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... was too much for him. However, the delay was sufficient. I took a race and a good leap; the ropes were cast off; the steam-tug gave a puff, and we started. Suddenly the captain walks up to me: 'Where did you come from, you scamp, and what do ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Grimthorpe, the same that was condemned on my evidence; and an infernal scamp he was, too! Spawn of the devil, both of them! This tattooed one is a murderous ruffian, and he swore to have my blood after that trial. It's seven year ago, and he's following me yet; I know he is, though ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle
... Salina's unhappiness of temper owed its development chiefly to this cause. No wonder, then, that we find her melancholy, morbid, unreasonable, and now so ready to cling again to this wretch, this scamp, her husband, forgiving all, forgetting all (for the moment at least), in the wild flood of love and ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... do it," said Silas, promptly. "He's a lazy, good-for-nothing scamp, Dan is, and I won't take him into ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... and went to the cupboard where my pipes were. I sat still and thought 'he is doing it out of revenge,' because we had a violent quarrel just before his death. 'How dare you come in with a hole in your elbow?' I said. 'Go away, you scamp!' He turned and went out, and never came again. I didn't tell Marfa Petrovna at the time. I wanted to have a service sung for ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of fact sold it at considerable profit,—yet, as you know, and as this scoundrel knows, for I have written him pointedly to that effect, I have been temporarily unable to remit any sum substantial enough to justify bothering him with it. But now the scamp, the grasping insulting brigand, notifies me that unless I pay him when the mortgage is due,—to be plain, sir, next week,—he ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... I dared kick the fellow out of the house," thought Prince Duncan. "He is a low scamp, and I don't like the reputation of ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... grasped both the hands of the picturesque scamp before him, with an affection that for an instant almost shamed the man who had ruined him. But Tucker's egotism whispered that this affection was only a recognition of his own superiority, and felt ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Mardykes and the haunted lake, that it disconcerted him. He laughed, he looked out of the window. He would have given that fellow money to tell him why he said that. But there was no good in looking for the scamp; he was gone. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... you, sir? How dare you?" she demanded, furiously. "How dare you stand there and tell me that my Alma left me of her own free will? My Alma leave her mother who loves her so? My Alma run away like some common scamp? I didn't come here to be ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... who thought the Sunday-school was being glorified too much had his exact counterpart among her acquaintances, so far as his looks were concerned. The three troublesome Sunday-school scholars fairly convulsed her by their life-like appearance. There was the little scamp of a boy who was revealed by the dozen to any one who took a walk down town toward the close of the day; the argumentative old man, with his nose pointing out a flaw in your reasoning or on the keen scent for a mistake; and the pert fourteen-year-old girl whose very nose, as ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... and it was some time before he could manage to mount, for Neddy was very shy of the rough hawthorn stick the lad held; and so he kept backing and pirouetting until Philip went on the opposite side with his stick, when the fidgety little scamp suffered himself ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... the Anglo-Dane, puzzled. "Not that I am aware of." She was strictly on her guard against vituperation of her beloved scamp. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... ends his life rather than exhibit himself as motley to the multitude. As a foil for the idealist Hetman—who is a sort of inverted Nietzsche; also a self-portrait in part of the dramatist—there is the self-seeking scamp Launhart who succeeds with the very ideas which Hetman couldn't make viable, ideas in fact which brought about his disaster. They are two finely contrasted portraits, and what a grimace of disgust is aroused when Launhart tells the woman who loves Hetman: "O Fanny, Fanny, a living rascal is better ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... Posthumous ambition perhaps requires an atmosphere of roses; and the more rugged excitant of Wick east winds had made another boy of me. To go down in the diving-dress, that was my absorbing fancy; and with the countenance of a certain handsome scamp of a diver, Bob Bain by name, I gratified ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... weeks yesterday. Yes, I s'pose it's so. What a little fool I was! He goes everywheres—says the same things to everybody, like he was selling ribbons. Mean little scamp! Mother seen through him in a minute. I'm mighty glad I didn't tell her nothing about it." [Fie, Susie! your principles are worse than your grammar.] "He'll marry some rich girl—I don't envy her, but I ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... is a young scamp, Polly—that is my present notion of him: it will surprise you to hear that, for my part, I do not love him one whit. Ah! years ago I saw something in that lad's eye I never quite fathomed—something his mother has not—a depth which warned a man not to wade into that ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... silent, you black scoffer, and do not allude to such disgraceful things in the presence of respectable people! For I am a decent Christian woman, I would have you understand. But everybody knows your reputation! and a very fit companion you are for that scamp yonder! and volumes could ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... young man, and the scandal about him; it was only a year ago that he was rusticated. Such a pity! He was a most clever fellow—good at every thing. And quite a genius for music. To hear him sing and play was delightful! And yet he was such a scamp—a downright villain." ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... eavesdropper," he wrote, and held it up on the tablet to Duff's eyes. "We got the fact from Podge's bed-ridden brother, a scamp who destroyed his health by excesses and came back on Podge for support. Knowing how corruptible he was, I got access to him and paid him out of your funds to wheedle out of Podge all that Lady Agnes told her. She had no idea that her brother ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... apparently did not care a straw. "Be silent! I dare you to speak of it," Piotr Andreitch said to his wife every time she ventured to try to incline him to mercy. "The puppy, he ought to thank God for ever that I have not laid my curse upon him; my father would have killed him, the worthless scamp, with his own hands, and he would have done right too." At such terrible speeches Anna Pavlovna could only cross herself secretly. As for Ivan Petrovitch's wife, Piotr Andreitch at first would not ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... suggest! The plays by the original authors, whoever they were, could only be obtained by the "concealed poet" and "man in high position" from the legal owners, Shakspere's company, usually. The concealed poet had to negotiate with the owners, and Bacon (or whoever he was) employed that scamp Will Shakspere, first, I think, to extract the plays from the owners, and then to pretend that he himself, even Will, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... succeeded by joining his cousin Ned with himself in the administration of his estate,—but there were things which Ned with all his zeal and all his cleverness could not do for him. He was conscious that had he been as remiss in the matter of hunting, as that hard-riding but otherwise idle young scamp, Gerard Maule, he might have succeeded much better than he had hitherto done with Adelaide Palliser. "Hanging about and philandering, that's what they want," he said to his ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the Doctor, a little impatiently, for it was only the morrow of the parade. "I should think your patience would be exhausted. The scamp has been in more mischief than any other boy in the school. ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... shows that you are learning at last. Caterina and I haf had much trouble teaching manners to you and that young Onondaga scamp, Tayoga." ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Uncle Charlie, too" (Colonel Marsden turned laughingly to his wife), "but I don't wish he was here. I remember what a pet he was of yours in the old days, love—the curly-haired scamp. He could wheedle you and Aunt Betsy out of any thing he wanted. Such a tender heart he had—mad as fire one minute, and tears in his eyes the next—but withal so ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... better? 'A faithful brother.' Trust in Christ; let that be the animating principle of all that we do, the controlling power that restrains and limits and stimulates and impels. And then men will know where to have us, and will be sure, and rightly sure, that we shall not shirk our obligations, nor scamp our work, nor neglect our duties. And being thus full of faith, and counted faithful by Him, we need care little what men's judgments of us may be, and need desire no better epitaph than this—a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... t'other in his pocket, and call him ducky. Don't they, Jack?"—"Jack, you're a terror with the gals."—"He takes three of 'em in tow to once, like one of 'em Watkinses two-funnel tugs waddling away with three schooners behind."—"Jack, you're a lame scamp."—"Jack, tell us about that one with a blue eye and a black eye. Do."—"There's plenty of girls with one black eye along ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... the spirit that gave it life, and although he may have had his dreams and imaginations that deceived him, there was some life in that building that I have never found anywhere else and shall never find again. You remember that Amy Warlock married that scamp Thurston. Well, she has left him and has come back to live with her mother. She had a rather bad experience, I'm afraid, poor woman, but she says nothing to any one about it. She and the old lady have moved from this part of London and have gone to live somewhere in Kensington. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... has been more severe than good. She looks after my linen and other things when it is necessary, for she knows all about these matters, and is pleased to give me the benefit of her knowledge; and I like her well for that. Am I not a bit of a scamp, seeing I am in love with all these girls? Who could resist them when they are good; for as for beauty, that does not touch me; and, indeed, all my acquaintances are more good than beautiful."[26] This is not the tone of an ardent lover speaking ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... it in some savings bank in your own name, and, if you need it, to draw out any part of it. I don't want that mean scamp, the landlord, to get a chance to turn ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... certainly felt some scruples of conscience at the sacrifice he was making of his ward, and stronger still respecting his ward's fortune; but he appeased them with the reflection that if his son were a gambler, a roue, and a scamp, Lord Ballindine was probably just as bad; and that if the latter were to spend all Fanny's money there would be no chance of redemption; whereas he could at any rate settle on his wife a jointure, which would be a full compensation for the loss of her fortune, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... point Mr. Vance, remembering, perhaps, that Mr. Nevill Tyson was a great man in his customer's county, and chilled a little by Sir Peter's manner, checked the flow of his reminiscences. "He was a wild young scamp—another two inches round the waist, sir—but I daresay he's settled down steady enough ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... he took the foolish step which cost his mother days and days of lamentation and weeping. Tonet, with some other boys of his kind, went and joined the navy. Life in the Cabanal had grown too tame for them, and the wine there had lost its flavor. And the time came when the wretched scamp, in a blue sailor suit, a white cap cocked over one ear, and a bundle of clothes over his shoulders, dropped in to bid Dolores and his mother good-by, on his way to Cartagena where he had been ordered ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... turned out to be terriers naturally calls to mind the case of my old friend Jeremiah Simpkins' son. There isn't a solider man in the Boston leather trade than Jeremiah, nor a bigger scamp that the law can't touch than his son Ezra. There isn't an ounce of real meanness in Ezra's whole body, but he's just naturally and unintentionally a maverick. When he came out of college his father thought that a few years' experience in the hide department ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... the school you prate about, my bucko," replied the scamp of a pirate. "Haul away on your belt and set the buckle tighter. 'Twill ease the cursed hunger pain ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... I know, in San Francisco lived a beggar man; And when in bed They found him dead— "Just like the scamp!" the people said. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... an honest pride in their community as a whole. The members of a decaying community are, for the most part, languid and indolent; their very gestures are dawdling and slouching, the opposite of smart. They shirk work when they can do so, and scamp what they undertake. A prosperous community is remarkable for the variety of the solid interests in which some or other of its members are eagerly engaged, but the questions that agitate a decadent community are for the most part ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... little scamp, CAN'T you be quiet just a minute or two, and let your poor old uncle attend to a part of ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... one of the greatest crimes. With rich people a man who amuses himself only sows his wild oats. He is what is generally called a sport. But among needy families a boy who forces his parents to break into the capital becomes a good- for-nothing, a rascal, a scamp. And this distinction is just, although the action be the same, for consequences alone determine ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant • David Widger
... Elizabeth was less weary than before when he stood by her, and accepted from his hand some little trifle of help, which was agreeable to her. And he showed himself in no hurry, and told her some little story that pleased her. What a pity it was that Cousin George should be a scamp, she thought, as he went on ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... Muns Was once my fav'rite man, Though rugged-muzzle tink'ring Tom For me left maw-mouth'd Nan: Though padding Jack and diving Ned, [1] With blink-ey'd buzzing Sam, [2] Have made me drunk with hot, and stood [3] The racket for a dram; Though Scamp the ballad-singing kid, Call'd me his darling frow, [4] I've tip'd them all the double, for [5] The ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... not too full for Mr. Hastings to crowd himself into, rewarded his signal, and Tode plunged after him as far as the platform. There he halted. There were many passengers and much fare to collect, so our young scamp had enjoyed quite a ...
— Three People • Pansy
... Of course, I couldn't swear to it. I may have been mistaken. But to satisfy myself, I jumped into that automobile and gave chase. He saw I was pursuing him and he sprang into a cab. I was determined to overhaul the scamp and satisfy myself on that one point. Perhaps I ought not to mention the name, as I am so uncertain, and I shall not mention it to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... Scamp. Come along 'ere—good boy!" he coaxed, dragging by a short chain in his wake the sorriest-looking bull terrier that ever acted mascot in the British or any other navy. Courteous and huge and cap in hand, his weather-beaten face smiling respectfully above ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... Badger was no person to stand quietly by and let a scamp like Mr. Coyote spoil his whole life. He shook his head in a most obstinate fashion, giving his visitor fair warning ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... do such aspirations of our youth, and when the opportunity arose in after years I carried it out. Poor old Enfield! He fell on evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster up a favourite son who was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an ungrateful scamp, in the end he was practically ruined and when the bad times came, was forced to sell the Fulcombe estate. I think of him kindly now, for after all he was good to me and gave me many a day's shooting and leave to fish for ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... Buster, "very curious indeed. It looks as if my fishing is spoiled for to-day. I don't understand it at all. It's lucky I caught what I did. It looks as if somebody is trying to—ha!" A sudden thought had popped into his head. Then he began to chuckle and finally to laugh. "I do believe that scamp Joe Otter is trying to get even with me ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... said; 'if we drive the young scamp to desperation, there's no telling what he will do. Ten to one if he does not go and tell a string of lies to some of the farmers about here, or perhaps to the parson at Longville, and they may make an unpleasant disturbance. Nobody knows and nobody ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... has always been mine. There was a time,"—blowing rings at the candelabrum,—"when I was respected like yourself, rich, sought after. A woman and a trusted friend: how these often tumble down our beautiful edifices! Yes, I am a scamp, a thief, a rogue; but not because I need the money. No,"—with retrospective eyes—"I need excitement, tremendous and continuous,—excitement to keep my vigilance and invention active day and night, excitement to ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... scamp, anyhow!" he laughed. "Maybe he'll break his neck on one of those outlaw bronchos he's so fond of riding. Maybe they'll put him safely away in prison, where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Maybe, as you say, he'll have the bad taste to prefer Joyce to my little Irish wild ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... tone of these confessions had by no means tended to elevate the Dutchman in my opinion, I could not forbear smiling at the coolness with which they were made and at the skill of his manoeuvres. Still there was some good about the scamp; he had his own code of honour, such as it was, and from that he would not easily have been induced to swerve. He would have scorned to do a dirty thing, to cheat at cards, or leave a debt of honour unpaid; but would readily have got in debt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... trust in his honour; no one doubts that. But he will lead her a pretty dance; whether it will be better for her to have a good crotchety high-tempered young fellow who adores her, or a rough young scamp who neglected her——" ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... young scamp," said Gilbert, coolly. "I'm much obliged to him for introducing my name into the matter. I ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... goodly portion of his scanty means in the venture, waited long if not patiently. At length, after the expiration of the last hope, Mr. Martin inquired, "How did it happen, Seth, that you threw away your money on that lottery scamp, when we showed you that the whole ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... her ladyship said to the silent girl. "I know what is best for you; and I know, too, what you don't think I know—ha, ha!" Her ladyship laughed terribly. "I know that you have been meeting that worthless young scamp, Tom Arundel!" ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... Bob Young, an' he's really the son o' a minister upcountry, but long ago his father cast him off as a scamp. He'll sure swing one o' these days," replied the sheriff, looking keenly at Frank, as though he suspected he might know something ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... we still quote, The prison bars no barrier wrought To lowly Bunyan's lofty thought. Milton In stately language Milton's muse 1678 The Bible story doth diffuse; From 'Paradise Lost' we get our view Of Adam and Eve and Satan too. The Reverend Titus Oates, a scamp, Egregious Popish plots did vamp, Lied roundly for dishonest gains, Got Cat-o'-nine-tails for his pains. Habeas Corpus The 'Habeas Corpus' best of laws 1679 Shields us from prison without cause; 'Twas passed in sixteen-seventy-nine, ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... yours, you odious little scamp,' his aunt retorted, raising her shrill voice some notes higher than usual; 'and while I can hold a stick you ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... came to no decision. The military court of honour put the result of its deliberations in the Carlsruhe Zeitung, as a public advertisement, couched in these terms: "The Herr von Kugelblitz may not fight with the Herr von Thalermacher." Thus posted as a scamp, Thalermacher advertised back his own defence; and, by public circulars and bills, declared the accusation of Kugelblitz to be false and malicious, and his behaviour dishonourable and cowardly. At the same time, a Russian officer of good family,—Demboffsky—who had ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... les loges. On sait que les puissances mystrieuses qui prsident l'annocchiatura ont la mauvaise habitude d'excuter le contraire de nos souhaits." Perhaps our familiar habit of calling our children "scamp" and "rascal," when we are caressing them, may be founded on a worn-out superstition ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... heard of Dan since his departure. Dad spoke about him to Mother. "The scamp!" he said, "to leave me just when I wanted help—after all the years I've slaved to feed him and clothe him, see what thanks I get! but, mark my word, he'll be glad to come back yet." But Mother would ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... feelin' that you're pricked to show the best metal you're made on, and not to let nobody else beat you out of the race like. Ah! it makes a wonderful difference to a fellow—a wonderful difference—whether the service he's come into look at him as a scamp that never will be nothin' but a scamp, or as a rascal that's maybe got in him, all rascal though he is, the pluck to turn into a hero. It makes a wonderful difference, this 'ere, whether you're looked at as stuff that's only fit to be shovelled into the sand after a battle; ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... of rapid advancement; vagabond foreigners, of all nations, domesticated in the families of chiefs and kings, and sometimes married to their daughters and sharing their power. At one of the Tonga islands, a scamp of a Welshman officiated as cupbearer to the king of the cannibals. The monarch of the Sandwich islands has three foreigners about his court—a Negro to beat the drum, a wooden-legged Portuguese to play the fiddle, and Mordecai, a juggler, to amuse his majesty with cups and balls and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... unqualified scamp, who ARE you, and what do you mean by looking so exactly like my girl here that I don't know whether I've one daughter or two?" Then Durand fled, laughing as only Durand could—with eyes, lips and an indescribable expression ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... replied my father, with a smile. "I hope not. Keep your conscience clean and your boots blacked, and I have no fear of you. You are no hero, my boy, but it depends upon yourself whether you become a man of honor or a scamp; a gentleman or a clown. You have, I see, registered a good resolution to-day. Keep it; and remember that Pandemonium will get paved without your help. There would be no industry, boy, if there was no idleness, and all true ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... about missions from interested motives, there are also multitudes of quiet and contented villagers whose simplicity and remoteness shield them from the notice of the travellers who sneer at Christianity and call mission reports couleur de rose, because they have been taken in by some cunning scamp against whom any missionary would have ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... a worthless young scamp named Jo Garvey, who lived mainly by hunting and fishing. Jo was a sharp-witted rascal, without a single scruple between, himself and fortune. With a tithe of Hans's industry he might have been almost anything; but his dense laziness always rose up like a stone wall about him, shutting him in ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... acquired some knowledge of the language rapidly enough, and I was afterwards placed in the charge of a tutor, a clever scamp named Brossard, who prepared me for the Lycee Bonaparte (now Condorcet), where I eventually became a pupil, Brossard still continuing to coach me with a view to my passing various examinations, and ultimately securing the usual baccalaureat, without which ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... contained, among other letters and parcels, a small narrow packet directed to Miss R. Armitage. Miss Gibbs, whose business it was to overlook her pupils' correspondence, was in a particular hurry, as it happened, and inclined for once to scamp her duties. ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... terrace, is seized by the hair by an old vixen who bids him "Bow your head to your sovereigns, the people, you bastard of a deputy!" On the 20th of June one of the patriots, who is crossing the Assembly room, whispers in his ear, "You scamp of a deputy, you'll never die but by my hand!" Another time, having defended the juge-de-paix Lariviere, there awaits him at the door, in the middle of the night, "a set of blackguards, who crowd around him ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... prick than he bucks down, and flings me over his head into the mire. I get up and look about me; there stands the donkey staring at me, and there stand the whole gipsy canaille squinting at me with their filmy eyes. 'Where is the scamp who has sold me this piece of furniture?' I shout. 'He is gone to Granada, valorous,' says one. 'He is gone to see his kindred among the Moors,' says another. 'I just saw him running over the field, in the direction of ——, with the devil close behind him,' says a third. In a word, I am ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... origin. The truth is that an incredulous Western world puts no faith in Mahatmas. To it a Mahatma is a kind of spiritual Mrs. Harris, giving an address in Thibet at which no letters are delivered. Either, it says, there is no such person, or he is a fraudulent scamp with no greater occult powers—well, than ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... to Rance Vane. I know'd that chap onct, and I found him not a man, but a scamp. I never liked the Vanes, father'n son. The ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... destination there could be no question. The known facts precluded the least ray of hope. How could I be happy in heaven, supposing I eventually did succeed in slipping in, knowing that he, the lovable old scamp, was burning for ever ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... had little mercy for the loafer and the scamp — If there wasn't law and order, there was justice in the camp; And the manly independence that is found where diggers are Had a sentinel to guard it in the CAMBAROORA STAR. There was strife about the Chinamen, who came in days of old Like a swarm of thieves and ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... will stake as he may His heart on his Peggies and Nancies; The girl has her beauty to lay; The saint has his prayers and his trances; The poet bets endless expanses In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt: How they gaze at the wheel as it glances - The wheel of ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... teach you, you scraggy young scamp," continued Coupeau, "that the blouse is the finest garment out; yes! the garment of work. I'll wipe you if you like with my fists. Did one ever hear of such a thing—a ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... the farmer shot the Hare last autumn," she said; "and Trusty, fortunately, is also dead, the old scamp. So I am at peace, as far as they are concerned. But how dare the Breeze promise to drop the seeds of the weeds in ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... and Ropey, in one corner, is disconsolately partaking of its delicacies. "Now, sailors newly waked are no cherubs; and therefore not a word is spoken, everybody munching his biscuit, grim and unshaven. At this juncture an affable-looking scamp—Flash Jack—crosses the forecastle, tin can in hand, and ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... those things we have to take cautiously: the doctor has a patient who wears black and does not raise her veil. Why, it is the typical mysterious lady! Then the good doctor comes across Arnold Armstrong, who was a graceless scamp—de mortuis—what's the rest of it?—and he is quarreling with a lady in black. Behold, says the doctor, they are one ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the darker angel. "You swore that you would not forgive her. Keep your word. You always said that she would come back as soon as she was poor or unhappy, or that scamp treated her badly. It makes no difference in the facts. Let her suffer; it serves ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... of the inmates of the house would have recognized Papa Ravinet at this moment; he was literally transfigured. He was no longer the cunning dealer in second-hand articles, the old scamp with the sharp, vulgar face, so well known at all public sales, where he sat in the front rank, watching for good bargains, and keeping cool when all around him were in a state ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... very singular scamp," replied Georges, with an air that hid a multitude of mysteries. "He put me in command of ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... railing of a balcony. He then proceeded to give it to me. I made him stop and give it back to its owner. The lady, however, would not take it. "Oh, little dreamer of the evening," she said, "cool thyself with my peacock fan. Thy elephant is very wise, but I am afraid he is no worse a scamp ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... felt that we were already gliding over level crossings to the admiration of belated townsfolk waiting at the gates. Raffles turned from his mirror, and I from mine, simultaneously; and even to my initiated eye it was not Raffles at all, but another noble scamp who even in those days before the war was the observed of all ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... whimsically. "I haven't the advantage of being a girl with a brother and a baker's dozen of beaux in bell buttons and gray. I'm only an old fossil of a 'cit,' with a scamp of a nephew and that limited conception of the delights of West Point which one can derive from running up there every time that versatile youngster gets into a new scrape. You'll admit ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... do you mean?" he asked in uncomprehending astonishment, taking the boy on his knee; but when the little scamp had explained, the stupidest person in the world could ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... ordinarily discharged that duty. As it had sometimes happened that Hebert, on account of his great timidity, had cut his master's chin, on that day the latter, who held a pair of scissors in his hand, when Hebert approached him, holding his razor, said, "Take care, you scamp; if you cut me, I will stick my scissors into your stomach." This threat, made with an air of pretended seriousness, but which was in fact only a jest, such as I have seen the Emperor indulge in a hundred times, produced ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... pupil in the school of adversity so long, that you ought to be able to take misfortunes pretty quietly. There's a balance struck, somehow or other, depend upon it, my girl; and the prosperous people who pay their debts have to suffer, as well as the Macaire family. I'm a scamp and a scoundrel, but I'm your true friend nevertheless, Diana; and you must promise to take my advice. Tell me ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... have something good! The scamp!" And with this somewhat confused exclamation Miss Hetty threw down her work, ran to the closet, then darted to the front door, embracing the tin box, as if the house was on fire and ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... her young brother Dick, the crossing-sweeper, honest, because mother had made them promise to be so when she died; the good-natured, agreeable, clever young thief Jenks, the tempter and beguiler of poor Dick; and, above all, the dear dog Scamp, with his knowing ways and soft brown eyes, are all as true to life and as touchingly set forth as any heart could desire, beguiling the reader into smiles and tears, and into ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... evokes a howl from an anonymous Christian in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette. He protests against the "grotesque indecency of such a scheme," and stigmatises Marlowe as "a disreputable scamp, who lived a scandalous life and died a disgraceful death." That Marlowe was "a scamp" we have on the authority of those who denounced his scepticism and held him up as a frightful warning. His fellow poets, like Chapman and Drayton, spoke of him with esteem. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... pottle-pot brawls and brabbling among the Rogues, Thieves, Besognosos, Beggars, Ribbibes, Bidstands, and Clapper-dudgeons, male and female, who infested the outskirts of the Old Palace, or had Impudently Squatted within its very walls, and had made of the Place a very Alsatia, now that Scamp's Paradise in Whitefriars had been put down by Act of Parliament. Here they burrowed like so many Grice, till the shoulder-tapping Pilchers of the Compter came a badger-drawing with their bludgeons. 'Twas a perfect chaos of clap-dishes, skeldering, cranion-legged ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... young scamp! Do you want to be impeached for a prejudiced witness? You want to help Heath, not to hurt him; and let me tell you, he will need strong friends and shrewd helpers, before we see him a free ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... he would say, appealing to Mrs. Evans; "I suppose there's a matter of half a dozen kings on the continent, that would consent to lose three of their fingers, if by such a sacrifice they could purchase the blue ribbon; and here is this little scamp, conceiting himself entitled to it before he has finished two campaigns. "But I was not the person to be beaten off in this fashion. I took my stand upon the promise. A promise was a promise, even if made to a scamp; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... staggering like a ship, it reel'd, At random driv'n, to starboard now, o'ercome, And now to larboard, by the vaulting waves. Next springing up into the chariot's womb A fox I saw, with hunger seeming pin'd Of all good food. But, for his ugly sins The saintly maid rebuking him, away Scamp'ring he turn'd, fast as his hide-bound corpse Would bear him. Next, from whence before he came, I saw the eagle dart into the hull O' th' car, and leave it with his feathers lin'd; And then a voice, like that which issues forth From heart ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... a prize heifer that they then had, by the name of Susan Caraway, had fretted for three weeks after he had left. She said that he gained this power over animals not by any real love for them, for he was indifferent to them except when he was actually touching them, and would always scamp his work without regard for their comfort, but simply by some physical magnetism, and pointed out that there it resembled the power some men have over women. It surprised Ellen that she laughed as she said that, and seemed to find pleasure ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... wearies me—oh, wearies—and the fourth volume I have all but stopped at—there lie the three following, but who cares about Consuelo after that horrible evening with the Venetian scamp, (where he bullies her, and it does answer, after all she says) as we say? And Albert wearies too—it seems all false, all writing—not the first part, though. And what easy work these novelists have of it! a Dramatic poet has ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... could bear. He was perfectly cast down, disheartened, and inconsolable. At first, he thought of running after the fellow; and, as he knew the scamp could not go far without a passport, and as Hans had gone the round of the country himself, in the three years of his Wandel-Jahre, as required by the worshipful guild of tailors, he did not doubt but that he should some day pounce upon the scoundrel. But then, in the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... The scamp was moving along with that stealthy, cat-like tread which is characteristic of all his race; but although directly under the tree when first seen by the lad, he did not look up nor act in any way which would suggest that he suspected ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... pardon, Mr. St. John, but I have only just returned to England, and on such occasions a man is apt to seem curious. This young lawyer —— You see the elder Ardworth, a good-for-nothing scamp, was a sort of friend of mine,—not exactly friend, indeed, for, by Jove, I think he was a worse friend to me than he was to anybody else; still I had a foolish interest for him, and should be glad to hear something more about ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... teeth showed in a gleaming, contemptuous smile. "No danger. When they see Kuku outside they simply scoot away and buy bromides. There's a crick over between here and the river. That old scamp'd swap his skin any time for a drink of running water. I guess I'll find him there, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... you imp of Satan!" cried the exasperated man. "Not a word, you scamp. You've done for yourself now, and everybody knew you'd come to it, sooner ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... been about the biggest scamp in the country. Why did he whip you this last time when you ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... ran off, laughing, and Patty looked a bit dismayed. "Kit's such a scamp," she said, ruefully, "he'll tell ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... But art thou not also the undertaker? Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but they've set me now to turning it into something else. Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, inter-meddling, monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a jack-of-all-trades. But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do. The gods again. hark ye, dost thou not ever ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... not go on any longer. "Peter Funck is drowned!" he said, in a voice that broke on the last word. A horrified whisper passed through the class, and they looked at one another with uncomprehending eyes. Peter Funck was the most active boy in the village, the best swimmer, and the greatest scamp the school had ever ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a scamp from his cradle, a spendthrift at Eton and Oxford, a blackleg in his manhood. False to men, false to women. Clever? Yes, undoubtedly, just as Satan is clever, and as unscrupulous as that very Satan. This was what his friends said of him ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... divisions which the nature of the service generally threw a good deal together, there was not so much as a mule or a donkey that was not known to each individual, and its absence noticed; nor a scamp of a boy, or a common Portuguese trull, who was not as particularly inquired after, as if the fate of the campaign depended on ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... Coristine, What do you mean, you scamp, by frightening the wits out of my poor lassie with that typewritten bit of legal formality? I have a great mind to issue a warrant for your arrest, and send Rigby down with it, to bring you before me and Halbert and Walker. Man, we would put you through better than Osgoode Hall! ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... to," said the superintendent; "I'm sorry, though, to find out that West is such a scamp. Why, Ingleborough must be ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... phase of her which was best; but I don't think it ever went to Canvas. I don't think Gainsboro' could have painted the lovely portrait at the Bishop of Ely's, slight as it was; Sir Joshua was by much the finer Gentleman; indeed Gainsboro' was a Scamp. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... Councillors could hear several softly ejaculated obituaries referring to the late Kabel under the name of scamp, fool, infidel, etc. But the officiating Burgomaster waved his hand, the Attorney of the Royal Treasury and the Bookseller again bent all the elastic steel springs of their faces as if setting a trap, and the Burgomaster continued to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... position to keep up simply can't afford to be caught in the act of feloniously making away with pigs in war-time; besides DORA was still alive and she might have something to say; so I had to pretend how pleased I was, and I gave the scamp half-a-crown. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... kind, sensible fellow. You've made me the happiest man on earth! Of course I wouldn't trouble Fern, but I was afraid you would. He used your name as well as mine, the rascal! Everything is paid up, and all the trouble now is that a miserable scamp has got hold of some of the paper and wants to blackmail him. And what I called you here to-day for is to get you to agree—with me—to acknowledge every scrap of that ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... kills your genius," said Lotys; "Therefore you are quite safe! If you were less of a scamp you would be a great man,— perhaps the greatest in the country! That would never do! Your rivals would never forgive you! But you are a hopeless rascal, incapable of winning much honour; and so you are compassionately recognized as somebody who might do something ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... said Slimak, 'this lady has dragged her lame father a long way in the cart; would you do that, you scamp?' ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... water running out the tub. 'Twasn't a minute then, before he hopped right into the middle of that lovely clean bed with a kind of a yell. 'I'm a gentleman for one night, I am!' says he, 'and when I'm a man I'll be one all the time!' But the dirty little scamp! Fooling old ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... little scamp led them into the danger," he said. "Scientific taste forsooth! Science is as good a reason as anything ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bone to pick with you. You've been hitting me pretty hard in that rag of yours. Do you know what a public man down in the Gulf States does with an editor who attacks him! Why, he goes around to his office and cowhides the miserable little scamp until he can't lie down comfortably ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... done everything that I could think of to keep my letters from my man," said Sir Robert, "but quite without success. I think he finds my correspondence a little dull sometimes, as compared with that of a former place. He came to me from the greatest scamp in England; and I can fancy that the letters there were very various and diverting. My own must be altogether too ponderous and respectable for a taste ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... row, he said to himself. If anything were to be done for her he must put up with all that. There had suddenly come upon John, he knew not how, as he scanned her anxious face, a conviction that the man was a scamp, from whom at all ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... the real reason why I kept still about it. To tell you the truth, Jed, I didn't feel— no, I don't feel yet any too forgiving or kindly toward that chap who had me put in prison. I'm not shirking blame; I was a fool and a scamp and all that; but he is—he's a ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to make herself agreeable to, and is, moreover, a little sore with the world in general. I own that at one time I was rather inclined to think that out of sheer perverseness the girl was going to make a fool of herself with that good looking scamp, but since we have been shut up here I have felt easy in my mind about it. And now, if you will take my rifle for ten minutes, I will go down and get a cup of tea; I volunteered to take sentry work, but I didn't bargain for ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty |
