"Swindle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the Diamond K ranch, near Manti," said the stranger, with blunt sharpness that made the Judge blink. "I've a case on in the Manti court at ten o'clock tomorrow—today," he corrected. "They are going to try to swindle me out of my land, and I've got to have a lawyer—a real one. I could have got half a dozen in Manti—such as they are—but I want somebody who is wise in the law, and with the sort of honor that money and power ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I had no alternative. Of course they took care to come for that before they talked of my resigning. I believe it was all planned beforehand. The whole thing seems to me to have been a swindle from beginning to end. By heaven, I'm almost inclined to think that the Duchess knew ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... a cheat and a swindle," exclaimed Mr. Brooks, indignantly. "We'd better have spent the money for a horsewhip, and whipped ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... far, in the way of friendship, that he actually hung them in his dining-room! He was very fond of recalling reminiscences of our childhood, especially what he characterized as "the great Fulledge railway swindle." When we were little boys we undertook the construction of a miniature railway on his father's land, and issued shares to pay for the rolling plant and the rails. We got together rather a handsome sum in this way from various good-natured friends, and after the expiration of some weeks could ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... such transaction, if it is only on a large scale. We cannot bear small and insignificant dishonesties, but take off our hats and bow almost to the ground in the presence of the man who has made one hundred thousand dollars by one swindle. A woman was arrested in the streets of one of our cities for selling molasses candy on Sunday. She was tried, condemned, and imprisoned. Coming out of prison, she went into the same business and sold ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... an experienced traveler, who had no illusions, and was in search of adventures; one of those women who frequently change their name, and who, as they have made up their minds to swindle if luck is not on their side, act a continual part, an adventuress, who could put on every accent; who for the sake of her course, transformed herself into a Slav, or into an American, or simply into a provincial; who was ready to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... roulette is played there is another swindle—the restaurants. They fleece one frightfully and feed one magnificently. Every dish is a regular work of art, before which one is expected to bow one's knee in homage and to be too awe-stricken to eat it. Every ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... hundred and seventy-seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time. Why, blast your eyes, Bildad, cried Peleg, Thou dost not want to swindle this young man! he must have more than that. Seven hundred and seventy-seventh, again said Bildad, without lifting his eyes; and then went on mumbling — for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... about how he had flouted and routed the Republicans in 1875. The plot of these stories was always the same, but the setting shifted about here and there, and this one had to do with a county election in which, the Major said, the Republicans and negroes had gone the limit trying to swindle the Democrats out of ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... of the fabric must not suffer, or the artist has been proved unequal to his design. And, on the other hand, no form of words must be selected, no knot must be tied among the phrases, unless knot and word be precisely what is wanted to forward and illuminate the argument; for to fail in this is to swindle in the game. The genius of prose rejects the cheville no less emphatically than the laws of verse; and the cheville, I should perhaps explain to some of my readers, is any meaningless or very watered phrase employed to strike a balance in the sound. Pattern and argument live ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the leno impersonate Persians (Per. 549 ff.), Collabiscus becomes a Spartan (Poen. 578 ff.), Simia as Harpax gets Ballio's money (Ps. 905 ff.), the sycophant is garbed as messenger (Trin. 843 ff.), Phronesium elaborately pretends to be a mother (Truc. 499 ff.). A swindle is almost invariably the object in view. But we have said enough on this score: no one who knows the plays at all can fail to recognize the predominance of farce. Compare on the modern stage the sudden appearance of ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... circumstances, in one neat and luminous statement. Sampson was greatly struck with the revelation: he jumped off his chair and marched about excited: said truth was stranger than fiction, and this was a manifest swindle: then he surprised Mrs. Dodd in her turn by assuming that old Hardie was at the bottom of yesterday's business. Neither Edward nor his mother could see that, and said so: his reply was characteristic: "Of course you can't; you are Anglosaxins; ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... think I'm writing just now? An author's Guide. You know the kind of thing; they sell splendidly. Of course I shall make it a good advertisement of my business. Then I have a splendid idea. I'm going to advertise: "Novel-writing taught in ten lessons!" What do you think of that? No swindle; not a bit of it. I am quite capable of giving the ordinary man or woman ten very useful lessons. I've been working out the scheme; it would amuse you vastly, Reardon. The first lesson deals with the question of subjects, local ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... a witness of the transaction, for, in my opinion, it will be a swindle on the part of Checkynshaw; and if I can pick him up on it I mean ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... deed of appointment set forth that her Majesty had been moved to this step by the firm trust she had in the skill and fidelity of the said Mr. M'Buffer; but if so her Majesty's trust would seem to have been somewhat misplaced, as Mr. M'Buffer, having been a managing director of a bankrupt swindle, from which he had contrived to pillage some thirty or forty thousand pounds, was now unable to show his face at Tillietudlem, or in the House of Commons; and in thus retreating from his membership had no object but to save himself from the expulsion which he feared. It was, however, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... relative quality of this lock, whether it is better or worse than an English one, it is at least an honest article. It makes no pretensions to be any better than it is. It does not entrap the unwary purchaser by pretending to be a first-class article, when at the same time it may be a swindle. ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... it, and seeking what countries there are safe and others risky. Now, why overlook Prussia? It is a country much better governed than England, especially as regards great public enterprises and monopolies. For instance, the directors of a Prussian railway can not swindle the shareholders by false accounts, and passing off loans for dividends. Against the frauds of directors, the English shareholder has only a sham security. He is invited to leave his home, and come two hundred miles to the directors' home, and vote ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... that time he has grown a beard, and lived by dice-throwing with men who thought they could detect him if he should swindle them; but that is impossible. No human being can come winner out of a game with him. He is evidently not here; let us ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... with the most gorgeously atrocious person I've ever encountered—one Pinky Westlake, or some such a name—positively, a crook! He tried to get Boltwood and myself interested in the commonest kind of a mining swindle—hinted that we were to join him in cheating the public. And this Daggett was his partner—they actually traveled together. But I do want to be just. I'm not sure that Daggett was aware of his partner's dishonesty. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... fetch her back." Upon this he darted out of the door, and down the stairs after the scared cat; and this was the way Spencer effected his escape. Of course, the audience tumbled to it that the whole concern was a swindle, but they "bore up" well, and even seemed satisfied with the swindle, for they had many good laughs out of it. Spencer joined me on the road just out of Haworth, and together we returned ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... excellency be so good as to choose one of these bags to make a test? It will be much better if you see yourself that the business is above board, with no swindle about it. Choose ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... rather, that you were attempting to dupe and swindle some one else," sarcastically retorted the diamond dealer. "The stones are a remarkably fine imitation, I am free to confess, and would easily deceive a casual observer; but if you have ever tried and succeeded in this clever game before, you ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... glance over them, and to see whether there was any truth in the statement that they were heirs to an immense fortune in America. The old count, in his capacity of burgomaster, declared that the affair looked to him very questionable, that he believed it was a mere swindle, and that there was surely nothing in it for them. Whether he returned to them the papers or not, is unknown, but he declared to the day of his death that he had restored them, whereas the Brandts of Aschersleben swear that he did not. Eventually, they brought suit against his son, not ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... year before the arrangement by which Rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a little speech, made her a present of a doll—which was, by the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle, discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professors were invited) and how Miss Pinkerton would ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... number of hours that must be lived through before May 16th. Hillerton came across a half sheet of paper covered with such calculations, and was somewhat puzzled by the prominence of the figure 24. An odd price to pay for a mining stock. He was afraid it was the "Adeline Maria," a notorious swindle. Well, Peckham might as well get his lesson at the hands of the faithless Adeline Maria as by any other means. He was bound to come to grief sooner or later, but that was no ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... seemed much interested in the convict's behaviour to the daughter of the man he had tried to swindle out of money. On the contrary, they jumped to the conclusion that his wife was morally his accomplice; and, indeed, if it had not been for her great beauty she would very likely have gone to the galleys too. There was, however, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the swale; and listening to the swindle of the flail, as it sounds dub-a-dub on the ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... violent reaction against the cause the wrongdoer nominally upholds. In point of danger to the Nation there is nothing to choose between on the one hand the corruptionist, the bribe-giver, the bribe-taker, the man who employs his great talent to swindle his fellow-citizens on a large scale, and, on the other hand, the preacher of class hatred, the man who, whether from ignorance or from willingness to sacrifice his country to his ambition, persuades well-meaning but wrong-headed men to try to destroy the instruments upon which ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... myself. I owned a horse, a good one; and I would swap him off for two horses—I would cheat some one and thereby win the respect of my fellows. My secret was sweet and I said nothing. By good chance a band of gypsies came our way; I would swindle the rascals. I went to their camp, leading my horse, and after much haggling, I came home with two horses. It was night when I reached home, and I put my team into the stable, and barred up my secret until the sun of a new day could fall ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... well in this cold land, and which do not smell any too sweet and clean. The pyramid of fine-looking picture-elephants is an ugly live elephant or two standing on a beer-keg or two, which is a wonderful feat for elephants, of course, but not an entertaining one to human sight-seers; and as a final swindle, the cannon act is a man on a spring disguised as a wooden cannon, who is thus hoisted a few feet into the air, where he catches hold of his swinging bar and completes the usual act of an "aerial acrobat." "Fi on't!" as Hamlet says; "reform ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... them rabbit-hutches, does he?" commented young Hagberd, scornfully; "just the thing he would be proud of. Can you tell me who's that chap coming to-morrow? You must know something of it. I tell you, it's a swindle ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... Tom! Leta, or Leta's baby, might come to be the possible inheritor of the great Valdez sapphire! The blood rushed to my head as I looked at the great shining swindle before me. "What diabolic jugglery was at work when the exchange was made?" I ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... all over the world, make twenty thousand francs per annum by charges for postage alone; accounts of expenses of protest pay for Mme. la Baronne de Nucingen's dresses, opera box, and carriage. The charge for postage is a more shocking swindle, because a house will settle ten matters of business in as many lines of a single letter. And of the tithe wrung from misfortune, the Government, strange to say! takes its share, and the national revenue is swelled ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... other in an adjoining room - I, as his lieutenant, taking turns. The thing was in its way a little triumph. A few of the visitors were deaf, and hugged the belief that they were the victims of a new kind of fancy-fair swindle. Of the others, many who came to scoff remained to take raffle tickets; and one of the phonographs was finally disposed of in this way, falling, by a happy freak of the ballot-box, into the hands of Sir William Thomson.' The other remained in Fleeming's hands, and ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mr. Jones to the driver, "you'd better take that boy's fare now. He wants to swindle ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... of holy water When we're taken to the font: They that make us pay for burial Swindle us to ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... but I shall wait till I find a husband who's charming enough and bad enough. One who'll beat me and swindle me and spend my money on other women—that's the sort of man for me. Mr. Dormer, delightful as he is, doesn't come up ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... be annoying. What a beastly swindle the death-duties are! Why, I shall suffer even on your own little estate . ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... us of this reputation. They have shown to a disappointed Europe only translators of French stucco but no original thinkers. It may be that when civil marriage also rejoices in its majority, the people will have their eyes opened to the swindle to which they have been sacrificed; when one after another the old Christian fundamental rights have been taken from them: the right to be governed by Christian magistrates; the right to know that they have secured ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... that we are in for another turn—at least the 5th Bavarian Division. Everybody has been talking about it for a long time. To the devil with it! Every Bavarian regiment is being sent into it, and it's a swindle." ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... A flash of conviction illumed the whole fact to Basil's guilty consciousness: this unhappy Frenchman had paid a dollar for the use of an oil-skin suit at the foot of the Fall, and had been ashamed to confess the swindle to his wife, till, in a moment of remorse and madness, he shouted the fact into her ear, and then Basil looked at the mother of his children, and registered a vow that if he got away from Niagara without being forced to a similar excess he would confess his guilt to Isabel at the very first act ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... calculated upon 'Lige's suicide, any more than that the property would become valuable. In fact if it came to that, if 'Lige had really contemplated killing himself as a hopeless bankrupt after taking Harkutt's money as a loan, it was a swindle on his—Harkutt's—good-nature. He worked himself into a rage, which he felt was innately virtuous, at this tyranny of cold principle over his own warm-hearted instincts, but if it came to the LAW, he'd stand by law and not sentiment. He'd just ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... sale to satisfy a chattel mortgage. Only two months before, I had received a statement from the proprietor, who claimed that the stock was free from incumbrance, and everything in good shape. So I concluded that an open swindle ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... fancied that I had some money, and he was determined, to rob me somehow. I let him imagine that he was leading me on, for there is no luxury that I enjoy more than watching a low, cunning rogue when he thinks he is arranging a successful swindle. I was introduced to a thoroughly safe man. The safe man's face was almost as villanous as that of my mentor, and his manners were, perhaps, a little more offensive. Our first bet closed all transactions between us; as I fully expected, I obtained a ridiculously liberal price, and I won. ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... whole of it. And thus the ultimate point of Brahma, and the infinite depth of all transcendental philosophy, may reappear in a cheap, portable, and convenient form, as a declaration that the real meaning of some mysterious transaction was that it amounted to a sixpenny swindle at thimble-rig; for to such base uses have the Shaster and the ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... speaks falsely he commits a sin. A man knows it is wrong to become intoxicated, and yet he does become so; he has violated a known law of right and wrong, and has therefore committed a sin. Who is the man of common sense that does not know it is wrong to lie, steal, swindle, defraud, curse, drink, get angry and cross; to refuse to help a needy neighbor when he can, to talk foolishly, to tell unseemly tales, to backbite, slander, commit adultery, hold enmity against another, or to be proud and ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... could institute a real big affair in the shape of a bucketshop swindle, in which your father and I could play the principal parts and you become merely a subordinate, such as a typist ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... boys. They'll see that you're a youngster, and they'll help you all they can. You'll find newspaper men pretty clannish, the world over. Well, good-bye, Garfield, I won't be likely to see you again before you go. I've got that Traction Swindle to cover and there's going to ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... AFFLICTED. We are daily consulted by persons suffering from spermatorrhea and impotency who have been victimized by ignorant charlatans. Some seek to dupe and swindle the unwary by claiming to have themselves been cured of spermatorrhea or impotency by some prescription, which they offer to send free to any sufferer. When the prescription is obtained it is found to consist of a few articles well-known to ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the professional politicians all stand in together when a financial swindle is being carried out. There is no "opposition" in these things. Since it is the very business of the Free Press to expose the falsehood or inanity of the Official Capitalist Press, one may truly say that a great part of the energies of ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... Bessie at once; easy manner). I'd like to know about this swindle that's going to be sprung on him. I didn't mean to startle the old man. You see, on my way here I dropped into a barber's to get a twopenny shave, and they told me there that he was something of a character. He has been ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... suppose you know, brother, how the Germans in our shops swindle the gentlemen. Even if we're not Germans, but orthodox Christians, we, too, like to eat stuffed pasties. Ain't that ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... and stung," Nehal said, in a low, shaken voice. "The truth wounds thee! For me—it was death." He hesitated again, fighting for his self-control. "Sahib, great things are expected of a great people. Others may cheat and swindle, others may lie and blaspheme with God's holy secrets, others may seek their pleasures in the earth's mire, but they must stand apart. They must bear forward the banner of righteousness, or their ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... like it?" asked Luke, smiling. "Isn't my advice good, to put the money in a savings-bank? But I will tell you how I fell in with Mr. Coleman, and how he tried to swindle me, and then you can judge ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... "It's a swindle!" burst in Matt Lincoln indignantly. "Don't you pay a cent. Miss Bartlett. It was not your fault, and he cannot force you ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... to compliment me, Sir?" asked Mr. Burt. "You've got some kind of subscription paper, I suppose." The old gentleman began to warm up as he thought of it. "But I can't give any thing. I never do—I never will. It's an infernal swindle. Some deuced Missionary Society, or Tract Society, or Bible Society, some damnable doing-good society, that bleeds the entire community, has sent you up here, Sir, to suck money out of me with your smooth face. They're always at it. They're always sending boys, and ministers ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... pull something?" inquired Collaton with such acute interest that Johnny felt sure he had taken no part in that swindle. ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... strained him to her bosom, saying, "O my son, beware of hearkening to the talk of the folk, and especially of the Persians, and obey them not in aught; for they are sharpers and tricksters, who profess the art of alchemy[FN11] and swindle people and take their money and devour it in vain." Replied Hasan, "O my mother, we are paupers and have nothing he may covet, that he should put a cheat on us. Indeed, this Persian is a right worthy Shaykh and the signs of virtue are manifest on him; Allah hath ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... worse than the one we are fighting against, and every one of us was a fool for ever putting on a gray jacket. Why didn't they tell us all this in the first place, so that we might know what there was before us? It's a fraud and a cheat and a swindle and a—and a—what are you about?" he added, turning almost fiercely upon his captain, who elbowed his way through the excited group and tried to take the paper from his hand. "I'll not obey the orders ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... although the Englishmen might have fought, there was nothing to gain by a fight. Everything depended on swiftness of action, and Hindhaugh determined grimly that if rapidity could do anything he would teach the "furriners" a lesson for trying to swindle him. ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... accounts for the royal seal we found! Here, at last, is the perpetrator of that grand swindle, lying peacefully behind the door and not caring what we discover! But he has taken his rue with the spoils!—he dared not enjoy these because of the lees he saw ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... must Grow! We must be Big! We must be Bigger! Bigness means Money! And the thing began to happen; their longing became a mighty Will. We must be Bigger! Bigger! Bigger! Get people here! Coax them here! Bribe them! Swindle them into coming, if you must, but get them! Shout them into coming! Deafen them into coming! Any kind of people; all kinds of people! We must be Bigger! Blow! Boost! Brag! Kill the fault-finder! Scream and bellow to the Most High: Bigness is patriotism and honor! ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... his legal taxes, in order to support a party organization the sole object of which was to enrich a few at the expense of the many. One job, in especial, the contract for paving the streets, he stigmatized as a swindle, and asserted that the District Attorney, had he done his duty, would long ago have brought the Mayor and Town Council before a criminal court as parties to a notorious fraud. His ability, steadfastness, and self-restraint had had a very real ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... are after him; he has bolted. It's a long-firm swindle that he's been up to. You know what that means? Obtaining goods on false credit, and raising money on them. What's more, young Chadwick is arrested; he came before the magistrates yesterday, charged with being an accomplice. Here it is; ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Documents, Eighteenth Congress, Second Session, 1824-25, Vol. ii, Doc. No. 14, and Senate Documents, Twenty-fourth Congress, 1836-37, Vol. ii, No. 212. After the grants were secured, the companies attempted to swindle the State of Georgia by making payments in depreciated currency. Georgia refused to accept it. When the grant was rescinded, both houses of the Georgia Legislature marched in solemn state to the Capitol front and burned the deed.] The ground upon which this appropriation was made by Congress was ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... know where it is—and I reckon there doesn't anybody else know, either," he answered slowly. "I know where it claims to be, and I know it is just one big swindle ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... how he backed up Slugger Brown's father on Snowshoe Island," added Randy. "He was perfectly willing to swindle old Barney Stevenson out of his property. He ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... servant! Tell that to the oxy chap downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and thinks you're not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I could only work together we might do something for ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Dick Boyce himself. First, the desire to maintain a "position," to make play in society with a pretty wife, and, in the City, with a marketable reputation; then company-promoting of a more and more doubtful kind; and, finally, a swindle more energetic and less skilful than the rest, which bomb-like went to pieces in the face of the public, filling the air with noise, lamentations, and unsavoury odours. Nor was this all. A man has many warnings of ruin, and when things were going badly in the stock market, Richard Boyce, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... or my wife, or servant Saurea—do your best, swindle us, rook us, I promise you your interests won't suffer, if you accomplish ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... than his righteous desarvings. He's a fellow that's got no more of a saving soul in him than my whip-handle, and ain't half so much to be counted on in a fight. He's jest now nothing but a cheat and a swindle from head to foot; hain't got anything but cheat in him—hain't got room for any principle—-not enough either to git drunk with a friend, or have it out, in a fair fight, with his enemy. I shouldn't ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... news as he went. Arrived in London soon after daybreak, he went to Cochrane's house, and there changed his uniform. When the Stock Exchange opened at ten on February 21, 1814, the Funds rose rapidly, and among those who sold on the rise was Cochrane. The next day, when the swindle had been discovered, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... the moral bearings of it, what this question of enforcement of law means in the life of the poor was illustrated by testimony given before the Police Board under oath. A captain was on trial for allowing the policy swindle to go unchecked in his precinct. Policy is a kind of penny lottery, with alleged daily drawings which never take place. The whole thing is a pestilent fraud, which is allowed to exist only because it pays heavy blackmail to the police and the politicians. Expert witnesses testified ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... of Mines to get a law protecting European shareholders from being defrauded by swindlers?—I don't know if such a law could be framed without interfering with what, in other countries, is considered to be personal liberty. You have to come to the point whether the man intended to swindle, and that can only be settled by the Court, as a matter of personal judgment. If a good law could be devised it ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... prejudices the grandeur of his crimes. What would you have? Peter the Cruel massacred, but he did not steal; Henry III assassinated, but he did not swindle; Timour crushed children under horses' hoofs, much as M. Bonaparte exterminated women and old men on the boulevard, but he did not lie. Hear the Arabian historian: "Timour-Beg, Sahib-Keran (master of the world and ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... a faint smile. She had certainly charm. Admiration and hunger prompted me to further recklessness. I said: "This five-course swindle has left me ravenous, and I am bound for the Avenir myself. May I beg for the rapture of your ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... matter over in your mind, younker, you'll see that this bus'ness can't be put through without giving the scamps the chance to swindle us the worst sort of way. They won't give up the boy on our promise to pay 'em the money and no questions asked, for they don't b'leve we'll do it; so we've got to give 'em the money and trust to their honor to keep their part. Trust to their honor," repeated Hank, with ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... such a thing might be so, are untrue. On the contrary, he assures me that applications of this nature are very seldom made, and most of those that have been made have proved to come from Englishmen, who have thought they might swindle him in this form. I have had at least a dozen such applications myself, but I take it nothing is easier, in general, than to distinguish between an American and a native of Great Britain. It was agreed between us, that in future all applications of this nature should be sent to ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "Where's the advance you made him for those men at Msala? Not one ha'penny of it have they fingered. And why? Cos they're slaves! Fifteen months at fifty pounds—let them as can reckon tot it up for theirselves. That's his first swindle—and there's others, sir! Oh, there's more behind. That man's just a stinkin' hotbed o' crime. But this 'ere slave-owning is enough to settle ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... you'd not have let her in! After ten years' service, and never a word but of kindness, and there you'd up and say, 'Be off, go along, get away with you!' Oh yes, you're a shrewd one at politics, I dare say! You don't need to be taught how to swindle the master, and to filch ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... he was in awful luck, when he happened to go for his cigar-case, which he had left in the hall in his great-coat pocket. He laid down his spectacles on the table, and someone tried them on. As soon as he took up the cards he gave a start, and sang out, 'Here's a swindle! Nous sommes voles!' He could see, by the help of the spectacles, that all the nines and court cards were marked; and the spectacles were regular ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... watch was a midday watch, and I think it was nearly three hours. The two sisters divided the remaining seventeen hours of the twenty-four hours between them, and each of them tried generously and persistently to swindle the other out of a part of her watch. I went to bed early every night, and tried to get sleep enough by midnight to fit me for my work, but it was always a failure. I went on watch sleepy and remained ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... bookmaker who had formerly been coachman to Comte de Vandeuvres. As the result of a racing swindle by Vandeuvres, Marechal lost a large sum over a filly named Nana, and, his suspicions having been aroused, he caused such a scandal that the Comte was disqualified ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... worth L80,000, which one Madame de la Motte induced the jeweller who "made" it to part with for Marie Antoinette, on security of Cardinal de Rohan, and which madame made away with, taking it to pieces and disposing of the jewels in London; the swindle was first discovered when the jeweller presented his bill to the queen, who denied all knowledge of the matter; this led to a trial which extended over nine months, gave rise to great scandal, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the condition of the packed gallery soon caused her to forget even the final swindle of the corset. The air had rapidly become exhausted. Women clutched at each other; women rapped frenziedly against the heavy, glazed doors; women screamed. It was the Black Hole of Calcutta over again, and yet no one in the blouse department seemed to notice the signals of distress. Lily ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... come, therefore, to the parting of the ways. He realized that he was rushing on political destruction, and that, if he supported the vulgar swindle perpetrated at Lecompton, he would be repudiated by the great State which had exalted him and almost idolized him as a political leader. He determined, therefore, to take a bold stand against the administration on this issue. It was an important event, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the Cardinal's moral and mental tone, but it does not appear that he had any connection with the great final swindle. In his supernormal gifts and graces the Cardinal did steadfastly believe. Ten years earlier, Rohan had blessed Marie Antoinette on her entry into France, and had been ambassador at the Court of Maria Theresa, the Empress. A sportsman ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... numbers are invariably wrong. About an hour or so after the drawings are received in New York, a printed slip is sent to every office, and then all claims are promptly settled. The managers, being in an unlawful business in this State, have the opportunity to swindle as they please. The players have no redress. Ten thousand dollar 'hits' have been made, according to tradition, and 'hits' of from $500 to $1,500 are known of sometimes. Three-number lottery tickets are sold on every drawing, and constitute a very ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... further question. A tax has been paid on all the alcohol in these things. In many cases, also, a further tax has been paid for the government stamp on patent medicines. That the medicine may be dangerous, that it may be a cruel swindle, that it may take from consumptives and others money which is sorely needed for air and food, and give them in return what is worse than nothing—all these things are nothing to the State if the tax ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... the same. The Secretary explained it this morning, and now I am pleased. As to the goods you talked about, I want what is due and belongs to me. The red people were raised with the bow and arrow, and are all of one nation; but the whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me; and I am not hard to swindle, because I cannot read and write. We have thirty-two nations (or bands), and have a council-house the same as you have. We held a council before we came here, and the demands I have made upon you from the chiefs ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... so I'll tell him. At least the knowledge will gravel him and take all the joy out of that stinking little spruce swindle of his." ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... answering to Pitezel's description, and to be so treated as to appear to have been the victim of an accidental explosion, while Pitezel himself would disappear to Germany. From Howe Hedgspeth learnt that the swindle had been carried out successfully, but he had never received from Howard the 500 dollars promised him. Consequently, he had but little compunction in divulging the plot ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... and reflected with a sigh of satisfaction that, if all went well, we should be once more at sea in less than twenty-four hours, the disagreeable suspicion for the first time obtruded itself upon my mind that possibly it might prove after all that I had been the victim of a clever swindle, and that I should never see anything more of any of the men to whom I had handed over two months' advance so confidingly. However, about eleven o'clock the next morning, the first of them—William Rogers, the man whom ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... teaches us the most adequate, the most economical way of satisfying our needs, whether these needs are rational or irrational, beautiful or ugly, moral or immoral—a business economically good may be a swindle, something that in the long run kills the soul—and the supreme human need is the need of not dying, the need of enjoying for ever the plenitude of our own individual limitation. And if the Catholic eucharistic doctrine teaches that the substance ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... point he stopped, convulsed by such a fit of rage that he had to relieve himself by a volley of appalling oaths. Finally he resumed: "It isn't the swindle that angers me; it is his disgusting behavior to me. He has gammoned me, Madame Burle. By God! Does he take me for ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... than fifteen minutes. She was ill at ease there; it was no comfort to her to gaze upon the pallid, wasted face of the man she loved when she realized that, by her presence here, she was constituting herself a party to a heart-breaking swindle, and must deny herself the joy of gazing upon that same beloved countenance when, later, it should be glowing with health and youth and high hopes. He was too weak to speak more than a few words to her. The faintest imaginable pressure of his hand answered the pressure of hers. It appeared ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... courses, and the self-conscious Tinker-Quixote takes the road once more and passes on to other achievements: a mad preacher to succour, a priest to baffle, some tramp to pound into a jelly of humility, an applewoman to mystify, a horse-chaunter to swindle, a pugilist to study and help and portray. But whatever it be, Lavengro emerges from the ordeal modestly, unobtrusively, quietly, most consciously magnificent. Circumstantial as Defoe, rich in combinations as Lesage, and with such an instinct of the picturesque, both personal and local, as ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... and Abel sat, worn out and disconsolate, gazing at a confusion of tents, sheds, and shanties, for it could be called nothing else, on the hither side of a tumbled together waste of snow and ice spreading to right and left. "Is it all a swindle or a dream?" ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... one hand, and this muslin siren in the other, galloping down hill on a sympathetic mule amid songbirds and flowers! And here is Billy Keogh, because he is virtuous, condemned to the unprofitable swindle of slandering the faces of missing links on tin for an honest living! 'Tis ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... do not exactly want to swindle me," said Blucher, "but I know they like to get a little money, and as they do not ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... Cotton States sat sullenly through a tangle of routine voting. Finally, the question was renewed on Butler's proposition to adopt the Cincinnati platform pure and simple. This was the red flag to the mad bull. Mississippi declared that the Cincinnati platform was a great political swindle on one half the States of the Union; and from that time on the Cotton States ceased to act as a part of the convention. As soon as a lull in the proceedings permitted, Mr. Yancey put in execution his programme of demand, disruption, disunion, and rebellion, labored for through ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... such matters often get left in the lurch. You need not say much more than that. You might do anything here without your friends troubling much about it provided it had nothing to do with politics. Rob a bank, perpetrate a big swindle, run away with a court heiress, and as long as the police don't lay hands on you nobody else will trouble their heads about the affair; but if you are suspected of being mixed up in the most remote ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... monopolies,—of grasping, envious police restrictions, which destroy the freedom, and, with it, the integrity of commerce,—those who like to examine such details may find plenty in French history: the whole French finance system has been a swindle from the days of Luvois, or Law, down to the present time. The Government swindles the public, and the small traders swindle their customers, on the authority and example of the superior powers. Hence the art of roguery, under such high patronage, maintains ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the wicked certainly have no conception of what they are going to miss. Tom, for example, would never have put buttons in the offering. Doug would not gamble and drink. Poor, painted Nanon would starve rather than sin. Old man Jones, in the amen corner, would not swindle his neighbor; nor would Wetmore, the Baptist, practise the holy calling of shepherd, having in his breast the heart of a wolf. We all, saving a woman here and there, have our sins, little and great, and many times in the day we ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... fetes were held, and on this I mounted to 'take a view.' I didn't feel called upon to admire the hall in audible terms; but as I stood there an inspiring scene arose before my mental vision—a scene of up-turned faces, each representing the sum of fifteen cents, that being the regular swindle for getting into shows round here, the landlord said. I struck a bargain for the hall, at once—a bargain by which I was to have it for two dollars if I didn't do very well, or five dollars if I had a regular big crowd; bill-stickers and doorkeeper ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Swindle. —Mistress: "Did you ask for milk bread?" Domestic: "Yes, mum." "What a miserable little loaf they gave you!" "Yes, mum. It's my opinion, mum, that that baker ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... a transparent swindle this is! how plain, how impudent, how rascally! And all done entirely by the use of the Post Office privileges of the United States. Try to catch this fellow. You can find where he mailed his circular; but he probably stopped there over night to do so, and nobody knew it. In each circular, he wrote ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... upon you, that there has been a plot and conspiracy to rob you, and that I have a mother who not only did this, but who could propose to me to go on deceiving you, and even to join in a fresh fraud and to swindle Rupert, is so awful that there is nothing for me to ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... Shrumpf's version of his own swindle, and a tolerably correct account of the events which led to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... he had finished, "are you satisfied? Do you admit that even an unprofessional man might have seen at a glance that I am much better, and that your present draft on my gratitude is a mere swindle?" ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... Talleyrand double the amount of the sums which he could swindle from your Government; but though he did more mischief to your country than was expected in this, and though he proved that he had pocketed upwards of ten thousand English guineas, the wages of his infamy, when he hinted about the recompense he expected here, Durant, Talleyrand's chef du ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... vain that she complained, and told of this abominable swindle; Derues had been beforehand with her, and the slander he had disseminated bore its fruits. It was said that his old mistress was endeavouring by an odious falsehood to destroy the reputation of a man who had refused to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... says, 'that 'er lidyship is in love with a gent that's not in the party at all. An American gent,' I says. They wouldn't believe it at first, but, when Keggs 'ad put two and two together, and thought of one or two things that 'ad 'appened, 'e turned as white as a sheet and said it was a swindle and wanted the drawin' done over again, but the others says 'No', they says, 'it's quite fair,' they says, and one of 'em offered me ten bob slap out for my ticket. But I stuck to it, I did. And that," concluded ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... was expecting you to tell them there was no Merlin and to go to work and do something for themselves. But you didn't, and I couldn't see what you were trying to do. And then when Wade joined you and Father, I thought he was either helping you put over some kind of a swindle or else he'd started believing in Merlin himself. I should have seen what you were trying to do from the beginning. At least, from when you talked them into cleaning the town up and fixing the escalators and getting ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... had been followed by an exciting chase on the ocean, after which the boys had gone with their uncle to the jungles of Africa, in a search after Anderson Rover. After the parent was found it was learned that Arnold Baxter was trying to swindle the Rovers out of a valuable gold mine in the far West, but this plot, after some exciting adventures, was nipped in ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... fortune was careful to a degree, her expenditure being well within her income. This witness also proved that the Fourcades' evidence of Euphemie's misbehaviour could have been dictated from spite. Fourcade had been found out in what looked like a swindle over money which he owed to ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... of six million dollars. This was called "Marcy's mortgage." The Whigs stigmatised it as a pledge of the people's property for the benefit of money corporations, denouncing the project as little better than a vulgar swindle in the interest of the Democratic party. Whether Marcy's scheme really averted the threatened calamity, or whether the United States Bank had already carried its contraction as far as it intended, it is certain that the fear ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... ut?" said Mulvaney, bringing down his hand on his thigh with a crack, "In the name av God, fwhy is ut? I've seen ut, tu. They cheat an' they swindle an' they lie an' they slander, an' fifty things fifty times worse; but the last an' the worst by their reckonin' is to serve the Widdy honest. It's like the talk ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... see now the whole building-up of the great intrigue. It had been worked out as carefully as the Tichborne swindle. Young Finglemore, as the brother of Charles's broker, knew from the outset all about his affairs; and, after a gentle course of preliminary roguery, he laid his plans deep for a campaign against my brother-in-law. Everything had been deliberately designed ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... exclaimed Wade, regretfully. "That property never was any good. The whole thing was a swindle from first to last. Was your ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Brive Ah! You were going to give two hundred thousand francs as a dowry to your daughter, and you had debts to the amount of three hundred and fifty thousand! Between ourselves it looks like you who had been trying to swindle ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... upon their wages for their support. And those help wanted advertisements were simply appeals for more girls of that sort—for cheaper girls; or they were inserted by employment agencies, masquerading in the newspaper as employers and lying in wait to swindle working girls by getting a fee in exchange for a false promise of good work at high wages; or they were the nets flung out by crafty employers who speeded and starved their slaves, and wished to recruit fresh relays to replace those that had quit in ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... expected—not at night, for instance. Then the existence of an olive disease anywhere near is naturally very degoutant (as they say here). And the Casino at Monte Carlo is simply an organised swindle. It ought to be put down! After staking ten times in succession on "Zero," and doubling my stake each time, I was absolutely cleared out! Only just enough money to take me home. Shall follow your example, and try Torquay for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various
... Ferdinand, as he washed his hands, "do people anywhere wrap ordinary feathers in red silk? You squinting rascal, do not think to swindle me out of eternal bliss by any such foolish talk! I perfectly recognize that feather as the feather which Milcah plucked from the left pinion of the Archangel Oriphiel when the sons of God were on more intricate and scandalous terms with the daughters ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... and silver would have decreased one-half immediately, always on account of this proportionality and equilibrium. The adulteration of the coin was, then, on the part of the king, a forced loan, or rather, a bankruptcy, a swindle. ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... "The 'system' was a swindle," hissed Mr. Simp, looking up through red eyes which throbbed like pulses. "What right had you to plunder ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the thirty thousand dollars you got on that partnership swindle?" Burke asked, sneering. "I s'pose you ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... who takes his share of all they get, except of what they earn by fortune-telling. They are very clever at making a good bargain; when they know of a rich merchant being in the place, they disguise themselves, enter into communications with him, and swindle him, ... after which they change their clothes, have their horses shod the reverse way, and the shoes covered with some soft material lest they should ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... idea he's rather hit for money. He was in that Roumanian gold swindle, and by his general gloom, which only comes to a man when he's in love (and he can't possibly be in love since he's married) or when he's in debt, I fear that he is still feeling the ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... could feel the roll of bills, the result of that transaction, in his hip pocket, and the pressure of them impressed itself unpleasantly upon his conscience. He felt sure he had no right to them. He must really give them back to the gambler later. He felt that his attitude was a swindle on a good man. Bill was certainly a good man, a brave man, but he was no business man. He, Scipio, had the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... that the mine was just as described, only a nasty road would have to be built to it that would probably cost L80,000 or L100,000, and the mill would have to be built. It looks to me like a total loss, Jim; but the swindle is so manifest that I believe we can make the conspirators disgorge at least the last half that ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... one form of behavior into the other. As Wulffen says, "Die Gabe zu Schwindeln ist eine 'Lust am Fabulieren.' '' Over and over again we have observed the phenomenon as the pathological liar gradually developed the tendency to swindle. ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... became public property, and no secret was made of matters which were a subject for grief and scorn. Hundreds of grown men stood by and saw that boy lose a fortune in two hours, and some forty paragraphs might have been collected in which the transaction was described in various terms as a gross swindle. A good shot was killing pigeons—gallant sport—and the wealthy schoolboy was betting. When a sign was given by a bookmaker the shooting-man obeyed, and won or lost according to orders; and every man in the assembly knew what foul work was ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... was not possible for Barndale to be gravely thoughtful just now. The business of the day was a trip to the Sweet Waters of Europe. Jimmy, who had been caught by that charming title on a former visit, proclaimed the show a swindle, and the Sweet Waters a dreary and dirty canal; but Lilian and her mother must needs go and see what everybody else went to see; and so an open vehicle having with infinitude of trouble been procured, and George ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... said, by Gall, that we must consider the criminal rather than the crime. The formula does not carry us very far, but the inquiries which have been started look toward an answer of my questions based on science for the first time. If the typical criminal is a degenerate, bound to swindle or to murder by as deep seated an organic necessity as that which makes the rattlesnake bite, it is idle to talk of deterring him by the classical method of imprisonment. He must be got rid of; he cannot be improved, or frightened out of his ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... fellow who's run half a mile, I'll bet. If his tongue hung out any farther, he'd trip up on it. But he'll do it again next time. They all do. Learning to stop running to fires is as hard as learning to stop buying mining-stock in the West. And it's just as big a swindle too. The returns from running to fires are marvelously small. They tell me that a hundred million dollars a year goes up in flames in this country. I don't believe it. If it does, I want to know who gets to see ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... of the mountain - and just a little further below, it begins picking up from the left hand in little boggy tributaries, and in the inside of a hundred yards has grown a brook again. The general course of the brook was, I guess, S.E.; the valley still very deep and whelmed in wood. It seemed a swindle to have made so sheer a climb and still find yourself at the bottom of a well. But gradually the thing seemed to shallow, the trees to seem poorer and smaller; I could see more and more of the silver sprinkles of sky ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to administer justice to the scoundrel who has deluded thousands into buying worthless mining shares or some such swindling bait, the victims are told that the whole swindle has been legitimized by the great seal of the state, and that their loss is the profits of a business conducted ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... business?" Maitland's expression was blank for a moment; then comprehension informed his eyes. "Oh, yes; in connection with the Dougherty investment swindle." ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... the "Tent on the Beach," which shows his natural pleasure in success. "Think," he says, "of bagging in this tent of ours an unsuspecting public at the rate of a thousand a day! This will never do. The swindle is awful. Barnum is a saint to us. I am bowed with a sense of guilt, ashamed to look an honest man in the face. But Nemesis is on our track; somebody will puncture our tent yet, and it will collapse like a torn balloon. I know I shall have to catch ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... broker in question do? He winked to another broker, and these two bid against one another, over their victim's head, and ran everything she wanted up at least a hundred per cent above the value. So open and transparent a swindle I have seldom seen, even in an auction-room. Ha! ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... with its uncertain strides, or in the high-featured, mild-eyed face: neither was there anything mean in his wrath. It was all directed against himself. His Swedish blood had infused a gentle laziness into his temper, and he had forgiven Laidley long ago for his lifelong swindle, as no American with English grandfathers would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... it comes to friends—the right sort, I mean. This Pinkerton is frightened, and he seems sick; the medico don't seem to care a cent about his state of health; and you've got to figure how you would like it if he came to die. Remember, the risk of this little swindle is all yours; it's no sort of risk to Mr. Pinkerton. Well, you've got to put it that way plainly, and see how you like the sound of it: my friend Pinkerton is in danger of the New Jerusalem, I am in danger of San Quentin; which risk do ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Books endure while readers and talkers fade away, and Charing Cross Road by its trade in books keeps alive the continuity of London's life and deserves its fame. The books that reach this haven are for the most part honest, and therefore many a weary soul turns out of the streets where men and women swindle into this place where the thoughts of honest men are piled on shelves, or put out in the open air in boxes, marked twopence, fourpence, sixpence.... A real market this! A fair without vanity. There are ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... right, madam," added Peter Conant, "for concocting the plot to swindle Alora's father out of the money his dead wife intended him to have. You are not properly punished, for you should be sent to jail, but your disappointment will prove a ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... within fifteen minutes he is as white as a sheet and scared almost to death. Therefore pilots wisely train these cubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face a little more calmly. A favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle upon the candidate. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I came a cropper over that accursed cotton swindle I've not had any inclination to meet any one I knew—especially any one in the Service, but"—and his voice rang honestly, "I always wondered whether you and I ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... for his dishonesty Who hangs his head, and a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, And dare to steal for a' that. For a' that and a' that, Our grabs and games, and a' that, Our business is to make a pile And swindle SAM, and a' that. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... as THIS HOUSE and the lands I actually OCCUPY AND CULTIVATE are concerned; and they know that I am safe to fight to the last, and carry the case to the Supreme Court in that case, until the swindle is exposed, or they drop it; but I may have to pay them something to keep the squatters ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... multiplied, until they had become swindlers of millions instead of thousands. But nevertheless it was their story. There was only one grain of consolation. It was in the last paragraph of the news item, and read: "There seems to be no trace of the man and woman who worked this clever swindle. As if by a telepathic message they have vanished at just the time when their whole ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... elder declared hotly; "you and the Democrats may call it that, but it's a damned swindle, with the British to windward of you and hardly a sail now drawing in your ropes. What did Edmund Burke tell Parliament in 'seventy-five about our whalers, hey! Why, that from Davis Strait to the Antipodes, from the Falklands to Africa, we outdrove Holland, France and England. After the laws and ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer |
