"Burglar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sheba proceeded to make from the finest of flour the delicate cakes which she always sold fresh and almost warm from her stove, and before starting out on her vending tour of the streets, the store-room was locked against the one burglar she feared. ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... stillness of the night. The watchman scarcely heard his own footsteps in the newly fallen snow as he slowly made his way along Middle Street,[37] with his lantern and staff. He was not expecting to encounter a burglar, breaking and entering a shop, store, or residence. He heard the clock strike once more, and was just pursing his lips to cry, "Two o'clock, and all's well," when he caught a glimpse of a figure in front of Theophilus Lillie's store.[38] Was it a burglar? The man was standing stock-still, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... said Welch. 'Wonder what a burglar wanted in the First room. Isn't even a hair-brush ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... took a new view of the night's outrage. It was no common burglar's work, for what had I worth stealing? It was the work of my unseen enemies, who dogged me in the street; they alone knew why; the doctor had called these hallucinations, and I had forced myself to agree with ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... with the rope under his arm, and Marwood had to lift him in his arms to get him disentangled, and then drop the unconscious man down—a painful scene. {155} This was only about a fortnight before his own death. Among his last executions was that of Charles Peace, a notorious burglar, who shot a man at Banner Cross, near Sheffield. In May, 1882, he went to Dublin to execute the perpetrators of the Phoenix Park murders, three Fenians, who shot Lord E. Cavendish, and his secretary, Mr. Burke. In ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... pounds a year to be wicked, and praise him for it, and have policemen and courts and laws and juries to drive him into it so that he can't help doing it, what can you expect? Sir Howard's all right when he's left to himself. We caught a burglar one night at Waynflete when he was staying with us; and I insisted on his locking the poor man up until the police came, in a room with a window opening on the lawn. The man came back next day and said he must return to a life of crime unless I gave him a job in the garden; and ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... "I am neither a burglar nor a murderer; that's all you need to know; the rest is no concern of yours. Have ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... with, and that everything the troops required should be paid for. Your soldiers disobeyed your orders, and plundered these poor people, and they were just as much justified in defending themselves against them, as any householder is who resists a burglar." ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... peach of a place, get away with the job, been stung by the party, got by on his bluff, sore at that fact, and always on the job. I learned that the weather man had put over his first frost last night, that a town we passed had come across with a sixteen-year-old burglar, and that a discredited politician was attempting to get out from under. Perhaps it is not to be wondered at that the Englishman ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... born the era of Charles Peace, no less than of John Bull—on Sundays and Saint's days a churchwarden, who carried the plate; on week days a burglar who lifted it. Truly, as John Mitchel said on his convict hulk: "On English felony the sun never sets." May ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... German lines; she who lived for golf, dances, and theatres is now caring for the wounded through the long nights in hospital. Everyone in every class of life has altered—the "slacker" has turned soldier, and the burglar has become ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... to step forward and examine her work. He approached with all the stealth of a gentlemanly burglar. He expected to see some trees and hills and mayhap a brook, or some cows standing in a stream, or some children picking daisies. He had a sister, and was reasonably familiar with the kind of subjects chosen by the ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... staircase Kennedy paused to examine some rich carvings, and I felt him nudge me. I turned. It was an enclosed staircase, with walls that looked to be of re-enforced concrete. Swung back on hinges concealed like those of a modern burglar-proof safe was the ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... multifarious. People said of him—and like most public gossip, this was probably untrue—that he was the head of the "illegal" department of Scotland Yard. If by chance you lost the keys of your safe, T. X. could supply you (so popular rumour ran) with a burglar who would open that safe ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... stars. The reason he slumps through the nebula is on account of his big feet; he has six toes (like the foot in George Augustus Sala's drawing) and when he walks on the top of the piazza you would think it was a burglar. ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... traits and qualities, definable and indefinable, Gorman had the power of assuming the appearance either of a burglar of the lowest type, or a well-to-do contractor or tradesman. A slight change in dress and manner were sufficient ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... amount, and to the great emolument of Brennus, a matter of fact Gaulish commander, who, at his invasion of Greece, coolly carried off all the bullion, without any regard to the screeches of the Pythoness, and with no more scruples than any burglar. ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... judge that a pirate at sea is about on the same plane as a burglar on shore. If he kills any one while committing a felony, he is guilty of murder in the first degree. Better not kill any fellow men, then you'll only get a long term—perhaps for ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... The bolts that fastened the ties to the rails of the National Railway were stolen nightly by the people, until they were finally riveted on. But then there are thieves everywhere; we chain our out-door mats to iron fastenings in Boston, Chicago, and New York, and dealers in "improved burglar alarms" do a thriving business in all ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... been invented by prehistoric man. A flat, wooden bar or bolt is drawn into a mortise-like receptacle of the wall, open at the top; the man then daubs a handful of wet clay over it; in a few minutes the clay hardens and the door is fast. This is not a burglar-proof lock, certainly, and is only depended upon for a fastening during the temporary absence of the owner in the day-time. During the summer the owner and family not infrequently live in the garden altogether. During the forenoon the bicycle is the innocent cause of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... queer noise? It's mighty funny if there was murder done and no robbery. But of course she might have heard a noise if you didn't, and she might have come down to find out what it was about. She might have caught a burglar at work, and he may have killed her to get away. But if it was a burglar it's funny you didn't hear any noise—like a fall, or something. How about that, ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... "Now, only that Burglar Bill and Company aren't such fools as to come out on such a night as this, here's their chance. Why, they might burgle every house on one side of the street while the whole division was on the other. Blest if I know ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... hadn't quite decided to tell McGuire of the housekeeper's share in the adventure. He had a desire to verify his belief that Mrs. Bergen was frightened by the visitor for a reason of her own which had nothing to do with Jonathan McGuire. Any woman alarmed by a possible burglar or other miscreant would have come running and crying for help. Mrs. Bergen had been doggedly silent, as though, rather than utter her thoughts, she would have bitten out her tongue. It was curious. She had seemed to be talking as though to herself at the door, and then, at the sound of footsteps ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... his wife must have made some extraordinary revelation to Risler; and, in order not to disturb his hosts, he had made his escape noiselessly through the window, like a burglar. Why? With what aim ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... than they imagine. The coffer itself is an inch thick, and the lock will stand anything but dynamite. However, I hear that they've engaged a professional burglar, so we ought to get ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had become quiet once more—bang! went a gun, and then again we heard people running about to see what was the matter, and if the burglar had been caught. But it proved to have been the accidental going off of a rifle at the guardhouse. The instant that Colonel Gregory ascertained that a soldier had really been in Mrs. Norton's house, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... cried Phoebe, wringing her hands. "Didn't I say I heard a noise—I told you I heard a burglar, Rebecca," she went on, ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... "that suite has three windows, seven stories above the ground. I found them all locked—not mere latches—the St. Dunstan has burglar-proof locks. No disturbance in the room; all neat, in place, the door closed with the usual spring lock; and I had to get Mrs. Griggsby to move, since she was tacking the carpet right at the threshold. ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... to the effect that a well-known merchant, residing on East Twentieth Street, had been found on the floor of his library the previous morning, his skull crushed in as if with some heavy instrument like a crow-bar, or a burglar's jimmy, and the safe, which was known to have contained money and bonds to the amount of forty-six thousand dollars, was ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... dog, But he stayed at home And guarded the family night and day. He was a dog That didn't roam. He lay on the porch or chased the stray— The tramps, the burglar, the hen, away; For a dog's true heart for that household beat At morning and evening, in cold and ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... of the multitude which surrounds the court-house, sounds like the murmur of the sea, till suddenly it is raised to a sort of shout. John West, the terror of the surrounding country, the sheep-stealer and burglar, had been ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... a worse thief than the burglar or highwayman. It goes beyond the train-wrecker or the vile wretch who used to lure sailing vessels upon a treacherous shore, in its relentless heartlessness. Once it begins to control it never releases its hold unless its victim wakes up to the sure ruin that awaits him and frees himself ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... the strange helplessness of middle-class mothers in training their children, and their dread of nursery complications. I know many a woman whose financial ability and capacity for organising almost amounts to genius, who would doubtless not be at a loss in dealing with a burglar, yet who would on no account face the terrors of a longish railway journey in sole charge of her two-year-old child, whilst to 'take the baby at night' once in a way during the nurse's absence from home is a nerve-shattering experience ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... pushed it carefully inside the waistband of his trousers, on the left side, taking great care that its position was right to the fraction of an inch. He took his tan Oxford shoes in his hand, pulled open his door as quietly as any burglar could have done, stepped down upon the ground and put on the shoes, lacing them carefully, tucking in the ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... Then, with a shudder—"But it is gamblers' money! the wages of sin; we couldn't take it; we couldn't touch it. I don't like to be near it; it seems a defilement." She moved to a farther chair. . . "I wish Edward would come, and take it to the bank; a burglar might come at any moment; it is dreadful to be ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... the beautiful convenience of horse sense. Most women are always hearing burglars. Probably one in a thousand turns out to be a real, live housebreaker. Whenever the wise woman hears one fussing with the lock on the front door or trying to squeeze into the pantry window, she just says: "Same old burglar. He'll be gone in the morning," and he always is. That's a heap better plan than arousing the household and suffering the unmerciful torture that a family given to ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... down the nuisance Swift took a characteristic method. Ebenezer Elliston had, about this time, been executed for street robbery. Although given a good education by his parents, he forsook his trade of a silk weaver, and became a gambler and burglar. He was well known to the other gangs which infested Dublin, but his death did not act as a deterrent. Swift, in composing Elliston's pretended dying speech, gave it the flavour and character of authenticity in order to impose on the members of other gangs, and so successful was ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... homicide. This is but an expression of the truth that social life would be impossible were it otherwise. And when we pass from the general to the special we meet with much the same principle operating in society. The average burglar pursues his calling with no special sense of its wrongness, although he may have a keen sense of its dangers. But while burgling with a fairly easy conscience, he does flinch at breaking the code of honour set up by ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... for the big aviation meet. Tom's craft was in readiness, and had been given several other trials, developing more speed each time. Additional locks were put on the doors of the shed, and more burglar-alarm wires were strung, so that it was almost a physical impossibility to get into the Humming-Bird's "nest" without arousing some one in the ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... to tell you why you are not afraid of Paley; because, you would say, when he advocated lying, he was taking special cases. You would have no fear of a man who you knew had shot a burglar dead in his own house, because you know you are not a burglar: so you would not think that Paley had a habit of telling lies in society, because in the case of a cruel alternative he thought it the lesser evil to ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... criminals of China. Yet his crime could not have been much graver. On the corner posts of his cage white strips of paper were posted, giving his name and the particulars of the crime which he was so soon to expiate. He was a burglar who had escaped from prison by killing his guard, and had been recaptured. Unlike other criminals I have seen in China, who laugh at the stranger and appear unaffected by their lot, this young fellow seemed to ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... wind, which had veered more to the eastwardly, rose considerably, drowning the clanging knell of the Spit buoy bell and rattling the windows and doors, like some desperate burglar on thoughts of plunder bent trying to effect a ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of a burglar nowadays is attended by various compulsory expenses. A successful burglar should be able to purchase skeleton-keys and "jemmies" of the most exquisite and delicate quality. Moreover, he should be able to entertain largely, and to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... be at least an hour before he dared to move again, and he would have to be doubly careful this time. And he was a little nervous himself now about that burglar. What if he should meet him when he went out again? He tried to forget about that by thinking of what he would put in the ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... of anything to jump on the man outside his own door and do the burglar act openly, lest the police should jump on me, and I should be laid by before I'd found you. But about that time I began to have water on the brain; or rather, I got possessed with the idea of sneaking into houses ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... bundle of papers, covered him with an automatic pistol, and quietly said: 'Then drop those papers, or I'll drop you.' He dropped the papers. Then he was ordered out from behind the counter, and he cleared. His fellow-burglar tried to be insolent, and was quickly told that as they had no search warrant they were doing an illegal act, and the first one who ventured to touch a paper would be shot like a dog. After some parley, they slunk ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God? Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... individual! how it must have hurt the feelings of a respectable family!—"How malignant!" cried the hidalgos; "How coarse!" the women; and "How ill-judged!" the clergy. He speaks of Cortes with contempt: why should he not? for he was only the burglar of a kingdom. But we read these sincere pages of Las Casas with satisfaction. The polished contemporaries of Abolitionists turn over the pages of antique denunciation, and their lymph really quickens ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... down, for Lopez had remained to guard me. I believe he must have waited among the gorse bushes through which the path winds and struck him down as he passed. At first they were of a mind to let him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they argued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity would at once be publicly disclosed and they would be open to further attacks. With the death of Garcia, the pursuit might cease, since such a death might frighten ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it was this way: if Tom was going to win a scout award by finding a certain bird's nest in a certain tree, when he got to the place he would find that the tree had been chopped down. Once he was going to win the pathfinder's badge by trailing a burglar, and he trailed him seven miles through the woods and found that the burglar was his own good-for-nothing father. So he did not go back and claim the award. You ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... hard enough. Doors sometimes stuck. She pulled harder; she pulled with her whole might and main. She could shake the door; she could make it rattle. The hanging chain dangled against the woodwork with a terrifying clank. If anyone was lying awake she would sound like a burglar—and yet ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... very far from rendering my situation less distressful!—and every detail of my involuntary actions was projected upon my brain in a series of pictures, whose clear-cut outlines, so long as memory endures, will never fade. Certainly no professional burglar, nor, indeed, any creature in his senses, would have ventured to emulate my surprising rashness. The process of smashing the pane of glass—it was plate glass—was anything but a noiseless one. There was, first, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... I was worse off than ever—two months in arrears of rent, and numerous other debts to cigar-shops and liquor-dealers. Now and then some good job, such as a burglar with a cut head, helped me for a while; but, on the whole, I was like Slider Downeyhylle in Neal's "Charcoal Sketches," and kept going "downer and downer" the more I tried not to. ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... in London one of the speakers expressed a preference for the son of a husky burglar over the son of a tuberculous bishop. This is doubtless quite correct, but why should the bishop be tuberculous? The truth of the matter is, the reverse is more likely to be the case. Personally, I should ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... they add what corroborative evidence is needed. The dropping of the eyelids, the smirk that is so full of insinuation is used to advantage where it is more effective than the downright lie. The burglar and the highwayman go frankly abroad to gather in the substance of others, and they stand ready to forfeit both life and liberty while in pursuit of nefarious gain. Yet it is a noble profession compared with that ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... park-palings were not so high as to be unclimbable; and the idea of a night-watchman was suggested only to be dismissed, for the very sufficient reason that when he was most wanted he would almost certainly be asleep. I had no fear of Griscelli breaking in at the front door; but the house was not burglar-proof, and, as it happened, the weak point in our defence was one of the windows of Mr. Fortescue's bedroom. It looked into the orchard, and, by climbing a tree which grew hard by, an active man could easily reach it, even without a ladder. The danger ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... aside, and found a host of reasons; but though I am not strong in argument, I managed to combat and confute them all, and she said "Yes" at last. And so I not only turned burglar in her cause, but won my wife by it; for within five days we were married by ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... than once detected the milkman winking at the maid with a diabolical suggestion that I was returning from a carouse, and Roundsman 9999 has once or twice followed me a block or two with the evident impression that I was a burglar returning from a successful evening out. Nevertheless, these various indiscretions have brought me into contact with a kind of character and phenomena whose existence I might otherwise ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... its privacy, with free license to make all the noise possible, provided the racket was confined to that one floor. So careful had been its occupants to observe this rule, that noisy as they all were when once on the top floor, every man unlocked the front door at night with the touch of a burglar and crept upstairs as ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... bangles rattled on her wrists. Her voice rattled like her bangles as she poured forth a stream of anecdote and ejaculation; and her round black eyes jumped with acrobatic velocity from one face to another. Miss Mellins was always having or hearing of amazing adventures. She had surprised a burglar in her room at midnight (though how he got there, what he robbed her of, and by what means he escaped had never been quite clear to her auditors); she had been warned by anonymous letters that her grocer (a rejected suitor) was putting poison in her tea; ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... was already with a certain pang of surprise that he beheld the mansion, standing in the eye of day, a solid among solids. The key, upon trial, readily opened the front door; he entered that great house, a privileged burglar; and, escorted by the echoes of desertion, rapidly reviewed the empty chambers. Cats, servant, old lady, the very marks of habitation, like writing on a slate, had been in these few hours obliterated. He wandered from floor to floor, and found the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fall on his hand with what result we know. The others would then either break the glass and so escape; or pass through the house; or remain prisoners. That immoderate surprise was therefore absurdly illogical, after seeing the burglar-track in the snow. But how, above all, do you account for Lord Pharanx's silence during and after the burglars' visit—if there was a visit? He was, you must remember, alive all that time; they did not kill him; certainly they did not shoot him, for the shot is heard ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... laughing him to scorn. The least noise is heard over the whole house. The clock ticks so loud he has to remove it, for it affects his nerves. The stealthy mouse tries to annoy him with his mimic personification of the burglar, and the wind moans among the trees as if it lamented the general desolation. If he strolls out in his grounds, the squirrel ascends the highest tree and chatters and scolds at the unusual intrusion, while ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... answer. "It was a near-happening, only Ned woke up in time. Someone was in our rooms—a burglar, I guess." ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... no longer made happy by a smile. We no longer take it, as we used to take it, as evidence that the person smiling is either happy or kind. It then seemed to come from the heart. It now seems a formula. It is, we may admit, a pleasant and useful formula. But a man might easily be a burglar or a murderer or a Cabinet Minister and smile. Some people are supposed to smile merely in order to show what good teeth they have. William John McNabb, I am sure, ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... the sense of human oneness and social responsibility is strong will be intensely interested in these genuine experiences and in the naive, if perverted, viewpoint of a pick-pocket, thief and burglar who has served three terms in ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... No burglar will go near it. It will drive away rate-collectors and poor relations. One client has already used it on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... robberies in Joppa," the old man said,—"regular burglaries. There's been a great excitement about it. Several houses have been entered and robbed, some of money, others of what little silver there was, though I don't suppose there is enough silver in all New Joppa to support a good, healthy burglar for more than a few days. The funny part of it is that though I have no house, I came ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... fire detector in the cellar acts much like a burglar alarm. There are several now on the market. The principle on which they work is thermostatic. Sensitive to increased heat, an alarm bell sounds the moment fire develops. The White House has one of the most ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... Mr. Dooley, "it looks now as if they was nawthin' left f'r me young frind Aggynaldoo to do but time. Like as not a year fr'm now he'll be in jail, like Napoleon, th' impror iv th' Fr-rinch, was in his day, an' Mike, th' Burglar, an' other pathrites. That's what comes iv bein' a pathrite too long. 'Tis a good job, whin they'se nawthin' else to do; but 'tis not th' thing to wurruk overtime at. 'Tis a sort iv out-iv-dure spoort that ye shud engage ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... thoughts, before we can be at leisure for idle or chance quotations. But lastly, in reference to No. 2, we must add that the practice is signally dishonest. It "trails after it a line of golden associations." Yes, and the burglar, who leaves an army-tailor's after a midnight visit, trails after him perhaps a long roll of gold bullion epaulettes which may look pretty by lamplight. But that, in the present condition of moral philosophy amongst the police, is accounted robbery; and to benefit too much ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... down to our own day, Ibsen, who drove poetry out of the living language of his country, had been one of the most skilful of prosodical proficients. Such instances may allay our alarm. There cannot be any lasting force in arguments which remind us of the pious confessions of a redeemed burglar. It needs more than the zeal of a turncoat to ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... he had another ride in the patrol wagon, along with the drunken wife-beater and the maniac, several "plain drunks" and "saloon fighters," a burglar, and two men who had been arrested for stealing meat from the packing houses. Along with them he was driven into a large, white-walled room, stale-smelling and crowded. In front, upon a raised platform behind a rail, sat a stout, florid-faced personage, with a nose ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... plum pudding, it was one of those burglar-proof, enamel-finished products that prove the British to be indeed a hardy race. And, of course, they hadn't brought him his coffee along with his dinner, the management having absolutely refused ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... murderer shall be warned not to set foot in the temples or come within the borders of the land; if discovered, he shall die, and his body shall be cast out. A man is justified in taking the life of a burglar, of a footpad, of a violator of women or youth; and he may take the life of another with impunity in defence of father, mother, brother, ...
— Laws • Plato
... remarkable contrast. A nerve specialist was called to see a young girl who had had nervous prostration for two years. The physician was told before seeing the patient that the illness had started through fright occasioned by the patient's waking and discovering a burglar in her room. ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... "'No mason, no burglar,' was my conclusion. 'This noise has nothing in common with either the one or the other. Did my old guide speak accurately when he called this "The House of Mystery?" Whether it be such or no, it is not the house for me. I can't sleep in it. I must flit; and I will do so with ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... is there, a burglar stole it. And if the will is not there, some one interested in the disposition of the property walked away with it! ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... encompassed his downfall, had changed a peaceable and law-abiding alien within British shores into a busybody, a trespasser, a misdemeanant, a—yes, for all he knew to the contrary, in the estimation of the Law, a burglar, prime candidate ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... fire Louis Grossman," Abe repeated. "You remember that you drew me up a burglar-proof contract between him and us a few weeks ago, and now I want you to be the burglar and bust it ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... these has been used where the building act does not apply, as in the case of the Newgate prison cells, London, where the outside walls were from 3 to 4 in. thick only, and were absolutely fire and burglar proof. This method consists in using steel dovetailed sheets fixed between small steel stanchions and plastered in cement on both sides. This form of construction was also used at the British pavilion, Paris Exhibition 1900, and has been employed in numerous other ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... collector, in fact—who would then have to keep it secretly at home, and never let a soul besides himself see it, living in the consciousness that at his death it must be found and this theft known; unless, indeed, an ordinary vulgar burglar has taken it without knowing ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... horses for an early start somewhere—rushed in then, and took Drew. He had nothing to say. What could he say? He couldn't say he was a blackguard who'd taken advantage of a poor unprotected girl because she loved him. They found the back door unlocked, by the way, which was put down to the burglar; of course Browne couldn't explain that he came home too muddled ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... cautiously around under them, in the dining-room! Next they heard whoever it was move to the hall door and begin to mount the stairs. As the Judge had no fire-arms, he said he picked up a chair and tiptoed to the head of the stairs, intending to bring it down on the burglar's head when he came within hitting distance. The hall was as black as your hat and he could hear nothing now but his wife's frightened whispers, begging him to come back or the burglar would kill him. Then he heard ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... any danger of being discovered. Quickening his pace, he soon reached the pier, and with the skiff boarded the Greyhound. The night was certainly favorable for the execution of dark deeds. The midnight assassin, the incendiary, or the burglar would have rejoiced in its darkness, its dense black clouds, ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... Sikes (Bill), a burglar, and one of Fagin's associates. Bill Sikes was a hardened, irreclaimable villian,[TN-178] but had a conscience which almost drove him mad after the murder of Nancy, who really loved him (ch. xlviii.) Bill Sikes (1 syl.) had an ill-conditioned ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... voice. Nevertheless, he could not get out of his head the idea that the celebrated sugar refiner, honoured by all Paris, esteemed by everybody, was standing only a step or two away from him now in this house of strange happenings, and under very peculiar circumstances. "Was he a burglar—an assassin? One of a ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... habit of the New York banks in the Wall Street district, and that if the wrecked bank had not followed this law-breaking custom of its competitors the stock brokers would have withdrawn their account. The plea was successful, and the officer escaped with a small fine. Imagine a burglar or a pickpocket urging a plea for clemency based on the general business habits and customs of his criminal confrres! [Footnote: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... It's really never done at all. Bill, for instance, has never locked himself into the dining-room in order to be alone with the sherry. On the other hand, all women, and particularly servants, have a horror of burglars. And if a burglar gets in by the window, they like to limit his activities to that particular room. So they keep the, keys on the outside of the doors, and lock the doors when they go to bed." He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and added, "At least, my ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... investigating committee of Congress was at its work. The principal actors in the case were Mr. Harrington, secretary of the local government and one of Mr. Shepherd's assistants, the chief of police, and a burglar. Harrington produced an anonymous letter, warning him that an attempt would be made in the course of a certain night to purloin from the safe in which they were kept, certain government papers, which the prosecutors of the case against ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... table of Abigail reposed much silver and gold and ivory, wrought by clever artisans into articles of great beauty and some utility; but with scarce a glance the burglar passed them by, directing his course straight across the room to a small wall safe cleverly hidden by ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the publication of the first edition of this volume, Jack Sheppard's adventures have been revived. A novel upon the real or fabulous history of the burglar has afforded, by its extraordinary popularity, a further exemplification of the allegations in the text. The Sixth Report of the Inspector of Prisons for the Northern Districts of England contains a mass of information upon the pernicious effect of such romances, and of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... tell me that my assertion is a mere quibble—that it matters not whether we call a man unselfish or wisely selfish—you fail to see that, when we understand this truth, there is no longer any sin. 'Sin' is then seen to be but a mistaken notion of what brings happiness. Last night's burglar and your bishop differ not morally but intellectually—one knowing surer ways of achieving his own happiness, being more sensitive to that oneness of the race which thrills us all in varying degrees. When you know this—that the difference is not moral but intellectual, ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... even Sir Seitz Siebenburg was puzzled, "though I am always disposed to be grateful to you, I cannot feel a sense of obligation for this lady's reception of me, even to the most gracious benefactress. For, by my patron saint, she forbade me the house as if I were a thief and a burglar." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... this extravagant adventure seized him. He thought that it must be good to be a burglar. Then, as he heard the motor re-started and the car move off, a sudden qualm of disquiet came; for it was tantamount ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... naturally proceed to the practice.' Having, however, been born an honest lad—a mere chance—and being determined to use the talents which nature had given me, eight days afterward I bid my astronomer good-morning, and went to the prefecture. My fear of being a burglar drove me ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... her. "I guess we won't try Stella first," she whispered to Kitty. "Stella's so scary. Once I just said 'boo' at her, and she cried like fury. If we fire pebbles at her window, like as not she'll think it's a burglar and ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... street, and the lovers know that if they try to pass they will be seen. And while they are helping each other think what they can do, somebody else comes slowly down the street, walking in the shadows and looking around to see if he is watched, like a burglar. It is the town clerk, and he has come here just to sing under the window of the goldsmith's daughter the song that he means to sing to-morrow, to see if she will like it and if she will probably give it ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... master[FN230] tells us that the method of instruction adopted by Zen may aptly be compared with that of an old burglar who taught his son the art of burglary. The burglar one evening said to his little son, whom he desired to instruct in the secret of his trade: "Would you not, my dear boy, be a great burglar like myself?" "Yes, father," replied the promising young man." "Come with me, then. ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... reactions, after one of the experiences which made days and nights out of the dreary blanks of the calendar, when his senses were deadened, Paul's head was always singularly clear. Suppose his father had heard him getting in at the window and had come down and shot him for a burglar? Then, again, suppose his father had come down, pistol in hand, and he had cried out in time to save himself, and his father had been horrified to think how nearly he had killed him? Then, again, suppose a day should come when his father would remember ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... natural poets, I suppose," she continued. "A burglar just has to have imagination or he can't climb through the window of a house he has never seen before. He must imagine everything perfectly—the silver on the sideboard, the watch under the pillow, and the butler stealing ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... official news of the extent of the robbery was spread abroad. It appeared that the burglar had by no means done the profession credit, for out of a vast collection of prizes ranging from the vast and silver Mile Challenge Cup to the pair of fives-gloves with which the 'under twelve' disciple of Deerfoot was to be rewarded, ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the Office himself, to put further deals through. The door-keeper thought deeply, but could see no harm in this. The Little Man was thus introduced into the presence, and startled it by pointing to the safe and offering to do burglar on it any night of the week. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... insects, lobsters, and crabs are on the ends and sides of tiny feelers, which they wave about; and the eyes in lobsters, crawfish, and snails, are on the ends of stalks, which they thrust about in all directions as a burglar handles a bull's-eye lantern. Snakes "hear," or catch the sound-waves, with their flickering, forked tongues; and grasshoppers and locusts have "ear-drums" on the sides of ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... been looking on myself in the light of the dashing host, and suddenly to be treated as an intruder jarred me. It wasn't, mark you, as if she had spoken in a way to suggest that she considered my presence in the place as an ordinary social call. She obviously looked on me as a cross between a burglar and the plumber's man come to fix the leak in the bathroom. ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... victim over his ready-made grave, may have argued themselves into self-approval of the crowning rite with which their hospitalities were to terminate: any scampish apprentice with designs upon his master's till, any burglar plotting an entry into a goldsmith's shop, may become convinced of his rectitude of purpose, and even take credit for public-spirited zeal, in seeking to appropriate to his own use part of another's wealth, which he may fairly suppose would be productive of more enjoyment ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... claims which that crisis brought with it,—who better qualified than these to decide on the measures by which the hideous nuisances of that time should be abated; by which that axe, that sword, that rack, that stake, and all those burglar's tools, and highwayman's weapons, should be taken out of the hands of the mad licentious crew with which an evil time had armed them against the common-weal—those weapons of lawless power, which the people had vainly, for want of leaders, refused before-hand to put into their hands. Who better ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... appeasing my appetite. To buy silk pyjamas in cold blood has hitherto seemed to me to be sheer cynical extravagance; but now I feel that circumstances justify me in my action, for it would be a very sorry thing for me to encounter a burglar or cope with a fire clad in apparel that would not be up to the standard of the rest of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... who long ago gave up splashing about decks barefoot, and now check and issue stores to the ravenous, untruthful fleets. Said one of these, guarding a collection of desirable things, to a cross between a sick-bay attendant and a junior writer (but he was really an expert burglar), "No! An' you can tell Mr. So-and-so, with my compliments, that the storekeeper's gone away—right away—with the key of these stores in his pocket. Understand me? In his ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... thought you did not want to be considered a burglar?" she said as she passed hastily in ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... blackleg, leg, welsher [Slang]; defaulter; Autolycus^, Jeremy Diddler^, Robert Macaire, artful dodger, trickster; swell mob [Slang], chevalier d'industrie [Fr.]; shoplifter. swindler, peculator; forger, coiner; fence, receiver of stolen goods, duffer; smasher. burglar, housebreaker; cracksman^, magsman [Slang]; Bill Sikes, Jack Sheppard, Jonathan Wild. gang [group of thieves], gang of thieves, theft ring; organized crime, mafia, the Sicilian Mafia, the mob, la cosa nostra [It]. [famous ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a couple of glasses from the shelf under the machine as he picked up the jug. "A fifteen-year-old burglar." ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... been mightily stirred up that spring, by an attempt to arrest Frank B. Sanborn and carry him forcibly to Washington,—contrary to law, as the Supreme Court of the State decided the following day. The marshal who arrested him certainly proceeded more after the manner of a burglar than of a civil officer, hiding himself with his posse comitatus in a barn close to Sanborn's school-house, watching his proceedings through the cracks in the boards, and finally arresting him at night, just ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... telling, scintillating fragments of his blissful youth; one was of a fox-cub and a terrier; another of a heifer that went mad; the third, and the most thrilling, of a dismissed coachman who turned burglar, and in the dead of night fired shots at old Sir Grant and his sons. In relating these anecdotes, his eye grew moist and his ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... right, Mr. Goring," she replied, throwing herself into a chair and smiling at him sparklingly. "It must be all right. I want my supper so much I should have to accept your invitation even if you were a burglar." ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... shirt off last night, since he remembers distinctly having polished them up a bit with his handkerchief when he retired, and he cannot account for their mysterious disappearance. He has a large and ferocious bulldog on guard outside the castle every night, so he is sure no burglar got in, as the dog made no ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... WORRY ASSISTS IN CONCENTRATING ATTENTION.—The more fireproof the building, and the more stable the other conditions, the greater the efficiency of the inmate. Burglar-proof buildings not only actually induce better sleep, in that possible intrusions are eliminated, but give a state of mental peace by the removal of apprehension. So also, a "germ proof" house is not only really more healthful for an inmate, but eliminates worry ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... "Link is door-keeper in a Dime Museum and Chub is putting in Coal for an old and well-known Firm, but I can see that you are going to outshine your Brothers. You are going to develop into a first-class Burglar." ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... a vault I have had erected upon my grounds. This vault, I assure you, is burglar-proof, weather-proof, cyclone-proof, tornado-proof, bomb-proof. Time will have no effect upon its walls. It could conceivably be thrown free in some great volcanic upheaval but even then the contents ...
— Mr. Chipfellow's Jackpot • Dick Purcell
... an old treasure chest here made of oak, bound with iron; but some years ago, a new receptacle being needed, one was especially built of hardened steel, constructed on the modern principles of those burglar-proof ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... mind crawling upon your hands and knees, you can see my lady's apartments, for that passage communicates with her dressing-room. She doesn't know of it herself, I believe. How astonished she'd be if some black-visored burglar, with a dark-lantern, were to rise through the floor some night as she sat before her looking-glass, having her hair dressed for ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... understands these things that it was not anxiety for the brother but secret, yet insistent sexual wishes which caused the sleeplessness. It is finally significant that, when later she dreamed of a burglar, he always came after her with a knife, or choked her, as her cousin and mother had ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... in through the window like a burglar. It was a good instrument, but hired. Under Lancelot's fingers it sang like a bird and growled like a beast. When the piano was done growling Lancelot usually started. He paced up and down the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... type so well, I can tell by their looks. Lucinda is thinking about their big new palace on Grand Avenue, and she regards everyone outside her set as a burglar trying to break in. And then there's Bertie Stebbins, who's thinking about a new style of collar he saw advertised to-day, and how it would look on him, and what impression it would make on ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... perverse circumstance and unaccountable accident. Though mostly men of fair ability, they are not generally successful. Considering the number of thieves, there are but few great ones. In this "Rogues' Gallery" of the New York Police Commissioners we find the face of a "first-rate" burglar among the ablest of the eighty of whom he is one. He is a German, and has passed twenty years in the prisons of his native land: has that leonine aspect sometimes esteemed a physiognomical attribute of the German, and, with fair enough qualities generally, is without any ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... see him for two days at least,' she said, 'unless I'm either taken very ill or attacked by a burglar. Why, why can't a poor woman be allowed to bring up her own children in ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... for the present, while they walked through the great blank rooms, that absolute vacancy reigned and that, from top to bottom, there was nothing but Mrs. Muldoon's broomstick, in a corner, to tempt the burglar. Mrs. Muldoon was then on the premises, and she loquaciously attended the visitors, preceding them from room to room and pushing back shutters and throwing up sashes—all to show them, as she remarked, how little there was to see. There was little ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... our midst! the irresponsible burglar whose exploits had been narrated in all the newspapers during the past few months! the mysterious individual with whom Ganimard, our shrewdest detective, had been engaged in an implacable conflict amidst interesting and picturesque surroundings. Arsene Lupin, the eccentric ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... effective pistol is modelled on the pattern of the latest type of Revolver, the appearance of which alone is enough to scare a burglar, whilst, when loaded, it will probably prove just as effective as a revolver with real bullets without the danger to life. It takes the standard .22 Calibre Blank Cartridges, that are obtainable most everywhere. Special cash with order offer: 1 superior ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... Maitre Voigt. "The clock-lock it is! There, my son! There you have one more of what the good people of this town call, 'Daddy Voigt's follies.' With all my heart! Let those laugh who win. No thief can steal my keys. No burglar can pick my lock. No power on earth, short of a battering-ram or a barrel of gunpowder, can move that door, till my little sentinel inside—my worthy friend who goes 'Tick, Tick,' as I tell him—says, ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins |
