"Low-down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gin was really made that would take out the seeds they came begging to see the wonderful machine and find out how it worked; and of course Mr. Whitney had to show it off. He hadn't a notion people would be so low-down as to snitch his idea and go to making cotton gins of their own. But that's exactly what they did do and as soon as Mr. Whitney and Mr. Miller who was helping him got wise to the fact, they locked the new cotton gin up. But do you s'pose that did any good? ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... that isn't a low-down way to dig out of me what is purely my own business!" exclaimed Tom Reade, ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... and had only friendly feelings toward them; but maybe there's some people still alive back there in that county who can remember what the reason was why I should naturally hate and despise both the Tatums, and especially this Jess Tatum, him being if anything the more low-down one of the two, although the youngest. At this late day I don't aim to drag the name of any one else into this, especially a woman's name, and her now dead and gone and in her grave; but I will just say that if ever a man had a just cause for craving to see Jess Tatum ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... call that war! It wasn't war," declared Jowett spasmodically, grasping the rail of the fire-engine as the wheel struck a stone and nearly shot them from their seats. "It wasn't war. It was terrible low-down treachery. That Gipsy gent, Fawe, pulled the lever, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... describe afterward. There was a hullabaloo that brought half the mothers of the neighborhood into the yard. The doctor was sent for. Margery was put to bed and Kent and Lydia were mentioned as murderers, low-down brats and coarse little brutes by Mrs. Marshall, who ended by threatening them ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... understand. This young person is nothing but a common ruffian, a gambler, in fact, and an habitue at the saloons. I have seen him myself sitting in a saloon at a very late hour playing with a vile, dirty pack of cards, and in the company of a lot of low-down creatures—" ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... there. He says if there's anything on top of the earth he absolutely despises it's a gossiping man. He says a gossiping woman is a creation of God—must be, there's so many of 'em; but a gossiping man—he can't find any word in the dictionary mean enough for that sort of a low-down skunk." ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... last motive to stimulate you in the pursuit of Holiness, I will name self-interest. That may seem rather a low-down motive, seeing that Holiness, which is perfect love, is the extreme opposite of that selfishness which is the essence or root of all sin. It seems like a paradox or contradiction to say that self-denial can harmonize with enjoyment; and yet it is true. A man does advance his highest interests ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... altogether too long, and I for one ain't going to do it no longer. What do you say, gentlemen?" he continued, turning to his companions, "shall we trifle with our luck, and lower our self-respect any longer by tolerating the company of that there disreputable, low-down, miserable coyote? I go for boycotting him. Let him work his own claim and sleep in his own cabin if he wants to, but don't let him intrude himself into this saloon or ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... meeting him squarely, and taking a tighter grip of her stick. "I ain't ever seen you hit anything but a woman, an' a girl, or some poor animal that didn't dare bite back. You're a coward, Jed Hawkins, a low-down, sneakin,' whiskey-sellin' coward—and ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... woodnt say, come like the dickens or skin them alive or enny of that kind of talk. It is al-rite fer boys who are used to ruffin it, but it is not nice fer girls so if I was you I wood go easy on it, and hot dogs aint machine guns, they are sausidges that are made from those low-down german dogs that heve short legs, but say they test buly in a roll. The vilets and pollywogs have come and I wood send you some but I guess they wood dry up before you got them. Ennyway you neednt worry ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... Jason attempted to yoke The fire-breathing bulls to the plow He smeared his whole body with garlic,—a joke Which I fully appreciate now. When Medea gave Glauce her beautiful dress, In which garlic was scattered about, It was cruel and rather low-down, I confess, But it settled the ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... of it," demurred Ritchie. "No, sir. I said that if ever I found out who played that mean, low-down trick on Upton, the culprit or I would leave ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... had left the Palestine. Say, sling that dirty old pipe overboard, and take one of these cigars. The skipper will be on deck presently, and the sight of it would rile him terrible. He hez his new wife aboard, and she considers pipes ez low-down." ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... to your old Dad: There are some things in this world not to be got around. I'm one of 'em. Peggy Stewart and Polly Howland are thoroughbreds an' thoroughbreds ain't capable of no low-down snobbishness. They know their places in the world and there's nothing open to discussion. An' they're too fine-grained to scratch other folks the wrong way. But, some of them girls up yonder are cross-breeds—oh, yes, I've ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... 'You low-down monkey!' Goldwater almost flung his brush into the poet's face. 'You compare my wife to a kangaroo! Take your filthy manuscript and ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... about the "Low-down Wilkes," have I? They're the pleasantest people in Three Meadows and we're very clubby. The nice old maid on the wharf at Bath told me about them and advised me to have the woman do my washing, but warned me that I should have ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... low-down, no-account man like me even laugh where there's happiness? Why, if that young feller goes to work an' spoils it all by kickin' the bucket, I'd ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... I reckon—that I'm a pushing, uneducated common bounder that's just using this religious business to shove himself along with; that's kidding all these poor old ladies that 'e believes in their bunkum, and is altogether about as low-down a fellow as you're likely to meet with. That's about the ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Rich, but nevertheless Detestable, because his Family had drilled into him the low-down Habit of getting the Jump on ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... me, and we talked of many things. We talked, that is, of the weather, with reference to the crops, and his rheumatism. What else in the world was there to talk of? He read no paper and heard no news and was of no politics; and if it can be said that he had a philosophy of life it was a low-down one, about on a level with that of a solitary old dog-badger who lives in an earth he has excavated for himself with infinite pains in a strong stubborn soil—his home and refuge in a ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... ignorance of bowling phenomena, wandered casually through a little door into what must always be termed the wrong end of a bowling alley. Of course, he saw that the supreme moment had come. They were not only shooting at the hat and at him, but the low-down cusses were using the most extraordinary and hellish ammunition. Still, perfectly undaunted, however, Jim retorted with his two Colts, and killed three of the best bowlers in ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... always say about me, isn't it?" he snapped back. "But I don't suppose I should expect any kinder interpretation of my motives." To Alice he said, "I'm sorry I had to slap your burnt fingers, sister, but you can't say I didn't warn you about my low-down tactics." Then to me again: "I do hate war, Ray. It's just murder on a bigger scale, though some of the boys ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... feel better. They've both got it coming—come on!" This because Weary showed a strong inclination to take the trail and keep it to his destination. "Well, I'll go alone, then. I've got to kinda square myself for the way I threw it into Andy; and you know blamed well, Weary, they played it low-down on him, or they'd never have got that rope on him. And I'm going to ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... them that the Christians had been deceived by the "foreign devils," who were an ignorant, low-down lot of people, and that they should be driven out and go and live with the Americans who had corrupted them. There was nothing in the Bible about independence and "Mansei." Three thousand cavalry and three thousand infantry were coming to destroy all the ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... makin' de kernel like any o' de low-down No'th'n folks—keerful, and stingy, and mighty 'fraid o' de opinions o' de biggety people. And fo' what? Jess to strut round wid dat child like he was her 'spectable go ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... you dogs! you scoundrels! you miserable, low-down ruffians you! Oh, that I should have lived to see this day! Thankful am I that my father and grand-father are safe in their graves! This would have broken their hearts. Why, you horrible villains,—do you mean to ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... insisted Uncle Martin as they paused at the parting of their ways. "Low-down, underhanded work—do you get ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... grateful I am to you,' he said. 'It's a bit low down, perhaps, but, then, we were dealing with a low-down person. You thoroughly deserve those diamonds—will you accept an offer for them from me? I should like to buy them for Miss Roberts and present them to her on our reconciliation.' We came to terms then ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Squire Kirby an' Mr. Earle, him that lives in that big white house they call Freedom Hill, up the road whar you been workin', they headed the petition. They are the richest folks 'round here. They heered the trial, Tom. They know you was set upon in that low-down place. Mr. Earle, he went to the capitol with me to see the governor. Him and the governor are ol' friends. Mr. Earle, he bought my railroad ticket and paid my board in Greenville. He talked to the governor for over an hour.... But"—she shook ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... his house to be crowned f'r his gloryous deeds, an' sarves him with a warrant f'r batin' his wife. 'Tis not in th' nature iv things that it shudden't be so. We'd all perish iv humilyation if th' gr-reat men iv th' wurruld didn't have nachral low-down thraits. If they don't happen to possess thim, we make some up f'r thim. We allow no man to tower over us. Wan way or another we level th' wurruld to our own height. If we can't reach th' hero's head we cut off his legs. It always makes me feel aisier about mesilf whin I r-read how bad Julius ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... said Wingarde, coming suddenly out of his reverie. "What is the usual thing to do? Cut our names on the gate-post? Rather a low-down ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... there beside him, huggin' her knees and listenin' with both ears. I didn't like to think about it, for she was a nice little yearlin', and it looked to me like Mike was up to his usual devilment. Seemed like a low-down trick to play on an injunoo like her, and the more I studied it the warmer I got. It was a wonderful night; the moonlight drenched the valley, and there was the smell of camp-fires and horses over everything—just the sort of a night for a guitar, just the ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... "If there's one low-down jack within fifty mile of us on high ground, he'll have us spotted for certain," she rebuked. "Great fire—great ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... Holyoke at all when you thought I was at Hal's. I did go to Hal's but I only stayed two days. The rest of the time I was with Madeline and knew I was going to be when I left the Hill. That part can't look any worse to you than it does to me. It was a low-down trick to play on you when you had been so white about the car and everything. But I did it and I can't undo it. I can only say I am sorry. I did try afterward to make up a little bit by keeping my word about ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... "A dirty, low-down trick," commented Mike. "I'll hang it back on the peg just now, but don't use it again fer ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... it bearing the unilluminative and commonplace first name of Elmer or Lemuel, or perhaps it was Jasper. Just which one of these or some other I forgot now, but no matter; at least it was some such. One evening a low-down terra-cotta-colored Piute swiped two of Mr. Watkins' paint ponies and by stealth, under cover of the cloaking twilight, went away with them into the far mysterious spaces ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... Peterson, let me ask you a question; answer me as a man of sense. Which makes the best general—the man who leads the charge straight up to the intrenchments, yellin': 'Come on, boys!'—or the one who says, very likely shaking a revolver in their faces: 'Get in there, ye damn low-down privates, and take that fort, and report to me when I've finished my breakfast'? Which one of those two men will the soldiers do the most for? For the one they like best, Mr. Peterson, and don't forget it. And which one of these are they going to like best, ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... hand-and-glove with him. Now Nelie, I don't want to interfere with you anyway and I won't if you say the word. But I never felt just righte about that fellow, and what I done long ago to make you tollerate him, and now I want to make it up to you if I can. He is a common low-down person, and he isn't fit to speake to you, and I hope you wont speake to him. The divorce, the way I look at it, don't make any difference; hese just as much married as what he ever was, and if he had never been married atoll, it wouldn't of made any difference as far as I feel about ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... calling the roll, I—I don't seem to have any friends." The schoolma'am was twirling the Montana sapphire ring which Weary had given her last spring, and her voice was trembly and made Happy Jack feel vaguely that he was a low-down cur and ought ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... I can remember are when I was selling Featherlooms, and you were out for the Sans-Silk Skirt Company, both covering the same territory, and both running a year-around race to see which could beat the other at his own game. The only difference was that I always played fair, while you played low-down ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... and children hongry. The niggers didn't belong to them nohow, and they had to live somehow. But now and then they was a devil on earth, walking in the sight of God and spreading iniquity before him. He was de low-down Sesesh dat would take what a poor runaway nigger had to give for his chance to git away, and den give him 'structions dat would lead him right into de hands of de patrollers and git him caught ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... of orders before I ever again undertake to act the low-down part of a spy," he reflected, bitterly. At the same time he was wondering how he should manage to escape the kindly but embarrassing attentions of these new-found friends, and reach Daiquiri in time to communicate with ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... dad is in that. We have to guard 'em at night. She ain't had no good word for any of us since she's been up there. Every time she looks at a feller she makes you feel like you was somethin' low-down—a snake, ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... complimented Kettle on the achievement, the little sailor had coldly replied that he was only carrying out his duty and earning his pay. And he had further mentioned that it was lucky for Commandant Balliot that he was a common, low-down Britisher, and not a fancy Belgian, or he would have thought of his own skin first, and steamed on comfortably down river and just contented himself with making a report. The white engineer of the launch—a drunken Scot—had, it seemed, been killed in ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... difficulty. He wandered into the Lone Star, and placing his crude bullion upon the counter, swept about him a comprehensive hand. To his wonder there was no response. A few of the assembled populace shifted uneasily in their seats, but none arose. "Do you take this for a low-down placer camp?" asked Billy Hudgens, with a dull show of pride, when McGinnis ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... he confessed. "I wouldn't have complained at anything he'd asked me to do, but it was a low-down trick to get Katharine into this trouble." His eyes shone out with a dull anger. ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that these yere bad men are a low-down, miserable proposition, and plain, cold-blood murderers, willin' to wait for a sure thing, and without no compunctions whatsoever. The bad man takes you unawares, when you're sleepin', or talkin', or drinkin', ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... fact," said the young man, "I've always rather hushed up my first name, because when I was christened they worked a low-down trick on me!" ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... "Reel home-grown, low-down, unwashed Whitechapel!" I had heard Maguire remark within. "Blamed if our Bowery boys ain't cock-angels to scum like this. Ah, you biter, I wouldn't soil my knuckles on your ugly face; but if I had my thick boots on I'd dance the soul out of your ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... 'en you gwine ter feel fus' rate long ez you sticks ter me. Fer I's a better man dan dat low-down runaway nigger Primus dat you be'n ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... don't care how much it costs. It will be ample satisfaction to see just one low-down chicken ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... chance all right," predicted Herb. "Ten to one they're framing up some low-down game to play on us whenever they find an opening. Maybe they'll try to put our radio set out of commission, just as they stole Jimmy's set and ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... to take Tom up North," he declared, with promptness and decision. "He 's a good enough boy, but too smart to trust among those low-down abolitionists. I strongly suspect him of having learned to read, though I can't imagine how. I saw him with a newspaper the other day, and while he pretended to be looking at a woodcut, I 'm almost sure he was reading the paper. I think it by no means ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... she didn't want me to know was the fact of her first escapade with the fellow called Jimmy. She had arrived at figuring out the sort of low-down Bowery tough that that fellow was. Do you know what it is to shudder, in later life, for some small, stupid action—usually for some small, quite genuine piece of emotionalism—of your early life? Well, it was that sort of shuddering that came over Florence at the thought that ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... got talking pretty freely about old times. I gathered that this man that took the little girl is a pretty big man around here. Of course I wasn't expecting anything like that; I thought naturally he'd be a low-down sort to have been mixed up in a thing ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... kidding. Why, last night, in the club car of my train, three tables of bridge players could scarcely play a hand for wisecracking about the dangers of being dummy!... Well, boy, now that I've talked myself past the worst shock, suppose you give me the low-down. But I warn you I'm going to take ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... a time when a low-down person, colored or white, couldn't stay in the community. They would give him a ticket and send him ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... I nade something softer soon or I'll get as tough as a railway contractor. I suppose ye'd call it a soft job running a train where a herd of—no, ye didn't hear what I called them, Miss Tressa—where a filthy, low-down gang of craters dressed up like men and walking on their hind legs, is running loose. Lifted about four miles of rail, they did. This locomotive engineer's been doing railway building for half a day; and if ye could do my job as well as I can do yours, Torrance, there'd be no ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... stumbling block in the way of a chap who is trying to get out of his old rut. But it passes my comprehension how he can change, and play fair and square, when all his life he's been so tricky and low-down mean." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... Margery. I told her we thought it was low-down to tell stories. And Peggy just laughed and said they wouldn't act so stiff as to tell the truth all the time.—Miss Margery, when are you going there again? I do want to go with you. The baby has a new tooth coming. You can feel it. I want to see it ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... don't want to hog it. Wouldn't do that fer the world. So if yer short, I can put up with seventy-five—" (he studied the other's face), "an' I might do with fifty. I 'preciate your position, an' I ain't low-down critter ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... I. "It was my business to. Of all the low-down things any man ever done in all his life, that's what you done now. ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... her. There is a mood in which a deprivation of high comedy may drive one to low-down farce. To-day people are even going farther. A worthy stage is dead, they say; and they patronize, somewhat willfully and contemptuously (or with a loose, slack tolerance that is worse), the moving pictures. Perhaps it was in some such mood ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... growing dangerously red in the face, "don't you shake no meat in MY face like that! Don't you dare do it! I won't have no butcher shake meat in MY face. You low-down beef-killer. That's ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... ain't forgettin' yer ginerel soft style and easy gait with me when you kem here. It ain't every man as could walk into another man's house arter the owner of it had grabbed a gun, ez soft-speakin', ez overlookin', and ez perlite ez you. I've acted mighty rough and low-down, and I know it. And I sent for you to say that you and your folks kin use this house and all that's in it ez long ez you're in trouble. I've told you why I couldn't sell the house to ye, and why ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... to apologise," said the lad, toying nervously with his teaspoon. "I guess you think I'm a mean, low-down sort o' guy, an' you're right, only I—I feel worse 'n you think. An' say, Geoff, if I—if I said anything th' other night, I want ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... figgered! Just bouncin' a low-down var mint ain't offense enough to be throwed out about, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... gwine to," said Peggy, "but I seed 'em, an' I tore down de road to de gate whar dey wos gittin ready to fight, an' I jes' let dat dar Mister Crof' know wot low-down white trash Miss Rob think he wos, an' den he said ef dat war so 'twant no use fur to come in, an' he turn' roun' de buggy, an' cl'ar'd out. Den Mahs' Junius he come to de house, an' dar Miss Rob in de parlor waitin' fur him. I stood jes' outside de doh', so's to be out de way, ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... Siner cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy for his stupidity in ever trading with that low-down, twisting snake in the grass, Henry Hooker. She alternated this with floods of tears. Caroline had no sympathy for her offspring. She said she had thrown away years of self- sacrifice, years of washing, a thousand little comforts her money would have bought, all for nothing, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... an ideal citizen!' I was addressing myself, 'A first chop specimen of a low-down idiot,—to connive at the escape of the robber who's been robbing Paul. Since you've let the villain go, the least you can do is to leave a card on the Apostle, and inquire how ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... way, too," replied Wade. "But it doesn't pay, an' yet I still kept on bein' that way.... Belllounds, my name's as bad as good all over western Colorado. But as man to man I tell you—I never did a low-down trick in my life.... ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... then. I've never forgot him since. He came ambling out of the back of the hall, a lanky, gawky looking man, ridiculously ugly, sir. But the moment he opened his mouth he had us spellbound. The language which your low-down lawyer used was that of a God-sent prophet, sir. He had those Illinois bumpkins all worked up,—the women crying, and some of the men, too. And mad! Good Lord, they were mad—'We will say to the Southern disunionists,' he cried,—'we will say to the Southern disunionists, we won't go out ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Silver; "I'm glad to see you. Yes, it seemed to me that the West was accumulating a little too much wiseness. I've been saving New York for dessert. I know it's a low-down trick to take things from these people. They only know this and that and pass to and fro and think ever and anon. I'd hate for my mother to know I was skinning these weak-minded ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... hotels, or adopt the professions of barber, or boot-black, or open oysters in saloons, or sell villainous liquors to the lower classes of German and Irish emigrants, who throng our large cities and towns. The negroes even have their own streets, and their own low-down kennels; they have their hospitals, their churches, their cars, upon which are written in large letters, "FOR COLORED PEOPLE!" Finally, they are forced to have their own grave-yards—the yellow remains of Northern Abolitionists, and pious white men, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... 'I wouldn' 'spec' ter be 'vited ter de weddin',—a common, low-down fiel'-han' lak I is. But I's glad ter heah you en Jeff is gittin' 'long so well. I didn' knowed but w'at he had 'mence' ter ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... smiled his distorted smile—"and then a low-down black man helped me to get away as soon as he saw who it was. He's a friend of mine, and he fell down and tripped up ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... I reckon Bruce was drunk an' out of his haid. He's shore ate his words. Now, we don't want any cripples in this camp. Let him alone. Your dad got me heah to lead the Jorths, an' that's my say to you.... Simm, you're shore a low-down lyin' rascal. Keep away from Ellen after this or I'll bore you myself.... Jorth, it won't be a bad idee for you to forget you're a Texan till you cool off. Let Bruce stop some Isbel lead. Shore the Jorth-Isbel war is aboot ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... 'Which if you-all'd struck camp by way of Tucson, instead of skulkin' upon us in the low-down fashion you does along of the Lordsburg-Red Dog buckboard, you wouldn't have to ask none. He's the offishul drunkard of Arizona, Monte is. Which the same should be notice, too, that it's futile for you to go ropin' ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... baffled from his gun-pits far away, Low-down, well south, an angry foe doth roar, He opens out again upon another day And rakes the slope with shrapnel as before. But only working parties on the top are found, The rest, save A.M.C., ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... "The low-down, ruffianly swab!" Drake burst out. "But there! that's just the sort of beast he looks. Well, Mr Frobisher, if, as you say, he dislikes you—and from the way he looked at you I should say that 'hate' was ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... with pride and rage. "And there are the Fosters on the upper deck,—people I know. Come, Jim, let's cut off before they see us with this low-down chump." ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... head. The main lines of the interior are finely severe, either quite round or quite flat, and proportions good always. An upholstered priest coming out to say mass is generally a sickening sight, so wicked and ugly in look and costume. The best-behaved people are the low-down beggars, who are most ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... good cheer Till he struck that low-down year; Got so thin, so little to him, You could most see day-light through him. Never was his eye so bright, Never was his cheek so white. Seemed as if somethin' was wrong, Sort o' quaver in his song. Same old smile, same hearty voice: "Bless you, boys! let's all rejoice!" But old Doctor shook his ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... I wouldn't be bullied. Afterwards, when I offered to let the nigger go, the colonel wouldn't have it so. I shall always believe he bribed one of my men to get the nigger off, and then turned him loose to run amuck among the white people and shoot my boy and my overseer. It was a low-down performance, and unworthy of a gentleman. No really white man would treat another white man so. You can tell him I say it's a judgment that's fallen on him to-day, and that it's not the last one, and that he'll be sorrier yet that he didn't stay where he was, with his nigger-lovin' notions, instead ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... "Oh, y' ornery, mean, low-down, sneakin' coyote!" He took a long, leaping step over the things on the floor—a step in the direction of the longshoreman. As he sprang, he shifted his tobacco quid from one cheek to the other. "Say! I'm plumb chuck-full o' y'r goin's-on! I'm stuffed with y'r fool pre-form-ances! I'm ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... triflin', low-down houn' dawg, he didn't show up at all, but we had a magnificious occasion wivout ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... Carroll, quite honestly. "I would hate to think anything low-down of a man you'd ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... that scoundrel an' locate him properly in hell, he'll do it without my help. By the Lord Almighty, I'll never tell what I know. An' this paper goes to ashes here. Oh, Caesar! If I could only burn up the recollection that I was ever low-down an' money-grubbin' enough to collute with such as him for business. I'm danged glad I had that quarter kep' in Leigh's name 'stead of Jim's. That's why Thomas Smith threatened and didn't act. He didn't dare to ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Peter!" exclaimed Eustace in tones of disgust. "I'm jolly glad I wasn't there; it would have made me feel a low-down black-fellow if Herbert had apologized to me. I don't think Peter behaved like a white man, and I mean to tell him so, too, when I get ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... Lordy! Oh, he nevah done thet afo'e! He'll be took to jail! Oh, Demming, how cyould ye? Stealin' chickens, jes' like a low-down, no-'cyount niggah!" Sobs choked her voice, and tears of fright and shame were streaming ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... fer a fact, and they can't no low-down whisky bum beat him fer jedge, neither—'specially ef they count on using niggers to do it with. You see the race am so mighty close, that all the booze bosses is a telling the niggers that they is got the 'ballunce uf power' as they calls it and it's up ter them ter elect a jedge fer whisky, ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... could bear up against a world in arms. Look at Jem Belcher—beautiful, heroic Jem, a manlier Byron—but there, this is not an essay on the old prize-ring, and one man's lore is another man's bore. Let us pass those three low-down, unjustifiable, fascinating volumes, and ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... me; I won't stand it. And don't you call me gov'ner. I won't have your low-down street slang in my office. So you're the great bull, eh? you bull-pup! you bull in a china shop! The great bull-calf, you mean. Where'd you get the money for all this cussedness? Where'd you get the money? Tell me that. ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... with not wholly steady hand that the old man hastened to replace the picture, all the while telling himself what he thought of himself: more low-down than the cat who plays with the mouse, meaner than the man who'd take the bone from the dog, less to be loved than the man who would kick over the child's play-house, only to be compared with the brute who would snatch the cup of water from the dying—such ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... not know about it. She is so religious she won't be any of the villain parts. When we want her to be anything real low-down, we have to do it on the sly. She would no more consent to a band of dark-browed gypsies than ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... take care of me when I'm sick—an' dey take care of me when I'm well—an' I gwine to stay right here. But you? You jes' go on wid de Yankees, an' black der boots. Dey'll free you," and Uncle Billy's voice rose in prophetic tones—"an you'll keep on blackin' boots! Go 'long now, you low-down, dollar-an'-a-quarter nigger!" as Jeems Henry backed away. "Go long wid yo' Yankee marsters—and git yo' ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... said his plump friend. "After you've eaten one, you'll feel so grateful to me that you'll regret all the low-down things you've ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... worst taunts on such occasions was about like this: "Well, you is a low-down nigger, I must say. Nobody, to look at you, would b'lieve you was ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... go near the dirty oilcan's place, And crawl around that snippy brat of his, I'll kick you out into the street to stay. You hear that? Eight out in the street you go! The nerve! The dirty, lousy, low-down crook! A Bootleg gettin' stuck-up over money! The world is crazy, that's all there is to it! Crazy, I tell you! All ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... to win when you play with loaded dice. I get boiling mad when I think of these low-down, worthless rascals who don't stop at any meanness, ready to commit murder for fifteen cents. They ought to be treated worse than rattlesnakes. But, as you said just now, all this don't help Will Cummins. But Will is all right, John. You know that as ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... Bill, looking down upon them, "I was shore powerful glad to meet you-all. An' I'm ashamed of my country—offerin' two sich purty gurls insults an' low-down tricks. But shore you'll go through safe now. You couldn't be in better company fer ridin' or huntin' or marryin' ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... of the noble Red Man," Jakey was apostrophising the distant mountains in ornate language; "what kind of a low-down bird are you, to be gathered in by a goose, and a blue one at that?" Jakey paused, gazing earnestly at the retreating figure of the miner. Then, shaking his fist at the man's back, "Look here, ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... times, we never had more than just enough for the bare necessities of life. My father, as I told you, was a shepherd—a strong, fine-looking man over six feet in height, and as broad-chested as a Hercules—he herded sheep on the mountains for a Glasgow dealer, as low-down a rascal as ever lived, a man who, so far as race and lineage went, wasn't fit to scrape mud off my father's boots. But we often see gentlemen of birth obliged to work for knaves of cash. That was the way it was with my father. As soon as I was old enough—about ten,—I helped ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Mistah Swift!" exclaimed the darkey. "Jest let dat low-down-good-fo-nuffin' Andy Foger come 'round me, an' Ah'll make him t'ink he's de inside ob a chicken coop, dat's ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... "I am a man of high aspirations and peregrinations and can have nothing to do with such low-down scopangers as yourself. Good ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... numbers of the trolleys. At the sound of the whistle, though, I fell to thinking of Mihanovich. What a romance that man's life must have been! They tell me that about forty years ago he'd landed in that place, a Russian Pole, ignorant of the language, without any money or friends, a low-down beach-comber. And here he was, a millionaire. Every tug on the river has his big M on the funnel. He had fleets of steamers, mines, railways, banks; and he was even tendering for the contract of the new docks the city wanted. No wonder others came to make their fortunes. No gentility ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... father she was going to marry 'im. As the old gentleman was about to be married 'imself, he 'ated to share the prominence with 'er. So he said he'd disown 'er if she even thought of marrying a low-down circus rider. That was enough for Mary. She up and run off with Tom and got married to 'im in a jiffy, beating 'er father to the altar ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... it's like religion," he answered. "At first it makes you feel all low-down like, and miserable, and you don't care. Then you either get over it entirely or become so used to it you don't feel ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... a fellow would descend to such a trick!" exclaimed the indignant Josh; "but then Tony Pollock and his crowd are ready to do anything low-down and crooked. They'll never be able to join our scout troop, ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... in Dan de Quille, Mark's closest friend, to act the part of Judas—to tell Mark privately that he, was going to be presented with a fine pipe, so that he could have a speech prepared in reply to Pope's. It was awful low-down in Dan. We arranged to have the affair come off in the saloon beneath the Opera House ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... indignantly, "It's murder then—just plain, low-down murder. If you hold me here and let Morse fall into a death trap without warning him, you're as responsible as if you shot ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Saunders, 'I heard the old lady Eastman say, that the next time she sees her minister, she is going to lecture him for getting that low-down, vulgar man in the pulpit. Why, his talk was awful. Mrs. Reamy and Mrs. Roberts said they would have both got up in church and walked out, only it would cause so much disturbance. Two girls came in to ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... are the ones who pay his salary, and if he can't preach the things we want to hear, he'll find himself going hungry, or forced to dig along with those he is so worried about. I don't find anything in the Bible that tells me to associate with every low-down person in the city, and I guess I'm as good a Christian ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... getting put into a crate for the Jubilee; by Jove, Bunny, we ought to be there. I wouldn't lean forward in Piccadilly, old chap. If you're seen I'm thought of, and we shall have to be jolly careful at Kellner's.... Ah, there it is! Did I tell you I was a low-down stage Yankee at Kellner's? You'd better be another, while ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... happened in 1890. Maybe the way I got into it will explain how most train robbers start in the business. Five out of six Western outlaws are just cowboys out of a job and gone wrong. The sixth is a tough from the East who dresses up like a bad man and plays some low-down trick that gives the boys a bad name. Wire fences and "nesters" made five of them; a ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... hips. "I hain't used to no such trash. When anybody has lived with the highest nobility they can't stomach such low down niggers. Why, I used to have 'em kneelin' at my feet, four or five at a time, askin' what I'd have for dinner. And that poor, iggorent, low-down cook in the kitchen told me jest now I lied about Prince Arthur, that there never wuz such a prince, and I sez to her, 'How any black nigger can stand makin' bakin' powder biscuit and tell such lies is a mystery ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... and often groundless fears are dignified by the name of "phobias." A man who is afraid of everything should not be dubbed a low-down coward—he is simply afflicted with "pantaphobia." It doesn't cost a bit more to be scientific and it ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... said one word to Vose or his associates about this business of the documents. They think you have come because you wanted to straighten out a low-down trick worked by an understrapper. So this has put you in mighty well with ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the way of that return—what was the answer? The answer, to Jimmy's way of thinking, was that all was not well with James Crocker, that, when all the evidence was weighed, James Crocker would appear to be a fool, a worm, a selfish waster, and a hopeless, low-down, skunk. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Walter Loring as the man who really quelled the panic, if not a mutiny, and saved the lives of a score of helpless men and women, that officer stood accused before his comrades of the army of breach of trust, of mean embezzlement, of low-down theft and trickery, and not a man could he name to help to prove him innocent. Blake, to be sure, was at Yuma, but what could he establish save that the stage had been attacked, Loring left alone, and when the cavalry returned there lay the Engineer ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... do with the lynching. That had been done by some cowboys who were in town the day before, and the fellow they 'd done for was an ornery cuss of a half-breed Mexican, who was a whole lot better off dead than alive, anyway. He tried to play some low-down game on 'em at poker, and they just strung him up and rode off. Some of our fellows heard about it, and three or four of us decided it would be a good thing to let Coolidge know what ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... I'm nothing of the kind," spiritedly replied the under-dog. "You all time wanting somebody to call theirselfs someping. You're a low-down Isabella skunk yourself." ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... Boyle had needed anything more to stir him to the fighting point, that one sentence admirably supplied the lack. "Yuh low-down skunk!" he cried, and struck him full upon the insulting, smiling mouth. "If I was as rotten-minded as you are, I'd go drown myself in the stalest alkali hole I could find. I dunno why I'm dirtying my hands on yuh—yuh ain't fit to be clubbed to death with a tent ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... men? No! it wuz dogs barkin' an' crows cawin' an' wolves whinin' an' rabbits squeakin'. Sech ez them would never come up ag'in a white man's rifle. I hear the wind blowin' too, but it don't bring me no sound 'cept that uv dogs barkin', low-down curs that would run away from a chipmunk with their tails atween their legs. I'm gittin' mighty tired now uv waitin' fur them that called theirselves warriors, but are nothin' but old squaws in war paint. ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... low-down thing to say, but I couldn't help lettin' it come. I didn't wait for any more remarks from either of 'em, but I grabs my hat and makes a dash across lots. I never stopped runnin' until I fetched the station, and it wasn't until after the train pulled ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... tired! What I borrowed from pop I'll pay back. The low-down thing I did was to take that string of diamonds away from Barney. He slipped 'em to me that night as we were on the way to the preacher's to get married. Married! Do you think I really wanted to marry that man! ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... you mean?" inquired the other. "I'm as sore as can be about losing my lovely six-pronged buck, and knocked over all by myself, too. Wouldn't I just like to give it to that low-down liar of a Si Kedge, though, for saying that was his bullet, when anybody could see that it came from my rifle? Why, he only pinked the deer in the neck, because I could see the mark. Oh! the thieves, the miserable skunks, to cheat me out of my prize! I'll never, never ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... appeal to me," she said, drily. "Any party that adopted such means would completely alienate my sympathies. No, my dear Sir Leslie, don't stoop to such low-down means. Mannering is honest, but infatuated. Win him back by fair means, if you can, but don't attempt anything of the sort you are suggesting. I, too, know his history, from his own lips. Any one who tried to use it against him, would ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Why, you're nothing but a low-down lout, a thief—" and Manuel was advancing against El Carnicerin, when one of the fellow's friends gave him a punch in the head that stunned him. The boy made another attempt to rush upon the butcher's son; two or three guests pushed him out of the way and shoved him out ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... that sings all the time, and a small dog—oh, such a low-down, ill-bred, tousled dog; kind of a dog that might have been raised around a lumber-yard—was, probably—one ear gone, half of his tail missing; and there are some pots of flowers, and on the wall near the window where everybody can see is a case of butterflies impaled on pins and covered ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a clove. 'I want to find a boarding house where the proprietress was an orphan found in a livery stable, whose father was a dago from East Austin, and whose grandfather was never placed on the map. I want a scrubby, ornery, low-down, snuff-dipping, back-woodsy, piebald gang, who never heard of finger bowls or Ward McAllister, but who can get up a mess of hot cornbread and Irish ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... thought being given to the man who hated A. Etheridge like poison? I could name a certain chap who more than once in the old days boasted that he'd like to kill the fellow. And it wasn't Scoville or any one of his low-down stamp either. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... man like William Jones. What do you think he does, sir? Why, he looks me over, from head to foot, in a blank sort of a way, and then, turning to the policeman, he says: 'I don't know the man, officer; never seen him before'; then that low-down plumber walks out and leaves me there and goes back, and in a minute I hear him and Bella Dougherty ...
— Frictional Electricity - From "The Saturday Evening Post." • Max Adeler
... I done had my eye on Pete's chillen ever sence dey mammy died, an' ef dey ever was a set o' onery, low-down, sassy, no-'count little niggers dat need takin' in hand by a able-bodied step-mammy, dey a-waitin' fur me right yonder in Pete's cabin. My hand has des nachelly itched to take aholt o' dat crowd many a day—an' ever sence I buried Numa of co'se I see de way was ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... hyar fool women, sweetheart," he said. "They hain't nothin' but low-down trash nohow— They're jealous, but thar's some right upstandin' men-folks hyar fer ye ter keep company with. I reckon fust off ye needs a leetle ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... scratching, and worrying to find some of the secrets of this mighty big land. We've sweated and cussed till even the flies and skitters must have been ashamed. I figger we've lit right on top of a big secret here, and—well, I don't fancy being bluffed out of it by any low-down bum of a half-breed. That feller wants to be quit of us. He's bluffing. We've hit the camp with the neches out. Do you get that? If they'd bin around we wouldn't have seen any Louis Creal. We'd have had all the lead poisoning the neches could have handed us. Wait ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... everything— what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been of some service to people who ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... with one window high up over the water; there was an iron bolt on the door, and the walls of bare logs were solid. Waring stood his gun in one corner, and laid his pistols by the side of the bed,—for there was a bed, only a rude framework like a low-down shelf, but covered with mattress and sheets none the less,—and his weary body longed for those luxuries with a longing that only the wilderness can give,—the wilderness with its beds of boughs, and no undressing. The bolt and the logs shut him in safely; he was young ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... be horrible," I said, "if I found out I wasn't a ffrench at all—but had really sprung from a low-down, capital F family in the next ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... in a minute. You-all see it wa'r this way: After you-all left for home, yesterday, it wa'r found how some low-down sneaks got wind of this claim and planned to ride up at once. It looked a lot like claim-jumpin', so we-all got together mighty quick and rode after them to spare the Lord any trouble in judgin' 'em. Also, we-all reckoned to save your party any nonsense over the gold, ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Ed Meyers' round face expressed righteous reproof, pain, and surprise. "You and I may have had a word, now and then, and I will say that you dealt me a couple of low-down tricks on the road, but that's all in the game. I never held it up against you. Say, nobody ever admired you or appreciated ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... to keep my mouth shut? You want me to become an accomplice in this beastly, low-down ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... looked right at him, and I said, 'I—beg—your—pardon, I am not doing anything of the kind,' I said, 'it's the people ahead of me, who won't move up,' I said, 'and furthermore, let me tell you, young man, that you're a low-down, foul-mouthed, impertinent skunk,' I said, 'and you're no gentleman! I certainly intend to report you, and we'll see,' I said, 'whether a lady is to be insulted by any drunken bum that chooses to put on a ragged uniform, and I'd thank you,' I said, 'to keep your filthy abuse to yourself.' ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... in point of fact, it really is ours," remarked Donald Hall. "But it would be a rotten, low-down trick for us to sell it away from the school ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... ignored Dryfoos in the little play of protests which followed, and he said, half jocosely, half suspiciously, "And is the banjo the fashion, now?" He remembered it as the emblem of low-down show business, and associated it with end-men and blackened faces and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
