"Crook" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Pap," as he was familiarly dubbed, moved about without any apparent concern, carrying on his underground schemes with every outward aspect of inoffensive honesty. All Leaping Horse knew him as a crook, but accepted him as he posed. He was on intimate terms with all the gold magnates, and never failed to keep on good terms with the struggling element of the community. But he was a "gunman." He had been a "gunman" all his life, and made small secret of it. The ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... Heights does not devote Saturday evening to the movies. The badman, the sheriff—an aged party with whiskers and boots—the holdup, the sad eyes of the sheriff's daughter—also an aged party, but with a sunbonnet and the most expensive rouge—the crook's reformation, and his violent adherence to law and order; this libel upon the portions of these United States lying west of longitude 101 deg. Claire had seen too often. She dragged her father back to the hotel, sent him to bed, and entered her room—to ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... nature lank and hollow, and must be made almost insupportably heavy before it shows any signs of repletion. The shirt and pair of everyday pantaloons which Lemuel had dropped that morning into its voracious maw made no apparent effect there, as the clerk held it up and twirled it on the crook ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... I have on, I suppose," is the answer, half humorous, half wistful, as the interrogated party, the younger of two officers, glances down at his well-worn regimentals. "That's one reason I'm praying we may be sent to reinforce Crook up in the Sioux country. No need of new duds when you're scouting for old 'Gray ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Mas'r Harry!" Tom hissed in my ear. "Crook your hands. No! Clasp 'em together, to give me ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... you don't want to," he told her gently, looking down in a puzzled way at her distress. Her face was buried in a crook of her arm; her black hair streamed tempestuously over her heaving shoulders. "Come closer to the fire, then, ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... should the poor be flattered? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning. Hamlet, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... this rebuke that he remained perfectly quiet during the rest of the walk. He snuggled up into the crook of her arm, and peeped out once only when they reached a big house ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, 85 Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: 90 And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... to the left the chaparral's smothering thickness. Between them the road passed, a pale skein across the backs of the foothills, connecting camps and little towns. Farther on the Stanislaus River, rushing down from the Sierra, would crook its current, to run, swift and turbulent, beyond the screen of ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... of Thomas V. Hodgson, biologist, was to collect by hook or crook all the strange beasts [Page 26] that inhabit the Polar seas, and no greater enthusiast for his work could have ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Indeed! 'tis wondrous well! Now, by my gods! The stripling plays the orator! Vain boy! Keep close to that same bloodless war of words, And thou shalt still be safe. Tongue-valiant warrior! Where is thy sylvan crook, with garlands hung, Of idle field-flowers? Where thy wanton harp, Thou dainty-fingered hero? Now will I meet thee, Thou insect warrior; since thou dar'st me thus, Already I behold thy mangled limbs, Dissevered each from each, ere long to feed The fierce, blood-snuffing vulture. Mark me well, Around ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... holding his beads in his fleshless fingers. I shall have my programme posted on the bark of oaks. I shall say 'Peace to presbyteries! Let the day come when bishops, holding in their hands the wooden crook, shall make themselves similar to the poorest servant of the poorest parish! It was the bishops who crucified Jesus Christ. Their names were Anne and Caiph. And they still retain these names before the Son of God. While they were nailing Him ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... Christmas share anyway, nor can I pick them out myself. I never saw such a stupid place to stay in in my life. I want to have my velvet tunic on and go home to the palace and ride on my white pony with the silver tail, and hear them all tell me how charming I am." Then the Prince would crook his arm and put his ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... deadly aegis, and the hearts of the suitors quailed. They fled to the other end of the court like a herd of cattle maddened by the gadfly in early summer when the days are at their longest. As eagle-beaked, crook-taloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on the smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill them, for they cannot either fight or fly, and lookers on enjoy the sport—even so ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... a strong Shape, proud and upright, and for this the Middle-sized, neither too small or too large, is best, because most matchable, strong and nimble. His Head small like a Sparrow-Hawks; his Eye large and quick; Back strong crook't at the setting on, and coloured as the Plume of his Feathers; the Beam of his Leg very strong, and colour'd as his Plume; Spurs long, ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... my son, By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways, I met this crown; and I myself know well How troublesome it sat upon my head; To thee it shall descend with better quiet, Better opinion, better confirmation; For all the soil of the achievement[1] goes With me ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... a day, One of those heavenly days which cannot die, When forth I sallied from our cottage-door, [1] And with a wallet o'er my shoulder slung, A nutting crook in hand, I turn'd my steps Towards the distant woods, a Figure quaint, Trick'd out in proud disguise of Beggar's weeds Put on for the occasion, by advice And exhortation of ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... up she took her little crook, Determined for to find them; She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed, For they'd left their tails ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... starting-point of Sisily's own wanderings. He felt closer to her in that locality because of that. From Euston Square he walked on aimlessly, engrossed in impossible plans for finding Sisily by hook or crook, until the illuminated dial of a street clock, pointing to half-past ten, reminded him of the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... presently made a bold and noisy entrance, and, when his face came into view, Bud sank back in his chair weakly, his own paling a trifle beneath the tan. For the man was Smithy Caldwell, a shifty-eyed crook from Chicago, one who had dogged him before, and whom he had never expected to see again. How the villain had tracked him to the Bar T outfit ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... an' your real name too, Betty—says I, 'make your will right off, an putt it away safe, leavin' every rap o' that fortin to Betty, for you may depend on't, if Edwin gits wind o' this, he'll worm it out o' you, by hook or by crook— you know he will—and go straight to the dogs at ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... idea about the Volsky family is a good one. We'll try it out, dear! There was a MAN, once, Who said: 'Suffer the little children to come—'Why, Rose-Marie, what's the matter?" For Rose-Marie, her face hidden in the crook of her elbow, was crying ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... from the woods at midday, saw Tucker sitting on his old bench by the damask rose-bush, in which the sap was just beginning to swell. The sun shone full on the dead grass, and the old soldier, with his chin resting in the crook of his crutch, was gazing straight down upon the earth. The expression of his large, kindly face was so radiant with enjoyment that Christopher quickened his steps and slapped ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... went away discomfited and pondering. An hour later the Captain Montalvo called, and strange to say proved more fortunate. By hook or by crook he obtained the address of the ladies, who were visiting, it appeared, at a seaside village within the limits of a ride. By a curious coincidence that very afternoon Montalvo, also seeking rest and change of air, appeared at the inn ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... General George Crook, the Gray Fox, commanding the Department of the Platte, at Omaha, and General Alfred H. Terry, commanding the Department of Dakota, at St. Paul, started out to round up the Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull bands, in the Powder River and Big Horn Valley country of northern ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... prominent reason for the objection: but there were two. Harry believed that he had exhausted Juliana's treasury. Reproaching him further for his wastefulness, Mrs. Shorne promised him the money should be got, by hook or by crook, next day. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... along with slow but steady gait, carrying his pack easily and swinging his staff. His eye was alert for every movement of the flock. Now he would turn and draw some straying creature into place by putting his crook around one of its back legs. Sometimes he would motion the dogs to drive ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... hammer away at center, guard, or tackle with "guards back" or "tandem," to score eventually. And that is what she did. And yet four times did Hillton hold St. Eustace literally on her goal-line and take the ball. And each time by hook or crook, by a short, weak punt or a clever, dashing run around end, did Hillton win back a portion of her lost territory, only to lose it again at the second or third attempt ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... pays for all, as you say. I will what you call stant the dinner, if you are SO POOR!" and again he gave that disagreeable grin, and placed an odious crook-nailed and by no means clean finger to his nose. But I was not so afraid of him now, for we were in a public place; and the three glasses of port wine had, you ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... right enough; and I'll make it my private business to see that we get paid. What were W. and W. to get? That's more'n I can tell. But W. and W. went into this business themselves, they were on the crook. Now WE'RE on the square, we only stumbled into it; and that merchant has just got to squeal, and I'm the man to see that he squeals good. No, sir! there's some stuffing to ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... to the lovers of this sport. In the afternoons the young people from the town of Skarrow and Vincent on the opposite side, all met on the river. All classes were there—the darkey with his big crook-runner skates, and the young beau, with his latest style polished runners. The two races voluntarily divided the skating grounds, the white people above, and the ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... was empty. He was asleep in his usual corner, breathing stertorously, his head against the wall. Madame Boin on her throne was busy over accounts. Hercule dozed at a table by the door, his napkin in the crook of his arm. He nodded towards Paragot as I entered and made a helpless gesture. I looked at the huddled figure against the wall and wondered how the deuce I was to take him home. I had no money to pay for a cab. I tried in ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... done nothing—just nothing at all—for I met Sir John in the grounds, and could not leave him. Poor Sir John, ma'am; I tell him we must get him a crook; he is quite turned despairing shepherd. Never saw a man so changed. Upon my soul, he is—seriously now, Mrs. Beaumont, you need not laugh—I always told Sir John that his time of falling in love would come; and come it has, at last, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... a good omen. But it is only a short-lived rapture, for the spruce young party in the next sketch is balancing lightly between thumb and forefinger what we take to be nothing more or less than a shepherd's crook. This is hardly an edifying prospect. Yet if we do not altogether mistake the two wing-shaped objects projecting from his person, it is not the only feature of gentlemen's fashions twenty years hence ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... constantly wore under all his pompous attire. His mitre was placed beside him on an oaken table of the same workmanship with his throne, against which also rested his pastoral staff, representing a shepherd's crook of the simplest form, yet which had proved more powerful and fearful than lance or scimetar, when wielded by the hand of Thomas a Becket. A chaplain in a white surplice kneeled at a little distance before a desk, and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... man knows nothing, or else I should have had it out of him by hook or by crook," Mr. Proul's agent told him, and Mr. Proul ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... settlement's penny provident bank, the converted gang proved itself its stanchest friend by doing actually what John Halifax did in Miss Mulock's story: it brought all the pennies it could raise in the neighborhood by hook or by crook and deposited them as fast as the regular patrons—the gang had not yet risen to the dignity of a bank account—drew them out, until the run ceased. This same gang which, the year before, was training for trouble with ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... do anything to me," Mead replied, smiling. "I reckon likely he is a thug, or a crook of some sort, but he won't do me ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... that old crook up on the bench I would twist his nose," remarked Mr. Tutt to Tutt with an air of consulting him about the Year Books. "And as for that criminal O'Brien, I'll get ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... be, the woman she was. That is, if she was then sincere, a dose of kindness should operate happily to restore the honeymoony fancies, hopes, trusts, dreams, all back, as before the honeymoon showed the silver crook and shadowy hag's back of a decaying crescent. And true enough, the poor girl's young crescent of a honeymoon went down sickly-yellow rather early. It can be renewed. She really was at that time rather romantic. She became absurd. Romance is in her, nevertheless. She is a woman of mettle: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his head with a handkerchief, and lay down under the bench, groaning and groaning, unable to put his head to the ground, or even to lay it in the crook of his arm, it was so bruised by the beating given it by ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... described her: she was in the London current jargon essentially and typically "smart." Her figure was, in the same order of ideas, conspicuously and irreproachably "good." For a woman of her age her waist was surprisingly small; her elbow moreover had the orthodox crook. She held her head at the conventional angle, but why did she come to ME? She ought to have tried on jackets at a big shop. I feared my visitors were not only destitute but "artistic"—which would be a great complication. ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... upon the hands holding hers. In each of the little fingers there was a small amusing deformity—a slight crook or twist—which, as is the way of lovers, was especially dear to her. She remembered once, before they were engaged, flaming out at Bridget, who had made mock of it. She stooped now, and kissed the fingers. Then she ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Tasmania and Beloochistan were saying one to another about her marriage to Kid McGarry. Not that it made any difference. There was no welter-weight from London to the Southern Cross that could stand up four hours—no; four rounds—with her bridegroom. And he had been hers for three weeks; and the crook of her little finger could sway him more than the fist of any 142-pounder ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... to cast away the schooner right enough; and I'll make it my private business to see that we get paid. What were W. and W. to get? That's more'n I can tell. But W. and W. went into this business themselves, they were on the crook. Now we're on the square, we only stumbled into it; and that merchant has just got to squeal, and I'm the man to see that he squeals good. No, sir! there's some stuffing to this Farallone racket ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ports laden with American produce. The Dutch and the Danish islands had always been kept open to American trade; and evidence is not wanting that the needs of British West India planters were stronger than their respect for orders in council. At all events, by hook or crook, American farm products and lumber found their way to British planters as well as to their French competitors. But something more than the resumption of the West India traffic was needed to restore prosperity. Necessity ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... giant don't know a workman when he sees 'im!" snorted Eradicate. "He so lazy his own se'f dat he don't know a workman! Ef I sees a spy, Massa Tom, or a crook, I's gwine git ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... pebble, I find the egg detached from its suspension-point and lying beside the larva, to which it never adheres in any circumstances. The Leucopsis' probe does not penetrate beyond the cocoon traversed; and the egg remains fastened to the ceiling, in the crook of some silky thread, by means ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... to the particulars which poured upon him. "Well," he said, finally, "I'm sorry I missed the excitement. 'Twas ever thus. The only time our house ever burned down I was at a matinee of the 'Black Crook.' Well, ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... deck after Morton. A consultation was held; it was the general opinion that the land seen was Mizen Head, and that if there were light sufficient, Cape Clear would be seen on their quarter. They might take shelter in Crook Haven; but under the uncertainty that the point seen was Mizen Head, the master refused to undertake the fearful responsibility. The determination to keep the sea was also more in ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... you dirty crook!" Skinny snapped as he slapped the soppy, egg-splattered shirt in Leon's face. "I'll pay you with that! The next time," he added as he and the Ramblin' Kid started down the street—"anybody asks for a size fifteen shirt don't give them ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... till the very howlets learn his preambles, that's the man Auld Simmie fixes on to mak a dishclout o'. He canna get rest in Hell, if he sees a man, or a set of men o' this stamp, an, when he sets fairly to work, it is seldom that he disna bring them round till his ain measures by hook or by crook. Then, Oh! it is a grand prize for him, an' a proud Deil he is, when he gangs hame to his ain ha', wi' a batch o' the souls o' sic strenuous professors on his back. Aye, I trow, auld Ingleby, the Liverpool packman, never came up Glasco street wi' prouder pomp when he had ten horse-laids afore ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... diverge, mold, submit, twist, bow, deflect, incline, persuade, turn, warp, crook, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Fyshe, etc. By the fish, is understood the Dauphin of France, as their kings eldest sons are called: 'Tis here said, he shall lament the loss of the Duke of Burgundy, called the Bosse, which is an old English word for hump-shoulder, or crook-back, as that Duke is known to be; and the prophecy seems to mean, that he should be overcome or slain. By the green berrys, in the next line, is meant the young Duke of Berry, the Dauphin's third son, who shall not have valour or fortune enough to supply the loss of ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... he, "you will find the best of all travelling companions." I thanked him, and set the bag on the crook of my left arm, and by its weight I knew how true he was to the notorious splendour of his race. "And this," said he, "is a talisman that may serve to help you out of any evil plight, and open many a door that you may find locked." ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... "He is the slickest, cleverest crook that ever drew the breath of life. And he's got away with the jewels, for which you can whistle in vain, ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... the vigorous and agile young ruffian indulged in the twitchings of a wild beast caught in a snare. He gave a jerk, tried a crook of the knee, twisted his limbs desperately, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Hemingway, gruffly, "also knows that it's against the law to ship nitroglycerine unlabeled. He also knows that it's against the law for an express company to transport the stuff on a car that is part of a passenger train. So this fellow who calls himself Tripps is a crook. We haven't caught him, but we've stopped him from using his 'soup' the way he ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... Langdon's a crook. I knowed him when he was ridin' on freight cars; now he's a swell, though he's a long sprint from bein' a gentleman. I got de tip dat dere was a killin' on, an' I axed Dick Langdon if dere was anyt'ing doin'; an' Dick says to me, says he, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... me till you hear," said the other. "He is no common crook. This is how it was: You wanted the suspect's photograph and a specimen of his writing. I knew no better place to look for them than in his own room in Mr. Fairbrother's house. I accordingly got the necessary warrant and late ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... came, the theatrical posters announced in quick succession Mithridate, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Rodogune, les Enfants d'Edouard, la Fiammina. Jean, having secured the money to pay for a seat by hook or by crook, by some bit of trickery or falsehood, by cajoling his aunt or by a surreptitious raid on the cash-box, would watch from an orchestra stall the startling metamorphoses of the woman he loved. He saw her now ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... after he had eaten a breakfast of watercress oatmeal, with sweet-flag-root-sugar and milk on it, Grandpa Croaker, the nice old gentleman frog, started out for a hop around the woods near the pond. And he took with him his cane with the crook on the handle, ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... ain't a plumb fool. But, speakin' personal, this trail looks more and more interestin' to me. Here he's left Buck's hoss, so he ain't exactly a hoss thief—yet. And he's promised to pay for the pinto, so that don't make him a crook. But when the pinto gives out, Andy'll be in country where he mostly ain't known. He can't take things on trust, and he'll mostly take 'em, anyway. Boys, looks to me like we was after the real article. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... and tried making small talk with some of the soldiers on backstage detail. He posed for a picture and gave an interview to a reporter from an army newspaper, then excused himself and went to his dressing room with Spud propped in the crook of his arm. ...
— The Second Voice • Mann Rubin
... remote of these hostelries that the inquisitive stranger will hear the South Saxon dialect in its purity and the slow wit of the Sussex peasant at its best. The old Downland shepherd with embroidered smock and Pyecombe crook is vanishing fast, and with him will disappear a good deal of the character which made the Sussex native essentially different from his ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... anyone guess? Why, little Bo-Peep was a shepherdess! And she dressed in a short white petticoat, And a kirtle of blue, with a looped-up look, And a snowy kerchief about her throat, And held in her hand a crook. ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... Englishman, Captain William Parker, who had resided in the islands for many years, and was thoroughly acquainted with the trade in that part of the globe. He was then making preparations to engage in a sort of wholesale smuggling business, and had obtained possession, by hook or by crook, of two registers of American vessels. One was a BONA FIDE register of a privateer which had been captured during the war, and the other a forgery neatly executed by an artist in Martinico, having the signatures and seals duly arranged and perfected, but leaving ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... it of you, Japhe," quavered Tom, as near to tears as the pride of his eighteen years would sanction. "But somebody saw and told, and made it a heap worse than it was." He leaned over the top of the wall and put his face in the crook of his elbow, being nothing better than a hurt child, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... have paid sufficiently for your folly, but I hope the ill effects of it have been long since over. You and your brother are fond of quacking, a most dangerous disposition with regard to health. Let slight things pass away themselves; in a case that requires assistance do nothing without advice. Mr. Crook is a very able man in his way. Should a physician be at any time wanting, apply to Dr. Nesbitt, and tell him at leaving Bath I recommended you all to his care. This indeed I intended to have mentioned to him, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... at their wedding. Madeleine is half French: I knew her first when she was singing in a cafe chantant on the Champs Elysees. She is dark and pretty and Peter is fair and pretty, and Peter is the deadliest poker player that ever scored off an American train crook." ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... was when you gave me that draught that sent me to sleep while I was delirious. For now that I am again in my right mind, and the danger is all over, I may as well admit that, while the delirium held me, the paramount idea in my mind was to get away from you, by hook or by crook, slip away to the flowers, and throw myself upon another leaf, so that I might enjoy a repetition of those glorious dreams and sensations that I told you of. In which case, of course, I should have died. So ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... I, "our passes expire at sundown after the day of Ramadah, so we must get hence, by hook or by crook, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... Packard has restored the underworld to respectability—as a domain for fictional purposes at least! It is not that his crooks are real crooks—though they are—but that he is able to put life into them, to make them seem human. No man is a hero to his valet and no crook can be merely a crook in a story of the underworld that is intended to convey any sense of actuality. Beside the distortions and conventionalisations of most underworld stories, Packard's novels stand out with distinctiveness and a ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... vermillion girdle and wide, baggy blue trousers whose voluminous folds almost hid the vermillion and gold tips of her curling slippers. A simitar was thrust fiercely through the flaming girdle, and a gaudy hookah cuddled in the crook of her arm, while the bristling whiskers and encarmined cheeks and nose of the weather-beaten seafarer proclaimed a strong masculine personality in striking contrast to the pretty young men Turks and Persians that tittered in feminine fashion ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... enough now to put her hand in the crook of his elbow. "To make us wan, Sherm darlin'. There's ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... serious sortie will be made, but that after two or three days of the sham fights, such as took place to-day, the troops will quietly return into Paris. The object of General Trochu is, they say, to amuse the Parisians, and if he can by hook or by crook get the National Guard under the mildest of fires, to celebrate their heroism, in order that they may return the compliment. I cannot, however, believe that no attempt will be made to fight a battle; the troops are now massed from St. Denis to the Marne; within two hours ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... compass mixed. Don't you forget, that it is part of the unspoken marriage contract, that the wife must not only keep her own soul white, but bleach her husband's also; and no matter what a reprobate a man may be, he always expects his better-half, by hook or by crook, to steer him ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Agnes, Madam, take their word; A remedy like this would be absurd, If, like old death, it had a haggard look, And you designed to get by hook or crook. A hundred secrets you retain at ease; Can one so greatly shock and you displease?— You talk at random, Agnes, she replied; Now, would you for the remedy decide, Upon your word, if you were in my place?— ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... said Holmes, "and here is the egregious Dr. Watson, also at your service. You see, he's my old side-kicker, and I couldn't think of entering upon a crook-chase without him tagging along after me to write it up in well-chosen language. Do you get me, Steve? And, say, don't worry about the cuff-buttons. We'll find 'em ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... is the proto natural(141) obligation upon the creature, therefore it should have returned in a direct line to his majesty all its affections and endeavours. But man's fall from God hath made a wretched thraw(142) and crook in the soul that it cannot look any more after him, but bows downwards towards creatures below it, or bends inwardly towards itself, and so since the fall man hath turned his heart from the true God, and set it upon vanity,—upon lying vanities,—upon base dead idols ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... chief of the name; and, by courtesy of Scotland, will likewise be entitled to supporters. These, however, I do not intend having on my seal. I am a bit of a herald, and shall give you, secundum artem, my arms. On a field, azure, a holly bush, seeded, proper, in base; a shepherd's pipe and crook, saltier-wise, also proper, in chief. On a wreath of the colours, a wood-lark perching on a sprig of bay-tree, proper, for crest. Two mottoes; round the top of the crest, Wood notes wild; at the bottom of the shield, in the usual place, Better a wee bush than nae bield. By the shepherd's pipe ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... others. He gave up the kettle to her snatching hands, and sate down behind the door in momentary ill-temper. But the kettle was better filled, and consequently heavier than the old woman expected, and she could not manage to lift it to the crook from which it generally hung suspended. She looked round for Hester, but she was gone into the back-kitchen. In a minute Philip was at her side, and had heaved it to its place for her. She looked in his face for a moment wistfully, but hardly condescended to thank him; ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... hears upon his field the trumpet of the knight, He quits his team for spear and shield, and garniture of might, The shepherd hears it 'mid the mist—he flingeth down his crook, And rushes from the mountain ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... patted. He arose from the blanket and accepted my overtures with an expression which may have been intended for a smile, or a threat of the most appalling character. I have seen such legs as his on old-fashioned silver teapots; and the crook in his tail would have made it useful ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Mist, "that all his readings are new; but according to my humble observation, his action does not always suit the word—for when he exclaims—' may Hell make crook'd my mind,' ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... in the streets of London. As we bade each other good-bye he said, "Send me a stick of American wood and I will send you a stick." His arrived in America, and is now in my possession, a shepherd's crook; but before the cane I purchased for him reached Scotland the good Earl had departed this life. I was not surprised to hear of his decease. I said to my wife in London, "We will never see the Earl again in this world. He is ripe for Heaven, and ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... correspondent of energy—and if he has not energy he is not worth his salt—must already be galloping his hardest towards the nearest telegraph wire, which, as like as not, is a hundred miles distant. He must "get there," by hook or by crook, in a minimum of time; and as soon as his message is on the wires, he must be hurrying back to the army, else he may chance to miss the great battle of the war. The correspondent must be most things to all men; he must have the sweet, angelic temper of a woman, be as affable as ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... and time-honored nostrum, which is administered with a glow of moral self-esteem, and no more thought about it. When a murderer is sent to jail for life, or a bank burglar or white slaver or financial crook for his specified term, do we not sit back in our chairs and clear our throats with a self-satisfied "hem!" and "There's one scoundrel has got his deserts, anyway!" Had it been your brother, father, son, or yourself, would you employ such language? Would ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... or Crook-bill, has indeed a crooked bill, with which it seizes the cray-fish upon which it subsists. Its {262} flesh has that taste, and is red. Its plumage is a whitish grey; and it is about the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... two orphan grandchildren, charming little girls. One day the youngest child was sent to drive the sparrows away from her grandfather's pease. While she was thus engaged the forest began to roar, and out from it came Verlioka, "of vast stature, one-eyed, crook-nosed, bristly-headed, with tangled beard and moustaches half an ell long, and with a wooden boot on his one foot, supporting himself on a crutch, and giving vent to a terrible laughter." And Verlioka caught sight of ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... cause fer worriment erlong thet line," earnestly answered Jerry, as he patted the rifle, cradled in the crook of his arm like a child. "My fightin' day air over, praise ter Gawd. Thar war a time when I war sorter proud of ther notch thet's cut in the stock er my fust gun; but now ... wall, I'd give a good deal ef 'twarn't thar. I figgers, nowerdays, thet hit haint the Lord's purpose ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... little was to be made of either his face or figure. The former was fully bearded, the latter powerful across the shoulders. His belt was heavy with little leather pockets; a pair of prismatic field-glasses, suspended from a strap around his neck, swung across his chest; in the crook of his left arm he carried a ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... France in 1803. Bonaparte promptly occupied Hanover, of which it will be remembered that the English king was elector, and declared the coast blockaded from Hanover to Otranto. Holland, Spain, Portugal, and the Ligurian republic—formerly the republic of Genoa—were, by hook or by crook, induced to agree to furnish each their contingent of men or money to the French army and to exclude English ships ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... ribbons drawn lengthwise through the skirt, were fringed; but it also showed her child-like feet and ankles, and made her appear tiptoe like a fairy, and more remarkable than any other figure except the barefooted dame. She held a crook massed with ribbons and rosebuds in her hand, rallying the men to her standard by the lively chatter which they like better ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Fires came forward upon his hands and thrust the other sacred gourd in front of the King, a deep one containing water, and a wand made from a sacred tree which had upon the end a crook. To the groaning of the magicians, the King took from the one gourd two stones of quartz and granite, the male and the female, and spat upon each one, thus placing part of his royal body upon them; then did he put them on the ground, and ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... Abel added her entreaties. To the latter he replied, "Not till I drops! As long as 'the Shepherd' 's there to meet me I know as I'm wanted. The lambs ha' got to be fed. Besides 'the Shepherd' and me has an understandin'. I'll never give in while I can stand on my legs and hold my crook in ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... tumbled too—the descent luckily soft, though steep and slippery: Hobhouse also fell, but nobody hurt. The whole of the mountains superb. A shepherd on a very steep and high cliff playing upon his pipe; very different from Arcadia, where I saw the pastors with a long musket instead of a crook, and pistols in their girdles. Our Swiss shepherd's pipe was sweet, and his tune agreeable. I saw a cow strayed; am told that they often break their necks on and over the crags. Descended to Montbovon; pretty scraggy village, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Brown. "I don't want a crook; that wouldn't be any novelty to THIS crowd," he says. "What I'm after is an odd stick; a feller with pigeons in his loft. Not a lunatic, but jest a queer genius—little queerer than you and ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to converse. At every turn of the sinuous road fresh splendors broke upon them. By slow degrees the glaciers became visible: first those of Gria and Taconay; then the Glacier des Boissons, thrusting a crook of steel-blue ice far into the valley; and then—faintly discernible in the distance, and seemingly a hand's breadth of snow framed by the sombre gorge—the Glacier des Bois, a frozen estuary ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to my friend, Wilson Hargreave, of the New York Police Bureau, who has more than once made use of my knowledge of London crime. I asked him whether the name of Abe Slaney was known to him. Here is his reply: 'The most dangerous crook in Chicago.' On the very evening upon which I had his answer Hilton Cubitt sent me the last message from Slaney. Working with known letters it ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... out with his crook, said a few words to me, and moved off, the ewes following him, the lambs skipping behind. "He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort." How perfectly beautiful and tender the image, a thing seen how many hundred years ago on the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the well-known clash of swords, which was no stranger to her dwelling, aroused Luckie Macleary as she sat quietly beyond the hallan, or earthen partition of the cottage, with eyes employed on Boston's 'Crook the Lot,' while her ideas were engaged in summing up the reckoning. She boldly rushed in, with the shrill expostulation, 'Wad their honours slay ane another there, and bring discredit on an honest widow-woman's house, when there ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... except to one who understood its subject-matter, as the notes of their own cattle. The clerk, Samson Loud, was at the other end of the store, cleaning a molasses-barrel from its accumulated sugar. "Look-a-here," said Cyrus Robinson, beckoning Jerome with a hard crook of a seamed forefinger. The boy stood close to the counter, and uplifted to him his small, undaunted, yet ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a grievous hurt and yearning of appreciation- -so delicate she seemed, so porcelain-fragile that a strong man could snap her in the crook of his arm. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... books and magazines to the crook of his elbow. He had done this a dozen times on the way from his office. Books were always sliding and slipping, clumsy objects to hold. Looking at this girl, a sense of failure swept over him. He had not been successful as the world ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... out his hand to show me that he had his pistol and I nodded, but whispered to him not to be too quick to shoot, as there might be some silly practical joking at work, after all. He had got a lamp from a bracket in the upper hall which he was holding in the crook of his damaged arm, so that we had a good light. Then we went down the passage toward the billiard room and you can imagine that we were a ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... wherein both the saint and the sinner may be entrapped and remolded. Beyond the skyline you may find a dynamite cartridge, a drunken tinker, a mad dog, or a shilling which some person has dropped; and any one of these unexpectednesses may be potent to urge the traveler down a side street and put a crook in the straight line which had been his life, and to which he had become miserably reconciled. The element of surprise being, accordingly, one of the commonest things in the world we ought not to be hypercritical ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... familiar to our great poet, and he was also likely to have that number deeply impressed on his mind by the awful tragedy in the tower, (see Richard the Third,) where, it is remarkable, precisely that number of royal offspring suffered at the hands of the crook-backed tyrant. The citation from Niemand's Dictionary, by the Rev. Mr. Jones, tells as much in favor of two princes as of sixpence; for how could the miseries of a divided empire be more emphatically ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... whether Cauchon ever himself wavered, or allowed the possibility of acquitting Jeanne to enter his mind; but he must have seen that it was of the last necessity to know what would satisfy the English chiefs. No doubt he was confirmed and strengthened in the conviction that by hook or by crook her condemnation must be accomplished, by the conversation of these illustrious visitors. To save Jeanne was impossible he must have been told. No English soldier would strike a blow while she lived. England itself, the whole country, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... Lane. "I wonder if they are chasing Apaches? That infernal mirage gives you no idea of distance or direction. If the red devils have got away from Crook and slipped by these Greaser rangers over the border, they'll sure be making straight for the Ghost Range, and by this very trail. If so, I'm at the best place on it to meet them, and here I stay till the coast is clear." Turning to ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... by making the best, you mean to sell for as much as by hook or crook he can get for his commodity; then I say it is not lawful. And if I should say the contrary, I should justify Mr. Badman and all the rest of that gang; but that I never shall do, for the Word of God condemns them. But that it is not lawful for a man at ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sorry to say, by the way, that in the hurry of departure this morning I took away the wrong umbrella and left my own. I am sending back the changeling with all proper apologies. Would you mind sending me mine? It has a crook handle (cane) and a plain silver band with my initials engraved on it. Please give my love to Harry ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... maxim Robert Owen had no respect. He scorned the thought of selling a man something the man did not want, or of selling an article for anything except exactly what it was, or of exacting a price for it, by hook or crook, beyond ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Persian sport performed on horseback, with a large ball like a foot-ball, which is knocked about with a long stick like a shepherd's crook; it is precisely the game called in Scotland "shintey," and in England "hockey," only that the players ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... on his way to the family of Mr. Lindsay. And now, sir, I will tell you honestly and openly that there is not a better gentleman alive this day than he is. Himself, his son, and daughter* are loved and honored by all that know them; and woe betide the man that 'ud dare to crock (crook) his finger at ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton |
