"Swindle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she, "to make the simile more complete. Of all the ladies of my acquaintance I think Lady Dido was the most absurd. Why did she not do as Cleopatra did? Why did she not take out her ships and insist on going with him? She could not bear to lose the land she had got by a swindle, and then she could not bear the loss of her lover. So she fell between two stools. Mr. Slope, whatever you do, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... come together—first with indifference, and, as there is nothing angelic to be expected on either side, there is consequently no disappointment. There has, in fact, been no sentimental fraud committed—no swindle of the heart—for love, too, like its relation, knavery, has its black-legs, and very frequently raises credit upon false pretences; the consequence is, that plain honesty begins to ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... usual, gave half-hourly lectures on the other in an adjoining room - I, as his lieutenant, taking turns. The thing was in its way a little triumph. A few of the visitors were deaf, and hugged the belief that they were the victims of a new kind of fancy-fair swindle. Of the others, many who came to scoff remained to take raffle tickets; and one of the phonographs was finally disposed of in this way, falling, by a happy freak of the ballot-box, into the hands of Sir William Thomson.' The other remained in Fleeming's hands, and was a source ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... right, Rufus," murmured Garside, nodding. "We certainly are about launching a tremendous, an utterly unparalleled, swindle. The like of it was never, never known. There should be millions in it. Yes, yes, Rufus, you are right. It was wise to preface our gigantic operations by getting well in touch ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... unmarried for whom you would only be too thankful to find husbands—if you knew how to find them? If morality is that which, on the whole, brings a man peace in his declining years—if, that is to say, it is not an utter swindle, can you under these circumstances flatter yourself that you have led a ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... the moral bearings of it, what this question of enforcement of law means in the life of the poor was illustrated by testimony given before the Police Board under oath. A captain was on trial for allowing the policy swindle to go unchecked in his precinct. Policy is a kind of penny lottery, with alleged daily drawings which never take place. The whole thing is a pestilent fraud, which is allowed to exist only because it pays heavy blackmail to the police and ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... here, as you know, to talk over starting a fresh magazine. The Ronleian is a beastly swindle, and it's high time we had something different." (A voice, "No, 'tisn't," and the bursting of a paper bag.) "You shut up there! I say it is a swindle: they didn't give any account of that fourth eleven match against Robertson's second, and they made fun of us in the 'Quad Gossip,' and said that ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... let any one swindle you again," said Bob, a trifle excitedly. "You don't have to worry about interest and taxes, any more, Aunts. You have a fortune right here in your own dooryard; or if not exactly out by the pump, ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... which is called political teaches us the most adequate, the most economical way of satisfying our needs, whether these needs are rational or irrational, beautiful or ugly, moral or immoral—a business economically good may be a swindle, something that in the long run kills the soul—and the supreme human need is the need of not dying, the need of enjoying for ever the plenitude of our own individual limitation. And if the Catholic eucharistic doctrine teaches that the substance ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... engagement, Barnum and Miss Lind met on several occasions, always in the friendliest manner. Once, at Bridgeport, she complained rather bitterly to him of the unpleasant experiences she had had since leaving him. "People cheat me and swindle me very much," said she, "and I find it very annoying to give concerts on my ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... the Judge." When we arrived at his Honor's place of business, I found that my twelve-hundred-dollar friend was there before me. The Judge spoke to him before he did to me, and said, "How did this man swindle you out of your money?" "We were playing poker, your Honor." "Do you call playing poker swindling?" said the Judge. "Well, your Honor, he must have swindled me; for every time I had a good hand he would beat it," said he. "If that ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... no alternative. Of course they took care to come for that before they talked of my resigning. I believe it was all planned beforehand. The whole thing seems to me to have been a swindle from beginning to end. By heaven, I'm almost inclined to think that the Duchess ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Mascotte. The tables of the many cafes were filled, and hundreds walked to and fro under the bright arcades, or stopped to gaze into the shop-windows. Here the merchant seldom closes his shop till the band goes home. Music arouses the romantic, and the romantic temperament is always easy to swindle, and the merchant of Venice will ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... nation, have been baptized,—which declares the inalienable rights of man,—and which, as it makes the tour of the earth, hand and hand with Christianity, is lifting the many from the dust, where for ages they have been trampled, into political life and dignity,—he converts a paltry swindle into its standard and creed, and prostitutes its glorious mission, as a redeeming influence among men, into a ministry of slavery ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... for those forty men?" pursued Joseph. "Where's the advance you made him for those men at Msala? Not one ha'penny of it have they fingered. And why? Cos they're slaves! Fifteen months at fifty pounds—let them as can reckon tot it up for theirselves. That's his first swindle—and there's others, sir! Oh, there's more behind. That man's just a stinkin' hotbed o' crime. But this 'ere slave-owning is enough to settle his ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... highly revered Colonel, had also undertaken to purchase a number of horses and mules for me. "The people of Goyaz," said he, "are terrible thieves; they will swindle you if you buy them yourself. I will purchase them for you and you will then pay me back the money. By to-morrow morning," he had stated, "I shall have all the horses and mules ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... saloon. Toughs come there, thieves, to swindle the immigrants. Awfully slick. No good to warn immigrants—they lose all their money. Come in crying. What can I do? I get after the bums and they say, 'Giotto no good; we will kill him.' Then I get broke again. Go to West Virginia and work in the ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... small stones himself. The experts were always finding them, so were the financial agents; yet Dick, though for a time he could find out nothing to confirm his opinion, was convinced that the whole thing meant a gigantic swindle. A few words in French between the experts which they did not expect the "man in charge of the transport" to understand a word here, and a look there, strengthened this conviction into certainty, but still he had ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... was told I swindled before, and I ain't a-going to put up with it. You may ring your own trees, and watch your own fences, and the whole place may be burned for me. I ain't a-going to do another turn in Gangoil. Swindle, indeed!" So Boscobel shouldered his axe, and marched off through the forest, visible in the moonlight till the ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... had patience to keep my counsel about it; and whenever I have had occasion to mention the Company, have scarcely been able to refrain from breaking out into fierce diatribes against that complicated, enormous, outrageous swindle. It was one of many similar cheats which have been successfully practised upon the simple folks, civilian and military, who toil and struggle—who fight with sun and enemy—who pass years of long exile and gallant ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the other hand, no form of words must be selected, no knot must be tied among the phrases, unless knot and word be precisely what is wanted to forward and illuminate the argument; for to fail in this is to swindle in the game. The genius of prose rejects the cheville no less emphatically than the laws of verse; and the cheville, I should perhaps explain to some of my readers, is any meaningless or very watered phrase employed to strike a balance in the sound. Pattern and argument live ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "I won't, but I shall wait till I find a husband who's charming enough and bad enough. One who'll beat me and swindle me and spend my money on other women—that's the sort of man for me. Mr. Dormer, delightful as he is, doesn't ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... fair or foul. On that day, long ago, this creature fancied that I had some money, and he was determined, to rob me somehow. I let him imagine that he was leading me on, for there is no luxury that I enjoy more than watching a low, cunning rogue when he thinks he is arranging a successful swindle. I was introduced to a thoroughly safe man. The safe man's face was almost as villanous as that of my mentor, and his manners were, perhaps, a little more offensive. Our first bet closed all transactions between us; as I fully expected, I obtained a ridiculously ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... untasted wine and told the truth. Not all—that was not to be dreamed of. In the depths of his heart he feared Bulmer. The old man's repute for honesty was widespread. He would fling his dearest friend into prison for such a swindle as that arranged between Coke and the shipowner. But it was a positive relief to divulge everything that concerned Iris. From his pocket-book David produced her frayed letter, and Bulmer read it slowly, aloud, through eyeglasses ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... offer made to him. He sets to work at once, sells a number of tickets, and forwards the proceeds to his principals in New York. The money is simply thrown away. No concert is ever held, no drawing is ever made. The scoundrels in charge of the swindle continue the sale as long as there is a demand for the tickets, and pocket all the receipts. When there is danger of interference by the police, they close their office and disappear. In a short while, they resume operations ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... I must add the last I heard of that "almighty swindle" (so styled by an American I met, who was one of the victims) the Antelope Valley. Every one who could leave it had done so, but there were many who could not, who had spent their all to get there. Some of ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... for you I said no," he cried, at last. "But for you I'll say yes. It's not too late. I'll have to swindle somebody to get my outfit, and add another to the long list of debts that are breaking ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... desire to swindle me at the bogus Hotel de la Poste. Half a dozen attendants carried my baggage to my room, and each demanded a reward. When I gave the yemshick his "na vodka," an officious attendant suggested that the gentleman should be very liberal at the end of his ride. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... his share of all they get, except of what they earn by fortune-telling. They are very clever at making a good bargain; when they know of a rich merchant being in the place, they disguise themselves, enter into communications with him, and swindle him, ... after which they change their clothes, have their horses shod the reverse way, and the shoes covered with some soft material lest they should ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... know what to make of him," he thought one night. "He don't think of himself half as much as he did. It's a swindle. There'll be no credit in being jolly ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... advice on the part of Bisyas and others, and the ever-increasing scarcity of valuables that might be given as offerings to the priests and to their assistants—all these contributed to bring about the termination of a religious swindle that victimized at ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... question was renewed on Butler's proposition to adopt the Cincinnati platform pure and simple. This was the red flag to the mad bull. Mississippi declared that the Cincinnati platform was a great political swindle on one half the States of the Union; and from that time on the Cotton States ceased to act as a part of the convention. As soon as a lull in the proceedings permitted, Mr. Yancey put in execution his programme of ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... conviction illumed the whole fact to Basil's guilty consciousness: this unhappy Frenchman had paid a dollar for the use of an oil-skin suit at the foot of the Fall, and had been ashamed to confess the swindle to his wife, till, in a moment of remorse and madness, he shouted the fact into her ear, and then Basil looked at the mother of his children, and registered a vow that if he got away from Niagara without being forced to a similar excess he would confess his guilt to Isabel ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... purpose of working some worthless patent designed to revolutionize the silk weaving trade. The Duke's reason for going on the Board was purely philanthropic. He had hoped to restore an ancient industry in a decaying neighbourhood. The whole thing turned out to be a swindle. One angry shareholder stated plainly at the meeting that he had taken his shares on account of the Duke's name upon the prospectus, and hinted ugly things. The Duke had risen calmly in his place. He assured them that he fully recognized his responsibilities ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of a Hun Professor, full of an egregious self-sufficiency and humourlessness and greatly solicitous for the unhappy Alsatian who is ignorant and misguided enough to prefer the Welsch (i.e. foreign) "culture-swindle" to the glorious paternal Kultur of the German occupation. And HANSI illustrates his witty text with as witty and competent a pencil. HANSI has, in effect, the full status of an Ally all by himself. He adds out of the abundance of his heart ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... From this somewhat (ahem) out of the way place, I write to say how d'ye do. It is all a swindle: I chose these isles as having the most beastly population, and they are far better, and far more civilised than we. I know one old chief Ko-o- amua, a great cannibal in his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked home from killing ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... swindle! It's a deliberate swindle!" shrilled Mr Pilkington. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles flashed sparks. "I've been made a fool of! I've ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... way you are going to try to swindle me out of my money, is it, Dave Porter?" he cried. "Well, let me tell you, it won't work. You came here and got those goods from me, and either you'll pay for them or I'll sue your father for the amount. Why, it's preposterous!" The storekeeper turned to his clerk, who ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... on Jean-Pierre. "Nobody there. A swindle of the crows. That's what this is. Nobody anywhere. ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... traveler, who had no illusions, and was in search of adventures; one of those women who frequently change their name, and who, as they have made up their minds to swindle if luck is not on their side, act a continual part, an adventuress, who could put on every accent; who for the sake of her course, transformed herself into a Slav, or into an American, or simply into a provincial; who was ready to take part in any ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... something about leather goods or shoes or lamps or furniture, and that's all he knows. If he's an American he'll buckle down to that little business and work night and day, sweat blood and make every one else connected with him sweat it, underpay his employees, swindle his friends, half-starve himself and his family, in order to get a few thousand dollars and seem as good as some one else who has a few thousand. And yet he doesn't want to be different from—he wants to be just like—the other fellow. If some one in his line has a house up on the Hudson or on Riverside ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... and I do we are serving you and Christie,—our only fight is with 'Black Bart' Hawley. Stop being a bullet-headed old fool, Fairbain, and understand this thing. Lie still, I tell you, and hear me out! Hawley is a liar, a thief, and a swindler. There is a swindle in this thing somewhere, and he hopes to pull out a big sum of money from it. He is merely using Christie to pull his own chestnuts out of the fire. She is innocent; we realize that, but this fellow is going to ruin the girl unless ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... agree with cautious Bobby. If it is not hollow, it may be solid; if it is not a gigantic paper balloon, it may be a very fine globe, and vice versa, which vice versa he in his heart suspects to be the truth. You see, sir, the mangled quotation was a swindle, like the flimsy superstructures it was intended to prop. The genuine paragraph is a fair sample of Robinson, and of the art of withholding opinion by means of expression. But as quoted, by a fraudulent suppression of one half, the unbalanced half is palmed off as a whole, and an indecision ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... falsehood, therefore if he speaks falsely he commits a sin. A man knows it is wrong to become intoxicated, and yet he does become so; he has violated a known law of right and wrong, and has therefore committed a sin. Who is the man of common sense that does not know it is wrong to lie, steal, swindle, defraud, curse, drink, get angry and cross; to refuse to help a needy neighbor when he can, to talk foolishly, to tell unseemly tales, to backbite, slander, commit adultery, hold enmity against another, or to be proud ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... she complained, and told of this abominable swindle; Derues had been beforehand with her, and the slander he had disseminated bore its fruits. It was said that his old mistress was endeavouring by an odious falsehood to destroy the reputation of a man who had refused to be her lover. Although reduced to poverty, she left the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his cigar, and glanced with astonished severity at the speaker. "Unfortunately, I have. We are wheat growers and not wheat stock jugglers. Our purpose is to farm, and not swindle and lie in the wheat pits for decimal differences. I have a distinct antipathy to ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... Talleyrand double the amount of the sums which he could swindle from your Government; but though he did more mischief to your country than was expected in this, and though he proved that he had pocketed upwards of ten thousand English guineas, the wages of his infamy, when he hinted about the recompense he expected here, Durant, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... that, my father has more of that sable kind of busy fellows, greasy, slick, and fat; and they are not cheated to death out of their hard earnings by villainous and infernal abolitionists, whose philanthropy is interest, and whose only desire is to swindle the slave-holder out of his own property, and convert its labor to their own ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... sorts of frauds, little and big—the smaller thieves thinking that they also must live, no matter at whose expense, although I demur to the proposition. Why should they stop at stealing a thousand or two, more or less, while that four hundred thousand swindle leered at them so wickedly over the left shoulder, mocking at all law and justice, and scot free from all punishment? These 'traders' could charge what sums they liked against the Indian, and get them too; for there was no one to defeat or check their rapacity. Mr. Heard tells us that no ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... than his righteous desarvings. He's a fellow that's got no more of a saving soul in him than my whip-handle, and ain't half so much to be counted on in a fight. He's jest now nothing but a cheat and a swindle from head to foot; hain't got anything but cheat in him—hain't got room for any principle—-not enough either to git drunk with a friend, or have it out, in a fair fight, with his enemy. I shouldn't myself wish to see the fellow's throat cut, but I ain't slow to say ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... saw the same kind of people and the same dance. True, there was a baby eating some candy in the back of the hut, but its jaws did all the dancing for it. This was a swindle which the boys would not further encourage by their presence, ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... joke. trick, cheat, wile, blind, feint, plant, bubble, fetch, catch, chicane, juggle, reach, hocus, bite; card sharping, stacked deck, loaded dice, quick shuffle, double dealing, dealing seconds, dealing from the bottom of the deck; artful dodge, swindle; tricks upon travelers; stratagem &c (artifice) 702; confidence trick, fake, hoax; theft &c 791; ballot-box stuffing [U.S.], barney [Slang]; brace game [Slang], bunko game, drop game [Slang], gum game [U.S.], panel game [U.S.], shell game, thimblerig, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that the professional politicians all stand in together when a financial swindle is being carried out. There is no "opposition" in these things. Since it is the very business of the Free Press to expose the falsehood or inanity of the Official Capitalist Press, one may truly say that a great part of the energies of the Free Press is wasted in ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... resolution called forth a remarkable attempt to swindle the commonwealth by means of the absolute freedom with which loans were granted. In America a syndicate of speculative 'men of business' was formed for the purpose of exploiting the simple-minded credulity of us ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... the edge of the claim both ways, and I don't reckon there is a dollar's worth of gold left in it, now that it has pettered out at the bottom, and if there was I would not work another day with a man who proposed to get up a swindle.' So as soon as he got up to the surface he told everyone that the lode had gone out and that the claim weren't worth a red cent. He and New Jersey had a big fight with fists that evening. The other was bigger than Harry, and stronger, but he were no hand with ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... a short nuggety man, and could use his hands, they said; he looked as if he'd be a nasty, vicious, cool customer in a fight—he wasn't the sort of man you'd care to try and swindle a second time. He had a monkey shave when he shaved, but now it was all frill and stubble—like a bush fence round a stubble-field. He had a broken nose, and a cunning, sharp, suspicious eye that squinted, and ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... here to compliment me, Sir?" asked Mr. Burt. "You've got some kind of subscription paper, I suppose." The old gentleman began to warm up as he thought of it. "But I can't give any thing. I never do—I never will. It's an infernal swindle. Some deuced Missionary Society, or Tract Society, or Bible Society, some damnable doing-good society, that bleeds the entire community, has sent you up here, Sir, to suck money out of me with your smooth face. They're always at it. They're always sending boys, and ministers ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... matter over in your mind, younker, you'll see that this bus'ness can't be put through without giving the scamps the chance to swindle us the worst sort of way. They won't give up the boy on our promise to pay 'em the money and no questions asked, for they don't b'leve we'll do it; so we've got to give 'em the money and trust to ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... criminal rather than the crime. The formula does not carry us very far, but the inquiries which have been started look toward an answer of my questions based on science for the first time. If the typical criminal is a degenerate, bound to swindle or to murder by as deep seated an organic necessity as that which makes the rattlesnake bite, it is idle to talk of deterring him by the classical method of imprisonment. He must be got rid of; he cannot be improved, or frightened out of his structural ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... commenced hoppin around and a talkin faster 'n a buzz saw could turn, and all I could make out wuz—mee song lay tang moo me oo lay ung yong wo say mee tickee. Wall I seen jist as plain as could be that he wuz a tryin' to swindle me outen my clothes, so I made a grab fer him, and in less 'n a minnit we wuz a rollin' round on the floor; fust I wuz on top, and then Mr. Hop Soon wuz on top, and you couldn't hav told which one of us the ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... extent and the nature of the loss, and the steps which he had decided upon taking, went on to explain the circumstances as best he could. He had made some inquiry, and felt no doubt that a gigantic swindle had been perpetrated by Major Tifto and others. The swindle had been successful. Mr. Moreton had consulted certain gentlemen of high character versed in affairs of the turf. He mentioned Mr. Lupton among others,—and had been assured that though the swindle was undoubted, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... queer choking laugh. "Life is a big, big swindle," she said. "The only happy people in the world are those who haven't found it out. But you—you say there are other things in life besides suffering. How did you know that if—if you've never had ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... sergeant was to be accorded all respect and credit, and a hack to fetch him home when his legs got as twisted as his tongue: Mrs. McGrath would be around within forty-eight hours to audit and pay the accounts. Donnelly sought to swindle the shrewd old laundress at the start, and thereby lost Mac's valuable custom for six long and anniversary-laden months. Then he came to terms, and didn't try it again for nearly two years, which was remarkable in a saloon-man. This time Donnelly was ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... 'Hag,'" said one prominent citizen, "suthin' ought to be done. It's jest ruinin' the reputation of this yer camp,—this sloshin' around o' capital on non-residents ez don't claim it!" "It's settin' an example o' extravagance," said another, "ez is little better nor a swindle. Thais mor'n five men in this camp, thet, hearin' thet Hawkins hed sent home eight thousand dollars, must jest rise up and send home their hard earnings too! And then to think thet thet eight thousand was only a bluff, after all, and thet ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... is Mathura, the clever swindler, and you're not going to swindle me this time. Pay up, jail-bird, every bit of my money, and ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... of any service. Had Meyerbeer told Wagner to go back to Germany it is just possible Wagner might have gone. Instead, Meyerbeer sent him into a cul de sac—to starve, or get out as he best could. In the whole history of the art of the world no more cruel swindle was ever played on an obscure artist by a man ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... seemed to wince but Doak's gaze didn't relent. He was only three years behind in his taxes now and this extra moola on the swindle-sheet could bring him two months closer. Anyone who was only two years behind on his taxes was ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... Look here, I believe I had better write, and say that I'm awfully touched and obliged, but that I can't come into his views, or break my word, and then, you know, he can just make another will. It would be a swindle to let him die, and come into his property, and then go dead against ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... them and all spoke very highly of him. I thought, there could be no great risk in doing it, for my confidence in Frank was very great. I thought, of course, this would insure my claim of eighteen thousand dollars, but it eventually proved to be a deep-laid plot to swindle me. Frank had no notes or accounts that were of any value; they were all bogus and got up to deceive his poor old father and others. He had no property shipped to South America. It was all found out, when too late, that he had ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... he asked courteously; and he shot me a glance which I knew meant, 'Let him tell his own story.' And now, being authorized to speak, Farmer Camp began to tell, in his own homely way, the story of the 'greenback swindle,' as he termed it. When he had reached the point in the narrative where I made my unlucky attempt to rout the ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... of that, I fear," she replied. "I have written again and again, but have never received any answer to my letters. I'm afraid it was all a swindle." ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... come, therefore, to the parting of the ways. He realized that he was rushing on political destruction, and that, if he supported the vulgar swindle perpetrated at Lecompton, he would be repudiated by the great State which had exalted him and almost idolized him as a political leader. He determined, therefore, to take a bold stand against the administration on this issue. It was an important event, not only ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... fashion has no genuine claim to supremacy; at least, no abiding assurance of it. He has embroidered his title upon his waistcoat, and carries his worth in his watch-chain; and if he is allowed any real precedence for this it is almost a moral swindle,—a way of obtaining goods under false pretences. But without running into more minute discussion, I say again—that there is no substantial ground of supremacy in aught that is merely accidental or external; and he who rests upon such claims stands upon ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... in the swale; and listening to the swindle of the flail, as it sounds dub-a-dub on the corn, from ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... rankled in his wicked, scheming brain, and all his life he has longed for vengeance, but never seen his chance. During the last year or two things have gone against him—secret speculation, I think—and he finds himself in a bad way. He determines to swindle his creditors, and for this purpose he pays large cheques to a certain Mr. Cornelius, who is, I imagine, himself under another name. I have not traced these cheques yet, but I have no doubt that they were banked under that name at some provincial ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thirty thousand dollars you got on that partnership swindle?" Burke asked, sneering. "I s'pose you ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... the law, but it's a swindle, none the less. They've got a wretched broken-down factory somewhere in the North, and the only Plover car that's ever been built was made by a Scottish contractor at a cost of about twice the amount which the Company people said that ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... so I'll tell him. At least the knowledge will gravel him and take all the joy out of that stinking little spruce swindle ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... upon the impropriety of such conduct; but on my honor, as a member of the bar, the behavior of Portia was outrageous. This young female, not content with 'cavorting' around the country in a loose and perspicuous style, actually practises a gross swindle on the court. She assumes to be a man when she is only a woman, dons the breeches when she is only entitled to the skirts, and imposes herself upon the Duke of Venice as a learned young advocate from Rome, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... waste of holy water When we're taken to the font: They that make us pay for burial Swindle ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... condition of the packed gallery soon caused her to forget even the final swindle of the corset. The air had rapidly become exhausted. Women clutched at each other; women rapped frenziedly against the heavy, glazed doors; women screamed. It was the Black Hole of Calcutta over again, and yet no one in the blouse department seemed to notice the signals of ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... would prevaricate; besides, Mrs. Hanway-Harley knew. It was as obvious as a pikestaff to that sagacious gentlewoman; Mr. Harley and Storri had quarreled over stocks. Mr. Harley had been detected in some effort to swindle Storri; or he had detected Storri in some effort to swindle him; men were always swindling and quarreling, according to Mrs. Hanway-Harley. She put no question to Mr. Harley, and only marveled at a thickness that would sacrifice the family's chance of possessing a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... correspondents all over the world, make twenty thousand francs per annum by charges for postage alone; accounts of expenses of protest pay for Mme. la Baronne de Nucingen's dresses, opera box, and carriage. The charge for postage is a more shocking swindle, because a house will settle ten matters of business in as many lines of a single letter. And of the tithe wrung from misfortune, the Government, strange to say! takes its share, and the national revenue ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... been moved to this step by the firm trust she had in the skill and fidelity of the said Mr. M'Buffer; but if so her Majesty's trust would seem to have been somewhat misplaced, as Mr. M'Buffer, having been a managing director of a bankrupt swindle, from which he had contrived to pillage some thirty or forty thousand pounds, was now unable to show his face at Tillietudlem, or in the House of Commons; and in thus retreating from his membership had no object but to save himself ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... what advantage—say—Nedda's father would take of people who would not check on his good faith for two years and until they were two years' journey away. The business men on Krim would have some sort of code determining how completely one could swindle ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... performs morning and afternoon in the Kurpark. Many continental health resorts support themselves by placing a tax upon visitors, a practice resorted to by no English town, and so I regard the imposition as a swindle, and I refuse to advertise any place that practises it. It is true that if you stay in Schwindleburg less than a week they do not tax you, but I didn't know that, and the hotel man, being wise in his own generation, did not present his bill ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... Miss Anne, there was some delay about the concert. One steamer did really come back to Bellagio. We had our serenade all the same—that is to say, any who were awake. You see, they did not intend to swindle you——' ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... I had made myself ridiculous. I do not agree with her. I do think, however, that when members of the aristocracy practise a common swindle in support of a charity, they go to show that rank is not everything. If Miss Sakers happens to ask us whether we are going to the bazaar in support of the Deserving Inebriates next year, I have instructed Eliza to reply: ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... say, 'as the twig's inclined, the tree is bent,'" Bristles told them, ponderously, "and we all can guess what'll become of Buck Lemington some day. He'll either make a striking figure in finance, or else head some big swindle that'll send him ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... Sweetmeat sukerajxo. Swell sxveli. Swelling sxvelo. Swerve malrektigxi. Swift rapida. Swiftness rapideco. Swill glutegi, drinkegi. Swim nagxi. Swimming nagxarto. Swimming (in head) kapturno. Swindle sxteli. Swindler sxtelisto. Swine porko. Swing balanci. Swing, a balancilo. Swiss, a Sviso. Switch vergo. Swivel turnkruco. Swoon sveni. Sword glavo. Syllable silabo. Syllogism silogismo. Symbol simbolo. Symmetry simetrio. Sympathetic ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... and Abel sat, worn out and disconsolate, gazing at a confusion of tents, sheds, and shanties, for it could be called nothing else, on the hither side of a tumbled together waste of snow and ice spreading to right and left. "Is it all a swindle ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... made to detain Paul. There could be no case against him. He went out of the hotel, and looked up and down Broadway in a state of indecision. He did not mean to sit down passively and submit to the swindle. But he had no idea in what direction to search for ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... enough that he fooled away every penny he had, so that we're simply beggars, both of us, and we have to live on your charity? I should have thought that would have satisfied him, without getting locked up for being connected in a beastly bucketshop swindle.' ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... standard of business honour when they advocated a swindling policy for the Government of the United States. In its day of trouble the Government was glad to promise gold to the people who had confidence in them, and just as gladly the Government proposed to swindle them by a silver falsehood in 1877. But the Nation was just recovering from a four years' drunk; Mr. Hayes undertook to steady us, during the aftereffects of our war-spree. Why should we neglect to pay in full the price of our ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... she, taking him up on the word. "Abused, do you say?" She laughed sharply. "Say duped, my friend; for that is what has happened to you. You are the victim of a swindle." ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... gift, it pass by grant, but that NEVARRE THERE PASS A LIE WITH IT! I say it was a gift by a Spanish Christian king to a Christian hidalgo for the spread of the gospel, and not for the cheat and the swindle! I say that this mine was worked by the slave, and by the mule, by the ass, but never by the cheat and swindler. I say that if they have struck the hoss in the mine, they have struck a hoss IN THE LAND, a Spanish hoss; ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... many things never learnt at Sunday-school. They were experts at cards and dice. They would go to immense trouble to work off any small swindle in the sporting line. In short the general consensus of opinion was that they were a very "fly" crowd at Mulligan's, and if you went there you wanted to "keep your eyes skinned" or they'd ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... they are going to miss. Tom, for example, would never have put buttons in the offering. Doug would not gamble and drink. Poor, painted Nanon would starve rather than sin. Old man Jones, in the amen corner, would not swindle his neighbor; nor would Wetmore, the Baptist, practise the holy calling of shepherd, having in his breast the heart of a wolf. We all, saving a woman here and there, have our sins, little and great, and many times in the day we put in jeopardy that future bliss. But I console ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... in concubinage with luck. What do you want that you have not already? Shibboleth help me! This fellow is a rascal. To multiply himself by Dea would be pleasant, all the same. Such happiness is like a swindle. Those above who possess happiness by privilege do not like folks below them to have so much enjoyment. If they ask you what right you have to be happy, you will not know what to answer. You have no patent, and they have. Jupiter, Allah, Vishnu, Sabaoth, it does ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... investigation was found to have been fraudulently conducted from the very beginning. John Sadleir thereupon killed himself; his brother James was expelled from the House of Commons, and he and several others implicated in the swindle fled the country and never reappeared, and so the "Brass Band" broke up, amid the well-deserved contempt of men of ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... Editor Mong was working his graft overtime. They did not know that he had entered into a conspiracy to deceive them before the drawing began, the clerk in charge of the stage-office and the one telephone of the place being in on the swindle. ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... veteran to strike the image with his battle-axe. The helpless statue offers no resistance. Another blow rolls the head of the idol on the floor. It is said that a colony of frightened rats ran forth from its interior. The kingcraft, and priestcraft, and solemn swindle of seven hundred years are exploded in a shout of laughter; the god is broken to pieces, his members dragged through the streets. The recesses of the Serapion are explored. Posterity is edified by discoveries of frauds by which the priests maintain their power. Among other ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... which every one would have eagerly taken and trusted, rather than the baseless trash of bankrupt companies; our government, I say, have still been overawed from a contest with them, and have even countenanced and strengthened their influence, by proposing new establishments, with authority to swindle yet greater sums from our citizens. This is the British influence to which I am an enemy, and which we must subject to our government, or it will subject us ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... that we get it then? That man downstairs refuses to give me any money. The whole thing is a swindle. But I don't mean to be defrauded in this ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... AFFLICTED. We are daily consulted by persons suffering from spermatorrhea and impotency who have been victimized by ignorant charlatans. Some seek to dupe and swindle the unwary by claiming to have themselves been cured of spermatorrhea or impotency by some prescription, which they offer to send free to any sufferer. When the prescription is obtained it is found to consist of a few articles well-known to every druggist, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... His son's suspicions and a can opener | |convinced Andrew Sherrer last Saturday | |that he had been fleeced out of $500 by | |two clever manipulators of an ancient | |"get-something-for-nothing" swindle. So | |strong was the victim's confidence, ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... is, it's a mighty mean trick, Laura. But I think it is more than a trick. I think it is a swindle." ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... which he deals. For example, writing of the insurance plotted for rarely precedes the conspiracy to defraud. That is, I know of few cases in which a policy originally taken out in good faith has subsequently become the means of a swindle. ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... the whisks for killin' flies won't stay up, 'n the flies don't get killed but jus' get hit so they buzz without stoppin' from then on. Mrs. Jilkins says right out 's she considers the whole thing a swindle, 'n' 'f Mr. Kimball was n't rentin' his store o' her brother she sh'd tell him so to his face. She says the three-inch measure on the handle 's too short to be o' any real service on a farm, 'n' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... appearing to notice him: "It's a swindle, of course, to try to make you out a philanthropist in spite of yourself. They must have a funny sense of humour. But I couldn't help but be struck by the opportunities for the right kind of publicity. You could turn it so easily ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... illumination, that there never had been any Cecil Wilbraham; that Denry had merely invented him and his long moustaches and his wall eye for the purpose of getting the better of his mother. The whole affair was an immense swindle upon her. Not a Mr Cecil Wilbraham, but her own son had bought her cottage over her head and jockeyed her out of it beyond any chance of getting into it again. And to defeat his mother the rascal had not simply perverted the innocent Nellie Cotterill ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... and the public would forgive her; and sings so well, that were she as ugly as the aforesaid Ligonier, the audience would listen to her. The Ravenswing, that is her fantastical theatrical name (her real name is the same with that of a notorious scoundrel in the Fleet, who invented the Panama swindle, the Pontine Marshes' swindle, the Soap swindle—HOW ARE YOU OFF FOR SOAP NOW, Mr. W-lk-r?)—the Ravenswing, we say, will do. Slang has engaged her at thirty guineas per week, and she appears next month in Thrum's opera, of which the ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... A Mean Swindle. —Mistress: "Did you ask for milk bread?" Domestic: "Yes, mum." "What a miserable little loaf they gave you!" "Yes, mum. It's my opinion, mum, that that baker is ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... ten days it waxed more and more violent day by day. The great "Negro University Swindle" became the one absorbing topic of conversation throughout the Union. Individuals denounced it, journals denounced it, public meetings denounced it, the pictorial papers caricatured its friends, the whole nation seemed to be growing ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the estimation in which Lisle was held in the regiment. His quickness in detecting the swindle, and the steps he had taken to obtain proof of his suspicions, showed that he possessed other ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... Collabiscus becomes a Spartan (Poen. 578 ff.), Simia as Harpax gets Ballio's money (Ps. 905 ff.), the sycophant is garbed as messenger (Trin. 843 ff.), Phronesium elaborately pretends to be a mother (Truc. 499 ff.). A swindle is almost invariably the object in view. But we have said enough on this score: no one who knows the plays at all can fail to recognize the predominance of farce. Compare on the modern stage the sudden appearance of "the long-lost cousin ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... The swindle was now discovered, and the culprit, after the first shock to his feelings had abated, showed me, with evident if subdued satisfaction, how the ingenious ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... Eighteenth Congress, Second Session, 1824-25, Vol. ii, Doc. No. 14, and Senate Documents, Twenty-fourth Congress, 1836-37, Vol. ii, No. 212. After the grants were secured, the companies attempted to swindle the State of Georgia by making payments in depreciated currency. Georgia refused to accept it. When the grant was rescinded, both houses of the Georgia Legislature marched in solemn state to the Capitol front and burned the deed.] ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... could feel the roll of bills, the result of that transaction, in his hip pocket, and the pressure of them impressed itself unpleasantly upon his conscience. He felt sure he had no right to them. He must really give them back to the gambler later. He felt that his attitude was a swindle on a good man. Bill was certainly a good man, a brave man, but he was no business man. He, Scipio, had the advantage of ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... got were new instead of old,—it was a real Aladdin bargain. The new rags had blue backs, and were numbered, some as high as fifty dollars. The rag-man had been in a hurry, and had not known what made the things so heavy. I frowned at the swindle, but they said all was fair with a peddler,—and I own I was glad the things were well out of Richmond. But when I said I thought it was a mean trick, Lizzie and Sarah looked demure, and asked what in the world I would have them do with the old things. Did I expect them to walk down to the bridge ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... know the facts, no swindle can deceive you. I spend my life in getting facts. I now have seen enough to know that capitalism is not a swindle. If all hands labored hard and honestly the system would enrich us all. Some workers are dishonest and they gouge the employers. Some employers are ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... thin lips or have him draw from his pocket a wooden nutmeg and offer it for sale. After getting to know him I learned this apparent shrewdness was a pure defense mechanism, that he was really an artless and ingenuous soul who had been taught by other hands the swindle he practiced for many years and had merely continued it because he knew no way of making an honest living. He was, like myself, unattached, and disarmed whatever lingering suspicions of him I might have by offering to share his quarters with me until ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... another that they had destroyed the plant that was ready to work it, another again, and it was the one that gained the most credence, that there was no gold in the mine at all, and that the whole thing was a swindle. The offices of the "Equator" were closed for the night. They would probably be besieged the next morning by an angry crowd eager to sell out, but the shares would now be hardly worth the paper they were written upon. Pateley, in a frenzy ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... some of my unpopular and unsalable pictures, and went so far, in the way of friendship, that he actually hung them in his dining-room! He was very fond of recalling reminiscences of our childhood, especially what he characterized as "the great Fulledge railway swindle." When we were little boys we undertook the construction of a miniature railway on his father's land, and issued shares to pay for the rolling plant and the rails. We got together rather a handsome sum in this way from various good-natured friends, and after the expiration ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... swindle," admitted the landlord. "Yes, sir, a swindle of the basest sort, though I did not know it even then. I was inclined to be angry with the cashier, but I reflected that there was probably a mistake of some sort; so I hurried back home ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... In my opinion electric lighting is just a swindle.... They put a live coal in and think you don't see them! No, if you want a light, then you don't take a coal, but something real, something special, that you can get hold of! You must have a fire, you understand, which is ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... doubt," returned she. "People promise you heaps of money, and when they come by their own, and there is talk of paying they swindle you like—" "Like Elie Magus," she was going to say, but she ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... lowered the Cardinal's moral and mental tone, but it does not appear that he had any connection with the great final swindle. In his supernormal gifts and graces the Cardinal did steadfastly believe. Ten years earlier, Rohan had blessed Marie Antoinette on her entry into France, and had been ambassador at the Court of Maria Theresa, the Empress. A ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... my wife, or servant Saurea—do your best, swindle us, rook us, I promise you your interests won't suffer, if you accomplish ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... stars resume their wonted courses, and the self-conscious Tinker-Quixote takes the road once more and passes on to other achievements: a mad preacher to succour, a priest to baffle, some tramp to pound into a jelly of humility, an applewoman to mystify, a horse-chaunter to swindle, a pugilist to study and help and portray. But whatever it be, Lavengro emerges from the ordeal modestly, unobtrusively, quietly, most consciously magnificent. Circumstantial as Defoe, rich in combinations as Lesage, and with such an instinct of the picturesque, both personal ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... said the vicomte, "to ask how monsieur explains the 18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not at all like the conduct of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... this yer ship five years ago jist ez she stood for 8,000 dollars. Kalkilatin' wot she cost me in repairs and taxes, and wot she brought me in since then, accordin' to my figgerin', I don't call a clear profit of 15,000 dollars much of a swindle." ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... said to himself. "He means to pocket the contessa's bracelet. What a swindle! I thought there was something more devilish about him ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... as THIS HOUSE and the lands I actually OCCUPY AND CULTIVATE are concerned; and they know that I am safe to fight to the last, and carry the case to the Supreme Court in that case, until the swindle is exposed, or they drop it; but I may have to pay them something to keep the ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... down from that tribewn, Thou shameless and Unjust; Thou Swindle, picking pockets in The name of Truth august: Come down, thou hoary blasphemy, For die ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... than they have their trousers. Yes, doctor, there's only one breed that flourishes, and you don't need me to tell you which it is. Here they lie"—and he nodded to right and left of him—"dreamin' o' their money-bags, and their dividends, and their profits, and how they'll diddle and swindle one another afresh, soon as the sun gets up to-morrow. Harder 'n nails they are, and sharp as needles. You ask me why I do my walkin' out in the night-time? It's so's to avoid the sight o' their mean little eyes, and their greedy, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... "You have made it clear that what you propose is criminally dishonest, is a gigantic swindle, and that parties concerned in such an outrageous fraud should be amenable to the law and sent ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... this lady's presence,—of whom I beg pardon for this strong language. Mr. Venner, I must beg you, as one of the Trustees of this Institution, to look at the manner in which its Principal has attempted to swindle this faithful teacher whose toils and sacrifices and self-devotion to the school have made it all that it is, in spite of this miserable trader's incompetence. Will you look ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... during Calonne's administration that occurred the famous affair of the diamond necklace. It was a vulgar swindle worked on the Cardinal de Rohan by an adventuress, Mme. de La Motte Valois. Trading on his credulity and court ambitions, she persuaded him to purchase a diamond necklace, which the Queen, so he was told, greatly wished but could not afford. Marie Antoinette was ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... cruelly robbed and mistreated; men had traded upon his honor, and had ruined him. Then and there I saw my way. This man—these men—had political aspirations. Their plans were maturing. I waited. Then I 'wondered if they would care to have the matter in their opponents' hands.' The swindle would be good newspaper matter. They replied that they would 'mind very much.' I succeeded in getting back something of what Martin had ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... a servant! Tell that to the oxy chap downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and thinks you're not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I could only work together we might do something ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a few articles (for which a leading French paper received L100,000) were instrumental in enabling the Panama Canal Co. to swindle the French public of forty million pounds sterling, and more recently, where through Press agency it became feasible to a combination of Jesuitism and militarism to seduce by far the greater portion ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... merely act as you think. Or have I at any time pressed my finger on your throat in order to bring to me your most precious soul, for which I have a fancy? Have I, on account of my bartered purse, let a servant loose on you? Have I sought to swindle you out of it?" I had nothing to oppose to this, and he proceeded: "Very good, sir! very good! You cannot endure me; I know that very well, and am by no means angry with you for it. We must part, that is clear, and, in fact, you begin to be very wearisome to me. In order, then, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... first is that of a young woman who used washed postage stamps. They found four dollars worth of washed stamps in her possession. The next is the arrest of a cigar dealer, who used stamped boxes more than once. He was a fellow sixty-eight years old and got two years. The last case is a mail-order swindle, a ten-cent puzzle, a small affair, run by a nineteen-year-old boy, and sentence ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... in London soon after daybreak, he went to Cochrane's house, and there changed his uniform. When the Stock Exchange opened at ten on February 21, 1814, the Funds rose rapidly, and among those who sold on the rise was Cochrane. The next day, when the swindle had been discovered, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... either if it wasn't for a little affair connected with some horses and a cheque. You see, the War Office people sent down a perfect idiot to buy remounts for the cavalry in Galway and Mayo. He was the sort of idiot that would tempt an Archbishop to swindle him. I rather overdid it, I'm afraid, and now the matter ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... it is better or worse than an English one, it is at least an honest article. It makes no pretensions to be any better than it is. It does not entrap the unwary purchaser by pretending to be a first-class article, when at the same time it may be a swindle. ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... or valet de place. Many travellers regard such men as swindlers; but for my own part I have found them very useful. When I first visited Antwerp I employed one. I found him intelligent and gentlemanly, and, so far as I could judge, not disposed to swindle me himself or to let others do so. I paid him five francs a day, and I am sure he saved me more money than I paid him, besides taking me in the easiest and most convenient way to the various ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... which he had left in the hall in his great-coat pocket. He laid down his spectacles on the table, and someone tried them on. As soon as he took up the cards he gave a start, and sang out, 'Here's a swindle! Nous sommes voles!' He could see, by the help of the spectacles, that all the nines and court cards were marked; and the spectacles were regular patent ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... law,—should they deem there is no other remedy for their wrongs. The admirable Constitution just framed at Leavenworth, one well worthy of a free people that has been tried as with fire, will be adopted before these lines are before the public eye. Let them reject the Buchanan-English swindle, put their heel on the Lecompton fraud, set up the Leavenworth Constitution, and erect a State government under it in defiance of the Territorial Usurpation, and they will soon find themselves face to face with the tyranny at Washington. But is there not reason to hope that firmness and patience ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... should be once more at sea in less than twenty-four hours, the disagreeable suspicion for the first time obtruded itself upon my mind that possibly it might prove after all that I had been the victim of a clever swindle, and that I should never see anything more of any of the men to whom I had handed over two months' advance so confidingly. However, about eleven o'clock the next morning, the first of them—William Rogers, the man ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... arcades of the Caesareum, but they could not answer them. Cyril was right and knew that he was right. Orestes was a scoundrel, hateful to God, and to the enemies of God. The middle classes were lukewarm covetous cowards: the whole system of government was a swindle and an injustice; all men's hearts were mad with crying, 'Lord, how long?' The fierce bishop had only to thunder forth text on text, from every book of scripture, old and new, in order to array on his side not merely the common sense and right ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... "Our own government is ten times worse than the one we are fighting against, and every one of us was a fool for ever putting on a gray jacket. Why didn't they tell us all this in the first place, so that we might know what there was before us? It's a fraud and a cheat and a swindle and a—and a—what are you about?" he added, turning almost fiercely upon his captain, who elbowed his way through the excited group and tried to take the paper from his hand. "I'll not obey the ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... the country, keeping your mouth shut, and seeing what the improvements on the ground amount to. There's some sort of a bungalow there, built by the shooting-club. Here's a description of the place, on the strength of which I bought it. You may take these papers along to judge the size of the swindle." ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... has fancied such a thing might be so, are untrue. On the contrary, he assures me that applications of this nature are very seldom made, and most of those that have been made have proved to come from Englishmen, who have thought they might swindle him in this form. I have had at least a dozen such applications myself, but I take it nothing is easier, in general, than to distinguish between an American and a native of Great Britain. It was agreed between us, that in future ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... scornfully pitied Rose Euclid! He blamed her for not having accomplished the miracle of eternal youth. He actually considered that she had cheated him. "Is this all? What a swindle!" he thought, as he was piecing together the shivered fragments of his ideas into a new pattern. He had felt much the same as a boy, at Bursley Annual Wakes once, on entering a booth which promised horrors and did not supply them. He had been ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... facings of its windows, and suggesting agreeably something of the smooth brown cloth and neat white linen of a well-to-do city gentleman of the last century. Yet that solemn, massive, prosperous-looking building is the enduring monument of one of the most gigantic shams on record—a sham and swindle that was the prolific parent of a whole brood of shams and swindles; for that building, with honesty and credit and mercantile honor written in its every line and angle, is all that remains of the South Sea House. It is a melancholy place—the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... of behavior into the other. As Wulffen says, "Die Gabe zu Schwindeln ist eine 'Lust am Fabulieren.' '' Over and over again we have observed the phenomenon as the pathological liar gradually developed the tendency to swindle. ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... and stung," Nehal said, in a low, shaken voice. "The truth wounds thee! For me—it was death." He hesitated again, fighting for his self-control. "Sahib, great things are expected of a great people. Others may cheat and swindle, others may lie and blaspheme with God's holy secrets, others may seek their pleasures in the earth's mire, but they must stand apart. They must bear forward the banner of righteousness, or their greatness is no more than an ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... than myself, only hinting that it has been costly to be a sleeping-partner, especially when the chief fails; that it is discouraging to economic thrift when the investments wherein you place your savings come to an untimely end; that in particular the Albert Life Insurance was a notorious swindle, wherein more than twenty years' of banked-up prudent earnings, besides the original policy, vanished in an hour; that my early efforts to win fortune were stumped from impediment of speech; and that some of those on whom I depended, as well as others dependent ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... serves you right, madam," added Peter Conant, "for concocting the plot to swindle Alora's father out of the money his dead wife intended him to have. You are not properly punished, for you should be sent to jail, but your disappointment will prove a slight punishment, ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... hung out any farther, he'd trip up on it. But he'll do it again next time. They all do. Learning to stop running to fires is as hard as learning to stop buying mining-stock in the West. And it's just as big a swindle too. The returns from running to fires are marvelously small. They tell me that a hundred million dollars a year goes up in flames in this country. I don't believe it. If it does, I want to know who gets to see all ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch |
