"Swindler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... say that; but he's in the hands of a swindler, of a professional gambler. You see that man?" He lowered his voice as he spoke, and I looked in the direction of his glance. By this time we knew, in a way, everybody on board the ship. The particular man Smith pointed out was a fellow I had noticed a good deal, ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... to the core," remarked Sobakevitch coldly. "He will sell you and cheat you, and then dine at your table. Yes, I know them all, and every one of them is a swindler, and the town a nest of rascals engaged in robbing one another. Not a man of the lot is there but would sell Christ. Yet stay: ONE decent fellow there is—the Public Prosecutor; though even HE, if the truth be told, is little better ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Bixiou was saying just now, it is a violation of the liberty of the subject to be made to pay in March when you have no mind to pay till October. By virtue of this article of his particular code, Maxime regarded a creditor's scheme for making him pay at once as a swindler's trick. It was a long time since he had grasped the significance of the bill of exchange in all its bearings, direct and remote. A young man once, in my place, called a bill of exchange the 'asses' bridge' in his hearing. 'No,' said he, 'it is the Bridge of Sighs; it is the ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... of a gentleman than Lemoine. Yet Sarah, attracted by one of the strange sympathies which constitute the romance of such women's lives, was devoted to him. Touched by her affection, and rating her intelligence and unscrupulousness at their true value, he told her who he was. He was a swindler, a forger, and a thief, and his name was John Rex. When she heard this she experienced a sinister delight. He told her of his plots, his tricks, his escapes, his villainies; and seeing how for years this young man had preyed upon the world which had deceived and disowned her, her heart went out ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... bailiffs!" suggested the one constable, old and rheumatic, who guarded the peace of Kingswell. "He's the biggest swindler ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... and feeling out of the question, you have no right to keep me here!—for it is in truth your act—if you had not forcibly withheld from me the twelve thousand pounds, in consequence of a threatening letter from a miserable swindler, whose claim YOU in particular knew to be a lie, I should at least have been out of the reach of this state of miserable insult—for that, and that only, lost me my seat in Parliament. And I assert that you cannot find a lawyer in the land, that is not either a natural-born fool ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... invented or is about to invent, an enterprise, in which the promoter imagines he will gain enormous wealth. Sometimes it is a trick in which the cupidity of the victims and their readiness to swallow promises of large and immediate profits play as important a part as the ability of the swindler. Sometimes it is a gigantic hoax, in which the deviser himself becomes keenly interested and for the carrying out of which he spends as much talent and energy as would suffice, if employed honestly, to acquire considerable wealth; but the swindler delights ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... my success in which brought me business from a well known firm in Hatton Gardens. As the public will doubtless remember, they had been robbed of some valuable gems between London and Amsterdam in a singularly audacious manner. My second was the case of the celebrated Russian swindler, who called herself the Countess Demikoff. This case alone took me nearly six months to unravel, but I did not grudge the time, seeing that I was well paid for my labours, and that I managed to succeed where the ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... my park!" he cried in a shrill falsetto, "or I'll send for the constable to turn you off. Bah! You came to steal. You're no nephew of mine; I disown you! You're a common cheat—a swindler—an impostor! Go!" ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... whose companionship was rather dull, and his younger sister, Seraphine, a big, vicious, and flighty girl of eighteen, who, as it happened, soon left the house amid a frightful scandal—an elopement with a certain Baron Lowicz, a genuine baron, but a swindler and forger, to whom it became necessary to marry her. She then received a dowry of 300,000 francs. Alexandre, after his father's death, made a money match with Constance, who brought him half a million francs, and Marianne then found herself still more a stranger, still more isolated ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... Captain Vilson, to make hany hallowance for the eat of political discussion—but that is not hall that I ave to complain hof. Mr Heasy thought proper to say that I was a swindler and a liar." ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... and such epithets as liar, cheat, and swindler were freely interchanged, and then there was a simultaneous spring at each other, the chairs were overturned and they were rolling upon the floor, dealing each other fierce blows and tearing each other's hair like wild beasts. It was ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... a debt, the greatest degradation would have been voluntarily to pay one." And yet was there great pretension to honor, but a man of honor of those days would in our time be considered a ruffian certainly, and probably a blackleg or a swindler. "It was a favorite boast of his (the first Lord Norbury) that he began life with fifty pounds, and a pair of hair-trigger pistols." "They served his purpose well.... The luck of the hair-triggers triumphed, and Toler not only became Chief Justice, but the founder of two peerages, and the testator ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... there are twice as many wards in the lock as is really the case, and the bushes prove to be thin plates of brass riveted on, and not bushes at all. In short, the whole article is a vile fraud, and the maker was a swindler. This is strong language, but I think you will agree with me when I maintain that it is not stronger than the ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... intended to give my bond for it, as has been proved before you; but I must have it for my own use." We have heard of governors being everything that is bad and wicked; but a governor putting himself in the situation of a common cheat, of a common swindler, never was, I believe, heard of since the creation of the world to this day. This does not taste of the common oppressions of power; this does not taste of the common abuses of office; but it in no way differs from one of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... was provided by the various States. Boston, New York, Baltimore, and other ports of entry, found helpless hordes left at their doors. They were the prey of loan sharks and land sharks, of fake employment agencies, and every conceivable form of swindler. Private relief was organized, but it could reach only a small portion of the needy. About three-fourths of the immigrants disembarked at the port of New York, and upon the State of New York was imposed ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... however, who retained more of Tristan's energy and love of fair play at home than any of his brothers, proved clearly that I did more good than harm. I was, he declared, a brave fighter, and there was no knowing when they might need an extra hand. I might also be shaped into a swindler. I was very young and very ignorant; but John, perhaps, would endeavour to win me over by kindness, and make my lot less wretched. Above all, he might enlighten me as to my true position, by explaining that I was an outcast from society, and could not return to it without being ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... BAS'SET (Count), a swindler and forger, who assumes the title of "count" to further his dishonest practices.—C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Express," warranted to go sixty-seven miles an hour! I had found it necessary to study physiognomy since leaving England, and was horrified by the appearance of my next neighbour. His forehead was low, his deep-set and restless eyes significant of cunning, and I at once set him down as a swindler or pickpocket. My convictions of the truth of my inferences were so strong, that I removed my purse, in which, however, acting by advice, I never carried more than five dollars, from my pocket, leaving in it only my ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... man!" said he sharply, "it seems that you have been making rather free with my good name, of late; representing me as a cheat and a swindler." ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... tenants, and then, pretending the money to be his own, lends it to that master and takes bonds for it to himself, we consider guilty of a breach of trust; and the person who commits such crimes we call a cheat, a swindler, and a forger of bonds. All these offences, without the least softening, under all these names, we charge upon this man. We have so charged in our record, we have so charged in our speeches; and we are sorry that our language does not furnish terms of sufficient force and compass to mark ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Let me give you my card. Some time you may get into difficulty and want to consult me. Boys of your age are not a match for an experienced swindler." ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... the Consul-General took wing, leaving his bail, a simple Frenchman, to pay the forfeit. It would be impossible for me to give anything like a history of his crimes in a letter. Suffice it to say that he is a notorious swindler, the most unblushing and inexhaustible liar and the most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... than ever a free hand, on purpose to escort her to the Continent and encompass her there, and had dedicated to her, from the moment of their meeting, all the treasures of his experience. She had judged him in advance—polyglot and universal, very dear and very deep—as probably but a swindler finished to the finger-tips; for he was forever carrying one well-kept Italian hand to his heart and plunging the other straight into her pocket, which, as she had instantly observed him to recognise, fitted it like a glove. The remarkable ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... the voice of Edwin Marvel. "My turn now! I've been waiting for this, you beast, you liar, you swindler! Stop the car!" repeated the madman, and wrenched at his captive's throat so that the latter's hands were torn ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... that Howell will also be punished for his crime," the handsome woman cried. "Though I have been a thief, a swindler, and a decoy—ah! yes, I admit it all—I have never committed the crime of murder. I know, messieurs," she went on—"I know that I am a social outcast, the mysterious Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, they call me! But I have suffered. I have indeed in these ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... and the pestilence and the enemy upon them, and weren't quite sure at times whether the thing that ye saw leading was the Lord's pillar of cloud or the devil's, and if ye was now being cast out before the face of men and called a liar and a swindler, and without a dollar in the world, I guess ye'd know what it felt ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... pickpockets or cunning-featured area-sneaks. The forger occupied the same berth with the body-snatcher. The man of education learned strange secrets of house-breakers' craft, and the vulgar ruffian of St. Giles took lessons of self-control from the keener intellect of the professional swindler. The fraudulent clerk and the flash "cracksman" interchanged experiences. The smuggler's stories of lucky ventures and successful runs were capped by the footpad's reminiscences of foggy nights and stolen watches. The poacher, grimly ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... word for ourselves, we should have made it not 'iceberg', but 'ice-mountain'. I have not found it in our earlier voyagers, often as they speak of the 'icefield', which yet is not exactly the same thing. An English 'swindler' is not exactly a German 'schwindler', yet the notion of the 'nebulo', though more latent in the German, is common to both; and we must have drawn the word from Germany{73} (it is not an old one in our tongue) during the course of the last century. If 'life-guard' ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... your letter. You ask for the money to be sent to you immediately. I have it not to send; my sin has found me out. A thief and swindler! Can it be possible that I ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... for it. It was here at last, and he was so far beggared that he had no price to offer in payment for it which was worth a thousandth part its value. He was bankrupt and had sought to buy this treasure, and must now needs go through life as a swindler. Even if his hopes were granted, what had he to pay? He knew at this moment as clearly as if he had even then been enlightened by the events of later years that there were scores of women who would draw their skirts away in a real disdain of an association ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... could not the estate claim the necklace as an heirloom, but that greedy siren, that heartless snake, that harpy of a widow,—for it was thus that Mr. Camperdown in his solitude spoke to himself of poor Lizzie, perhaps throwing in a harder word or two,—that female swindler could claim it as—paraphernalia! ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Directors in September 1836, in which he eagerly vindicates the freedom of the Calcutta Press, at a time when the writers of that Press, on the days when they were pleased to be decent, could find for him no milder appellations than those of cheat, swindler, and charlatan. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... not be cheated by an English swindler." The clothier raised his thin voice: "Kate, here's a ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... Tom like a trip hammer. So Hardy was mixed up in it! Hardy, the respected Governor of Roald, the man responsible for the welfare of the colony and the lives of the colonists, was really a swindler and a thief. Now if Jeff only had Professor Sykes's journal they could tie everything together, providing he could stop Vidac from sending them off to a prison rock! Tom's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the movement of Astro's heavy body on top of him. ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... properly laid the matter before the Lord Mayor, who, with equal propriety, stamped the attempt as the device of a swindler, against which publicity in the newspapers was the best precaution. The strangest thing of all, however, was, that nobody appeared to know the offender; nor was there in the 'Times,' or in the other newspapers ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... in gloom and bitterness. Before me was the most humiliating ordeal with which Fate had ever saddled me. I had to confess failure a second time, and under such circumstances that Rogers would be justified in believing me either a swindler or a dupe unworthy of respect ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... who received the wages of an hireling that he might act the part of a swindler, and who skulked from his impotent attacks on the liberties of France to perpetrate more successful iniquity in the plains of Poland. Note to line 193. Notes, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... shrewdly appropriated, because by those means the public can be most widely and most quickly reached. Does good become evil because hypocrites use it as a cloak? It is also true that I have been "undignified." Let the stupid cover their stupidity with "dignity." Let the swindler hide his schemings under "dignity." I am a man of the people, not afraid to be seen as the human being that I am. I laugh when I feel like it. I have no sense of jar when people call me "Matt." I have a good time, and I shall stay young as long as I stay alive. Wealth hasn't made me a solemn ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... which he had contrived to secure to himself by this plot amounted in all to something under four thousand pounds; and out of this it may fairly be supposed that Mr. Medler claimed a considerable percentage. The only information that Gilbert Fenton could ever obtain from America was, of a shabby swindler arrested in a gambling-house in one of the more remote western cities, whose description corresponded pretty closely with that ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... her knees and besought her to save dear John. This at once aroused my aunt's suspicions; and instead of lending the money, she wrote off to Mr. Smithers instantly to come up to her, desired me to give her up the 3,000l. scrip shares that I possessed, called me an atrocious cheat and heartless swindler, and vowed I had been the cause of ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the carnival, and the husband obtained a rich dowry with his wife. The poor girl died of 'grief in the course of a year, but did not say a word till she was on her death-bed. Her foolish parents, ashamed of having been deceived so grossly, dared not say anything, and got the female swindler out of the way; she had taken good care, however, to lay a firm hold on the dowry. The story became known, and gave the good folk of Augsburg much amusement, while I became renowned for my sagacity in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and byword that in offenses which result in a large accession of property to the offender he does not ordinarily incur the extreme penalty or the extreme obloquy with which his offenses would be visited on the ground of the naive moral code alone. The thief or swindler who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a better chance than the small thief of escaping the rigorous penalty of the law and some good repute accrues to him from his increased wealth and from his spending the irregularly acquired ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... that day. Wool was an atrocious villain, an incendiary scoundrel, a cut-throat, and a black demon. Cap was a beggar, a vagabond and a vixen. Herbert Greyson was another beggar, besides being a knave, a fop and an impudent puppy. The innkeeper was a swindler, the waiters thieves, the whole world was going to ruin, where it well deserved to go, and all mankind to the demon—as he hoped and ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... out that he was no conspirator; but she asked herself in vain whether she was to look for a common swindler, an impudent adventurer, or perhaps even a criminal in him. The day that she had foreseen soon came; the Brazilian's banker "unaccountably" had omitted to send him any money, and so he borrowed some of ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... and then hang him, not as a malefactor, but as a scarecrow. That is the theory. And the practice is, that we send a child to prison for a month for stealing a handful of walnuts, for fear that other children should come to steal more of our walnuts. And we do not punish a swindler for ruining a thousand families, because we think swindling is ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... spells affection with one f? Nonsense, sir. Be a man, and remember that your mother is a lady. She was never made to associate with that tipsy old swindler or his daughter. Be a man and forget her, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... good ever; and I regret my engagement. Whiles I have had the most deplorable business annoyances too; have been threatened with having to refund money; got over that; and found myself in the worse scrape of being a kind of unintentional swindler. These have worried me a great deal; also old age with his stealing steps seems to have clawed me in his clutch to ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the estimation of his lady. All shook their heads at the recollection of the unlucky Tyrrel, and found out much in his manner and address which convinced them that he was but an adventurer and swindler. A few, however, less partial to the Committee of Management, (for whenever there is an administration, there will soon arise an opposition,) whispered among themselves, that, to give the fellow his due, the man, be he what he would, had only come among them, like the devil, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... surprised Lovel how Sir Arthur's foolish speculations, and especially his belief in a certain German swindler, named Dousterswivel, had caused him to engage in some very costly mining ventures, which were now almost certain to result ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... coward, sir,' replied Captain N——, with almost frightful vehemence, 'as every trickster and swindler IS. You are a contemptible dastard—a despicable, damned villain! Draw your sword, sir, and defend your life, or every post and pillar in this town ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... friends. For our own parts we must pause before we give in to so dangerous a doctrine. Here is a man who has outraged the laws of honour, the ties of relationship, and the duties of religion: he appears before us in the triple character of a libertine, a swindler, and a suicide. Yet his follies, his vices, his crimes, are all palliated or even applauded by this specious facon de parler—"He was ...
— English Satires • Various
... ass in lion's skin &c (bungler) 701; actor &c (stage player) 599. quack, charlatan, mountebank, saltimbanco^, saltimbanque^, empiric, quacksalver, medicaster^, Rosicrucian, gypsy; man of straw. conjuror, juggler, trickster, prestidigitator, jockey; crimp, decoy, decoy duck; rogue, knave, cheat; swindler &c (thief) 792; jobber. Phr. saint abroad and a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... leavings of a swindler—the leavings of a swindler—and you stole, in my house, the place of an honest woman! Your lies have brought the curse of God on my family and it's you who are the cause of everything. The misfortune that's just befallen us, it's you who are the ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... opening of the session, great popular feeling was excited against the coalition. The furious invectives which Fox had been for some years heaping on Lord North's luckless head, were now flung upon his own. Traitor, liar, swindler, were "house-hold words;" and Fox, with all his ability, and that happiest of all ability for the crisis, great constitutional good-humour, found himself suddenly overwhelmed. In the House he was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... impunity, he might vindicate his insulted dignity both by civil and criminal proceedings. If a barrister, in the discharge of his duty to a client, spoke with severity of the conduct of a noble seducer, if an honest squire on the racecourse applied the proper epithets to the tricks of a noble swindler, the affronted patrician had only to complain to the proud and powerful body of which he was a member. His brethren made his cause their own. The offender was taken into custody by Black Rod, brought to the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a swindler. Langford owed our dear Parker twenty-five pounds, of which there was no account; but Langford desired his agents to pay Mr. Parker. Langford requested, that he would wait two or three months, as it would be more convenient to him. To which ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... Mrs. O'Hagan, at the hotel, and she says there's a well-known trick just like that—she's read of it in a book. A swindler has two sets—one real, one false; and he makes you buy the false ones by showing you the real, and pretending he sells them ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... didn't know any better, and went and paid thirty pounds premium—thirty pounds down to have me made THIS. The G.V. promised to teach me the trade, and he never taught me anything but to be a Hand. It's the way they do with draper's apprentices. If every swindler was locked up—well, you'd have nowhere to buy tape and cotton. It's all very well to bring up Burns and those chaps, but I'm not that make. Yet I'm not such muck that I might not have been better—with teaching. I wonder what the chaps who sneer and laugh at such as me would ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... an opportunity to make the only reparation still possible angered the District Attorney, and, turning fiercely upon the prisoner, he arraigned him in scathing terms, stating that he was a miserable swindler and thief, who had robbed thousands of poor people of all the money they had in the world, that he showed himself devoid of every spark of decency or repentance by refusing to assist the law in punishing his confederate and assisting his victims in getting ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... lapse into vice as soon as the traditional sanction was removed. But what is to prevent the withdrawal of the traditional sanction from producing its natural effect upon the morality of the mass of mankind? The commercial swindler or the political sharper, when the divine authority of conscience is gone, will feel that he has only the opinion of society to reckon with, and he knows how to reckon with the opinion of society. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... "jest made use of the sayin' about curin' with the hair of the dog that bit you. Figgered a swindler wouldn't never suspect nobody of swindlin' him with one of his own tricks. This here Mr. Baxter, or Mr. Bowman, or whatever his name is, used to make a livin' sellin' gold bricks. When I found that there fact out I jest calc'lated he was ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... and sober man tells us that the roof of the house fell in. An imaginative fool, who is also a swindler, assures us that he later saw the roof standing. We remember that the roof was of iron girders covered with wood, and draw this conclusion: That the framework still stands, but that the healing fell ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... after Miss Thwaite departed, Musker began the story of Thurston's Folly. It had grown quite dark. Driving rain lashed the windows. The ancient building was filled with strange rumblings and the wailing of the blast when the old man concluded: "Mr. Geoffrey was too proud to turn a swindler, and that was why he shook off his sweetheart, who tried to persuade him, though he knew old Anthony Thurston would have left him ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... promise anything,' replied the brother, 'he promised he'd pay my college bills, when my father died; he promised he'd build the new wing to the Rectory. And it is to this man's son—this scoundrel, gambler, swindler, murderer, of a Rawdon Crawley, that Matilda leaves the bulk of her money. I say it's unchristian. By Jove it is. The infamous dog has got every vice except hypocrisy, and that ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Brandon had his son up on the spot; and after listening to his explanations gave him the alternative either to apologise to Potts or to leave the house forever. Louis indignantly denounced Potts to his father as a swindler. Brandon ordered him to his room, and gave him a ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... face with France and as powerful as herself, like a neighbour treating on equal terms, I would have cried to her, 'It's I, Arsene Lupin! Behold the former swindler and gentleman burglar! The Sultan of Adrar, the Sultan of Iguidi, the Sultan of El Djouf, the Sultan of the Tuaregs, the Sultan of Aubata, the Sultan of Brakna and Frerzon, all these am I, the Sultan of Sultans, grandson of Mahomet, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... and a humbug, if not a swindler, was enough, Wade thought, to account for any failure. But he did ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... is 'racket,'" Goode said. "Why, that man is a notorious swindler! Mr. Rand, do you know that only a week before his death, Mr. Fleming instructed me to bring suit against him, and also to secure his indictment ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... he is a pretty unmitigated rascal," he said at last. "And I can't flatter myself that any repentance for his misdeeds offers one an excuse for condoning them. He was a swindler and a hypocrite. You can't get away from it. I never met a more agreeable companion. He's taught ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... examine the characters of the keepers thereof, before you lead your innocent daughters, and their mamma, into places so dangerous. In the first place, you have bad dinners; and, secondly, bad company. If you play cards, you are very likely playing with a swindler; if you dance, you dance with a —— person with whom you had better ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Smollett "obliged the town" with his "Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom," a cosmopolitan swindler and adventurer. The book is Smollett's "Barry Lyndon," yet as his hero does not tell his own story, but is perpetually held up as a "dreadful example," there is none of Thackeray's irony, none of his subtlety. "Here is a really bad man, a foreigner too," ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... as far as may be judged from their appearances; but they are not to be trusted, for I doubt not but you would form erroneous conclusions from such premises. The company that assembles here is generally composed of a great variety of characters—the Idler, the Swindler, the Dandy, the Exquisite, the full-pursed young Peer, the needy Sharper, the gaudy Pauper, and the aspiring School-boy, anxious to be thought a dealer and a judge of the article before him—looking at a horse with an air of importance and assumed intelligence, bidding with a trembling voice and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... therefore the father in the family, and the government in the state, are responsible for the crimes committed against filial piety and the public laws. If a king is careless about publishing laws, and then peremptorily punishes in accordance with the strict letter of them, he acts the part of a swindler; if he collect the taxes arbitrarily without giving warning, he is guilty of oppression; and if he puts the people to death without having instructed them, he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... education. Her mother was well born and well bred. If you would get at the truth, Miss Lovel, you must teach yourself to believe that they are not swindlers. They are no more swindlers than I am a swindler. I will go further,—though perhaps you, and the young Earl, and Mr. Flick, may think me unfit to be intrusted any longer with this case, after such a declaration,—I believe, though it is with a doubting belief, that the elder lady is the Countess Lovel, and that her ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... the case would not come to trial. If they were only firm and decided with him, Mr. Checkynshaw would give up the block of stores, and pay over the back rents. He must do so, or his reputation would be blasted forever. He must stand before the world as a knave and a swindler, unless he did full and ample justice to the widow (who had a husband), and the orphan (who had a father and mother); for Mr. Wittleworth, when he waxed eloquent, had a habit of ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... it is," thought John, but he did not answer at once, as he was so excited he could hardly control his voice. He did not want the swindler ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... execution on Saturday last, is scarcely to be equalled on the records of fraud. It was equal to that practised on Rundle and Bridge, the jewellers, some time ago, but the present case is only at the expense of four costly gold watches. The swindler, who called himself Mr. Winter, is rather above the middle size, was dressed in a brown frock coat, wears long whiskers, and is well calculated for imposition in address and manner. A house in Southampton-street, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Turks. He was tall, well made; and, although he looked like a nobleman and had wit, reminded one at the same time of a country actor. He was a great liar, and a libertine in body and mind; a great spendthrift, a great and impudent swindler, with a tendency to low debauchery, that cursed him all his life. Having fluttered about a long time after his return, and found it impossible either to live with his wife—which is not surprising—or accommodate himself to the Court ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a poor soul can but thank Thee For such a delectable day! Though the fury, the fool, and the swindler, To-morrow ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... of the fatal discovery of my real name on my linen—of his misplaced confidence of affection, and the shame with which he should be obliged to meet his fashionable friends and confess that he had harboured a swindler, he gathered up the linen, clothes, silver toilet articles, and the rest of my gear, saying that he should step out that moment for an officer and give me up to the just revenge of ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bought—but with the morning would have come sober sense, the cheque stopped before it could have been presented, the swindler caught. No! those exquisite Parisians were never intended to rest in Mr. Shipman's safe until the morning. That last bottle of '48 port, with the aid of a powerful soporific, ensured that Mr. Shipman would ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... swindler and gambler doing here? He left New Orleans suddenly, or he would be in prison now, and you will see if he stops here long after ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... he joined the union. Then he got working about as a labourer, and one day some rotten scaffolding broke, and he came down with it. The union got a few pounds for her, but the boss was a regular swindler who was always beating men out of their wages and doing anything to get contracts and running everything cheap, so there was nothing to ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... out of his usual calm propriety, 'do you not comprehend if that woman had gone out of your store with the calico, that she not only would never enter it again, but she would publish your name over town as a swindler and a cheat, and you never would hear the end of it. Pease had charged her double prices, and the goods would not stand a single washing. And you know whether or not you are ready to pay off the mortgage Deacon Esterbrook holds on ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... selected by Messrs. Lang and Shorter.) Further, "He writes always from the point of a B.Sc." But the most humorous part of the criticism is this. After stating that Ponderevo acknowledges himself to be a liar, a swindler, a thief, an adulterer, and a murderer, Claudius Clear then proceeds: "He is not in the least ashamed of these things. He explains them away with the utmost facility, and we find him at the age of forty-five, not unhappy, and successfully engaged ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... hope, however, ultimately to succeed—in fact our coals are nearly finished. To show you how General Church goes on—his gunboat has only advanced twenty feet from the beach, and yet he will not send away that swindler Allen, who commands her. I told him I would not meddle with her until he dismissed that man, and things remain thus. General Church, while on board, received letters announcing the unlooked-for destruction of the Turkish fleet; still I have not entirely credited it, and I am in anxious ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... Narkom, permit me to say that it does not necessarily follow. The clever people of the under-world do nothing by halves nor without careful inquiry beforehand; that is what makes the difference between the common pickpocket and the brilliant swindler." He turned to Ailsa. "Is that all, Miss Lorne, or am I right in supposing that there is even ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... can't choose one's brother; but who would choose to be the friend of a swindler? Is that ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... who despoils thee of thy whole estate with the stroke of a quill, and against whom thou canst claim no recompense or remedy? What is a pickpocket who steals a five- pound in comparison to a dice-sharper who robs thee of a hundred pounds in the third part of a night? And what the swindler that deceives thee in a worthless old hack compared with the apothecary who swindles thee of thy money and life too, for some effete, medicinal stuff? And moreover, what are all these robbers compared with that great arch-robber who deprives them all of everything, yea, of ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... man who is now looking over my shoulder is the celebrated thief Palacio, the most expert housebreaker and dexterous swindler in Spain—in a word, the modern Guzman Dalfarache. The brawny man who sits by the brasero of charcoal, is Salvador, the highwayman of Ronda, who has committed a hundred murders. A fashionably dressed man, short and slight in person, is walking about the ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... arch schemer and swindler Frank Smithson, who got himself out of the country so successfully with his ill-gotten gains from the Star Mining Company, has dropped the last syllable from his too notorious name, and is now figuring ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... bulbul—but I leave this image to persons better acquainted with the East. His appearance, besides, was highly in his favour; the uniform of Sir Faraday, however inconvenient and conspicuous, was, at least, a costume in which no swindler could have hoped to prosper; and the exhibition of a valuable watch and a bill for eight hundred pounds completed what deportment had begun. A quarter of an hour later, when the train came up, Mr. Finsbury was introduced to the guard and installed in a first-class ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inquiries about the affairs of the mine, noting my answers down in his pocket-book. I thought this odd but concluded that he wished to verify my statements before entering into a close companionship with me, since for aught he knew I might be the largest liar in the world and a swindler to boot. So I said nothing, even when I heard through a roundabout channel on the morrow that he had sought an interview with the late secretary ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... winter of 1867-68, a swindler or set of swindlers opened an office in the lower part of Broadway, under the title of "The Bankers' and Brokers' Gift Enterprise." The affair was ostensibly managed by the firm of Clark, Webster & Co. As many thousand persons were victimized by these villains, it is possible that ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... of his success and of his guilt, the meanest and most worthless of the human race—the mocker and robber of the poor, the persecutor and kidnapper of Paul O'Clery and his brethren, the merciless swindler and defrauder of the laborer's wages, and, finally, the hypocritical sensualist and drunkard. We boast of our progress, and advertise, as proof of it, the number of railroads in operation, their extent, and the rapidity of the motion over their iron ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... think that, by an intellectual stride they had advanced in the spiritual life, whereas they would be neither the better nor the worse. I know a man, once among the foremost in denouncing the old theology, who is now no better than a swindler." ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... quite certain that in a year or two you will be offered some really big and responsible position—you would be insane to tie yourself to a girl who seems to have been allowed to run perfectly wild, whose uncle is a swindler . ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... friends, Mrs. Porkenham and the Misses Porkenhams, and Mr. Sidney Porkenham, were ready to burst with jealousy and despair. And now, to hear, after all, that he was a needy adventurer, a strolling player, and if not a swindler, something so very like it, that it was hard to tell the difference! Heavens! what would the Porkenhams say! What would be the triumph of Mr. Sidney Porkenham when he found that his addresses had been slighted for such a rival! How should he, Nupkins, meet the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... murmuring I love, that it may devour. The priceless reward of such honesty is the power to love better; but let no man insult his nature by imagining himself noble for so carrying himself. As soon let him think himself noble that he is no swindler. Doubtless Faber said to himself as well as to her, and said it yet oftener when the recoil of his selfishness struck upon the door of his conscience and roused Don Worm, that he would be true to her forever. But what did he mean by the words? ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... attacks, for which no redress has been obtainable. Thus the manufacturers of Sheffield still complain, I suppose justly, that German articles for foreign consumption bear the words "Sheffield steel" stamped upon them. I myself have been approached by a German swindler with the proposition that I should assist his firm in infringing patents; he was surprised and pained to learn that I did not consider his proposal an ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... compliment. I liked Elodie. Dress her at whatever Rue de la Paix rag-swindler's that you pleased, you would never metamorphose the daughter of the people that she was into the lady at ease in all company. She was a bit mannieree—on her best behaviour. But she had the Frenchwoman's instinctive knowledge of ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... not understand," said he. "I am not a swindler, and I guard myself; that is all. It may weary you or not, Mr. Cassilis, I do not care a rush; I speak for my own satisfaction, and not for your amusement. You had better go upstairs and court the girl; for my part, I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I'll give you another chance. Do you know what we are prepared to prove? Well, I will tell you. We can prove that you are not only a swindler but a forger, and our success will consign you to a prison cell. You deserve it, no doubt, but ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... but a few years since, in the heart of the State of New York, a swindler of genius having made and buried a "petrified giant," one theologian explained it by declaring it a Phoenician idol, and published the Phoenician inscription which he thought he had found upon it; others saw in it proofs that "there ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... almost every one mentioned in history, sacred or profane. The collection of Mr. Samuel Ireland was like this, and an English student possessed autographs of most of the great reformers, carefully written by an ingenious swindler in contemporary books. The lovers of relics are apt to be thus deluded, and perhaps we should not regret this, as long as they are happy. But they should be very careful indeed when they are asked to buy Alvarado's spear, though probably it is extant somewhere, as it ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... Cumberland!" repeated I mechanically, "a low, dissipated swindler—a common cheat, for I can call him nothing better; oh, it's impossible!—why, Mr. Vernor, your ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Glenn, alias Ellis Glenn, a notorious swindler, who came prominently before the public in Chicago during 1905, was another "man-woman," of large and masculine type. She preferred to dress as a man and had many love escapades with women. "She can fiddle as well as anyone in the State," said a man who knew her, "can box like ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... been a victim, not a swindler,' sounded from him in a feeble voice. 'You see, he says that Geldershaw has robbed him of all ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... virtues. There is a man at large, at the moment when this paper is preparing for the press (on the 29th of April, 1850), and never once taken up yet, who, within these twelvemonths, has been probably the most audacious and the most successful swindler that even this trade has ever known. There has been something singularly base in this fellow's proceedings; it has been his business to write to all sorts and conditions of people, in the names of persons of high reputation and unblemished honour, professing to be in distress - the ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... peculiarities were present in an affair in which he arrested Bill Smith, at Brixton, some years ago. Resolved unanimously that Bill's recent movements will bear looking into. Opinions will be discussed of the identity of a swindler who has been duping furniture dealers by selling them furniture from houses or flats he has rented. Many a fraud has been detected by these informal discussions in that bare ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... externals of life nor in the course of history is there any significance; for as it is all one whether an error occurs in the large type or in the small, so it is all one, as regards the essence of the matter, whether an evil disposition is mirrored as a conqueror of the world or a common swindler or ill-natured egoist. In one case he is seen of all men; in the other, perhaps only of himself; but that he should see ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... carpentry and a good performer on the violin,—but evasions must be checked, and I cannot see why Mr. Mellasys's method was too severe. Mr. Mellasys was also considered a very unscrupulous person in financial transactions,—indeed, what would be named in some communities a swindler; and I have heard it whispered that the estimable, but somewhat obese and drowsy person who passed as his wife was not a wife, ceremonially speaking. The dusky hues of her complexion were also attributed to an infusion of African blood. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... has been purloined or enticed away by her former owner, Madame Widow Decaux, who secretly went out of this State on the 12th December, 1846. Said Widow Decaux is well known in New Orleans as a notorious swindler, having been prosecuted for having pawned logs of wood to a merchant of this city instead of dry goods. She has a scar on her forehead, and several others on her neck, and is accompanied by her aged mother, and her ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... great-grandfather's memory was not evoked on this occasion, and my father frankly confessed that his personal knowledge of Crayshaw's was very small, and that the man on whose recommendation he had sent us to school there had just proved to be a rascal and a swindler. Our mother had certainly heard rumours of severity, but he had regarded her maternal anxiety as excessive, etc., etc. In short, my dear father saw that he had been wrong, and confessed it, and was now as ready as the Colonel to expose ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... limit the application of other parables. The lord, it will be recollected, commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely. His shrewdness was held up as an example, but after all he was a miserable swindler, and deserved the state-prison as much as many of our financial operators. The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is a perpetual warning against spiritual pride. But it must not frighten any one of us out of being thankful that he is not, like this or that neighbor, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and caste barriers unknown, a New Zealander, when meeting a stranger, does not feel called upon to act as though in dread of finding in the latter a sponge, toady, or swindler. Nor has the colonist to consider how the making of chance acquaintances may affect his own social standing. In his own small world his social standing is a settled thing, and cannot be injured otherwise than by his own folly or misconduct. Moreover, most of the Islanders are, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... the laws require is by most people thought a work of supererogation; and to slip through the grate of the law has ever exercised the abilities of adventurers, who wish to get rich the shortest way. Knavery without personal danger is an art brought to great perfection by the statesman and swindler; and meaner knaves are not tardy in following ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft |
