"Low-down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... told her we thought it was low-down to tell stories. And Peggy just laughed and said they wouldn't act so stiff as to tell the truth all the time.—Miss Margery, when are you going there again? I do want to go with you. The baby has a new tooth coming. ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... has any money to give him, and just smart enough to keep the old man mesmerized. Lately Henry's been in a mighty serious peck of trouble. Last fall he got married to a girl here in town. Three weeks ago a family named Johnson, the most shiftless in the county, the real low-down white trash sort, living on a truck patch out Rollinson's way, heard that Henry was on a toot in town, spending money freely, and they went after him. A client of mine rents their ground to them and told me all about it. It seems ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... matter of fact," said the young man, "I've always rather hushed up my first name, because when I was christened they worked a low-down ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... been done by some cowboys who were in town the day before, and the fellow they 'd done for was an ornery cuss of a half-breed Mexican, who was a whole lot better off dead than alive, anyway. He tried to play some low-down game on 'em at poker, and they just strung him up and rode off. Some of our fellows heard about it, and three or four of us decided it would be a good thing to let Coolidge know ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... enough to win when you play with loaded dice. I get boiling mad when I think of these low-down, worthless rascals who don't stop at any meanness, ready to commit murder for fifteen cents. They ought to be treated worse than rattlesnakes. But, as you said just now, all this don't help Will Cummins. But Will is all right, John. You know that as ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... great Jehoshaphat!" he shouted. "I've got it! I've solved the whole derned mystery. Come to me like a flash. Of all the low-down, cowardly—" ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... 'lows Dan, 'en you gwine ter feel fus' rate long ez you sticks ter me. Fer I's a better man dan dat low-down runaway nigger Primus dat you be'n wastin' ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... for me, either, that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep 'em to yourself. I haven't had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here's a lady that we've got to keep fooled. Once she stood it; twice she won't. I'm a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I'll travel it to the end. And now, don't forget that I'm Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to mention ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... glass, he added, in a tone of still greater amazement: "Ferro-Carril Central! Why, it b'longs t' one o' th' boys on th' Central!—but how th' dickens did it ever get here? An' here's a lot of old clothes—th' sort o' rags th' low-down Greasers wear. An' I'm blest," he went on, as he picked up a scrap of paper from the floor, "if this ain't a Mexican Central ticket from Leon to Silao! It's dated last June, an' it's only punched once, so 't couldn't 'a' been used all the way. I say, Professor, ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... mulattress came to clear the supper-table. Virginia they called her. Virginia had been nurse in turn to all the children of Rudolph Musgrave's parents; and to the end of her life she appeared to regard the emancipation of the South's negroes as an irrelevant vagary of certain "low-down" and probably "ornery" Yankees —as an, in short, quite eminently "tacky" proceeding which very certainly in no way affected her vested right to tyrannize over the ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... her. There is a mood in which a deprivation of high comedy may drive one to low-down farce. To-day people are even going farther. A worthy stage is dead, they say; and they patronize, somewhat willfully and contemptuously (or with a loose, slack tolerance that is worse), the moving ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... gang—even they tried to help. Squire Kirby an' Mr. Earle, him that lives in that big white house they call Freedom Hill, up the road whar you been workin', they headed the petition. They are the richest folks 'round here. They heered the trial, Tom. They know you was set upon in that low-down place. Mr. Earle, he went to the capitol with me to see the governor. Him and the governor are ol' friends. Mr. Earle, he bought my railroad ticket and paid my board in Greenville. He talked to the governor for over ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... questioned he, anxiously. "Hes that low-down Tamarack Spicer been round here tellin' ye some more stories ter ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... to keep my mouth shut? You want me to become an accomplice in this beastly, low-down deception? I ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... What do we care? ... We've got you, Neuman," burst out Anderson, his heavy voice ringing with passion. "But it's not your low-down plot thet's r'iled me. There's been a good many men who've tried to do away with me. I've outplayed you in many a deal. So your personal hate for me doesn't count. I'm sore—an' you an' me can't live in the same place, because you're a damned traitor. You've lived here for twenty years. You've grown ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... Boggs. 'Which if you-all'd struck camp by way of Tucson, instead of skulkin' upon us in the low-down fashion you does along of the Lordsburg-Red Dog buckboard, you wouldn't have to ask none. He's the offishul drunkard of Arizona, Monte is. Which the same should be notice, too, that it's futile for you to go ropin' at that p'sition. ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... a low-down thing to say, but I couldn't help lettin' it come. I didn't wait for any more remarks from either of 'em, but I grabs my hat and makes a dash across lots. I never stopped runnin' until I fetched the station, and it wasn't until ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... Mr. Stuart, breaking in fiercely, "you cannot mean to play your own sister such a low-down, scoundrelly trick! You will not pay back the money to her which you confess to owing, simply because she has not asked you for it before! How could she ask for it when you alone knew of the debt and kept the matter a secret? I am not so sure how your ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... yelled, 'what? you dogs! you scoundrels! you miserable, low-down ruffians you! Oh, that I should have lived to see this day! Thankful am I that my father and grand-father are safe in their graves! This would have broken their hearts. Why, you horrible villains,—do you mean to tell me that you have been doing ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... foul," insisted Uncle Martin as they paused at the parting of their ways. "Low-down, underhanded work—do you ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... me tired! What I borrowed from pop I'll pay back. The low-down thing I did was to take that string of diamonds away from Barney. He slipped 'em to me that night as we were on the way to the preacher's to get married. Married! Do you think I really wanted to marry that man! Do you think I am ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... say about me, isn't it?" he snapped back. "But I don't suppose I should expect any kinder interpretation of my motives." To Alice he said, "I'm sorry I had to slap your burnt fingers, sister, but you can't say I didn't warn you about my low-down tactics." Then to me again: "I do hate war, Ray. It's just murder on a bigger scale, though some of the boys give ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... "It's low-down mean, that's what it is," Shorty rushed on, virtuously indignant. "I wouldn't wonder somebody filled you full of lead for it, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... told you about the "Low-down Wilkes," have I? They're the pleasantest people in Three Meadows and we're very clubby. The nice old maid on the wharf at Bath told me about them and advised me to have the woman do my washing, but warned me that I should have to come unto her delicately, like Agag. Being the poorest ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... Bobby, with a gulp. "Honestly, Agnes, it's a shame. It's a low-down trick the governor played to put me in this helplessly ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... woman. "Oh, Lordy! Oh, he nevah done thet afo'e! He'll be took to jail! Oh, Demming, how cyould ye? Stealin' chickens, jes' like a low-down, no-'cyount niggah!" Sobs choked her voice, and tears of fright and shame were streaming ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... whisper and a nudge can do the work, and little by little grandfather was pushed down and out. In my father's time they spoke louder—they don' said how grandfather had sold the precious stuff before he came back; Lord, Sandy, I leave it to you, son, would he have come if he had done that low-down, mean trick?" ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... Vic, "d'you think I'm a plain, low-down, murderin' snake? Harry, ain't you got a word for me? Are you like the ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... hear of my going out to South Africa, I've taken the law into my own hands. I wrote to my mother's cousin, Lord Ferries, to ask him to include me in his yeomanry corps. Of course I let him suppose papa was willing and anxious, which perhaps was a low-down game, but I remembered that all's fair in love and war; and besides, I consider papa very nearly a pro-Boer. We've orders to sail on Friday, which is sharp work; but I should be eternally disgraced now if they stopped me. As my father ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... side as he dashed through the doorway and on into the room he had assigned to the sullen and bibulous stranger. "I knowed it! I knowed it!" he wailed, popping out again as if on springs. "He's gone, an' he's took our broncs with him, the measly, low-down dog! I knowed he wasn't no good! I could see it in his eye; an' he wasn't drunk, not by a darn sight. Go out an' see for yoreself if they ain't gone!" he snapped in reply to Old John's look. "Go on out, while I throw ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... feller—a married man—has bin after her—and some of you know it. She kin take keer of herself can my Mints, but some things is a man's business. I meant to shoot him, but I didn't. I'm glad the low-down cuss is dead, but the bullet that stopped his crawlin' to my gal never come outer my rifle. Now string me up, and be derned to ye, but let this young feller go back to look after ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Just bouncin' a low-down var mint ain't offense enough to be throwed out about, when ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... a smiling glance at the young wife's troubled face, "you have the advantage of us all. You can proudly say, 'I'm a Southerner.' Hilland and I are nothing but 'low-down Yankees.' Come, good friends, I have seen enough tragedy of late; and if, I have to describe a little to-night, let us look at matters philosophically. If I received some hard knocks from your ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... rim of his hat, arranged his scarf, and tightened his belt. The horse's furnishings told him that the stranger was not a low-down prairie loafer. He strode to the veranda steps, and, crossing to the open door, looked ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... find out that it won't work. We are the ones who pay his salary, and if he can't preach the things we want to hear, he'll find himself going hungry, or forced to dig along with those he is so worried about. I don't find anything in the Bible that tells me to associate with every low-down person in the city, and I guess I'm as good a Christian as ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... uster be a bum hangin' round the river front in Saint Louee who hed preacher's papers, en wore a long-tailed coat. Thar wan't no low-down game he wudn't take a hand in fer a drink. His name wus Gaskins; I hed him up fer mayhem onct. I'll bet he's the duck, for he hung round Jack's place most o' the time. Whatcha ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... her for having lied. All women lie. He rather enjoyed the graceful and easy manner with which she had cast the fellow out of her past. But he was vexed with her for having given herself to a low-down actor. Chevalier spoilt Felicie for him. Why did she take lovers of that type? Was she wanting in taste? Did she not exercise a certain selection? Did she behave like a woman of the town? Did she ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... happened in 1890. Maybe the way I got into it will explain how most train robbers start in the business. Five out of six Western outlaws are just cowboys out of a job and gone wrong. The sixth is a tough from the East who dresses up like a bad man and plays some low-down trick that gives the boys a bad name. Wire fences and "nesters" made five of them; a bad heart made ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... only friendly feelings toward them; but maybe there's some people still alive back there in that county who can remember what the reason was why I should naturally hate and despise both the Tatums, and especially this Jess Tatum, him being if anything the more low-down one of the two, although the youngest. At this late day I don't aim to drag the name of any one else into this, especially a woman's name, and her now dead and gone and in her grave; but I will just say that if ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... type of an ideal citizen!' I was addressing myself, 'A first chop specimen of a low-down idiot,—to connive at the escape of the robber who's been robbing Paul. Since you've let the villain go, the least you can do is to leave a card on the Apostle, and inquire ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... 'Dey shall not steal', and de white folks is sho' to think I tuk 'at mule off. Fuddermore, in de 'pistle ob de 'postle, Isaiah, he say, 'Be a clean vessel ob de Lawd God', and I gonna find out de truf and prove my position 'fore dese people. Dat low-down scallawag what come here wid no 'nouncement ob his 'pearance is gwine suffer for dis here axident. He nebber reckoned wid me". And with that Uncle Jake waded into the deep snow and was last seen ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... her dad is in that. We have to guard 'em at night. She ain't had no good word for any of us since she's been up there. Every time she looks at a feller she makes you feel like you was somethin' low-down—a snake, ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... you mean?" inquired the other. "I'm as sore as can be about losing my lovely six-pronged buck, and knocked over all by myself, too. Wouldn't I just like to give it to that low-down liar of a Si Kedge, though, for saying that was his bullet, when anybody could see that it came from my rifle? Why, he only pinked the deer in the neck, because I could see the mark. Oh! the thieves, the miserable skunks, to cheat ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... enough. I felt my way through a mass of hair to a low-down slit, a hole which seemed tight, and as I guided my tool, fancied for an instant I was again going to have a virgin. I was mistaken, but the entry needed a hard, sharp, and painful push to me, and a comparatively easy passage ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... this excellent intention was too much for Germain, who succeeded in foisting one worthless nominee after another on the province just as Carleton was doing his best to heal old sores. One of the worst cases was that of Livius, a low-down, money-grubbing German Portuguese, who ousted the future Master of the Rolls; Sir William Grant, a man most admirably fitted to interpret the laws of Canada with knowledge, sympathy, and absolute impartiality. Livius as chief justice was more than Carleton ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood |
