"Swindle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... room. Claude felt sick, humiliated. It was all so perfectly clear. Jim knew nothing about English property. It was only natural he should place himself in Featherstone's hands. He determined to put a stop to such a swindle as was contemplated. But his plan to warn Jim was frustrated by the later realization that Jim was madly in love with Angela. This astonishing fact was sufficient to drive everything else from his mind. He had no delusion as far as Angela ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... filched from a saucer—same old black sand used in the last century—cut a section of the page with a pair of shears, tossed the coin in the air, listened to its ring on the desk with a satisfied look, slipped the whole twenty-franc piece into his pocket—regular fare, fifteen francs, irregular swindle, five francs—and handed me the billet. Then he added, with a trace ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and 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 Hall of the Kings at Karnak is hardly ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... was no appeal beyond their judgment; because no hungry politician could bring it about that his friends got the chance to swindle the Apaches or to rob them of their rations—as was being done with other Indians all over the West at the time—these two old men were able to enforce their edicts and to keep at peace the most warlike savages in the whole Southwest. They kept ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... Trevison, owner of the Diamond K ranch, near Manti," said the stranger, with blunt sharpness that made the Judge blink. "I've a case on in the Manti court at ten o'clock tomorrow—today," he corrected. "They are going to try to swindle me out of my land, and I've got to have a lawyer—a real one. I could have got half a dozen in Manti—such as they are—but I want somebody who is wise in the law, and with the sort of honor that money and power ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... a view.' I didn't feel called upon to admire the hall in audible terms; but as I stood there an inspiring scene arose before my mental vision—a scene of up-turned faces, each representing the sum of fifteen cents, that being the regular swindle for getting into shows round here, the landlord said. I struck a bargain for the hall, at once—a bargain by which I was to have it for two dollars if I didn't do very well, or five dollars if I had a regular big crowd; bill-stickers ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... spirits which a brooding over the gross fraud occasions. An opportunity of setting ourselves right in regard to him may be not far off in the future. Till then let us stifle at least all outward expressions of disgust or indignation at the legal swindle." ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... being well within her income. This witness also proved that the Fourcades' evidence of Euphemie's misbehaviour could have been dictated from spite. Fourcade had been found out in what looked like a swindle over money which he owed ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... sides of you, and in the windows and along the walks, the things they wear, and the things they eat, and the things they pour down their little throats, and the things they pray to and curse and worship and swindle in! It is like being out in the middle of a great ocean of living, or like climbing up some great mountain-height of people, their abysses and their clouds about them, their precipices and jungles and heavens, the great high roads of their souls reaching off.... I can ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... sister, and that she came here in my ship and stole my picture and why," he ran on, giving the lady a reassuring grin as he mentioned the theft of the photo by the brutal name. "I know, too, the connection between the opium running and the gold-dust swindle; you told me that; but I can't see yet why there was any necessity to compel me to keep my hands off that fellow, since we were all out for him, though on different errands. Seems to me a lot of useless waste of energy when he could have been taken weeks ago if you ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... his spectacles and feels he has been sold! This life on the other side of Jordan he finds to be what his American cousins would call a "humbug," a downright swindle upon the sympathies and good taste of those who wear long streamers of crape, and groan and sob over his funeral rites! He feels in duty bound (out of consideration for those mourners who expect ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... the market for ironbark red, It always occurs to the Wollombi head To do a "mahogany" swindle. In forests where never the ironbark grew, When Jim is at work, it would flabbergast you To see ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... 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
... cabin would have brought on a collision, and although the Englishmen might have fought, there was nothing to gain by a fight. Everything depended on swiftness of action, and Hindhaugh determined grimly that if rapidity could do anything he would teach the "furriners" a lesson for trying to swindle him. ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... It was a fair speculation—a good open deal, and it would have made the fortune of every one who had the savee to see through it. Where's the swindle to sell what others want to buy and at their own valuation? We don't ask them to buy. We don't put up the price. We only tell people what a good thing we've got, and let it get known that so much gold has been found on our claim. If ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... of the various capitalists in the "Yazoo Claims" was $1,500,000. [Footnote: Senate Documents, 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.] The ground upon which this appropriation was made by Congress ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... They are the legitimate possessors; you are the intruder. You live 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 ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... COLVIN, - 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 'em, and he is a perfect gentleman and exceedingly ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stopped, convulsed by such a fit of rage that he had to relieve himself by a volley of appalling oaths. Finally he resumed: "It isn't the swindle that angers me; it is his disgusting behavior to me. He has gammoned me, Madame Burle. By God! Does he take ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... was examining the card, his visitor was forming in his mind a plan of procedure. He had come there with a carefully concocted lie on his tongue to swindle the sharpest lawyer in Scranton out of enough money ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... main watch was from midnight to four in the morning, nearly four hours. My other watch was a midday watch, and I think it was nearly three hours. The two sisters divided the remaining seventeen hours of the twenty-four hours between them, and each of them tried generously and persistently to swindle the other out of a part of her watch. I went to bed early every night, and tried to get sleep enough by midnight to fit me for my work, but it was always a failure. I went on watch sleepy and remained miserable, sleepy, and wretched, straight along through the four hours. I can still see ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... stages; to "Syrup of Figs", which is not a fig syrup, but a preparation of senna; to Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root, of which the principal medical constituent is alcohol; and, finally, to Dr. Bye's Oil Cure for cancer, a particularly cruel swindle on unfortunates suffering from an incurable malady. All of these, with other matter, which for the sake of decency I do not care to detail in these columns, appear in recent issues ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... "It's a swindle!" burst in Matt Lincoln indignantly. "Don't you pay a cent. Miss Bartlett. It was not your fault, and he cannot force you ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... therefore, considered the whole affair as too risky to be gone into without unlimited cash; but now he had a chance of making money, he determined to try his hand at the business. True, he knew that he was in for a swindle, but then he was behind the scenes, and would benefit by the knowledge he had gained. If the question at issue had really been that of getting gold out of the reef and paying dividends with the profits, Gaston would have snapped his fingers scornfully, and held ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... the wicked certainly have no conception of what 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, ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... entirely satisfied with the "presenters" he will sometimes have an assistant. This is where the "shadow" comes in. This shadow will under the direction of the "middle man" follow the "presenter" into the bank and report fully on his actions. He sometimes catches the "presenter" in an attempt to swindle his companions by claiming that he did not get the money, but had to get out of the bank in a hurry and leave the check or draft, as the ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... is the love of 'smart' dealing: which gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a defalcation, public and private; and enables many a knave to hold his head up with the best, who well deserves a halter: though it has not been without its retributive operation, for this smartness has done ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... consisting of 500 diamonds, and worth L80,000, which one Madame de la Motte induced the jeweller who "made" it to part with for Marie Antoinette, on security of Cardinal de Rohan, and which madame made away with, taking it to pieces and disposing of the jewels in London; the swindle was first discovered when the jeweller presented his bill to the queen, who denied all knowledge of the matter; this led to a trial which extended over nine months, gave rise to great scandal, and ended in the punishment of the swindler and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the institutions of marriage and the law courts. This is the raison d'etre of the church. You kill a man just as much whether you murder him or hang him after the formalities of a trial. And so with lust and marriage, mutatis mutandis. So again with the professions of religion and medicine. You swindle a man as much when you sell him a drug of whose action you are ignorant, and tell him it will protect him from disease, as when you give him a bit of bread, which you assure him is the body of Jesus Christ, and then send a plate round for a subscription. You swindle him as much ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... disjointed evidence of Julia, Alfred, and circumstances, in one neat and luminous statement. Sampson was greatly struck with the revelation: he jumped off his chair and marched about excited: said truth was stranger than fiction, and this was a manifest swindle: then he surprised Mrs. Dodd in her turn by assuming that old Hardie was at the bottom of yesterday's business. Neither Edward nor his mother could see that, and said so: his reply was characteristic: "Of course you can't; you are Anglosaxins; th' Anglosaxins are good at drawing ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... peace with them—not, however, by paying them for murdering our people and plundering our trains and posts, but by informing them that if they will refrain from further hostilities they shall not be molested; that neither agents nor citizens shall be allowed to go among them to swindle them; that we will protect them in their rights; that we will enforce compliance with our part of the treaty, and will require them to do the same on their part. Let them ask for peace. We should keep citizens out of their country. The class of men sent among them as agents go ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... Smithfield; the present generation can form no idea of the state of things thirty years ago, which is referred to in the cartoon of Punch and the Smithfield Savages, the artist borrowing his idea from West's well-known picture of "Penn's Treaty with the Indians." The odious matrimonial swindle perpetrated by Louis Philippe with the idea of ultimately seating a member of his family on the Spanish throne, which has cast an indelible stain on his memory, had now been found out, and attracted universal indignation. We find him, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... Since I came a cropper over that accursed cotton swindle I've not had any inclination to meet any one I knew—especially any one in the Service, but"—and his voice rang honestly, "I always wondered whether you and I ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... many long and difficult journeys, one blanket and three kegs of rum, only remained, besides the poor and almost worn out clothing on our bodies." The sending of missionaries, to labor by the side of the miscreants who thus swindle and debauch the ignorant savage, is a mockery of the office, and a waste of the time of these valuable men. If the Indians traded within our states, with our regular traders, the same laws and the same public sentiment which protects us, would ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... him have an eye to the customer in her shop, and came off to show it to me. That young woman is demented enough for anything, and is quite capable of doing it—for some absurd scheme. But do you think it is hers, or a swindle?' ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 'I'm only a poor girl and a widered muver ter keep, and, gentleman, I can't tike less than two pound fer 'em sure and certain as there's a God in 'eaven, I can't.' 'Well,' says he, 'it's a blarsted swindle but I'll take 'em—and mind you deliver 'em ter the lidy yerself.' 'They shall go this very minute,' says I, 'and, oh, sir, God bless you both and may yer have long life and 'appiness ter-gether.' Strike me dead, ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... a swindle," said Mr. Chalker angrily. "It is nothing more or less than a rank swindle. The old man ought to be prosecuted, and, mind you, I'll prosecute him, and you ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... 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 it's lyin' there on call in Adams & Co.'s ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... came, and during 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 frantic over it. Meantime the Washington ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 from the expulsion which he feared. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... 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
... worst is over now, and we are going to pull through better than I expected. Don't take the matter so bitterly to heart. I admit myself that the operation promised well at first. You were misled, and so were we all, by downright deception. That the swindle was imposed on us through you was more your misfortune than your fault, and it will make you a keener business man in the future. You have worked like a galley-slave all summer to retrieve matters, and have taken no vacation at all. You must take one now immediately, or you will break ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... had 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 knew ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... more, and at last he said—'I don't advise you to enter into that partnership. It's a swindle. Many advertisements are. And I have not a hundred pounds by me to-day to lend you. But I will lend you a pound, and you can spend it as you like. And when you are twenty-one you shall ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... get what you want," I said, "in small sums from a number of people, you'll be able to keep control of the thing yourself, and you needn't be afraid of Ascher. Not that I believe Ascher would swindle, you. I think Ascher's ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... was at one time conjurer of the Kangerlualuksoakmiut, or George River Eskimos, and is still their leader, but during a visit to the Atlantic coast, some three or four years ago, he came under the influence of a missionary, embraced Christianity, and abandoned the heathen conjuring swindle by which he was, up to that time, making a good living. Now he lives a life about as clean and free from the heathenism and superstitions of his race as any Eskimo can who adopts a new religion. The missionary ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... 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 they would ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... rich farmers. I called on 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 ruined himself by gambling and bad company, ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... it,' I assured him. 'Mr. Soames and I want to have a little talk with you. Won't you sit? Mr. Soames got nothing—frankly nothing—by his journey this afternoon. We don't wish to say that the whole thing was a swindle—a common swindle. On the contrary, we believe you meant well. But of course the bargain, such as it was, ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... pondered briefly the possibilities of taking from his mother the check, which represented the pro rata share of the Dodge estate, and returning it to Lydia Orr. Reluctantly he abandoned this quixotic scheme. The swindle—for as such he chose to view it—had already been accomplished. Other people would not return their checks. On the contrary, there would be new and fertile schemes set on foot to part the unworldly ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... L. I know as it's a kitch o' some sort ... —hows'ever, jest this once. (He purchases another packet, and is rewarded by an eyeglass, constructed of cardboard and coloured gelatine, which he flings into the circle in a fury.) 'Tis nobbut a darned swindle—and I've done wi' ye! Ye're all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... the man who had sold the land to Ole Bull had no claim to it whatever, and had perpetrated a barefaced swindle, and now, having the money, he dared his victim to do his worst. The actual owner of the land, who had come forward to assert his rights, became interested in the scheme, and was willing to sell the land at a low price, but Ole now had no money. He instituted ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... set down the 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 held at ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... 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 to ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... matter," he proceeded. "I've just ruined myself by marrying you; that's what I've done. Not a soul in the place will come to the house because of you. Nobody could ever stand you but me; and what have I got by it? Not a halfpenny! It was just a swindle, the whole business." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... taxes, in order to support a party organization the sole object of which was to enrich a few at the expense of the many. One job, in especial, the contract for paving the streets, he stigmatized as a swindle, and asserted that the District Attorney, had he done his duty, would long ago have brought the Mayor and Town Council before a criminal court as parties to a notorious fraud. His ability, steadfastness, and self-restraint had had a very real effect; his ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... going to put the absolutely first-class article on the market. Whether it was that there never had been a business, and that Harry's inspection of works, visits to show-rooms, and examination of books, was all part of an elaborate swindle carried out with the aid of some one who possessed these accessories; or whether it was that the whole thing was bought up cheap merely to sell at a profit, was never clearly known to Harry and to Rosalie. Harry was too grieved to pursue the shock. "I'll take not a step further ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... he'd aix of Providence. Don't you think now that he'll git anything worse 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 that I shall ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... to me to get even with your uncle. To swindle his own nephew in this barefaced manner! We'll bring him up with a ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a little speech, made her a present of a doll—which was, by the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle, discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professors were invited) and how Miss Pinkerton ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "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 ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... be a witness of the transaction, for, in my opinion, it will be a swindle on the part of Checkynshaw; and if I can pick him up on it I mean ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... a laugh. "I know you would. That's just the damnable part of it. Life is an infernal swindle, isn't it? It's brimful of this sort of thing." He stood up with a jerk, and pulled himself together. "Forgive me, Olga! I didn't mean to let off steam in this way. I'm a selfish hound. Forget it! Only promise me that if you ever want a friend to turn ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Overreach, having run through his fortune and got into debt, induces Lady Allworth, out of respect and gratitude to his father, to give him countenance. This induces Sir Giles to suppose that his nephew is about to marry the wealthy dowager. Feeling convinced that he will then be able to swindle him out of all the dowager's property, as he had ousted him out of his paternal estates, Sir Giles pays his nephew's debts, and supplies him liberally with ready money, to bring about the marriage as soon as possible. Having paid Wellborn's debts, the overreaching old man is compelled, through ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the treasury. The profits of the undertaking were thus materially reduced. The Farmers at first threatened to throw up their bargain, but the Controller told them that if they did so he would not return their advances, but only pay interest on them. In spite of this swindle, the lease turned out on the whole much to ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... Gorman, "the king is pretty well off at present. He got L6,000 three weeks ago out of Bilkins—the man who ran the egg swindle—and until that's spent he won't feel the need of money. If you could wait six weeks—I'm sure he'll be on the rocks again in six weeks—and then ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... him; he has bolted. It's a long-firm swindle that he's been up to. You know what that means? Obtaining goods on false credit, and raising money on them. What's more, young Chadwick is arrested; he came before the magistrates yesterday, charged with being an accomplice. Here it is; ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... 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 ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... father, if not by the ruined possibilities of Dick Boyce himself. First, the desire to maintain a "position," to make play in society with a pretty wife, and, in the City, with a marketable reputation; then company-promoting of a more and more doubtful kind; and, finally, a swindle more energetic and less skilful than the rest, which bomb-like went to pieces in the face of the public, filling the air with noise, lamentations, and unsavoury odours. Nor was this all. A man has many warnings of ruin, and when things were going badly in the stock ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... question. A tax has been paid on all the alcohol in these things. In many cases, also, a further tax has been paid for the government stamp on patent medicines. That the medicine may be dangerous, that it may be a cruel swindle, that it may take from consumptives and others money which is sorely needed for air and food, and give them in return what is worse than nothing—all these things are nothing to the State if the tax ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Mr. Jones to the driver, "you'd better take that boy's fare now. He wants to swindle you out ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... so strictly as you; I 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, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... get a law protecting European shareholders from being defrauded by swindlers?—I don't know if such a law could be framed without interfering with what, in other countries, is considered to be personal liberty. You have to come to the point whether the man intended to swindle, and that can only be settled by the Court, as a matter of personal judgment. If a good law could be devised it would ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... 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 ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... And thus the ultimate point of Brahma, and the infinite depth of all transcendental philosophy, may reappear in a cheap, portable, and convenient form, as a declaration that the real meaning of some mysterious transaction was that it amounted to a sixpenny swindle at thimble-rig; for to such base uses have the Shaster and the Vedas ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... a waste of holy water When we're taken to the font: They that make us pay for burial Swindle us to that amount. ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... have notified and procured a meeting of the creditors, and have laid the matters before them. Some appeared favourable to me; others insinuated that we were all connected in fraudulent designs, to swindle our creditors. This I repelled with becoming spirit, and was in consequence threatened with immediate prosecution. Whatever may be the event, I had some hopes that your happiness, Alonzo, might yet be ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... light, and every investigation, in the opinion of the ablest and most sagacious men, confirms the assertion that the late MASON and SLIDELL difficulty was simply an immense stock-jobbing swindle, played in the most heartless manner on this country and on England, without heed ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Jenkin, perfervid as 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, ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a swindle Josephine not turning up," Sarah continued, as she stretched herself out in Wingate's easy-chair. "Domestic ructions again, I suppose. How I do hate ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at the hospital more than fifteen minutes. She was ill at ease there; it was no comfort to her to gaze upon the pallid, wasted face of the man she loved when she realized that, by her presence here, she was constituting herself a party to a heart-breaking swindle, and must deny herself the joy of gazing upon that same beloved countenance when, later, it should be glowing with health and youth and high hopes. He was too weak to speak more than a few words to her. The faintest imaginable pressure of his hand answered the pressure ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... so I'll tell him. At least the knowledge will gravel him and take all the joy out of that stinking little spruce swindle of his." ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... 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 ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... men are supported entirely by stolen secrets, from the coachman who claims ten louis every month of the foolish girl whom he drove to a rendezvous, to the elegant dandy in light kids, who discovered a financial swindle, and makes the parties interested buy his silence, ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... 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
... after detailing the 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 ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... "Swindle is an ugly word, Mr. Skinner. Please do not use it again to describe my legitimate business—and don't ask any sympathy of me. You two are old enough and experienced enough in the shipping game to spin your own tops. You didn't give me any the ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... fraud, that I have been an impostor palmed upon you, that there has been a plot and conspiracy to rob you, and that I have a mother who not only did this, but who could propose to me to go on deceiving you, and even to join in a fresh fraud and to swindle Rupert, is so awful that there is nothing for me to do ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... be brought under the statute of leasing-making? Answerand for once in thy long, useless, and evil life, let it be in the words of truth and sincerity,hast thou such a coach?is it in rerum natura?or is this base annunciation a mere swindle on the incautious to beguile them of their time, their patience, and three shillings of sterling money of this realm?Hast thou, I say, such a coach? ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... a joyous rag. It purports to be the correspondence 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... man he met in England was the Earl of Kinnoul: "A small man with a face like the caricature of an owl." He sent for Audubon to tell him that all his birds were alike, and that he considered his work a swindle. "He may really think this, his knowledge is probably small; but it is not the custom to send for a gentleman to abuse him in one's own house." Audubon heard his words, bowed and left ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... 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, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... answer, take it, and carry it down to that old bricklayer in Carrick, whose daughter has the divil's bargain in you; and for the like of that you're not bad matched. Tell him from me, Larry Macdermot—tell him from me, that I'm not so owld yet, nor so poor, nor so silly, that he can swindle me out of my lands and house that way. So clever as you think yourself, Mr. Keegan, you may walk back to Carrick again, and don't think to call yourself masther ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... before you go, we wish to say one word," Fred remarked, calmly, yet firmly. "Ever since we have been at Ballarat, you have contrived a number of ways to swindle us of our money. What you have received we don't wish back into our pockets: but we do give you warning that hereafter, if you interfere in our affairs, we shall take the liberty of administering a sound kicking to that portion of your anatomy made to be ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... piece of furniture costing fifty pounds, and on that account he had paid a pound a week for more than three years, totalling a hundred and seventy pounds at the least, and instantly the glorious simplicity of the scheme dawned upon me, and I became so interested in the swindle that I lit the gas, fearing my little lamp would be exhausted before my investigation ended, for it promised ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Uncle Eb, ''tain't no swindle. Barker thought he hed a gran' good thing. He got fooled an' the fool complaint is very ketchin'. Got it myself years ago an' I've been doctorin' fer ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... remember 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 ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... 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
... is frightened, and he seems sick; the medico don't seem to care a cent about his state of health; and you've got to figure how you would like it if he came to die. Remember, the risk of this little swindle is all yours; it's no sort of risk to Mr. Pinkerton. Well, you've got to put it that way plainly, and see how you like the sound of it: my friend Pinkerton is in danger of the New Jerusalem, I am in danger of San Quentin; which risk do I propose ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... 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
... problem," uttered Tom Reade, with deep scorn, "is simply to find two clean and honest engineers who'll sign a lying report and enable him to swindle some man or group of men out ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... '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 ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... now; and it was delicate business dealing with people who have only one idea in their heads, to swindle you, in order to curry favor with the managers by getting them cheap turns. They would have skinned ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... necessarily invites a violent reaction against the cause the wrongdoer nominally upholds. In point of danger to the Nation there is nothing to choose between on the one hand the corruptionist, the bribe-giver, the bribe-taker, the man who employs his great talent to swindle his fellow-citizens on a large scale, and, on the other hand, the preacher of class hatred, the man who, whether from ignorance or from willingness to sacrifice his country to his ambition, persuades well-meaning but wrong-headed men to try to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the game," exclaimed Napoleon; "it despises my swindling, and forgets that it is itself a swindle. You may be thankful, M. Maelzl, that we are no longer in the middle ages; formerly they would have burned you at the stake as a sorcerer, attempting to do what God alone ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... on his way to the nets. The notice concerning the holiday had only been given out that morning, and he was full of it. He expressed his opinion of the headmaster freely and in well-chosen words. He said it was a swindle, that it was all rot, and that it was a beastly shame. He added that something ought ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... any worse than yo' comin' down here and tryin' to bunco me with a swindle like that'—and he picked up the document and tossed it on ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... living by ironing. She made on an average 10s per week. I suggested to her the advisability of applying for an old age pension and proceeded to fill in her papers. When she discovered that she was two months under the age of 65 she was horrified at what she thought an attempt on her part to swindle ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... 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 ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... of the Intendant, and its rights enforced in the most arbitrary manner—and to the prejudice of every other mercantile interest in the Colony. As a natural consequence it was cordially hated, and richly deserved the maledictions which generally accompanied the mention of the Friponne—the swindle—a rough and ready epithet which sufficiently indicated the feeling of the people whom it at once ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Mr Gale exploded in tones low and fierce. "But I call it a swindle." And he walked, with an undecided, longing, shrinking air, in the wake of the shabby man ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... interpreter, 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
... Bessie at once; easy manner). I'd like to know about this swindle that's going to be sprung on him. I didn't mean to startle the old man. You see, on my way here I dropped into a barber's to get a twopenny shave, and they told me there that he was something of a character. He has been a character ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... stranger than that," he said. "I can introduce you to a man who's in this room now, who was fighting the Ship-building swindle, and he got hold of a lot of important papers, and he took them to his office, and sat by while his clerks made thirty-two copies of them. And he put the originals and thirty-one of the copies in thirty-two different ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... the rags they 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 pedler,—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 ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... could see now the whole building-up of the great intrigue. It had been worked out as carefully as the Tichborne swindle. Young Finglemore, as the brother of Charles's broker, knew from the outset all about his affairs; and, after a gentle course of preliminary roguery, he laid his plans deep for a campaign against my brother-in-law. Everything had been deliberately designed beforehand. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... which she seems to share with party scribes and Colonial politicians. If she had any classic leanings, which she has not, her favourite deity would be Mercury, the "winking Cyllenian Argophont" of the Homeric Hymn, the "little cradled rogue," the Apollo-cheating babe, "the lord of those who swindle, house-break, sheep-steal and shop-lift," under whom Autolycus prided himself upon having been "littered." Autolycus's complacent self-gratulation, "How bless'd are we that are not simple men!" would appeal to the heart ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... and Company undertook to finance the raid on National Woolens it was already deep in the Great Lakes gamble. James was new to Wall Street's green table; and he liked the sensations and felt that his swindle on other gamblers and the public—he did not call it by that homely name, though he knew others would if they found him out—was moving smoothly. Still very, very deep down his self-confidence was underlaid ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... interest in these great people than I have had heretofore. Poor old shabby Snob! Ride on and fancy the world is still on its knees before the house of Carabas! Give yourself airs, poor old bankrupt Magnifico, who are under money-obligations to your flunkeys; and must stoop so as to swindle poor tradesmen! And for us, O my brother Snobs, oughtn't we to feel happy if our walk through life is more even, and that we are out of the reach of that surprising arrogance and that astounding meanness to which this wretched ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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
... dogmatic—she must recover under the superlative advice and attention he was able to summon for her. Then his impatience had swung about toward all doctors—they were a pack of incompetent fools, medicine was nothing more than an organized swindle. They had tried baths, cures, innumerable infallible treatments—to no purpose. Finally he had given up all effort, all hope; he had given her up. And since then it had been difficult ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... mystery to the already perplexing matter. It certainly looked now as though some cunning method had been employed to swindle him. ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... 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
... Merivale, with a rueful smile; "I wrote the cheque last night; by this time it will have been cashed, and so the swindle is complete." ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... "Nobody there. A swindle of the crows. That's what this is. Nobody anywhere. I despise ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... 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 is swelled by a tax on commercial failure. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... duties and Virginia with a sham prohibition of the slave-trade, advertised their proposals for a sham loan which was to be taken up under intimidation, and levied real taxes on the people in the name of the people whom they had never allowed to vote directly on their enormous swindle. With money stolen from the Government, they raised troops whom they equipped with stolen arms, and beleaguered national fortresses with cannon stolen from national arsenals. They sent out secret agents to Europe, they had their secret allies in the Free States, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... 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
... which we are worse. If intercourse between Western nations and China is to be fruitful, we must cease to regard ourselves as missionaries of a superior civilization, or, worse still, as men who have a right to exploit, oppress, and swindle the Chinese because they are an "inferior" race. I do not see any reason to believe that the Chinese are inferior to ourselves; and I think most Europeans, who have any intimate knowledge of China, would take the ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... seemed much interested in the convict's behaviour to the daughter of the man he had tried to swindle out of money. On the contrary, they jumped to the conclusion that his wife was morally his accomplice; and, indeed, if it had not been for her great beauty she would very likely have gone to the galleys too. There was, however, this difference between their positions, that the prosecution was dependent ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... great man had counted upon the ignorance and besottedness of Joe's client—a hard-drinking, disreputable old farmer—to get his land away from him without paying for it. Now, as every one knew such a thing to be ludicrously impossible, it was at once noised abroad in Canaan that Joe had helped to swindle Judge Pike out of a large sum of money—it was notorious that the shyster could bamboozle court and jury with his tricks; and it was felt that Joe Louden was getting into very deep waters indeed. THIS was serious: if the ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... not put the query for two reasons: Mr. Harley 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 ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the world is a liar; it does not keep its promises. It is a cheat, and it fleeces everything it can put its hands on. It is a bogus world. It is a six-thousand-year-old swindle. Even if it pays the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for which you contracted, it pays them in bonds that will not be worth anything in a little while. Just as a man may pay down ten thousand dollars in hard cash and ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... 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 ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... 'ere, Sir, we're the National Telephone Comp'ny with a reputation to lose, and if you've any ideer we want to swindle you, all I can ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... Kelly, indignantly,—"a swindle! Madam assured us, last night, a charming girl was coming, to turn all heads and storm all hearts; and to-day, when we rushed in a body to the window and flattened our noses against the panes to see her, lo! a creature with red hair ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... to swindle, he had to outvie every lie by a new and bigger one. Mr. Douglas might be as patient as he liked; the abuse which was made of his name at last ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... than their business qualifications, burst at one fell coup, almost in the very hour of my return home, dissipating into thin air, as the Latin poet has it, all the savings of a lifetime which my mother had invested in the swindle—the provision left behind by my father, when he died, for her use, and the subsequent benefit of my sister and myself. The devout rogue who had "managed" the concern to his own worldly interest and that of his fellow religionists, carried on the same, so they said, in a pious ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... and monopolies,—of grasping, envious police restrictions, which destroy the freedom, and, with it, the integrity of commerce,—those who like to examine such details may find plenty in French history: the whole French finance system has been a swindle from the days of Luvois, or Law, down to the present time. The Government swindles the public, and the small traders swindle their customers, on the authority and example of the superior powers. Hence ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 to that ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... struck a bargain with Sam Nichols," muttered Abner, apprehensively. "If he has, it'll be sort of a swindle on me. Maybe Nichols has been ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger |
