"Low-down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hams. I couldn't blame them poor white folks, wid the men in the War and the women and children hongry. The niggers didn't belong to them nohow, and they had to live somehow. But now and then they was a devil on earth, walking in the sight of God and spreading iniquity before him. He was de low-down Sesesh dat would take what a poor runaway nigger had to give for his chance to git away, and den give him 'structions dat would lead him right into de hands of de patrollers and git him ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... plumbful of good cheer Till he struck that low-down year; Got so thin, so little to him, You could most see day-light through him. Never was his eye so bright, Never was his cheek so white. Seemed as if somethin' was wrong, Sort o' quaver in his song. Same old smile, same hearty voice: "Bless you, boys! let's all rejoice!" But old ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... chief's girl was right there beside him, huggin' her knees and listenin' with both ears. I didn't like to think about it, for she was a nice little yearlin', and it looked to me like Mike was up to his usual devilment. Seemed like a low-down trick to play on an injunoo like her, and the more I studied it the warmer I got. It was a wonderful night; the moonlight drenched the valley, and there was the smell of camp-fires and horses over everything—just the sort of a night ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... written you all about everything— what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been of some service to people ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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 ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... 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 after the train pulled ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... getting speech in these surroundings. "Kick! I deserve it. Of all the low-down, d——n cowards that ever was borned I sure am the worst! But the gall of that feller Peterson! An' ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... who was Justice of Peace. He was a nigger, a low-down devil. Man, them niggers done more dirt in this city. The Republicans had this city and state. I went to the polls and there was very few white folks there. I knew several of them niggers—Mack Armstrong, he was Justice of Peace. I can't call the rest of them. Nothing but old thieves. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... say I'm nothing of the kind," spiritedly replied the under-dog. "You all time wanting somebody to call theirselfs someping. You're a low-down Isabella skunk yourself." ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... round for you," he said, "looks most like a low-down played-out Britisher. He's wanting Contractor Lorimer, and won't lie down ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... ham and bacon, to round out a banquet. Why couldn't a couple of mighty hunters like you bring home more than one little haunch of venison? Bacon and beans! Steve, you sure have been living mighty low-down on this job!" ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... 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
... "The low-down, ornery liar!" sputtered Bud Jessup, face flushed and eyes snapping. "He told me to wait for them bolts if I had to stay here all day. I thought it was kinda funny he'd let me waste all this time, but I didn't have no idea at all ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... the fateful spot?" said Wingarde, coming suddenly out of his reverie. "What is the usual thing to do? Cut our names on the gate-post? Rather a low-down game, ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... listen to your old Dad: There are some things in this world not to be got around. I'm one of 'em. Peggy Stewart and Polly Howland are thoroughbreds an' thoroughbreds ain't capable of no low-down snobbishness. They know their places in the world and there's nothing open to discussion. An' they're too fine-grained to scratch other folks the wrong way. But, some of them girls up yonder are cross-breeds—oh, yes, ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... hungry, wild animal, tryin' to pass itself off ez, an old dead log. Up in Kentucky, a good honest bear, or even a sneakin' panther, would be ashamed to look you in the face after tryin' to play sech a low-down ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... thet in times gone by we thinks is public spirited an' enterprisin', which is a mistake. You pays th' debt of said corp'ration, so they sez, an' tharfore we welcomes you to our bosom cordial. What happens? You insults us by paying such low-down ornary cusses as Snowie. Th' camp is just. She arises an' avenges said insult by stringin' of you up all right an' proper. We gives you five ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... his plump friend. "After you've eaten one, you'll feel so grateful to me that you'll regret all the low-down things ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... out Vic, "d'you think I'm a plain, low-down, murderin' snake? Harry, ain't you got a word for me? Are you ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... de Yankees, though I does 'members de Ku Klux. They visit pappy's house after freedom, shake him, and threaten dat, if him didn't quit listenin' to them low-down white trash scalawags and carpetbaggers, they would come back and whale de devil out of him, and dat de Klan would take notice of him ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... That 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 my ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... a time when a low-down person, colored or white, couldn't stay in the community. They would give him a ticket and send him ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... I'd jump you and stomp the gizzard out of you, you low-down, dried-up, whisker-faced, mutton-eatin' butcher, you! I goes to you and makes you a square offer and you come pussy-footin' in and steals me ranch when I ain't there! If Jack Corliss don't run you plumb off the edge afore to-morrow night, I'll sure see if there's any ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... he returned, his smile nearly cutting the top of his head off, reaching as it did around to the back of his ears. "I ain' no gord. I'se jess one o' dese low-down or'nary toters. Me an' him totes folks roun' ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... Carroll, quite honestly. "I would hate to think anything low-down of a man you'd ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Kettle on the achievement, the little sailor had coldly replied that he was only carrying out his duty and earning his pay. And he had further mentioned that it was lucky for Commandant Balliot that he was a common, low-down Britisher, and not a fancy Belgian, or he would have thought of his own skin first, and steamed on comfortably down river and just contented himself with making a report. The white engineer of the launch—a drunken Scot—had, it seemed, been killed in the ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... "I'm not. Can't a low-down, no-account man like me even laugh where there's happiness? Why, if that young feller goes to work an' spoils it all by kickin' the bucket, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... 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 ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... by Josephine, the Life-Saver. Josephine had to yield, and the Men all clustered around her to give their Moral Support. After one or two Selections, they felt sufficiently Keyed to begin to hit up those low-down Songs about Baby and Chickens and Razors. No one paid any Attention to the Lady President, who was off in a Corner holding an Indignation Meeting with the Secretary ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... trenches, along with a lot of cigars and tobacco, and had got about fifty postcards from 'em saying it was the funniest thing they'd heard since the war begun. And in a minute more he was explaining, with much feeling, just what low-down nation it was that started the war—it not being England, by any means—and I saw he wasn't to be trusted on ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... nice white people"—Joe smiled his distorted smile—"and then a low-down black man helped me to get away as soon as he saw who it was. He's a friend of mine, and he fell down and ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... horrible," I said, "if I found out I wasn't a ffrench at all—but had really sprung from a low-down, capital F family in ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... with pride and rage. "And there are the Fosters on the upper deck,—people I know. Come, Jim, let's cut off before they see us with this low-down chump." ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... he's supposed to know his business. How came John Scoville to hang, without a thought being given to the man who hated A. Etheridge like poison? I could name a certain chap who more than once in the old days boasted that he'd like to kill the fellow. And it wasn't Scoville or any one of his low-down ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... Featherlooms, and you were out for the Sans-Silk Skirt Company, both covering the same territory, and both running a year-around race to see which could beat the other at his own game. The only difference was that I always played fair, while you played low-down whenever you had ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... before you leave it. A forest fire would play the mischief just now, with everything so dry. But somehow, I've got hopes that the rain is coming soon," and he looked into the west, as though the few low-down clouds gave him encouragement. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... Alton grimly. "My father used to be, but he was too much of my way of thinking and they fired him out of the country. It's a thing I don't like to talk of, Charley, and just now I'm a low-down packer hauling in a pile of truck I'll never get paid for. Steady, come up. There's nothing going to ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... "The low-down, ruffianly swab!" Drake burst out. "But there! that's just the sort of beast he looks. Well, Mr Frobisher, if, as you say, he dislikes you—and from the way he looked at you I should say that 'hate' was the more correct word—I ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... dat f'um yo' equal, d—n you!" he cried, bending over his prostrate figure. "I'll show you how to treat my ole marster, you low-down slue-footed devil!" ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... 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 ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... 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
... gun-pits far away, Low-down, well south, an angry foe doth roar, He opens out again upon another day And rakes the slope with shrapnel as before. But only working parties on the top are found, The rest, save ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... 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
... worry yo', Mistah Swift!" exclaimed the darkey. "Jest let dat low-down-good-fo-nuffin' Andy Foger come 'round me, an' Ah'll make him t'ink he's de inside ob a chicken coop, ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... bowling phenomena, wandered casually through a little door into what must always be termed the wrong end of a bowling alley. Of course, he saw that the supreme moment had come. They were not only shooting at the hat and at him, but the low-down cusses were using the most extraordinary and hellish ammunition. Still, perfectly undaunted, however, Jim retorted with his two Colts, and killed three of the best bowlers in ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... makes him a low-down villain, and you ought never to think of the creature again. If he's alive, he's happy without you. Happy without you—think of that! But of course he's ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... heap from you, for you're my own flesh and blood. I hain't never laid a hand on you, though I've threatened it often. But now! by Gawd, I'm goin' to take you apart so's nobody kin put you together ag'in ... you mis'able, cheatin', low-down, crawlin' snake." With that he stepped back a pace and with his open palm struck ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... Geoff, I—I want to apologise," said the lad, toying nervously with his teaspoon. "I guess you think I'm a mean, low-down sort o' guy, an' you're right, only I—I feel worse 'n you think. An' say, Geoff, if I—if I said anything th' other night, I want you ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... right," predicted Herb. "Ten to one they're framing up some low-down game to play on us whenever they find an opening. Maybe they'll try to put our radio set out of commission, just as they stole Jimmy's set and ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... ... Why, you're nothing but a low-down lout, a thief—" and Manuel was advancing against El Carnicerin, when one of the fellow's friends gave him a punch in the head that stunned him. The boy made another attempt to rush upon the butcher's son; two or three guests pushed him out of the way and shoved him out on to the ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... alive or enny of that kind of talk. It is al-rite fer boys who are used to ruffin it, but it is not nice fer girls so if I was you I wood go easy on it, and hot dogs aint machine guns, they are sausidges that are made from those low-down german dogs that heve short legs, but say they test buly in a roll. The vilets and pollywogs have come and I wood send you some but I guess they wood dry up before you got them. Ennyway you neednt worry much about the war now that Uncle Sam ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... low-down jack within fifty mile of us on high ground, he'll have us spotted for certain," she rebuked. "Great fire—great smoke ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... man!" cried 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
... he'll go, too!" said Nesbitt. "Say, I'm awfully sorry I made that break, Dunn. It was beastly low-down to round on a chap like that. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... bit of it," demurred Ritchie. "No, sir. I said that if ever I found out who played that mean, low-down trick on Upton, the culprit or I would leave ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... said Sir Henry quickly. "Lambson-Bowles is a brute and a bounder in many ways, but—well, I don't believe he is low-down enough to do this sort of thing, and with murder attached to it, too, although he did try to bribe poor Tolliver to leave me. Offered my trainer double wages, too, to chuck me ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... in love with 'im. He was an 'ero. She told 'er father she was going to marry 'im. As the old gentleman was about to be married 'imself, he 'ated to share the prominence with 'er. So he said he'd disown 'er if she even thought of marrying a low-down circus rider. That was enough for Mary. She up and run off with Tom and got married to 'im in a jiffy, beating 'er father to the ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... Sally?" questioned he, anxiously. "Hes that low-down Tamarack Spicer been round here tellin' ye some ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... property won't go to you when the will's before the court. The man who married you in Rockbeach was no justice of the peace, and you know it, Mr. Jerold Garrison. You assumed the name of Fairfax and hired a low-down political heeler, who hadn't been a justice for fully five years, to act the part and ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... it; that's where the beastly part of it all came in. They were not given to me by the owner, but by a lot of mean, low-down, practical-joke-loving ghosts." ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... foul," insisted Uncle Martin as they paused at the parting of their ways. "Low-down, underhanded work—do ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... lighted the lantern, and the letters F. C. C. showed clearly on the 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 ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... tail. The gall of the loikes of ye to call yerselves min, and dhraw pay wid that sort of thing ferninst ye for a name! Oi 'll bet ye niver had no grandfather; ye 're nothin' but a it, a son of a say-cook, be the powers! An' ye come over here to work for a thafe—a dhirty, low-down thafe. Do ye moind that, yer lanthern-jawed spalpeen? What was it yer did ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... Barber: "Oh, y' ornery, mean, low-down, sneakin' coyote!" He took a long, leaping step over the things on the floor—a step in the direction of the longshoreman. As he sprang, he shifted his tobacco quid from one cheek to the other. "Say! I'm plumb chuck-full o' y'r goin's-on! I'm stuffed with y'r fool pre-form-ances! ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... guess the rest of us ought to be ashamed to throw any stumbling block in the way of a chap who is trying to get out of his old rut. But it passes my comprehension how he can change, and play fair and square, when all his life he's been so tricky and low-down mean." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... altogether too long, and I for one ain't going to do it no longer. What do you say, gentlemen?" he continued, turning to his companions, "shall we trifle with our luck, and lower our self-respect any longer by tolerating the company of that there disreputable, low-down, miserable coyote? I go for boycotting him. Let him work his own claim and sleep in his own cabin if he wants to, but don't let him intrude himself into this saloon or into our society ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... Barbazon's! You call that war! It wasn't war," declared Jowett spasmodically, grasping the rail of the fire-engine as the wheel struck a stone and nearly shot them from their seats. "It wasn't war. It was terrible low-down treachery. That Gipsy gent, Fawe, pulled the lever, but Marchand built ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Nora's trunks is a set of my old gloves. There will not be any one up at the tennis-court this time of day. If you are not a mean cuss, if you are not an ordinary low-down imitation of a man, you'll meet me up there inside of five minutes. If you can stand up in front of me for ten minutes, you need not make any explanations. On the other hand, you'll hike out of here as fast as boats and trains can take you. And ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... met difficulty. He wandered into the Lone Star, and placing his crude bullion upon the counter, swept about him a comprehensive hand. To his wonder there was no response. A few of the assembled populace shifted uneasily in their seats, but none arose. "Do you take this for a low-down placer camp?" asked Billy Hudgens, with a dull show of pride, when McGinnis demanded the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... grazing unattended among the fields along the paths and canal banks, with crops all about, One of the most memorable shocks came to us in Chekiang, China, when we had fallen into a revery while gazing at the shifting landscape from the doorway of our low-down Chinese houseboat. Something in the sky and the vegetation along the canal bank had recalled the scenes of boyhood days and it seemed, as we looked aslant up the bank with its fringe of grass, that we were gliding along Whitewater creek through ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... sezee, 'I wouldn' 'spec' ter be 'vited ter de weddin',—a common, low-down fiel'-han' lak I is. But I's glad ter heah you en Jeff is gittin' 'long so well. I didn' knowed but w'at he had 'mence' ter ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... upon my friends to help me out. But when I come to calling the roll, I—I don't seem to have any friends." The schoolma'am was twirling the Montana sapphire ring which Weary had given her last spring, and her voice was trembly and made Happy Jack feel vaguely that he was a low-down cur ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... have the face, if I had the heart, to say no to anybody that came along and wanted me to indulge them, too. Now, I don't want you to go thinking this is generosity, Tom, or a good heart, or that I have any sneaking idea in my own bosom that it's anything of the sort. I'd be a regular—low-down—soggy—sinful sowbug, I'd be too dirt-mean to live, if I pretended it was that. When I was poor I never was generous; I never thought of it. I worked hard for what I got; and was in the same boat exactly as the rest; I was entitled to the little bit I'd worked for. But ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... is, he was sharp enough to hear them unbeknown. Says one of 'em, 'Better get out the fire-engines from town,' and he laughed. Says another, 'Guess the boys'll hev a nice bonefire waitin' for us, time we get to Flanders.' Then the low-down slab-pilers got their mutinous heads together, and says, 'The J.P. and the bailiff's got to be roasted anyway, wisht we could heave Nash in atop.' I've left the cursing and swearin' out, because it's useless ballast, and don't count in ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... her, and as they were alive until recently, either the Elizabeth Robinson did not go down in a typhoon, or from any other reason, or—the brothers Quick escaped. But here is a list of the men who were aboard when she sailed from Hong-Kong. She was, I have already told you, a low-down tramp steamer, evidently picking up a precarious living between one far Eastern port and another—a small vessel. Her list includes a master, or captain, and a crew of eighteen—I needn't trouble you with their names, except in two instances, which ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... "A dirty, low-down trick," commented Mike. "I'll hang it back on the peg just now, but don't use it again ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... 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 lack a certain ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... that all his evil habits came upon him as the result of changing his name. If he had continued to be Tulp, he argued, he would have had some incentive to an honorable life; but what self-respecting nigger could have so low-down a name as Eli, and be good for anything? All this warranted my boy in being proud of his name, and, so to speak, living ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... kindness is wasted on, and so I stopped and looked right at him, and I said, 'I—beg—your—pardon, I am not doing anything of the kind,' I said, 'it's the people ahead of me, who won't move up,' I said, 'and furthermore, let me tell you, young man, that you're a low-down, foul-mouthed, impertinent skunk,' I said, 'and you're no gentleman! I certainly intend to report you, and we'll see,' I said, 'whether a lady is to be insulted by any drunken bum that chooses to put on a ragged uniform, and I'd thank you,' I said, 'to keep your ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Just smile on the gent in the front seat; he's right there with the distillery. Wilbur, chase the roof off a jug of suds for the Lieutenant. I tell you, Captain, on my honor as a lady, we are not going more that six miles an hour. Must take us to the station! Why, you low-down, monkey-faced excuse for a sparrow cop, would you have the crust to stand up in front of a judge and tell him that we were going faster than ten miles an hour? If you want to get us to the station it's a cinch you will have to push the machine. Walk! ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... driving along, "their faces as long as fiddles," as Cora said. The boys had taken the lead, and they were having their own trouble trying to convince Walter that Miss Robbins had "dumped" the girls, and that it was a "low-down trick." ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... "Has that low-down liar an' thief been comin' it over you, Polly? Did he tell you how he gave the place he promised ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... meanest kind of a fellow would descend to such a trick!" exclaimed the indignant Josh; "but then Tony Pollock and his crowd are ready to do anything low-down and crooked. They'll never be able to join our scout troop, after we ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... 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 they claim that one of the daughters in the Johnson family was ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... really made that would take out the seeds they came begging to see the wonderful machine and find out how it worked; and of course Mr. Whitney had to show it off. He hadn't a notion people would be so low-down as to snitch his idea and go to making cotton gins of their own. But that's exactly what they did do and as soon as Mr. Whitney and Mr. Miller who was helping him got wise to the fact, they locked the new cotton gin up. But do you s'pose ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... Jimmy's way of thinking, was that all was not well with James Crocker, that, when all the evidence was weighed, James Crocker would appear to be a fool, a worm, a selfish waster, and a hopeless, low-down, skunk. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Aw, dat triflin', low-down houn' dawg, he didn't show up at all, but we had a magnificious occasion wivout him, ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... wouldn't have complained at anything he'd asked me to do, but it was a low-down trick to get Katharine into this trouble." His eyes shone out with a dull ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... make 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 ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... 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
... man!" he murmured in a voice filled with contempt. "Why, a low-down coyote is a gentleman alongside of yo'. I wondered why yo' looked so well fed, while the rest of the camp was starvin'. Men, search ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... 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 pictures. Perhaps it was in some such mood that Raymond's wife took ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... all these sort of things you know. I can do all the donkey work, but I've got no head for business. I never know the difference between a loss and a profit. It was partly over this that I quarrelled with my people—they said it was low-down to make face cream and sell it—they're awful snobs! So I just cleared off and changed my surname and came here. I'm quite happy, and if I haven't got as much money as I had, I don't mind—I've got my liberty, ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... tinker,' exclaimed Bill, boiling with rage. 'If punching parrots on the beak wasn't too painful for pleasure, I'd land you a sockdolager on the muzzle that 'ud lay you out till Christmas. Come on, mates,' he added, 'it's no use wastin' time over this low-down, hook-nosed tobacco-grabber.' And leaving the evil-minded Parrot to pursue his evil-minded way, they hurried off in search ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... the Bar, he would never become a member of the abhorred professions over and over again enumerated; and was duly warned that without special permission of the Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple he might not practise "under the Bar"—whatever that may mean (I dare say it is some low-down procedure, only allowed in times of scarcity). Then after having his name "screened" for twelve days in all the Halls of the four Inns, and going in fear and trembling that some one might turn up and object, he finally received his call to the Bar on April 22 ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... 'You've bin an hour tellin' that yarn o' yours! Ef ye could spin it out to fill two chapters of a book—yer fortune's made! For you'll show that a successful hoss trade involves the highest nash'nul characteristics. That what common folk calls "selfishness," "revenge," "mean lyin'," and "low-down money-grubbin' ambishun" is really "quaintness," and will go in double harness with the bizness of a ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... thinking of Mihanovich. What a romance that man's life must have been! They tell me that about forty years ago he'd landed in that place, a Russian Pole, ignorant of the language, without any money or friends, a low-down beach-comber. And here he was, a millionaire. Every tug on the river has his big M on the funnel. He had fleets of steamers, mines, railways, banks; and he was even tendering for the contract of ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... this you've humbugged us with, Dutchy? You call this here a valuable letter? That's a mighty low-down trick to play on your friends what come along to help you distribute ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... a gulp. "Honestly, Agnes, it's a shame. It's a low-down trick the governor played to put me in this helplessly belittled ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... young inventor as he noted the face and form of Delby more closely. Then our hero added: "You played a low-down trick, Mr. Delby, and it won't do you any good. I caught you trying to sneak along in my company and I'll catch you again. I'm here first, and I've got the best right to try and get a giant for Mr. Preston, and if you had any idea of ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... her worst taunts on such occasions was about like this: "Well, you is a low-down nigger, I must say. Nobody, to look at you, would b'lieve you was twin to ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... 'You low-down monkey!' Goldwater almost flung his brush into the poet's face. 'You compare my wife to a kangaroo! Take your filthy manuscript and begone ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Nick impatiently. "How's the White Squaw o' the Moosefoots goin' to savvee a low-down bat like Cree. I sed ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... bit better, a little bit richer in knowledge, than we find it, these poor little lives of ours, such as they are, and that's not much—will not have been lived in vain. Of course, as you know, I'm just a common, low-down materialist who can't rise to the poetry of things as you can with this gorgeous theory of re-incarnation ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... pocketbook! I don't care how much it costs. It will be ample satisfaction to see just one low-down chicken thief squirming on ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... 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, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... 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
... word to Vose or his associates about this business of the documents. They think you have come because you wanted to straighten out a low-down trick worked by an understrapper. So this has put you in mighty well with the Vose ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... me a thing that goes on there. He says if there's anything on top of the earth he absolutely despises it's a gossiping man. He says a gossiping woman is a creation of God—must be, there's so many of 'em; but a gossiping man—he can't find any word in the dictionary mean enough for that sort of a low-down skunk." ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... it's like religion," he answered. "At first it makes you feel all low-down like, and miserable, and you don't care. Then you either get over it entirely or become so used to it you don't ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... twenty or the whole lot he just says to me, "Bill," says he "gimme the pus." I don't ask wot he's goin' to take and I don't care. He can take it all if he wants it, 'cos it stands to reason, don't it, mister?' says Bill to the lawyer, 'that a man wouldn't be so dirt mean as to play a low-down trick on his own mate. So you see, mister, him an' me warn't mates 'cos we had two pusses an' mates is ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... in point of fact, it really is ours," remarked Donald Hall. "But it would be a rotten, low-down trick for us to sell it away from the school and ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... to believe niggers will work when they ain't obliged to. THAT'S been tried over at Mirandy Dows's, not five miles from here, and the niggers are half the time hangin' round here takin' holiday. She put up new quarters for 'em, and tried to make 'em eat together at a long table like those low-down folks up North, and did away with their cabins and their melon patches, and allowed it would get 'em out of lying round too much, and wanted 'em to work over-time and get mo' pay. And the result was that she and her niece, and a lot of poor whites, Irish and Scotch, that she had to pick up ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 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
... He spoke well of my cooking—like you said—which proves him a man of some discernment. No way to get around that. Now a man with his judgment wouldn't suspect for one living second that he could play it low-down on you with me roosting close at hand. Putting two plain facts together it works out right natural and simple that he's on the square. As easy as that," he finished triumphantly. "So don't you fret. And in case ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... "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, an' ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... locality. The machine was driven by horse-power, and in the dawn of the crisp November mornings the crescendo of its metallic groan could be heard for miles across the brown prairie. It, too, with its hand feed, its open straw-carriers, its low-down delivery, which necessitated digging a hole in the frozen earth to accommodate the bags, and its possible capacity of six hundred bushels a day, bears mean comparison with its modern successor; but it threshed grain at a lower cost per bushel, and threw less into the straw ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... so I began to hesitate again. It struck me that it was playing it a bit low-down on the poor chap, avoiding him like this just when he probably wanted his pals to surge round him most. I pictured him sitting in his lonely studio with no company but his bitter thoughts, and the pathos of it got me to such an extent that I bounded straight into a taxi and told the driver to go ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... round dozen of the best farmers in the county; and I heard, on the quiet, that it caught a good many outsiders who had been buying Farmers' stock at a bargain, among them this young Mr. Copper-Money who was going to marry Agatha—and didn't. Geddis and Withers played it mighty fine—and mighty low-down." ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... respectfully, much impressed by the consul's speech, and tremendously pleased, besides, that Fetuao should see that an American, even a common, low-down American seaman like himself, counted for something in the official world. Would a Britisher, or one of those stinking Dutchmen, have acted like this consul did? His consul, by God!—and his breast heaved with gratitude and patriotic fervor. Afterwards, when Fetuao and he ate their lunch ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... the noble Red Man," Jakey was apostrophising the distant mountains in ornate language; "what kind of a low-down bird are you, to be gathered in by a goose, and a blue one at that?" Jakey paused, gazing earnestly at the retreating figure of the miner. Then, shaking his fist at the man's back, "Look here, you ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... Lydia or Kent to describe afterward. There was a hullabaloo that brought half the mothers of the neighborhood into the yard. The doctor was sent for. Margery was put to bed and Kent and Lydia were mentioned as murderers, low-down brats and coarse little brutes by Mrs. Marshall, who ended by threatening them ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... him squarely, and taking a tighter grip of her stick. "I ain't ever seen you hit anything but a woman, an' a girl, or some poor animal that didn't dare bite back. You're a coward, Jed Hawkins, a low-down, sneakin,' whiskey-sellin' ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... 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 me out of my prize! I'll never, never ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... Evie. You'll break her heart by robbing her of all you've brought into her life through your love. Say, can't you see it all? And you'll do it for a shadow. Yes, it's a shadow, an ugly shadow, this crazy thought of yours for a brother who was just a low-down cattle rustler, same as these toughs you're making a bid of ten thousand dollars to see hanged the same as he was. Think of it, Jeff. She's just a woman, weak and helpless, and you're going to rob her of all that makes her life ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... as day," he exclaimed, "I reckon you've hit it right plum center first shot, lad. You bet we'll be on the watch to warn them poor Indians, an' if there's any fightin' we'll sho' help to rid this country of them ornary, low-down, murderin', cut-throats. It's a great head you've got for young shoulders, Charley. You've reasoned it out like a detective and made your ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... too, this yere Ryder is; an' as much as ever it's this horror of Boggs which prevails on him to shift his blankets to Red Dog—-the same bein' a low-down plaza inhabited by drunkards an' Mexicans, in proportions about a even break of each, an' which assoomes in its delirium treecnors way to be a ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... low-down hound," I asserted, and after promising to be in at nine o'clock I seized my gown and went away. As I went into the hall I met Collier, and during dinner I expressed my opinion of Dennison very freely. There are times at Oxford when you regret most tremendously that you have left school, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... through the door, "you've been my good Angel. I'm doing more work than I've done in two months, although it was a dirty, low-down way to make me do it. You're not going back on me ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... expending this precious acquirement on a platoon of agricultural recruits? The officer who suffers such gladly has his name inscribed on the Golden Legend (unfortunately unpublished) of the British Army—"but when it comes," he went on, "to low-down lying knavery, then I'm done. I don't know how to tackle it. All I can do is to get out of the knave's way. I've found Gedge to be a beast, and I'm very honourably in love with Gedge's daughter, and I've asked her to marry me. I attach some ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... your brother handicapped with poor material this year? His team's not done so well ... sort of an in and out eleven ... one Saturday looking like a world beater ... the next Saturday looking like a bunch of dubs. What's the low-down?" ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... home from that talk Watts had branded the man who mended the boats as one of them low-down anarchists that ought to be shot at sunrise. Things was as they was, held Watts, and how could anybody but a fool expect them to be any way but the way they was? It showed what he was—and after that Worth had had no more fireworks of thought for a week, Watts standing guard ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... another, and that we don't require any comic M.P.'s sent out to cheer us up. The fact is, some people read the papers too much. At the present moment the London press is, not to put too fine a point on it, making a holy show of itself. I suppose there's some low-down political rig at the back of it all, but the whole business must be perfect jam for the Bosches ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... was still bent over an' he was black in the face; but when I straightened him out an' soused a lot o' water over him, he came out of it, an' I fair itched to make him eat his gun—knee-riggin' an' all! He sat up an' began to tell what a low-down, sneakin' cuss Dick had allus been. I let him sing a couple o' verses, an' then I sez: "Now, you look here, you slimy spider. Dick's too busy just now to attend to your case an' if you don't swaller them few remarks instant ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... "The low-down white hates us bekase we ain't mean an' ornery ez they air, an' hold ourselves above 'em. The big-bugs hates us bekase we won't knuckle down ter 'em, ez ther niggers an' the pore whites do. So hit's cat-an'-dog all the time. We don't belong ter the same parties, we don't jine the ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Winters had doubted there would be, the lad had secured reserved seats and on "the front row near the entrance," just as that gentleman had desired; so presently, they had arranged themselves upon the low-down bench where, at least, their feet could touch bottom; and where with a comical air the farrier immediately began to sniff the familiar odor of fresh turned sod covered with sawdust, and turning ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... only the wash pan. Fact is, some one has been in this place since I been away, and they stole my dish pan, the low-down pups. I didn't know as you'd ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... hog it. Wouldn't do that fer the world. So if yer short, I can put up with seventy-five—" (he studied the other's face), "an' I might do with fifty. I 'preciate your position, an' I ain't low-down critter enough ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... obnoxious, beastly, low-down trick not to send me a cheering line for four weeks just because, in a period of abnormal stress I once let you go for three. I had really begun to be worried for fear you'd tumbled into the Potomac. My chicks would miss you ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... and just a low-down mischief-maker, for all his smart clo'es, but he knows a powerful lot about what is going on in the Green Forest, and perhaps he has seen mah ol' man," said old Mrs. Possum, as she tried to make her sharp face as pleasant as possible. She looked over at Sammy Jay, ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... in a low-down Neighborhood, Mrs. Jump was ashamed to give her Address to Friends in ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... 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 ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... me; I won't stand it. And don't you call me gov'ner. I won't have your low-down street slang in my office. So you're the great bull, eh? you bull-pup! you bull in a china shop! The great bull-calf, you mean. Where'd you get the money for all this cussedness? Where'd you get the money? Tell me that. ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... she repeated, meeting him squarely, and taking a tighter grip of her stick. "I ain't ever seen you hit anything but a woman, an' a girl, or some poor animal that didn't dare bite back. You're a coward, Jed Hawkins, a low-down, sneakin,' whiskey-sellin' coward—and ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... 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, or somethin'." ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand |
