"Low-down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a low-down thing to say, but I couldn't help lettin' it come. I didn't wait for any more remarks from either of 'em, but I grabs my hat and makes a dash across lots. I never stopped runnin' until I fetched the station, and it wasn't until after the ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... not blame her for having lied. All women lie. He rather enjoyed the graceful and easy manner with which she had cast the fellow out of her past. But he was vexed with her for having given herself to a low-down actor. Chevalier spoilt Felicie for him. Why did she take lovers of that type? Was she wanting in taste? Did she not exercise a certain selection? Did she behave like a woman of the town? Did she lack a certain sense of niceness ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... "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' ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... the Representative, as he chewed a tack awhile, thinking it was a clove. 'I want to find a boarding house where the proprietress was an orphan found in a livery stable, whose father was a dago from East Austin, and whose grandfather was never placed on the map. I want a scrubby, ornery, low-down, snuff-dipping, back-woodsy, piebald gang, who never heard of finger bowls or Ward McAllister, but who can get up a mess of hot cornbread and Irish stew at ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... to be there in Holyoke at all when you thought I was at Hal's. I did go to Hal's but I only stayed two days. The rest of the time I was with Madeline and knew I was going to be when I left the Hill. That part can't look any worse to you than it does to me. It was a low-down trick to play on you when you had been so white about the car and everything. But I did it and I can't undo it. I can only say I am sorry. I did try afterward to make up a little bit by keeping my word about the studying. Maybe you'll let ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... 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
... still hot 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
... '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' ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... arrived a few days after it was written—and up went Mr. Williams's stock again. Mr. Warner's low-down suspicion was laid in the cold, cold grave, where it apparently belonged. It was a suspicion based upon mere internal evidence, anyway; and when you come to internal evidence, it's a big field and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... low-down way to dig out of me what is purely my own business!" exclaimed Tom Reade, with ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... at the superscription. It was from Courtier. She went back into the room. Through its half-closed door the figure of little Ann could be seen, with her legs rather wide apart, and her hands clasped on her low-down belt, pointing up at William her sudden little nose. Barbara shut the door abruptly, broke the seal, and read: "DEAR ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not know about it. She is so religious she won't be any of the villain parts. When we want her to be anything real low-down, we have to do it on the sly. She would no more consent to a band of ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... told you about the "Low-down Wilkes," have I? They're the pleasantest people in Three Meadows and we're very clubby. The nice old maid on the wharf at Bath told me about them and advised me to have the woman do my washing, but warned me that I should have to come unto her delicately, like Agag. Being the poorest and ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... bearing the unilluminative and commonplace first name of Elmer or Lemuel, or perhaps it was Jasper. Just which one of these or some other I forgot now, but no matter; at least it was some such. One evening a low-down terra-cotta-colored Piute swiped two of Mr. Watkins' paint ponies and by stealth, under cover of the cloaking twilight, went away with them into the far mysterious ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... 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 ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... so," said Carroll, quite honestly. "I would hate to think anything low-down of a man you'd call ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of faint every time I think of the grub we've got on hand. Canned beans and boiled potatoes, and 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
... a month or 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 ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... Salon. This Plan miscarried, because all the Men wanted to hear Rag Time played 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 ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... Stevenson, shoving Old John roughly to one side as he dashed through the doorway and on into the room he had assigned to the sullen and bibulous stranger. "I knowed it! I knowed it!" he wailed, popping out again as if on springs. "He's gone, an' he's took our broncs with him, the measly, low-down dog! I knowed he wasn't no good! I could see it in his eye; an' he wasn't drunk, not by a darn sight. Go out an' see for yoreself if they ain't gone!" he snapped in reply to Old John's look. "Go on out, while I throw some cold grub on the table—won't have no time this morning to do no cooking. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... money to give him, and just smart enough to keep the old man mesmerized. Lately Henry's been in a mighty serious peck of trouble. Last fall he got married to a girl here in town. Three weeks ago a family named Johnson, the most shiftless in the county, the real low-down white trash sort, living on a truck patch out Rollinson's way, heard that Henry was on a toot in town, spending money freely, and they went after him. A client of mine rents their ground to them and told me all about it. It seems they claim that one of the daughters in the Johnson family ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... think that it's for what's in it for me, either, that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep 'em to yourself. I haven't had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here's a lady that we've got to keep fooled. Once she stood it; twice she won't. I'm a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I'll travel it to the end. And now, don't forget that I'm Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... 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 ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... Williams, you are responsible for your cowboys, just as I am for my Mexicans. It's low-down business for you to shoot my men who are working for me at fifteen dollars a month. I'm the responsible party—I'm the man to kill. I want to say right here that I hold you accountable, and if your men maim one of my herders ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... 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
... the Tribune that his sister had "a roughish smile" loud cries of indignation arose. Molly first cried and then had hysterics and screamed vigorously; Bill swore vengeance on the Millville Tribune and all connected with it, while the guests gravely asserted it was "a low-down, measly trick" which the Sizers ought to resent. They all began drinking again, to calm their feelings, and after the midday dinner Bill Sizer grabbed a huge cowhide whip and started to Millville to "lick the editor to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... interior are finely severe, either quite round or quite flat, and proportions good always. An upholstered priest coming out to say mass is generally a sickening sight, so wicked and ugly in look and costume. The best-behaved people are the low-down beggars, who are most ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... the men. Never had Ciccio's brow looked so ominously black. And Alvina felt it was all her fault. Never had she experienced such a horrible feeling: as if something repulsive were creeping on her from behind. Every minute of these weeks was a horror to her: the sense of the low-down dogs of detectives hanging round, sliding behind them, trying to get hold of some clear proof of immorality on their part. And then—the unknown vengeance of the authorities. All the repulsive secrecy, and all the absolute power of the police authorities. The sense of a great ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... person is nothing but a common ruffian, a gambler, in fact, and an habitue at the saloons. I have seen him myself sitting in a saloon at a very late hour playing with a vile, dirty pack of cards, and in the company of a lot of low-down creatures—" ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... let in Dan de Quille, Mark's closest friend, to act the part of Judas—to tell Mark privately that he, was going to be presented with a fine pipe, so that he could have a speech prepared in reply to Pope's. It was awful low-down in Dan. We arranged to have the affair come off in the saloon beneath the Opera House ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... "It's a low-down way for a man to treat a woman, especially his wife," said Joe, his indignation mounting ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... up to Denham and me just as we were going up to our old place of observation, glass in hand. As we mounted, it was to see the horses led in, with the guard behind them; the lines of the enemy being descried very distinctly in the horizontal rays of the low-down sun. Denham was using the glass ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... 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
... 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 filthy abuse to ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... 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 Christian ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... ignorance of 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
... 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, I'd die ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... 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 ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... got to hear them,” I said. “I’m no missionary, nor missionary lover; I’m no Kanaka, nor favourer of Kanakas—I’m just a trader; I’m just a common, low-down, God-damned white man and British subject, the sort you would like to wipe your boots on. I hope ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Belle were 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
... I told her we thought it was low-down to tell stories. And Peggy just laughed and said they wouldn't act so stiff as to tell the truth all the time.—Miss Margery, when are you going there again? I do want to go with you. The baby has a new tooth coming. You can feel it. I want to see it when ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... trouble is I done had my eye on Pete's chillen ever sence dey mammy died, an' ef dey ever was a set o' onery, low-down, sassy, no-'count little niggers dat need takin' in hand by a able-bodied step-mammy, dey a-waitin' fur me right yonder in Pete's cabin. My hand has des nachelly itched to take aholt o' dat crowd many a day—an' ever sence I buried Numa of co'se I see de way was open. An' des as soon as ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... means or foul," insisted Uncle Martin as they paused at the parting of their ways. "Low-down, underhanded work—do you get what ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... 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'. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... injustice and a determination to hurt my feelings. Vitu was no friend of mine, but I understood from this way of attacking me that petty hatreds were lifting up their rattlesnake heads. All the low-down, little viper world was crawling about under my flowers and my laurels. I had known what was going on for a long time, and sometimes I had heard rattling behind the scenes. I wanted to have the enjoyment of hearing them all rattle together, and so I threw my laurels ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... 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
... 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
... of his hat, arranged his scarf, and tightened his belt. The horse's furnishings told him that the stranger was not a low-down prairie loafer. He strode to the veranda steps, and, crossing to the open door, looked ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... public-school system even for the more highly favored race, and where this more highly favored race deliberately assigns those who are not of its color to a permanent inferiority. The laws of caste are to be inflexibly enforced against all people of color who would rise from their low-down conditions. This is our Southern mission field, which God has committed to us, according ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... Mr. 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 to ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... "Humph! Low-down trick of the old woman's, wasn't it, giving you the shake that way? Everybody thought you were her pet weakness. We used to envy your soft snap. Did ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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
... viscera and he's breaking his heart trying to get some low-down job that a good dog wouldn't have, and yet wants to let on that if he had a chance to scoop an earldom he wouldn't do it. Tracy, don't put this kind of a strain on me. Lately I'm not as strong ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ere Jason attempted to yoke The fire-breathing bulls to the plow He smeared his whole body with garlic,—a joke Which I fully appreciate now. When Medea gave Glauce her beautiful dress, In which garlic was scattered about, It was cruel and rather low-down, I confess, But it settled ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... 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 ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... that fer a fact, and they can't no low-down whisky bum beat him fer jedge, neither—'specially ef they count on using niggers to do it with. You see the race am so mighty close, that all the booze bosses is a telling the niggers that they is got the ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... them; but maybe there's some people still alive back there in that county who can remember what the reason was why I should naturally hate and despise both the Tatums, and especially this Jess Tatum, him being if anything the more low-down one of the two, although the youngest. At this late day I don't aim to drag the name of any one else into this, especially a woman's name, and her now dead and gone and in her grave; but I will just say that if ever a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... which is questionable in morals, but a practice of that which is positively good. However noble or worthy in character may be some who use tobacco, yet by common consent it is a "tool of the devil." Every den of gamblers, every low-down grogshop, every smoking-car, every public resort and waiting-room departments for men, every rendezvous of rogues, loafers, villains, and tramps is thoroughly saturated with the vile stench of the cuspidor and the poisonous odors ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... one 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
... used to no such trash. When anybody has lived with the highest nobility they can't stomach such low down niggers. Why, I used to have 'em kneelin' at my feet, four or five at a time, askin' what I'd have for dinner. And that poor, iggorent, low-down cook in the kitchen told me jest now I lied about Prince Arthur, that there never wuz such a prince, and I sez to her, 'How any black nigger can stand makin' bakin' powder biscuit and tell such lies ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... old club, getting put into a crate for the Jubilee; by Jove, Bunny, we ought to be there. I wouldn't lean forward in Piccadilly, old chap. If you're seen I'm thought of, and we shall have to be jolly careful at Kellner's.... Ah, there it is! Did I tell you I was a low-down stage Yankee at Kellner's? You'd better be another, while ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... 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
... in a low-down Neighborhood, Mrs. Jump was ashamed to give her Address to Friends ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... thief himself 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, who was in the ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... men who have actually been outside their own parish; men who know that the whole is greater than the part; men who are too wide awake to go on doing just what the Bandar-log tell them, and allow themselves to be used as stalking-horses for low-down political ramps! When we, going round in bath-chairs and on crutches, see that sight—well, I don't think we shall regret our missing arms and legs quite so much, Colonel. War is Hell, and all that; but there is one worse thing than ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... 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 ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... I've stood for a heap from you. I've let yore ugly temper ride me. When you killed Tim Harrigan you got me in bad. Not the first time either. But I'm damned if I'll ride with a coyote low-down enough to burn ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... yer life!" answered Jabe. "We don't do things that way now. We don't play low-down tricks on 'em an' clean out a whole family, but jest take so many out of each beaver house, an' then leave 'em alone two er three ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... "De Lawd say, 'Dey shall not steal', and de white folks is sho' to think I tuk 'at mule off. Fuddermore, in de 'pistle ob de 'postle, Isaiah, he say, 'Be a clean vessel ob de Lawd God', and I gonna find out de truf and prove my position 'fore dese people. Dat low-down scallawag what come here wid no 'nouncement ob his 'pearance is gwine suffer for dis here axident. He nebber reckoned wid me". And with that Uncle Jake waded into the deep snow and was last seen following the creek down through the meadow as it meandered underneath ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... hell did that for me?' cried out the man angrily. 'Look here; he's killed a beef for a couple of steaks. He's taken that and left the rest for the buzzards. The low-down, hog-hearted son of a ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... the Palestine. Say, sling that dirty old pipe overboard, and take one of these cigars. The skipper will be on deck presently, and the sight of it would rile him terrible. He hez his new wife aboard, and she considers pipes ez low-down." ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... 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
... too. This is your idea of me, I reckon—that I'm a pushing, uneducated common bounder that's just using this religious business to shove himself along with; that's kidding all these poor old ladies that 'e believes in their bunkum, and is altogether about as low-down a fellow as you're likely to meet with. That's about the colour ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... questioned he, anxiously. "Hes that low-down Tamarack Spicer been round here tellin' ye some more stories ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... have the pleasure of seeing Joan again, and at the same time get the low-down from her father on those confounded seeds—or eggs, rather. If anyone could crack one of them, he'd ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich
... left that morning in a van, taking his cages of cats with him. He had gone abroad and was never coming back again, not if he knew it, said the grubby man. The cats were poison and Quast was a low-down foreigner, and it would cost him a year's rent to put the place in order again. Whereupon he slammed the door in my face and left me disconsolate ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... drawled the name, even more than was his wont, and the quarter-breed noticed that the usually roving eyes had set into a hard stare behind which lurked a dangerous glitter, "yo're a ornery, low-down cur-dog what hain't fitten to be run with by man, beast, or devil. I'd ort to shoot yo' daid right wher' yo' at—an' mebbe I will. But comin' to squint yo' over, that there damage looks mo' like a quirt-lick than a limb. ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... that is, of the weather, with reference to the crops, and his rheumatism. What else in the world was there to talk of? He read no paper and heard no news and was of no politics; and if it can be said that he had a philosophy of life it was a low-down one, about on a level with that of a solitary old dog-badger who lives in an earth he has excavated for himself with infinite pains in a strong stubborn soil—his home and refuge in a ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... 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 to Memphis or ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... baffled from his 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 ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... and the Lady Nepean sailed home for all the world like a lamb from the wolf's jaws, with a single American officer inside of her. And how did your dog-damned Government respect this noble confidence? In a way, sir, that would have brought a blush to the cheek of a low-down attorney's clerk. They re-pudiated. Under shelter of a notification that no exchange of prisoners on the high seas would count as valid, this perjured tyrant and his myrmidons went back on their captain's oath, and kept the brig; and the American ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the point. Surely you see that as far as public opinion goes I'm dished either way. The more I think of it the plainer it becomes. If I marry Olivia I let myself in for connection with a low-down scandal; if I don't, then they'll say I left her in the lurch. As for the effect on any possible promotion there might be in store for me, it would be six of one and half a dozen of the other. If I married her, and there ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... 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, ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 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 worth while. Would you act ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... explain in a minute. You-all see it wa'r this way: After you-all left for home, yesterday, it wa'r found how some low-down sneaks got wind of this claim and planned to ride up at once. It looked a lot like claim-jumpin', so we-all got together mighty quick and rode after them to spare the Lord any trouble in judgin' 'em. Also, we-all reckoned to save your party any nonsense over the gold, ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... that whiskey mill, and, fool as he 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 the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... than a kite, and the two Fernalds with 'em; or I'll blow the two Fernalds to glory in their beds. I could do it without turning a hair. But to injure that helpless boy of theirs I can't and won't. That would be too low-down a deed for me, bad as I am. He hasn't the show the others have. They can ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... interfere with you anyway and I won't if you say the word. But I never felt just righte about that fellow, and what I done long ago to make you tollerate him, and now I want to make it up to you if I can. He is a common low-down person, and he isn't fit to speake to you, and I hope you wont speake to him. The divorce, the way I look at it, don't make any difference; hese just as much married as what he ever was, and if he had never been married atoll, it wouldn't of made any ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... do such darn common things as building chicken houses? I can't remember ever seeing a minister mixing so carelessly with us low-down sinners or standing around in public with his sleeves rolled up and his frock coat off. Aren't you a ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... conception of the Yankees had been an impression of tyrants—"low-down, common trash"—in blue, laying waste with fire and sword. He had seen the smoke of many burning homesteads almost as grand as Carteret Hall ascending to the drowsy Southern skies. And now he was face to face with one of them—and he could not distinguish him from his "young marster" ...
— Options • O. Henry
... how grateful I am to you,' he said. 'It's a bit low down, perhaps, but, then, we were dealing with a low-down person. You thoroughly deserve those diamonds—will you accept an offer for them from me? I should like to buy them for Miss Roberts and present them to her on our reconciliation.' We came to terms then and there, and he 'phoned through ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... just been given a low-down on her condition. Gus Redell is leaving on the Moana to bid her in at the government sale—the young scoundrel told me all about it and twitted me because we were asleep on the job and let the good thing get away from us. The Moana's supposed to sail at one o'clock, but ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... she didn't want me to know was the fact of her first escapade with the fellow called Jimmy. She had arrived at figuring out the sort of low-down Bowery tough that that fellow was. Do you know what it is to shudder, in later life, for some small, stupid action—usually for some small, quite genuine piece of emotionalism—of your early life? Well, it was that sort of ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... "It's murder then—just plain, low-down murder. If you hold me here and let Morse fall into a death trap without warning him, you're as responsible as if you shot ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... 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, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... upon the grass, sat up, and mournfully looked about him. Effort was usually needed to withdraw his mind from those low-down shadowy centuries over into which of late by means of the book, as by means of a bridge spanning a known and an unknown land, he had crossed, and wonder-stricken had wandered; but these words brought him swiftly home ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... Almighty," he ripped out in conclusion, "kin any man comprehend ther sneakin', low-down meanness of a feller thet seeks ter terrify somebody sich fashion es thet? He don't das't disclose hisself and yit he ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the surprise of many eminent Pocomokians, who boasted of the purity and antiquity of the Talbot blood, and who could not look on in silence, and see it degraded and diluted by an alliance with a "harf strainer or worse." As one possible Talbot heir put it, "a picayune, low-down corncracker, suh, without blood ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of Boggs, 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 ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... his general. But, Mr. Peterson, let me ask you a question; answer me as a man of sense. Which makes the best general—the man who leads the charge straight up to the intrenchments, yellin': 'Come on, boys!'—or the one who says, very likely shaking a revolver in their faces: 'Get in there, ye damn low-down privates, and take that fort, and report to me when I've finished my breakfast'? Which one of those two men will the soldiers do the most for? For the one they like best, Mr. Peterson, and don't forget ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... ginerel soft style and easy gait with me when you kem here. It ain't every man as could walk into another man's house arter the owner of it had grabbed a gun, ez soft-speakin', ez overlookin', and ez perlite ez you. I've acted mighty rough and low-down, and I know it. And I sent for you to say that you and your folks kin use this house and all that's in it ez long ez you're in trouble. I've told you why I couldn't sell the house to ye, and why I couldn't leave it. But ye kin use it, and while ye're here, and ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... "You low-down traitor!" he said bitterly. "You vile scoundrel! I've caught you at last and caught you dead to rights. You're the most contemptible thing that breathes. You're a disgrace to your uniform. You ought to be wearing a wooden ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... be 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
... 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 familiar meadows and that standing ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... the answer. "It was that we downed the 'ringer.' They couldn't get away with their low-down trick. We put one over on 'voconometry ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... tyrannies of their conjugal partners, with, indeed, the additional hardship and misfortune that they are legally bound to them. And the souteneur, although from the respectable point of view he has put himself into a low-down moral position, is, after all, not so very unlike those parasitic wives who, on a higher social level, live lazily on their husbands' professional earnings, and sometimes give much less ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... course, I relied 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 and ought ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... 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
... in that self-same moment Hardy realized how the low-down strategy which he had perpetrated upon his employer had fallen upon his own head a thousandfold. But before he could stammer his apologies, Kitty Bonnair stood before him—the same Kitty, and smiling as he had often seen her ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... you and Peter!" exclaimed Eustace in tones of disgust. "I'm jolly glad I wasn't there; it would have made me feel a low-down black-fellow if Herbert had apologized to me. I don't think Peter behaved like a white man, and I mean to tell him so, too, when ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... the Colonel, growing dangerously red in the face, "don't you shake no meat in MY face like that! Don't you dare do it! I won't have no butcher shake meat in MY face. You low-down beef-killer. That's all ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... in the direction he pointed. And saw—for the first time—that a wide, smooth road led away from the Face-Shop, a road as wide and smooth and curving as the Drive. Like the Drive it was well-lighted on either side (but lighted low-down) by a row of tiny electric bulbs with frosted shades, each resembling an incandescent toadstool. (She remembered having once caught a glimpse of something similar in a store-window.) These tiny lamps were set close together on short stems, ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... cast about 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 ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... 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 ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... like you, Hugh; and I 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
... low-down mean," he said, stabbing another sausage, "and you gettin' all the fruit and flowers from Mr. French's place sent to you every day. I wish Polly and Ben were there still—they wouldn't begrudge me ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... '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
... noways probable that it will come to that. Let's use logic. 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 he acts up I'll ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... low-down trick," commented Mike. "I'll hang it back on the peg just now, but don't use ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... 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
... the low-down skunks I ever seen, you sure are the skunkiest!" said Nueces. "The sheriff was right after all. Cur-dog fits you to a T." He finished washing out the cut on Foy's head as he spoke. "Now the bandages, Anastacio. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... 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
... low-down, unwashed Whitechapel!" I had heard Maguire remark within. "Blamed if our Bowery boys ain't cock-angels to scum like this. Ah, you biter, I wouldn't soil my knuckles on your ugly face; but if I had my thick boots on I'd dance the soul out of your ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... showing the awkwardness of self-conscious rusticity. His dress that night before a New York audience was the most unbecoming that a fiend's ingenuity could have devised for a tall, gaunt man—a black frock coat, ill-setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and arms—a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared that night more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know that within his soul there burned ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... 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 ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy for his stupidity in ever trading with that low-down, twisting snake in the grass, Henry Hooker. She alternated this with floods of tears. Caroline had no sympathy for her offspring. She said she had thrown away years of self- sacrifice, years of washing, a thousand little comforts her money would have bought, all for nothing, for less than nothing, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... fact," said the young man, "I've always rather hushed up my first name, because when I was christened they worked a low-down trick on me!" ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... but 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. Spit it ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... he had (as senior officer) complimented 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 ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... makin' de kernel like any o' de low-down No'th'n folks—keerful, and stingy, and mighty 'fraid o' de opinions o' de biggety people. And fo' what? Jess to strut round wid dat child like he was her ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 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 to—forget it, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... coming—come on!" This because Weary showed a strong inclination to take the trail and keep it to his destination. "Well, I'll go alone, then. I've got to kinda square myself for the way I threw it into Andy; and you know blamed well, Weary, they played it low-down on him, or they'd never have got that rope on him. And I'm going ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... 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
... themselves in groups, but that was perfectly legitimate machine-gun work and taught them a well-needed lesson. Now, however, a different breed of Huns had come in and they had started the dirty work. They were Bavarians alternating with Marines, and we soon learned that for genuine low-down cussedness the Marine had them all beaten, although the Bavarians ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... her once-deserted home Mary had contrived to resurrect all the ideals that had perished with her forebears. The rooms shone and glittered; the garden throve; and Mary spun and wove and designed and made money. She was respected, feared, and secretly believed to be "low-down mean," but calmly she ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... enemy in the world. I always thought we'd got nothing but good friends,' says he. An' I says nothing, but I picks up the paper, and comes here to your fine house to tell you what I think of you. It's a mean, low-down, dirty, nasty trick, and no gentleman wouldn't a-done it. So that's all—and it's off my chest, and ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... Allan t' try to make a leader outen a cur jest becus folks said he couldn't. Up in Dawson I heered once he trained a timber wolf t' lead a team o' McKenzie huskies; but he'd find that a heap easier 'n puttin' the racin' sperit inter that low-down Golconda hound; an' I'll bet he'll git all that's comin' t' him ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... agreed to let him use it if he wouldn't take it out of my sight and on condition that he didn't write more than five or six line's. But when he made as if he was going to sharpen it, I threatened him with an ax. Can you beat that for wastefulness? These low-down rich don't know the meaning of frugality. Why, if I hadn't stopped him he might have whittled off five thousand dollars' worth of lead, just like that. I also had to caution him about bearing down too hard while ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... me to keep my mouth shut? You want me to become an accomplice in this beastly, low-down deception? ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Jove, 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 ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... Billy Boyle had needed anything more to stir him to the fighting point, that one sentence admirably supplied the lack. "Yuh low-down skunk!" he cried, and struck him full upon the insulting, smiling mouth. "If I was as rotten-minded as you are, I'd go drown myself in the stalest alkali hole I could find. I dunno why I'm dirtying my hands on yuh—yuh ain't fit to be clubbed to death with a tent ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... clever he was. And the minute people heard that a cotton gin was 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 ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... 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 ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day |
