"Pilfer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they had had nothing. Substantially, I believe, he spoke the truth, for these poor fellows are kept just above the starvation-to-death point. It is not surprising they wish to return to their homes, or Tripoli, and that they pilfer about the town. Asking him why the Rais did not give them a few karoobs, he replied naively, "The Rais has none for us, but plenty to buy gold for his horse's saddle." To-day, nor yesterday, could I buy any ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... and pulls the calves' tails, Yasoda and Rohini all the time showering upon him their doting love. When he can walk, Krishna starts to go about with other children and there then ensues a series of naughty pranks. His favourite pastime is to raid the houses of the cowgirls, pilfer their cream and curds, steal butter and upset milk pails. When, as sometimes happens, the butter is hung from the roof, they pile up some of the household furniture. One of the boys then mounts upon it, another climbs on his shoulders, and in this way gets the butter down.[16] As the pilfering ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... confidently expected to be recompensed for his services; but he found a cold reception at the Treasury. He had gone down to Lancashire chiefly in order that he might, under the protection of a search warrant, pilfer trinkets and broad pieces from secret drawers. His sleight of hand however had not altogether escaped the observation of his companions. They discovered that he had made free with the communion plate of the Popish families, whose private hoards he ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hundred years before the Reformation; while the zeal of Mr. Haslam led him to an unfortunate attempt at restoring the oratory. Then followed neglect, and the tourists who came hither were left to pilfer and carry away the sacred stones piecemeal; now, when it is almost too late, such depredation is stopped. The church was a ruin when it was found; it is something almost less than a ruin now. As revealed by the shifting sand, it presented an almost exact resemblance ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... of life as outcasts from the more civilised communities. Changars are, in general, petty thieves and pickpockets, and have no settled vocation. They object to continuous labour. The women make baskets, beg, pilfer, or sift and grind corn. They have no settled places of residence, and live in small blanket or mat tents, or temporary sheds outside villages. They are professedly Hindus and worshippers of Deree or Bhowanee, but they make offerings at Mohammedan shrines. They have private ceremonies, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... fish in the meadows and creeks, and appeared to be taking them in great numbers. Spur-winged geese, and others of the knob-nosed species, took advantage of the low gardens being flooded, and came to pilfer the beans. As we passed the Ruo, on the 7th, and saw nothing of the Bishop, we concluded that he had heard from his surgeon of our detention, and had deferred his journey. He arrived there five days after, on ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... pilfer, filch, peculate, purloin, poach, abstract, rob, defraud, pirate, plunder, crib, pillage, rapine loot, thieve, embezzle, peculate, plagiarize; insinuate, creep furtively, go ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... individual intelligence. When the jay carries away the corn you put out in winter and hides it in old worms' nests and knot-holes and crevices in trees, he is obeying the instinct of all his tribe to pilfer and hide things,—an instinct that plays its part in the economy of nature, as by its means many acorns and chestnuts get planted and large seeds widely disseminated. By this greed of the jay the wingless nuts take flight, oaks are ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... can—steal what you may, For industry will thrive." "But, bless us!" cried the peevish chits, "Can babes like us live by our wits? With perils compassed round, can we Preserve our lives and liberty? Ah! how escape the fowler's snare, And gard'ner with his gun in air, Who, if we pilfer plums or pears, Will scatter lead about our ears? And you would drop a mournful head To see your little pies lie dead!" "My dears," she said, and kissed their bills, "The wise by foresight baffle ills, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... he a Dago, Billy Buttons? An' I put in that patch myself. I sewed it a hour, with strings out the garbage boxes, a hull hour. Hi, there! you leave them goobers be!" cried the girl, swooping down upon the few youngsters who had returned to pilfer the scattered nuts and, at once, the two larger boys came ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... "was all about a little straw and hay, a matter for which a master would not whip a lackey." Marshal Marillac was executed. So, when statesmen rule, fare all who take advantage of the agonies of a nation to pilfer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... then, ye classic Thieves of each degree, Dark Hamilton[Sec.1] and sullen Aberdeen, Come pilfer all the Pilgrim loves to see, All that yet consecrates the fading scene: Ah! better were it ye had never been, Nor ye, nor Elgin, nor that lesser wight. The victim sad of vase-collecting spleen. House-furnisher withal, one Thomas[Sec.2] hight, Than ye ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... slavery. 7. Where they have ceased to kill quickly by the sword, they kill slowly by personal servitude and other unjust and intolerable vexations. And till now the King has not succeeded in preventing them because all, small and great, go there to pilfer, some more, some less, some publicly and openly, others secretly and under disguise; and with the pretext that they are serving the king, they dishonour God, and rob and destroy ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... Mrs Jenkins had grieved at heart for the husband she had lost. Married, or rather sold to him, when he was fifty and she thirty, she had lived five or six and twenty years of pure misery with him. She had starved with him, when she could not pilfer from him, and had endured patiently all these years what seemed past endurance in expectation of the closing scene. She had married and lived upon the prospect of his death, and it was come at last; and now that it was come, the awfulness of that last struggle overpowered ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... bad as they declare, O girls and boys of Chester Square! Be sure some little good we do, Even though we pilfer buds a few. Don't grudge them, since your trees we clear Of vermin that would cost you dear: So throw us out a crumb or two, And, as you would be ...
— The Nursery, February 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... the count, his cheek first reddening, and then becoming deadly pale with anger; "is the blood of the gitano asserting its claim? Has he begun to pilfer? The dog shall hang from the ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... condemned to employ them. She thought they ate and drank to their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors; that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another and the tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no relations or friends who cared enough for her to share her solitary struggle against her domestic foes; and her income, though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby reducing ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of low and dirty prostitution, in the age of Dodington and Sandys, it was something to have a man who might perhaps, under some strong excitement, have been tempted to ruin his country, but who never would have stooped to pilfer from her, a man whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire of gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for glory, and for vengeance. History owes to him this attestation, that at a time when anything short of direct embezzlement of the public money was considered as quite fair in public ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... reproach, sounded in his ears. Innocent and guilty alike regarded him with indignant eyes. To the mysterious feminine reasoning it appeared there were different degrees in the crime of theft. To pay a debt by means of a worthless cheque was evidently less reprehensible than to pilfer a brooch from a dressing-table. Guest knew himself condemned before he ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Govt. would not give much ear to his demands, but he goes to them in person, stripped of his arms, telling them he is no longer a soldier, that he would turn barber for he could shave; he said he would get an honest livelihood as a poor man but not pilfer &c. as some of his friends did who had neither patriotism or virtue, and who thought of nothing but aggrandizing and enriching themselves. Such was his opinion of this Govt., and he assured me himself that not one of their heads should be on ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... had countless rows of narrow cells with iron gratings for doors; and the gimlet gaze of two stalwart young females pierced each newcomer. It was their business to see that Peter Rolls's hands did not pilfer each other's belongings. The gimlet eyes must note the outdoor clothing each girl wore on arrival, in order to be sure that she did not go forth at evening clad in the property of a comrade. Being paid to cultivate suspicion had soured the guardian angels' tempers. One ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... could I pick tip a thought or a stanza, I'd take a flight on another bard's wings, Turning his rhymes into extravaganza, Laugh at his harp—and then pilfer its strings! When a poll-parrot can croak the cadenza A nightingale loves, he supposes he sings! Oh, never mind, I will pick up a stanza, Laugh at his harp—and then pilfer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... Norridgewocks, and their growing resentment was fomented by Rale, both because he shared it himself, and because he was prompted by Vaudreuil. Yet, dreading another war with the English, the Indians kept quiet for a year or two, till at length the more reckless among them began to threaten and pilfer the settlers. ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... time, however, you must, for my sake, try again; and I shall then be most ready for a rummage of your Irish treasures. Already, indeed, I have been drawing a little upon your 'Researches in the South of Ireland;' and should be very glad to have more books of yours to pilfer. ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... One of the women carried a little squirrel monkey. She put it up the big tree some distance from the tents; and when she called, it came scampering to her across the grass, ran up her, and clung to her neck. They would have liked to pilfer; but as they had no clothes it was difficult for them to conceal anything. One of the women was observed to take a fork; but as she did not possess a rag of clothing of any kind all she did do was to try to bury the fork in the sand and then sit on it; and it was reclaimed ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... public; and must, therefore, I presume, have practised a studied reserve as to his deepest admirations; and, perhaps, at that day (1803-8) the occasions would be rare in which much dissimulation would be needed. Until Lord Byron had begun to pilfer from Wordsworth and to abuse him, allusions to Wordsworth were not frequent in conversation; and it was chiefly on occasion of some question arising about poetry in general, or about the poets of the day, that it became difficult to dissemble. For my part, hating the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... in Mr. Queed. An intense and strictly feminine curiosity filled her soul to know something of the nature of that work which demanded so stern a noiselessness. Observing rigorously the printed Rule of the Dining-Room, she could not forbear to pilfer glance after glance at the promulgator of it. Mr. Queed was writing, not reading, to-night. He wrote very slowly on half-size yellow pads, worth seventy-five cents a dozen, using the books only for reference. Now he tore off a sheet only partly filled with his small handwriting, and at the head ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... barren of invention but it can trade upon the staple of its own vice, without drawing upon their capital. The poor are not quite such servile imitators as they take them for. Some of them are very clever artists in their way. Here and there we find an original. Who taught the poor to steal, to pilfer? They did not go to the great for schoolmasters in these faculties surely. It is well if in some vices they allow us to be—no copyists. In no other sense is it true that the poor copy them, than as servants ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... to me, you watch'd your hour to pilfer, The fleecy napkin and the rings from Thynia quaintly graven, Whatever you parade as yours, vain fool, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... to create a disturbance, called Faithful back. She obeyed instantly, and again lay down by his side. The intention of the midnight intruder was apparently either to murder him or to pilfer his baggage, though the ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... outside of the burrow. There can be little doubt that the stranger was precipitately ejected by the owner. We suspect, though this is a point difficult to prove satisfactorily, that merriami does not always store food supplies for itself, but visits the burrows of spectabilis regularly to pilfer the seed stored therein. The observed facts thus far recorded which suggest this are that in no merriami burrow examined has a store of food been found, and also that in trapping for spectabilis on its own characteristic mounds one catches ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... not one of those men whose plans come to nothing. He had prospered as a rogue of old in England, really his native country, though he called himself an Afrikander. Reared in the gutters of the Irish quarter of Liverpool, he had early learned to pilfer for a living, had prospered in prison as sharp young gaol-birds may prosper, and returned to it again and again, until, having served out part of a sentence for burglary and obtained his ticket-of-leave, he had shifted his convict's skin, and made his way out to Cape Colony ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... The central idea of this modern folly about the potato is that you must pilfer the root. Let us work the idea of the healing or magical herb backwards, from Kensington to European folklore, and thence to classical times, to Homer, and to the Hottentots. Turning first to Germany, we note the beliefs, not ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... all early periods of society, were uniformly imposed on the female. "Why," would he say, "did the boy, Tam Rintherout, whom, at my wise sister's instigation, I, with equal wisdom, took upon trialwhy did he pilfer apples, take birds' nests, break glasses, and ultimately steal my spectacles, except that he felt that noble emulation which swells in the bosom of the masculine sex, which has conducted him to Flanders with a musket on his shoulder, and doubtless will promote him to ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the army of gigantic Growleywogs, with their Grand Gallipoot at their head. They were dreadful beings, indeed, and longed to get to Oz that they might begin to pilfer and destroy. The Grand Gallipoot was a little afraid of the First and Foremost, but had a cunning plan to murder or destroy that powerful being and secure the wealth of Oz for himself. Mighty little of the plunder would the Nome King ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... old German physician, who lived in a fine old-fashioned house near a public play-ground. Connected with the doctor's premises was an extensive peach orchard, and, sad to say, naughty boys would sometimes climb over the orchard wall and pilfer his peaches. To guard against this practice the doctor had the top of his wall adorned with a row of very ugly iron spikes. Not far from Doctor Schroeder's place lived a family known as "the Jones's". One member of the family was a small boy nicknamed "Scramble;" so ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... and securely lashed, that it may be impossible to pilfer from them. The packages of those that are in use, should be carried in one pair of saddle-gabs, to be devoted to that purpose. These should stand at the storekeeper's bivouac, and nobody else should be allowed to touch them, when there. He should have every facility ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... open at all hours of the day, and is not exhibited for money. There might be some excuse for this, where any of the subjects of exhibition are portable, and such as might be carried away. But who would feel any disposition to pilfer the wig of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, or the hat of General Monk, in Westminster Abbey? Why, therefore, is not this disgraceful practice thrown aside? Why is a nation converted into a puppet-show? The English Minister would doubtless be ashamed to bring the returns of these exhibitions amongst ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... which is exhibited in the greatest intensity in the whisky-john. He will jump down almost under your nose, and seize a fragment of biscuit or pemmican. He will go right into the pemmican-bag, when you are but a few paces off, and pilfer, as it were, at the fountain-head. Or if these resources are closed against him, he will sit on a twig, within an inch of your head, and look at you as only a ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... only invented occasionally some miserable tale for the day, in order meanly to sneak out of difficulties into which they had proudly strutted. And they were put to all these shifts and devices, full of meanness and full of mischief, in order to pilfer piecemeal a repeal of an act which they had not the generous courage, when they found and felt their error, honorably and fairly to disclaim. By such management, by the irresistible operation of feeble ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... up his mind that if this pilgrim to whom they had given shelter and food as become generous campers, showed any disposition to pilfer he would treat him in a summary manner, and chase him into the woods, just as any rascal should be made to decamp; and the fact of Stackpole's gigantic figure made not a particle of difference in ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... woman," pursued the great man, unseeing and unthinking. "The Bolingbrokes may have been wild, but they've always been men of honour, and even if they've played fast and loose now and then with a woman, they have never tried to pilfer anything that ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... on her finger—a ring that for months I had gloated over and watched, as I had never watched and gloated over any other beautiful thing in my life. I wanted it—I had always wanted it. It was before me, for the taking now—I should be a fool to leave it there for some other wretch to pilfer. I had loved ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... as Spring herself are these bright flowers. Alas, for the tiny creatures that try to climb up the rosy tufts to pilfer nectar, they and their relatives are not so innocent as they appear! While the little crawlers are almost within reach of the cup of sweets, their feet are gummed to the viscid matter that coats it, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... fields, and the porcelain bath-tubs in its hotels, can testify to this. It is a city that enticed and still entices the mighty of the earth; Roman Emperors in the past came to appease the wrath of its gods, a German Emperor to-day comes to pilfer its temples. For the Acropolis in the poplar grove is a mine of ruins. The porphyry pillars, the statues, the tablets, the exquisite friezes, the palimpsests, the bas-reliefs,—Time and the Turks have spared a few of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... foe, and a live man than a dead. Blood-thirstiness was a passion unknown to him; but that tenderness which with us creates a horror of blood was equally unknown. Pleasure was sweet to him; but he was man enough to feel that a life of pleasure was contemptible. To pillage a city, to pilfer his all from a rich man, to debauch a friend's wife, to give over a multitude of women and children to slaughter, was as easy to him as to forgive an enemy. But nothing rankled with him, and he could forgive ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... Porter sits down on the weight which he bore; The Lass with her barrow wheels hither her store;— If a Thief could be here he might pilfer at ease; She sees the Musician, ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... out of that; "Enacted" sends him to the Revised Statutes, or the Reports, and there it ends. The latter gives a bit of information; the former a step in development. Laws are necessary; but laws which are not necessary are more and worse than unnecessary;—they pilfer power from the soul; they intercept the absolute uses of life; they incarcerate men, and make Caspar Hausers of them. Now in America not only is there already much emancipation from those outside regulations which supersede moral and private judgment, but the tendency ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... terrible hump. This man who seduced my affianced bride, and then left her whole soul, once fair and blooming—I swear it—with its leaves fresh from the dews of heaven, one rank leprosy, this man who, rolling in riches, learned to cheat and pilfer as a boy learns to dance and play the fiddle, and (to damn me, whose happiness he had blasted) accused me to the world of his own crime!—here is this man who has not left off one vice, but added to those of his youth the bloodless ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... suppose I'll make it do?" said Mr Webster, beginning to feel hot, too. "You think you can come to my shop, and pilfer my things like so many young pickpockets; and then you have the impudence to come and offer me part of the price to say nothing about it. No, thank you. That's not my ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... Will,[92] Holy Will, There was wit i' your skull, When ye pilfer'd the alms o' the poor; The timmer is scant, When ye're ta'en for a saunt, Wha should swing in a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... early hour, got upon our old track, which we kept. We had the lateral ridge of the Pink Hills upon our right, and travelled through a good deal of brush. Four or five natives joined us, and two followed us to the end of our day's journey. In the course of the evening, they endeavoured to pilfer whatever was in their reach, but were detected putting a tin into a bush, and soon took to their heels. This was the first instance we had of open theft among ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... this Commonwealth, or, being a citizen thereof, shall without the same, wilfully destroy,* or run** away with any sea-vessel, or goods laden on board thereof, or plunder or pilfer any wreck, he shall be condemned to hard labor five years in the public works, and shall make good the loss of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... propensity to mistake the tuum for the meum had been exhibited, there were among us sufficient of the stamp of my old friend "who had served with Rodney," to have flung the culprit where men pilfer no more; whatever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... having needless bother. How miserable! Our slaves are a burden, not worth the trifles they pilfer. I wish they would all run away, then we might have an excuse ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... parasites like plants and men Rooted in that which fed them yesterday. Not even Memory shall follow Delphis, For I will yield to all impulse save hers, Therein alone subject to prescient rigour; Lest she should lure me back among the dying— Pilfer the present for the beggar past. Free minds must bargain with each greedy moment And seize the most that lies to hand at once. Ye are too old to understand my words; I yet have youth enough, and can escape From that which sucks each individual man Into ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... members themselves have sometimes been deceived by unscrupulous agents representing their wares as the regular productions of the valid society. The audacious promoters of this so-called Society had the boldness not only to pilfer the name of the legitimate society, but also the name of its president, which was ostentatiously printed upon their letter heads, together with the name of Dr. Richard Garnett. Both of these gentlemen have recently published their denunciations through the columns ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... the tempting food, and seized - My infant-sufferer found relief; And in the pilfer'd treasure pleased, Smiled on my guilt, ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... though it would not justify, might in some degree palliate the act for which he was slain; or that he had been badly brought up, having never received any proper instruction, but had been trained and taught from his boyhood to pilfer and steal. ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Arbela, was such a vast sea of people, as it did somewhat astonish the commanders in Alexander's army; who came to him therefore, and wished him to set upon them by night; and he answered, He would not pilfer the victory. And the defeat was easy. When Tigranes the Armenian, being encamped upon a hill with four hundred thousand men, discovered the army of the Romans, being not above fourteen thousand, marching towards him, he made himself merry with it, and said, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... died, and given a step to the officers under him. Thus, Ensign Pistol becomes lieutenant, Corporal Bardolph becomes ensign, and Nym takes the place of Bardolph. He is an arrant rogue, and both he and Bardolph are hanged (Henry V.). The word means to "pilfer." ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... I'm doing, Father Beret," said Alice, "I am preventing a great damage to you. You will maybe lose a good many cherry pies and dumplings if I let Jean go. He was climbing the tree to pilfer the fruit; so I pulled him down, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... by the presence of our white protector said, "You may be sure we didn't pilfer 'em ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... this time, therefore, no hostile disposition had been manifested by the savages; and their intercourse with the ship had been carried on with every appearance of friendship and cordiality, if we except the propensity they had shown to pilfer a few of the tempting rarities exhibited to them by their civilised visitors. Their conduct as to this matter ought perhaps to be taken rather as an evidence that they had not as yet formed any design of attacking the vessel, as they would, in that case, scarcely have taken ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... libros suos per se graciles alieno adipe suffarciant (so [80]Jovius inveighs.) They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works. Ineruditi fures, &c. A fault that every writer finds, as I do now, and yet faulty themselves, [81]Trium literarum homines, all thieves; they pilfer out of old writers to stuff up their new comments, scrape Ennius' dunghills, and out of [82]Democritus' pit, as I have done. By which means it comes to pass, [83]"that not only libraries and shops are full of our putrid papers, but every close-stool and jakes," ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... had accompanied Captain Smith to Jamestown, and he gave her such news of the settlers as he had heard from the Indians who loafed about Jamestown. They were on friendly terms with the white men, who let them come and go at will as long as they were peaceful and did not try to pilfer ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... our allowance was somewhat bettered, by a daily proportion of Bisket, which the sailers would pilfer to sell, giue, or exchange with vs, for money, Saxefras, furres, or loue. But when they departed, there remained neither taverne, beere house, nor place of reliefe, but the common Kettell. Had we beene as free from all sinnes as gluttony, and drunkennesse, ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... avarice bids to pinch and spare, Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir, Is coarse brown paper, such as peddlers choose To wrap up wares which better ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... nature, transmuting them into rank and noisome products. All love for Christ, all care for the poor, all thought of his fellow-disciples, were quenched before that remorseless passion; and at last he began to pilfer from those scant treasures, which were now and again replenished by those that loved to minister to the Master's comfort. At first, he must have been stung by keen remorse; but each time he sinned his conscience became more ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... my son," said the priest: "fearest thou not to disturb thy mother's rest? and wouldst thou pilfer and purloin even before ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... Above all things avoid quacks. The policy they pursue is to frighten you, to work upon your imagination, and to make such alarming and unreliable statements as will induce you to purchase their nostrums and subject yourself to such a series of humiliations and impositions as will enable them to pilfer your purse and without rendering you in return any value received, but likely leave you in a much worse condition than they ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... and say, "I need you." And besides, there is the moral side of it. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, but the dividing line between it and dishonesty is not always clear. And the law cannot every time prosecute the offender, for there is a kind of cleverness that enables a man to pilfer the ideas of another and recast them just sufficiently to "get by." It would be very stupid for a man not to profit by the experience of other men, but there is a vast difference between intelligent adaptation of ideas and stealing them. This is more a question of morals than of ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... quite an easy matter for some one who had obtained possession of your key, and was sufficiently familiar with the bearings of the office to move about in the dark, or by the dim fire-light, to enter that office, remove the surgeon's knife from its case, pilfer a handkerchief from the coat pocket, and ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... broken-hearted mother waiting for his return, but that, if they were not stopped drifting to the abyss while still young, with the evil training that depraved tramps gave them, it would be merely a matter of time before they too would have learned to destroy and pilfer railroad property; rob box cars and stations, and thus repay with almost brutal ingratitude those who had permitted them to travel unmolested upon ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... added: "This disposition to pilfer was, to a large extent, a part of the history of slavery. It was rare when colored people who belonged to a white family where they served as cooks, butlers, or in some other form of household service, did not feel that everything belonging to the white family belonged equally to them. Thus, ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... parties is to regard repetitions of phrases as examples of borrowing, except, of course, in the case of the earliest poet from whom the others pilfer, and in other cases of prae-Homeric surviving epic formulae. Critics then dispute as to which recurrent passage is the earlier, deciding, of course, as may happen to suit their own general theory. In our opinion these passages are traditional formulae, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... allus thunk lots of their niggers and Grandma Maria say, 'Why shouldn't they—it was their money.' She say there was plenty Indians here when they settled this country and they bought and traded with them without killin' them, if they could. The Indians was poor folks, jus' pilfer and loaf 'round all the time. The niggers was a heap sight better off than they was, 'cause we had plenty to eat ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... the like six ounces in prospect between him and starvation. That hundreds so situated should unite with seeming fervor in praise to God shames the more polished devotion of the favored and comfortable; and if these famishing, hopeless outcasts were to pilfer every day of their lives (as most of them did, and perhaps some of them still do), I should pity even more ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... on deck, and could not possibly overpower them before they had time to give the alarm to other vessels. At night, when we can unite, we cannot gain the deck, for the hatch is not only closed, but would almost certainly be fastened, so that men should not get down to pilfer ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... should no longer be C. R., (Charles Rex.) The great fire of London had been the work of the Jesuits, who had employed eighty or eighty-six persons for that purpose, and had expended seven hundred fire-balls; but they had a good return for their money, for they had been able to pilfer goods from the fire to the amount of fourteen thousand pounds: the Jesuits had also raised another fire on St. Margaret's Hill, whence they had stolen goods to the value of two thousand pounds; another at Southwark: and it was determined in like manner to burn all the chief ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... and, in the midst of great excitement, vowing vengeance. Then came the inevitable result: some good soldiers were carried away into acts of unwarrantable violence, and a few unprincipled scoundrels seized upon the opportunity to plunder, pilfer, and steal. But the mass of the forces entered the place under the impression (as appears from the testimony before the court-martial) that it was to be sacked and burned, as a just and proper military punishment. This impression was, unfortunately, ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... advanced, the number of men and children who crowded about the steamer watching for opportunities to pilfer or pick up food became so great that it was necessary to clear the pier and put a guard of soldiers there to exclude the public altogether. Then the hungry people formed in a dense mass in the street opposite the steamer, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... however tough or filthy, and that neither whipping nor shouting will prevent their turning out of the road, even when going at full speed, to pick up whatever they espy. When at the huts they are constantly creeping in to pilfer what they can, and half the time of the people sitting there is occupied in vociferating their names, and driving them by most unmerciful blows out of the apartments. The dogs have no water to drink during the winter, but lick up some clean ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the Echeloot chiefs remained with the white men to guide them on their way down the river. These were joined by seven others of their tribe, to whom the explorers were kind and attentive. But the visitors could not resist the temptation to pilfer from the goods exposed to dry in the sun. Being checked in this sly business, they became ill-humored and returned, angry, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... Jaegers are the most numerous in Alaska and are even more graceful in flight than are the Gulls and Terns, floating, skimming, sailing, plunging, and darting about with incredible swiftness and ease. Like the others of this family, they pilfer their food from the Gulls, and are also very destructive to young birds and eggs. Their eggs are either laid on the bare ground or in a slight depression, scantily lined with grasses. The eggs are indistinguishable from those of the preceding species except that they average a trifle smaller. ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... a certain pastrycook's shop, where, the better to conceal her purpose, she endeavours slily to ingratiate herself into favour with the mistress of the house. As soon as the shopkeeper's attention becomes engrossed in business, or otherwise, puss contrives to pilfer a small pie or tart from the shelves on which they are placed, speedily afterwards making the best of her way home with her booty. She then carefully delivers her prize to some of the little ones in the nursery. A division of the stolen property quickly takes place; and ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... on almost any part of our own coasts, a similar result would have taken place? Is it not notorious, and a deep and indelible stain on the great proportion of our population on the coast, that on a wreck taking place, the natives not only pilfer all that they can lay their hands upon, but sometimes do not even hesitate, it is alleged, to extinguish any glimmering sparks of life that may be perceptible in the bodies of the unfortunate mariners who have been washed ashore—with a view to protect themselves in the possession of their ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... justice to Joseph Smith I cannot say that I ever heard him teach, or even encourage, men to pilfer or steal little ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... out for the dandies, Girls, beware; Look out for their blandishments, Dears, take care! For they're always ready—remember this!— To pilfer from maids an unwilling kiss. Oh, me! Oh, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... She had neither kith nor kin, nor friends, nor even acquaintances; but, being something of a miser, scraped and screwed to amass money she had no need for, and dwelt in a wretched little apartment in a back slum, whence she daily issued to work little and pilfer much. ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... on the keyboard and strings of a piano while I watched a number of thieves break into the remnants of houses and pilfer them, while others again had got at a supply of fine groceries and had broken into a barrel of fine brandy, and were fairly steeping themselves in it. I met quite a number of Pittsburghers in the ruins looking for friends and ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Pilfer not the smallest thing; Touch it not, howe'er thou need it, Though the owner have enough, Though he know ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... you shall know I have lost a foolish Daughter, And with her all my patience, pilfer'd away By a mean Captain ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... then the wretch, whose dastard heart Shrinks at a tyrant's nobler part, And only dares betray; With reptile wiles, alas! prevail, Where force, and rage, and priestcraft fail, To pilfer power away? ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... for a moment. As we approached the shop, Garoffi issued from it on a run, with a package in his hand, and making his big cloak, with which he covers up his merchandise, flutter. Ah! now I know where he goes to pilfer iron filings, which he sells for old papers, that barterer of a Garoffi! When we arrived in front of the door, we saw Precossi seated on a little pile of bricks, engaged in studying his lesson, with his book ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... who carry about pins, laces, and other pedlars wares, and under the pretence of offering their goods to sale, rob houses, or pilfer any thing they ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... friend, And like the half you pilfer'd best; But sure the piece you yet may mend: Take courage, man! ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... men, women, and children, each bearing on the head a great graceful basket of yellow treasures. Opposite our window there is a wall by which they rest themselves, after their three-mile walk from the gardens. There they lounge and there they chatter. Little boys come slyly to pilfer oranges, and are pelted away with other oranges; for a single orange has here no more appreciable value than a single apple in our farmers' orchards; and, indeed, windfall oranges are left to decay, like windfall apples. During this season ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... all June. But here is a worse calamity; one is never safe by day or night: Mrs. Walsingham, who has bought your brother's late house at Ditton, was robbed a few days ago in the high road, within a mile of home, at seven in the evening. The di'a nimorum gentium pilfer every thing. Last night they stole a couple of yards of lead off the pediment of the door of my cottage. A gentleman at Putney, who has three men servants, had his house broken open last week, and lost some fine miniatures, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... by the Northern Algonquin tribes. It is coupled with the phrase Paimosaid,—a permutative form of the Indian substantive, made from the verb pim-o-sa, to walk. Its literal meaning is, he who walks, or the walker; but the ideas conveyed by it are, he who walks by night to pilfer corn. It offers, therefore, a kind of parallelism in expression to the preceding term." ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... sits down on the weight which he bore; The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store. If a thief could be here, he might pilfer at ease: She sees the musician—'tis all that ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... Waheatoun the Earee de hi, or king, and him we had not yet seen, nor, I believe, any other chief of note. Many, however, who called themselves Earees, came on board, partly with a view of getting presents, and partly to pilfer whatever came ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... principles. To live in seeming fellowship and secret rivalry; to have a hand for all, and a heart for none; to be everybody's acquaintance, and nobody's friend; to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile, and to dread the secret stratagems of all who smile on us; to pilfer honours and despoil fortunes, not by fighting in daylight, but by sapping in darkness: these are arts which the court can teach, but which we, by 'r Lady, have not learned. But let your court-minstrel tune up his throat to the praise of your court-hero, then come our principles ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... their memory, Those glorious Greeks of old— On shore and sea the Famed, the Free, The Beautiful—the Bold! The mind or mirth that lights each page, Or bowl by which we sit, Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age— Gems splinter'd from their wit. Then drink we to their memory, Those glorious Greeks of yore; Of great or true, we can but do What ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... cold, all the wild creatures become outlaws, and roam abroad beyond their usual haunts. The partridge comes to the orchard for buds; the rabbit comes to the garden and lawn; the crows and jays come to the ash-heap and corn-crib, the snow buntings to the stack and to the barnyard; the sparrows pilfer from the domestic fowls; the pine grosbeak comes down from the north and shears your maples of their buds; the fox prowls about your premises at night; and the red squirrels find your grain in the barn ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... above, our friend "E. V. K." has shown himself curiously unaffected by "that last infirmity of noble minds,"—his "clear spirit" heeds all too little its urgent "spur." The following sonnets are all we can pilfer from him. They are ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... deal of trouble: skeleton keys are so exasperatingly slow, particularly when used by inexpert hands. But how to bring herself to make use of these? All's fair in war (and this was a sort of war, a war of wits at least); but one should fight with one's own arms, not pilfer the enemy's and turn them against him. To use these keys to ransack Maitland's desk seemed an action even more blackly dishonorable than this clandestine visit, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... refused to believe," resumed Ibrahim after a pause, and in a tone of indignation that echoed through the cavern. "I am now convinced that the shameless scoundrels do not rob on their own account, since they are obliged to pilfer and conceal a part of their plunder in order to get a profit from their misdeeds. Marked you not, Hassan, how they trembled when the sun lit up the ravine, lest their tricks should be espied by some sentry on the battlements; and how their panic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... same effect. He told me, as an illustration, of a parcel sent to him which had become quite shattered in transit (p.p. 7). The Germans transferred the contents to a sack, and, as he said, the temptation to pilfer the sorely-needed foodstuffs must have been great. My informant also spoke of the very thorough inoculation ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... peculation, embezzlement; fraud &c 545; larceny, petty larceny, grand larceny, shoplifting. thievishness, rapacity, kleptomania, Alsatia^, den of Cacus, den of thieves. blackmail, extortion, shakedown, Black Hand [U.S.]. [person who commits theft] thief &c 792. V. steal, thieve, rob, mug, purloin, pilfer, filch, prig, bag, nim^, crib, cabbage, palm; abstract; appropriate, plagiarize. convey away, carry off, abduct, kidnap, crimp; make off with, walk off with, run off with; run away with; spirit away, seize &c (lay ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... demand—if, in jealous rivalry with neighbouring States, or with other producers, you try to attract attention by singularities, novelties, and gaudinesses—to make every design an advertisement, and pilfer every idea of a successful neighbour's, that you may insidiously imitate it, or pompously eclipse —no good design will ever be possible to you, or perceived by you. You may, by accident, snatch the market; or, by energy, command it; you may ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... and caught hold of me. "Sha'n't go, Tom, impossible—come along with me to my lodgings, and breakfast with me. Here, Pilfer, Pilfer," to his black valet, "give me my stick, and massu the chair, and run home and order breakfast—cold calipiver—our Jamaica salmon, you know, Tom—tea and coffee pickled mackerel, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... of the said king, the office of provost of the hotel, in which behaved rather harshly my lord Tristan of Mere, of whom these tales oft make mention, although he was by no means a merry fellow. I give this information to the friends who pilfer from old manuscripts to manufacture new ones, and I show thereby how learned these Tales really are, without appearing to be so. Very well, then, this provost was named Picot or Picault, of which some ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... a hateful ape, Detected grinning 'midst his pilfer'd hoard, A cunning man appears, whose secret frauds Are open'd ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... that had been pointed out to us as Wordsworth's residence, we began to peer about at its front and gables, and over the garden-wall on both sides of the road, quickening our enthusiasm as much as we could, and meditating to pilfer some flower or ivy-leaf from the house or its vicinity, to be kept as sacred memorials. At this juncture a man approached, who announced himself as the gardener of the place, and said, too, that this was not Wordsworth's house at all, but the residence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... and were accordingly hung in chains, as the custom of those days was, to be a terror and warning to like evil-doers, as dead crows and other birds are stuck up in a field to scare away the live ones wishing to pilfer the farmer's ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... stooped to pilfer, until exposure and decay had weakened his hand. In his first week at Dublin he carried off L1000, and it was only his fateful interview with Sir John Fielding that gave him poverty for a bedfellow. Even at the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... big and too dangerous. I shirk King George; he has a fat pocket, but he has a long arm. [You pilfer sixpence from him, and it's three hundred reward for you, and a hue and cry from Tophet to the stars.] It ceases to be business; it turns politics, and I'm not a politician, Mr. Moore. (RISING.) I'm ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... returned the musician; "for with the callow poets of our day the way is for every one to write as he pleases and pilfer where he chooses, whether it be germane to the matter or not, and now-a-days there is no piece of silliness they can sing or write that is not set down to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... he concluded, "that she has now lost this superiority; for it is long indeed since she produced an architect. The men who assume the name are mere thieving bunglers, builders devoid of all individuality and learning. They are not even able to pilfer skilfully from their precursors. What are they nowadays? Patchers up of chapels, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... upon such a day I shall declare that your offers are inadmissible"? No such thing appears. Your Lordships will further remark, that Mr. Hastings refused the 200,000l. at a time when the exigencies of the Company were so pressing that he was obliged to rob, pilfer, and steal upon every side,—at a time when he was borrowing 40,000l. from Mr. Sulivan in one morning, and raising by other under-jobs 27,000l. more. In the distress [in?] which his own extravagance and prodigality had involved him, 200,000l. would have been a weighty benefit, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... among the common people, no disposition to take advantage of the misfortune of the stranger. Although they beheld what must in their eyes have been inestimable treasures, cast, as it were, upon their shores, and open to depredation, yet there was not the least attempt to pilfer, nor, in transporting the effects from the ships, had they appropriated the most trifling article. On the contrary, a general sympathy was visible in their countenances and actions; and to have witnessed their concern, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... O could I pilfer the wand of a fairy, I'd have a pair of those beautiful wings; Their summer days' ramble is sportive and airy, They sleep in a rose when the nightingale sings. Those who have wealth must be watchful and wary; Power, alas! naught but misery brings! I'd ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... without cause, that she took away from his house such scraps of food and pots and pipkins as were not likely to be missed. The woman justified her conduct to herself by the argument that she was inadequately paid in coin, and that she was forced to pilfer in order to recoup herself for the outlay of time and muscle in her brother's habitation. Thomas Rocliffe was a quiet, harmless old man, crushed not only by the derision which had clung to him like a robe of Nessus ever since his ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... nails and beads. Presents of shirts and axes were made to several who called themselves chiefs, or earees, and who promised to bring off hogs and fowls, which, however, they did not do. These earees did not scruple to pilfer whatever came in their way, and one of them, who pretended to be very friendly, was found handing articles which did not belong to him out of the quarter-galley. As his companions on deck were behaving in the same way, they were all turned ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... station of Zagathai we travelled directly north, and our attendants began to pilfer largely from us, because we took too little heed of our property, but experience at length taught us wisdom. At length we reached the bounds of this province, which is fortified by a deep ditch, from sea to sea[1]. Immediately beyond this ditch, we came to the station to which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... of the archipelago. It is a brutal sport, if sport it can be called. These people seem to treat their birds better than they do their wives; and so great is their passion for this abominable proceeding, that they will cheat and pilfer and commit all sorts of crimes in ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Maybe we can pilfer it and maybe we can't. At least we can make a brisk attempt. I will give orders at once. In the meantime, if you'll keep me advised of what happens, we may be able to piece your and my information together and ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... their petticoat either over or by it, and manage to transfer the stolen property into their basket while picking up the petticoat. If an unfavourable omen occurs on the way when the women set out to pilfer they place a stone on the ground and dash another on to it saying, 'If the obstacle is removed, break'; if the stone struck is broken, they consider that the obstacle portended by the unfavourable omen is removed from their path, and proceed ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... axes, brass kettles, needles, and other articles; and then added such presents as they considered might be further serviceable to them. Though they appeared anxious to possess whatever the visitors had to give they did not exhibit any disposition to pilfer. And, in some of the bargains, particularly for a sledge and a dog, the articles, though previously paid for, were all ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... fat soldier attempted to pilfer a horse from a dooryard. He planned to load his knap-sack upon it. He was escaping with his prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed the animal's mane. There followed a wrangle. The young girl, with pink ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... first Europeans they had ever seen, we were by no means annoyed by their curiosity: and their honesty is to be praised; for, though opportunities were not wanting, they never on any occasion attempted to pilfer any thing. Their color resembles the Malay, and is fully as dark; and the cast of their countenance does not favor the notion that they are sprung from a distinct origin. They never intermarry with the Malays, so as to intermingle the two people, and the chastity of ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... you expect? you pilfer the man too much, and he's going to protect himself," replied the officer. "It will be a bad business for you in the end; government ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... caution, which I shall give to Lady Ailesbury too. Take care of your papers at Paris, and have a very strong lock to your porte-feuille. In the h'otels garnis they have double keys to every lock, and examine every drawer and paper of the English they can get at. They will pilfer, too, whatever they can. I was robbed of half my clothes there the first time, and they wanted to hang poor Louis to save the people of the house who had ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... a rare handkerchief. Iago urges his own wife, who is Desdemona's maid, to pilfer this and bring it to him. When he gets it, he leaves it in Cassio's room. Cassio was an intimate friend of Othello's, one, indeed, who had gone with him when he went to woo Desdemona, and who, by Iago's machinations, had been suspended from his office ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... of a magazine belonging to a friend of the family. In the great eastern desert the Aeneze Bedouins are not so severe in such instances; but they would punish a Bedouin who should pilfer any thing ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... his vivid lines assume The garb and dignity of ancient Rome.— Let college verse-men trite conceits express, Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress; From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase, And vapid notions hitch in pilfer'd lays: Then with mosaick art the piece combine, And boast the glitter of each dulcet line: Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse His vigorous sense into the Latian muse; Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light, And ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... yet to learn," said Dennis, fully aware of the renewed look of doubt in the faces of the men, "that a Red Cross nurse has any right to pilfer a field letter-box, or that she usually carries a Browning pistol for that purpose. Besides——" And at a venture he suddenly transferred his grip from her left wrist to the nurse's headgear ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... is," remarked Hood carelessly. "So were you till greed led you to pilfer your governor's strong box. Let us be tolerant and withhold judgment. It's enough that your own skirts are clear. Put that stuff out ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... the place. Some brought a few land-otter and sea-otter skins to barter, but in very scanty parcels; the greater number came prying about to gratify their curiosity, for they are said to be impertinently inquisitive; while not a few came with no other design than to pilfer; the laws of meum and tuum being but slightly respected among them. Some of them beset the ship in their canoes, among whom was the Chinook chief Comcomly, and his liege subjects. These were well received by Mr. M'Dougal, who ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Gratitude, than they Who from a coward Dread of Law Owe all their Virtue to their Awe; Who, tho' they seem so true, and just, So strictly faithful to their Trust, Will, if you take the Gallows down, Out-pilfer half the Rogues in Town). With saucy boldness will presume To pass th' impenetrable gloom, And lift the Curtain which we see Is drawn betwixt the World and Thee; Of nought but endless Torments speak, To frighten and appall the weak; Dwell on the horrid ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... 'bout that," contested Abel. "Git somebody kind o' spry an' he could pad out weth a pilfer. A pussy man 'd find it rather onhandy comin' down that chimbly an' hoppin' hether an' yan takin' things off o' the tree. Need somebody with a good strong voice, too, to call off the names.... Woosh's you'd git them things up to the house soon 's you kin, Otho. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... perhaps as much from mismanagement, as by the weather; for, with very few exceptions, it was impossible to select from among the prisoners, or those who had been such, any who would feel an honest interest in executing the service in which they were employed. They would pilfer half the grain entrusted to their care for the cattle; they would lead them into the woods for pasturage, and there leave them until obliged to conduct them in; they would neither clean them nor themselves. Indolent, and by long habit worthless, no dependance ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... himself, who, having left his studio but a few minutes before, was now returning to his work; and as his eyes fell upon this unexpected guest, he at first was disposed to believe him some young vagabond who had come in to pilfer. But the statue-like attitude of the boy, the fixed look with which he surveyed the picture, and the gaiter boots which dangled by their connecting string from his arm, his whole appearance making him ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... outlaws, and roam abroad beyond their usual haunts. The partridge comes to the orchard for buds; the rabbit comes to the garden and lawn; the crows and jays come to the ash-heap and corn-crib, the snow-buntings to the stack and to the barn-yard; the sparrows pilfer from the domestic fowls; the pine grosbeak comes down from the north and shears your maples of their buds; the fox prowls about your premises at night, and the red squirrels find your grain in the barn or steal the butternuts ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... what follows? Men, you make, By ruling them, your own; each man for his own sake Accepts you as his guide, avails him of what worth He apprehends in you to sublimate his earth With fire; content, if so you convey him through night, That you shall play the sun, and he, the satellite, Pilfer your light and heat and virtue, starry pelf, While, caught up by your course, ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... be ruined for life; but he very shortly found that he was a gainer by the maiming. For being by nature disposed to pilfer from his companions, it would come within his experience to have many misadventures wherein his ears would be ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... help. It is your nature. So were you made—we know you cannot change—you amuse us! Go on, little cat!' Would it not then be better, and less savoury of humbug if we said the same to her whose cat-soul has chanced into this human shape? For assuredly she will but pilfer, and scratch a little, and be mildly vicious, in her little life, and do no desperate harm, having but poor capacity for evil behind that petty, thin-upped mask. What is the good of all this padlock business for such as she; are we not making mountains out of her mole ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... effects what is otherwise done by two. His chief reason however was, that the servants of Sky are, according to him, a faithless pack, and steal what they can; so that much is saved by the corn passing but once through their hands, as at each time they pilfer some. It appears to me, that the graddaning is a strong proof of the laziness of the highlanders, who will rather make fire act for them, at the expence of fodder, than labour themselves. There was also, what I cannot help disliking at breakfast, cheese: ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... pigmeo. Pike (fish) ezoko. Pike (tool) pikilego. Pike (weapon) ponardego. Pile up amasigi. Pile (logs) sxtiparo. [Error in book: stiparo] Pile (support) paliso, subteno. Pile (heap) amaso—ajxo. Pile (electric) elektra pilo. Piles hemorojdo. Pilfer sxteleti. Pilferer sxtelisto. Pilgrim pilgrimanto. Pilgrimage pilgrimo—ado. Pill pilolo. Pillage rabegi—ado. Pillar kolono. Pillory punejo. Pillow kapkuseno. Pillow-case kusentego. Pilot ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... there's an alms-box to open or a matter of gold plate to pilfer." Guy Tabarie hurriedly interrupted him with a warning cry of "Cave!" and a significant glance at the strangers, but Villon derided ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... brought him constantly of Salesa's misdoing; for Billy Hindoo was crazed with anger against his master, and against the woman who had so successfully supplanted him, and was eager to revenge himself on both. And one day he brought not only a new tale, but a bottle of gin he had managed to pilfer from the camp of Professor ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... 'bout that," contested Abel. "Git somebody kind o' spry an' he could pad out weth a pilfer. A pussy man 'd find it rather onhandy comin' down that chimbly an' hoppin' hether an' yan takin' things off o' the tree. Need somebody with a good strong voice, too, to call off the names.... Woosh's you'd git them things up to the house ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... small fowl on the wing, are always within reach; you will never find me without well-tenanted pill-boxes in my pocket, and perhaps a buzzing captive or two stuck in spinning thraldom on my castor; you are petty larceners, I profess the like metier of intellectual abstractor; you pilfer among a crowd of volumes, manuscripts, rare editions, conflicting commentators, and your success depends upon reusage of the old materials; whereas I sit alone and bookless in my dining-parlour, thinking over bygone fancies, reconsidering exploded notions, appropriating all I find of lumber ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... has its evil times. On certain days, Trumence could not find either kind-hearted topers or hospitable housewives. Hunger, however, was ever on hand; then he had to become a marauder; dig some potatoes, and cook them in a corner of a wood, or pilfer the orchards. And if he found neither potatoes in the fields, nor apples in the orchards, what could he do but climb a fence, or ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau |
