"Purloin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... incident. Who it was that could thus purloin an unfinished letter and retire in order to conceal the theft, I could not imagine. Nothing else had been displaced. It was no ordinary ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... eager to obtain a share in the glory which their great rival, the neighbouring cathedral, had won from the circumstances of Becket's martyrdom within its walls, that they actually offered Roger no less a reward than the position of abbot in their own institution, on condition that he should purloin for them some part of the remains of the martyr's skull. And not only did Roger, though he had been specially selected from amongst the monks of Christ Church to watch over this very treasure, agree to their ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... perambulator full of dingy clothes and sordid odds and ends; she looked at me sullenly and suspiciously. Where she was going God knows: to camp, I suppose, in some dingle, with ugly company; to beg, to lie, to purloin, perhaps to drink; but by the perambulator walked a little boy, seven or eight years old, grotesquely clothed in patched and clumsy garments; he held on to the rim, dirty, unkempt; but he was happy too; he was with his ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... I do your lordship pray. You doubt not, I trust, of my willing mind, Which herein is most ready, you always shall find: For who is more ready by fraud to purloin Other men's goods than I am each where? But lest some man at me should chance to foin, And kill me at once, I greatly do fear. I had rather persuade him his folly ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... colour of tanned leather and very hairy, but his face beamed with good-nature. He put his pipe between his teeth and did as he was bidden. Elena produced the pencil and paper she had managed to purloin from her father's table, and kneeling beside her faithful vaquero, wrote a note on his back. It took her a long time to coin that simple epistle, for she never had written a love-letter before. But Pedro knelt like a rock, although his old knees ached. When the note was ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... love and no money who preached zealously but never gathered a large church of believers. Then there were the protestants against the sin of flesh-eating, refining into curious metaphysics upon milk, eggs, and oysters. To purloin milk from the udder was to injure the maternal affections of the cow; to eat eggs was Feejee cannibalism and the destruction of the tender germ of life, to swallow an oyster was to mask murder. A still selecter circle denounced the chains that shackled the tongue and the ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... plateau. Even those who had aided the Spaniards in the conquest fared no better; and many an Inca noble roamed a mendicant over the lands where he once held rule, and if driven, perchance, by his necessities, to purloin something from the superfluity of his conquerors, he expiated it by a ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... start a League to be called Anti-Holiday? Bet half the middle-aged men-folk will join! Then we might get an occasional jolly day, Free from the pests who perplex and purloin. "Health-Resort" quackery, portmanteau-packery, Cheat-brigade charges and chills I might miss. Dear-bought jimcrackery, female knicknackery!— ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... singly seeks his prey; To hunt in couples is the modern way— A rascal, from the public to purloin, An honest man to hide ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... looked a little embarrassed, I thought, and said the Firm did not care to send its stuff to ladies not in the business. I might cut it to waste, or—he said no more; but I do really think he meant I might purloin it." ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the museum, Baxter's suspicions lost their vagueness and became crystallized. Certainty descended on him like a bolt from the skies. On oath, before a notary, the Efficient Baxter would have declared that J. Preston Peters was about to try to purloin the scarab. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the diplomatic service of Russia, in which he had shown himself one of the most dangerous enemies of the Napoleonic government in France. The Count's Piedmontese valet had been bribed by a spy of Fouche, the French Minister of Police, to purloin certain papers. The valet was discovered by his master, and instantly stabbed him, and, as the Countess entered the room a moment afterward, he also pierced her heart with the stiletto recking with her husband's ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... your worthy teacher a letter which has filled me with grief and displeasure. I knew you had great faults, but I did not dream that you would stoop so low as to purloin money, as it seems you have done. Mr. Smith writes me that there is no room to doubt your guilt. He himself discovered in the pocket of your pantaloons a wallet containing a large sum of money, which he had missed only a short time before. He learned that you had entered his chamber, and ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... me say That—since the doings of our far-off day Smacked less of Hippocrene than of Bohea— His tiny pictures of that tiny time Aim little at the lofty and sublime, And paint no peccadillo as a crime— Since when illegally light midges mate, Or flies purloin, or gnats assassinate, No sane man hales them to ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... she did not understand the cause of the trouble and why all the Arabs rushed at Stas, the boy told her how he had determined to purloin the rifle, kill the camels, and force all to ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... prelude of kleptomania. The latter disease has gained notoriety in this country, and nearly every large store has agents to watch the apparently growing number of kleptomaniacs. These unfortunate persons, not seldom from the highest classes of society, are unable to combat an intense desire to purloin articles. Legal proceedings have been instituted against many, and specialists have been called into court to speak on this question. Relatives and friends have been known to notify the large stores of the thieving propensities ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... laconically, with a crack of her mule-whip on to the arm of a Zouave who was attempting to make free with her convoy and purloin a loaf off ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... assessed upon. Nature lets out her houses and lands on liberal terms; but resorts to distraint, if her dues be not forthcoming. Be sure, therefore, that little success and little honor will wait upon any would-be thieving from God. He who attempts to purloin on this high scale has set all the wit of the universe at work to thwart him, and will certainly be worsted sorely in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Haroun"—Stay—O now I have it— "The Caliph Haroun in his orchards had A fruit-tree, bearing such delicious fruits, That he reserved them for his proper gust; And through the Palace it was Death proclaim'd To any one that should purloin ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... conscience, he determined at once to free himself of all these burdens. His reward consisted in the Count's undertaking to persuade the Prince to send the Baron on an important mission to the imperial court. In consideration of this, the Baron was to procure the wife of the minister to purloin secretly, from the cabinet of her husband, a certain parchment, considered to be one of the most important title-deeds of the princely house; and which the favourite was well aware would shortly be called for, on account of a certain law-suit with another illustrious ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger |
