"Scamp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chair close to mine, and as he knew my weak side, the scamp continued: 'Just think what a swaggering thing it will be to do, and how amusing to tell about; the whole army will talk about it, and it will give you a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... penetration than Dubuche, so he gave him a knowing nod, and they then began to chaff. They begged Claude's pardon; the moment he wanted to keep the young person for his personal use, they would not ask him to lend her. Ha! ha! the scamp went hunting about for pretty models. And where had he ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... they all treat me. I can't stand it! My heart is just sick. I'm a martyr in this world. [She plucks a flower viciously and pulls off its petals] I believe that if I had the power I'd do this to all of you! I'd do this to all of you! I'd do this to all of you! You just wait, you young scamp! I'll catch you. My heart boils, it boils, it boils over! And now I must smirk before the mistress as if I were a fool. What a life! What a life! The sinners in hell do not suffer as I suffer in ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... a fellow. They all profess to be very much shocked, but they assure you that it's all right,—not to mind them. They didn't think you had it in you, and they're glad to see you behaving like a scamp. Oh, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... and as the clock-hands were nearing twelve, Mahony was obliged to give up the search and go back to the hotel. It was impossible at that hour to let Ocock know of this fresh piece of ill-luck. Besides, there was just a chance the young scamp would turn up in the morning. Morning came, however, and no Johnny with it. Outwitted and chagrined, Mahony set ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... everybody's wits clean inside out and scared us all most to death. I've as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out o' you this very minute. To think, here I've been, night after night, a—YOU just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I'll tan the Old Harry out o' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about—so he put it to himself—without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... under the load she has cast upon him. He warns her to be out of the house on his arrival, because, if she is not, "she will find in him a tyrant." The whole letter is indicative of a low-down unworthy scamp, a mere collection of transparent verbiage, intended as a means of ridding himself of a woman he had nothing in common with, and a cover to his ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... She foresaw that Connie was practically engaged to Dan, a prince of a fellow, and she was so glad. That little scamp of a Connie, to keep it ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... tellin' you, only far more pitiful, and sure didn't she end up by beggin' him to be kind to her poor Jimmy if he ever comes across him; and tellin' him how she always prays for him and knows he'll be saved yet. She never held it against the young scamp that he never writ back even the scratch of a pen, just as full of excuses for him as Ma would be if it was one of you lads," and Pearl's ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... that young man, and the scandal about him; it was only a year ago that he was rusticated. Such a pity! He was a most clever fellow—good at every thing. And quite a genius for music. To hear him sing and play was delightful! And yet he was such a scamp—a downright villain." ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... example of betheral refinement or philosophy.—He was carefully dressing up a grave, and adjusting the turf upon it. The clergyman, passing through the churchyard, observed, "That's beautiful sod, Jeems." "Indeed is't, minister, and I grudge it upon the grave o' sic a scamp." ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... "I heard him chattering about it, the little scamp. Well, Miss Nelson," he could not help laughing. "Has that young prodigy of mine tried to frighten ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... certainly, as we shall see, nearer to pure doubt about it than about anything else) does not strike the critic as being such an exasperating problem after all. An artist of vast power and promise, who is also a scamp of vast profligacy and treachery, has a chance of life if specially treated for a special disease. The modern doctors (and even the modern dramatist) are in doubt whether he should be specially favoured ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... my terms, but in the end accepted them. He wrote the letter, and I posted it. I had no pity for the old scamp, who had feathered his nest well. Small wonder that the firm's business was not as good as it might be, when Japp was giving most of his time to buying diamonds from native thieves. The secret put him in the power of any Kaffir ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... certain," Mr. Fentolin continued. "There are so many people who would miss me. My place in the world would not be easily filed. Undo my waistcoat, Sarson. Feel my heart, please. Feel carefully. I can see the end of your stethoscope in your pocket. Don't scamp it. I fancied this morning, when I was lying here alone, that there was something almost like a palpitation—a quicker beat. Be ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in, too. But the boat is pretty—yes, yes, that enlivens the foreground—bravo! Capital, Ben, capital!—that stoop is just the thing; and the youngsters, how beautifully they group themselves! Hallo! upon my honor, if that young scamp is not making love to Lina! I don't pretend to know what the attitude of ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... firelight, pacing up and down with long, light even strides as he looked to his horse and fed the fire. She watched him make an end of the things he found to do and then take his place opposite her. Who and what was he, this fascinating scamp who one moment flooded the moonlit desert with inspired snatches from the opera sung in the voice of an angel, and the next lashed at his horse like a devil incarnate? How reconcile the outstanding inconsistencies in him? For his every ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... among the different divisions which the nature of the service generally threw a good deal together, there was not so much as a mule or a donkey that was not known to each individual, and its absence noticed; nor a scamp of a boy, or a common Portuguese trull, who was not as particularly inquired after, as if the fate of the ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... to put an arm about him.... Dear old Jack.... Dear, irresponsible scamp.... His reaction of the irritation vanished.... It was so darned good to see the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... scanty means in the venture, waited long if not patiently. At length, after the expiration of the last hope, Mr. Martin inquired, "How did it happen, Seth, that you threw away your money on that lottery scamp, when we showed you that the whole thing was ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... she would say, "I hate to call your friends names, but really he's a perfect scamp, and underneath all his fine manners he is no better than a wolf ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... never cross the threshold of that church. And I've worshiped there for fifty years. Hum—ha! I should like to know whose money has gone more liberal for that meeting house than mine! But not another cent—no, sir! not one—if that licentious young scamp ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... man,' quoth I, 'I've something to say to you. In the first place you're a scamp who would keep a gentleman from getting a fair price for his own property. Secondly, you're an ignorant fellow and don't know what you're talking about. I never heard of your Colonel Smith—I'm not drawing up real estate lots or plots of any kind. Thirdly, I solemnly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Moors—watches him. Well then"—Villiers sweeps with a white feminine hand the long hair that is falling over his face—he has half forgotten, he is a little mixed in the opening of the story, and he is striving in English to "scamp," in French to escamoter. "The family are watching, death if he is caught, if he fails to kill the French sentry. The cry of a bird, some vague sound attracts the sentry, he turns; all is lost. The Spaniard is seized. Martial ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... exaggerated story, and put it into his head that I'm engaged, or likely to be engaged, to somebody else; or, what is more probable, for fear his nasty old mother should see or hear of my ongoings, and conclude that I'm not a fit wife for her excellent son: as if the said son were not the greatest scamp in Christendom; and as if any woman of common decency were not a world ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... He described him as a self-appointed guardian of the Osages, as a scamp and a nuisance [Coffin to Dole, June 17, 1861, Ibid., C ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... no lamps had been lighted and there was only a little firelight to make the darkness and emptiness of the large room more noticeable. She knelt down on the hearth-rug and buried her face in the seat of Mrs. Rushton's favourite arm-chair. The dearest of all her dear dogs, Scamp, came and laid his black muzzle beside her ear, as if he knew the whole case and wanted to mourn with her. Two hours passed; Hetty listened intently for every sound, and wondered impatiently why Mr. and Mrs. Enderby did not arrive. ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... Benjamin White, as an antidote to yellow journalism. One is forced to admit that up to the present yellow journalism seems to be competing against it with a certain measure of success. Headlines are still of as generous a size as heretofore, and there is no tendency on the part of editors to scamp the ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... like the man I read about the other day. Some mean, old scamp told him how homely his mother was; and he said, says he, 'Yes, she's a homely woman, sure enough; but oh she's such a beautiful mother!' What ever will I do when I get in New York," she added quickly, seized ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... or Voetius, a theological scamp, who accused Descartes of atheism, was very ill with the black bile; but he knew still less than Descartes how his detestable bile ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... hopelessly undramatic. 'Joe', I said, 'this old sot is not a pleasant figure. He lacks romance. I dare say you made a fine sketch of the old beast, but there is no interest in him. He may be picturesque, but he is not dramatic. I would prefer to start him in a play as a young scamp, thoughtless, gay, just such a curly-head, good-humoured fellow as all the village girls would love, and the children and dogs would run after'. Jefferson threw up his hands in despair. It was totally opposed to his artistic preconception. But I insisted, and he reluctantly conceded. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... you say, this man Blake is a scamp, and has really sold the dog, it ought to be enquired into. If it were all exposed, perhaps he would be obliged to leave Dunscar and go to some other place, and that would be much better for the boys ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... "that the real moral of your story is, that I must become a freemason, because I might travel abroad and be attacked by a scamp who was also a freemason. Now, I think I had better decline joining a society that ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... kills your genius," said Lotys; "Therefore you are quite safe! If you were less of a scamp you would be a great man,— perhaps the greatest in the country! That would never do! Your rivals would never forgive you! But you are a hopeless rascal, incapable of winning much honour; and so you are compassionately recognized as somebody who might do something if he only would—that is ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... blame myself. I think I have shown her that I am determined, and she seems inclined to be dutiful. Poor dear girl, I am very sorry for her. There is no doubt she has taken a fancy to this handsome young scamp. But she must get over it. It can't be so very serious as yet. At all events I have done my duty, though I can't help saying that I wish I had spoken before things ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... would you had him closely watched. For he is a general disliker of us and of our doings; he is gathering together an enormous treasure, and he makes an open jest of our literary pursuits. You, for instance, he calls a philosophizing old woman, and me a dissolute buffoon and scamp. Consider what you would have done. For my part, I bear the fellow no ill will; but again, I say, take care that he does not do a mischief to yourself, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Slimak, 'this lady has dragged her lame father a long way in the cart; would you do that, you scamp?' ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... it down this afternoon, the lazy scamp!' said Leland. 'He has never been near those blessed chambers since I left till now. A pile of letters came together, but I took ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... you let her run your errands, you lazy little scamp," answered Mac, looking after her as she went up the green slope, for there was something very attractive to him about the slender figure in a plain white gown with a black sash about the waist and all the wavy hair gathered to the top of the head with ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... a scamp from his cradle, a spendthrift at Eton and Oxford, a blackleg in his manhood. False to men, false to women. Clever? Yes, undoubtedly, just as Satan is clever, and as unscrupulous as that very Satan. This was what his friends said of him over ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... exclaimed peevishly. "The idea of Diana Paget, without a sixpence, and with a regular scamp of a father, marrying a man with a chateau, while my poor Charlotte—! I don't wish to wound your feelings, Mr. Hawkehurst, but it ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... than could be borne. Yet she was less resentful than sad, for it seemed to her that this was the beginning of the end. First the father had been crippled, then the moral fiber of the whole family had disintegrated until the mother had become a harpy, the brother a scamp, and she, Lorelei, a shameless hunter of men. Now the home tie, that last bond of respectability, ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... to me,' said Leucha, 'exactly as if I were the sinner. It's Hollyhock, mean little scamp, who is the sinner, and yet you call her brave ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... "There, you young scamp," as he gave Johnny an extra box on the ear, "let me see you trying to sneak through the gates again and you won't ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... Jack! what mean you by trying to make common cause with the ruffians who would have carried your sister off as a prey of that graceless scamp well-called Devil's Own? I marvel to hear such words from you. You ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... black scamp, you thought you'd run away with the tag, did you!" Just then he perceived the primer that was peeping out of Lewis's shirt bosom. "Ha! what's here?" said he; "a primer, as I live! And what are you doing with ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... he had caught it, and his wife looked at him like a tigress ready to eat him, and as soon as he saw us he trembled so violently as to make his hands and knees shake, so I said to him immediately: "It is all settled, you dirty scamp, but don't do ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... old king" Huck calls him, and confesses how he felt "ornery and humble and to blame, somehow," for the old scamp's misfortunes. "A person's conscience ain't got no sense," he says, and Huck is never more real to us, or more lovable, than in that moment. Huck is what he is because, being made so, he cannot well be otherwise. He ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... so many little pots and phials at one's disposal. This made him think bitterly of his own life of privation. The idea occurred to him that perhaps he had been on the wrong track. There is nothing to be gained by associating with beggars. He ought to have played the scamp; he should have acted in concert with ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... well. It shows that you are learning at last. Caterina and I haf had much trouble teaching manners to you and that young Onondaga scamp, Tayoga." ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... this style already?" she called out. "The supper stood waiting for you a whole hour: now I have put it away. Go to your bedroom; and if you turn out a good-for-nothing and a scamp, it is no fault of mine. I don't know any thing that I had not rather do than look after ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... don't like no sech tricks wid his horses. But, laws, he couldn't keep angry wid Mass Lennux! He jes' stood wid his hans on his sides an' larf an' larf, till de Jedge he hev ter larf too, an' he call him a graceless scamp, an' say he send him ter Coventry, an' Mass Lennux he say 'all right ef de Jedge go 'long too, an' take de horses, he couldn't ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... this man is a blackguard. I believe he is. My uncle knows something about his father, and says that a bigger scamp never lived." ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... "Vaska! Where's the little scamp got to?" shouted a woman, with a dirty grey blouse, and a frightened look, as she ran out of the house, and, rushing forward, seized the baby before Nekhludoff came up to it, and carried it in, just as if she were afraid that Nekhludoff would hurt ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... "See now, old scamp," he said, "I have sworn an oath to high God to succour the weak, to right wrong, and to serve ladies. Nine times under the moon I sware it, watching my arms before the cross on Starning Waste. Judge you, therefore, whether I intend to keep it or not. As for your daughter, she can tell you ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... hills; the ling in meadow damp;— Each has its place, while I'm a slighted scamp. My thoughts go back to th' early days of Chow, And muse upon its chiefs, not equalled now. O noble chiefs, who then the West adorned, Would ye have ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... you young scamp?" exclaimed one of them. "Killing our lord's game, and caught in the act," he added, picking up the still fluttering bird. "Come along, and we'll see what he has ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... sharply. "Benson hasn't landed us yet, has he? And he's not going to, either! I've one or two rods in pickle for that forward young scamp, and I'll serve him to a fare-you-well yet! Rhinds, I may yet find a way that will insure our ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... considerations were involved; his matrimonial ambitions not the least of them, if he antagonized the Halstead family. Then, too, what could have been back of Vernon's sudden independence? Was it an idle bluff, or had the young scamp managed in some ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... Fanny Godwin (as she was called), and Mary Godwin. These last two were the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of 'The Rights of Women', the great feminist, who had been Godwin's first wife. Fanny's father was a scamp called Imlay, and Mary was ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... age; Miss Muffet, so called from her dread of spiders, was a timid black and white kit; Beauty, a pretty Maltese, with a serene little face and pink nose; Ragbag, a funny thing, every color that a cat could be; and Scamp, who well deserved his name, for he was the plague of Miss Bat's life, and ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... of fact, she was just a nice, wholesome, keen-witted young woman. Pretty as a picture, she was, and as true as gold too,—a lot too good for young Dick Ballard, even if she was merely a girl in his father's office. You couldn't blame her for liking Dick, though. Everyone did—the scatter-brained scamp! And when my brother went through all that melodramatic folly of cutting him off with a thousand a year—well, we had our big row over that. That was when I took my money out of the firm. Lucky I did too. When the panic ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... is not yours, you odious little scamp,' his aunt retorted, raising her shrill voice some notes higher than usual; 'and while I can hold a stick you ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... with, his loose lips pulled out straight, "that is the sort of companion you choose when left to yourself!—a low, beggarly, insolent scamp!—scarcely the equal of the brutes he has the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... depraved parasite, the African black seemed quite a striking figure,—a scamp, if you like, yet full of character. He was a dervish, with drunken habits and a fierce nature when under the influence of drink, but with many good points when sober. On one occasion an Englishman was attacked by a crowd ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... "Ah, you scamp!" cried she, when she heard her visitor's footstep in the upper hall, "I have been waiting for you a full five minutes. I don't wait for every one, I would have you know. Come here and ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... recollect that one day Lannes, speaking to me of the circumstance in his usual downright and energetic way, said, "He had better not place him under my orders, for upon the first fault I will put the scamp under arrest." ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... crossing-sweeper, honest, because mother had made them promise to be so when she died; the good-natured, agreeable, clever young thief Jenks, the tempter and beguiler of poor Dick; and, above all, the dear dog Scamp, with his knowing ways and soft brown eyes, are all as true to life and as touchingly set forth as any heart could desire, beguiling the reader into smiles and tears, and ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... go and come, and make thy trial; The like of thee I never yet did hate. Of all the spirits of denial The scamp is he I best can tolerate. Man is too prone, at best, to seek the way that's easy, He soon grows fond of unconditioned rest; And therefore such a comrade suits him best, Who spurs and works, true devil, always busy. But you, true sons of God, in growing measure, Enjoy rich beauty's living stores ...
— Faust • Goethe
... to have been about the biggest scamp in the country. Why did he whip you this last time when ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... do such aspirations of our youth, and when the opportunity arose in after years I carried it out. Poor old Enfield! He fell on evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster up a favourite son who was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an ungrateful scamp, in the end he was practically ruined and when the bad times came, was forced to sell the Fulcombe estate. I think of him kindly now, for after all he was good to me and gave me many a day's shooting and leave to fish for trout ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... imposture and villany of the Italians. One of them chiefly bewailed himself that the day before, having unwisely eaten a dozen oysters without agreeing first with the oyster-man upon the price, he had been obliged to pay this scamp's extortionate demand to the full, since he was unable to restore him his property. We thought that something like this might have happened to an imprudent man in any country, but we did not the less join him in abusing the Italians—the purpose for ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... Italians, unskilled labourers, and it was their votes that must decide the issue. There was not one of them who was not thoroughly talked to, as well as every member of his family of a reasoning age. There was not one who did not fully recognise that the alderman was a thief and an entirely immoral scamp; but their labour was farmed by, perhaps, half a dozen Italian contractors. These men were the Alderman's henchmen. As long as he continued in the Council, he was able to keep their men employed—on municipal ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... from a single viewpoint was also the method of that literary scamp, Nettement, whom some people would have made the other's rival. The latter was less bigoted than the master, affected less arrogance and admitted more worldly pretentions. He repeatedly left the literary cloister in which Ozanam had imprisoned himself, and had ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... little more easy—— Dear me, of course I trust in his honour; no one doubts that. But he will lead her a pretty dance; whether it will be better for her to have a good crotchety high-tempered young fellow who adores her, or a rough young scamp who ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... well to rid Paris of such vermin as myself and my countrymen. He has not yet, however, fulfilled his promise. Scenes such as these are of frequent occurrence at restaurants; bully and coward are generally synonymous terms; any scamp may insult a foreigner now with perfect impunity, for if the foreigner replies he has only to denounce him as a spy, when a crowd will assemble, and either set on him or bear him off to prison. While, as I have already ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... any idea of a literary reaction, as we should say nowadays? What is quite certain is, that he possessed original talent; that amidst all the execrable tricks wherein he delighted and wherein he was a master, he possessed the sacred spark. . . . A licentious scamp of a student, bred at some shop in the Cite or the Place Maubert, he has a tone which, at least as much as that of Regnier, has a savor of the places the author frequented. The beauties whom he celebrates—and I blush for him—are none else than la blanche ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... little child. (Angrily, to keep herself from crying) It's too silly for anything! I know, of course, that our child would be a gawky youngster of twenty-three by now—that it might have turned into a scamp or a good-for-nothing girl. Or that it might be dead already. Or that it had drifted out into the wide world, so that we had nothing left of it—oh, yes, yes.... But we should have had it once, for all that—once there would have been a little child that ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... virtue of rendering invisible whosoever bears it about his person. He took him to Mugnone along with Bruno da Giovanni, and when Calendrino had picked up a very large number of stones, Buffalmacco suddenly pretended he could not see him, crying out: "The scamp has given us the slip; an I catch him, I'll bang his behind with this paving-stone!" And he landed the stone exactly where he said he would, without Calendrino having any right to complain, because he was invisible. This same Calendrino was ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... "You young scamp!" I exclaimed. Visions of an ambitious and angry mother came to me with abrupt vividness. "You don't mean to tell me that ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... in the first volume of the New English Dictionary (1888), the greatest word-book that has ever been projected. Sabotage looks, unfortunately, as if it had come to stay. It is a derivative of saboter, to scamp work, from sabot, a wooden shoe, used contemptuously of an inferior article. The great French dictionaries do not know it in its latest sense of malicious damage done by strikers, and the New English Dictionary, which finished ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... very singular scamp," replied Georges, with an air that hid a multitude of mysteries. "He put me in command of his ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... Caraway, had fretted for three weeks after he had left. She said that he gained this power over animals not by any real love for them, for he was indifferent to them except when he was actually touching them, and would always scamp his work without regard for their comfort, but simply by some physical magnetism, and pointed out that there it resembled the power some men have over women. It surprised Ellen that she laughed as she said that, and seemed to find pleasure in the thought of such a power. When the meal ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... rose. At one of these reunited gatherings one of the brothers had been restless, and persisted in nudging his sisters and winking at them when his parent had reached his most impressive periods and was oblivious of everything but his communion with God. The scamp was taken aside by the younger sister, who was a strong-minded little damsel with fixed ideas, and she sharply reproved him for his irreverence; and the elder sister, who had a keen sense of humour as well as fixed opinions, ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... and fling away from her in indignation. Her brother——!! But there was no use making any row, he said to himself. If anything were to be done for her he must put up with all that. There had suddenly come upon John, he knew not how, as he scanned her anxious face, a conviction that the man was a scamp, from whom at all hazards she ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... "for as hard as he'd ha' found it, it would ha' been more like him to set to work and teach his father, than to scamp up his mulls." ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... he would easily find him, since I had not assassinated him. 'Conduct them to the Petit-Chatelet,' said he to the archers; 'and take especial care that the chevalier does not escape you: he is a scamp that once before escaped from ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... gigantic beauty that people have gone mad about—a Polish pianist, who's just married young Harcourt, who's a grandson of that old scamp ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... half cleaned my study out—only just stuck the candlesticks in the cupboard, and swept the crumbs on to the floor. So at last I was mortal angry, and had him up, and made him go through the whole performance under my eyes. The dust the young scamp made nearly choked me, and showed that he hadn't swept the carpet before. Well, when it was all finished, 'Now, young gentleman,' says I, 'mind, I expect this to be done every morning—floor swept, table-cloth taken off and shaken, and everything dusted.' ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... rascality, the dash with which he does his work, his ubiquitous serviceableness, and his rogue's humor make him a picturesque character and account for his having become on the stage the most popular figure in the piece; but that Fiesco should be willing to trust himself and his cause to such a scamp, and that such remarkable results should be achieved by the black man's kaleidoscopic activity, brings into the play an element of buffoonery that injures it on the serious side. The daring play of master and man excites ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... most distinguished officers deceased, and upon the service in general." It repudiates, without explaining away, certain unpleasant impressions that even the careful reader of to-day cannot entirely avoid. Marryat made Frank Mildmay a scamp, I am afraid, in order to prove that he himself had not stood for the portrait; but he clearly did not recognise the full enormities of his hero, to which he was partially blinded by a certain share thereof. The adventures were admittedly his own, they ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... I dared kick the fellow out of the house," thought Prince Duncan. "He is a low scamp, and I don't like the ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... endeavored to look detached. But at this point Mr. Vance, remembering, perhaps, that Mr. Nevill Tyson was a great man in his customer's county, and chilled a little by Sir Peter's manner, checked the flow of his reminiscences. "He was a wild young scamp—another two inches round the waist, sir—but I daresay he's settled down ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... is in sending gratis his recipe. All that is necessary is (as you find out when you get the recipe) to buy at a high price from him one ingredient which (he says) you can get nowhere else. This swindling scamp is in fact a smart brisk fellow of about thirty-five years of age, notwithstanding the length of time during which—to use a funny phrase which somebody got up for him—he has been "afflicted with a loose ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... week passed, after this intimation, the number of "Pether's friends" increased so rapidly, that neither he nor Ellish knew the half of them. Every scamp in the parish was hand and glove with him: the drinking tribe, particularly, became desperately attached to him and Ellish. Peter was naturally kind-hearted, and found that his firmest resolutions too often gave way before the open flattery with which he was assailed. He then changed his ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... now with us there is not a scamp of eighteen who would engage in the army if he were told that he might become a Colonel, but never a General; or even a General, but never a Marshal of France. Who, or what, could induce a man to rush into a career in which there is at a certain point an impassable barrier? You regret ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... Stanhope! Dr Vesey Stanhope's daughter, of whose marriage with a dissolute Italian scamp he now remembered to have heard something! And that impertinent blue cub who had examined him as to his episcopal bearings was old Stanhope's son, and the lady who had entreated him to come and teach her child ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... rebellious young scamp!" shouted Blackall, irritated by what he considered Ernest's daring coolness. Ernest did not even look at him, but threw himself into a position to strike the ball. His eye was at the same time on Blackall's stick. ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... no laughing matter, you scamp!" he bellowed. "You broke into the Ford house an' tried to steal the silverware! Now don't try to deny it, or it will be the wuss fer you! You done it now, didn't you?" And he pointed his club at first one cadet ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... held back by its drag; the other panting and nervous at his work as an American locomotive, and as constantly running off the rails. Both, however, were very earnest at their occupation. As they stood there playing, a little group gathered round. A scamp of a boy left his sport to come and beat time with a stick on the stone step before them; several children clustered near; and two or three women, with rosy infants in their arms, also paused to listen and sympathize. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... the other scamp had roused his ire on account of its want of respect for him, the supposed Earl of Rochester. Rochester's folly had inspired that want of respect, why should he, Jones, bother about it? He did. It hit him just as much as though it were levelled against ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... ear!" screamed the former teacher. "He has kicked my ear off. You scamp, take that!" And letting out with his foot, he gave Sam a vigorous kick on the side. At the same time Baxter struck the boy in the head with a stick he had been carrying, and then ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... Unsurprised, the young man side-stepped, caught the hard, bony wrist as the captain lurched by, following his wasted blow, and with a dexterous twist laid him flat on his back, with a sounding thump upon the deck. And as the infuriated scamp rose—which he did with a bound that placed him on his feet and in defensive posture; as though the deck had been a spring-board—Kirkwood leaped back, seized a capstan-bar, and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... "You're a young scamp—and I suppose I'm a cross-grained devil! But if I was angry, where's the wonder? A man doesn't pick up a quaint little book on the quais, and look to have it turning its ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... a tradesman dealt fairly wi' th' poor, But nah a fair dealer can't keep oppen th' door; He's a fooil if he fails, he's a scamp if he pays; Ther wor honest men lived i' ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... not asking any price for his kindness, by not intruding himself upon him, by not preaching at him, by always coming down to his level, and treating him as an equal. It was, so I think, a touching sight to see a serious person becoming the comrade of a young scamp, and virtue putting up with the speech of licence in order to triumph over it more completely. When the young fool came to him with his silly confidences and opened his heart to him, the priest listened and set him at his ease; without giving his approval to what was bad, he ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... You would make this old woman an important character. Now we know that she wasn't. Look at the matter as it presents itself to an unprejudiced mind. A young and susceptible girl falls in love with a man, who is at once a gentleman and a scamp. She may have tried to resist her feelings, and she may not have. Your judgment and mine would probably differ on this point. What she does not do is to let her mother into her confidence. She sees the man—runs upon him, if you will, in places or under circumstances she ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... I think what was a comin'. For, if you will believe it, he hadn't much more than got sot down when he says to me right there, in the middle of the forenoon, and right to my face,—the mean, miserable, lowlived scamp,—says he, right there, in broad daylight, and without blushing, or any ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... you ought to be able to take misfortunes pretty quietly. There's a balance struck, somehow or other, depend upon it, my girl; and the prosperous people who pay their debts have to suffer, as well as the Macaire family. I'm a scamp and a scoundrel, but I'm your true friend nevertheless, Diana; and you must promise to take my advice. Tell me that you will ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... am a priest, I am a poor Christian, and the Lord knows it," says the abbot angrily. "I have no desire to save such a rude scamp. Let ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... character of his house damaged, and must needs consult his honor, the Mayor. That high functionary, knowing the agility with which such heroes as Fopp exercised their heels, gave out no encouragement of catching the rascal. Had it been a scamp, who by his winning manners deceives inconsolable widows, seduces artless damsels, and otherwise exercises his skill in the art of fascinating females, his Honor had been after him with all the courage of his police force. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... has that black scamp got in his mind," thought Reddy. "He never pays compliments unless he wants something in return. That old black rascal has the smoothest tongue in the Green Forest. He hasn't come 'way over here just to tell me that I have a handsome coat. He wouldn't fly over a fence to tell anybody that unless ...
— Bowser The Hound • Thornton W. Burgess
... know what you would say," continued the royal scamp. "I admit her patriotism, sacrifices, devotion, and all that sort of thing. Frankly, though, we are too dissimilar ever to get along together. The differences are temperamental. Environment and education have made an insuperable barrier to our ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... hands went up, but "Dodd's" was not among them. Miss Stone noticed this and was "riled" a little, for she had tried doubly hard to do well, just because this tow-head was in the class, and now to have the little scamp repudiate ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... one of his little ones was suddenly taken with some baby ailment, and the poor fellow, in his wife's absence, was scared out of his few wits in consequence. He sent for the kind-hearted widow, and begged her help for Johnny. She came, nursed the young scamp like a mother, and returned at nine, with her conscience glowing under the performance of ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... cruel scamp I was to behave to you in the way I did—curse me, if I couldn't cry to see your eye bunged ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... that duty. As it had sometimes happened that Hebert, on account of his great timidity, had cut his master's chin, on that day the latter, who held a pair of scissors in his hand, when Hebert approached him, holding his razor, said, "Take care, you scamp; if you cut me, I will stick my scissors into your stomach." This threat, made with an air of pretended seriousness, but which was in fact only a jest, such as I have seen the Emperor indulge in a hundred times, produced such an impression ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... to Rance Vane. I know'd that chap onct, and I found him not a man, but a scamp. I never liked the Vanes, father'n son. The old man's ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... seemed to think then," says he, "that it was largely my fault. I suppose she'll feel the same about whatever mischief he's in now. If I could only find the young scamp! But really I haven't time. I'm an hour late at the Boomer Days' as ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... on tobacco of any of the set, taking him day in and day out. That fellow at your elbow is 'Slippery Jim.' We don't call him 'Mister,' because he doesn't stay long enough in one place to have it tacked on to him. He is such a slippery scamp that an eel ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... saw that it was correct though rather illegible, and proceeded to dry it by waving it in the air. As I did so it came into my mind that I would not touch the money of this successful scamp, won back from ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... after two years in the Rifle Brigade, where he was sickened by tyranny of some sort. He confessed, after re-enlistment, and was pardoned. He had been fourteen years in his present corps, and had got on well. Opposite is a young scamp of Roberts's Horse. Looks eighteen, but calls it twenty-two: his career being that he was put in the Navy, ran away, was apprenticed to the merchant service, ran away (so forfeiting the premium his parents had paid), shipped to the Cape, and joined ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers |
