"Swindle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Euclid! He blamed her for not having accomplished the miracle of eternal youth. He actually considered that she had cheated him. "Is this all? What a swindle!" he thought, as he was piecing together the shivered fragments of his ideas into a new pattern. He had felt much the same as a boy, at Bursley Annual Wakes once, on entering a booth which promised horrors and did ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... a swindle," said Mr. Chalker angrily. "It is nothing more or less than a rank swindle. The old man ought to be prosecuted, and, mind you, I'll prosecute him, and you too, ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... who, occupying a position of trust, planned to swindle the Metropolis Trust Company through forged notes and checks," Rochester stated with slow emphasis. "Jimmie Turnbull learned that you, Clymer, were to visit Colonel McIntyre on Monday night, and he went there in disguise to find out if his suspicions ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... sorry to say it was in other rags, but the rags they got were new instead of old,—it was a real Aladdin bargain. The new rags had blue backs, and were numbered, some as high as fifty dollars. The rag-man had been in a hurry, and had not known what made the things so heavy. I frowned at the swindle, but they said all was fair with a pedler,—and I own I was glad the things were well out of Richmond. But when I said I thought it was a mean trick, Lizzie and Sarah looked demure, and asked what in the world I would have them do with the old things. ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... Renshaw's shoulders, "I bought this yer ship five years ago jist ez she stood for 8,000 dollars. Kalkilatin' wot she cost me in repairs and taxes, and wot she brought me in since then, accordin' to my figgerin', I don't call a clear profit of 15,000 dollars much of a swindle." ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... your excellency be so good as to choose one of these bags to make a test? It will be much better if you see yourself that the business is above board, with no swindle about it. Choose whichever ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... men had traded upon his honor, and had ruined him. Then and there I saw my way. This man—these men—had political aspirations. Their plans were maturing. I waited. Then I 'wondered if they would care to have the matter in their opponents' hands.' The swindle would be good newspaper matter. They replied that they would 'mind very much.' I succeeded in getting back something of what Martin ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... fact, I think not so strictly as you; I merely act as you think. Or have I at any time pressed my finger on your throat in order to bring to me your most precious soul, for which I have a fancy? Have I, on account of my bartered purse, let a servant loose on you? Have I sought to swindle you out of it?" I had nothing to oppose to this, and he proceeded: "Very good, sir! very good! You cannot endure me; I know that very well, and am by no means angry with you for it. We must part, that ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... impulse; it was purely mechanical, and such intellectual work seemed to me lower than manual labour. I despise it and I do not think that it for a moment justifies an idle, careless life, because it is nothing but a swindle, and only a kind of idleness. In all probability I have never known real ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... moral bearings of it, what this question of enforcement of law means in the life of the poor was illustrated by testimony given before the Police Board under oath. A captain was on trial for allowing the policy swindle to go unchecked in his precinct. Policy is a kind of penny lottery, with alleged daily drawings which never take place. The whole thing is a pestilent fraud, which is allowed to exist only because it pays heavy blackmail to the police and the politicians. Expert witnesses testified ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... hundreds walked to and fro under the bright arcades, or stopped to gaze into the shop-windows. Here the merchant seldom closes his shop till the band goes home. Music arouses the romantic, and the romantic temperament is always easy to swindle, and the merchant of Venice will swindle you ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... Calonne's administration that occurred the famous affair of the diamond necklace. It was a vulgar swindle worked on the Cardinal de Rohan by an adventuress, Mme. de La Motte Valois. Trading on his credulity and court ambitions, she persuaded him to purchase a diamond necklace, which the Queen, so he ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... Bohr. There he had made arrangements with his people that the ivory from Latooka station, 100 miles east of Gondokoro, should avoid my head-quarters, and be conveyed by an oblique course to the Bohr. By this swindle, the government would be cheated out of the share of two-fifths of the ivory which belonged to them by ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... judge authors from their books. You must go and see the play when it comes on. Then you'll see I'm right. I'm absolutely certain that woman is trying to swindle you. Don't laugh in that horrid way. Very well, I told you I should ring off, ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... this standard of business honour when they advocated a swindling policy for the Government of the United States. In its day of trouble the Government was glad to promise gold to the people who had confidence in them, and just as gladly the Government proposed to swindle them by a silver falsehood in 1877. But the Nation was just recovering from a four years' drunk; Mr. Hayes undertook to steady us, during the aftereffects of our war-spree. Why should we neglect to pay in full the price of our four years' ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... had no alternative. Of course they took care to come for that before they talked of my resigning. I believe it was all planned beforehand. The whole thing seems to me to have been a swindle from beginning to end. By heaven, I'm almost inclined to think that the Duchess ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Mr. Jones to the driver, "you'd better take that boy's fare now. He wants to swindle ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... It was a fair speculation—a good open deal, and it would have made the fortune of every one who had the savee to see through it. Where's the swindle to sell what others want to buy and at their own valuation? We don't ask them to buy. We don't put up the price. We only tell people what a good thing we've got, and let it get known that so much gold has been found on our claim. If they come in and offer us big sums for our chance, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... precious hours in arguments about a few cheeses, will smuggle them past the authorities under the device of being enceintes; no wonder their wisest old men regard the paternal government as a successfully organized swindle, which it is the citizen's bounden duty to frustrate whenever possible. Have you ever tried to convey—in legal fashion—a bottle of wine from one town into another; or to import, by means of a sailing-boat, an old frying-pan into ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... you, sir! But I'm reg'larly defrauded,' thought Mr Tapley, turning round with a happy face. 'It's a swindle. I never entered for this sort of service. There'll be no credit in being ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... into the XI. quite easily only he was so slack, and the master who looked after our cricket couldn't stand him. It was rather a swindle that he didn't get into the ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... wor summat extra; an summat at wod ha made thee oppen thi e'en. Aw wor nivver so surprised i' mi life. Swindle an his wife wor thear,—an tho' it isn't oft aw tak noatice o' fowk, aw couldn't help dooin soa, an it wor a ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... promised by Talleyrand double the amount of the sums which he could swindle from your Government; but though he did more mischief to your country than was expected in this, and though he proved that he had pocketed upwards of ten thousand English guineas, the wages of his infamy, when he hinted about the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... aid, to the amount of six million dollars. This was called "Marcy's mortgage." The Whigs stigmatised it as a pledge of the people's property for the benefit of money corporations, denouncing the project as little better than a vulgar swindle in the interest of the Democratic party. Whether Marcy's scheme really averted the threatened calamity, or whether the United States Bank had already carried its contraction as far as it intended, it is certain that the fear of a panic served its purpose in the campaign. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... whole affair as too risky to be gone into without unlimited cash; but now he had a chance of making money, he determined to try his hand at the business. True, he knew that he was in for a swindle, but then he was behind the scenes, and would benefit by the knowledge he had gained. If the question at issue had really been that of getting gold out of the reef and paying dividends with the profits, Gaston would have snapped his fingers ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... wretched efforts to produce the desired grunts and squeaks. The crowing of cocks, the neighing of horses, the lowing of cows, and the bleating of sheep follow in succession,—sounds so appropriate to the memories of the Bowery that was, that one is tempted to applaud the rascal in spite of the swindle he is practising on the crowd. Of course, with the exception of the bird-songs, none of these sounds are produced by the aid of the calls, but are simply the fruit of long and assiduous practice on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... said Hart. "I think I can get mine. This is the most almighty abandoned swindle I ever met in all my born days." The whole meeting, except Mr. Tyrrwhit, received this assertion with loudly expressed applause. "Such a blackguard, dirty, thieving job never was up before in my time. I don't know 'ow to talk of it in language as a man isn't ashamed ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... man who had sold the land to Ole Bull had no claim to it whatever, and had perpetrated a barefaced swindle, and now, having the money, he dared his victim to do his worst. The actual owner of the land, who had come forward to assert his rights, became interested in the scheme, and was willing to sell the land at a low price, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... take a walk with him, and we said, "We will go up and see the Judge." When we arrived at his Honor's place of business, I found that my twelve-hundred-dollar friend was there before me. The Judge spoke to him before he did to me, and said, "How did this man swindle you out of your money?" "We were playing poker, your Honor." "Do you call playing poker swindling?" said the Judge. "Well, your Honor, he must have swindled me; for every time I had a good hand he would beat it," said he. "If that is all the evidence you ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... traveler, who had no illusions, and was in search of adventures; one of those women who frequently change their name, and who, as they have made up their minds to swindle if luck is not on their side, act a continual part, an adventuress, who could put on every accent; who for the sake of her course, transformed herself into a Slav, or into an American, or simply into a provincial; ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... occasions, chiefly consisting of putting the weight, i.e. a large stone, but they would swindle and invariably overstepped the limit line, declaring ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... commands a veteran to strike the image with his battle-axe. The helpless statue offers no resistance. Another blow rolls the head of the idol on the floor. It is said that a colony of frightened rats ran forth from its interior. The kingcraft, and priestcraft, and solemn swindle of seven hundred years are exploded in a shout of laughter; the god is broken to pieces, his members dragged through the streets. The recesses of the Serapion are explored. Posterity is edified by discoveries ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the highly revered Colonel, had also undertaken to purchase a number of horses and mules for me. "The people of Goyaz," said he, "are terrible thieves; they will swindle you if you buy them yourself. I will purchase them for you and you will then pay me back the money. By to-morrow morning," he had stated, "I shall have all the horses and mules ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... knight was angry, And cursed both coarse and fine; And asked, "How much is the swindle For your ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... it is at least an honest article. It makes no pretensions to be any better than it is. It does not entrap the unwary purchaser by pretending to be a first-class article, when at the same time it may be a swindle. ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... again back at Penicuik. Perhaps his fervour about his subject had a little cooled, or the incessant discussions in regard to it had disturbed his faith. In fact the Ossian swindle was getting to be, in common phrase, a little blown upon. His health was failing him; his mode of life had never been very careful. He fell ill; he neglected himself. He worked on steadily, but with a palpable failure of heart ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... you, but it's a swindle, and you know it, but, mark my words, Dick, when swindlers swindle people, then it is time for people to swindle swindlers," said Hal, ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... vinegar-tongued, vixenish virago, abused her neighbors to the wee, wiry, weird, widow woman, the Widow Wiggins' wonderful cat would mew. And so the vile, vixenish virago wished the cat was dead. And when slender, slim, slippery Sly Slick, Esq., tried to persuade the widow to swindle her neighbor, the cat mewed furiously. And so it came that Mr. Slick did not like the wee widow's wonderful cat. In fact, he said it was a nuisance. And Tilda Tattle, the tiresome-tongued, town tale-bearer, could ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... criminal rather than the crime. The formula does not carry us very far, but the inquiries which have been started look toward an answer of my questions based on science for the first time. If the typical criminal is a degenerate, bound to swindle or to murder by as deep seated an organic necessity as that which makes the rattlesnake bite, it is idle to talk of deterring him by the classical method of imprisonment. He must be got rid of; he cannot be improved, or frightened out of his structural reaction. If, on the other ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... that she came here in my ship and stole my picture and why," he ran on, giving the lady a reassuring grin as he mentioned the theft of the photo by the brutal name. "I know, too, the connection between the opium running and the gold-dust swindle; you told me that; but I can't see yet why there was any necessity to compel me to keep my hands off that fellow, since we were all out for him, though on different errands. Seems to me a lot of useless waste of energy when he could have been taken weeks ago if you had made me acquainted ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... them—gold-bricked. There's a fat fellow who's run half a mile, I'll bet. If his tongue hung out any farther, he'd trip up on it. But he'll do it again next time. They all do. Learning to stop running to fires is as hard as learning to stop buying mining-stock in the West. And it's just as big a swindle too. The returns from running to fires are marvelously small. They tell me that a hundred million dollars a year goes up in flames in this country. I don't believe it. If it does, I want to know who gets to see all the ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... for nothin', seein' that I had no thransport to convey the machine away. "I will not argue wid you," sez I, "this day, but subsequently, Mister Dearsley, me rafflin' jool, we talk ut out lengthways. 'Tis no good policy to swindle the naygur av his hard-earned emolumints, an' by presint informashin'"—'twas the kyart man that tould me—"ye've been perpethrating that same for nine months. But I'm a just man," sez I, "an' overlookin' the presumpshin that yondher settee wid the gilt top ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... to four in the morning, nearly four hours. My other watch was a midday watch, and I think it was nearly three hours. The two sisters divided the remaining seventeen hours of the twenty-four hours between them, and each of them tried generously and persistently to swindle the other out of a part of her watch. I went to bed early every night, and tried to get sleep enough by midnight to fit me for my work, but it was always a failure. I went on watch sleepy and remained miserable, sleepy, and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... cure for catarrh", in all its stages; to "Syrup of Figs", which is not a fig syrup, but a preparation of senna; to Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root, of which the principal medical constituent is alcohol; and, finally, to Dr. Bye's Oil Cure for cancer, a particularly cruel swindle on unfortunates suffering from an incurable malady. All of these, with other matter, which for the sake of decency I do not care to detail in these columns, appear in recent issues of ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... Dochney was an honest an' sober man whin he wint in; but wan day a man come up to him, an' says he, 'Ye know that ordhnance Schwartz inthrajooced?' 'I do,' says Dochney, 'an I'm again it. 'Tis a swindle,' he says. "Well,' says th' la-ad, 'they'se five thousan' in it f'r ye,' he says. They had to pry Dochney off iv him. Th' nex' day a man he knowed well come to Dochney, an' says he, 'That's a fine ordhnance iv Schwartz.' 'It is, like hell,' says Dochney. ''Tis a plain swindle,' he says. ''Tis a ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... let any one swindle you again," said Bob, a trifle excitedly. "You don't have to worry about interest and taxes, any more, Aunts. You have a fortune right here in your own dooryard; or if not exactly out by the pump, then very ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... and the room in the ship's boats, though the frightful consideration the contrast presented must have been in more minds than mine. I speak only of the taking people for whom there is no sort of accommodation as the most decided swindle, and the coolest, I ever did with my ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... war broke out. John Ellwell shirked then; it was not much to do to go to the front. It was in the air to fight." He paused to let this aspect of the case sink in. "Later I was chairman of the committee that requested him to leave the Tremont Club. And still later, when his swindle on the exchange came to light, I helped his father hush the matter up. He was ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... the thirty thousand dollars you got on that partnership swindle?" Burke asked, sneering. "I s'pose you didn't ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... upon Wyatt on his way to the nets. The notice concerning the holiday had only been given out that morning, and he was full of it. He expressed his opinion of the headmaster freely and in well-chosen words. He said it was a swindle, that it was all rot, and that it was a beastly shame. He added that something ought to be ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... investigations not connected with the matter I now have in hand, I picked this thing up, and, being something of a specialist in certain forms of cheating, I made up my mind to try my hand at this and prove for myself its extreme simplicity. You see how easy it is to swindle, gentlemen, and the danger to which you expose yourselves. There is no necessity for me to explain the trick further. The instrument speaks for itself. It is merely a matter of dexterity, and keeping it out ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Dallas, as he and Abel sat, worn out and disconsolate, gazing at a confusion of tents, sheds, and shanties, for it could be called nothing else, on the hither side of a tumbled together waste of snow and ice spreading to right and left. "Is it all a swindle or a dream?" ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... madam," added Peter Conant, "for concocting the plot to swindle Alora's father out of the money his dead wife intended him to have. You are not properly punished, for you should be sent to jail, but your disappointment will prove a slight punishment, ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... exclaimed Wade, regretfully. "That property never was any good. The whole thing was a swindle from first to last. Was your father ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... presents no other drawback than that he has been arrested in Paris for an insignificant swindle he has committed; but it seems that a rich Cuban wants to get him out of his difficulties on condition that ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... a cheat and a swindle," exclaimed Mr. Brooks, indignantly. "We'd better have spent the money for a horsewhip, and whipped ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... this injury, as he would consider it, has rankled in his wicked, scheming brain, and all his life he has longed for vengeance, but never seen his chance. During the last year or two things have gone against him—secret speculation, I think—and he finds himself in a bad way. He determines to swindle his creditors, and for this purpose he pays large cheques to a certain Mr. Cornelius, who is, I imagine, himself under another name. I have not traced these cheques yet, but I have no doubt that they were banked under that name at some provincial town where Oldacre from time to time led a double ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... there for his dishonesty Who hangs his head, and a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, And dare to steal for a' that. For a' that and a' that, Our grabs and games, and a' that, Our business is to make a pile And swindle ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... tell you.' . . . What can you do with a fool? . . . 'That's one of your little jokes, Chester,' he says. . . . Joke! I could have wept. Ask Captain Robinson here. . . . And there was another shipowning fellow—a fat chap in a white waistcoat in Wellington, who seemed to think I was up to some swindle or other. 'I don't know what sort of fool you're looking for,' he says, 'but I am busy just now. Good morning.' I longed to take him in my two hands and smash him through the window of his own office. But I didn't. I was as mild as a curate. 'Think of it,' ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... old black sand used in the last century—cut a section of the page with a pair of shears, tossed the coin in the air, listened to its ring on the desk with a satisfied look, slipped the whole twenty-franc piece into his pocket—regular fare, fifteen francs, irregular swindle, five francs—and handed me the billet. Then he added, with a trace ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... until, all parties being sick of the expense, the mine was deserted, and the town decamped. According to the second version, told me with much secrecy of manner, the whole affair, mine, mill, and town, were parts of one majestic swindle. There had never come any silver out of any portion of the mine; there was no silver to come. At midnight trains of packhorses might have been observed winding by devious tracks about the shoulder of the mountain. They came from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a matter of degree. A man will always say if questioned about some small deficiency, "Do you think I would swindle you for a matter of two dollars?" or "Do you think I would risk my credit with the Company for the sake of one calf?" To be honest in a case where a larger profit is involved is a height of integrity ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... in Tarbes showed that Mme Lacoste's handling of her fortune was careful to a degree, her expenditure being well within her income. This witness also proved that the Fourcades' evidence of Euphemie's misbehaviour could have been dictated from spite. Fourcade had been found out in what looked like a swindle over money which he owed ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... told you you were acting childishly; this proves it. A most outrageous attempt has been made to swindle you, if I may use such a term to persons who confessedly are plotting to rob another. Surely this will convince you that you have nothing to fear from me. I am here as the agent neither of Sultan nor police. It is a simple matter for you ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... Crabtree to terms. Then the lads became the possessors of a biplane, and took several thrilling trips through the air. About this time, Mr. Anderson Rover, who was not in the best of health, was having much trouble with some brokers, who were trying to swindle him out of valuable property. He went to New York City, and disappeared, and his three sons went at once on the hunt for him. The brokers were Pelter, Japson & Company, and it was not long before Dick and his brothers discovered that Pelter and Japson were in league with Josiah Crabtree. ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... responded the Consul, "without fear of denial or qualification. It was disgraceful in its beginning and in its ending. It was a swindle on a large scale; and poor Maria G—— was the one who suffered the most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... sleeping-partner, especially when the chief fails; that it is discouraging to economic thrift when the investments wherein you place your savings come to an untimely end; that in particular the Albert Life Insurance was a notorious swindle, wherein more than twenty years' of banked-up prudent earnings, besides the original policy, vanished in an hour; that my early efforts to win fortune were stumped from impediment of speech; and that some of those on whom ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... staying in town for," said Mrs. Comstock. "It's some sort of a swindle to raise money for her class to buy some silly thing to stick up in the school house hall to remember them by. I don't know whether it's now or next week, but there's something of the ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... creamery therefore claims large and peculiar advantages, and offers a price for milk or cream markedly above the ordinary price paid for it by other creameries, you may be sure there is something illegitimate about it. It may be done to drum up business, to beat a rival, or it may be a downright swindle, it surely will not be lasting, and the operator intends at some time ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Mr. Shrumpf's version of his own swindle, and a tolerably correct account of the events which led ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... ready as witness To any one's fitness To fill any place or preferment; We're often in waiting At junket FETING, And sometimes attend an interment. In short, if you'd kindle The spark of a swindle, Lure simpletons into your clutches, Or hoodwink a debtor, You cannot do better Than trot out a ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Republicans in 1875. The plot of these stories was always the same, but the setting shifted about here and there, and this one had to do with a county election in which, the Major said, the Republicans and negroes had gone the limit trying to swindle the Democrats out ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... a few articles (for which a leading French paper received L100,000) were instrumental in enabling the Panama Canal Co. to swindle the French public of forty million pounds sterling, and more recently, where through Press agency it became feasible to a combination of Jesuitism and militarism to seduce by far the greater portion of the noble French nation into frenzied agitation and anti-Semitic excesses, and load the ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... broke—open the saloon. Toughs come there, thieves, to swindle the immigrants. Awfully slick. No good to warn immigrants—they lose all their money. Come in crying. What can I do? I get after the bums and they say, 'Giotto no good; we will kill him.' Then I get broke again. Go to West Virginia and ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... Quits?" he ventured shyly. "It's a humming Wall Street story showing up the entire bunch and exposing the trading-stamp swindle of the great department stores. The heroine is a detective and—" She was looking at him so intently that he feared he had said something he shouldn't. "But I don't suppose that would ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... throttle, ere a year is o'er? You fear to come to want yourself, you say? Come, calculate how small the loss per day, If henceforth to your cabbage you allow And your own head the oil you grudge them now. If anything's sufficient, why forswear, Embezzle, swindle, pilfer everywhere? Can you be sane? suppose you choose to throw Stones at the crowd, as by your door they go, Or at the slaves, your chattels, every lad And every girl will hoot yon down as mad: When with a rope you kill your wife, with bane Your aged ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... refused, on the ground that the house had failed, and had no funds in the bank. The fraud was plain now, and the banker, repairing to the office of the unfortunate firm, was informed by the partner of his friend that the transaction was a swindle. The detectives were at once set on the track of the swindler, who had made his escape immediately after getting ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... farmers. I called on them and all spoke very highly of him. I thought, there could be no great risk in doing it, for my confidence in Frank was very great. I thought, of course, this would insure my claim of eighteen thousand dollars, but it eventually proved to be a deep-laid plot to swindle me. Frank had no notes or accounts that were of any value; they were all bogus and got up to deceive his poor old father and others. He had no property shipped to South America. It was all found out, when too late, that he had ruined himself by gambling ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... SOCIAL CONDITION.—Though decreasing steadily, Negro illiteracy is still high. This is a serious evil. Not only does illiteracy bar the Negro from the education and training of which he is in such great need, but it allows unscrupulous persons to swindle and exploit him. The Negro furnishes an abnormally large proportion of our prison population. Whether or not this is partly the result of racial characteristics, it is certain that the bad economic and social conditions ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... "He wanted to swindle me," thought Andy. "It's lucky I didn't pay him five dollars. Anyway, I'll keep it. The ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... to find a perfect man. If you find one without any faults, incapable of mistakes, never having guessed wrongly, his patience never having been perturbed, immaculate in speech, in temper, in habits, do not marry him. Why? Because you would enact a swindle. What would you do with a perfect man who are not perfect yourself? And how dare you hitch your imperfection fast on such supernatural excellence? What a companion you would make for an angel! In other words, there are no perfect ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... satisfaction to me to get even with your uncle. To swindle his own nephew in this barefaced manner! We'll bring him up ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... Maitland's expression was blank for a moment; then comprehension informed his eyes. "Oh, yes; in connection with the Dougherty investment swindle." ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... long ago, this creature fancied that I had some money, and he was determined, to rob me somehow. I let him imagine that he was leading me on, for there is no luxury that I enjoy more than watching a low, cunning rogue when he thinks he is arranging a successful swindle. I was introduced to a thoroughly safe man. The safe man's face was almost as villanous as that of my mentor, and his manners were, perhaps, a little more offensive. Our first bet closed all transactions between us; as I fully expected, I obtained a ridiculously liberal ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... the world is a liar; it does not keep its promises. It is a cheat, and it fleeces everything it can put its hands on. It is a bogus world. It is a six-thousand-year-old swindle. Even if it pays the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for which you contracted, it pays them in bonds that will not be worth anything in a little while. Just as a man may pay down ten thousand dollars in hard cash and get for it worthless scrip—so the world passes over to you the ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... ground amount to. There's some sort of a bungalow there, built by the shooting-club. Here's a description of the place, on the strength of which I bought it. You may take these papers along to judge the size of the swindle." ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... fashion has no genuine claim to supremacy; at least, no abiding assurance of it. He has embroidered his title upon his waistcoat, and carries his worth in his watch-chain; and if he is allowed any real precedence for this it is almost a moral swindle,—a way of obtaining goods under false pretences. But without running into more minute discussion, I say again—that there is no substantial ground of supremacy in aught that is merely accidental or external; and he who rests upon such claims stands ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... up on the word. "Abused, do you say?" She laughed sharply. "Say duped, my friend; for that is what has happened to you. You are the victim of a swindle." ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... and stung," Nehal said, in a low, shaken voice. "The truth wounds thee! For me—it was death." He hesitated again, fighting for his self-control. "Sahib, great things are expected of a great people. Others may cheat and swindle, others may lie and blaspheme with God's holy secrets, others may seek their pleasures in the earth's mire, but they must stand apart. They must bear forward the banner of righteousness, or their greatness is no more ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... hoax was spoken of, Judge Harvey writhed with personal humiliation, and with anger against the person who had recalled his discomfiture, and with a desire for vengeance against the perpetrator of the swindle. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... Half the passengers were decent people. Mihail Averyanitch soon made friends with everyone, and moving from one seat to another, kept saying loudly that they ought not to travel by these appalling lines. It was a regular swindle! A very different thing riding on a good horse: one could do over seventy miles a day and feel fresh and well after it. And our bad harvests were due to the draining of the Pinsk marshes; altogether, ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... bed. This was carrying things rather too far. Not satisfied with rendering me, by his intrusive and unsolicited confidence, a sort of tacit accomplice in his manoeuvres, this Dutch Gil Blas would fain make me an active participator in the swindle he was practising on the actress and her mother. I drew at sight on my imagination, quickened by the peril, for a letter received the previous evening from a dear and near relative who lay dangerously ill at Baden-Baden, and to whose sick-bed it was absolutely necessary ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... a regular swindle," said Tom, taking the bill and glancing at it. "Here, Hardy, come and help me cut down ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... needless to recount all the varied incidents of the next five days which were wasted here, by the thousand and one stories which the Abban produced to fritter away my time near his home, and swindle me out of my property. The time had now arrived when by appointment I should have been at Berbera; and as I was not then aware at what time the fair usually broke up, I felt much afraid of being too late to join my companions. Sometimes Sumunter raised my hopes by saying he ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... prerogatives of a man? I will not dwell upon the impropriety of such conduct; but on my honor, as a member of the bar, the behavior of Portia was outrageous. This young female, not content with 'cavorting' around the country in a loose and perspicuous style, actually practises a gross swindle on the court. She assumes to be a man when she is only a woman, dons the breeches when she is only entitled to the skirts, and imposes herself upon the Duke of Venice as a learned young advocate from Rome, when in fact she is only a young damsel of Belmont, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... several small stones himself. The experts were always finding them, so were the financial agents; yet Dick, though for a time he could find out nothing to confirm his opinion, was convinced that the whole thing meant a gigantic swindle. A few words in French between the experts which they did not expect the "man in charge of the transport" to understand a word here, and a look there, strengthened this conviction into certainty, but still he ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... and Birchard pull something?" inquired Collaton with such acute interest that Johnny felt sure he had taken no part in that swindle. ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... with cautious Bobby. If it is not hollow, it may be solid; if it is not a gigantic paper balloon, it may be a very fine globe, and vice versa, which vice versa he in his heart suspects to be the truth. You see, sir, the mangled quotation was a swindle, like the flimsy superstructures it was intended to prop. The genuine paragraph is a fair sample of Robinson, and of the art of withholding opinion by means of expression. But as quoted, by a fraudulent suppression of one half, the unbalanced ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... myth and legend. General joy in believing in the marvelous origin of the statue. Gradual growth of a skeptical view. Confirmation of suspicions. Desperate efforts to resist skepticism. Clear proofs of a swindle. Attempted revival of belief in it. Alexander McWhorter; he declares the statue a Phenician idol, and detects a Phenician inscription upon it. View of Dr. Schlottmann, Instructor in Hebrew at Leipsic. My answer to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... attempts to restore it by embarking with a gang of needy rogues on a first-class "roping" transaction, in connection with a prize-fight in Spain. Having, however, been exposed, he is shunned by most of those who only heard of the swindle when it was too late ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... things never learnt at Sunday-school. They were experts at cards and dice. They would go to immense trouble to work off any small swindle in the sporting line. In short the general consensus of opinion was that they were a very "fly" crowd at Mulligan's, and if you went there you wanted to "keep your eyes skinned" or they'd ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... no secret was made of matters which were a subject for grief and scorn. Hundreds of grown men stood by and saw that boy lose a fortune in two hours, and some forty paragraphs might have been collected in which the transaction was described in various terms as a gross swindle. A good shot was killing pigeons—gallant sport—and the wealthy schoolboy was betting. When a sign was given by a bookmaker the shooting-man obeyed, and won or lost according to orders; and every man in the assembly knew what foul work was being carried on. Did one man warn the victim? ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... to every citizen of the republic, black and white, male and female. Mrs. Mott was chosen President, resolutions were reported, and when everything was in fine working order (except the furnace) Mr. Pomeroy slipped off to his senatorial duties, to watch the grand Kansas swindle now on the tapis, and to protect, if possible, the interests of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... rights enforced in the most arbitrary manner—and to the prejudice of every other mercantile interest in the Colony. As a natural consequence it was cordially hated, and richly deserved the maledictions which generally accompanied the mention of the Friponne—the swindle—a rough and ready epithet which sufficiently indicated the feeling of the people whom it at once cheated ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Lamington. Since I came a cropper over that accursed cotton swindle I've not had any inclination to meet any one I knew—especially any one in the Service, but"—and his voice rang honestly, "I always wondered whether you and I would ever ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... when he had finished, "are you satisfied? Do you admit that even an unprofessional man might have seen at a glance that I am much better, and that your present draft on my gratitude is a mere swindle?" ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... again wipes his spectacles and feels he has been sold! This life on the other side of Jordan he finds to be what his American cousins would call a "humbug," a downright swindle upon the sympathies and good taste of those who wear long streamers of crape, and groan and sob over his funeral rites! He feels in duty bound (out of consideration for those mourners who expect nothing ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... captain, who takes his share. They are very clever in making a good bargain. When they know of a rich merchant living in the place, they disguise themselves, enter into communication with him, and swindle him, after which they change their clothes, have their horses shod the reverse way, and the shoes covered with some soft material, lest they should be heard, and gallop away. Grellmann says:—"The miserable condition of the Gipsies may be imagined ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... sovagxa. Sweetheart (m.) amanto, fiancxo. Sweetmeat sukerajxo. Swell sxveli. Swelling sxvelo. Swerve malrektigxi. Swift rapida. Swiftness rapideco. Swill glutegi, drinkegi. Swim nagxi. Swimming nagxarto. Swimming (in head) kapturno. Swindle sxteli. Swindler sxtelisto. Swine porko. Swing balanci. Swing, a balancilo. Swiss, a Sviso. Switch vergo. Swivel turnkruco. Swoon sveni. Sword glavo. Syllable silabo. Syllogism silogismo. Symbol simbolo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... a swindle!" repeated Pinky. "You're an old hard-fisted money-grubber, and no better than a robber. Three dollars and a quarter for all that work! It doesn't pay for the trouble. We ought to have ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... restrictions, which destroy the freedom, and, with it, the integrity of commerce,—those who like to examine such details may find plenty in French history: the whole French finance system has been a swindle from the days of Luvois, or Law, down to the present time. The Government swindles the public, and the small traders swindle their customers, on the authority and example of the superior powers. Hence the art of roguery, under ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "It was a swindle Josephine not turning up," Sarah continued, as she stretched herself out in Wingate's easy-chair. "Domestic ructions again, I suppose. How I do hate that husband ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... villain!" screamed Mr. Gladman, suddenly changing his tone. "You think the law is going to allow you to swindle honest men! You think we are going to sit still for you to rob us! That will—" Mr. Gladman pointed a lank forefinger dramatically ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... him silently for a while. Then she said slowly, "I see. Yes, I see you wouldn't want to, of course. They are scum. And you're not. But I am, I think. I belong to the same sort of people they do. I could swindle and cheat too, I expect. It's the people at the bottom who do that. They're my ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... the biggest paper there. Chum up with the boys. They'll see that you're a youngster, and they'll help you all they can. You'll find newspaper men pretty clannish, the world over. Well, good-bye, Garfield, I won't be likely to see you again before you go. I've got that Traction Swindle to cover and there's going to be ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... said Trent, "and let me tell you that if you try to swindle anybody in this quarter the people will make short work of you ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... find, does not suit me. Sun doesn't shine as much as I expected—not at night, for instance. Then the existence of an olive disease anywhere near is naturally very degoutant (as they say here). And the Casino at Monte Carlo is simply an organised swindle. It ought to be put down! After staking ten times in succession on "Zero," and doubling my stake each time, I was absolutely cleared out! Only just enough money to take me home. Shall follow your example, and try Torquay for the rest of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various
... me, or my wife, or servant Saurea—do your best, swindle us, rook us, I promise you your interests won't suffer, if you ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... addressing the legislature, said, that "any attempt at reformation of the present system is an absurdity, a swindle and a fraud. It is a damnable outrage. The lessee contract would not stand fifteen minutes before a petit jury. I could hang any of the lessees before a petit jury in two and a ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... suggesting agreeably something of the smooth brown cloth and neat white linen of a well-to-do city gentleman of the last century. Yet that solemn, massive, prosperous-looking building is the enduring monument of one of the most gigantic shams on record—a sham and swindle that was the prolific parent of a whole brood of shams and swindles; for that building, with honesty and credit and mercantile honor written in its every line and angle, is all that remains of the South Sea House. It is a ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... the law, but it's a swindle, none the less. They've got a wretched broken-down factory somewhere in the North, and the only Plover car that's ever been built was made by a Scottish contractor at a cost of about twice the amount which the Company people said that they ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... infernal swindle, when you think of the loose carts outside every pub in the county. I was jawing with the police for an hour, but it's no use. They've got it all their own ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... is played there is another swindle—the restaurants. They fleece one frightfully and feed one magnificently. Every dish is a regular work of art, before which one is expected to bow one's knee in homage and to be too awe-stricken to eat it. Every morsel is rigged out ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... "It's a swindle!" began Voules, when there was a sudden rush and the girl Pilbeam cannoned into the crowd, sending me into old Marshall's chair, and flung herself into ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... queer choking laugh. "Life is a big, big swindle," she said. "The only happy people in the world are those who haven't found it out. But you—you say there are other things in life besides suffering. How did you know that if—if you've ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... "You have made it clear that what you propose is criminally dishonest, is a gigantic swindle, and that parties concerned in such an outrageous fraud should be amenable to the law and ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... Montana with the most gorgeously atrocious person I've ever encountered—one Pinky Westlake, or some such a name—positively, a crook! He tried to get Boltwood and myself interested in the commonest kind of a mining swindle—hinted that we were to join him in cheating the public. And this Daggett was his partner—they actually traveled together. But I do want to be just. I'm not sure that Daggett was aware of his partner's dishonesty. That isn't what worries me about the lad. It's ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... met its first test in action when he spoke the words that lead to the Don's death. He felt a deep contempt for most of these men who came to him with their schemes and their wares. He saw that most of them were ready enough to swindle him, though few of them would have had the courage to rob him with a gun. Probably not one of them would have dared to kill a man for money, but they were ready enough to cheat a poor pelado out of his ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... nor jury seemed much interested in the convict's behaviour to the daughter of the man he had tried to swindle out of money. On the contrary, they jumped to the conclusion that his wife was morally his accomplice; and, indeed, if it had not been for her great beauty she would very likely have gone to the galleys too. There was, however, this difference between their positions, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... in that final disintegration of his great soul was the interest he took in the atrocious frauds of spiritualism. He was even duped into believing in the cheap swindle of table-tipping. The bliss of Robert Browning's home was broken up in this same form, of all-encompassing credulity, only it was Mrs. Browning who was the spiritualist in this case and resisted Browning's sanity ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... together and began to make medicine—how to get up some lawful, genteel swindle which we might work in a quiet way so as not to excite the stupidity of the police or the cupidity of the larger corporations. We had close upon $500 between us, and we pined to make it grow, ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... demented. "Our own government is ten times worse than the one we are fighting against, and every one of us was a fool for ever putting on a gray jacket. Why didn't they tell us all this in the first place, so that we might know what there was before us? It's a fraud and a cheat and a swindle and a—and a—what are you about?" he added, turning almost fiercely upon his captain, who elbowed his way through the excited group and tried to take the paper from his hand. "I'll not obey the orders of the Richmond government, ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... that the callers cared little what form that satisfaction took, whether tar and feathers or a rope and a lamp-post. They had been sold, victimized, flimflammed, skinned; the scorpion had stung them and the poison was boiling in their veins. Briefly, the swindle was this: investigation had shown that the land owned by the Desert Scorpion was not where it had been represented to be, but more than a mile distant therefrom. Chance alone had brought forth the truth; the hour of vengeance ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Now, what a transparent swindle this is! how plain, how impudent, how rascally! And all done entirely by the use of the Post Office privileges of the United States. Try to catch this fellow. You can find where he mailed his circular; but he probably stopped there over night to do so, and nobody ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... is a waste of holy water When we're taken to the font: They that make us pay for burial Swindle us ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Beatrice," he said, "that you grow younger and more beautiful? It is dead swindle! I shall be a gray-bearded old man by the time you have ...
— My Mother's Rival - Everyday Life Library No. 4 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... at Cissie. Her construction of the swindle was more flattering than any apology he had been able to ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... 'as the twig's inclined, the tree is bent,'" Bristles told them, ponderously, "and we all can guess what'll become of Buck Lemington some day. He'll either make a striking figure in finance, or else head some big swindle that'll send ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman |
