"Fair game" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the female encountering a male in the open must evidently regard him as fair game, and devour him as the termination of the matrimonial rites. I have turned over many stones, but have never chanced upon this spectacle, but what has occurred in my menagerie is sufficient to convince me. What a world these beetles live in, where the matron devours her mate so soon ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... probably it would not: this toleration we hear about is no more good than an open fight, and there must be understanding instead. But here near the border, just on the American side of the border, a Mexican is called fair game, and a seventeen-year-old like me is less than nothing to them, to the white ones who go ...
— Mex • William Logan
... dauntless brow Addressed him to his task, as I do now, And from each hypocrite stripped off the skin He flaunted to the world, though foul within, Did Laelius, or the chief who took his name Prom conquered Carthage, grudge him his fair game? ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... "encore" to either, I wot; for thou'st led an ill life, Master Marlowe; and so the sweet Saint thou spok'st of, will remain my fair game—behind the scenes. ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... a "Gargoyle" into a "Beetle" was not an easy process. He had to fit himself into new surroundings, new conditions, new methods, with new companions. And while these new companions had given him a cool reception, his old companions, thinking him fair game for ridicule and sport now that he had "gone over to the enemy," had determined on giving him a warm reception at ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... passion of rebellion was curiously similar in its nature to his young fury. Now, as then, there was naught to be done to help what seemed like Fate. In a world made up of men all more or less hunters of the weak, ready to accept the theory that all things defenceless and lovely are fair game for the stronger, a man whose view was ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... little animals in the Noah's ark that haven't any names,' the parrot told him. 'All those are considered fair game. Hullo! blugraiwee!' it shouted, as a little grey beast with blue spots started from the shelter of a rock and made for the cover of a patch of giant seaweed. Then all sorts of little animals got up and scurried off into ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... by communion, but also by conduct, must we keep in the light. The fugitive found outside the city of refuge was fair game for the avenger, and if he strayed beyond its bounds there was a sword in his back before he knew where he was. Every Christian, by each sin, whether it be acted or only thought, casts himself out of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... may rest assured that the rule shall be observed. He would be a poor-spirited prisoner, who would not tell all the mean things he knows about his jailors, and since Wirtz was hung, at any rate, such gentry have become fair game. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... man," she said. "I get whipped at everything I tackle because I'm a woman. I'm getting past my money-making days in the theatre and I thought the colonel was fair game." ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... an unpleasant business. Other memories of this nature came and went with the smoke from his cigarette. For some reason or other he found himself wondering whether, after all, a Belgian Relief Steamer could have been considered fair game. But he did so hate the word "Belgium," and there was always the theory of a mine to account for the incident.... He torpedoed her by moonlight: a very creditable ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... through the grounds, or taking long cross-country walks. Halsey played golf at the Country Club day after day, and after Louise left, as she did the following week, Mr. Jamieson and I were much together. He played a fair game of cribbage, ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I'm not kicking—it was a fair game," the big fellow returned without a shadow of anger. "So you saw me take them, did you? Why didn't you sing out ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... the girl, too, indeed, she's almost like my own,' continued Mr. Underwood; 'the house will be dull without her, and I believe those pretty young women can't help flirting, and think one another's beaux fair game. Eh? Well, we'll send for her and put it to her—will she give up Travis and stay here, or hold him to it ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hire. We have men who go in debt to tradesmen perhaps without a thought of paying them; but when we speak of such a one who has descended into the lowest mire of insolvency, we say that he has not paid his washerwoman. Out there in the West the washerwoman is as fair game as the tailor, the domestic servant as the wine merchant. If a man be honest he will not willingly take either goods or labor without payment; and it may be hard to prove that he who takes the latter is more dishonest than he who takes the former; but with us there is a ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... of the ruffians (Kayans) is that out of their own country all are fair game. "Were we to meet our father, we would slay him." The head of a child or of a woman is as highly prized as that of ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... immorality; but we must remember that the age in which they were written was one of lax notions, especially among men of rank, who regarded all women accessible, either from indiscretion or inferiority of rank, as fair game, and acted accordingly. But whilst we agree with one of Johnson's bitterest sentences as to the immorality of Chesterfield's letters, we disagree with his styling his code of manners the manners of a dancing-master. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... was tested. There was a woman in the Swede's house, a slim wisp of a little Jewess, with the sweet face of a Madonna and the eyes of a wanton. Well—she smiled on me. She had good reason to; was I not making my gold pieces dance a merry tune? Was I not fair game ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... Gillian, and this suited her much better. Even Gillian allowed that she was ever so much nicer when there was no one to tease her. It was true that Jasper certainly, and perhaps Wilfred, would not have molested her if she had not offended the latter, and offered herself as fair game; but Gillian, who had to forestall and prevent their pranks, could not feel their absence quite the privation her sisterly spirit ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of abstracting a fork, And JENNY would blush with shame At stealing so much as a bottle or cork (A bottle I think fair game). ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... it, my boy, I don't like it! It isn't playing a fair game," declared the rigid old gentleman, coloring resentfully. "I'm not going to return the invitation and ask that sharper, Cadby, to my house—and ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... plan you suggest is worthy of you, Madame. The Englishman is fair game, being a common enemy. Let us gain our ends through the heart, since his purse is impregnable to assaults. But the countess? Why not the pantry maid, since the other is an American? They lack discrimination. The king grows weaker every day. Nothing was ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... can take care of herself," said Watton, laughing. He might have said, if he had thought it worth while, that somebody had already given Letty a hint. Tressady, it appeared, disliked him. Well, people that disliked you were fair game. However, in spite of Tressady's dislike, he had been able to amuse himself a good deal with Letty and Letty's furnishing during the last few months. Harding, who prided himself on the finest of tastes, liked to be consulted; he ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... made for a considerable period, it is customary to give a reduction on transient rates of ten or fifteen per cent. Among the small towns in the interior, at the houses of entertainment, which are wretchedly poor as a rule, the charges are exorbitant, and strangers are looked upon as fair game. This, however, is no more so than in continental Europe, where, though the accommodations are better, the general treatment is the same. The luscious and healthful fruits of the country form a large share of ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, their scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learned. And he who approaches this subject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... go 'way right now!" Charnock interrupted. "You gotta put up a fair game, and I can't stop when I've all the boys' ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... minutes of your time to read; I thought them in as many seconds. Indeed, I had not time to form a plan of either defense or escape, when my antagonist, evidently concluding that I was fair game, dropped upon all fours, uttered a loud roar and rushed upon me with open mouth; simultaneously, I turned and fled with ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... compelled to relinquish housekeeping, and go into lodgings or abroad, until their offence was forgotten! The fundamental principle which our housekeepers believe to pervade these societies is that employers are fair game; that the servant has to expect nothing but to be oppressed, persecuted, overworked, ground down, and taken advantage of at every opportunity, and that it is her duty, therefore, to hold the employer at bitter enmity, and to make the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... morals to that reserved for women. His was the code of "not being found out." Men are more suspicious—they find out sooner: ergo the morals to be observed vis a vis to them are of a stricter order. Railway companies and women are by many looked upon as fair game for deception. Consciences tender in many other respects have a subtle contempt for these two exceptions. Many a so-called honest man travels gaily in a first-class carriage with a second-class ticket, and lies to a woman at each end ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... have only made yourself fair game for ev'ry schemin', lazy sport or counter-jumper along the road from this to ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... came this way," said the latter; but he did not trouble to show us indications. I am a pretty fair game trailer myself, but I could make ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... generally. The only trouble was the training that Madame Welstoke had given me. After a body has learned a little of being shrewd like a snake, a cat, or a weasel, and looking on anybody as fair game for blackmail or threats or health cures, it is very hard to shut the cover down on them and never employ those methods any more. I liked the Judge and I might say I loved his wife, but there was still ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... with good humour, his feelings are wounded by it. At other times when the company are of a less liberal complexion, there is a determination, soon understood among one another, to hunt him down, as if he were fair game. A toast is pressed upon him, though all know that it is not his custom to drink it. On refusing, they begin to teaze him. One jokes with him. Another banters him. Toasts both illiberal and indelicate, are at length introduced; and ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... eagerly. "As for her vaunted chastity, that is neither here nor there,—that may or may not be fictitious. I have heard from the best authority that she receives the private visits of titled admirers, whose attentions can hardly be of a nature very different from mine. You see, it is fair game, and if I succeed"— ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Christian settlement for some time to come; that in the interval they might find some pleasure, if no great credit, by turning their attention to the Indians. The infidels, he said, were God's natural enemies and fair game to the Christian. To make a long story short, Nuflo's Christian band, after some successful adventures, met with a reverse which reduced their number from nine to five. Flying from their enemies, they sought safety at Riolama, an uninhabited place, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... and Suffolk; and even so it does not include the revenue Wolsey derived from two Spanish bishoprics. These were not bribes in the sense that they affected Wolsey's policy; they were well enough known to the King; to spoil the Egyptians was considered fair game, and Henry was generous enough not to keep all the perquisites of peace ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... of kinship than those of convention. I suppose it was Jerry's helplessness that must have appealed to the mother in her, his youth, innocence and genuineness. Perhaps she was weary treading the mazes of deception and intrigue with which the girl Marcia surrounded herself. Jerry wasn't fair game. All that was good in her had revolted at the maiming ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... gentleman cannot refuse a fair game at the cards," he said. "I never wanted to play, nor would have played for money had not my cousin William forced me. As for the chaplain, it went to my heart to win from him, but he was as ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this nobleman; of other women against whom he had plotted, and whom he had overcome; of the conversation which he, Harry himself, had had with Lord Mohun, wherein the lord made a boast of his libertinism, and frequently avowed that he held all women to be fair game (as his lordship styled this pretty sport), and that they were all, without exception, to be won. And the return Harry had for his entreaties and remonstrances was a fit of anger on Lady Castlewood's part, who would not listen to his accusations; she said and retorted that he himself ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... with grim force. "Why, you must be got off the island somehow. If not, you're fair game for every ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... practice on living and more worthy victims. Was there a rascal so notoriously given over to the gallows that no hope could possibly be entertained of his extrication from the toils of the evidence, and the deliberations of a jury, he was considered fair game for the young lawyers, who, on such cases, gathered about him with all the ghostly and keen propensities of vultures about the body of the horse cast ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... himself and call none other lord! No man ever more shall hold me slave to him. Henceforth we be rovers, this star of my life and I. Come thou with us, friend! If thou stay here, thou'lt be held no better than erro, a landless, masterless wanderer, who is fair game for the law and for all men. Had my lord stayed, thou knowest that I too should have remained faithful. He being gone, we must fend for ourselves ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... man. She believed that he liked her also. She had no conception of any very strong passion, but conceived that a married life was more pleasant than one of single bliss. She had no doubt that he had promised to make Lily Dale his wife, but so had he previously promised her, or nearly so. It was a fair game, and she would win it if she could. If she failed, she would show her anger; but she would show it in a mild, weak manner, turning up her nose at Lily before Crosbie's face, and saying little things against himself behind his back. Her wrath would ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... has always been fair game for the students, a position "he" (to use the long-standing quip) did not always appreciate. Gatherings of students in the streets were at one time looked upon with great disfavor, while the daily "rushes" at the old post-office, before the ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... you will not repeat the experiment, then; though I shall consider myself fair game if I ever enter another rum-shop," ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... causes me not a little annoyance. They have a noble breed of canines throughout the Angora goat country - fine animals, as large as Newfoundlands, with a good deal the appearance of the mastiff; and they display their hostility to my intrusion by making straight at me, evidently considering me fair game. These dogs are invaluable friends, but as enemies and assailants they are not exactly calculated to win a 'cycler's esteem. In my unusual appearance they see a strange, undefinable enemy bearing down toward their friends and owners, arid, like good, faithful dogs, they ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... privateers, always fair game for one another,' iv. 191, n. 1; 'The chief glory of every people arises from its authors,' ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... understood. A reason for Saxham's abstinence had been given him. The new-made bridegroom as a rule shuns Alcohol. And in proportion to his desire to avoid, grows the determination of other men to compel him to drink. The bridegroom is fair game all the world over for the Rabelaisian ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... slow in paying, and apparently so certain that in a little while he would escape altogether, that I sued him for the amount. It was a common action for a common debt, between one Irish tradesman and another. But I am a Unionist, and therefore fair game. I got judgment, but no instalments were paid. I remonstrated over and over again, and was from time to time met with solemn promises, the debtor gaining time by every delay. At last I lost patience, and determined ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the partial success achieved, is the greatest interest the experiment has excited, not only among naturalists throughout the country, but also among landlords and sportsmen down in Essex, where the bird was not regarded merely as fair game to be bagged, or as a curiosity to be shot for the collector's cabinet, but was allowed to fight its own fight without counting man among its enemies. And it is to be expected that the same self-restraint and spirit of fairness and intelligent desire to see a favourable result would be shown everywhere ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... her for months, nor talked with her for years, and yet as he sits there winding his watch after his great strategic victory in national politics, he hopes fondly that perhaps Molly will know that he played a clean hand and won a fair game. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... Issoudun, and there was no garrison, and the lieutenant of police had only eight gendarmes under him, so that there were no patrols, it was impossible to get any proof against them. The sub-prefect was immediately posted in the "order of the night," and considered thenceforth fair game. This functionary made a practice of breakfasting on two fresh eggs. He kept chickens in his yard, and added to his mania for eating fresh eggs that of boiling them himself. Neither his wife nor his servant, in fact no one, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... and girls not to stare at others, nor to take any apparent notice of personal peculiarities, deformities, or oddities of dress or demeanor. Teach the children always to play a fair game upon the playground, and not to lose their tempers over any little difference of opinion that may arise ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... bleus!" was the cry from every quarter: and discipline not being the order of the moment for Legionnaires off duty, young soldiers and old soldiers gathered round, making such remarks as occurred to them, witty or ribald. Les bleus were fair game. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... to deride a man's ugliness, but the ugly is fair game when self-obtruded into notice by personal vanity and conceit. Moreover, this form of negro folly is not to be destroyed by gentle raillery; it wants hard words, even as certain tumours require the knife. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... I find fair game for laughter. The God, who made both lad and lass, Unwilling for a bungling hand to pass, Made opportunity right after. But come! fine cause for lamentation! Her chamber is your destination, And not the ...
— Faust • Goethe
... ye kin shoot all the Woodchucks yer a mind ter, fur they are a nuisance in the field. Yer kin kill Hawks an' Crows an' Jays, fur they kill other birds, an' Rabbits an' Coons, fur they are fair game; but I don't want to hear of yer killin' any Squirrels or Chipmunks or Song-birds, an' if ye do I'll stop the hull thing an' bring ye back to wurruk, an' use the rawhoide on ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... though he said proportion, he meant something quite different from proportion. We should not have said so much on this subject either in our former article, or at present, but that there is in all Mr Sadler's writings an air of scientific pedantry, which renders his errors fair game. We will now let the matter rest; and, instead of assailing Mr Sadler with our verbal criticism, proceed to defend ourselves against his ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... few minutes the carter had dumped the chest on the spot where he had taken it and drove away. On telling the mate what had happened, he said it was common for emigrants, both at Quebec and Montreal, to be robbed by fellows who regarded them as fair game. ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... ridiculed and abused. If anything can make me think meanly of my young brothers of the press, it is the way they pelt and pester Susan B. Anthony. For shame, boys! Never a one of you will make the man she is. Even some of our Washington editors turn aside from the fair game. Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom, has provided for them in the Board of Public Works, to vent their virtuous indignation and manly scorn of the woman they are determined shall stand in perpetual pillory in the market-place of this ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... monarchs were stringent, but discipline there was but little of, and the soldiery in those days regarded peaceful citizens as fair game; hence, when they came from the palace the streets of the city were already hushed and quiet, for the orders of the king had been preemptory that no men-at-arms, or others except those on duty, were to be away from their camp ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... imagined himself tied to any woman upon earth for the remainder of his days. Without being unduly proud in his own conceit, he was clearly aware that he might be looked upon through worldly eyes as a desirable match—as fair game for a number of wary marriageable maidens; and it did not occur to him that even Laura herself might by any choice of her own, still stand hopelessly beyond his reach. The thing that troubled him ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... neither clever nor stupid, but that gentle, amiable cross between the two which made him fair game for a designing girl. He was better than clever. He was magnetic, as Cary and Flora ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... canoes and go by force. The men say fear of me makes them act very cowardly. I have gone amongst the whole population kindly and fairly, but I fear I must now act rigidly, for when they hear that we have submitted to injustice, they at once conclude that we are fair game for all, and they go to lengths in dealing falsely that they would never otherwise attempt. It is, I can declare, not my nature, nor has it been my practice, to go as if "my back ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... trains and in the lobbies of hotels—a fat, sleek, loud-voiced comedian, who enacted scenes from his unwritten plays while ladling his soup, and who staggered and fell across chairs in illustration of highly emotional lines and, what was worse, he was of those who regard every unescorted woman as fair game. Bold of glance and brassy of smile, he began to make eyes at his sister-in-law from ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... now made no further sign. Who was she? What sort was she? he demanded of himself. God! if she was one sort. And why should she not be that sort? Did not the River carry many sorts? Was not the army ever gallant? What officer ever hesitated in case of a fair damsel? And what fair damsel was not fair game in the open contest among men—that old, old, oldest and keenest of all contests ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough |
