"Swindle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... circumstances, in one neat and luminous statement. Sampson was greatly struck with the revelation: he jumped off his chair and marched about excited: said truth was stranger than fiction, and this was a manifest swindle: then he surprised Mrs. Dodd in her turn by assuming that old Hardie was at the bottom of yesterday's business. Neither Edward nor his mother could see that, and said so: his reply was characteristic: ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... must be started in life somehow, and five daughters still unmarried for whom you would only be too thankful to find husbands—if you knew how to find them? If morality is that which, on the whole, brings a man peace in his declining years—if, that is to say, it is not an utter swindle, can you under these circumstances flatter yourself that you ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... 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
... in the swale; and listening to the swindle of the flail, as it sounds dub-a-dub on the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... point he stopped, convulsed by such a fit of rage that he had to relieve himself by a volley of appalling oaths. Finally he resumed: "It isn't the swindle that angers me; it is his disgusting behavior to me. He has gammoned me, Madame Burle. By God! Does he take me for an ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... was subjected to all sorts of frauds, little and big—the smaller thieves thinking that they also must live, no matter at whose expense, although I demur to the proposition. Why should they stop at stealing a thousand or two, more or less, while that four hundred thousand swindle leered at them so wickedly over the left shoulder, mocking at all law and justice, and scot free from all punishment? These 'traders' could charge what sums they liked against the Indian, and get them too; for there was no one to defeat or check their rapacity. Mr. Heard ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... man told me that the mine was just as described, only a nasty road would have to be built to it that would probably cost L80,000 or L100,000, and the mill would have to be built. It looks to me like a total loss, Jim; but the swindle is so manifest that I believe we can make the conspirators disgorge at least the last half that ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... 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 ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... caravan?' he says, 'for ter send ter a lidy?' 'Gentleman,' I says, 'I'm only a poor girl and a widered muver ter keep, and, gentleman, I can't tike less than two pound fer 'em sure and certain as there's a God in 'eaven, I can't.' 'Well,' says he, 'it's a blarsted swindle but I'll take 'em—and mind you deliver 'em ter the lidy yerself.' 'They shall go this very minute,' says I, 'and, oh, sir, God bless you both and may yer have long life and 'appiness ter-gether.' Strike me dead, wot d'yer think he said next? Why he arst me fer my bloomin' name, same ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... party at all. An American gent,' I says. They wouldn't believe it at first, but, when Keggs 'ad put two and two together, and thought of one or two things that 'ad 'appened, 'e turned as white as a sheet and said it was a swindle and wanted the drawin' done over again, but the others says 'No', they says, 'it's quite fair,' they says, and one of 'em offered me ten bob slap out for my ticket. But I stuck to it, I did. And that," concluded Albert throwing the cigarette into the fire-place just in time to prevent a ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Look here, I believe I had better write, and say that I'm awfully touched and obliged, but that I can't come into his views, or break my word, and then, you know, he can just make another will. It would be a swindle to let him die, and come into his property, and then go dead against ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... remember that the professional politicians all stand in together when a financial swindle is being carried out. There is no "opposition" in these things. Since it is the very business of the Free Press to expose the falsehood or inanity of the Official Capitalist Press, one may truly say that a great part of the energies of the Free ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... cause the wrongdoer nominally upholds. In point of danger to the Nation there is nothing to choose between on the one hand the corruptionist, the bribe-giver, the bribe-taker, the man who employs his great talent to swindle his fellow-citizens on a large scale, and, on the other hand, the preacher of class hatred, the man who, whether from ignorance or from willingness to sacrifice his country to his ambition, persuades well-meaning but wrong-headed men to try to destroy the instruments upon which our prosperity ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... experienced 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; who was ready to take part in any comedy ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... won't, but I shall wait till I find a husband who's charming enough and bad enough. One who'll beat me and swindle me and spend my money on other women—that's the sort of man for me. Mr. Dormer, delightful as he is, doesn't come up ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... "He wanted to swindle me," thought Andy. "It's lucky I didn't pay him five dollars. Anyway, I'll keep it. The pocketbook is ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... could think that he had calculated upon 'Lige's suicide, any more than that the property would become valuable. In fact if it came to that, if 'Lige had really contemplated killing himself as a hopeless bankrupt after taking Harkutt's money as a loan, it was a swindle on his—Harkutt's—good-nature. He worked himself into a rage, which he felt was innately virtuous, at this tyranny of cold principle over his own warm-hearted instincts, but if it came to the LAW, he'd stand by ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... ''tain't no swindle. Barker thought he hed a gran' good thing. He got fooled an' the fool complaint is very ketchin'. Got it myself years ago an' I've been ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... "It is a swindle," said D'Arcy, solemnly. "I've had to make a very light meal, because I've only half a crown, and I'm afraid there won't be much change ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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 a ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... of the packed gallery soon caused her to forget even the final swindle of the corset. The air had rapidly become exhausted. Women clutched at each other; women rapped frenziedly against the heavy, glazed doors; women screamed. It was the Black Hole of Calcutta over again, and yet no one in the blouse ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... been 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 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... dear one. It's the smallest I could find in the place, and I don't think they're likely to charge for attendance; if they do, it'll be a swindle, for I ordered eggs and bacon an hour ago, and they've not come yet. I wonder what they'll charge for the eggs and bacon. Suppose there are two eggs, that'll be 2 pence; and a slice of bacon, 2 pence; bread, 1 penny; tea, 1 penny; that's 7 pence; oughtn't to ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... front attack—fut, horse, an' guns—an' all for nothin', seem' that I had no thransport to convey the machine away. "I will not argue wid you," sez I, "this day, but subsequintly, 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 was not come by honust,"—at ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... 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
... merely, and the final issue upon which the judgment was reversed was not even remotely connected with the main enquiry, whether or not the charge of conspiracy was sustainable in point of constitutional law. During the progress of the trial, a fraud, a swindle, a petty theft, was perpetrated by the officers of government, which more than one man, high in office, had a hand in suborning. This fact had supreme influence on the decision of the House of Lords. But the plain ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... struck a bargain with Sam Nichols," muttered Abner, apprehensively. "If he has, it'll be sort of a swindle on me. Maybe Nichols has been ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... 'take a view.' I didn't feel called upon to admire the hall in audible terms; but as I stood there an inspiring scene arose before my mental vision—a scene of up-turned faces, each representing the sum of fifteen cents, that being the regular swindle for getting into shows round here, the landlord said. I struck a bargain for the hall, at once—a bargain by which I was to have it for two dollars if I didn't do very well, or five dollars if I had a regular big crowd; bill-stickers ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... world, make twenty thousand francs per annum by charges for postage alone; accounts of expenses of protest pay for Mme. la Baronne de Nucingen's dresses, opera box, and carriage. The charge for postage is a more shocking swindle, because a house will settle ten matters of business in as many lines of a single letter. And of the tithe wrung from misfortune, the Government, strange to say! takes its share, and the national revenue is swelled by a tax on commercial ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... bold knight was angry, And cursed both coarse and fine; And asked, "How much is the swindle For your sour and ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... get another house, and swindle some one else?" he replied, testily; "there's plenty ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... Carson, charged Godfrey Isaacs with being a corrupt man who induced his corrupt brother to use his influence with the corrupt Samuel to get a corrupt contract entered into. The opening attack under this head has already been quoted. Later attacks did not diminish in violence: "the swindle or rather theft—impudent and barefaced as it is": "when Samuel was caught with his hand in the till (or Isaacs if you prefer to put it ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... person of no consequence at the Cape, had already announced his intention to emigrate to Australia with his family; and he appeared to be waiting only to wreak his vengeance upon Levi Fairfield, who had defeated his plan to swindle Mr. Watson out of twenty thousand dollars. The young man had exposed and ruined him, in his estimation—not the crime; and he could not leave the country till he had "paid him off," though he was not so particular ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... main watch was from midnight 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 ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of that, I fear," she replied. "I have written again and again, but have never received any answer to my letters. I'm afraid it was all a swindle." ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... "Yazoo Claims" was $1,500,000. [Footnote: Senate Documents, Eighteenth Congress, Second Session, 1824-25, Vol. ii, Doc. No. 14, and Senate Documents, Twenty-fourth Congress, 1836-37, Vol. ii, No. 212. After the grants were secured, the companies attempted to swindle the State of Georgia by making payments in depreciated currency. Georgia refused to accept it. When the grant was rescinded, both houses of the Georgia Legislature marched in solemn state to the Capitol front and burned the deed.] The ground upon which ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... than that," he said. "I can introduce you to a man who's in this room now, who was fighting the Ship-building swindle, and he got hold of a lot of important papers, and he took them to his office, and sat by while his clerks made thirty-two copies of them. And he put the originals and thirty-one of the copies in thirty-two different ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... 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
... soldiers. This man's character is as contemptible as any in colonial history. It was not merely or chiefly that he was an abject miser and a foe to liberty. He was a convicted liar, a spy, and a double-dealer; and his cowardice made him despised even by the British. He scrupled not to swindle the British government, by conniving at smuggling, while assuring them of his zeal in putting it down. While smiling in men's faces, he was covertly laying plots for their destruction. His last thought, after receiving the crushing news of his recall, was ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... sevenpence," said Arthur. "I'm not going in, young Simson. My governor said to me the chances were some young blackleg or other would be on to me to shell out something for a swindle of the kind; and he said, 'Don't you do it.' Besides, I've ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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
... selected for their religious bias rather than their business qualifications, burst at one fell coup, almost in the very hour of my return home, dissipating into thin air, as the Latin poet has it, all the savings of a lifetime which my mother had invested in the swindle—the provision left behind by my father, when he died, for her use, and the subsequent benefit of my sister and myself. The devout rogue who had "managed" the concern to his own worldly interest and that of his fellow religionists, carried on the same, so they said, in a pious ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... son, and from son to son; it pass by gift, it pass by grant, but that NEVARRE THERE PASS A LIE WITH IT! I say it was a gift by a Spanish Christian king to a Christian hidalgo for the spread of the gospel, and not for the cheat and the swindle! I say that this mine was worked by the slave, and by the mule, by the ass, but never by the cheat and swindler. I say that if they have struck the hoss in the mine, they have struck a hoss IN THE LAND, a Spanish hoss; a hoss that have no bridle worth ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... 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 melancholy place—the Hall of the Kings at Karnak is hardly ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Berenger, spread the news as he went. Arrived in London soon after daybreak, he went to Cochrane's house, and there changed his uniform. When the Stock Exchange opened at ten on February 21, 1814, the Funds rose rapidly, and among those who sold on the rise was Cochrane. The next day, when the swindle had ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... was to be found answering to Pitezel's description, and to be so treated as to appear to have been the victim of an accidental explosion, while Pitezel himself would disappear to Germany. From Howe Hedgspeth learnt that the swindle had been carried out successfully, but he had never received from Howard the 500 dollars promised him. Consequently, he had but little compunction in divulging ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... returning to Devonshire to make further investigation. I went and had a good time of it down in the country, for the miners were very jolly fellows; but I was unable to satisfy my employers, and sent up a report which showed the public that the whole thing was a swindle, and so saved a ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... room. Claude felt sick, humiliated. It was all so perfectly clear. Jim knew nothing about English property. It was only natural he should place himself in Featherstone's hands. He determined to put a stop to such a swindle as was contemplated. But his plan to warn Jim was frustrated by the later realization that Jim was madly in love with Angela. This astonishing fact was sufficient to drive everything else from his mind. He had no delusion as far as Angela was concerned. Dozens of men had tried their luck on Angela, ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... down the untasted wine and told the truth. Not all—that was not to be dreamed of. In the depths of his heart he feared Bulmer. The old man's repute for honesty was widespread. He would fling his dearest friend into prison for such a swindle as that arranged between Coke and the shipowner. But it was a positive relief to divulge everything that concerned Iris. From his pocket-book David produced her frayed letter, and Bulmer read it slowly, aloud, through eyeglasses held at ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 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 ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... therefore been carried through with the greatest success. You have paid the claim in full without question. For me there was left the very comfortable provision of 15,000 pounds, with the consciousness of a daring and successful swindle. Unfortunately, my wife has now discovered that her conscience will give her no peace or rest until full restitution of the money has been made. She has informed me of her intention to send back without delay that part of it which lies at her bank ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... did the broker in question do? He winked to another broker, and these two bid against one another, over their victim's head, and ran everything she wanted up at least a hundred per cent above the value. So open and transparent a swindle I have seldom seen, even in an auction-room. Ha! ha! ha! ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... 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 of ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... ingannation^, collusion; treachery &c 940; practical joke. trick, cheat, wile, blind, feint, plant, bubble, fetch, catch, chicane, juggle, reach, hocus, bite; card sharping, stacked deck, loaded dice, quick shuffle, double dealing, dealing seconds, dealing from the bottom of the deck; artful dodge, swindle; tricks upon travelers; stratagem &c (artifice) 702; confidence trick, fake, hoax; theft &c 791; ballot-box stuffing [U.S.], barney [Slang]; brace game [Slang], bunko game, drop game [Slang], gum game [U.S.], panel game [U.S.], shell game, thimblerig, skin game ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... bricklayer in Carrick, whose daughter has the divil's bargain in you; and for the like of that you're not bad matched. Tell him from me, Larry Macdermot—tell him from me, that I'm not so owld yet, nor so poor, nor so silly, that he can swindle me out of my lands and house that way. So clever as you think yourself, Mr. Keegan, you may walk back to Carrick again, and don't think to call yourself masther of ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... complete it,' I assured him. 'Mr. Soames and I want to have a little talk with you. Won't you sit? Mr. Soames got nothing—frankly nothing—by his journey this afternoon. We don't wish to say that the whole thing was a swindle—a common swindle. On the contrary, we believe you meant well. But of course the bargain, such ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... half-hourly lectures on the other in an adjoining room - I, as his lieutenant, taking turns. The thing was in its way a little triumph. A few of the visitors were deaf, and hugged the belief that they were the victims of a new kind of fancy-fair swindle. Of the others, many who came to scoff remained to take raffle tickets; and one of the phonographs was finally disposed of in this way, falling, by a happy freak of the ballot-box, into the hands of Sir ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... any worse than yo' comin' down here and tryin' to bunco me with a swindle like that'—and he picked up the document and tossed ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... without further question. A tax has been paid on all the alcohol in these things. In many cases, also, a further tax has been paid for the government stamp on patent medicines. That the medicine may be dangerous, that it may be a cruel swindle, that it may take from consumptives and others money which is sorely needed for air and food, and give them in return what is worse than nothing—all these things are nothing to the State if ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... 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
... know, to talk over starting a fresh magazine. The Ronleian is a beastly swindle, and it's high time we had something different." (A voice, "No, 'tisn't," and the bursting of a paper bag.) "You shut up there! I say it is a swindle: they didn't give any account of that fourth eleven match against Robertson's second, and they made fun of us in the 'Quad Gossip,' and said that ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... disappointment of the father, if not by the ruined possibilities of Dick Boyce himself. First, the desire to maintain a "position," to make play in society with a pretty wife, and, in the City, with a marketable reputation; then company-promoting of a more and more doubtful kind; and, finally, a swindle more energetic and less skilful than the rest, which bomb-like went to pieces in the face of the public, filling the air with noise, lamentations, and unsavoury odours. Nor was this all. A man has many warnings of ruin, and when things were going badly in the stock market, Richard Boyce, who on his ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... respect and gratitude to his father, to give him countenance. This induces Sir Giles to suppose that his nephew is about to marry the wealthy dowager. Feeling convinced that he will then be able to swindle him out of all the dowager's property, as he had ousted him out of his paternal estates, Sir Giles pays his nephew's debts, and supplies him liberally with ready money, to bring about the marriage as soon as ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... "They swindle a nation of a hundred million and call it Financiering; they levy a blackmail and call it Commerce; they corrupt a legislature and call it Politics; they bribe a judge and call it Law; they hire blacklegs to carry out their plans and ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... turning to the giggling Maudlin, he whispered: "Saw it las' toime. 'Is lordship got a piece o' moy moind that oi reeled off into it about this 'ere swindle. Fawney that old bloke there charging a tanner apiece to us for chaffin' ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 's you slide up to close the whisks for killin' flies won't stay up, 'n the flies don't get killed but jus' get hit so they buzz without stoppin' from then on. Mrs. Jilkins says right out 's she considers the whole thing a swindle, 'n' 'f Mr. Kimball was n't rentin' his store o' her brother she sh'd tell him so to his face. She says the three-inch measure on the handle 's too short to be o' any real service on a farm, 'n' her opinion is 't Mr. Kimball keeps his sample dipped in kerosene or he never could snap it ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... man in the last century, and an eminent man too, who used to say, that whereas people in general pretended to admire astronomy as being essentially sublime, he for his part looked upon all that sort of thing as a swindle; and, on the contrary, he regarded the solar system as decidedly vulgar; because the planets were all of them so infernally punctual, they kept time with such horrible precision, that they forced him, whether he would or no, to think of nothing ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... he washed his hands, "do people anywhere wrap ordinary feathers in red silk? You squinting rascal, do not think to swindle me out of eternal bliss by any such foolish talk! I perfectly recognize that feather as the feather which Milcah plucked from the left pinion of the Archangel Oriphiel when the sons of God were on more intricate and scandalous terms with the daughters of men ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... "the boy is at breakfast. I think he is all right, but I don't know. The professor, I fear, is a swindle." ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... the state of things thirty years ago, which is referred to in the cartoon of Punch and the Smithfield Savages, the artist borrowing his idea from West's well-known picture of "Penn's Treaty with the Indians." The odious matrimonial swindle perpetrated by Louis Philippe with the idea of ultimately seating a member of his family on the Spanish throne, which has cast an indelible stain on his memory, had now been found out, and attracted universal indignation. We find him, in reference to this shameless piece of business, figuring ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... Sir, we're the National Telephone Comp'ny with a reputation to lose, and if you've any ideer we want to swindle you, all I can tell you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... Tory oppression to debase and enslave the people. It is time that both were imperiously stopped. The upper classes wish to keep us ignorant, and parsons naturally want everybody else's shutters up when they open shop. We ought to see through the swindle. Let us check their impudence, laugh at their hypocrisy, and rescue ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... ever heard of, and wondered greatly that Godfrey and Dan, whom he had always believed to be as stupid as so many blocks, should have suddenly exhibited so much shrewdness. Bert declared that it was a wicked swindle; and the earnestness with which he denounced the whole proceeding made Don laugh louder than ever. Of course the latter did not forget that the trick which so highly amused him, had been the means of placing David in a very unpleasant situation, but still he did not think ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... are proud of a tenantry," he sneered, "so honest that you cannot trust them not to swindle you out of your just dues and on whom you have to spy all the time to get what you ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... have no conception of what they are going to miss. Tom, for example, would never have put buttons in the offering. Doug would not gamble and drink. Poor, painted Nanon would starve rather than sin. Old man Jones, in the amen corner, would not swindle his neighbor; nor would Wetmore, the Baptist, practise the holy calling of shepherd, having in his breast the heart of a wolf. We all, saving a woman here and there, have our sins, little and great, and many times in the day we ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... thing; they sell splendidly. Of course I shall make it a good advertisement of my business. Then I have a splendid idea. I'm going to advertise: "Novel-writing taught in ten lessons!" What do you think of that? No swindle; not a bit of it. I am quite capable of giving the ordinary man or woman ten very useful lessons. I've been working out the scheme; it would amuse you vastly, Reardon. The first lesson deals with the question of subjects, local colour—that kind of thing. I gravely advise people, if they possibly ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... cigar, and glanced with astonished severity at the speaker. "Unfortunately, I have. We are wheat growers and not wheat stock jugglers. Our purpose is to farm, and not swindle and lie in the wheat pits for decimal differences. I have a distinct antipathy to anything of ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... remember how he backed up Slugger Brown's father on Snowshoe Island," added Randy. "He was perfectly willing to swindle old Barney Stevenson out of his property. ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... the unique and novel swindle that is most dangerous, either to a bank or an individual. It is the simple, ordinary mistake or the time-worn trick that makes continuous trouble. Apparently, every new generation contains a number of dishonest people who lay the same traps, and a number of careless people ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... complete. Of all the ladies of my acquaintance I think Lady Dido was the most absurd. Why did she not do as Cleopatra did? Why did she not take out her ships and insist on going with him? She could not bear to lose the land she had got by a swindle, and then she could not bear the loss of her lover. So she fell between two stools. Mr. Slope, whatever you do, never mingle love ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... said 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
... 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' unrighteousness? As a nation we had so often been relieved ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... police 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 such ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... before you go, we wish to say one word," Fred remarked, calmly, yet firmly. "Ever since we have been at Ballarat, you have contrived a number of ways to swindle us of our money. What you have received we don't wish back into our pockets: but we do give you warning that hereafter, if you interfere in our affairs, we shall take the liberty of administering a sound kicking to that portion of your anatomy made to be kicked. We hope that you understand us with ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... 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
... strict account of everything to their 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 from the following facts: many of them, and especially ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... gowns, painstakingly chosen; she kept him waiting when he called; she received him with indifference. She seemed to grow as frank with him as he with her, and often enough the frankness was genuine. She told him coolly at the outset that she knew he would swindle her out of her money if he got the chance and that he was not going to get the chance. She informed him that she did not trust him but that that need make no difference in their relations; if she became convinced that the project were safe she ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... get what you want," I said, "in small sums from a number of people, you'll be able to keep control of the thing yourself, and you needn't be afraid of Ascher. Not that I believe Ascher would swindle, you. I think Ascher's ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... minutes out of this lady's presence,—of whom I beg pardon for this strong language. Mr. Venner, I must beg you, as one of the Trustees of this Institution, to look at the manner in which its Principal has attempted to swindle this faithful teacher, whose toils and sacrifices and self-devotion to the school have made it all that it is, in spite of this miserable trader's incompetence. Will you look at the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... consented to swindle, he had to outvie every lie by a new and bigger one. Mr. Douglas might be as patient as he liked; the abuse which was made of his name at last ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... cross-examine, was fooled blind by the syndicate that was going to put the absolutely first-class article on the market. Whether it was that there never had been a business, and that Harry's inspection of works, visits to show-rooms, and examination of books, was all part of an elaborate swindle carried out with the aid of some one who possessed these accessories; or whether it was that the whole thing was bought up cheap merely to sell at a profit, was never clearly known to Harry and to Rosalie. Harry ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... covered with Milly Neal's neat business chirography. She had written her account briefly and with restraint, building her "story" around the girl's letter. It set forth the tragedy of a petty swindle. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... uttered Tom Reade, with deep scorn, "is simply to find two clean and honest engineers who'll sign a lying report and enable him to swindle some man or group of men out of ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... 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 part of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... therefore if he speaks falsely he commits a sin. A man knows it is wrong to become intoxicated, and yet he does become so; he has violated a known law of right and wrong, and has therefore committed a sin. Who is the man of common sense that does not know it is wrong to lie, steal, swindle, defraud, curse, drink, get angry and cross; to refuse to help a needy neighbor when he can, to talk foolishly, to tell unseemly tales, to backbite, slander, commit adultery, hold enmity against another, or to be proud and ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... long before an officer called on me to 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 ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... he, 'comes out of the pocket of a poor, demented girl, and I would rather starve than swindle ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... purloin, peculate, swindle, plagiarize, poach>. (With this group, which excludes the idea of violence, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... are circulated, merely because some one has fancied such a thing might be so, are untrue. On the contrary, he assures me that applications of this nature are very seldom made, and most of those that have been made have proved to come from Englishmen, who have thought they might swindle him in this form. I have had at least a dozen such applications myself, but I take it nothing is easier, in general, than to distinguish between an American and a native of Great Britain. It was agreed between us, that in future all ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... distorted, multiplied, until they had become swindlers of millions instead of thousands. But nevertheless it was their story. There was only one grain of consolation. It was in the last paragraph of the news item, and read: "There seems to be no trace of the man and woman who worked this clever swindle. As if by a telepathic message they have vanished at just the time when their ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... was no appeal beyond their judgment; because no hungry politician could bring it about that his friends got the chance to swindle the Apaches or to rob them of their rations—as was being done with other Indians all over the West at the time—these two old men were able to enforce their edicts and to keep at peace the most warlike savages in the whole Southwest. They kept the faith with the government, ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... Majesty had been moved to this step by the firm trust she had in the skill and fidelity of the said Mr. M'Buffer; but if so her Majesty's trust would seem to have been somewhat misplaced, as Mr. M'Buffer, having been a managing director of a bankrupt swindle, from which he had contrived to pillage some thirty or forty thousand pounds, was now unable to show his face at Tillietudlem, or in the House of Commons; and in thus retreating from his membership had no object ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... of science, and on that I place reliance, And I hurl a stern defiance at what other people say: Learning's torch I fiercely kindle, with my HAECKEL, HUXLEY, TYNDALL, And all preaching is a swindle, that's the motto of to-day. I'd give the wildest latitude to each agnostic attitude, And everything's a platitude that springs not from my mind: I've studied entomology, astronomy, conchology, And every other 'ology that anyone can find. I am a man of science, with my bottles on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... detailing the extent and the nature of the loss, and the steps which he had decided upon taking, went on to explain the circumstances as best he could. He had made some inquiry, and felt no doubt that a gigantic swindle had been perpetrated by Major Tifto and others. The swindle had been successful. Mr. Moreton had consulted certain gentlemen of high character versed in affairs of the turf. He mentioned Mr. Lupton among others,—and had been assured that though the swindle was undoubted, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... Jean-Pierre. "Nobody there. A swindle of the crows. That's what this is. Nobody anywhere. I despise it. ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... bad," exclaimed Wade, regretfully. "That property never was any good. The whole thing was a swindle from first to last. Was your ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... side you have a picture of injured innocence in the shape of pale despairing mothers and clamoring children, and on the other, villainy triumphant in the form of a police constable or a government official. And to think that you should have been taken in by such a swindle!" ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... in the opium-joint upstairs. The Chinaman seems to have vanished—at any rate, he can't be found. It's just about time this place was broken up. Keller took no chances with the bank." He picked up the faro-box. "Now, in the States this kind of thing would not go. It's a two-card needle-tell swindle." ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... Secretary explained it this morning, and now I am pleased. As to the goods you talked about, I want what is due and belongs to me. The red people were raised with the bow and arrow, and are all of one nation; but the whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me; and I am not hard to swindle, because I cannot read and write. We have thirty-two nations (or bands), and have a council-house the same as you have. We held a council before we came here, and the demands I have made upon ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... with the shame of it. He pondered briefly the possibilities of taking from his mother the check, which represented the pro rata share of the Dodge estate, and returning it to Lydia Orr. Reluctantly he abandoned this quixotic scheme. The swindle—for as such he chose to view it—had already been accomplished. Other people would not return their checks. On the contrary, there would be new and fertile schemes set on foot to part the unworldly stranger and ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... were, and believed every man to be as wicked as himself. Samson, each time his patience was exhausted, hated himself for what he had to do, yet no experience could shake his faith in that melancholy but attractive swindle—the ultimate goodness of man. Both Samson and the giant were as mistaken as they were powerful, but Samson, by virtue of his weakness, was the stronger man, for, while the giant's brutality aroused our hatred, Samson's nobility compelled ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... taking him 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
... too—we're too intimately mixed up. If I said it was a deal of mine—they'd ask where Helena came from—they'd ask where you came from, Flopper. We're beaten—beaten every way we turn. The game has got us—we haven't a move. We played it to the limit, the slickest swindle that was ever worked, and it worked till there's more money than I've tried to count. And then it changed us from thieves, from—from anything you like—and now that we want to quit, now that we want a chance to make good, it's got us in its grip and we can't get away." He flirted ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... AFFLICTED. We are daily consulted by persons suffering from spermatorrhea and impotency who have been victimized by ignorant charlatans. Some seek to dupe and swindle the unwary by claiming to have themselves been cured of spermatorrhea or impotency by some prescription, which they offer to send free to any sufferer. When the prescription is obtained it is found to consist of a few articles well-known to every druggist, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... to continue the game," exclaimed Napoleon; "it despises my swindling, and forgets that it is itself a swindle. You may be thankful, M. Maelzl, that we are no longer in the middle ages; formerly they would have burned you at the stake as a sorcerer, attempting to do what God alone is able ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... little something about leather goods or shoes or lamps or furniture, and that's all he knows. If he's an American he'll buckle down to that little business and work night and day, sweat blood and make every one else connected with him sweat it, underpay his employees, swindle his friends, half-starve himself and his family, in order to get a few thousand dollars and seem as good as some one else who has a few thousand. And yet he doesn't want to be different from—he wants to be just like—the other fellow. If some ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... resolution called forth a remarkable attempt to swindle the commonwealth by means of the absolute freedom with which loans were granted. In America a syndicate of speculative 'men of business' was formed for the purpose of exploiting the simple-minded credulity of us 'stupid Freelanders.' Their plan was to draw as large ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... market for ironbark red, It always occurs to the Wollombi head To do a "mahogany" swindle. In forests where never the ironbark grew, When Jim is at work, it would flabbergast you To ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... lips or have him draw from his pocket a wooden nutmeg and offer it for sale. After getting to know him I learned this apparent shrewdness was a pure defense mechanism, that he was really an artless and ingenuous soul who had been taught by other hands the swindle he practiced for many years and had merely continued it because he knew no way of making an honest living. He was, like myself, unattached, and disarmed whatever lingering suspicions of him I might have by offering to share his quarters with me until ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... rum one," he said to himself. "He means to pocket the contessa's bracelet. What a swindle! I thought there was something more devilish about him ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... 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
... I swindled before, and I ain't a-going to put up with it. You may ring your own trees, and watch your own fences, and the whole place may be burned for me. I ain't a-going to do another turn in Gangoil. Swindle, indeed!" So Boscobel shouldered his axe, and marched off through the forest, visible in the moonlight till the ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... a swindle is this," I asked, "In which you, Louis, poor Bartot, the Chinese ambassador, and Heaven knows how many more, ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... furniture costing fifty pounds, and on that account he had paid a pound a week for more than three years, totalling a hundred and seventy pounds at the least, and instantly the glorious simplicity of the scheme dawned upon me, and I became so interested in the swindle that I lit the gas, fearing my little lamp would be exhausted before my investigation ended, for it promised to be ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... treating us disgracefully. You are ploughing in the widow's garden. You preach water and guzzle wine. You have entered into a conspiracy with the grafters of the town. You are in collusion with the people down at the Prudentia, and you are filling your own coffers in this gigantic swindle. From morning to night you enrich yourself with the hard-earned pennies of the poor. That is sharp practice, Jason Philip Schimmelweis, sharp practice, we say. Now you have got to sever all connection with the Prudentia, or the Party is going ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... upon several points; the old ache awoke about his heart, and again he resolved to regenerate his life, and love Lily and none but her. He looked round the room, considering how he could get away. Frank was talking business. He would not disturb him. No doubt Thigh was concocting some swindle, but he (Mike) knew nothing of business; he had a knack of turning the king at ecarte, but was nowhere once bills and the cooking of accounts were introduced. Should he post the letter? That was the question, and it played in his ears like an electric bell. Here was the letter; ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore |
