"Low-down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... told her we thought it was low-down to tell stories. And Peggy just laughed and said they wouldn't act so stiff as to tell the truth all the time.—Miss Margery, when are you going there again? I do want to go with you. The baby has a new tooth coming. You can feel ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... commit a small offence, with the object of getting himself three months in gaol—there's no hiding-place like gaol, you know, Stafford. The real danger is that he may not actually tramp or assume the guise of the real low-down loafer. He may have the sense to become a poor but honest workman, travelling third-class from town to town in search of work. Then he will present the greatest difficulty." He saw the look of doubt on the young man's ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... he exclaimed, getting speech in these surroundings. "Kick! I deserve it. Of all the low-down, d——n cowards that ever was borned I sure am the worst! But the gall of that feller Peterson! An' him ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... I am to you,' he said. 'It's a bit low down, perhaps, but, then, we were dealing with a low-down person. You thoroughly deserve those diamonds—will you accept an offer for them from me? I should like to buy them for Miss Roberts and present them to her on our reconciliation.' We came to terms ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... he confessed. "I wouldn't have complained at anything he'd asked me to do, but it was a low-down trick to get Katharine into this trouble." His eyes shone out with a dull anger. She ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cast about her. There is a mood in which a deprivation of high comedy may drive one to low-down farce. To-day people are even going farther. A worthy stage is dead, they say; and they patronize, somewhat willfully and contemptuously (or with a loose, slack tolerance that is worse), the moving pictures. Perhaps it was in some such mood that Raymond's wife took up with Mrs. Johnny McComas. ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... lives in that big white house they call Freedom Hill, up the road whar you been workin', they headed the petition. They are the richest folks 'round here. They heered the trial, Tom. They know you was set upon in that low-down place. Mr. Earle, he went to the capitol with me to see the governor. Him and the governor are ol' friends. Mr. Earle, he bought my railroad ticket and paid my board in Greenville. He talked to the governor for over an hour.... But"—she ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... still hot with pride and rage. "And there are the Fosters on the upper deck,—people I know. Come, Jim, let's cut off before they see us with this low-down chump." ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... his father has any money to give him, and just smart enough to keep the old man mesmerized. Lately Henry's been in a mighty serious peck of trouble. Last fall he got married to a girl here in town. Three weeks ago a family named Johnson, the most shiftless in the county, the real low-down white trash sort, living on a truck patch out Rollinson's way, heard that Henry was on a toot in town, spending money freely, and they went after him. A client of mine rents their ground to them and told me all about ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... still bent over an' he was black in the face; but when I straightened him out an' soused a lot o' water over him, he came out of it, an' I fair itched to make him eat his gun—knee-riggin' an' all! He sat up an' began to tell what a low-down, sneakin' cuss Dick had allus been. I let him sing a couple o' verses, an' then I sez: "Now, you look here, you slimy spider. Dick's too busy just now to attend to your case an' if you don't swaller them few remarks instant I'll ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... low-down mean," he said, stabbing another sausage, "and you gettin' all the fruit and flowers from Mr. French's place sent to you every day. I wish Polly and Ben were there still—they wouldn't begrudge ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... fair as day," he exclaimed, "I reckon you've hit it right plum center first shot, lad. You bet we'll be on the watch to warn them poor Indians, an' if there's any fightin' we'll sho' help to rid this country of them ornary, low-down, murderin', cut-throats. It's a great head you've got for young shoulders, Charley. You've reasoned it out like a detective and made ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... chapters of a book—yer fortune's made! For you'll show that a successful hoss trade involves the highest nash'nul characteristics. That what common folk calls "selfishness," "revenge," "mean lyin'," and "low-down money-grubbin' ambishun" is really "quaintness," and will go in double harness with the bizness of ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... "Ah'll explain in a minute. You-all see it wa'r this way: After you-all left for home, yesterday, it wa'r found how some low-down sneaks got wind of this claim and planned to ride up at once. It looked a lot like claim-jumpin', so we-all got together mighty quick and rode after them to spare the Lord any trouble in judgin' 'em. Also, we-all reckoned ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... father used to be, but he was too much of my way of thinking and they fired him out of the country. It's a thing I don't like to talk of, Charley, and just now I'm a low-down packer hauling in a pile of truck I'll never get paid for. Steady, come up. There's nothing going to ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... with a gulp. "Honestly, Agnes, it's a shame. It's a low-down trick the governor played to put me in this helplessly belittled position ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... preach the things we want to hear, he'll find himself going hungry, or forced to dig along with those he is so worried about. I don't find anything in the Bible that tells me to associate with every low-down person in the city, and I guess I'm as good a Christian as ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... difficulty. He wandered into the Lone Star, and placing his crude bullion upon the counter, swept about him a comprehensive hand. To his wonder there was no response. A few of the assembled populace shifted uneasily in their seats, but none arose. "Do you take this for a low-down placer camp?" asked Billy Hudgens, with a dull show of pride, when McGinnis demanded the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... low-down coward," she commanded, in tones that might have been heard half the length of the boat. Reluctantly the boy complied, his own revolver ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... Great Britain, populated by men who have actually been outside their own parish; men who know that the whole is greater than the part; men who are too wide awake to go on doing just what the Bandar-log tell them, and allow themselves to be used as stalking-horses for low-down political ramps! When we, going round in bath-chairs and on crutches, see that sight—well, I don't think we shall regret our missing arms and legs quite so much, Colonel. War is Hell, and all ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... ignored Dryfoos in the little play of protests which followed, and he said, half jocosely, half suspiciously, "And is the banjo the fashion, now?" He remembered it as the emblem of low-down show business, and associated it with end-men and blackened faces and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in a low-down Neighborhood, Mrs. Jump was ashamed to give her Address to Friends in ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... "Of all the low-down skunks I ever seen, you sure are the skunkiest!" said Nueces. "The sheriff was right after all. Cur-dog fits you to a T." He finished washing out the cut on Foy's head as he spoke. "Now the bandages, Anastacio. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... won't stand it. And don't you call me gov'ner. I won't have your low-down street slang in my office. So you're the great bull, eh? you bull-pup! you bull in a china shop! The great bull-calf, you mean. Where'd you get the money for all this cussedness? Where'd you get the money? Tell me that. ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... dat triflin', low-down houn' dawg, he didn't show up at all, but we had a magnificious occasion wivout him, jes' ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... any such ideas, keep 'em to yourself. I haven't had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here's a lady that we've got to keep fooled. Once she stood it; twice she won't. I'm a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I'll travel it to the end. And now, don't forget that I'm Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... days and he 'ad a good face. So she fell desperit in love with 'im. He was an 'ero. She told 'er father she was going to marry 'im. As the old gentleman was about to be married 'imself, he 'ated to share the prominence with 'er. So he said he'd disown 'er if she even thought of marrying a low-down circus rider. That was enough for Mary. She up and run off with Tom and got married to 'im in a jiffy, beating 'er father to the altar ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... say, come like the dickens or skin them alive or enny of that kind of talk. It is al-rite fer boys who are used to ruffin it, but it is not nice fer girls so if I was you I wood go easy on it, and hot dogs aint machine guns, they are sausidges that are made from those low-down german dogs that heve short legs, but say they test buly in a roll. The vilets and pollywogs have come and I wood send you some but I guess they wood dry up before you got them. Ennyway you neednt worry much about the war now that Uncle Sam is in it we will lick the stuffin out of him ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... days after it was written—and up went Mr. Williams's stock again. Mr. Warner's low-down suspicion was laid in the cold, cold grave, where it apparently belonged. It was a suspicion based upon mere internal evidence, anyway; and when you come to internal evidence, it's a big field and a game that two can play at: as witness this other internal evidence, discovered by the writer of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... enough. I felt my way through a mass of hair to a low-down slit, a hole which seemed tight, and as I guided my tool, fancied for an instant I was again going to have a virgin. I was mistaken, but the entry needed a hard, sharp, and painful push to me, and a comparatively easy passage followed. No sooner did I feel up, than all came to an end, spending ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... only friendly feelings toward them; but maybe there's some people still alive back there in that county who can remember what the reason was why I should naturally hate and despise both the Tatums, and especially this Jess Tatum, him being if anything the more low-down one of the two, although the youngest. At this late day I don't aim to drag the name of any one else into this, especially a woman's name, and her now dead and gone and in her grave; but I will just say that if ever a man ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... want me to know was the fact of her first escapade with the fellow called Jimmy. She had arrived at figuring out the sort of low-down Bowery tough that that fellow was. Do you know what it is to shudder, in later life, for some small, stupid action—usually for some small, quite genuine piece of emotionalism—of your early life? ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... weather, with reference to the crops, and his rheumatism. What else in the world was there to talk of? He read no paper and heard no news and was of no politics; and if it can be said that he had a philosophy of life it was a low-down one, about on a level with that of a solitary old dog-badger who lives in an earth he has excavated for himself with infinite pains in a strong stubborn soil—his home and refuge in a ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... an ideal citizen!' I was addressing myself, 'A first chop specimen of a low-down idiot,—to connive at the escape of the robber who's been robbing Paul. Since you've let the villain go, the least you can do is to leave a card on the Apostle, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... "I'm not. Can't a low-down, no-account man like me even laugh where there's happiness? Why, if that young feller goes to work an' spoils it all by kickin' the bucket, I'd die ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... keep my mouth shut? You want me to become an accomplice in this beastly, low-down ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... "It's low-down mean, that's what it is," Shorty rushed on, virtuously indignant. "I wouldn't wonder somebody filled you full of lead for it, an' you'd ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... enough, and that sun is some hot, I admit, but somehow I don't exactly like the looks of yonder bank of clouds that keeps hanging low-down close to the horizon in the southwest. We get most of our big storms ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... that you've got to hear them," I said. "I'm no missionary, nor missionary lover; I'm no Kanaka, nor favourer of Kanakas—I'm just a trader; I'm just a common, low-down, God-damned white man and British subject, the sort you would like to wipe your boots on. I hope ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on you? Say, Matt, that's tough! No, I wouldn't be mean enough to tell the other girls. I ain't as low-down as that." (How Frome hated his cheap banter!) "But look a here, ain't it lucky I got the old man's cutter down ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... he remarked, "if the lady wasn't present, I'd show you that I take no orders from any yellow—that is, from any low-down Don." ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... yo'self a man!" he murmured in a voice filled with contempt. "Why, a low-down coyote is a gentleman alongside of yo'. I wondered why yo' looked so well fed, while the rest of the camp was starvin'. Men, ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... of a fellow would descend to such a trick!" exclaimed the indignant Josh; "but then Tony Pollock and his crowd are ready to do anything low-down and crooked. They'll never be able to join our scout troop, after we get ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... yo', Mistah Swift!" exclaimed the darkey. "Jest let dat low-down-good-fo-nuffin' Andy Foger come 'round me, an' Ah'll make him t'ink he's de inside ob a chicken coop, dat's what ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... swingin' by the tail. The gall of the loikes of ye to call yerselves min, and dhraw pay wid that sort of thing ferninst ye for a name! Oi 'll bet ye niver had no grandfather; ye 're nothin' but a it, a son of a say-cook, be the powers! An' ye come over here to work for a thafe—a dhirty, low-down thafe. Do ye moind that, yer lanthern-jawed spalpeen? What was ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... dad is in that. We have to guard 'em at night. She ain't had no good word for any of us since she's been up there. Every time she looks at a feller she makes you feel like you was somethin' low-down—a snake, or somethin'." ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... white people"—Joe smiled his distorted smile—"and then a low-down black man helped me to get away as soon as he saw who it was. He's a friend of mine, and he fell down and tripped up ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... Boggs. 'Which if you-all'd struck camp by way of Tucson, instead of skulkin' upon us in the low-down fashion you does along of the Lordsburg-Red Dog buckboard, you wouldn't have to ask none. He's the offishul drunkard of Arizona, Monte is. Which the same should be notice, too, that it's futile ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... there beside him, huggin' her knees and listenin' with both ears. I didn't like to think about it, for she was a nice little yearlin', and it looked to me like Mike was up to his usual devilment. Seemed like a low-down trick to play on an injunoo like her, and the more I studied it the warmer I got. It was a wonderful night; the moonlight drenched the valley, and there was the smell of camp-fires and horses over everything—just the ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... yere. Ef so, dat's his misfortune." The voice changed. "Whut would yore pore daid mother say ef she knowed I wuz neglectin' my plain duty to you two lone chillen? Think I gwine run ary chancet of havin' you two gals talked about by all de low-down pore w'ite trash scandalisers in dis town? Well, I ain't, an' dat's flat. No, sir-ree, honey! You mout jes' ez well run 'long back out dere on dat front po'ch, 'ca'se I'm tellin' you I ain't gwine stir nary inch f'um whar I is twell yore sister ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... "Great guns! The low-down, mean, sneakin'—" said Randerson. His eyes were glowing; his words came with difficulty through his ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... trenches, along with a lot of cigars and tobacco, and had got about fifty postcards from 'em saying it was the funniest thing they'd heard since the war begun. And in a minute more he was explaining, with much feeling, just what low-down nation it was that started the war—it not being England, by any means—and I saw he wasn't to ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... throw any stumbling block in the way of a chap who is trying to get out of his old rut. But it passes my comprehension how he can change, and play fair and square, when all his life he's been so tricky and low-down mean." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... it's like religion," he answered. "At first it makes you feel all low-down like, and miserable, and you don't care. Then you either get over it entirely or become so used to it you don't feel it ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... sezee, 'I wouldn' 'spec' ter be 'vited ter de weddin',—a common, low-down fiel'-han' lak I is. But I's glad ter heah you en Jeff is gittin' 'long so well. I didn' knowed but w'at he had 'mence' ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... oh, Ah don' know," sobbed the poor girl; "only hit's somethin' mahty mean fo' sho'. He's that low-down 'n sneaky hit's sho' to ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... not know about it. She is so religious she won't be any of the villain parts. When we want her to be anything real low-down, we have to do it on the sly. She would no more consent to a band of dark-browed gypsies than ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... naturally follows," his uncle answered. "Every low-down onery sheep man for a hundred miles around has had his eyes on these lands for the last five years, waiting for Uncle Sam to put 'em in the open market. Now the government has finally paid the Indians' claims and those fellows at Washington have decided ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... That feller—a married man—has bin after her—and some of you know it. She kin take keer of herself can my Mints, but some things is a man's business. I meant to shoot him, but I didn't. I'm glad the low-down cuss is dead, but the bullet that stopped his crawlin' to my gal never come outer my rifle. Now string me up, and be derned to ye, but let this young feller go back to look after ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... finely severe, either quite round or quite flat, and proportions good always. An upholstered priest coming out to say mass is generally a sickening sight, so wicked and ugly in look and costume. The best-behaved people are the low-down beggars, who are ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... "That's a low-down trick of mine, boys, and this time it came mighty near blocking all our fine plans by losing the pearls that are going to get us the money we need. Don't ever leave anything valuable lying around while I'm in camp. It works on my mind, I guess. Ugh! ain't I glad you saw me do it? How tough we'd ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... was mistaken, and that I must stoop to be explicit. The woman who was killed on Tuesday might have interested me greatly as an embroiderer, but as a victim, not at all. What do you see in me, or miss in me, that you should drag me into an atmosphere of low-down crime?" ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... minute people heard that a cotton gin was really made that would take out the seeds they came begging to see the wonderful machine and find out how it worked; and of course Mr. Whitney had to show it off. He hadn't a notion people would be so low-down as to snitch his idea and go to making cotton gins of their own. But that's exactly what they did do and as soon as Mr. Whitney and Mr. Miller who was helping him got wise to the fact, they locked the new cotton gin up. But do ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... big man announced. "But it's noways probable that it will come to that. Let's use logic. He spoke well of my cooking—like you said—which proves him a man of some discernment. No way to get around that. Now a man with his judgment wouldn't suspect for one living second that he could play it low-down on you with me roosting close at hand. Putting two plain facts together it works out right natural and simple that he's on the square. As easy as that," he finished triumphantly. "So don't you fret. And in case he acts up I'll clamp down on ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... which is questionable in morals, but a practice of that which is positively good. However noble or worthy in character may be some who use tobacco, yet by common consent it is a "tool of the devil." Every den of gamblers, every low-down grogshop, every smoking-car, every public resort and waiting-room departments for men, every rendezvous of rogues, loafers, villains, and tramps is thoroughly saturated with the vile stench of the cuspidor and the poisonous odors of the pipe and cigar. "Rev. Dr. Cox abandoned tobacco ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... remember are when I was selling Featherlooms, and you were out for the Sans-Silk Skirt Company, both covering the same territory, and both running a year-around race to see which could beat the other at his own game. The only difference was that I always played fair, while you played low-down whenever you ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... Time played by Josephine, the Life-Saver. Josephine had to yield, and the Men all clustered around her to give their Moral Support. After one or two Selections, they felt sufficiently Keyed to begin to hit up those low-down Songs about Baby and Chickens and Razors. No one paid any Attention to the Lady President, who was off in a Corner holding an Indignation Meeting with the Secretary ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... Fuliginous monkey, sired by old Nick." And the nigger all the time was moving round the table, Rattling the silver things faster and faster— "Yes sah! Yas sah, soon as I'se able I'll bring yo' dinnah as shore as yo's bawn." "Quit talking about it; hurry and be gone, You low-down nigger," said ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... that sort o' life that runs civilization and noospapers mighty hard, however high-toned they is. Not but what Lacy ain't right," he added quickly, "when he sez that the opposition the 'Guardian' gets here comes from ignorant low-down fellers ez wos brought up in played-out camps, and can't tell a gentleman and a scholar and a scientific man when they sees him. No! So I sez to Lacy, 'Never you mind, it's high time they did, and they've got to do it and to swaller the "Guardian," if I sink double the money ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... anybody just like you. You've been mighty good to me. I've never met a man who treated me like you. You're the only real white man that's ever happened to me, and I guess I'm not going to play you a low-down trick like spoiling your life. George, I thought you knew. Honest, I thought you knew. How did you think I lived in a swell place like this, if you didn't know? How did you suppose everyone knew me at Rector's? How did you think I'd managed to find out ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... bowling phenomena, wandered casually through a little door into what must always be termed the wrong end of a bowling alley. Of course, he saw that the supreme moment had come. They were not only shooting at the hat and at him, but the low-down cusses were using the most extraordinary and hellish ammunition. Still, perfectly undaunted, however, Jim retorted with his two Colts, and killed three of the best bowlers in ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... driving along, "their faces as long as fiddles," as Cora said. The boys had taken the lead, and they were having their own trouble trying to convince Walter that Miss Robbins had "dumped" the girls, and that it was a "low-down trick." ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... from his gun-pits far away, Low-down, well south, an angry foe doth roar, He opens out again upon another day And rakes the slope with shrapnel as before. But only working parties on the top are found, The rest, save ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... ill-bred hogs that kindness is wasted on, and so I stopped and looked right at him, and I said, 'I—beg—your—pardon, I am not doing anything of the kind,' I said, 'it's the people ahead of me, who won't move up,' I said, 'and furthermore, let me tell you, young man, that you're a low-down, foul-mouthed, impertinent skunk,' I said, 'and you're no gentleman! I certainly intend to report you, and we'll see,' I said, 'whether a lady is to be insulted by any drunken bum that chooses to put on a ragged uniform, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... it was an accident, that "Red" was altogether too chivalrous to take such a low-down revenge upon a lady, and explained that in any event it would be impossible to dispense with his services at this juncture. He declared that he regretted the matter deeply and promised to prevent ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... that for me?' cried out the man angrily. 'Look here; he's killed a beef for a couple of steaks. He's taken that and left the rest for the buzzards. The low-down, hog-hearted son ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... heard, on the quiet, that it caught a good many outsiders who had been buying Farmers' stock at a bargain, among them this young Mr. Copper-Money who was going to marry Agatha—and didn't. Geddis and Withers played it mighty fine—and mighty low-down." ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... you are responsible for your cowboys, just as I am for my Mexicans. It's low-down business for you to shoot my men who are working for me at fifteen dollars a month. I'm the responsible party—I'm the man to kill. I want to say right here that I hold you accountable, and if your men maim one of my herders or open fire on 'em again I'll hunt you down and kill you like a wolf. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... replied Wade. "But it doesn't pay, an' yet I still kept on bein' that way.... Belllounds, my name's as bad as good all over western Colorado. But as man to man I tell you—I never did a low-down trick in my life.... ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... she repeated, meeting him squarely, and taking a tighter grip of her stick. "I ain't ever seen you hit anything but a woman, an' a girl, or some poor animal that didn't dare bite back. You're a coward, Jed Hawkins, a low-down, sneakin,' ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... who's up against a point of honour; he has, I understand, a long, clean record and now he's prepared to take a course that may cost him dear. Are you going to play a low-down game on him; to twist the truth so's to give him a ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... where to git on the track of that scoundrel an' locate him properly in hell, he'll do it without my help. By the Lord Almighty, I'll never tell what I know. An' this paper goes to ashes here. Oh, Caesar! If I could only burn up the recollection that I was ever low-down an' money-grubbin' enough to collute with such as him for business. I'm danged glad I had that quarter kep' in Leigh's name 'stead of Jim's. That's why Thomas Smith threatened and didn't act. He didn't dare to go against Leigh as long as Jane ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... young person is nothing but a common ruffian, a gambler, in fact, and an habitue at the saloons. I have seen him myself sitting in a saloon at a very late hour playing with a vile, dirty pack of cards, and in the company of a lot of low-down creatures—" ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... in a low, quiet voice. "You low-down miserable coward. You're a disgrace to the Service. Do you mean you are going to keep my wife ironed ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... complimented Kettle on the achievement, the little sailor had coldly replied that he was only carrying out his duty and earning his pay. And he had further mentioned that it was lucky for Commandant Balliot that he was a common, low-down Britisher, and not a fancy Belgian, or he would have thought of his own skin first, and steamed on comfortably down river and just contented himself with making a report. The white engineer of the launch—a drunken Scot—had, ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... or foul," insisted Uncle Martin as they paused at the parting of their ways. "Low-down, underhanded work—do ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... You'll break her heart by robbing her of all you've brought into her life through your love. Say, can't you see it all? And you'll do it for a shadow. Yes, it's a shadow, an ugly shadow, this crazy thought of yours for a brother who was just a low-down cattle rustler, same as these toughs you're making a bid of ten thousand dollars to see hanged the same as he was. Think of it, Jeff. She's just a woman, weak and helpless, and you're going to rob her of all that makes her life worth while. Would you act that way by a mother, or—or a sister? And ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... start easy, you know. You want to start easy, so's to make the climax worth something. Now, let's see! Well, suppose you walk up to him and say, "You spawn of the pike-eyed sneak that Herod hired to kill babies, you low-down, contemptible son of a body-snatcher, you was born a murderer, but lacked the courage and became a horse-thief!" There, Sol, start in easy like that and gradually work up to a climax, and you'll have him going—and all inside the ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... fateful spot?" said Wingarde, coming suddenly out of his reverie. "What is the usual thing to do? Cut our names on the gate-post? Rather a low-down game, I always think." ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... see me. When I knew him his name was Garrison—Billy Garrison. I discharged him for dishonesty. I suppose he sneaked home to a confiding uncle when the world had kicked him out. I suppose they think he's all right, same as you do. But he's a thief. A common, low-down—" ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... This is your idea of me, I reckon—that I'm a pushing, uneducated common bounder that's just using this religious business to shove himself along with; that's kidding all these poor old ladies that 'e believes in their bunkum, and is altogether about as low-down a fellow as you're likely to meet with. That's about the ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... one, be sure the last spark is out before you leave it. A forest fire would play the mischief just now, with everything so dry. But somehow, I've got hopes that the rain is coming soon," and he looked into the west, as though the few low-down ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... that goes on there. He says if there's anything on top of the earth he absolutely despises it's a gossiping man. He says a gossiping woman is a creation of God—must be, there's so many of 'em; but a gossiping man—he can't find any word in the dictionary mean enough for that sort of a low-down skunk." ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... "Don't try that on me—you can't get away with it. I'll tell you once and for all, I despise you. I wouldn't trust you as far as I would a rattlesnake. You are the most loathesome creature in the world. You're nothing but a low-down horse-thief, and you never will be anything but a horse-thief, till somebody shoots you—then you'll be a carrion." Her eyes were blazing again, and Purdy actually winced at her words. "If you were dying of ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... me I'll knock his stuck-up head off! And I tell you, If you go near the dirty oilcan's place, And crawl around that snippy brat of his, I'll kick you out into the street to stay. You hear that? Eight out in the street you go! The nerve! The dirty, lousy, low-down crook! A Bootleg gettin' stuck-up over money! The world is crazy, that's all there is to it! Crazy, I tell you! All ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... the door, "you've been my good Angel. I'm doing more work than I've done in two months, although it was a dirty, low-down way to make me do it. You're not going back on me ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "Reel home-grown, low-down, unwashed Whitechapel!" I had heard Maguire remark within. "Blamed if our Bowery boys ain't cock-angels to scum like this. Ah, you biter, I wouldn't soil my knuckles on your ugly face; but if I had my thick boots on I'd dance the soul out of your ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... by Jove, Bunny, we ought to be there. I wouldn't lean forward in Piccadilly, old chap. If you're seen I'm thought of, and we shall have to be jolly careful at Kellner's.... Ah, there it is! Did I tell you I was a low-down stage Yankee at Kellner's? You'd better be another, while the waiter's ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... mind your asking," replied Belding in slow deliberation. "I wouldn't do such a low-down trick. Besides, if I would, I'd want it to be a man I was persuading for. I know Greasers—I know a Yaqui I'd rather give ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... fact, it really is ours," remarked Donald Hall. "But it would be a rotten, low-down trick for us to sell it away from the school and from ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... rim of his hat, arranged his scarf, and tightened his belt. The horse's furnishings told him that the stranger was not a low-down prairie loafer. He strode to the veranda steps, and, crossing to the open door, looked furtively within ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... told you about the "Low-down Wilkes," have I? They're the pleasantest people in Three Meadows and we're very clubby. The nice old maid on the wharf at Bath told me about them and advised me to have the woman do my washing, but warned ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... I'm nothing of the kind," spiritedly replied the under-dog. "You all time wanting somebody to call theirselfs someping. You're a low-down ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... yelled, 'what? you dogs! you scoundrels! you miserable, low-down ruffians you! Oh, that I should have lived to see this day! Thankful am I that my father and grand-father are safe in their graves! This would have broken their hearts. Why, you horrible villains,—do you mean to tell me that you have been doing all ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... entirely different matter. You know yourself where he took me from. But she's an innocent and genteel young lady. That's a low-down thing for him to do. And, believe me, Soloviev, he's sure to leave her later. Ah, the poor girl. Well, well, well, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... buffalo grazing unattended among the fields along the paths and canal banks, with crops all about, One of the most memorable shocks came to us in Chekiang, China, when we had fallen into a revery while gazing at the shifting landscape from the doorway of our low-down Chinese houseboat. Something in the sky and the vegetation along the canal bank had recalled the scenes of boyhood days and it seemed, as we looked aslant up the bank with its fringe of grass, that we were gliding along Whitewater creek through familiar meadows and that standing up ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... he shouted. "I've got it! I've solved the whole derned mystery. Come to me like a flash. Of all the low-down, cowardly—" ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... my heartfelt sympathy," Tom assured him. "I hate to see any boy with that low-down habit, and I'm glad that I'm not in position to be able to encourage you in it. How long have ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... man of sense. Which makes the best general—the man who leads the charge straight up to the intrenchments, yellin': 'Come on, boys!'—or the one who says, very likely shaking a revolver in their faces: 'Get in there, ye damn low-down privates, and take that fort, and report to me when I've finished my breakfast'? Which one of those two men will the soldiers do the most for? For the one they like best, Mr. Peterson, and don't forget ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... I've just been given a low-down on her condition. Gus Redell is leaving on the Moana to bid her in at the government sale—the young scoundrel told me all about it and twitted me because we were asleep on the job and let the good thing get away from ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... pleasant-faced mulattress came to clear the supper-table. Virginia they called her. Virginia had been nurse in turn to all the children of Rudolph Musgrave's parents; and to the end of her life she appeared to regard the emancipation of the South's negroes as an irrelevant vagary of certain "low-down" and probably "ornery" Yankees —as an, in short, quite eminently "tacky" proceeding which very certainly in no way affected her vested right to tyrannize over ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... tumbling over one another, and that we don't require any comic M.P.'s sent out to cheer us up. The fact is, some people read the papers too much. At the present moment the London press is, not to put too fine a point on it, making a holy show of itself. I suppose there's some low-down political rig at the back of it all, but the whole business must be perfect jam ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... dashed through the doorway and on into the room he had assigned to the sullen and bibulous stranger. "I knowed it! I knowed it!" he wailed, popping out again as if on springs. "He's gone, an' he's took our broncs with him, the measly, low-down dog! I knowed he wasn't no good! I could see it in his eye; an' he wasn't drunk, not by a darn sight. Go out an' see for yoreself if they ain't gone!" he snapped in reply to Old John's look. "Go on out, while I throw some cold grub on the table—won't have no time this morning to do no ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... did! Much you need to know! Bah, you low-down people! You bloodsuckers! Just let you scent out something or other, and immediately you sneak ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... flag respectfully, much impressed by the consul's speech, and tremendously pleased, besides, that Fetuao should see that an American, even a common, low-down American seaman like himself, counted for something in the official world. Would a Britisher, or one of those stinking Dutchmen, have acted like this consul did? His consul, by God!—and his breast heaved with gratitude and patriotic fervor. Afterwards, when ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... the name, even more than was his wont, and the quarter-breed noticed that the usually roving eyes had set into a hard stare behind which lurked a dangerous glitter, "yo're a ornery, low-down cur-dog what hain't fitten to be run with by man, beast, or devil. I'd ort to shoot yo' daid right wher' yo' at—an' mebbe I will. But comin' to squint yo' over, that there damage looks mo' like a quirt-lick than a limb. Thet ort to hurt like fire fer a couple a days, an' ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... happened to be young. Uncle Henson would be at the door with the carriage at four o'clock, I told her, to take us down-town, and she must be ready in time, as there was a good deal to do. I wouldn't take a mint of money for the look that came in her face as I talked. I have put it away for low-down days. ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... people cannot be made to see that their old masters and mistresses are their best friends, and induced to follow their advice and leadership, instead of going after strangers and ignorant persons of their own color, or low-down white men, who only wish to use them for their own advantage. I am very sorry for Eliab and the others, but I must say I think they have brought it all on themselves. I am told they have been mighty impudent and obstreperous, until really the people in the neighborhood ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... nigger!" Spence said, kicking the knife beyond Jim's reach. "That's the kind of a low-down cuss you always was. This man's our guest, and when you pull a knife on him you pull ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... it," says I. "It was my business to. Of all the low-down things any man ever done in all his life, that's what you done now. I heard ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... murder. He is to be in France soon if his health does not break down under the load she has cast upon him. He warns her to be out of the house on his arrival, because, if she is not, "she will find in him a tyrant." The whole letter is indicative of a low-down unworthy scamp, a mere collection of transparent verbiage, intended as a means of ridding himself of a woman he had nothing in common with, and a cover to ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... was difficult for either Lydia or Kent to describe afterward. There was a hullabaloo that brought half the mothers of the neighborhood into the yard. The doctor was sent for. Margery was put to bed and Kent and Lydia were mentioned as murderers, low-down brats and coarse little brutes by Mrs. Marshall, who ended by threatening ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... blame her for having lied. All women lie. He rather enjoyed the graceful and easy manner with which she had cast the fellow out of her past. But he was vexed with her for having given herself to a low-down actor. Chevalier spoilt Felicie for him. Why did she take lovers of that type? Was she wanting in taste? Did she not exercise a certain selection? Did she behave like a woman of the town? Did she lack a certain sense of niceness which warns women as to what they may or may not do? Didn't she ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... I am not afraid of you. I know you for a cruel, cold-blooded murderer, an outrager of women, a thief, and an outlaw. No, you cannot stop me now. You are a low-down cowardly cur, making war on women and children, sneaking around in the paths of armies, plundering and looting the helpless. I despise you and every man associated with you. Neither you, nor all your company, can make me marry Captain Grant. I will die first. No, don't ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... say about me, isn't it?" he snapped back. "But I don't suppose I should expect any kinder interpretation of my motives." To Alice he said, "I'm sorry I had to slap your burnt fingers, sister, but you can't say I didn't warn you about my low-down tactics." Then to me again: "I do hate war, Ray. It's just murder on a bigger scale, though some of the boys give me ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... everything— what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been of some service to people who ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... work honestly while we are alive? Surely if we leave this world a little bit better, a little bit richer in knowledge, than we find it, these poor little lives of ours, such as they are, and that's not much—will not have been lived in vain. Of course, as you know, I'm just a common, low-down materialist who can't rise to the poetry of things as you can with this gorgeous theory ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... believe the Lord 'ud send us active service—not a real red war against a real enemy—and play a low-down trick on Ranjoor Singh. Ranjoor Singh's a gentleman. It wouldn't be sportsmanlike to let him die ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... book aside upon the grass, sat up, and mournfully looked about him. Effort was usually needed to withdraw his mind from those low-down shadowy centuries over into which of late by means of the book, as by means of a bridge spanning a known and an unknown land, he had crossed, and wonder-stricken had wandered; but these words brought him swiftly home to ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... right there with the distillery. Wilbur, chase the roof off a jug of suds for the Lieutenant. I tell you, Captain, on my honor as a lady, we are not going more that six miles an hour. Must take us to the station! Why, you low-down, monkey-faced excuse for a sparrow cop, would you have the crust to stand up in front of a judge and tell him that we were going faster than ten miles an hour? If you want to get us to the station it's a cinch you will have to push the machine. Walk! ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... said, "if I found out I wasn't a ffrench at all—but had really sprung from a low-down, capital F family in the next county ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... are running around scot-free. They've locked up three fellows just to keep the people from thinking too much. They don't want anybody to ask, 'What are the police for?' You see what I mean? I tell you that such a low-down rascal, who commits a murder and steals lots of money, cannot hide his bloody clothes; nor the money, either. He's not used to having so much money. All the neighbors know his coat and breeches; and such a ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... was that we downed the 'ringer.' They couldn't get away with their low-down trick. We put one over on 'voconometry ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... those two masts you mean," said Morny sternly, "but they are low-down raking masts; the Dagobert's are much higher, and stand up stiffer than those. Do you forget she's square-rigged? ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... the answer? The answer, to Jimmy's way of thinking, was that all was not well with James Crocker, that, when all the evidence was weighed, James Crocker would appear to be a fool, a worm, a selfish waster, and a hopeless, low-down, skunk. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... thinks is public spirited an' enterprisin', which is a mistake. You pays th' debt of said corp'ration, so they sez, an' tharfore we welcomes you to our bosom cordial. What happens? You insults us by paying such low-down ornary cusses as Snowie. Th' camp is just. She arises an' avenges said insult by stringin' of you up all right an' proper. We gives you five minutes to ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... run on the bank, and the man, grasping Winn's arm, stepped ashore, saying, "Now make yourself useful, young fellow, and lead us to your mint or den or whatever you call it. If you don't want to I'll find a way to compel you, and if you try any low-down tricks, I'll make you ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... of things you know. I can do all the donkey work, but I've got no head for business. I never know the difference between a loss and a profit. It was partly over this that I quarrelled with my people—they said it was low-down to make face cream and sell it—they're awful snobs! So I just cleared off and changed my surname and came here. I'm quite happy, and if I haven't got as much money as I had, I don't mind—I've got my liberty, and that's ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... bright thinker. This Mr. Raymond Percy is admittedly, by the canon's evidence, a minister of eccentric ways. His con-nection with England's proudest and fairest does not seemingly prevent a taste for the society of the real low-down. On the other hand, the prisoner Smith is, by general agreement, a man of irr'sistible fascination. I entertain no doubt that Smith led the Revered Percy into the crime and forced him to hide his head in the real crim'nal class. That would fully account for his ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... hyar fool women, sweetheart," he said. "They hain't nothin' but low-down trash nohow— They're jealous, but thar's some right upstandin' men-folks hyar fer ye ter keep company with. I reckon fust off ye needs a leetle dram—hits's ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... would. I allow me 'n' him'll git along all right. 'Pears like I'd known him all my days, jest ez 't did with her, arter the fust. I'm free to confess I take more ter these Mexicans than I do ter these low-down, driven Yankees, ennyhow,—a heap more; but I can't stand bein' Senory'd! Yeow tell him, Jos. I s'pose thar's a word for 'aunt' in Mexican, ain't there? 'Pears like thar couldn't be no langwedge 'thout sech a word! He'll know what it means! I'd go ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... advise you to," said Aunt Philippa reflectively. "It's a kind of low-down thing to do, though there's been a terrible lot of romantic nonsense talked and writ about eloping. It may be a painful necessity sometimes, but it ain't in this case. You write to your young man and tell him to come here and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a matter of fact," said the young man, "I've always rather hushed up my first name, because when I was christened they worked a low-down trick on me!" ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... "It's a low-down way for a man to treat a woman, especially his wife," said Joe, his indignation mounting ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... happened in 1890. Maybe the way I got into it will explain how most train robbers start in the business. Five out of six Western outlaws are just cowboys out of a job and gone wrong. The sixth is a tough from the East who dresses up like a bad man and plays some low-down trick that gives the boys a bad name. Wire fences and "nesters" made five of them; a bad heart ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... to serve your own interests," says Saxham's terrible voice, "you would undoubtedly be playing a very low-down game." ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... ways o' this here southern country!" he exclaimed in a pained tone, "A big, hungry, wild animal, tryin' to pass itself off ez, an old dead log. Up in Kentucky, a good honest bear, or even a sneakin' panther, would be ashamed to look you in the face after tryin' to play sech a low-down trick ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to win when you play with loaded dice. I get boiling mad when I think of these low-down, worthless rascals who don't stop at any meanness, ready to commit murder for fifteen cents. They ought to be treated worse than rattlesnakes. But, as you said just now, all this don't help Will Cummins. But Will is all right, John. You know that as ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... for the more highly favored race, and where this more highly favored race deliberately assigns those who are not of its color to a permanent inferiority. The laws of caste are to be inflexibly enforced against all people of color who would rise from their low-down conditions. This is our Southern mission field, which God has committed to us, according to our faith ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various
... want to apologise," said the lad, toying nervously with his teaspoon. "I guess you think I'm a mean, low-down sort o' guy, an' you're right, only I—I feel worse 'n you think. An' say, Geoff, if I—if I said anything th' other night, I want you to—forget ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol |
