"Gamble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... allowed to enter the baccarat rooms, Aristide paid his two francs and made a bee line for the tables. I am afraid Aristide was a gambler. He was never so happy as when taking chances; his whole life was a gamble, with Providence holding the bank. Before the night was over he had converted his two louis into fifty. The next day they became five hundred. By the end of a week his garments were wadded with bank notes whose value amounted to a sum so stupendous as ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... an awful gamble. But suppose you succeed. Suppose you win everything and more than you are now contending for. Suppose at forty you are nominated for Congress from this district, do you think I'd ask you then to be ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... he said; 'you've allowed gamblin' in this bar—your boss has. You've got no right to let spielers gamble away a man's dog. Is a customer to lose his dog every time he has a doze to suit your boss? I'll go straight across to the police camp and put you away, and I don't care if you lose your licence. I ain't goin' to lose my dog. I wouldn'ter taken a ten-pound ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... will overtake you, heedless ones, and tears will dim your eyes. I will not say that your mistresses will deceive you—that would not grieve you so much as the loss of a horse—but you can lose on the Bourse. For the first plunge is not the last, and even if you do not gamble, bethink you that your moneyed tranquillity, your golden happiness, are in the care of a banker who may fail. In short, I tell you, frozen as you are, you are capable of loving something; some fibre of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... here and Greeleville. In da Gamble's Bible is my age. Don't know my age. Pretty much know how old, I bout 90. I wuz little ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... they even estranged me from the old; for people may say what they please about a similarity of opinions being necessary to friendship,—a similarity of habits is much more so. It is the man you dine, breakfast, and lodge with, walk, ride, gamble, or thieve with, that is your friend; not the man who likes Virgil as well as you do, and agrees with you in an admiration of Handel. Meanwhile my chief prey, Lord Mauleverer, was gone; he had taken another man's Dulcinea, and sought out a bower in ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... copying music and verses into her albums, and playing at chess with her very submissively; for it is with these simple amusements that some officers in India are accustomed to while away their leisure moments, while others of a less domestic turn hunt hogs, and shoot snipes, or gamble and smoke cheroots, and betake themselves to brandy-and-water. As for Sir Michael O'Dowd, though his lady and her sister both urged him to call upon the Major to explain himself and not keep on torturing a poor innocent girl in that shameful way, the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... boosted Duke up, then Tim followed, and the pair on the roof pulled Charley to their side. Flat roofs were great institutions they decided as they crawled cautiously towards the other side. This roof was of hard, sun-baked adobe, over two feet thick, and they did not care if their friends shot up on a gamble. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... to get to bed; and that he did without any serious fretting over his losses at the Garden Club. These had amounted, on the whole gamble, to nearly L170; which might have made him pause. For did he not owe responsibilities elsewhere? If he went on at this rate (he ought to have been asking himself) whence was likely to come the money for the plenishing of a certain small household—an elegant little establishment ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Hapgood. "I know all about that business. When I went to Mexico, I lost my money as fast as I got it, playing cards. Don't gamble, boys." ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... "I wasn't going to tell you, Mr. Holt. But you have given me the opportunity, and it may do you good—after tomorrow. I came to you because I foolishly misjudged you. I thought you were different, like your mountains. I made a great gamble, and set you up on a pedestal as clean and unafraid and believing all things good until you found them bad—and I lost. I was terribly mistaken. Your first thoughts of me when I came to your cabin were suspicious. You were angry and afraid. Yes, ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... Gordon, you've played a pretty cute gamble, and I suppose you think you stand to win ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... been magnified into ruin by a slight change of scenery—if it had been a gambling-house that he had turned into, where chance could be clutched with both hands instead of being picked up with thumb and fore-finger. Nevertheless, though reason strangled the desire to gamble, there remained the feeling that, with an assurance of luck to the needful amount, he would have liked to gamble, rather than take the alternative which was beginning to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... back to where it belonged. "Yes, I know. But we're talkin' about Texas. Still, I reckon you ought not to have any trouble on this trip. Don't let anybody know why you are at the fort. Don't gamble or drink. Get the money from Major Ponsford and melt away inconspicuous into the brush. Hit the trail hard. A day and a night ought to ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills, headed, "cash for negroes." These men were generally well dressed, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate{356} of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mothers by bargains arranged in ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... Greek, soon found himself out of his depths. Later on, in the smoking-room, they had indulged in a game of cards—the bishop being of that broadminded variety which has not the slightest objection to a gentlemanly gamble. Once more his companion had revealed himself ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... a play, then, while I was a journalist seemed to me a depraved proceeding, almost as bad as going to Lord's in the morning. I thought I could write one (we all think we can), but I could not afford so unpromising a gamble. But once in the Army the case was altered. No duty now urged me to write. My job was soldiering, and my spare time was my own affair. Other subalterns played bridge and golf; that was one way of amusing oneself. Another way was—why ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... a great gamble. The Federal army was twice as large as his own and yet Jackson proposed to cut it in two, and place the whole Federal army between the two halves. If the movement failed it would be a terrible failure. If it succeeded it would be a great success. It was worth the risk. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... officer, who had seen service in the West, Nolan knew more about fortifications, embrasures, ravelins, stockades, and all that, than any of them did; and he worked with a right good-will in fixing that battery all right. I have always thought it was a pity Porter did not leave him in command there with Gamble. That would have settled all the question about his punishment. We should have kept the islands, and at this moment we should have one station in the Pacific Ocean. Our French friends, too, when they wanted this little watering-place, would have found it was preoccupied. But Madison and the ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... are living in give most of us excitement enough,' said Donogan. 'The man who wants to gamble for life itself need not be ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... in very early life to plunder the boys of their farthings, and as he grew bigger used to gamble with the footmen who waited in the lobby of the House of Commons. While still quite small one of his elder brothers used to carry little Edward hidden in a basket on his back, and when in a crowd the future pirate would, from above, snatch the hats and even the wigs off ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... gangway down. Clouds of fire-streaked smoke poured from their funnels. More than once a cargo that would burn well was thrown into the furnaces to keep the steam up. The public became quite as keen as any of the crews or companies, and worked excitement up to fever pitch by crowding the wharves to gamble madly on this daily river Derby. The stress was too much for the weaker companies. One by one they either fell out or 'merged in.' After the merger with the Ontario Company in 1875 things went on, with many ups and downs, more in the usual way of competition. Finally, ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... me to have money so that you could gamble it away. You would even help me to get the money for that purpose . ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... door, and when Hollis dismounted from his pony there were perhaps a dozen interested citizens grouped about the door, reading the notice. There were several of the town's merchants and a number of cowboys—new arrivals and those who had remained overnight to gamble and participate in the festivities that were all-night features of the dives. There were also the usual loafers, who constitute an element never absent in any group of idlers in any street. All, however, gave way before ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... wouldn't want to take a girl's savings of years and years to gamble on a sporty cigar proposition with a card-room in the rear. You wouldn't, Jimmie. You ain't that kind of fellow. Tell me you ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... things that you might as well understand, too," he went on more calmly. "If you continue to go to Chad's, I shall go, too; if you make those fellows your boon companions, they shall be mine as well; if you continue to drink and gamble, as you've been doing lately, and to-night, I will drink and gamble, too. I mean every word I am saying, Phil. It may go against the grain at first to associate with such cads as Chad and his crowd; but perhaps that'll ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... Saratoga. Her hull shivered all over with the shock, and when the crash subsided nearly half of her people were seen stretched on deck, for many had been knocked down who were not seriously hurt. Among the slain was her first lieutenant, Peter Gamble; he was kneeling down to sight the bow-gun, when a shot entered the port, split the quoin, and drove a portion of it against his side, killing him without breaking the skin. The survivors carried on the fight with undiminished ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... all colors join, To gamble, riot, quarrel, and purloin; When Afric's sooty sons, a race forlorn, Play, swear, and fight, like Christians freely born; And Indians bless our civilizing merit, And get dead drunk with truly Christian spirit; When heroes, skilled ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... Royal to gamble with his remaining nine francs. The great man unknown to fame, though he had a divine mistress, must needs hie him to a low haunt of vice to wallow in perilous pleasure. Vignon betook himself to the Rocher de Cancale to drown memory and thought ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... keeps a licensed gambling-house to abandon a pursuit that is ruining his country. "But I am not violating the laws," he replies, "nor compelling any man to gamble and drink to excess in my house. The whole responsibility, therefore, rests upon those who do it. Expostulate with them. I have ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... us home with open arms," Kielland snarled. "They should shower us with kisses. They should do somersaults for joy that I'm not going to let them sink another half billion into the mud out here. They took a gamble and got cleaned, that's all. They'd be as stupid as your pals here if they kept coming back for more." He pulled on his waders, brushing penitent Mud-pups aside as he started for the door. "Send the natives back to their burrows or whatever they live in and get ready to ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse
... ordinary gamble, for what the better stakes is his life, possibly his reason. Rarely indeed will a man beg shegri unless he has nothing further ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... no gamble!" he said. "He was betting upon certainties, but he won. Will you tell him from me, when you see him, that although I have not the money in my pocket at the moment, I shall pay my debts. Tell him that ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... did I with deep and dark design keep him along on the ragged edge. He kept himself there. How could I build up such a man with his hundred ways of wasting money, including throwing it away on his own opinions of stocks—for he would gamble on his own account in the bucket-shops, though I had shown him that the Wall Street game is played always with marked cards, and that the only hope of winning is to get the confidence of the card-markers, unless you are big enough ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... the prairies of Texas through this no man's land to the railway system, and that it was the first place where the cowboys coming north could find a bed to sleep in, a bar to drink at, and a table to gamble on. For some years they had made of Kiota a hell upon earth. But gradually the land in the neighbourhood was taken up by farmers, emigrants chiefly from New England, who were determined to put an end to the reign of violence. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... succeeded Dr. Thornton as surgeon of the post at Ringgold. He was one of the most thorough gentlemen I ever knew, as courteous to the humblest soldier as to General Bragg, who was then and during the summer a frequent visitor. His wife lay for some months very ill at some point near Ringgold. Mrs. Gamble, who, with her lovely children, was domiciled at Cherokee Springs, three miles distant, was also a delightful addition to our little circle. She was thoroughly accomplished, of charming manners, although perfectly frank and outspoken. ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... assent. "It's a good betting proposition," he mused. "He knows what he wants and he usually gets it, I'm thinking, or there's something to pay. But what'll the Pearl do? I guess she's the biggest gamble any man could tackle." ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... "Mutiny among the Canadians, who want to come home; the officers busy with making money, and stealing like mandarins. Their commander sets the example, and will come back with three or four hundred thousand francs; the pettiest ensign, who does not gamble, will have ten, twelve, or fifteen thousand. The Indians don't like Ligneris, who is drunk every day. Forgive the confusion of this letter; I have not slept all night with thinking of the robberies and mismanagement and folly. Pauvre ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... or when the whole day was occupied with sport, such nocturnal sittings would be impossible—and she comforted herself by thinking that they would not be consistent with any serious business in the city such as Elinor feared. The one danger must push away the other. He could not gamble at night in that way, and gamble in the other among the stockbrokers. They were both ruinous, no doubt, but they could not both be carried on at the same time—or so, at least, this innocent woman thought. There was enough to be anxious and alarmed about without taking ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... taught you much, Adrian. Fire Koppy, and there wouldn't be a bohunk in camp the same night. . . . And their successors would be viler still, primed to vengeance by the bunch you'd kicked out. Ten years of it has taught me not to gamble with the unknown because I hate the known. Never really had so little trouble with a gang—at least, not till these last few weeks. . . . What d'ye think's got into them, Adrian? Somebody's sure at the bottom of all these things. That last bit of trestle didn't undermine ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... element of individual gamble to those who enter this competition. Undoubtedly there will be many failures, as in all new fields; failures come to those who put in capital as well as those who contribute their scientific knowledge. But by the same token there will be ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... it was natural enough as a last resort. There was but one debt which my wife ever paid, but one promise she ever kept. It was that made at the gaming-table. I offered, as soon as my father, realizing the hopelessness of the situation, had gone tottering from the room, to gamble with ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... father surely had no reason to be proud of his brother. Why, in a single night he gambled away 'The Gold Nixie' and more, too. I believe that he would gamble away the 'St. George' if it were his, but it belongs to you, Master Willy. I ought not to say anything to such a young lad as you about ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... who had the knack of writing about it with rare skill and spirit. In 1797, when twenty-three years old, he was master of the bark Enterprise bound from Salem to Mocha for coffee. The voyage was abandoned at Havre and he sent the mate home with the ship, deciding to remain abroad and gamble for himself with the chances of the sea. In France he bought on credit a "cutter-sloop" of forty-three tons, no larger than the yachts whose owners think it venturesome to take them off soundings in summer cruises. In this little box of a craft ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... gain in gambling beyond the opportunity of watching the human character, and, incidentally to develop it; but it is time lost, and unworthily lost. The end does not justify the means. You had better play and read and sleep rather than gamble. ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... Italian captain's knife between his shoulder-blades. And the go-fever which is more real than many doctors' diseases, waked and raged, urging him who loved Maisie beyond anything in the world, to go away and taste the old hot, unregenerate life again,—to scuffle, swear, gamble, and love light loves with his fellows; to take ship and know the sea once more, and by her beget pictures; to talk to Binat among the sands of Port Said while Yellow Tina mixed the drinks; to hear the crackle of musketry, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a "suspect." As Barney Gibbs says, all the yellow fever patients Gutieras discovered during his tour of South Texas were up "hunting either a drink or a job" ere this peripatetic expert was well out of town. I'll gamble four dollars that there is not in the United States to-day a genuine case of Yellow Jack. There's every indication that the cases at Mobile, New Orleans and Biloxi are identical with the disease discovered by Gutieras at Galveston—nothing under ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... it! It's hard on me that she disinherited him. He'll be a millstone round my neck as long as he lives." Robert Ferguson had long ago made up his mind—with tenderness—that he must support Elizabeth, "but I won't supply that boy with money to gamble with! And if he goes on in this way, of course he'll come down on me for the butcher's bill." That was how he happened to ask Elizabeth about Blair's concerns. When he did, the whole matter came out. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... an easier time than before, but he hadn't money to gamble with unless he deprived himself of his customary supply of food, and this ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of death in the thrill of the great gamble he was projecting. And Keith, whose heart was pounding like an excited fist, saw in a flash the amazing audacity of the thing that was in Conniston's mind, and felt the responsive thrill of its possibilities. No one down there would recognize in him the John Keith of four years ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... no hesitation in gambling, and many of them followed it passionately. 'Chaque pays a sa habitude,' remarked a lady one evening when I answered her query about card playing in America. It was the Russian fashion to gamble, and no one dreamed of making the slightest concealment of it. Though I saw it repeatedly I could never rid myself of a desire to turn away when a lady was reckoning her gains and losses, and keeping her accounts on the table cover. Russian card tables are covered with green cloth and ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... clothes. "On two occasions already he had refused to pay up what he owed; he pocketed as long as he won, but as soon as he lost he did not pay." At the request of Saccard, the Marquis became a director of the Universal Bank. When the great gamble in the shares of the bank began, the Marquis followed his usual plan; having played through Mazaud for a rise, he refused to pay his losses, though he had gained two million francs through Jacoby, through whom he had played ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... gamble, and when he gets going he's a terror. But he's down on the whiskey and on the 'red lights.' You remember the big fight at Bull Crossing? It was Bailey pulled me out of that hole. The Pioneer was slating me, Colonel Hilliers, the town site agent, was fighting me, withdrew ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... says he, "but when this Hen Dorsett debate breaks loose I came back to earth. I'll gamble that the ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... as very remarkable. 'After all I have done—twelve years of grind to keep you from the brunt of the world; and now...! My dear child, do you realize that there are husbands with violent tempers, husbands who drink and gamble and worse? ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... cars; they lighted candles in spring-candlesticks; odd enough I thought it in the land of oil-wells and unmeasured floods of kerosene. Some fellows turned up the back of a seat so as to make it horizontal, and began gambling or pretending to gamble; it looked as if they were trying to pluck a young countryman; but appearances are deceptive, and no deeper stake than "drinks for the crowd" seemed at last to be involved. But remembering that murder has tried of late years to establish itself as an institution in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... with Mrs. Houghton's "tell Eleanor" ringing in his ears, Maurice imagined a "confession," and he, too, used Mr. Houghton's words, "'there will be an explosion!' But I'll gamble on it; I'll tell her. I promised Mrs. Houghton I would," Then, very anxiously, he tried to decide how he should do it; "I must choose just the ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... speak what was in her mind. The substance was that Mr. Framtree had lasted much longer than most, therefore he must be a very great artist with the cards. Many men had come with fortunes to The Pleiad, and most of them were ready to gamble with her lord, who invariably got their money in the end. It was not only the money, but he had a vast pride in his mastery, and in the house he had built. It was not possible for him to continue to lose any length of time. Then Senora Rey informed me that ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... times, the Mexicans used to travel hundreds of miles, and bring their money with them in order to squander it at their favorite game of monte. Not only this fact is true, but men will often sell themselves into the slavery of debt in order to satisfy their craving desire to gamble. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... day the fate of the rest of Vandover's little money was decided. In two weeks he had lost twenty dollars at bagatelle, obtaining the money by selling a portion of his bonds at a certain broker's on Montgomery Street. As soon as he had begun to gamble again the old habits of extravagance had come back upon him. From the moment he knew that he could get all the money he wanted by the mere signing of a paper, he ceased to be economical, scorning the former niggardliness that had led him to starve on one day that he might ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... the Robbin-Steele plants did better last season than they ever did. I'm sure the Abbotts made money last year. If the banks have lost faith in your business ability, I—well, I should consider you a bad risk, Horace. I can't afford to gamble." ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Gamble. Under the Circumstances, he didn't see that there was anything for Ferdinand to do except mop up a few Drinks and ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... was a free lance—living the devil knows how—always dressed like a fashion-plate of the plains in high-heeled boots, wide felt hat, flowing necktie, flannel shirt and velvet trousers. They say that he did not gamble more than was common among the sporting men of his class, and that he never worked. Sometimes we heard of him adventuring as a land dealer, sometimes as a cattleman, sometimes as a mining promoter, sometimes as a horseman, but always as the sharper, who rides ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... collecting tours, and reflected that every brutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was allowed by our laws to become absolute despot of as many men, women and children, as he could cheat, steal, or gamble money enough to buy,—when I have seen such men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and women,—I have been ready to curse my country, to ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... up a four in this house," said Lovell. "We three and the Caterpillar. He plays, I know. The Colonel is one of the cracks at the Turf. It would be an awful lark. A mild gamble: small points—eh? A bob a hundred. What ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... at length were played for a slight stake. To participate in this Thomas refused, on the plea that he did not know enough of the games to risk anything. He had not the moral courage to declare that he considered it wrong to gamble. ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various
... labored. "There was a fiesta—and a wedding. I do fool things when I'm drunk. I made a fool bet I'd marry the first girl who came to town.... If you hadn't worn that veil—the fellows were joshing me—and Ed Linton was getting married—and everybody always wants to gamble.... I ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... "And I'll gamble ten cents that you kissed him back. That's Natural Selection, if I know anything about it. Niti, if that man—and he is a man—doesn't get killed in a fight, he'll marry you in spite of all the misguided scientific ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... turned again to Ford, scowling at the group and at life in general, while the snow melted upon his broad shoulders and trickled in little, hurrying drops down to the nearest jumping-off place. "Come, drownd your sorrer," Bill advised amiably. "Nobody said nothing but Sammy, and I'll gamble he wishes he hadn't, now." If his counsel was vicious, his smile was engaging—which does not, in this instance, ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... ready to be launched the French were eager to gamble, first, that our dough-boys could not take the "untakable," and second, that if by any miraculous procedure they succeeded in breaking the German line, they could not hold what they had taken. This did not mean that they doubted the courage ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... broken-winded horse; though usually, when they are declared unsound, or when their constitution is so broken that their recovery is despaired of, they are exported to New Orleans, to drag out the remainder of their days in the cane-field and sugar house. I would not insinuate that all planters gamble upon their crops; but I mention the practice as one of the common inducements to 'push niggers.' Neither would I assert that all planters drive the hands to the injury of their health. I give it as a general rule in the district of Middle Florida, and I have no reason to think ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "Sweet an' pretty as a columbine. But I'd like her better if she was dressed decent." And a gaunt range rider, who stood with others at the porch door, looking on, asked a comrade: "Do you reckon that's style back East?" To which the other replied: "Mebbe, but I'd gamble they're short on silk back East an' ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... agency, but it has certainly done a great deal to light up the dark corners of China, morally as well as physically, by providing the people with a cheap way of lighting their houses. Formerly when darkness fell, there was nothing to do but gamble and smoke. Now the industrious Chinese can ply his trade ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... of being able to recover the purchase price. If luck is with him, he may get a good ship and cargo cheap, but if fortune frowns and a storm breaks her up before he can save the cargo, then he suffers a heavy loss. It's a good business, but a big gamble." ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... companions. "One is across the Falling Wall and over the Reservation. If they've gone that way they've got a start; but they're easy to trail. The other way would be to strike east or west for the railroad. That's the big gamble—it's the easiest to play and the worst if ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... dizzy altitudes up in the sky. He was the first to demonstrate the possibility of "looping the loop" thousands of feet from the earth; many have done the trick since, but for the pioneer it was a pure gamble with almost certain death. Even into the serious business of war Pegoud carried his freak aeronautics, though it must be added that his remarkable skill in that direction had enabled him to escape from many a perilous ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... Nature's favourite haunts, from the numbers of people who come here to worship her, especially on Bank Holidays. Those are her high festivals, when her adorers troop down, and build booths and whirligigs and circuses in her honour, and gamble, and ride donkeys, and shy sticks at cocoanuts before her. Also they partake of sandwiches and many other appropriate offerings at the shrine, and pour libations of bottled ale, and nectar, and zoedone, and brandy, and soda-water, and ginger-beer. They always leave the ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... trembling at every rise and fall in his investments. "Cursed bet!" muttered the old man, clutching his head in despair "Why didn't the man die? He is only forty now. He will take my last penny from me, he will marry, will enjoy life, will gamble on the Exchange; while I shall look at him with envy like a beggar, and hear from him every day the same sentence: 'I am indebted to you for the happiness of my life, let me help you!' No, it is too much! The one means of being saved ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... lean head shook. "I'm far from sure. It's a wild gamble at best, but we can't be any worse off than we are now. If the priests win out, we're sunk and no mistake about it; but there's a fighting chance my idea could be ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... makes even the lion-tamer fearless: these invalids buy their course tickets, entitling to cure, concert and ecarte; and they bathe and gamble and engulf their deadly draughts with the immunity of ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... Louisiana. I'm eighty-one years old. My parents and four children was sold and left six children behind. They kept the oldest children. In that way I was sold but never alone. Our family was divided and that brought grief to my parents. We was sold on a block at New Orleans. J.J. Gambol (Gamble?) in north Louisiana bought us. After freedom I seen all but one of our family. I don't recollect why ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... new associates and under the new influences began to drink and gamble. With his companions on Saturday and Sunday he would ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... why the brother of a marquis shouldn't turn thief as well as anybody else. They say he hasn't got anything of his own;—and I suppose that is what makes men steal other people's property. Peers go into trade, and peeresses gamble on the Stock Exchange. Peers become bankrupt, and the sons of peers run away;—just like other men. I don't see why all enterprises should not be open to them. But to think of that little purring cat, Lady Eustace, having been so very—very clever! ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... not stop the fascinating gamble for empire. It only added one more move to the possible complexities of the game. The lesser players had their chance. They intrigued and they fought. Egypt, the last remaining civilized state outside of Rome, was drawn into the whirlpool also.[20] Cleopatra ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... of school; ha, ha! Let's drink, gents. Gamble? Lord bless you, it's common as dish-water down there—I've played euchre for hours with old Tom Benton, Harry Clay and Gen. Scott, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the old man clutching his head in despair... "Why didn't the man die? He's only forty years old. He will take away my last farthing, marry, enjoy life, gamble on the Exchange, and I will look on like an envious beggar and hear the same words from him every day: 'I'm obliged to you for the happiness of my life. Let me help you.' No, it's too much! The only escape from bankruptcy and disgrace—is that the ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... right, young gentleman," answered the other, approvingly. "But there are some prudent gentry even at Crompton, I suppose. Parson Whymper, for instance, he don't gamble, do he?" ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... & Co. I made money, and was saving of what I earned. I did not gamble. I took good care of myself, and, having the respect of every person, I admit I was quite vain and proud. I was accused by the gamblers of being stingy with my money. So I thought I would do as others did, and commenced to give money to others ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... all right for beginners," he said. "But I'd like to talk a really big gamble. Why don't we go to your ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... the Reindeer stamping on the roof; and when a spear was thrust out into the open black night it came back covered with hot blood. He wanted to throw his big boots into the net with the tired air of the head of a family, and to gamble with the hunters when they dropped in of an evening and played a sort of home-made roulette with a tin pot and a nail. There were hundreds of things that he wanted to do, but the grown men laughed at him and said, ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... or the sham pearls. I should be more likely to try and steal some real ones! No, but I mean really girls like me—rich girls, though of course I'm not rich—but you understand? Do you know any girls who gamble and paint—their faces I mean—and let men lend them money, ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to. A gal as attractive, vivacious, and clever as you are, would have to marry—in self-defense, if for no other reason. Marriage need not interfere. It might help. With that hazard and gamble out of the way, it would allow you to expand your talents in planning, executing, and managing in any ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... Hothampton Place and several other terraces in what is now the centre of modern Bognor quickly appeared. A determined attempt to change the name to Hothampton failed, and as soon as the speculator died, his gamble a personal failure, the town reverted to ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... made sure of scooping; and, for that matter, I make sure of it still. But whatever you do, don't begin to preach about the evils of gambling—not now, Collins; not till after we get news of these events. Doesn't everybody gamble, from the Governor downward—bar you, and a couple or three more sanctimonious old hypocrites, with one foot in the grave, and the other in the devil's mouth? Why, Nosey Alf is the only fellow on this station ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... resent it, which humanity will not do. This was Pope's method. It was a corrupt set amongst whom he moved. The gambling in the South Sea stock had been prodigious, and high and low, married and single, town and country, Protestant and Catholic, Whig and Tory, took part in it. One could gamble in that stock. The mania began in February 1720, and by the end of May the price of 100 pounds stock was up to 340 pounds. In July and August it was 950 pounds, and even touched, 1,000 pounds. In the middle of September it was down to 590 pounds, and before the end of the year it had ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... leap or two, and goes on feeding, the little inhabitant of its pouch stretching its head farther out, tasting the grass its mother is eating, and evidently debating whether or not it is safe to venture out of its resting place and gamble about amongst the green ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... to take it as a matter of course that he should speculate and gamble at cards, and indeed do anything and everything he fancied, but they beg him at least to keep to respectable clubs. He is constantly away. His daughter tries to tempt him home with the bloom of her hyacinths. 'How they long to see him again!' ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... and then ye will understand what manner of man in his walk and conversation we are harboring beneath our roof. For a' he look so grand and carries his head so high, he has little gold in his purse, but the black devil of greed is in his heart. So, like the lave of the gallants that drink and gamble and do waur things at the king's court, he has been hunting for some lass that will bring him a tocher (dowry) and a title. For this is what the men of his generation are ever needing. Ye follow ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... the Shastas ... frequently sell their children as slaves to the Chinooks."[130] Bancroft says of the Columbians: "Affection for children is by no means rare, but in few tribes can they resist the temptation to sell or gamble them away."[131] Descent through mothers is in force among the negroes of equatorial Africa, the man's property passing to his sister's children; but the father is an unlimited despot, and no one ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... hit she'd ha' bin black an' dead. Why, she—she ain't even brown. She's white as white." His voice became softer, and he was no longer addressing the ex-Churchman. "Did y' ever see sech skin—so soft an' white? An' that ha'r, my word! I'd gamble a dollar her eyes is blue—ef ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... name, and had he occasionally—not overdoing it—enjoyed a sober evening. All I wish to impress is, that virtue is not the road to success—of the kind we are dealing with. We must find other reasons for being virtuous; maybe, there are some. The truth is, life is a gamble pure and simple, and the rules we lay down for success are akin to the infallible systems with which a certain class of idiot goes armed each season to Monte Carlo. We can play the game with coolness and judgment, ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... my lad, because you're a Johnny Newcome. I'll tell you. We've got some of the most blackguardly scum that could be took off the top of the big town sink-holes—men who've come to rob and gamble; but we've got, too, plenty of sturdy fellows like yourselves, who mean work and who trust one another—men who'll help each other at a pinch; and I've heard that there's a sort of lawyer fellow they call ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... Kid, who had strolled up to take part in the general conversation. "He couldn't do it at th' river end of th' pipe, without bein' found out, and he hasn't been around here, I'll gamble on that—not since we started ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... stories is a very good illustration of the way in which a great many people read. The notion comes into people's lives that the mere process of reading is itself virtuous. Because young men who read instead of gamble are known to be "steadier" than the gamblers, and because children who read on Sunday make less noise and general row than those who will play tag in the neighbors' front-yards, there has grown up this notion, that to read is in itself one of the ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... mistaken. You were not selected on any such grounds as she suggests. I may say that I was astonished at the readiness with which you all engaged yourselves to take part in such a desperate gamble; and, seeing that for the last four years I have been trying to persuade you that it is worth while, before making a decision of any importance, to spend a certain amount of thought on it, I was discouraged ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... "You can so gamble it was crooked," the little man averred. "Them Centipede fellers never done nothin' on the square. They got Humpy Joe, and fixed it for him to lose so they could get that talkin'-machine. ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... of indulging in their favourite pastime, gambling. To this vice, all classes are passionately addicted; and nothing is more common than to see a gang of coolies sit down in the middle of the road, and gamble for hours on the few pieces they may have just earned for having carried a heavy burthen a couple of miles. The inhabitants of the districts in which the coercion I speak of has been put in force, are now better satisfied with their rulers than ever ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... 'Lord' Bill. Yes, you are right, Lablache does not look very amiable. I think this would be a good opportunity to suggest a little gamble in ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... perceive how very still and very small, all but inaudible, the still, small voice can be. A moment comes when one ceases to think—one wills, and if one is able and the will is sufficiently determined, the purpose is carried into effect. Temptations to steal, to lie, to deceive, to gamble, to excess in drink and the like cannot approach a certain order of mind. But the craving for knowledge and a fuller life—either in a spiritual or the human way—is implanted ineradicably in every soul, and while it may rest inert and seem nullified ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... the remotest idea of the resources at the command of the Committee, or who did not stop to think of what might have happened had Johannesburg been depleted of its armed force, and so left at the mercy of a few hundred Boers. There were always, as there will always be, men prepared for any reckless gamble, but this course was most earnestly considered time after time by the Committee when some fresh suggestion or development seemed to warrant a reconsideration of the decision already arrived at not to attempt any aggressive measures. Finally the ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... to do what I declared three years ago I never would do, and that I have refused to do ever since—loan a man money with which to gamble or pay gambling debts. I need this money, Willett, to send home. I've been saving and sending home ever since I joined, but that's not why I won't play—and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... gamble out of business. They help to put and maintain business on a sound basis. That some people who have no real interest in the commodity use the exchange speculatively does not alter ...
— About sugar buying for Jobbers - How you can lessen business risks by trading in refined sugar futures • B. W. Dyer
... the company of capitalists, to enlist their support and confidence. There was something in this so unlike their father, that what at any other time they would have hailed as a relief to his habitual abstraction now half alarmed them. Yet he was not dissipated—he did not drink nor gamble. There certainly did not seem any harm in his frequenting the society of ladies, with a gallantry that appeared to be forced and a pleasure that to their critical eyes was certainly apocryphal. He did not drag ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... Maybe not," admitted the elder. "Though I wouldn't gamble strong on some of 'em. But ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hills in huge casks on wheels. The precious fluid is distributed in five-gallon tin buckets, borne on a yoke by the dealer, who gets a dollar for two bucketfuls. No one finds time to dig for water. All have leisure to drink, dance, and gamble. They face every disease, danger, and hardship. They breast the grizzly-bear-haunted canyons in search of gold. No one will seek for water. It is the only luxury. The incoming and outgoing merchandise moves only a few rods from the narrow level city front. At ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... the army. Whereas, on the eve of the advance, the ruling parties told us that we were an insignificant gang and that the army had never heard of us and would not have anything to do with us, now, when the gamble of the drive had ended so disastrously, these same persons and parties laid the whole blame for its failure on our shoulders. The prisons were crowded with revolutionary workers and soldiers. All the old legal bloodhounds of Czarism were employed in ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... feel snowed-in. Locals had writ himself dry, Hammy was tired of listenin' to himself, besides havin' chilblains up to his knees, an' I was half crazy, 'count of havin' nothing to read. We didn't have a nickle between us, so we couldn't gamble, an' I resigned my mind that when spring climbed up the trail the 'd be two corpses an' one maniac in that ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... going, but Courtlandt asked me to go with him, and I never thought of my shoes. You are always finding fault with me these days. I don't drink, I don't gamble, I don't run around after other women; I never did. But since you've got this social bug in your bonnet, you keep me on hooks all the while. Nobody noticed the shoe-strings; and they would have looked upon it as a joke if they had. After all, I'm the boss of ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... little uncomfortably. "Forty per cent. That's usual. If he's going to gamble somewhere I might as well be ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... A gamble even more reprehensible was that of the steamship companies, who had grown so sure their ships would not sink that they no longer provided sufficient means of escape from them. Why load a vessel down with useless life-boats, which only ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... "Those dark, unholy bonds of thine— "If you'll only consent to buy up mine!" The Ghost of Miltiades came once more;— His brow like the night was lowering o'er, And he said, with a look that flasht dismay, "Of Liberty's foes the worst are they, "Who turn to a trade her cause divine, "And gamble for gold on Freedom's shrine!" Thus saying, the Ghost, as he took his flight, Gave a Parthian kick to the Benthamite, Which sent him, whimpering, off to Jerry— And vanisht away to ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... from him, more often in elaborately embroidered rumour from men making long trips across the country. He had gone to work for a cattle outfit, taking a dollar a day and doing an ordinary cowboy's work. Even before he was twenty-one, men called him Red Reckless. He had learned to gamble, and to gamble for big stakes. He played poker; he took his chance with the "bank"; but he loved the dice. They were quicker; a man could "make or break" at one throw. It was his way to hazard everything on a throw, to laugh if he won, to laugh if ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... that the line following the Chambly Canal and then crossing to Lake St. Louis near Caughnawaga, is that which combines and affords in the greatest degree all the advantages contemplated by this improvement, and which has been approved by Messrs. Mills, Swift, and Gamble.' ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... in your favor. And you and Grimes are planning to gamble on it, and to make a great ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair
... gentleman on trust and expected to live up to it. Think how it cramps one's style, not to mention limiting one's choice of real estate. A gentleman may stake his future happiness and his hope of a home on the toss of a coin, but he mustn't presume to want to see the other party to the gamble again, even if she's the only thing in the whole sweep of his horizon worth seeing. Is that fair? Where is Eternal Justice, I ask ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... held together and got rich—fair rich. They made it so fast they couldn't even gamble the stuff away. About a thousand times, I guess posses went out after Piotto, but they never came back with a trace of 'em; they never got within shootin' distance. Finally Piotto got so confident that he started raidin' ranches and carryin' off members of well-off ranchers to hold ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... drifting rapidly into the bay. It was the first uprush of the strong rising tide, and they might yet be carried to a deep-water landing. The play of hope and fear made the remaining hours an agony of suspense. What would be the end of it all seemed a mere gamble. Every mark on the approaching shore was now familiar to them. It had become, they knew well enough, a question of life or death where the drifting boat would touch the strand. Now it seemed impossible that she should clear the shallow ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... match," grinned Carry-on-Merry. "Gamble, Grin, Grub, and myself upon one side, against ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... mercy and love, but God will some day give you ten and you will have to return an hundred fold. He has given the ten to Gregory Goodloe, and now is the night of his despair, but his morning will dawn. You can't dance down and drink down and gamble down and lust down a man like that. He can bide his time until his sheep come to the fold to be fed and warmed ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... perhaps," answered the stout countess, growing more and more vague. "They are all to be pitied, you know. What is to become of young men brought up in that way? The club, the turf, the card-table—to drink, to gamble, to bet, it is ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... young Canadian habitant was left in Pierre La Marche. He spoke mountain English and French patois with equal fluency. There was a decision of character about him that commanded the respect of his comrades. When the other trappers went to St. Louis, they used to drink and gamble away their hard-won dollars, few of these men caring for anything beyond the indulgence of immediate fancies. But Pierre was ambitious, and thought that money might be made subservient to his aspirations in a better way than speculating with it upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... This promptness took him by surprise. He felt called upon to explain, to excuse her acceptance. "I am taking a little flyer—making a gamble," said he. "Your father may turn up nothing of commercial value. Again the company ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... anything that excites me, and I can drink with any man in town. But I have never been drunk, Stephen, you understand that. Then I like all kinds of gaiety, and like to spend all my time dancing and laughing, and what your friend Talbot calls 'fooling.' And I gamble," Katrine paused a second before she said the decisive words, and then went on rapidly, "oh, Stephen, you don't know, I haven't told you, but I love the tables. I can sit up all night and play with the boys; I love excitement, ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... Hop-culture is a gamble which in Otsego county has made fortunes for some farmers and brought ruin to others. The growth of the product is singularly at the mercy of freaks of weather, and its preparation for the market is beset by many possibilities of failure. ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... to a man of any age, in my opinion, life without money isn't worth much; it becomes worth still less when he is held to account for money he ought to have. So I cheerfully entered upon my biggest gamble, holding the stake of life well risked. My pleasure in the affair was only marred by the enforced partnership of McGregor. There was no help for this, but I knew he wasn't much fonder of me than I of him, and ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... simply, "that was only part. It did not seem right that Gregory should go against Wyllard's wishes, and gamble the Range away ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... unscrupulous leader in the state. His personal habits were simple and clean to the point of aceticism. His political enemies declared in disgust that he had no redeeming vices. He was a teetotaler, and yet the champion of the saloon and the idol of the saloon-keepers' association. He did not smoke or gamble, and was never known to call on a woman ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... throughout the Philippines as baseball is in the United States, finds its most enthusiastic devotees among the Moros, every community in the Sulu islands having its cockpit and its fighting birds, on whose prowess the natives gamble with reckless abandon. Gambling is, indeed, the raison d'etre of cockfighting in Moroland, for, as the birds are armed with four-inch spurs of razor sharpness, and as one or both birds are usually killed within a few minutes after they are tossed into the pit, very little sport ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... none, and my father read no books except such as dealt with things spiritual, or things commercial. At my aunt's, and in the society I saw at her house, there were men and women who loved to dance, gamble, and amuse themselves. The talk was of bets, racing, and the like. To be drunk was a thing to be expected of officers and gentlemen. To avenge an insult with sword or pistol was the only way to deal with it. My father was a passive Tory, my aunt a furious Whig. What wonder that I fell ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... In reply—"No: Iemon was cheated by Kondo[u] and Cho[u]bei. A plain woman—perhaps; but a monster, a worse than rokurokubi, was never thought of even in a dream. Compensation is to be found. Iemon likes gambling. He will gamble. Have a care to supply the needed funds; and don't interfere." Roughly he shoved her out of the ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... about them, but I'll gamble that they are the kind of people that have pictures of the family and wreaths in the parlor. They looked fine and daisy last night, though. Probably the grape. My girl's name was Estelle. Wouldn't that scald you? Estelle handed me a lot of talk about having seen ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... into two factions, which waged a bitter controversy with each other. General Curtis, commander of the military district comprising Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas, was at the head of one faction, while Governor Gamble led the other. Their differences were a source of great embarrassment to the Government at Washington, and of harm to the Union cause. The President was in constant receipt of remonstrances and protests from the contesting parties, to one of which he ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... another for nominal sums in what was called "college paper." We had class hours, indeed, in the morning, when we studied German, French, book-keeping, and the like goodly matters; but the bulk of our day and the gist of the education centred in the exchange, where we were taught to gamble in produce and securities. Since not one of the participants possessed a bushel of wheat or a dollar's worth of stock, legitimate business was of course impossible from the beginning. It was cold-drawn gambling, without colour or disguise. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne |
