"Loafer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cried. "It's simply disgraceful. Brawling in public like any saloon loafer, and getting in jail and all. Haven't you any consideration for ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... to a large extent their own masters, and work without being driven by the contractor's foreman. They are not encouraged to work more than eight hours a day; but as what they get depends on what they do, they do not dawdle during those hours, and if one man in a group should prove a loafer, his comrades, who have to suffer for his laziness, soon get rid of him. The tendency is for first-class men to join together, and for second-class men to similarly arrange themselves. Sometimes, of course, the officers, in ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Their course of life leads to miserable results. Upon reaching the age of seventeen or eighteen the bootblack generally abandons his calling, and as he is unfit for any other employment by reason of his laziness and want of skill, be becomes a loafer, a bummer, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... most fortunately raised me out of the position of a mere lodger, a household excrescence, tolerated only for the sake of certain shillings a week. It has provided me with a niche of my own, which I occupy—at sea the mate on a mackerel hooker, on shore a loafer 'ready to lend a hand,' and in the house a sort of male Cinderella. It is far pleasanter, I find, to be a small wheel in the machine than to remain seated on a mound of pounds, shillings and pence—beflunkeyed, as ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... to be ambitious, my son. I would not have you otherwise. Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on the highway of life—a mere loafer by the wayside—slothful, indolent—slipping easily, as the years go, into the most despicable of places—the place of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the multitude ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... found out now what to call you," cried the same Mihalevitch, at three o'clock in the morning. "You are not a sceptic, nor a pessimist, nor a Voltairean, you are a loafer, and you are a vicious loafer, a conscious loafer, not a simple loafer. Simple loafers lie on the stove and do nothing because they don't know how to do anything; they don't think about anything either, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... a recent novel, 'The Wrecker,' makes the unaccountable mistake of confounding the unemployed Domain loafer with the larrikin. This only shows that Mr. Stevenson during his brief visits to Sydney acquired but a superficial knowledge of the underlying currents of ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... them. Fine clothes were at a discount. He was looked upon as a tender-foot who knew nothing about the gold regions. But a flannel-shirted, roughly-dressed miner was the lion. He could tell something about the gold regions. The governor appointed a loafer fellow, in the early days, Port Warden. Nobody wanted it, and he was indorsed by one firm. As the city grew very rapidly the office soon became valuable. Somebody told the governor what kind of a man he had appointed Port Warden, and the governor wrote him a letter requesting ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... west. I had endeavoured to add to our company but without success. The caravan had cleared Van Buren of its unemployed population; and not an idler remained—at least not one who felt inclined to adventure with us. Even the needy "loafer" could not be induced to try the trip—deeming ours too dangerous an expedition. To say the least, it was reckless enough; but impelled by motives far more powerful than the thirst of gold, my comrade and I entered upon our journey with scarce a thought about its perils. The only addition ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... would have recognized in the whiskered blear-eyed, stumbling creature an educated Englishman of more than middle-class extraction. In drink an extraordinary thing occurred. He then became sober, knew himself, and quoted from the classics; when sober, he was the sullen loafer, the unmannerly cad, and his service as guide alone redeemed him from starvation and neglect. Ringfield, who had seen him, as he supposed, drunk on the Saturday afternoon when Miss Clairville's departure had been made known, concluded to call upon him at his shack a few days later, and was ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... Besides, it stank of bleach water all day. No, he was just growing old; he'd have given ten years of his life just to go see how the fortifications were getting along. He kept going on about his fate. It wasn't right, what had happened to him. A good worker like him, not a loafer or a drunkard, he could have ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... disqualification. By that Act we have rescued the aged from the Poor Law. We have yet to rescue the children; we have yet to distinguish effectively between the bona fide unemployed workman and the mere loafer and vagrant; we have yet to transfer the sick, the inebriate, the feeble-minded and the totally demoralised to authorities specially concerned in their management ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... discordant acids shall have ripened in the sunshine and the rain, who shall tell how good the fruit may be? We may laugh, however, at Albert, and his school that was to be. I do not doubt that even that visionary street-loafer known to the Athenians as Sokrates, was funny to those who looked at him from a great ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... the heart of the great silver and gold bearing regions of Arizona, and it was exceedingly difficult to prevent the boys from loading themselves with specimens of the many ores offered for sale, by every loafer, greaser, and Indian, that we met ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... put them into a shaking hand the match went out, and the loafer noiselessly melted away into the soft and ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... a male cousin had died raving mad, a female cousin had died in an asylum, a great-uncle on the maternal side had been crazy and had committed suicide; another cousin was weak-minded and subject to fits; another, a deaf-mute, had died in an asylum; another great-uncle was a drunkard and a loafer; one sister was an idiot, the other had run away from home, and a brother ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... frill shirt on every day. A Whig, Sir,' says he, 'is a gentleman every other inch of him, and he puts an onfrilled one on every other day. A Radical, Sir, ain't no gentleman at all, and he only puts one on of a Sunday. But a Chartist, Sir, is a loafer; he never puts one on till the old one won't hold together no longer, and drops off ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... sent the men because he did not feel strong enough to defy Peking altogether, because failure to help the court would [Page 240] have excited popular reprobation, and also in order to get rid of a considerable part of the dangerous 'loafer' class. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... asked one student after another what kind of an operation he would perform. The peasant misunderstood it altogether, and as he was half stupefied he cried out involuntarily: "The old donkey is asking one loafer after another what to do. Nobody knows anything, and yet they are ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... had dallied through breakfast that particular morning he sat about. Once he had pictured sitting about reading travel-books as a perfect occupation. But it concealed no exciting little surprises when he could be a Sunday loafer on any plain Monday. Furthermore, Goaty never made his bed till noon, and the gray-and-brown-patched coverlet seemed to trail all about ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... a rare lot of I-talians in my time," said Stump. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he was some loafer I'd helped across a ship's gangway at ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... an' some of th' border riffraff idears 'bout takin' over. But mosta us now ain't wavin' no flag. Iffen Kitchell has got him some diehards backin' him—" Nye shrugged again. "Git 'long there, you knock-kneed, goat-headed wagon-loafer!" He pushed on to ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... my servant had summoned me into the drawing-room on a false alarm; or that some loafer had tried to call on Strickland, and thinking better of it had fled after giving his name. Strickiand ordered dinner, without comment, and since it was a real dinner with a white tablecloth attached, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... son," murmured Father Dominic. "What means this unaccustomed dress? One would think you dwelt in the City of Mexico. You are unshaven—you resemble a loafer in cantinas. That sombrero is, perhaps, fit for a bandit like Pancho Villa, but, my son, you are an American gentleman. Your beloved grandfather and your equally beloved father never assumed ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... not quite an agreeable person to live with. Still, I hardly feel that I have treated you just right in this matter. I shouldn't have deceived you about the studio. When I found that I couldn't bear to give up my work and live like a loafer on your money, I should have told you so outright. I haven't liked it, Sir, all this dodging and twisting of the truth. I'm glad it's over. Would you prefer to have us go tonight ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... went on, "is a friend of Miss Masters and it was through her that he first heard of the Lady Hyacinths. He was an idler then. A shiftless, worthless loafer, but the Lady Hyacinths made a man of him and he's gone out and ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... a loafer, but I've been a gentleman, and I know better than to intrude without a good cause. The cause is a dying man. He's as rough and worthless as I am, but all the roughness has gone out of him, just now, and he's thinking about ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... will was dated July 1, 1913. It was witnessed by Philo Gubb and Max Bilton. The Judge knew both witnesses. Gubb was the eccentric paper-hanger who thought he was a detective because he had taken a correspondence course, and Bilton was a jaundiced loafer, commonly called Mustard. The good old man sighed and was about to put the will back in the envelope when he noticed three letters at the bottom of the sheet. They were "P.T.O." Now "P.T.O." is an English abbreviation that means "Please Turn ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... you manager of all my estates. Gad! I'd be glad of an honest one! The last time I went to England, that devil, Tom Collins, drank every bottle of my best port, smashed my furniture, broke the wind of every horse I had, and kept open house for every scamp and loafer on the Island, or that came to port. How old are you—twelve? I'll turn everything over to you in three years. You've more sense now than any boy I ever saw. Three years hence, if you continue to improve, you'll be a man, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... worker who wears it will not dare to show his face among decent working people. Honor the uniform! Honor that which gives a free license to kill, if the victim happens to be a worker? Honor that which stands for oppression, for the loafer against the worker, for the master against the slave? Honor that which causes a worker to become a traitor to his class, to forget his ties of blood, and for pay to deliver himself over body and soul to his natural enemy, the capitalist class? ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... did not seem surprised at this request, and he gave over the money to the young loafer, with the words, "When I promise, I pay down on the nail; but remember Toto Chupin, you'll come to grief one day. Good-night. Our ways lie in ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... know, Judge," he said, "that I have anything to say in my own behalf. I guess what the gentleman said about me is all there is to say. I am a back number, I am out of date; I was a loafer and a blackguard. He told you I had no part or parcel in this city, or in this world; that I belonged to the past; that I ought to be dead. Now that's not so. I have just one thing that belongs to this city, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... all that great stretch of country; suppose Esau and I were lost in the woods, to starve to death, or drowned in the river, and so on, and so on; till toward morning sleep would come, and I began dreaming about that long-haired dark Yankee loafer, who had got hold of me, and was banging my head against the ground, and trying to kill me, till I opened my eyes the next morning and ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... I'm not the only loafer here, it seems," added Bannon, nodding toward where the indistinct figures of a man and a woman could be seen coming slowly toward them along the narrow strip of wharf between the building and the water. "Never mind," he added, as ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... H. Both parents were living. The father was a loafer. Nine brothers and sisters were said to be well, with the exceptions of one brother who had an irritable temper, and of a markedly ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... coach will reach the town And they'll all come out, every loafer grown A lion to handcuff a man that's down. What's that? Oh, the coachman's bulleted hat! I'll give it a head to fit it pat. ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... must have run these worthies a close second. He had not been a specially good "hand" before the war, and was generally on unfriendly terms with the overseers. They used to say that he was a "slick-tongued loafer," and "the laziest nigger on the place." But Jabe declared, in defiance, that he had been on the plantation before any overseer ever put his foot there, and he would outstay the last one of them all, which, ...
— Old Jabe's Marital Experiments - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... and rascals of whatever degree, they were utterly worthless as soldiers. There may have been in the Army some habitual corner loafer, some fistic champion of the bar-room and brothel, some Terror of Plug Uglyville, who was worth the salt in the hard tack he consumed, but if there were, I did not form his acquaintance, and I never heard of any one else who ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... tie you up to a tree and lash you!" said Isom, jerking angrily at his horse. "I don't know what ever made me pity your mother and keep her out of the poorhouse by takin' in a loafer ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... days that child's gone without eating," he said, with keen self-reproach, "and here you've let her suffer to save yourself a trip to the Island. You're a hulking big loafer, you are," he ran on, muttering, "and after her coming to you and taking notice of you and putting her face to yours like an angel." He slipped off his shoes and picked his way cautiously ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... When a loafer of this sort finds that he can get nothing more out of you, he moves his family and goods to some other part of the country; he then begins the old game with somebody else, borrowing a sovereign off you for the expense of ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... best things on earth, just to chuck it all and go back to a lot of useless rot about the number of wives the kings of Judah used to have, or how some two-faced Hebrew woman laid traps for some wine-soaked Philistine brute, and stuck the rotten loafer in the back with a kitchen knife all for the pleasure and glory of a righteous God! I don't want any more of it, Belle; I won't go! You've told me often enough that my instincts are better than my judgment, and my ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... south then. What about English wateringplaces? Brighton, Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely seaside girls. Against John Long's a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Handy man wants job. Small ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... at the entrance to a theater, or in the victim's bed. If the assassin is arrested the society furnishes witness to prove an alibi and money to retain a lawyer. Another favorite pastime of the Highbinder who is usually a loafer, is to levy blackmail on a wealthy Chinaman. If the sum demanded is not paid the victim's life is not worth 30 cents. One of the famous victims of the Highbinders in recent years in San Francisco was "Little Pete," a Chinaman who was ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... have made a great jock, Little Woman;" the father went on, musingly, as he watched the horses lining up for the start. "Men think if a boy is a featherweight, and tough as a Bowery loafer, he's sure to be a success in the saddle. That's what beats me—a boy of that sort wouldn't be trusted to carry a letter with ten dollars in it, and on the back of a good horse he's, piloting thousands. Unless a jockey has the instincts of a gentleman, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... Mrs. Trapes emphatically. "Hermy's ma were a lady, same as Hermy is; so were her pa, I mean a gentleman, of course. But Hermy's father died, an' then her ma, poor soul, goes an' marries a good-lookin' loafer way beneath her, a man as weren't fit to black her shoes, let alone take 'em off! And Arthur's his father's child. Oh, a good enough b'y as b'ys go, but wild, now and then, and rough, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... before the Elders" beautiful! composition charming! Rembrandt, old pal,—I congratulate you! But where's the picture of it? "Oh where, and oh where!" Rembrandt, you're developing into a thorough-paced loafer. You always had a talent that way, but of late you've broken your own record. I'll turn over a new leaf; I will, I'll be a new man. Why not? We've the new woman; why not the new man? Excellent idea. Rembrandt Tempenny, the new man—the coming man—by George the GREAT man! I'm in earnest, ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... morning he was coming down the steps of the bank in Marlehouse and saw Grantly on horseback waiting at the curb till someone should turn up to hold his horse while he went in. He had ridden in to cash a cheque for his mother. The main street was very empty and no available loafer was to ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... you want to know how Drink really acts on the inner life of this nation you must actually live among the forlorn folk who drink Circe's draught, and you must live as their equal, their friend, their confidant. I am a Loafer, and not one of the gang at The Chequers would ever dream of regarding me as anything but an equal. My friend Donkey Perkins, the fighting man, curses me with perfect affability and I am on easy terms with about one hundred costermongers. If a "gentleman" went among ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... am I, Miss McQuinch? A worker. I belonged and belong to the class that keeps up the world by its millions of serviceable hands and serviceable brains. All the pride of caste in me settles on that point. I admit no loafer as my equal. The man who is working at the bench is my equal, whether he can do my day's work or not, provided he is doing the best he can. But the man who does not work anyhow, and the class that does not work, is a class below mine. When I annoyed Marian ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... here again got hold of him, and excess ruined his constitution. On his leave he had married, and on his discharge joined his wife in Birmingham. For some time he worked as sweeper in the market, but two years ago deserted his wife and family, and came to London, settled down to a loafer's life, lived on the streets with Casual Wards for his home. Eventually came to Whitechapel Shelter, and got saved. He is now a trustworthy, reliable lad; has become reconciled to wife, who came to London to see him, and he bids fair ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... entitled, respectively, "name," "residence," and "occupation." General Grant promptly put down his name and place of residence, but when he came to the "occupation" column he hesitated. "What shall I write here?" he inquired: "loafer?" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... key at the desk the clerk said to me courteously: "If that man Caswell has annoyed you, and if you would like to make a complaint, we will have him ejected. He is a nuisance, a loafer, and without any known means of support, although he seems to have some money most the time. But we don't seem to be able to hit upon any means of throwing ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... butt them when he could, and be ridden by them when he couldn't. He had long since lost his situation at the sheep fold, having proved rather an attraction to dogs, who are fond of low company, than a protection to sheep. Untidy, thriftless, a loafer, kicked and cuffed about by the public and half starved, he presented a pitiable contrast to his wife, neat little lady, who, after her husband had lost his situation, left him and joined a respectable circle of cows and spent her time ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... In the New England States, "ugly" is employed for "ill-natured," and "friends" for "relations." Some of the words in vogue in the Middle States are survivals of the original Dutch colonists—as "boss," an employer or manager, and "loafer," a vagabond. As to the Western States, it has been amusingly observed that "every prominent person has his own private vocabulary." Like the Emperor Sigismund the Great, who was "above grammar," the Western States folk are superior ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... was six feet by one of Indiana loafer, and he spent his time sitting on his shoulder blades in a rocking-chair in the shanty memorialising the great corn-crop failure of '96. Ma Dugan did the cooking, and Mame waited on ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... by desire for walking for mere walking's sake; to him an expedition full of danger and surprises: "The gentleman asleep with one eye open on The Chequer's doorstep! will he greet me with a friendly sniff or try to bite my head off? This cross-eyed, lop-eared loafer, lurching against the lamp-post! shall we pass with a careless wag and a 'how-do,' or become locked in a life and death struggle? Impossible to say. This coming corner, now, 'Ware! Is anybody waiting round there to kill ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... to run a livery stable in Bucharest, Roumania. The guy who stole the diamonds is that fat little loafer Olaf Yensen, the first coachman. I am the second coachman. He must be the guilty one because last week he tried to swipe my best pair of boots ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... their prisoner indoors. Young Kentish recognized him as a public-house loafer and race-course ruffian, well known in ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... will ring the bell, but if you happen to be lying dead in somebody's area, you will be left alone. In this instance as in many others the alarm was raised by some kind of vagabond; I don't mean a common tramp, or a public-house loafer, but a gentleman, whose business or pleasure, or both, made him a spectator of the London streets at five o'clock in the morning. This individual was, as he said, "going home," it did not appear whence or whither, and had occasion to pass through Paul Street between four ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... live in Quonab's lodge without contributing a fair share of the things needful. Quonab got his living partly by hunting, partly by fishing, partly by selling baskets, and partly by doing odd jobs for the neighbours. Rolf's training as a loafer had been wholly neglected, and when he realized that he might be all summer with Quonab he ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... that the time of action is over while that of reminiscence has begun, realise too that the one is pregnant with greater pleasures than the other — that action, indeed, is only the means to an end of reflection and appreciation. Wisest of all, the Loafer stands apart supreme. For he, of one mind with the philosopher as to the end, goes straight to it at once; and his happy summer has accordingly been spent in those subjective pleasures of the mind ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... a weedy loafer with a bottle nose and watery blue eyes, agreed to pull across for threepence; but no sooner were they embarked and on the tide-way, than he lay on his oars and jerked his thumb towards the moving ship. "Make it a crown, ma'am, and ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... nephew, Willie Partridge, whom he looked on as a specious loafer. He had a stubborn disbelief in the explosive that was to revolutionise war. He knew, as all the world did, that Willie's late father had been a great inventor, but he did not accept the fact that Willie ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... "Now, git, you loafer!" he was saying in tones that left no doubt in the minds of his friends that Happy was hot under the ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... would advise you to cut the acquaintance of that precious companion of yours. I gave him a bit of my mind last night, and told him pretty emphatically what I thought of him. Why, man, have you entirely lost possession of your senses, to let a leech like that loafer drain you dry? I will give you this drink now, one after breakfast, and one after dinner; then you must eat something, for I do not believe that during the last three days you have taken enough to keep ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... shouted again, and then, with a jerk to free himself from Muckluck, the Boy turned sharply towards the ighloo, seeming in a bewildered way to be, himself, about to transact this paternal business for the cowardly old loafer. But Muckluck clung to his ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... went off for a week and turned up again without being able to give a satisfactory reason for his absence. After that he drifted from one job to another, now extolled for his "smartness" and business capacity, now dismissed in disgrace as an irresponsible loafer. His head was always full of immense nebulous schemes for the enlargement and development of any business he happened to be employed in. Sometimes his suggestions interested his employers, but proved ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... any fear of him," said he. "George is a gentleman. He still worships you, Lutie,—poor devil. He'll probably drink himself to death because of it, too. Of course you know that he is completely down and out? Little more than a common bum and street loafer." ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... for men who can build us up, not for men whom we can build up. If a wealthy man comes into the neighborhood, we angle for him. If a devout, active, praying Christian moves into the neighborhood, we angle for him. If a drunken loafer drops down upon us, does anybody ever angle for him? If a poor, forlorn widow, who has to work from Monday morning till Saturday night, comes to dwell under the shadow of our church, do we angle for her? Yes! I am glad to believe we do. But the shrewdness, the energy, ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... insincere amusement. "'E was, well—what you might call a rare 'and at Snacks. Said that was the sort of friend 'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said 'e'd naturally expect that from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who took up with daughters who didn't belong to 'im. There! I couldn't tell you 'ARF 'e said. 'E went on most outrageous. I stood up to 'im about it, just to dror 'im out. 'Wouldn't you stick to a 'arf-sov', not if you found it in the ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... ringing in my head to this day, whenever I think of him; and I can repeat them every one. It was some few years after our intimacy had ceased, and when I only knew that he had degenerated into a Fleet Street loafer of the most dilapidated type, that I caught sight of him one day outside a theatre. It was the theatre which was for some years a gold-mine to one Morton Morrison, of whom you may never have heard; but he was a public pet in his day, I can tell you, and his ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Downing was all that a master ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his official dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes. To Mr. Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for the school and apparently had none of the instincts which should be implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... control over herself utterly.] You'll spy on me, will you, you shabby loafer! You'll peep at me while I'm eating my supper, and count the dances I choose to give that boy over there, will you! And then you'll break into my house, and insult my friends behind their backs, and insinuate foul things against my poor old mother— you damned coward!— and ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... asked. "If it's some corner loafer, Edie—" Edith had gained new courage and new facility. Anything was right that drove the tortured ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... watch my interests while I'm away, your mother may have a home for life with me, in charge of my home; and you, you young rascal, I'll push your fortune. So, a shut mouth; look out and don't babble to Lilienthal. He is a chatterer. Timmins, here, is a drunken loafer, and will burn the block up some night, but I need ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... of her own. She was successful for a time, in spite of her husband's growing intemperance and an increasing desire in herself for ease and good living; but deterioration had begun, and with the reappearance of Lantier, her old lover, it became rapid. Coupeau was by this time a confirmed loafer and drunkard, while Gervaise was growing careless and ease-loving. Lantier, having become a lodger with the Coupeaus, ceased doing any work, and as he never paid anything for his board, his presence not unnaturally hastened the downfall of his hosts. ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... is the most insulting thing that has ever happened to me in all my days. "Set free from the labor which all of us have to share!"—What do you think I am—a tramp, or a loafer, you hound! ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... in tones of cold fury. "That's the way you carry out my orders! Not one forkful of hay pitched down, and the men ready to go to work to-morrow. You miserable, sneaking loafer, where have ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... grew in the esteem of his men. The story had got noised about that while we lay in camp just before Fair Oaks, a loafer about his headquarters addressed insulting language to a woman who was employed in doing certain domestic work and who followed up the army. The general heard the vile talk of the fellow from his tent. ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... so that when the young man came down later he would find his office cleaned up. Seemed like all of a sudden, after what had happened between you and me, that I wanted to work and pay my own way. I had never before been anything but a loafer." ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... inaugurate (for 'begin'); in our midst; item (for 'particle, extract, or paragraph'); is being done, and all passives of this form; jeopardize; jubilant (for 'rejoicing'); juvenile (for 'boy'); lady (for 'wife'); last (for 'latest'); lengthy (for 'long'); leniency (for 'lenity'); loafer; loan or loaned (for 'lend' or 'lent'); located; majority (relating to places or circumstances, for 'most'); Mrs. President, Mrs. Governor, Mrs. General, and all similar titles; mutual (for 'common'); official (for 'officer'); ovation; on yesterday; over ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... who are here,' she said, 'the great majority of men at all open-air meetings seem to be loafers. Woman—whatever else she may or may not be—isn't a loafer!' Through Borrodaile's laugh she persisted. 'A woman always seems to have something to do, even if it's of the silliest description. Yes, and if she's a decent person at all, she's not hanging about at street ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... drawing down all that the public schools can build up. Seventy per cent. Of the young men of this land do not darken the church door. They are not interested in moral improvement or moral education. Eighty-five per cent. Leave school under 15 years of age; prefer the loafer's honors to the benefit ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... Court to take them away from their mother and father; that the mother was a confirmed drunkard, spending her time in saloons and dance-halls; and that the father, although himself an habitual drunkard and loafer, refused to associate longer with his wife or to live with her. I put them both upon probation, giving them clearly to understand that a single infraction of their promise meant six months in the Bridewell. The man went to work and he is now making $13.50 a week. They have moved out of the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... thump of relief. In the first place, Mrs. Williams's lodger must be a respectable person, and no dangerous loafer or pickpocket; in the second place the refined cultured tones of the stranger pleased her ear. Phillis had a craze on this point. "You may be deceived in a face, but in a voice, never!" she would say; and, as she told Nan afterwards, ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... wayward miss. This man Slocum is one of the rough, loud-spoken men of the village, schooled in vice and fisticuffery. You can well imagine, gentlemen of the jury," he turned to them abruptly, "you can well imagine the kind of a greeting this town loafer would give this high-spirited boy on that morning after the night when his inamorata disappeared with a married man. The boy has in him somewhat of the knight of the old time, your Honor; he has never opened his lips in dispraise of his faithless love. He has refused to repeat the insulting ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... the cost of production of a producer; and if a noble loafer costs far more to society than a worker, it remains to be seen whether a robust day-labourer does not cost more to society than a skilled artisan, when we have taken into account infant-mortality among the poor, the ravages ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... cried—"What do you mean by the term? A loafer?—a lounger in the streets?—a leerer at women? Or a man who works for daily food from sunrise to sunset, and controls his lower passions by hard and honest labour! Gentleman! What is that? Is it to live lazily on ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... manhandling the referee when the game is over. Sport? The average subscriber to Lord's is just as much of a sportsman as the Spaniard who watches a bull-fight, and just a trifle more of a sportsman than the bar-loafer who backs a horse he has never clapped eyes on. You may call it Cricket if you like: I call it assisting at a Gladiatorial Show. True cricket is left to ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mind.* It does this not only by wasting the body, the physical basis of the mind, but it does it through habits of intellectual idleness, which the user of tobacco naturally forms. Whoever heard of a first-class loafer who did not e-a-t the weed or burn it, or both? On the rail train recently we were compelled to ride for an hour in the smoking-car, which Dr. Talmage has called "the nastiest place in Christendom." In front of ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... far-west newspapers, have been, or are, The Fairplay (Colorado) Flume, The Solid Muldoon, of Ouray, The Tombstone Epitaph, of Nevada, The Jimplecute, of Texas, and The Bazoo, of Missouri. Shirttail Bend, Whiskey Flat, Puppytown, Wild Yankee Ranch, Squaw Flat, Rawhide Ranch, Loafer's Ravine, Squitch Gulch, Toenail Lake, are a few of the names of places in Butte ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... crowd of loungers and pedestrians who might otherwise have noticed the fall. The sudden lurch with which he was thrown forward jerked his pocket-book from the breast-pocket of his coat, and it fell to the ground a foot or two in front of him. It was instantly picked up by a loafer, who had been leaning against the pile of boxes, and who alone had witnessed the accident; he immediately stooped to help the prostrate man, and finding him pale and still, shouted for assistance, and was quickly joined by a knot of "larrikins," who dragged the unconscious man a little ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... we didn't wish to sell the lots off right away to any loafer as might bid,' said Scadder; 'but had con-cluded to reserve 'em for ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... his whistle, And the goodwife scolds the child; And the girls exclaim convulsively, "Have done, or I'll be riled!" When the loafer sitting next them Attempts a sly caress, And whispers, "Oh, you 'possum, You've fixed my heart, I guess!" With laughter and with weeping, Then shall they tell the tale, How Colt his foeman quartered, And ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... Apsley House I paused to look about me. I had my reasons for so doing, for ever since I had left the river-side, I had entertained the notion that I was being followed. When I had crossed the road at the Houses of Parliament, two men, apparently of the loafer class, had crossed too. They had followed me up Victoria Street, and now, as I stood outside the Duke of Wellington's residence, I could see them moving about on the other side of the way. What their intentions were I ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... landau which rattled up to the door of Briony Lodge. As it pulled up, one of the loafing men at the corner dashed forward to open the door in the hope of earning a copper, but was elbowed away by another loafer, who had rushed up with the same intention. A fierce quarrel broke out, which was increased by the two guardsmen, who took sides with one of the loungers, and by the scissors-grinder, who was equally hot upon the other side. A blow was struck, and in an instant the lady, who had ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... specially trained for a race of troops may go along into the field. Only the man versed in statecraft should be allowed to participate in the talk about the results of war. Not he who has out yonder proved an unworthy diplomat, nor the dilettante loafer sprayed with the perfume of volatile emotions. Manhood liability to military service requires manhood suffrage? That question may rest for the time being; likewise the desire for equality of that right ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... ready for departure. Pierre had been given his orders to make due haste for Lyons, and to drive a unicorn team of three horses instead of a regulation four, whereupon he had muttered a string of oaths which would have caused a Paris wine-shop loafer to blush. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... first he had heard a caller say to Clytie of Miss Alvira, "Why, they do say the poor thing has to go down those back stairs and actually split her own kindlings—with that healthy loafer setting around in the good clothes she buys him, in the back room of that drug-store from morning till night. And what's worse, he's been ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-Class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty, or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not buy from refreshment- rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside water. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... 'double O,' and sittin' in tuh stud games with permiskus strangers, and gettin' ready tuh be a hobo—all I kin say is, he'd better brace up and try tuh deserve one. A feller that ain't got a wife is a no-account loafer and bum, and he ought tuh git kicked! This man had one, but he went and left her. Even then he done better than yuh done! ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... about her own special work, and would have wondered at Joe if he had sought her company. I make this explanation because I do not wish it to be understood that Joe was a common village lounger, or loafer. ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... here to listen to any of your crazy nonsense, but as an officer of the law, to see if you have registered your dog, and paid your tax as it commands, and, if you hadn't, to see that the penalty was put upon you as you deserve, you old begging loafer, you." ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... all," Graham murmured, although vaguely hurt in that the addle-pated, alphabet-obsessed, epicurean anarchist of an Irishman who gloried in being a loafer and a pensioner should even mildly be in love with the Little Lady. "She is most deserving of all men's admiration," he continued smoothly. "From the little I've seen of her she's ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London |
