"Swindler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attacks, for which no redress has been obtainable. Thus the manufacturers of Sheffield still complain, I suppose justly, that German articles for foreign consumption bear the words "Sheffield steel" stamped upon them. I myself have been approached by a German swindler with the proposition that I should assist his firm in infringing patents; he was surprised and pained to learn that I did not consider his proposal ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... as slick a swindler as has been around these parts in a long time. He done me out of a bunch of money not long ago, and only a little while ago I got word that the same man is peddling stuff in Franklin. I hitched up, as soon as I could, intending to go to Franklin and have ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... show how the lust for gain plus the wiles of the swindler overcome the caution and suspicion of the "hard-headed," The Ponzi case is the ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... society has a sanctuary and earth a refuge. The forger may find a circle in which the signing of another man's name, under the pressure of circumstances, is held to be a misfortune rather than an offence. The swindler has the gentlemanly brotherhood and sisterhood of Macaire for his family, and need never be lonely. The thief may dance away his jovial nights among kindred spirits, and be carried to his grave by sorrowing fellow-artists. The coiner ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... you call sure about him? He's as big a swindler, I guess, as you shall find from here ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... sober man tells us that the roof of the house fell in. An imaginative fool, who is also a swindler, assures us that he later saw the roof standing. We remember that the roof was of iron girders covered with wood, and draw this conclusion: That the framework still stands, but that the healing fell through in a mass of blazing ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... bribes from his master's tenants, and then, pretending the money to be his own, lends it to that master and takes bonds for it to himself, we consider guilty of a breach of trust; and the person who commits such crimes we call a cheat, a swindler, and a forger of bonds. All these offences, without the least softening, under all these names, we charge upon this man. We have so charged in our record, we have so charged in our speeches; and we are sorry that our language does not ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... upon his knees and commenced to conjure Danveld by all the relics in Malborg, then by the ashes and heads of his parents, to restore to him his true child and not proceed like a swindler and traitor, breaking oaths and promises. His voice contained so much despair and truth, that some began to suspect treason; others again thought that some wizard had actually changed the appearance ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... put out of sight in some uncommonly clever way, by the Greenes themselves, as an excuse for borrowing as much money as they could raise and living without payment of their bills. With reference to the latter hypothesis, I declared to myself that Greene did not look like a swindler; but as to Mrs. Greene—! I confess that I did not feel so confident ...
— The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box • Anthony Trollope
... was that of an arrogant and erotic swindler. His intelligence was, however, extremely perceptive, and he was not wanting in finesse of the mujik order, combined with a sense of foresight that was utterly amazing. These, with his suave manner, his affectation of deepest piety, and his wonderful fascination ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... and the traitor, The wolfcub and the snake, The robber, swindler, hater, Are in your homes—awake! Nor let the cunning foeman Despoil your liberty; Yield weapon up to no man, While ye can strike and see, Awake, each gallant yeoman, If still ye ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... drawers, inasmuch as it would take only five days more to put together the pieces of wood, and that the heap of boards ought to be accepted as the equivalent of two-thirds of his debt, I am afraid the creditor would regard him as little better than an impudent swindler. It obviously makes no sort of difference whether the Canariote or Teneriffian buyer advanced the wood and the food-stuffs, on which the carpenter had to maintain himself; or whether the carpenter had a stock of both, the ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... with shattering effect, and if the shopkeeper declined to revise his tariff her good-humored voice toned so huge a disapproval that other intending purchasers left the shop impressed by the unmasking of a swindler. Her method was abrupt. She seized an article, placed it on the counter and uttered these words, "Sixpence and not a penny more; I can get it in Moore Street for five pence half penny." She knew all the shops having a cheap line in some special article, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... a known fact that people who live outside the law keep to their own plane. The swindler very rarely commits acts of violence. The burglar who practises card-sharping as a side-line, ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... appeared to crowd about the little office, and the simoom or the bulbul—but I leave this image to persons better acquainted with the East. His appearance, besides, was highly in his favour; the uniform of Sir Faraday, however inconvenient and conspicuous, was, at least, a costume in which no swindler could have hoped to prosper; and the exhibition of a valuable watch and a bill for eight hundred pounds completed what deportment had begun. A quarter of an hour later, when the train came up, Mr. Finsbury was introduced to the guard and installed in a first-class compartment, the station-master ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by scraping together all I possess, I can make up eight hundred livres. But may I be damned in the next world, or punished as a swindler in this, and one's as bad as the other to me, if I can ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which I showed him and which ought to have secured me a respectful hearing. I asked only for sympathy and counsel but I received neither, and could not have been treated worse if I had been a proved swindler. The Consul afterwards wrote a book in which he told of experiences with inconvenient countrymen who had recourse to him in their straits, and possibly I myself may have figured as one of his examples. My feeling ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... me to say? Without knowing any of the facts of the case,—except the one, that you contributed L500 to my election expenses,—you take upon yourself to tell me that I am a shameless, fraudulent swindler. And then you ask for a further explanation! In such a position is it likely that I shall explain anything;—that I can be in a humour to be explanatory? Just turn it all over in your mind, and ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... bought up all the iron in England. He could make or mar any company by buying or selling stock, and could make money dear or cheap as he pleased. All this was said of him in his praise,—but it was also said that he was regarded in Paris as the most gigantic swindler that had ever lived; that he had made that City too hot to hold him; that he had endeavoured to establish himself in Vienna, but had been warned away by the police; and that he had at length found that British freedom would alone allow him to enjoy, ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... AN EXTENSIVE SWINDLER.—A man named William Cairnes, alias Thomas Sissons, with a host of other aliases, was placed before the magistrates at the Borough Court, Manchester, charged with one of the most singular attempts at fraud we ever remember to have heard. The prisoner, who was a respectable-looking ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... family should come to want, than that hundreds of thousands should be ruined, soul and body, for time and eternity? If he has a right to derive his subsistence from the ruin of others, then others, as the thief, the swindler, and the robber, have a right to obtain their ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... it in," said Mr. Lucas Holderness, "if you've any doubts about it. Pay it in. I don't know the man or what he is. He may be a swindler for all I can tell. I can't answer for him. Pay it in and see. Leave the change till then. I can wait. I'll call round ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... understand. (Coming quickly down C., sits on stool L.C., facing her.) Look here, Olivia, old girl, the whole thing is nonsense, eh? It isn't your husband, it's some other Telworthy that this fellow met. That's right, isn't it? Some other shady swindler who turned up on the boat, eh? This sort of thing doesn't happen to people like us—committing bigamy and all that. Some ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne
... members of their troupe? And just now, when he had spent seven hundred and thirty-four guilders in building a concert-hall in his compound. Was that a thing to do in a respectable hotel? The cheek, the indecency, the impudence, the atrocity! Vagabond, impostor, swindler, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... during the first hundred years or so after their first coming here; people believed that the new order was not going to live by robbing parsons, as the older orders had done without remorse. The swindler always thinks his victim a fool, and the victim never forgives the smarter man who has taken him in. Accordingly the monks always pretended to think scorn of the clergy, and when the monasteries fell the clergy were the very last people ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... You'll tell him every word of this, of course, and he'll laugh at it, but I give myself the pleasure of telling you. I put the proposition of an 'investment' to him in a way nobody not a crook would have allowed to be smoothed over—and he allowed it to be smoothed over. He ate it! I felt he was a swindler when he was showing Richard Lindley his maps and papers, and now I've proved it to myself, and it's worth the price." Often, when they had danced, and often during this interview, his eyes lifted curiously ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... the subject to be made to pay in March when you have no mind to pay till October. By virtue of this article of his particular code, Maxime regarded a creditor's scheme for making him pay at once as a swindler's trick. It was a long time since he had grasped the significance of the bill of exchange in all its bearings, direct and remote. A young man once, in my place, called a bill of exchange the 'asses' ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... moral consciousness was touched, but he feared that Concho's companions might, knowing Concho's simplicity, instantly suspect him of trading upon it. He rode on in a deep study. Was he reviewing his past life? A vagabond by birth and education, a swindler by profession, an outcast by reputation, without absolutely turning his back upon respectability, he had trembled on the perilous edge of criminality ever since his boyhood. He did not scruple to cheat these Mexicans,—they were a degraded race,—and for a moment he felt ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... I'll give you another chance. Do you know what we are prepared to prove? Well, I will tell you. We can prove that you are not only a swindler but a forger, and our success will consign you to a prison cell. You deserve it, no doubt, but you shall have ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... whom Loring had so deeply loved was sister to the wife of this military castaway, this unprincipled gambler, swindler and thief, and he, Loring, had charged himself with a commission that might bring him once more face to face with ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... guesses that the real origin may be quite obscure, or the real motive quite corrupt. The pressure may have come from anybody who has gained power or money anyhow. It may come from the foreign millionaire who owns all the expensive hairdressing saloons; it may come from some swindler in the cutlery trade who has contracted to sell a million bad razors. Hence the poor man looks about him with suspicion in the street; knowing that the lowest sneak or the loudest snob he sees may be directing the ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... skulking among rocks, a week later. Then there was that unhappy young fellow, Mackinnon, who shot his sweetheart at Leicester; he made, straight as the crow flies, for his home in the Isle of Skye, and there drowned himself in familiar waters. Lindner, the Tyrolese, again, who stabbed the American swindler at Monte Carlo, was tracked after a few days to his native place, St. Valentin, in the Zillerthal. It is always so. Mountaineers in distress fly to their mountains. It is a part of their nostalgia. I know it from within, too: if I were in poor Hugo LeGeyt's place, what do you ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... all I have for the present," he said to her one day, when paying his week's bill. "I thought you ought to know. I do not wish to appear a swindler,"—with a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... courtyard, suffered Bertram to pause for a minute, and look upon his companions in affliction. When he had cast his eye around, on faces on which guilt, and despondence, and low excess, had fixed their stigma; upon the spendthrift, and the swindler, and the thief, the bankrupt debtor, the "moping idiot, and the madman gay," whom a paltry spirit of economy congregated to share this dismal habitation, he felt his heart recoil with inexpressible loathing from enduring the contamination ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Mrs. O'Hagan, at the hotel, and she says there's a well-known trick just like that—she's read of it in a book. A swindler has two sets—one real, one false; and he makes you buy the false ones by showing you the real, and pretending he sells them as ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... complained. Brandon had his son up on the spot; and after listening to his explanations gave him the alternative either to apologise to Potts or to leave the house forever. Louis indignantly denounced Potts to his father as a swindler. Brandon ordered him to his room, and gave ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... "obliged the town" with his "Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom," a cosmopolitan swindler and adventurer. The book is Smollett's "Barry Lyndon," yet as his hero does not tell his own story, but is perpetually held up as a "dreadful example," there is none of Thackeray's irony, none of his subtlety. "Here ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... brought me the leavings of a swindler—the leavings of a swindler—and you stole, in my house, the place of an honest woman! Your lies have brought the curse of God on my family and it's you who are the cause of everything. The misfortune that's just befallen us, it's you who are the cause of it, I tell you! You're a ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... out his honesty. Quarriar could give as references, to show that he was an honest man and had made a true statement as to the number of his children, seven Russians (named) who would attest that the partner provided by Conn was well known as a swindler. Though he was starving, Quarriar refused to have anything further to say to Conn. Quarriar further referred to his landlord, who would willingly testify to his honesty. But being afraid of Conn, and not inclined to commit himself in writing, the landlord would give ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... had known your intention. Mother would have gone with you to Edward's store. It is too bad that you should have been so cheated. The person who sold you the silk is no better than downright swindler." ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... that his sun should set in an unclouded sky, this was not to be. Sorrows of a most intimate nature crowded upon him. He was also made the victim of a conscienceless swindler who fleeced him of many thousand dollars, and, to crown all, his old and indefatigable enemy, F.O.J. Smith, administered a cowardly thrust in the back when his weakening powers prevented him from defending himself with his oldtime ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... project,'' a "selfish scheme,'' a "job,'' a "grab,'' and the like; denounced Mr. Cornell as "seeking to erect a monument to himself''; hinted that he was "planning to rob the State''; and, before he had finished, had pictured Mr. Cornell as a swindler and the rest of us ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Dousterswivel of his "Antiquary." As for Raspe, he betook himself to a remote part of the United Kingdom, and had commenced some mining operations in country Donegal, when he was carried off by scarlet fever at Muckross in 1794. Such in brief outline was the career of Rudolph Erich Raspe, scholar, swindler, and undoubted creator of ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... in his mind all the time had developed. He had had proof in divers ways. He said to himself, "That man is a scoundrel, a common swindler, if I know one when I see him." But suspicions as to the girl had never for one minute dwelt in his furthest fancy. He had thought speculatively of the possible complicity of the other women of the household, but never of hers. They were all very constant in their church attendance; ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... purchaser into the belief that there are twice as many wards in the lock as is really the case, and the bushes prove to be thin plates of brass riveted on, and not bushes at all. In short, the whole article is a vile fraud, and the maker was a swindler. This is strong language, but I think you will agree with me when I maintain that it is not stronger than the ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... fact, Hamilton Dart—that was not his real name, but let us use it for the present, nevertheless—was nothing but a swindler. He was worth only a few hundred dollars, and his brokerage and commission business was such in ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... to his account. The clerk took them to Mr. Smith, who was near the counter; he turned them over in his hand, and giving them back to the clerk, with a contemptuous gesture, said, loud enough to be heard by everyone there, "No!—a thousand times no!" Had the customer been a swindler he could not have been treated with greater insult and contumely. It was a fortunate thing for the bank when Mr. Barney became manager. From that time the bank has assumed its proper position. Under its new designation of the "Birmingham and Dudley District ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... Jenkins, the Yankee character man, went to St. Louis, and having enticed Francis Lynch, an orphan protege of Barnum's into the scheme, proceeded to the Museum, where he exhibited Lynch as the celebrated dancer, John Diamond. Barnum poured out his wrath at this swindler in a letter, for which Jenkins threatened suit, and actually did instigate R. W. Lindsay to bring an action against Barnum for a pipe of brandy, alleged to have been included in his contract. Being among strangers, ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... confuse and outwit the swindler occurred to our hero. He was intent on locating the brief item he remembered having seen in the newspaper. He wanted to act on his plan before the stranger returned. Frank's eye ran over column after ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... according to their agreement, began to hope for his return, a letter in a very different tone burdened her with dismal doubts. Tarrant had quarrelled with his friend. He had discovered that Sutherland was little better than a swindler. 'I see that the fellow's professed energy was all sham. He is the laziest scamp imaginable; lazier even than his boozing old father. He schemes only to get money out of people; and his disappointment on finding that I have no money to lose, has shown ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... try to smooth it over, Jack Ruddy," fumed the bully. "Don't imagine that I don't know all about the mean stories you and others are circulating about my family. You'd like to make out that my father is the worst swindler that ever lived, and I won't ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... are; for sometimes The Devil is a gentleman; At others a bard bartering rhymes For sack; a statesman spinning crimes; A swindler, living ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... afraid, notwithstanding, that we cannot indict the Lady Superior as a swindler, whatever opinion we may secretly form of her," answered Mr Franklin, laughing. "I daresay that Miss Maynard will soon be able to replace her loss. We would rather not have her adventure made public, except for the sake of a ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... to write to you concerning the accusations which you have so long brought against me, wherein you call me impious, buffoon, rogue, impostor, calumniator, swindler, heretic, disguised Calvinist, one possessed of a legion of devils. I wish the world to know why you speak thus, for I should be sorry that anyone should think thus of me; and I had already made up my mind to complain ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... say I am not your son. Do you know what I think? I think you are nothing but a swindler—a rascal who wishes to use me as a tool, in order to get hold of some fortune coming to me ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... Should he put an end to the affair by making himself known, by revealing to Mr. Seehaase that he was no swindler of uncertain competence, by birth no gipsy in a green wagon, but the son of Consul Kroeger, of the Kroeger family? No, he had no desire for that. And did not these men of the civic order really have a little right on ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... himself as to inspire a belief that he had entirely reformed. But no sooner was he raised a step, than committing some fresh peccadillo, he was compelled to desert in order to avoid punishment. He came thence to Paris, where his exploits as swindler and pickpocket procured him the unenviable distinction of being pointed out to the police as one of the most skilful in his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... pleased if you were to retire. They're not genuine like you. They simply use the Chapel for self-advertisement and making money. Of course there are some genuine ones like the Miss Cardinals, but Thurston's an absolute swindler ..." ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... such steps, by accommodation bills, buying goods on credit, to sell them for ready money, and similar transactions, that his character in the commercial world was gone. He was considered,' he added, lowering his voice, 'on 'Change as a swindler.' ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... York Collector of Customs, had disgraced the Government by his defalcations; and, although he was a legacy of Mr. Van Buren's "illustrious predecessor," and had been "vindicated" by a Senate committee composed chiefly of his political opponents, he was unquestionably a public swindler, and had found shelter under Mr. Van Buren's administration. He was the most conspicuous public rascal of his time, but was far from being alone in his odious notoriety. The system of public plunder inaugurated by Jackson was in full blast, and an organized ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... its meetings in the evening.... They scarcely took time for their natural requirements; they were often seen dining and supping at their posts when some action or an important murder was in the offing. Henriot, the commander-in-chief of both hordes, was at one time a swindler, then a police-informer, then imprisoned at Bicetre for robbery, and then one of the September murderers. His military bearing and popularity are due to parading the streets in the uniform of a general, and appearing in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... been a victim, not a swindler,' sounded from him in a feeble voice. 'You see, he says that Geldershaw has robbed him of all ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... but as a scarecrow. That is the theory. And the practice is, that we send a child to prison for a month for stealing a handful of walnuts, for fear that other children should come to steal more of our walnuts. And we do not punish a swindler for ruining a thousand families, because we think swindling is a wholesome ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... are desperately suspicious. They trust no man's honour. They treat even a padre as if he were a fraudulent cashier, bent on cheating them if he can. I do not blame them. In this matter of leave every man is a potential swindler. A bishop would cheat if he could. If I had got that leave warrant an hour or two sooner than I did, I should have made a push for the boat which left on Sunday evening. Thereby I should have deprived the army of my services during the night, a form of swindling ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... opposition also to all the unsophisticated feelings of human Nature. No thinking person will venture to affirm, that the beauty of the courtezan, the strength of the robber, or the intelligence and sagacity of the swindler, are more to be honoured than the generous qualities of a Wilberforce or a Howard. And therefore it is, that from a calm and dispassionate consideration of these facts, and independently altogether of revelation, we cannot ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... sake of having more time to attend the office. Nimblecut, the hairdresser, has been endeavouring to raise his charge for shaving one half-penny per chin, to be enabled to speculate more largely. Shavings, journeyman carpenter, calculates upon clearing considerably more by 'Sister to Swindler' than a year's interest from the savings-bank. There are thousands of similarly circumstanced speculators: they make a daily, if not more frequent promenade to the betting-office; and on the days when the races come off, they may be observed in shoals, nodding and winking knowingly as they ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... bankruptcy, everybody would quit eating chicken and go to eating mutton, and there you are. I decline to invest in a hen ranch right here now, and if you try to inveigle me into it I shall have you arrested as a gold-brick swindler," and Uncle Ike patted the red-headed boy on the shoulder and ran a great hard thumb into ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... that exceedingly frank manner he had, the sort of manner particularly taking with reserved people, because it saves them so much trouble—"for otherwise how should you know that I am not an impostor—a swindler—instead of your cousin, which I hope you believe ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... him, and while he was thus actively employed Akulina entered into the consideration of the theft, recalling all the details she could remember about the intimacy supposed to exist between the Count and the swindler in coloured glasses, and conscientiously showing the ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... a pretty unmitigated rascal," he said at last. "And I can't flatter myself that any repentance for his misdeeds offers one an excuse for condoning them. He was a swindler and a hypocrite. You can't get away from it. I never met a more agreeable companion. He's taught ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... at better than I do,' I said. And then I said: 'What's it all about? What's your game?' And he said, as if I'd been a common swindler that he'd ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... it. If you want to prevent your being shown up to your friend as an amiable young swindler, you can stop it by undertaking that you and your lot will do what I tell you. If not, it is your own ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... or Fox in real eloquence, and, in the midst of all his changings and vacillations, he was always, without one exception, the steady and zealous friend of the liberty of the press. Poor Sheridan was always in pecuniary difficulties, and overwhelmed with debt; and he at last became quite a swindler in order to evade his creditors, and he died at a time when he could not obtain credit for a pot of porter. On the 22d, the Duke of Gloucester, who was called by the Royal Family Silly Billy, was married to one of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... money. When these continued to fail, he tried to assist the axiom by borrowing money; but he found that his uncle had definitely done with him. He would have assisted the axiom by stealing money, but he had neither the nerve nor the knowledge to be a swindler; he was not even sufficiently ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... address I wanted," said he, producing a couple of sheets of paper having the name of the hotel stamped on them. "These are for our friend, Dick. I intend to swindle the swindler," he added, as he handed Reg the letter he had written, ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... leave Cullingworth in the lurch. She was silent for nearly three weeks, and then she wrote a very stinging letter (and she handles her adjectives most deftly when she likes). She went so far as to say that Cullingworth was a "bankrupt swindler," and that I had dragged the family honour in the dirt by my prolonged association with him. This letter came on the morning of the very last day that my patient was confined to the house. When I returned ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... hours later Mr. Mason came back with the news that Jacob Pacomb had been arrested for the crooked swindler ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... arch schemer and swindler Frank Smithson, who got himself out of the country so successfully with his ill-gotten gains from the Star Mining Company, has dropped the last syllable from his too notorious name, and is now figuring in South America under the name of Smith. His ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... the core," remarked Sobakevitch coldly. "He will sell you and cheat you, and then dine at your table. Yes, I know them all, and every one of them is a swindler, and the town a nest of rascals engaged in robbing one another. Not a man of the lot is there but would sell Christ. Yet stay: ONE decent fellow there is—the Public Prosecutor; though even HE, if the truth be told, is little better ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... other men—as an individual who, abusing the hospitality of his lodgings, has conveyed away and sold the best goose feathers of his landlady. What then, with his name ripe enough to drop from the tree of life, remains to Wiggins, but to subside into Smith? What hope was there for the well-known swindler, the posted pickpocket, the callous-hearted, slug-brained Tory? None: he was hooted, pelted at; all men stopped the nose at his approach. He was voted a nuisance, and turned forth into the world, with all his vices, like ulcers, upon him. Well, Tory adopts the inevitable policy of Wiggins; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... been caught swindling is denounced at the time with an exaggerated ardour which would make a stranger think that swindles were almost as rare as the cases in which they are discovered; but it is only just to recognise that the exposed swindler has a fair chance given him of retrieving his reputation, and perhaps of setting himself up again. The fact is, that so much sharp practice goes on, that the discovered swindler is rarely a sinner above his neighbours: he has simply had the bad luck to be found ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... one a civil word that day. Wool was an atrocious villain, an incendiary scoundrel, a cut-throat, and a black demon. Cap was a beggar, a vagabond and a vixen. Herbert Greyson was another beggar, besides being a knave, a fop and an impudent puppy. The innkeeper was a swindler, the waiters thieves, the whole world was going to ruin, where it well deserved to go, and all mankind to the demon—as he hoped and trusted ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... long without coadjutors and rivals. A wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihood in Scotland by going disguised to conventicles and then informing against the preachers, led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and soon from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of London, false witnesses poured forth to swear away the lives of Roman Catholics. One came with a story about an army of thirty thousand men who were to muster in the disguise of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and to slip through the grate of the law has ever exercised the abilities of adventurers, who wish to get rich the shortest way. Knavery without personal danger is an art brought to great perfection by the statesman and swindler; and meaner knaves are not tardy in ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... digging it up. They went together at midnight to an excavation in the vicinity of Palermo, where Balsamo drew a magic circle, and invoked the devil to shew his treasures. Suddenly there appeared half a dozen fellows, the accomplices of the swindler, dressed to represent devils, with horns on their heads, claws to their fingers, and vomiting apparently red and blue flame. They were armed with pitchforks, with which they belaboured poor Marano till he ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... cowardly, and a humbug, if not a swindler, was enough, Wade thought, to account for any failure. But he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... important, if highly-to-be-deprecated habit of carrying pocket-pistols. He is not a Byronic hero with a terrible but misty past. He is not like Valmont of the Liaisons Dangereuses,[136] a professional and passionless lady-killer. He is not a swindler nor (though he sometimes comes near to this also) a conspirator like Count Fosco of The Woman in White. One might make a long list of such negatives if it were worth while. He is only an utterly selfish, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... treaty. The Bankers' Association wants it; the Merchants' Protective Alliance wants it. Amapala is the only place within striking distance of our country where a fugitive is safe. It is the only place where a dishonest cashier, swindler, or felon can find refuge. Sometimes it seems almost as though when a man planned a crime he timed it exactly so as to catch the boat for Amapala. And, once there, we can't lay our hands on him; and, what's more, ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... ones, Wilhelmina thinks, following thereupon. [Memoires de Bareith, i. 26-29.] And the "Affair of Clement," on which the old Books are so profuse, falls likewise, the crisis of it falls, in 1719. Of Clement the "Hungarian Nobleman," who was a mere Hungarian Swindler, and Forger of Royal Letters; sowing mere discords, black suspicions, between Friedrich Wilhelm and the neighboring Courts, Imperial and Saxon: "Your Majesty to be snapt up, some day, by hired ruffians, and spirited away, for behoof ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... friends! One can't choose one's brother; but who would choose to be the friend of a swindler? Is that what the letter ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... It's no use: if he should turn out a pauper, or even a swindler, I am afraid Elaine will marry him. I saw it in her eye last night; and so, I should think, did he. He certainly can't complain of not receiving encouragement. I only wonder that he has not yet proposed. I believe the man to be capable of any act of audacity, in spite ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... Mary Robinson, the Beauty of Buttermere, whom the swindler John Hatfield had married in October, 1802, under the false name of Hope. Mary was the daughter of the landlord of the Fish Inn at Buttermere, and was famous in the Lake Country for her charm. Coleridge sent to the Morning Post in October some letters on the imposture, and Mary's name became a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... about the affair? You knew her rather intimately. No hedging, doctor. There she sits in the cell and combs her hair. Can you imagine who is responsible? You know a woman doesn't lose her mind from a mere love affair. And this music swindler down stairs—it is impossible to get him to show his true colours. Yes, we ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... back, and tell your man, first, that Rawdon is dead, and that in life he was a notorious criminal; second, that Miss Du Plessis' land has been devastated by the fire in which he perished; and, third, that if he, or you, or any other contemptible swindler, moves a finger in this direction, either above board or below, I'll have you up for foul conspiracy, and make the department only too happy to send you about your business to save its reputation ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... dollars salary. 'Twas against the old man's will, and he shut his door, and his purse, and his heart. He turned Witchet away; told his daughter that she might lie in the bed she had made for herself; told Witchet that he was a rotten young swindler, and that, as he had married his daughter for her money, he'd be d——d if he wouldn't be up with him, and deuce of a cent should they get from him. They live I don't know where, nor how. Some of her old friends send her money—actually give five-dollar bills ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... steam with it. I hope, however, ultimately to succeed—in fact our coals are nearly finished. To show you how General Church goes on—his gunboat has only advanced twenty feet from the beach, and yet he will not send away that swindler Allen, who commands her. I told him I would not meddle with her until he dismissed that man, and things remain thus. General Church, while on board, received letters announcing the unlooked-for ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... hand forthwith dove into Dick's pocket, and drew out a rusty jack-knife, a battered cent, about fifty cents in change, and the capacious pocket-book which he had received from the swindler who was anxious to get back to ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... then ensued, and such epithets as liar, cheat, and swindler were freely interchanged, and then there was a simultaneous spring at each other, the chairs were overturned and they were rolling upon the floor, dealing each other fierce blows and tearing each other's hair like wild beasts. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... of the hotels, being open to all; the consequence is that the society is very much mixed—the millionaire, the well-educated woman of the highest rank, the senator, the member of Congress, the farmer, the emigrant, the swindler, and the pick-pocket, are all liable to meet together in the same vehicle of conveyance. Some conventional rules were therefore necessary, and those rules have been made by public opinion—a power to which all must submit in America. The one most important, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... vindicate his insulted dignity both by civil and criminal proceedings. If a barrister, in the discharge of his duty to a client, spoke with severity of the conduct of a noble seducer, if an honest squire on the racecourse applied the proper epithets to the tricks of a noble swindler, the affronted patrician had only to complain to the proud and powerful body of which he was a member. His brethren made his cause their own. The offender was taken into custody by Black Rod, brought ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... who, as we have seen, gave her the first start on her career of infamy and conquest. She seems to have conducted an open and shameless intrigue with De Vendome—a man who, according to St Simon, had never gone sober to bed for a generation, who was a swindler, liar, and thief, and the most despicable and dangerous man living. When the Duchess, realising that her intrigue with this handsome scoundrel was going too far, sought to withdraw, he threatened to show certain incriminating letters she had written to him, to the King; and it was only when Louis ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... For our own parts we must pause before we give in to so dangerous a doctrine. Here is a man who has outraged the laws of honour, the ties of relationship, and the duties of religion: he appears before us in the triple character of a libertine, a swindler, and a suicide. Yet his follies, his vices, his crimes, are all palliated or even applauded by this specious facon ...
— English Satires • Various
... of his usual calm propriety, 'do you not comprehend if that woman had gone out of your store with the calico, that she not only would never enter it again, but she would publish your name over town as a swindler and a cheat, and you never would hear the end of it. Pease had charged her double prices, and the goods would not stand a single washing. And you know whether or not you are ready to pay off the mortgage Deacon Esterbrook holds on ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Chevalier de Valois. Suzanne's fiction introduced such confusion into the ideas of the old bachelor that he was literally incapable of sober reflection. Without this agitation and without his inward delight (for vanity is a swindler which never fails of its dupe), he would certainly have reflected that, supposing it were true, a girl like Suzanne, whose heart was not yet spoiled, would have died a thousand deaths before beginning a discussion of this ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... obtained a rich dowry with his wife. The poor girl died of 'grief in the course of a year, but did not say a word till she was on her death-bed. Her foolish parents, ashamed of having been deceived so grossly, dared not say anything, and got the female swindler out of the way; she had taken good care, however, to lay a firm hold on the dowry. The story became known, and gave the good folk of Augsburg much amusement, while I became renowned for my ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "Yes, he is a swindler. He buys up bad debts, too. He makes a profession of it. But enough of him! Do you know what makes me angry? It's their sickening rotten, petrified routine.... And this case might be the means of introducing a new method. One can show from the psychological data alone how to get on the track ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... aloneness, of uncertainty, of the feeling of hopelessness, goodness of heart seemed the supreme charm. Such a woman as a landlady, and a landlady in New York, was pathetically absurd. Even to still rather simple-minded Susan she seemed an invitation to the swindler, to the sponger with the hard-luck story, to the sinking who clutch about desperately and drag down with them everyone who permits ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... was here at last, and he was so far beggared that he had no price to offer in payment for it which was worth a thousandth part its value. He was bankrupt and had sought to buy this treasure, and must now needs go through life as a swindler. Even if his hopes were granted, what had he to pay? He knew at this moment as clearly as if he had even then been enlightened by the events of later years that there were scores of women who would draw their skirts away in a real disdain ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... count once in a while," he complained to his companion. "But nope—fifty even a night, no more ... Well, come on, Pete. We'd better get back to Fats and tell him the swindler ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... that she loved best in all the world, she would have repelled him who had told her with disdain. But so it was. How was she to tell her husband that she had been engaged to one whom he had described to her as a gambler and a swindler? ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... letter. You ask for the money to be sent to you immediately. I have it not to send; my sin has found me out. A thief and swindler! Can it be possible that I have incurred ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... underhanded work before," came from Sam. "If he is a swindler, I certainly hope that sooner ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... company out of the sum of twelve dollars; who had resorted to gross lies and mean deception to carry her point. Upon my honor and conscience, I would rather have lost the twelve dollars I had advanced than had the old woman turn out to be a swindler. She might be fussy, she might be disagreeable, she might be a dozen things that are uncomfortable and unpleasant, if she had only meant to be true and honest, and I ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... a distinction to be drawn between himself and Calendar; no more could he esteem himself a better and more honest man than that accomplished swindler. He was not advised as to the Belgian code, but English law, he understood, made no allowance for the good intent of those caught in possession of stolen property; though he was acting with the most honorable ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... house, you sneaking lying swindler. You clear out and never open your head to me one word about your ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... Duke of Wellington, and, what was extraordinary, attained some consequence even in the estimation of his lady. All shook their heads at the recollection of the unlucky Tyrrel, and found out much in his manner and address which convinced them that he was but an adventurer and swindler. A few, however, less partial to the Committee of Management, (for whenever there is an administration, there will soon arise an opposition,) whispered among themselves, that, to give the fellow his due, the man, be he what he ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... creamy-spired chestnuts and wooded down, before I became aware that a pitiful and rather sordid little domestic drama was in progress within fifty yards from my open windows. I discovered a son in the act of encouraging his aged and apparently imbecile parent to gamble with a professional swindler! Not that I have actually seen them thus engaged. As a matter of fact I have merely heard a few short remarks—and those were all spoken by the son. But, as everyone knows, even a single sentence accidentally overheard by an observant stranger may give him a clearer insight into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... designation? After uttering a furious tirade against me, in which he spoke of the fatal discovery of my real name on my linen—of his misplaced confidence of affection, and the shame with which he should be obliged to meet his fashionable friends and confess that he had harboured a swindler, he gathered up the linen, clothes, silver toilet articles, and the rest of my gear, saying that he should step out that moment for an officer and give me up to the just revenge of ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... honour," breathes she, apostrophizing the ceiling. "But I cannot let you, Maurice, be so deceived by a mere swindler such as she is. Do you for a moment imagine—ah yes!" throwing up her hands and plainly admiring Maurice with great fervour—"you probably do; you have a soul, Maurice, a great soul, inherited from me! But I shall not permit that little vulgar fraud of a girl to demoralize it. Of course ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... great deal of trouble, he recovered my lost luggage and the priceless treasure it contained. It was a proud and happy moment when I returned his loan, and convinced him, of what he did not seem to doubt, that I was positively not a swindler. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... a two-hundred-and-fifty-guinea prize novel, selected by Messrs. Lang and Shorter.) Further, "He writes always from the point of a B.Sc." But the most humorous part of the criticism is this. After stating that Ponderevo acknowledges himself to be a liar, a swindler, a thief, an adulterer, and a murderer, Claudius Clear then proceeds: "He is not in the least ashamed of these things. He explains them away with the utmost facility, and we find him at the age of forty-five, not unhappy, and successfully engaged in problems ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... couldn't, my dear fellow," the painter retorted. "It's part of your swindler to assume that you do know why. You ought to ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... gave up his place in the law office. Perhaps the swindler was afraid Mr. Pike would find out about his underhand transactions. Sanford, it seemed, had done some law business for the oil company, and they let him sell some of the worthless stock for himself, allowing him to keep the money—that is what Joe ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... the estate claim the necklace as an heirloom, but that greedy siren, that heartless snake, that harpy of a widow,—for it was thus that Mr. Camperdown in his solitude spoke to himself of poor Lizzie, perhaps throwing in a harder word or two,—that female swindler could ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... significant that he had done so more than once, but he had a warm regard for the girl who had saved his life, and, after all, his ideas were not quite so liberal as he fancied they had become in the Western forest. It was a trifle disconcerting to discover that she was the daughter of a swindler. ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... lad in surprise, "what can that all imply? Do you suppose he's just some sort of a conspirator, or swindler, sometimes rich and sometimes poor, according to ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... between the editor and sub-editor, which they do not publish. This casualness is our English vice. It is at once casual and secret. Our public life is conducted privately. Hence it follows that if an English swindler wished to impress us, the last thing he would think of doing would be to put on a uniform. He would put on a polite slouching air and a careless, expensive suit of clothes; he would stroll up to the Mayor, be so awfully sorry to disturb him, find he had forgotten ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... cheat, sir: you are nothing better than a common swindler, sir. I will not play with you any more. Do you call yourself a whist player and make signs to your partner. I should be ashamed to stay in the same room ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... remarkable still is Moliere's portrayal of the eminence of the human spirit in the case of Tartufe. Here it is vice in its meanest and most repulsive forms which has become endowed with an awful grandeur. Tartufe, the hypocrite, the swindler, the seducer of his benefactor's wife, looms out on us with the kind of horrible greatness that Milton's Satan might have had if he had come to live with a bourgeois family ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... can but thank Thee For such a delectable day! Though the fury, the fool, and the swindler, To-morrow again ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... from undeserving brows and place them where they will have a natural grace. For trite examples, who would not rather elect Columbus than Americus to the place of Name-Giver for this continent? who does not rejoice that finally Hadley is proved a swindler of the fame of Godfrey, in the matter of the quadrant? How many such wrongs do men ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... swindler had been tracked by a red-haired detective to the manufacturing city, to which Miles first directed his steps. The bills describing the swindler set forth that he was quite young, tall, handsome, broad-shouldered, with black curling hair, ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... Kings has power delegated to him more extensive than those of an English Sovereign, though I doubt if he can write his own language; and his moral reputation is still less in his favour than his ignorance—for, previous to the revolution, he was known only as a kind of swindler, and has more than once been nearly convicted of forgery.—This is, however, the description of people now chiefly employed, for no honest man would accept of such commissions, nor perform the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... and taste. When I saw all them good folks gaping and staring at me like I was a comet with a tail, right there in the house of God, while a good man was teaching humility, and prayers, and songs was going up to the throne—I say, while all that was taking place I felt like a cheat and a swindler hiding under plumes, clap-trap flowers, and flounces that ud fade. I looked across and saw Carrie—poor Carrie!—with that blank stare of death in her eyes. She seemed to say, 'You've whipped me clean to the earth, Dix; I'm done; I'm ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... with the Turks. He was tall, well made; and, although he looked like a nobleman and had wit, reminded one at the same time of a country actor. He was a great liar, and a libertine in body and mind; a great spendthrift, a great and impudent swindler, with a tendency to low debauchery, that cursed him all his life. Having fluttered about a long time after his return, and found it impossible either to live with his wife—which is not surprising—or accommodate himself to the Court or to Paris, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... "Rogue! Cheat! Swindler! Cast him into prison! Throw him to the lion!" Such epithets and recommendations rained from the spectators' seats, accompanied by a pelting of more substantial missiles. In an instant the yellow hair and ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the speculation threatened to fail—I reproach myself for losing my courage. I ran away like a swindler and a thief, because I could not face my best friend and tell him I had ruined ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Rousseau a swindler; that is a somewhat severe expression. Even if he did really steal a piece of ribbon, or a silver spoon, it is not worth talking about. I share his love for nature and his hatred of mankind. One evening lately, as the sun ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... he knew nothing about it! Now, after this, what confidence can we have in anything that this man will say or profess! I confess I am sadly mortified at my own credulousness. John I always considered as no better than a swindler, but James I put some trust and confidence in. You judged more accurately, for you always said that 'he was a damned cunning fellow!' Well, there is every appearance of your being right; but his cunning (as it never does) will not profit him. Within these three years ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles |
