"Thief" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the momentary shock, left Ferris and charged at the prostrate thief's assailant. But Chum met him, with a fierce eagerness, more than ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... it is the same girl? [Stares at her.] Yes, it is she. [Starts to run toward her, then catches sight of ring.] What! my ring? You robbed me while I lay senseless! Oh, do not believe your eyes, you said. No! for now I have my first lesson—I wanted to embrace an angel, and I find a thief. ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... the eggs kept going, and nobody knew where; for they all felt when the magpie said "Tar-tar," and flew away, that he had spoken openly and honourably, and was not the thief. At last one evening, when all the birds were as busy as their old friends the bees, all of a sudden there was a complete full stop throughout the garden, for from one of the low branches of the great cedar someone suddenly shouted out in a full, loud, and distinct ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... mounted gentleman, who, addressing him politely by name, demanded his watch and purse, which Moody surrendered, under the influence of "the better part of valor." Having done so, however, he was obliged to request his "very genteel" thief to give him enough money to pay his turnpike on his way into town, where he was going to act, whereupon the "gentleman of the road" returned him half-a-crown, and bade him a polite "Good-evening." Some time after ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... much loss in the world, where men war ceaselessly with sorrow, and time like a strong thief strips all men of all they prize. Yet when the emperor is beaten in battle and his broad lands are lost, he, shrugging, says, 'In the next battle I may conquer.' And when the bearded merchant's ship is lost at sea, he says, 'The next voyage, belike, will ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... stood before the palace of an emperor a golden apple tree, which blossomed and bore fruit each night. But every morning the fruit was gone, and the boughs were bare of blossom, without anyone being able to discover who was the thief. ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... executive chief. Now this man is not one of our people, but a stranger—a gringo—from far away over the big waters; while the Senora, his wife, is Paraguayan, bred and born. Besides, he stole her away in the night, like a thief, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... that one is apt to question whether some earlier initiation into life's sterner mysteries would not be wiser for the young. Yet it is a fair thing to have that joyous youth to look back upon, and at least it is a treasury of memory that no thief can steal in the ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... him, her future liabilities, and her lost reputation. Instead of complaining, she recalled for him the first days of their love, when she used to go every night to meet him in the barn, so that her husband on one occasion, fancying it was a thief, fired a pistol-shot through the window. The bullet was in the wall still. "From the moment I first knew you, you seemed to me as handsome as a prince. I love your eyes, your voice, your walk, your smell," and in a lower ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... the roadside in the rain, in the wretched garb of a begging monk, five hours' journey from Rome. He had left his affianced bride without a word of warning, had abandoned all his possessions to Temistocle—that scoundrelly thief Temistocle!—and he ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... endowed with the revenues of the Savoy. In 1555 the City companies were taxed for fitting it up; and the next year Machyn records that a thief was hung in one of the courts, and, later on, a riotous attempt was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... be thrown from young maid's window, a time to look for answer to a pleading letter sent to a justly angered lord; a time when his Lordship deigns not to give answer; a time when a young lord to a tender parchment pregnant with importunities says: 'Damme, she would set one thief to shrive another;' a time when his Lordship slams with a bang the outside cover to a book blase of ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... morning. You never asked me for an explanation. You never considered how impossible such a crime must be for a man of my character. At the first breath of suspicion you, my intimate friend, the man who knew me best, set me down as a thief and ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wiser man would have lost all patience; as for Peter, he rushed upon the brute, who, with piercing screams, strove to escape; but it was a hapless day to the thief, for her master caught her in the doorway and dealt her so well applied and vigorous a blow on the side of her skull with the spigot that the sow fell ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... the tree near which the sheep had been killed, and, after looking at the ground for a moment, began to root up the ground with his toes, when he soon discovered the stolen article, and brought it to me. The thief was subsequently brought forward, and we made him thoroughly ashamed of himself; although I have no doubt the whole tribe would have applauded his ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... watch was in her possession, her rooms were searched, and the missing article found upon a chimney-piece. When shown the watch the thief coolly replied: "Yes; I think I have made the messenger ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... Winchester, excepting that you were not with me. If anything happens to me on this expedition, I should like that small window looking on our pew, representing the Bishop of York's figure, etc., etc., to be filled in to my memory; and, curiously enough, I think the Penitent Thief always one of the greatest heroes in the Bible; for he must have had enormous faith to believe when he was in such a ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... case, as her friend had so much feared. If she had detected the substitution, what would she have thought, what would she have said? Would she not have taken Mme. Loisel for a thief? ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... said John; "there must be time for that. It will come. Time is cried out upon as a great thief; it is people's own fault. Use him but well, and you will get from his hand more than he will ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... then condescended to explain the whole of the enigma to me. "Petion," said she, "was, while talking to the King, to have kept his finger fixed upon his right eye for at least two seconds."—"He did not even put his hand up to his chin," said the King; "after all, it is but so much money stolen: the thief will not boast of it, and the affair will remain a secret. Let us talk of something else." He turned to me and said, "Your father was an intimate friend of Mandat, who now commands the National Guard; describe him to me; what ought I to expect from him?" I answered that he was one of his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was carried off, was it not my dream which saw the trail, so that we brought her back again to die in peace, her eyes seeing the Lodge whither she was going, open to her, and the Sun, the Father, giving her light and promise—for she had wounded herself to die that the thief who stole her should leave her to herself. Behold, my daughter, these dreams have I had, and others; and I have lived long and have seen the bright day break into storm, and the herds flee into the far hills where none could follow, and hunger ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... again, "If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die, and thou shalt put away evil from among you." Deut. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... exclaimed his wife, tenderly embracing* him, "blessed be God, Tom darlin', that you're safe back to us! An' how are you, avourueen? an' wor you well ever since? an' there was nothin—musha, go out o' this, Ranger, you thief—oh, God forgive me! what am I sayin'? sure the poor dog is as glad as the best of us—arrah, thin, look at the affectionate crathur, a'most beside himself! Dora, avillish, give him the could stirabout that's in the skillet, jist for his ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... contributor's one; the other from The Daily Telegraph, reviewing a French book of "Phrases in common use" in Dahomey. The opening sentence in the latter was, "Help, I am drowning." Then came the inquiry, "If a man is not a thief?" and then another cry, "The boat is upset." "Get up, you lazy scamps," is the next exclamation, followed almost immediately by the question, "Why has not this man been buried?" "It is fetish that has killed him, and he must lie ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... of its opposers. If the common sentiment of the people were in favor of every man's liberty to steal whatever he could lay his hands on, it would be found very difficult to convict a rogue, no matter how clearly expressed the law against stealing. A single thief in the jury-box could defeat the ends of justice. A hundred loop-holes for escape can always be found in the provisions of a law with which the majority of the people are not in sympathy. Indeed, it often happens that such ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... swamp roses are budded. Brown planted fields I see, and drooping elms, and the young crows cry from their nests on the knoll.... I know now that, whoever I am, whatever I do, I am welcome here; the meadows are as green this spring for Tom the drunkard, and for Jim the thief, as for Jonathan the parson, or for Walt the poet: the wild cherry blooms as richly, and the odour of the pine is ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... had gotten his David into their clutches and were slowly but surely making him as bad as they! His David bad? No, no! David was kind and good and gentle to him always. David was not bad, he would not listen to their dreadful scheme. He would refuse to help them; surely he would. His David a thief? It was impossible. But that dreadful plan they were discussing! "The brown house on the hill"; "to-morrow night"; and David was ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... the third time, wished to see his patient and entered her bedroom, he found only the old woman's lifeless body. The blow had been too much—the daughter of the ancient and ever honorable line of Chechevinski a fugitive and a thief! ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... codex? why have I refused to make public any of my translations? why? but because scholarship is a system of licenced robbery, and your man in scarlet and furred robe who sits in judgment on thieves, is himself a thief of the thoughts and the fame that belong to his fellows. But against that robbery Bardo de' Bardi shall struggle— though blind and forsaken, he shall struggle. I too have a right to be remembered—as great a right as Pontanus or Merula, whose names will be foremost ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... of Sackville Street, and says she, 'Ye villain, do ye think I don't know my own Blenheim spannel when I see him?' 'Indeed, my lady,' says Mike, ''twas himself tould me he belanged to Barney.' 'Who tould you?' says she. 'The dog himself tould me, my lady.' 'Ye thief of the world,' says my aunt, 'and ye'd believe a dog before a dowager countess? Give him up, ye villain, this minute, or ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... third* she was a thief and a common mercenary. She had no respect of persons: a prince or a porter was all one, according as they paid; yea, she would leave the finest gentleman in the world to go to an ugly fellow for ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees, 885 (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil) I hope to get safely out of the turmoil And arrive one day at the land of the gypsies, And find my lady, or hear the last news of her From some old thief and son of Lucifer, 890 His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop, Sunburned all over like an AEthiop. And when my Cotnar begins to operate And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate, And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent, 895 ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... guariba!" he shouted at length. "There will be no end to this, and he will lead me back to the Brazilian frontier. If only he would let go of my case! But no! The jingling of the money amuses him. Oh, you thief! If I could only get ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... but a frigate, my excellent friend, the manoeuvre would have been unnecessary. Peste! it is not a single republican ship that can make a stout English frigate skulk along the rocks and fly like a thief ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... breeze seemed biting, and the garage roof was perilously slippery. Mother slid and balanced and slid on the roof, irritably observing, "I declare to goodness I never thought that at my time of life I'd have to sneak out of a window on to a nasty slippery shed-roof, like a thief in the night, when I wanted to ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... strange appearance at Newtonsville and Geneva on the day the robbery took place, the fact that his personal appearance agreed perfectly with that given of the robber, by eye-witnesses to that event, and his mysterious disappearance since, all went to prove beyond question that Newton Edwards was the thief, and that decided steps should be ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... deems and ill conceives. Seek out some place, and see if any place Can give the least release unto thy grief; Convey thee from the thought of thy disgrace, Steal from thyself and be thy cares' own thief. But yet what comforts shall I hereby gain? Bearing the wound, I needs must feel ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... Government's share in guarding the integrity of the dollar. But the Government's efforts cannot be the entire campaign against inflation, the thief that can rob the individual of the value of the pension and social security he has earned during his productive life. For success, Government's efforts must be paralleled by the attitudes ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... his thought, as it grew desperate and cruel: there was oppression and vice heaped on him, and flung back out of his bitter heart. Nor much in the future: a blank stretch of punishment to the end. He was an old man: was it easy to bear? What if he were black? what if he were born a thief? what if all the sullen revenge of his nature had made him an outcast from the poorest poor? Was there no latent good in this soul for which Christ died, that a kind hand might not have brought to life? None? Something, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and read them. I do it in your presence, for I am no dishonourable thief. But I will know everything. You are in my power—you need not ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... lapel of the fellow's vest, which he had turned back. A nickeled badge was pinned upon it. "He's no thief; he's a ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... arrival to divide the public attention; for, in order that we might see every thing from first to last, we were amongst the very earliest parties. Neither did our party escape under any mistake of the crowd: silence had succeeded to the uproar caused by the tender meeting between the thief and the major; and a man, who stood in a conspicuous situation, proclaimed aloud to those below him, the name or title of members as they drove up. "That," said he, "is the Earl of Altamont; the lame gentleman, I mean." Perhaps, however, his knowledge did ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... play ducks and drakes with, he'd only to ring me up on the telephone, and he'd have had whatever he asked for in a few hours. That's not boasting, Mr. Chestermarke—that's just plain truth. My uncle a thief! Mr. Chestermarke!—there's only one word for your suggestion. Don't think me rude if I tell you ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... crestfallen purchaser laid the money on the counter and left the store. He had learned not only that he who squanders his own time is foolish, but that he who wastes the time of others is a thief. ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... delighted, vexed and grieved Pao-y. He felt delighted, on account of the consideration shown by P'ing Erh for his own feelings. Vexed, because Chui Erh had turned out a petty thief. Grieved, that Chui Erh, who was otherwise such a smart girl, should have gone in for this disgraceful affair. Returning consequently into the house, he told Ch'ing Wen every word that P'ing Erh had uttered. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... admitted, "you are convinced that Silas Trimmer is a thief and a rascal, and you would not take his word for anything. You are convinced that Applerod's judgment is useless and that your own does not amount to much, but I still believe that the next plausible looking ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... besiegers' lines, but, fainting from loss of blood, he fell from his horse, and his companions hurried on. A Syrian Christian heard his groans, and striking off his head carried the prize to the camp of the conquerors. Phirouz lived to be a second time a renegade, and to close his career as a thief. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... in His repeated declaration of the sufferings that awaited Him; and when she came to anoint Him beforehand for the burial, and broke the precious alabaster box she had reserved for this very purpose, the thief who kept the bag had only angry words of criticism and reproach. How sweet to her wounded spirit was her MASTER'S commendation, "She hath done what she could!" And He added, "Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... island and endue him with a splendid robe of honour. He had long gone about the city of France in disguise, but succeeded not in taking the horses, whilst they were with the King; but, when he gave them in free gift to the Wazir and the monocular one carried them to his own stable, the blackamoor thief rejoiced with joy exceeding and made sure of success, saying in himself, "By the virtue of the Messiah and the Faith which is no liar, I will certainly steal the twain of them!" Now he had gone out that very night, intending ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... been a prisoner here for hours," quavered Fred. "And now these fellows want to make out, before the high school friends of mine," nodding toward the girls, "that I was the thief and destroyer." ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... driven home. And yet I can't help admiring your exalted fanaticism. I do love consistency, and the courage of it. But tell me, if you can, how far these fair-fighting scruples of yours go. You have made it perfectly plain that if a thief should steal your pocketbook, you would suffer loss before you'd compromise with him to get it back. But suppose you should catch him at it: would you feel compelled to call ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... withheld, and not from liberty granted. The general opinion seems to be, that the moment you proclaim "liberty to the captive," and make the slave a freeman, be the conditions and restrictions what they may, that moment you make him a vagabond, a thief, and a murderer, whom nothing will satisfy but the blood of those who had been so "fanatical and insane" as to treat him like a human being. Whence this opinion is derived, no one can tell; for it is in direct opposition to reason, ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... receptacle, however, had to be kept filled and the hole free so there should be no variation in the regularity of the dripping. This water clock was called a clepsydra, the name being taken from two Greek words meaning 'thief of water.' Well, as you may imagine, the populace were delighted with this contrivance. It seemed as if now they certainly had the prize for which they had been searching. Moreover, with the water clock a new factor ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... want of something, and cursing their object of worship as fancy serves. The Houssa slaves among them are Mahommedans, and are allowed to worship in their own way. It is enough to call a man a native of Borgoo, to designate him as a thief and a murderer. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... to a man who had followed our caravan from Giocha. I suspected the man had stolen it, by not seeing him with us. I left my family and things there, and went immediately with some of the King's people to Wattera in search of the thief. I had the Chief of Toucha's son and the son of the Chief of Wattera with me. From Wattera we went to Tagoubou, where we found the thief, who had broken the chest and taken away the things; he had on my ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... been so prominent in sounding them through the western part of the State continued them as before, and, almost to the very day of his death, assailed him periodically as a "land jobber,'' "land grabber,'' and "land thief.'' But he took these foul attacks by tricky declaimers and his vindication by three of his most eminent fellow-citizens with the same serenity. That there was in him a profound contempt for the wretched creatures who assailed him and imputed to him motives as vile as their own can hardly be ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... on 'The thief on the Cross.' A most awakening and engaging sermon, enough to make sinners fly like a cloud, and as doves to their windows. The offers of Christ were let down very low so that those low of stature may ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... "A free soul has nothing to do with Mammon. It's not worth speaking of, let alone quarrelling over. Violence won't undo robbery. If you attempt violence, you may easily turn a thief into ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... robberies, for forth they go Into the wilderness, their prey to hunt Like ravening beasts. There are, who watch to slay, Rising before the dawn, or wrapp'd in night Roaming with stealthy footstep, as a thief, To smite their victims, while the wounded groan Struck by their fatal shaft. There are, who do Such deeds of utter darkness as detest The gaze of day. Muffling their face, they dig Their way to habitations where they leave Shame and dishonor. Though He seem to sleep, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... proud tops of the eastern pines And darts his light through every guilty hole, Then murders, treasons, and detested sins, The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs, Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves? So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke, Who all this while hath revell'd in the night, Whilst we were wandering with the Antipodes, Shall see us rising in our throne, the east, His treasons will sit blushing ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... interferes. Asks that they be turned over to him. The Professor and the colony. The insulting message from the Illyas. The messenger to John. Building chairs and tables. Two-and three-room cottages. Stimulating individual efforts. The first thief and the treatment. John and party visit the cave ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... I've told you what I think of you," she cried. "You're a thief and a coward—you've stolen a girl's love and then you're afraid to face the world—you're afraid of what people will say. If you don't love me, you're tied to me, over and over again. You've made me promises—you made me ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... sword into the sheath; the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" From the offending follower, the Nazarene turned to his captors. "Are you come out as against a thief, with swords and staves to take me? I was daily with you in the Temple, and you took me not; but this is your hour, and the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Many of them sinned often, and grievously, and did very little to atone for their sins; and the virtues they practised were few, and never brought to any perfection. This class also includes all those who spent their whole lives in sin, and who were saved, like the thief on the cross, by the grace of a death-bed repentance. Evidently, neither these, nor others who practised scarcely any virtue, are crowned with the high honors of heaven, which are the reward of a virtuous life. They are, nevertheless, perfectly happy, ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... collection of his miscellany, which contained his second novel, "Mr. Jonathan Wild The Great," distinctly the least liked of his four stories, because of its bitter irony, its almost savage tone, the gloom which surrounds the theme, a powerful, full-length portrayal of a famous thief-taker of the period, from his birth to his bad end on a Newgate gallows. Mr. Wild is a sort of foreglimpse of the Sherlock Holmes-Raffles of ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... hours; Two hours? ha! things never dreamt of yet May be contrived, ay, and effected too, In two hours' absence: well, I will not go. Two hours; no, fleering opportunity, I will not give your treachery that scope. Who will not judge him worthy to be robb'd, That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shews the felon where his treasure lies? Again, what earthy spirit but will attempt To taste the fruit of beauty's golden tree, When leaden sleep seals up the dragon's eyes? Oh, beauty is a project of some power, Chiefly when opportunity ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... stayed my husband killing thee, Else long ago the worms had eaten thee; Thy bones the jackals of the earth had tak'n; And nothing left of thee but thine own sins. It was thy charger innocent that paid For them the penalty instead. Once more You came, and, like a lawless thief concealed, Carried my lord, when helpless and alone, And for his freedom vile proposals made, And for so many days these troubles wrought On me and these my faithful loyal men. Know well, 'tis virtue that is sure to win, ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... bank-note for cash, did not return. There was much excited jabbering, but Mr. Laughlin firmly though kindly held the innkeeper responsible and that worthy admitted that he knew who had taken the money and refunded it. So all was peace. The innkeeper was probably in collusion with the thief. This was our only trouble of the kind, though we slept night after night in the public inns with all our goods lying about wholly unprotected. Occasionally, especially in the larger towns, there was a night watchman. But he was ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... the caretaker?" I asked. "Now, I wonder if you will do me a very great favour. You may think me a thief or a burglar," I laughed, "but the fact is I have a great desire to see Mr. De Gex's house. I've heard so much about its beauties. I wonder if you would show me ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... instant, and the two boys, creeping stealthily about the room, quickly huddled on their clothes. Then they went on tiptoe down the stairs, which creaked under their guilty footsteps as though they cried "Stop thief!" and on through the wide, silent hall, where Snuff the terrier, coiled on his mat, looked at them with an air of sleepy ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... years ago," he said sadly. "A great trouble came upon him—he lost some money, and was falsely accused of dishonesty, and he had to go to prison. When he came out his wife refused to see him; they had made her believe him a thief, and she was a hard woman, although she loved him. She sent him a message that he must never try to see her ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... cote of the female. Not finding his goods and chattels there as he had expected, he stormed around awhile, abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, then went away as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out of sight, the shrewd thief went and brought the feather home and lined her own ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... that you have profited in the past by those very labour gouges you mention," insinuated Brentwood, one of the wiliest and most astute of our corporation lawyers. "The receiver is as bad as the thief," he sneered. "You had no hand in the gouging, but you took your ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... hands. "Thought you could sneak in and out of town like a thief in the night, did you? It can't ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... she had was gone, and concluded that Cunningham, as he was absent from breakfast contrary to his wont, must be the thief. The police got immediate notice; advertisements were issued, and rewards offered, and in a day or two after Cunningham was arrested; but as none of the money was found on his person, and as there was no direct evidence of his guilt, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... to me, hermano! the lad who will reply to the name of Levin. With him I would speak while you give the directions! Poor coward!" Van Dorn said, after his host had descended the stairs, "he can never be less than a thief with that ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... "Why what a little thief you are," cried he, "to run away from us thus! what do you think Sir Robert will say? I saw him looking for you at the very ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... lay and cried. She knew, to be sure, that her grandfather was not a thief and that he did not know what he was doing when he stole her money; but she knew, too, that if people found out he was crazy they would take him away from her and shut him up where she could not be with him, and of this she could not bear ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... thoroughly detested, the most hated man in Bartlesville. And those who hated feared him as they hated and feared the incendiary, the creeping thief, the midnight assassin; for he used their methods to attain his ends, along ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... cries, and excited oriole voices, with violent agitation of the leaves of a tall elm, ending with the sudden exit of a blackbird, closely followed by a pair of Baltimore orioles. The pursued flew leisurely across the lawn, plainly in no haste, and not at all with the air of the thief and nest robber he is popularly supposed to be. Clearly the elm belonged by bird custom to the orioles, for their pretty swinging hammock could be seen partly hidden by leaves, about halfway up the tree, and what business other than that of marauder had ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... in Newgate, who has just had his sentence read to him, cannot feel himself more inevitably condemned to death than I did at that moment. If before the next morning I did not destroy myself, I was nothing but a common thief. I knew that the only circumstance which distinguished the act I had committed from other crimes of the same sort, was, that detection was so inevitable, the evidence against me so indisputable, that it could only have been the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... "Confound the vulgar thief!" muttard my master, as he was laying on his sophy, after being so very ill; "I've poisoned myself with his infernal tobacco, and he has foiled me. The cursed swindling boor! he thinks he'll ruin this poor Cheese-monger, does he? I'll step ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... an atrocious satisfaction. "He's nothing but a thief," she cried, "this father of yours. As to you I have never been deceived in you for a moment. I have been growing more and more sick of you for years. You are a vulgar, silly nonentity, and you shall go back to where you belong, whatever low place you have sprung from, and beg your bread—that ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... yere maverick is goin' into the dance hall, or mebby the Red Light, some gent will chunk him one in the back with his shet fist an' say, 'How be you? You double- dealin', cattle-stealin', foogitive son of a murdererin' hoss-thief, how ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and beat his breath out of him and empty his pockets before he knows what is the matter with him,—the Burglars, with their "jimmies" in their pockets,—the fighting robbers, with their brass knuckles,—the whole set in a vast thief-constituency, thick as rats in sewers,—these were the disputants whom the emissaries of the Slave Power called upon to refute the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... sleest, paukie thief, That e'er attempted stealth or rief, Ye surely hae some warlock-breef Owre human hearts; For ne'er a bosom yet ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... among the stolen goods," replied Polly. "I've heard a lot about you lately, senor, but I honestly didn't believe you were a thief until I saw with my ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... Lapham, as quietly as if correcting him in a slight error; and Rogers took the word with equal sang froid. "You knew the road wouldn't give a fair price for the mills. You knew it would give what it chose, and that I couldn't help myself, when you let me take them. You're a thief, Milton K. Rogers, and you stole money I lent you." Rogers sat listening, as if respectfully considering the statements. "You knew how I felt about that old matter—or my wife did; and that I wanted to make it up to you, if you felt anyway badly used. And you took advantage of it. You've ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... wait around the ranch for John's coming, Sam. If the women folks are going up to Top Notch Trail with us, all well and good, but waiting about until John and the engineer gets home will be risky business for the claim. Before to-morrow, every thief in Oak Creek, and for miles around, will be wise to that gold vein, and most of them will want to sneak up there and try to jump ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... had come to the Villa Miraflores. This was his house. Yet he entered the gate like a thief, and crept along the shadow of the wall that enclosed his own gardens. The magnolias stood blazing white on the lawns, the stiff scarlet poinsettias twitched resentfully under the poising fireflies' weight, and from the dark geraniums scent rose like a smoke. He would have liked to ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... to say? Why ain't it, I want to know? Who's running you, your own conscience or some gang of men that's trying to steal from the State? Good God, I wish I had never lived to see the day a brother of mine put a thief in the United States Senate to bamboozle the honest, ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... negotiable. She recalled Tom Abbott's warning to keep them always in her safe deposit box and the key hidden. They might be traced if stolen, but State's Prison for the thief would be cold comfort if the bonds had been ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... The barefoot friar said that for an Ave a day, our Blessed Lady will drag us back from purgatory. I saw her on the wall of her chapel at Winchester saving a robber knight from the sea, yea and a thief from the gallows; but that ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of crime and criminals. A drunkard begets in his child a thirst for liquor, which is augmented by the mother's use of ale or lager during gestation and nursing, and the child enters the world with a natural taste for intoxicants. A thief transmits to his offspring a secretive, dishonest, sneaking disposition; and the child comes into the world ticketed for the State prison by the nearest route. So with other evil tendencies. By legislation or by some other means, measures should be speedily adopted for the prevention ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... sooner or later; and if the man who was to forge was not in the proper mood of inspiration for the business, some other fabricated writer was put forward on the ground that he was quite equivalent in merit to the author that was desiderated, as when a thief or other vagabond is wanted by a London Detective, he is certain to turn up in due time, and if not the actual delinquent, at any rate somebody else as bad, who serves equally well ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... fornicators, believing adulterers, believing thieves, believing misers, believing drunkards, believing slanderers, etc. The very teaching which Catholics falsely ascribe to Luther is an accepted dogma of their own Church. Their charge against Luther is, at best, the trick of crying, "Hold thief!" ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... unthinking fellow, for keeping you so late up—but this Sabbath is a day of rest, at the same time that it is a day of sorrow; for I shall not see my dear creature to-day, unless you meet me at Taylor's half an hour after twelve; but in this do as you like. I have ordered Matthew to turn thief, and steal you a quart of honey; what is honey to the sweetness of thee, who art sweeter than all the flowers it comes from! I love you to distraction, Kitty, and will love you on so to eternity—so ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... would come to 'steep his senses in forgetfulness.' The bed in the next room, with its grim, gaunt inmate, was constantly before his eyes. If he dozed for a moment, the miser, his father, and the gold he had for years longed to obtain possession of, haunted him, and made him start like a thief, as if taken in the act of stealing the coin now by inheritance ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... it? You stole it?" Before Mrs. Kitson's simple mind an awful picture was now revealed. Here, in this little girl, whom she had preferred as a companion for her beloved Mary, was a thief, a liar, and one, as she could instantly perceive, ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... Suffer ye thus far. And He touched his ear, and healed him. 52. Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to Him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves? 53. When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against Me; but this is your hour, and the power of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... one of whom perished of the measles in the dear year, to go errands, chap sand, carry water, and keep the housie clean. I have heard him say, when auld granfaither came to their door at the dead of night, tirling, like a thief of darkness, at the window-brod to get in, that he was so altered in his voice and lingo that no living soul kenned him, not even the wife of his bosom; so he had to put grannie in mind of things that had happened between ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... take Mr. Coon long to run to Mr. Possum's house and bring him back with him and show him his spoon, and then right through the window they jumped and grabbed Mr. Crow by the nape of his neck. And how they did shake the old thief! They did not stop ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... thief who expiated a sinful past by his repentance in the last hour, and was outwardly subjected to the same suffering as our Lord, is the type of the Turkish nation, which now puts Christianity (outside Germany) to shame.—DR. PREUSS, quoted ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... gone, she blushed, and became thoughtful. That some stranger had been in the fishing-house, during her absence, her lute, and the additional lines of a pencil, had already informed her: from the purport of these lines it was not unreasonable to believe, that the poet, the musician, and the thief were the same person. But though the music she had heard, the written lines she had seen, and the disappearance of the picture, formed a combination of circumstances very remarkable, she was irresistibly restrained from mentioning them; secretly ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... allusions, provided there was a likeness, they did not much trouble themselves about the decency of the comparison: thus Solomon resembles the nose of his beloved to the tower of Lebanon which looketh towards Damascus, as the coming of a thief in the night is a similitude of the same kind in the New Testament. It would be endless to make collections of this nature. Homer illustrates one of his heroes encompassed with the enemy, by an ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... ironia that marks our Lord's dealings. Master Richard had come to bring tidings of another's passion, and he found his own in the bringing of it. It was as when children play at the hanging of a murderer or a thief, and one is set to play the part of prisoner and another to hang him, and then at the end when all is prepared they turn upon the hangman and bid him prepare himself for whipping and death instead of the other, or maybe both are to be hanged. But our Lord is not cruel, like such children, ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... gipsies were, at an early period, acknowledged as a separate and independent race by one of the Scottish monarchs, and that they were less favourably distinguished by a subsequent law, which rendered the character of gipsy equal, in the judicial balance, to that of common and habitual thief, and prescribed his punishment accordingly. Notwithstanding the severity of this and other statutes, the fraternity prospered amid the distresses of the country, and received large accessions from among those whom famine, oppression, or the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... determined to meet, the fellow might be no more to blame than any other boaster, touting in his own interest. Still, I had an uneasy feeling that something lay hidden under Armenian plausibility. Bedr el Gemaly was perhaps a thief who had courted a chance for a big haul of jewellery. Yet if that were all, why hadn't he hopped off the tram, as it began to move, with the ladies' hand luggage? He might easily have got away, and disappeared into space, before we could wire the police of Alexandria to look out for him. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... want is to crow over Josepha; and it is all the same to me whether I have a Mignard or a Raphael!—That thief had on such pearls this evening!—you would ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... varied according to the value of the article stolen. If it were small and could be returned, that settled the matter. In cases of greater value it was different. In some cases the thief became bondsman for the original owner. In still others, he suffered death. This was the case where he stole articles set aside for religion—such as gold and silver, or captives taken in war; or, if the theft were committed in the market-place. Murder and homicide were always ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... is just ten, so you go to your lunch as usual; that will put the thief off his guard; but send one of the boys to hide in the stable and I will go ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... another of his free and unfettered search for truth, who would stand as the interpreter of truth for another, with the intent of remaining in this position, rather than endeavoring to lead him to the place where he can be his own interpreter, is more to be shunned than a thief and a robber. The injury he works is far greater, for he is doing direct and positive injury to the very life of the ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... his soul with their venom of jealousy and vulgar spite. Contention was the breath of her nostrils; the prime impulse of her heart was suspicion. Little by little she came round to the wonted topic. Had he been to see his friend the thief? Was she in prison again yet? Whom had she been stealing from of late? Oh, she was innocence itself, of course; too good ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... butler bravely stood his ground. He did not know why he was to detain this extraordinary young person, but he felt sure something wrong. Probably she was a thief, and had taken some of Madam's jewels. He could call the police. He opened his mouth to do ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... saying nothing of the gold, but with a jesting word that these would hardly repay him for his trouble. He could scarcely speak at supper for thinking of what he had found; and every now and then there came upon him a dreadful fear that he had been observed digging, and that even now some thief had stolen back there and was uncovering his hoard. His mother looked at him often, and at last said that he looked very weary; to which he replied with some sharpness, so ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... torrent, as it rushed by amid the darkness, and the men, dripping with wet, dragging their heavy burdens up the bank, told that the great event had occurred. The river had arrived like a thief in the night. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... him, however. A sum of money was stolen, and he was forced to stay till it was found, for fear of being arrested as the thief. Then his cousin and employer fell sick, and Gerard was obliged to wait for his recovery. At last, in March, 1584, "the weather, as he said, appearing to be fine," Balthazar left Luxemburg and came to Treves. While there, he confided his scheme to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... be kept ready for something (and looking like it)—pistol butts probably. The young man had a racking cough that seemed to wrench and twist his frame as the settler steered him to a seat on a stool by the fire. (In the intervals of coughing he glared round like a watched and hunted sneak-thief—as if the cough was something serious against the law, and he ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... carries with him into his poverty the prejudices of his birth? What is more despicable than a rich man fallen into poverty, who recalls the scorn with which he himself regarded the poor, and feels that he has sunk to the lowest depth of degradation? The one may become a professional thief, the other a cringing servant, with this fine saying, "I ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... I didn't like that planter's manner much. He looked to be rather a sly one. Come on, let us find Dick and the others at once," went on Sam Rover. "If the houseboat has been stolen we want to know it right away, so we can get on the trail of the thief." ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... xxxviij.r] chiues of the wicked, to exasperate & agrauate their terrible iudgemente, and to extirpate from the yearth, soche as be of [Sidenote: The homicide. The Theue. The Adulte- rer.] no societie in life. The bloodie homicide, the thief, the adul- terer, for by these all vertue is rooted out, all godlie societie extinguished, citees, realmes, and countres, prostrate & pla- gued for the toleracion of their factes, against soch frendship in iudgemente muste cease, and accordyng to ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde
... loved to hear, as, 'It was so full of Jesus;' but he said he had neglected the Saviour, and how could he hope He would have mercy on him now. I told him how Christ died praying for his enemies, and that the thief on the cross looked to him and was saved, and repeated to him the hymn 'Just as I am,' etc. This seemed to encourage him, and he said he wanted to trust in the mercy of God through Christ to save him; while ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... and hospitality and kindness and love, I must plant them; and it is the sum of all arrogance to assume that I have a right to reap them without planting them. A man who receives courtesy without exercising it, reaps that which he has not sown. He is a thief, and ought in justice to be kicked out of society. Blessings on the man who sows the seeds of a happy nature and a noble character broadcast wherever his feet wander,—who has a smile alike for joy and sorrow, a ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... experience for the thief," said the sheriff, dryly. "I congratulate you, Mr. Wright, for doing something to that villain that nobody else ever did. It is a most remarkable thing for Jesse ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... to get in anything that offered temptation to sin. There would be no thieves if there was nothing to steal; and I suppose, in the thieves' catechism, the provider is as bad as the thief; and, probably, I am to blame for leaving out a few winter pears, which some predatory boy carried off on Sunday. At first I was angry, and said I should like to have caught the urchin in the act; but, on second thought, I was glad I did not. The interview ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... see me. We will have the matter cleared up before we sleep. But, Nellie, don't tell Edward what I want to see Don John for. Not a word about that to any one. By keeping my own counsel, I may get at the whole truth; whereas the thief, if he gets wind of what I am doing, may cover ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... improvement, accordingly, did little good, and the numerous bands of thieves had it still pretty much their own way. Severity of punishment seldom compensates the want of precautionary measures. It was the general custom at this period to cut off the ears of a condemned thief after the term of his imprisonment had elapsed. Thia was done that offenders might be readily recognized should they dare again to enter the city, banishment from which was a part of the sentence of such as were destined to be cropped. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... from the vehicle he was conducted into the rotunda where the registry office was situated. There his name was taken down, and in exchange for his name he was assigned a number. Whether the prisoner be a thief or a legislator, such is always the rule in this prison; the coup d'etat reduced all to a footing of equality. As soon as a Representative was registered and numbered, he was ordered to "file off." They said to him, "Go upstairs," or "Go on;" and they announced him at the end of the corridor to ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... rustler, cattle-thief, an' all round no-good customer, though I ain't taken to houndin' ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... with his companions. Seeing her dejection, he demanded an audience of the king, that truth might prevail. The king authorized him to do as he saw fit. David ordered the honey jars to be broken, and two coins were found to adhere to the inner side of the vessels. The thief had overlooked them, and they ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... which Jesus made to the thief on the cross, when he said to him, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Luke, 23:42, 43. If there were such a place as purgatory, and if any one were likely to be subjected to its fires, surely it would have been this malefactor, condemned by human, laws, and probably guilty ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous
... He's as mistrustful as a thief, and lets himself be lied to, till one loses all respect! When we first knew each other I informed him I had never yet loved— (Schoen falls into an easy-chair.) Otherwise he would really have taken me for ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind |
