"Pilfer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Doctor. 'But do not suppose me so unwary as to adopt him out of hand. I am, I flatter myself, a finished man of the world; I have had all possibilities in view; my plan is contrived to meet them all. I take the lad as stable boy. If he pilfer, if he grumble, if he desire to change, I shall see I was mistaken; I shall recognise him for no son of mine, and send ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crazed with anger against his master, and against the woman who had so successfully supplanted him, and was eager to revenge himself on both. And one day he brought not only a new tale, but a bottle of gin he had managed to pilfer from the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... discovered that ideal shields were being provided him gratis behind which to conduct his crimes. In the silence a man could blow out the side of a bank building with impunity, provided only he kept out of sight. In the darkness he could pilfer at will, with only the proviso that he forget not his gum shoes. The possibilities of night crime when electricity lacks have ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... again; and I shall then be most ready for a rummage of your Irish treasures. Already, indeed, I have been drawing a little upon your 'Researches in the South of Ireland;' and should be very glad to have more books of yours to pilfer. ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... the tunnel the army of gigantic Growleywogs, with their Grand Gallipoot at their head. They were dreadful beings, indeed, and longed to get to Oz that they might begin to pilfer and destroy. The Grand Gallipoot was a little afraid of the First and Foremost, but had a cunning plan to murder or destroy that powerful being and secure the wealth of Oz for himself. Mighty little of the plunder would the Nome King ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... will eat almost anything however tough or filthy, and that neither whipping nor shouting will prevent their turning out of the road, even when going at full speed, to pick up whatever they espy. When at the huts they are constantly creeping in to pilfer what they can, and half the time of the people sitting there is occupied in vociferating their names and driving them by most unmerciful blows out of the apartments. The dogs have no water to drink during the winter, but lick up some clean ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... had the lateral ridge of the Pink Hills upon our right, and travelled through a good deal of brush. Four or five natives joined us, and two followed us to the end of our day's journey. In the course of the evening, they endeavoured to pilfer whatever was in their reach, but were detected putting a tin into a bush, and soon took to their heels. This was the first instance we had of open theft among the natives of ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... Rais gave each soldier 3 Tunisian piastres, about 1s. 10d. Since then they had had nothing. Substantially, I believe, he spoke the truth, for these poor fellows are kept just above the starvation-to-death point. It is not surprising they wish to return to their homes, or Tripoli, and that they pilfer about the town. Asking him why the Rais did not give them a few karoobs, he replied naively, "The Rais has none for us, but plenty to buy gold for his horse's saddle." To-day, nor yesterday, could I buy any eatable meat. I mean mutton, for this ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... and men Rooted in that which fed them yesterday. Not even Memory shall follow Delphis, For I will yield to all impulse save hers, Therein alone subject to prescient rigour; Lest she should lure me back among the dying— Pilfer the present for the beggar past. Free minds must bargain with each greedy moment And seize the most that lies to hand at once. Ye are too old to understand my words; I yet have youth enough, and can escape From that which sucks each individual ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... of praise of our principles. To live in seeming fellowship and secret rivalry; to have a hand for all, and a heart for none; to be everybody's acquaintance, and nobody's friend; to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile, and to dread the secret stratagems of all who smile on us; to pilfer honours and despoil fortunes, not by fighting in daylight, but by sapping in darkness: these are arts which the court can teach, but which we, by 'r Lady, have not learned. But let your court-minstrel tune up his ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... prevailed on an old man to sit down by me and gave him a clasp-knife in order to check the search he was disposed to make through my pockets. Meanwhile the others came around the forge and immediately began to pilfer whatever they could lay either hand or foot upon. While one was detected making off with a file another seized something else, until the poor blacksmith could no longer proceed with his work. One set his foot on an axe and thus, all the while staring the overseer (who eyed him) in the face he quickly ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... cradle; but they beg with a good grace, and not with a curse or an insult like the European 'asker' when refused: moreover, the mendicant pest is not now over-prevalent. In the towns they cheat and pilfer; they gamble in the streets; they drink hard on Saturdays and Sundays, and at times they murder one another. Liquor is cheap; a bottle of aguardente or caxaca (new raw rum) costs only fivepence, and the second distillation ninepence. I heard of one assault ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... pilfer, filch, peculate, purloin, poach, abstract, rob, defraud, pirate, plunder, crib, pillage, rapine loot, thieve, embezzle, peculate, plagiarize; insinuate, creep furtively, go stealthily, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the common people, no disposition to take advantage of the misfortune of the stranger. Although they beheld what must in their eyes have been inestimable treasures, cast, as it were, upon their shores, and open to depredation, yet there was not the least attempt to pilfer, nor, in transporting the effects from the ships, had they appropriated the most trifling article. On the contrary, a general sympathy was visible in their countenances and actions; and to have witnessed their concern, one would have ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... to Waheatoun the Earee de hi, or king, and him we had not yet seen, nor, I believe, any other chief of note. Many, however, who called themselves Earees, came on board, partly with a view of getting presents, and partly to pilfer whatever came in ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... presume, have practised a studied reserve as to his deepest admirations; and, perhaps, at that day (1803-8) the occasions would be rare in which much dissimulation would be needed. Until Lord Byron had begun to pilfer from Wordsworth and to abuse him, allusions to Wordsworth were not frequent in conversation; and it was chiefly on occasion of some question arising about poetry in general, or about the poets of the day, that ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... shall know I have lost a foolish Daughter, And with her all my patience, pilfer'd away By a mean Captain ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... declare that your offers are inadmissible"? No such thing appears. Your Lordships will further remark, that Mr. Hastings refused the 200,000l. at a time when the exigencies of the Company were so pressing that he was obliged to rob, pilfer, and steal upon every side,—at a time when he was borrowing 40,000l. from Mr. Sulivan in one morning, and raising by other under-jobs 27,000l. more. In the distress [in?] which his own extravagance and prodigality had involved him, 200,000l. would have been a weighty benefit, although derived ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... pilfer, until exposure and decay had weakened his hand. In his first week at Dublin he carried off L1000, and it was only his fateful interview with Sir John Fielding that gave him poverty for a bedfellow. Even at the end, when he slunk ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... number of men and children who crowded about the steamer watching for opportunities to pilfer or pick up food became so great that it was necessary to clear the pier and put a guard of soldiers there to exclude the public altogether. Then the hungry people formed in a dense mass in the street ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... should no longer be C. R., (Charles Rex.) The great fire of London had been the work of the Jesuits, who had employed eighty or eighty-six persons for that purpose, and had expended seven hundred fire-balls; but they had a good return for their money, for they had been able to pilfer goods from the fire to the amount of fourteen thousand pounds: the Jesuits had also raised another fire on St. Margaret's Hill, whence they had stolen goods to the value of two thousand pounds; another at Southwark: ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... slow, not fast. rood, fourth of an acre. sloe, a kind of fruit. serf, a slave; servant. sun, the source of light. surf, a swell of the sea. son, a male child. serge, a kind of cloth. steel, refined iron. surge, to rise; to swell. steal, to rob; to pilfer. sheer, pure; clear. stile, steps over a fence. shear, to cut or clip. style, manner of writing. side, a part; a margin. stare, to look fixedly. sighed, did sigh. stair, a step. slew (slu), did slay. sweet, pleasing to the taste. slue, to ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... opportunity for proving that the Church in England was a Protestant Church more than nine hundred years before the Reformation; while the zeal of Mr. Haslam led him to an unfortunate attempt at restoring the oratory. Then followed neglect, and the tourists who came hither were left to pilfer and carry away the sacred stones piecemeal; now, when it is almost too late, such depredation is stopped. The church was a ruin when it was found; it is something almost less than a ruin now. As revealed by the shifting sand, it ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... to be ruined for life; but he very shortly found that he was a gainer by the maiming. For being by nature disposed to pilfer from his companions, it would come within his experience to have many misadventures wherein his ears would be torn in ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... number of whom were condemned to death, and were accordingly hung in chains, as the custom of those days was, to be a terror and warning to like evil-doers, as dead crows and other birds are stuck up in a field to scare away the live ones wishing to pilfer ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... and roam abroad beyond their usual haunts. The partridge comes to the orchard for buds; the rabbit comes to the garden and lawn; the crows and jays come to the ash-heap and corn-crib, the snow-buntings to the stack and to the barn-yard; the sparrows pilfer from the domestic fowls; the pine grosbeak comes down from the north and shears your maples of their buds; the fox prowls about your premises at night, and the red squirrels find your grain in the barn or ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... The central idea of this modern folly about the potato is that you must pilfer the root. Let us work the idea of the healing or magical herb backwards, from Kensington to European folklore, and thence to classical times, to Homer, and to the Hottentots. Turning first to Germany, we note the beliefs, not about the potato, but about another vegetable, the mandrake. ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... undoubtedly, if any propensity to mistake the tuum for the meum had been exhibited, there were among us sufficient of the stamp of my old friend "who had served with Rodney," to have flung the culprit where men pilfer no more; whatever may be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... together. Neither is this to be wondered at, when we consider from what nurseries so many of them are received into our houses. The first is the tribe of wicked boys, wherewith most corners of this town are pestered, who haunt public doors. These, having been born of beggars, and bred to pilfer as soon as they can go or speak, as years come on, are employed in the lowest offices to get themselves bread, are practised in all manner of villainy, and when they are grown up, if they are not entertained in a gang of thieves, are forced to seek for a service. The other nursery is the barbarous ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... its good days, also has its evil times. On certain days, Trumence could not find either kind-hearted topers or hospitable housewives. Hunger, however, was ever on hand; then he had to become a marauder; dig some potatoes, and cook them in a corner of a wood, or pilfer the orchards. And if he found neither potatoes in the fields, nor apples in the orchards, what could he do but climb a ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... take me there for a moment. As we approached the shop, Garoffi issued from it on a run, with a package in his hand, and making his big cloak, with which he covers up his merchandise, flutter. Ah! now I know where he goes to pilfer iron filings, which he sells for old papers, that barterer of a Garoffi! When we arrived in front of the door, we saw Precossi seated on a little pile of bricks, engaged in studying his lesson, with his ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... bad as they declare, O girls and boys of Chester Square! Be sure some little good we do, Even though we pilfer buds a few. Don't grudge them, since your trees we clear Of vermin that would cost you dear: So throw us out a crumb or two, And, as you would ...
— The Nursery, February 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... their affair to lend modesty where they borrow wit, and to spare a blush to the cheek of the Lord Chamberlain. But still, as has ever been our wont since Etherege saw, and envied, and imitated your successes—still we pilfer the plays of France, and take our bien, as you said in your lordly manner, wherever we can find it. We are the privateers of the stage; and it is rarely, to be sure, that a comedy pleases the town which has not first ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... my friend, And like the half you pilfer'd best; But sure the piece you yet may mend: Take courage, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Love obey, And serve for Gratitude, than they Who from a coward Dread of Law Owe all their Virtue to their Awe; Who, tho' they seem so true, and just, So strictly faithful to their Trust, Will, if you take the Gallows down, Out-pilfer half the Rogues in Town). With saucy boldness will presume To pass th' impenetrable gloom, And lift the Curtain which we see Is drawn betwixt the World and Thee; Of nought but endless Torments speak, To frighten and appall the weak; Dwell on the horrid ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... a certain pastrycook's shop, where, the better to conceal her purpose, she endeavours slily to ingratiate herself into favour with the mistress of the house. As soon as the shopkeeper's attention becomes engrossed in business, or otherwise, puss contrives to pilfer a small pie or tart from the shelves on which they are placed, speedily afterwards making the best of her way home with her booty. She then carefully delivers her prize to some of the little ones in the nursery. ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... Queen-Mother, whose pet he was, insisted on his liberation. Marillac himself blubbered that it "was all about a little straw and hay, a matter for which a master would not whip a lackey." Marshal Marillac was executed. So, when statesmen rule, fare all who take advantage of the agonies of a nation to pilfer a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... us yesterday left us in the evening. These people the Chinnooks and others residing in this neighbourhood and speaking the same language have been very friendly to us; they appear to be a mild inoffensive people but will pilfer if they have an opportuny to do so where they conceive themselves not liable to detection. they are great higlers in trade and if they conceive you anxious to purchase will be a whole day bargaining ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... small fowl on the wing, are always within reach; you will never find me without well-tenanted pill-boxes in my pocket, and perhaps a buzzing captive or two stuck in spinning thraldom on my castor; you are petty larceners, I profess the like metier of intellectual abstractor; you pilfer among a crowd of volumes, manuscripts, rare editions, conflicting commentators, and your success depends upon reusage of the old materials; whereas I sit alone and bookless in my dining-parlour, thinking over bygone fancies, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to his feet, and caught hold of me. "Sha'n't go, Tom, impossible—come along with me to my lodgings, and breakfast with me. Here, Pilfer, Pilfer," to his black valet, "give me my stick, and massu the chair, and run home and order breakfast—cold calipiver—our Jamaica salmon, you know, Tom—tea and coffee pickled mackerel, eggs, and cold tongue—any thing that Mother Dingychops ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... living law out of that; "Enacted" sends him to the Revised Statutes, or the Reports, and there it ends. The latter gives a bit of information; the former a step in development. Laws are necessary; but laws which are not necessary are more and worse than unnecessary;—they pilfer power from the soul; they intercept the absolute uses of life; they incarcerate men, and make Caspar Hausers of them. Now in America not only is there already much emancipation from those outside regulations which supersede moral and private judgment, but the tendency toward a fresh life daily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare, Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir, Is coarse brown paper, such as peddlers choose To wrap up wares which better ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... officers under him. Thus, Ensign Pistol becomes lieutenant, Corporal Bardolph becomes ensign, and Nym takes the place of Bardolph. He is an arrant rogue, and both he and Bardolph are hanged (Henry V.). The word means to "pilfer." ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... which Uncle Patas' wife did not feel in other matters she reserved, no doubt, for the accounts. Herself accustomed to pilfer, she knew to the least detail every trick of the servants, and not a centimo escaped her; she always thought she was being robbed. Such was her spirit of economy that at home they ate stale bread, thus confirming ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... invention but it can trade upon the staple of its own vice, without drawing upon their capital. The poor are not quite such servile imitators as they take them for. Some of them are very clever artists in their way. Here and there we find an original. Who taught the poor to steal, to pilfer? They did not go to the great for schoolmasters in these faculties surely. It is well if in some vices they allow us to be—no copyists. In no other sense is it true that the poor copy them, than as servants may be said to take after their masters and mistresses, when they succeed to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... counterfeited his buffoons, whom they called Egeums. This kind of farce so much pleased my master, that he made me repeat it as often as he found opportunity. He made use of this stratagem to divert those among them, whom he suspected as inclined to pilfer, and thus cunningly occupied their attention. No sooner did he make known my talent for imitating the Egeums, than I was surrounded by men, women, and children, who constantly bawled out to me ganne, (sing then). I had no ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... above, our friend "E. V. K." has shown himself curiously unaffected by "that last infirmity of noble minds,"—his "clear spirit" heeds all too little its urgent "spur." The following sonnets are all we can pilfer from him. They ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... I'll go pilfer some provisions so the fleet will be prepared to do what you tell me it won't, but which it has to be prepared to do. I suppose I'll ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... repaired, And found the belle by Morpheus not insnared; Coletta taught a play that mortals find Fatigues the body more than plagues the mind: A truce succeeded, but 'twas quickly o'er: Those rest not long who pilfer Cupid's store. ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... wretch, whose dastard heart Shrinks at a tyrant's nobler part, And only dares betray; With reptile wiles, alas! prevail, Where force, and rage, and priestcraft fail, To pilfer power away? ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... one of those men whose plans come to nothing. He had prospered as a rogue of old in England, really his native country, though he called himself an Afrikander. Reared in the gutters of the Irish quarter of Liverpool, he had early learned to pilfer for a living, had prospered in prison as sharp young gaol-birds may prosper, and returned to it again and again, until, having served out part of a sentence for burglary and obtained his ticket-of-leave, he had shifted his convict's skin, and made his way out to Cape Colony ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Pike (weapon) ponardego. Pile up amasigi. Pile (logs) sxtiparo. [Error in book: stiparo] Pile (support) paliso, subteno. Pile (heap) amaso—ajxo. Pile (electric) elektra pilo. Piles hemorojdo. Pilfer sxteleti. Pilferer sxtelisto. Pilgrim pilgrimanto. Pilgrimage pilgrimo—ado. Pill pilolo. Pillage rabegi—ado. Pillar kolono. Pillory punejo. Pillow kapkuseno. Pillow-case kusentego. Pilot piloto, gvido. Pimple akno. Pin pinglo. Pince-nez ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Echeloot chiefs remained with the white men to guide them on their way down the river. These were joined by seven others of their tribe, to whom the explorers were kind and attentive. But the visitors could not resist the temptation to pilfer from the goods exposed to dry in the sun. Being checked in this sly business, they became ill-humored and returned, angry, down ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... needless bother. How miserable! Our slaves are a burden, not worth the trifles they pilfer. I wish they would all run away, then we might ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Paimosaid,—a permutative form of the Indian substantive, made from the verb pim-o-sa, to walk. Its literal meaning is, he who walks, or the walker; but the ideas conveyed by it are, he who walks by night to pilfer corn. It offers, therefore, a kind of parallelism in expression to the preceding term." — ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... fall. One of the women carried a little squirrel monkey. She put it up the big tree some distance from the tents; and when she called, it came scampering to her across the grass, ran up her, and clung to her neck. They would have liked to pilfer; but as they had no clothes it was difficult for them to conceal anything. One of the women was observed to take a fork; but as she did not possess a rag of clothing of any kind all she did do was to try to bury the fork in the sand and ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... Where they have ceased to kill quickly by the sword, they kill slowly by personal servitude and other unjust and intolerable vexations. And till now the King has not succeeded in preventing them because all, small and great, go there to pilfer, some more, some less, some publicly and openly, others secretly and under disguise; and with the pretext that they are serving the king, they dishonour God, and rob and ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... most numerous in Alaska and are even more graceful in flight than are the Gulls and Terns, floating, skimming, sailing, plunging, and darting about with incredible swiftness and ease. Like the others of this family, they pilfer their food from the Gulls, and are also very destructive to young birds and eggs. Their eggs are either laid on the bare ground or in a slight depression, scantily lined with grasses. The eggs are indistinguishable from those of the ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... duty, the effects of military training, and the stern obedience to orders. The first lesson he learns is obedience, and the longer in service the more convinced he is of its necessity. While he may break ranks, pass guards, rob roosts, or pilfer fruits and vegetables himself, yet put a gun in his hand, place him on duty, order him to guard or protect men or property, and his integrity in that respect is as unyielding, inflexible, and stern as if his life depended upon ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... too dangerous. I shirk King George; he has a fat pocket, but he has a long arm. [You pilfer sixpence from him, and it's three hundred reward for you, and a hue and cry from Tophet to the stars.] It ceases to be business; it turns politics, and I'm not a politician, Mr. Moore. (RISING.) I'm only ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... possession of your key, and was sufficiently familiar with the bearings of the office to move about in the dark, or by the dim fire-light, to enter that office, remove the surgeon's knife from its case, pilfer a handkerchief from the coat pocket, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... of value and one to save her a deal of trouble: skeleton keys are so exasperatingly slow, particularly when used by inexpert hands. But how to bring herself to make use of these? All's fair in war (and this was a sort of war, a war of wits at least); but one should fight with one's own arms, not pilfer the enemy's and turn them against him. To use these keys to ransack Maitland's desk seemed an action even more blackly dishonorable than this clandestine visit, this ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... on the keyboard and strings of a piano while I watched a number of thieves break into the remnants of houses and pilfer them, while others again had got at a supply of fine groceries and had broken into a barrel of fine brandy, and were fairly steeping themselves in it. I met quite a number of Pittsburghers in the ruins looking for friends and relatives. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Luriottis, who had been sent to England to raise the money and to see that it was properly expended, but who, as was well known, had sought only their own advantage and enjoyment, and, pilfering themselves, had allowed others to pilfer without restraint. He urged that the innocent holders of the Greek stock ought not to suffer on this account, and showed also, that, if there had been great abuse of the loan, it had enabled the Greeks to tide over their worst time of trouble. "Your excellency ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... lecturer in a technical school, spoke to me to the same effect. He told me, as an illustration, of a parcel sent to him which had become quite shattered in transit (p.p. 7). The Germans transferred the contents to a sack, and, as he said, the temptation to pilfer the sorely-needed foodstuffs must have been great. My informant also spoke of the very ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... these; While Reynolds vents his 'dammes, poohs' and 'zounds'[12] And common place, and common sense confounds? While Kenny's World just suffered to proceed, Proclaims the audience very kind indeed? And Beaumont's pilfer'd Caratach affords A tragedy complete in all but words?[13] Who but must mourn while these are all the rage, The degradation of our vaunted stage? Heavens! is all sense of shame and talent gone? Have we no living bard of merit?—none? Awake, George Colman! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... that pilfer one another, Betray my friend, and persecute my brother; Turn usurer, o'er cent. per cent. to brood, Or quack, to feed like fleas ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... and five months later embarked on board a Nile boat, or canja. His cabin had close latticed windows made not only to admit fresh air, but to be a defence against a set of robbers on the Nile, who were wont to swim under water in the dark or on goatskins to pilfer any passing boats. Then, unfurling her vast sails, the canja bore Bruce on the first stage of his great journey. The explorer spent some time in trying to find the lost site of old Memphis, but this was difficult. "A man's heart fails him in looking ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... "Did he pilfer your silly heart from your soft body?" he asked. Perpetua answered him mildly, heedless of the ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... it do?" said Mr Webster, beginning to feel hot, too. "You think you can come to my shop, and pilfer my things like so many young pickpockets; and then you have the impudence to come and offer me part of the price to say nothing about it. No, thank you. That's not my way ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... compliment of falling very ill. They thought that I would die. They tell me even to-day I did not die. I almost question it." He shrugged. "And to-day I must continue to write plays, because I never learned any other trade. And so, at need, I pilfer." The topic did not seem much to ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... your imagination, and to make such alarming and unreliable statements as will induce you to purchase their nostrums and subject yourself to such a series of humiliations and impositions as will enable them to pilfer your purse and without rendering you in return any value received, but likely leave you in a much worse ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... much more unnatural than natural if Mrs Jenkins had grieved at heart for the husband she had lost. Married, or rather sold to him, when he was fifty and she thirty, she had lived five or six and twenty years of pure misery with him. She had starved with him, when she could not pilfer from him, and had endured patiently all these years what seemed past endurance in expectation of the closing scene. She had married and lived upon the prospect of his death, and it was come at last; and now that it was ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... like ease his vivid lines assume The garb and dignity of ancient Rome.— Let college verse-men trite conceits express, Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress; From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase, And vapid notions hitch in pilfer'd lays: Then with mosaick art the piece combine, And boast the glitter of each dulcet line: Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse His vigorous sense into the Latian muse; Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light, And with a Roman's ardour think and write. He felt the tuneful Nine his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... interested in Mr. Queed. An intense and strictly feminine curiosity filled her soul to know something of the nature of that work which demanded so stern a noiselessness. Observing rigorously the printed Rule of the Dining-Room, she could not forbear to pilfer glance after glance at the promulgator of it. Mr. Queed was writing, not reading, to-night. He wrote very slowly on half-size yellow pads, worth seventy-five cents a dozen, using the books only for reference. Now he tore off a sheet only partly filled with his small handwriting, ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... countless rows of narrow cells with iron gratings for doors; and the gimlet gaze of two stalwart young females pierced each newcomer. It was their business to see that Peter Rolls's hands did not pilfer each other's belongings. The gimlet eyes must note the outdoor clothing each girl wore on arrival, in order to be sure that she did not go forth at evening clad in the property of a comrade. Being paid to cultivate suspicion ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... But when man makes a vise, or a wedge, or a bootjack, he uses his individual intelligence. When the jay carries away the corn you put out in winter and hides it in old worms' nests and knot-holes and crevices in trees, he is obeying the instinct of all his tribe to pilfer and hide things,—an instinct that plays its part in the economy of nature, as by its means many acorns and chestnuts get planted and large seeds widely disseminated. By this greed of the jay the wingless nuts take flight, oaks ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... on the weight which he bore; The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store. If a thief could be here, he might pilfer at ease: She sees the musician—'tis all ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... prevented: we were also indebted for many advantages to the old man, whose caution kept our people perpetually upon their guard, and soon brought back those who straggled from the party. The natives would indeed sometimes pilfer, but by the terror of a gun, without using it, he always found means to make them bring back what was stolen. A fellow had one day the dexterity and address to cross the river unperceived, and steal a hatchet; the gunner, as soon as he missed it, made the old man ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Hinduism and unconverted to the Mohammedan faith, lives on in a miserable condition of life as outcasts from the more civilised communities. Changars are, in general, petty thieves and pickpockets, and have no settled vocation. They object to continuous labour. The women make baskets, beg, pilfer, or sift and grind corn. They have no settled places of residence, and live in small blanket or mat tents, or temporary sheds outside villages. They are professedly Hindus and worshippers of Deree or Bhowanee, but they make offerings at Mohammedan shrines. They have private ceremonies, separate ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... greatest intensity in the whisky-john. He will jump down almost under your nose, and seize a fragment of biscuit or pemmican. He will go right into the pemmican-bag, when you are but a few paces off, and pilfer, as it were, at the fountain-head. Or if these resources are closed against him, he will sit on a twig, within an inch of your head, and look at you as only a ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Blood-thirstiness was a passion unknown to him; but that tenderness which with us creates a horror of blood was equally unknown. Pleasure was sweet to him; but he was man enough to feel that a life of pleasure was contemptible. To pillage a city, to pilfer his all from a rich man, to debauch a friend's wife, to give over a multitude of women and children to slaughter, was as easy to him as to forgive an enemy. But nothing rankled with him, and he could forgive an enemy. ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... thought they ate and drank to their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors; that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another and the tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no relations or friends who cared enough for her to share her solitary struggle against her domestic foes; and her income, though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby reducing various nephews, nieces, or cousins to the strict ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... down on the weight which he bore; The Lass with her barrow wheels hither her store;— If a Thief could be here he might pilfer at ease; She sees the Musician, ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... up his mind that if this pilgrim to whom they had given shelter and food as become generous campers, showed any disposition to pilfer he would treat him in a summary manner, and chase him into the woods, just as any rascal should be made to decamp; and the fact of Stackpole's gigantic figure made not a particle of ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... young un; I didn't say as she did pilfer. I think that 'ere podgy gel as honest as the day. But now, can't ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... station of Zagathai we travelled directly north, and our attendants began to pilfer largely from us, because we took too little heed of our property, but experience at length taught us wisdom. At length we reached the bounds of this province, which is fortified by a deep ditch, from sea ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... acts of personal servitude, which, in all early periods of society, were uniformly imposed on the female. "Why," would he say, "did the boy, Tam Rintherout, whom, at my wise sister's instigation, I, with equal wisdom, took upon trialwhy did he pilfer apples, take birds' nests, break glasses, and ultimately steal my spectacles, except that he felt that noble emulation which swells in the bosom of the masculine sex, which has conducted him to Flanders with a musket on his shoulder, and doubtless will ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... house that had been pointed out to us as Wordsworth's residence, we began to peer about at its front and gables, and over the garden wall, on both sides of the road, quickening our enthusiasm as much as we could, and meditating to pilfer some flower or ivy-leaf from the house or its vicinity, to be kept as sacred memorials. At this juncture a man approached, who announced himself as the gardener of the place, and said, too, that this was not Wordsworth's house at ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due. A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; But each man's secret standard in his mind, That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, This, who can gratify for who can guess? The bard whom pilfer'd Pastorals renown, Who turns a Persian tale[102] for half-a-crown, 180 Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year; He who, still wanting, though he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left: And ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... absorbed into itself all the qualities of his nobler nature, transmuting them into rank and noisome products. All love for Christ, all care for the poor, all thought of his fellow-disciples, were quenched before that remorseless passion; and at last he began to pilfer from those scant treasures, which were now and again replenished by those that loved to minister to the Master's comfort. At first, he must have been stung by keen remorse; but each time he sinned his conscience became more seared, until he finally ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... as it shapes itself into momentary demand—if, in jealous rivalry with neighbouring States, or with other producers, you try to attract attention by singularities, novelties, and gaudinesses—to make every design an advertisement, and pilfer every idea of a successful neighbour's, that you may insidiously imitate it, or pompously eclipse —no good design will ever be possible to you, or perceived by you. You may, by accident, snatch the market; or, by energy, command it; you may obtain the confidence of the public, and cause ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... king, the office of provost of the hotel, in which behaved rather harshly my lord Tristan of Mere, of whom these tales oft make mention, although he was by no means a merry fellow. I give this information to the friends who pilfer from old manuscripts to manufacture new ones, and I show thereby how learned these Tales really are, without appearing to be so. Very well, then, this provost was named Picot or Picault, of which some made picotin, picoter, and picoree; ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... embezzlement; fraud &c. 545; larceny, petty larceny, grand larceny, shoplifting. thievishness, rapacity, kleptomania, Alsatia[obs3], den of Cacus, den of thieves. blackmail, extortion, shakedown, Black Hand [U.S.]. [person who commits theft] thief &c. 792. V. steal, thieve, rob, mug, purloin, pilfer, filch, prig, bag, nim|, crib, cabbage, palm; abstract; appropriate, plagiarize. convey away, carry off, abduct, kidnap, crimp; make off with, walk off with, run off with; run away with; spirit away, seize &c. (lay violent hands on) 789. plunder, pillage, rifle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and dirty prostitution, in the age of Dodington and Sandys, it was something to have a man who might perhaps, under some strong excitement, have been tempted to ruin his country, but who never would have stooped to pilfer from her, a man whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire of gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for glory, and for vengeance. History owes to him this attestation, that at a time when anything short of direct embezzlement of the public ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as by the weather; for, with very few exceptions, it was impossible to select from among the prisoners, or those who had been such, any who would feel an honest interest in executing the service in which they were employed. They would pilfer half the grain entrusted to their care for the cattle; they would lead them into the woods for pasturage, and there leave them until obliged to conduct them in; they would neither clean them nor themselves. Indolent, and by long habit ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... our allowance was somewhat bettered, by a daily proportion of Bisket, which the sailers would pilfer to sell, giue, or exchange with vs, for money, Saxefras, furres, or loue. But when they departed, there remained neither taverne, beere house, nor place of reliefe, but the common Kettell. Had we beene as free from all sinnes ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... <Steal, abstract, pilfer, filch, purloin, peculate, swindle, plagiarize, poach>. (With this group, which excludes the idea of violence, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... these remote regions, were talked of, among the other rumors of the borders; but Gershom had that in his air and manner that rendered Ben confident his delinquencies, at the most, would scarcely reach bloodshed. Pilfer he might; but murder was a crime which he did not appear at all likely ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... they drop their petticoat either over or by it, and manage to transfer the stolen property into their basket while picking up the petticoat. If an unfavourable omen occurs on the way when the women set out to pilfer they place a stone on the ground and dash another on to it saying, 'If the obstacle is removed, break'; if the stone struck is broken, they consider that the obstacle portended by the unfavourable omen is removed from their path, and proceed on their way; but if not, they return. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... the owner. We suspect, though this is a point difficult to prove satisfactorily, that merriami does not always store food supplies for itself, but visits the burrows of spectabilis regularly to pilfer the seed stored therein. The observed facts thus far recorded which suggest this are that in no merriami burrow examined has a store of food been found, and also that in trapping for spectabilis ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... all parties is to regard repetitions of phrases as examples of borrowing, except, of course, in the case of the earliest poet from whom the others pilfer, and in other cases of prae-Homeric surviving epic formulae. Critics then dispute as to which recurrent passage is the earlier, deciding, of course, as may happen to suit their own general theory. In our opinion these passages are traditional formulae, as ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... sometimes been deceived by unscrupulous agents representing their wares as the regular productions of the valid society. The audacious promoters of this so-called Society had the boldness not only to pilfer the name of the legitimate society, but also the name of its president, which was ostentatiously printed upon their letter heads, together with the name of Dr. Richard Garnett. Both of these gentlemen have recently published their denunciations ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... almost any part of our own coasts, a similar result would have taken place? Is it not notorious, and a deep and indelible stain on the great proportion of our population on the coast, that on a wreck taking place, the natives not only pilfer all that they can lay their hands upon, but sometimes do not even hesitate, it is alleged, to extinguish any glimmering sparks of life that may be perceptible in the bodies of the unfortunate mariners who have been washed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... that, But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. When uncover'd, a buzz of inquiry runs round, 'Pray what are their crimes?'... 'They've been pilfering found.' 'But, pray, who have they pilfer'd?'... 'A doctor, I hear.' 'What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near?' 'The same.'... 'What a pity! how does it surprise one, Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!' Then their ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... a magazine belonging to a friend of the family. In the great eastern desert the Aeneze Bedouins are not so severe in such instances; but they would punish a Bedouin who should pilfer any thing ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... yellow treasures. Opposite our window there is a wall by which they rest themselves, after their three-mile walk from the gardens. There they lounge and there they chatter. Little boys come slyly to pilfer oranges, and are pelted away with other oranges; for a single orange has here no more appreciable value than a single apple in our farmers' orchards; and, indeed, windfall oranges are left to decay, like windfall apples. During this season one sees oranges everywhere, even displayed as a sort of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Pilfer not the smallest thing; Touch it not, howe'er thou need it, Though the owner have enough, Though he know ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... pretenses and simpering nothings drove him to distraction; and he had at last secured a man attendant who knew how to dodge small articles skilfully for the compensation of a hundred dollars a month and all he could pilfer. Like Beatrice, Aunt Belle regretted that the actual divorce must lack a gorgeous setting; it was quite commonplace. But one cannot have everything, and Beatrice had as much as hinted that for her second wedding she would use the sunken gardens at the ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... it was on their account that he was tempted to steal, and this, though it would not justify, might in some degree palliate the act for which he was slain; or that he had been badly brought up, having never received any proper instruction, but had been trained and taught from his boyhood to pilfer and steal. ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Alexander Mackenzie as being very extraordinary that these people, who had left absolutely untouched the property stored at this place—when anyone passing by could have stolen it and never have been detected—should now be so ready to pilfer articles and utensils from the camp. So many small things had been picked up and taken away by them, when coming to sell their beaver robes, that he was obliged to take some action. So, before all these beaver-clad Amerindians had departed ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... And besides, there is the moral side of it. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, but the dividing line between it and dishonesty is not always clear. And the law cannot every time prosecute the offender, for there is a kind of cleverness that enables a man to pilfer the ideas of another and recast them just sufficiently to "get by." It would be very stupid for a man not to profit by the experience of other men, but there is a vast difference between intelligent adaptation of ideas and stealing them. This is more a question of ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... [80]Jovius inveighs.) They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works. Ineruditi fures, &c. A fault that every writer finds, as I do now, and yet faulty themselves, [81]Trium literarum homines, all thieves; they pilfer out of old writers to stuff up their new comments, scrape Ennius' dunghills, and out of [82]Democritus' pit, as I have done. By which means it comes to pass, [83]"that not only libraries and shops are full of our putrid papers, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... by a crowd of canoes bearing more than four hundred Indians, of fine stature and nearly white, and who while presenting cocoa-nuts and other fruits to the sailors, appeared to entreat them to disembark. The natives no sooner came on board than they began to pilfer, and it was necessary to fire a cannon to get rid of them; a wound which one of the natives received in the fray soon changed their disposition, and a discharge of musketry was the reply to the shower of arrows which they let fly from their boats. Not far from this island three others ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... the night. All this we cannot help. It is your nature. So were you made—we know you cannot change—you amuse us! Go on, little cat!' Would it not then be better, and less savoury of humbug if we said the same to her whose cat-soul has chanced into this human shape? For assuredly she will but pilfer, and scratch a little, and be mildly vicious, in her little life, and do no desperate harm, having but poor capacity for evil behind that petty, thin-upped mask. What is the good of all this padlock business for such as she; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... him then with more than a hundred rakes; They said: "It here behoves thee to dance covered, That, if thou canst, thou secretly mayest pilfer." ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... what I'm doing, Father Beret," said Alice, "I am preventing a great damage to you. You will maybe lose a good many cherry pies and dumplings if I let Jean go. He was climbing the tree to pilfer the fruit; so I pulled him down, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... the sheep be. The army of the Persians, in the plains of Arbela, was such a vast sea of people, as it did somewhat astonish the commanders in Alexander's army; who came to him therefore, and wished him to set upon them by night; and he answered, He would not pilfer the victory. And the defeat was easy. When Tigranes the Armenian, being encamped upon a hill with four hundred thousand men, discovered the army of the Romans, being not above fourteen thousand, marching towards him, he made himself merry with it, and said, Yonder men ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... of Southern life. He would show white men that to weaken, to debase, to dehumanize the negro, inflicted a more terrible wound on the South than would any strength the black man might develop. He would show black men that to hate the whites, constantly to suspect, constantly to pilfer from them, only riveted heavier shackles on ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... own. She had neither kith nor kin, nor friends, nor even acquaintances; but, being something of a miser, scraped and screwed to amass money she had no need for, and dwelt in a wretched little apartment in a back slum, whence she daily issued to work little and pilfer much. ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... Jamestown, and he gave her such news of the settlers as he had heard from the Indians who loafed about Jamestown. They were on friendly terms with the white men, who let them come and go at will as long as they were peaceful and did not try to pilfer corn or firearms. ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... which are common all over the African continent. Natives in canoes were busy spearing fish in the meadows and creeks, and appeared to be taking them in great numbers. Spur-winged geese, and others of the knob-nosed species, took advantage of the low gardens being flooded, and came to pilfer the beans. As we passed the Ruo, on the 7th, and saw nothing of the Bishop, we concluded that he had heard from his surgeon of our detention, and had deferred his journey. He arrived there five days after, on ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... Will,[92] Holy Will, There was wit i' your skull, When ye pilfer'd the alms o' the poor; The timmer is scant, When ye're ta'en for a saunt, Wha should swing in a rape ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... advantage to the flower which can sift the pollen downward on the bee instead of exposing it to the pollen-eating interlopers. Among the latter may be classed the bumblebees and butterflies whose long lips and tongues pilfer ad libitum. "For the proper visitors of the bearded violets," says Professor Robertson, "we must look to the small bees, among which the Osmias ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... a hateful ape, Detected grinning 'midst his pilfer'd hoard, A cunning man appears, whose secret frauds Are open'd ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... occasionally some miserable tale for the day, in order meanly to sneak out of difficulties into which they had proudly strutted. And they were put to all these shifts and devices, full of meanness and full of mischief, in order to pilfer piecemeal a repeal of an act which they had not the generous courage, when they found and felt their error, honorably and fairly to disclaim. By such management, by the irresistible operation of feeble counsels, so paltry a sum as Threepence in the eyes of a financier, so insignificant ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... fields, and the porcelain bath-tubs in its hotels, can testify to this. It is a city that enticed and still entices the mighty of the earth; Roman Emperors in the past came to appease the wrath of its gods, a German Emperor to-day comes to pilfer its temples. For the Acropolis in the poplar grove is a mine of ruins. The porphyry pillars, the statues, the tablets, the exquisite friezes, the palimpsests, the bas-reliefs,—Time and the Turks have spared a ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... who carry about pins, laces, and other pedlars wares, and under the pretence of offering their goods to sale, rob houses, or pilfer any thing they ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... feather. She would get along, surely; there were many kitchens where the servants would share their meals with her, and also steal sugar and apples and other dainties for her to carry home—or give her a chance to pilfer them herself, which would answer just as well. And there was the church. She was a more rabid and devoted Methodist than ever, and her piety was no sham, but was strong and sincere. Yes, with plenty of creature ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... my son," said the priest: "fearest thou not to disturb thy mother's rest? and wouldst thou pilfer and purloin even before she ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... expressly for the gleaners, the farmer endeavours by raking to secure as much as possible of what they accidentally leave on the stubble. I am not inclined to quarrel with the condition that requires the stocks to be removed ere the gleaners gain admittance; because many would be tempted to pilfer, and besides, the ground on which they stand could not be reached. But there is no doubt that the custom of gleaning was originally a public enactment; while the fact that it has spread over the whole earth, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... should be packed and securely lashed, that it may be impossible to pilfer from them. The packages of those that are in use, should be carried in one pair of saddle-gabs, to be devoted to that purpose. These should stand at the storekeeper's bivouac, and nobody else should ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... one of the men shot a wolf. The Indians brought corn, beans, and squashes, which they very readily gave for getting their axes and kettles mended. In their general conduct during these visits they are honest, but will occasionally pilfer any small article. ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... of the day, and is not exhibited for money. There might be some excuse for this, where any of the subjects of exhibition are portable, and such as might be carried away. But who would feel any disposition to pilfer the wig of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, or the hat of General Monk, in Westminster Abbey? Why, therefore, is not this disgraceful practice thrown aside? Why is a nation converted into a puppet-show? The English Minister would doubtless be ashamed to bring the returns of these exhibitions amongst ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... Hitherto her dealings had been with honest tradespeople; now it was her misfortune, and her sisters', to get into a house where honesty was far from practised. In a thousand little ways Mrs. Dove could pilfer from the girls—she would not for the world have acknowledged to herself that she would really steal; oh, no—but she did not consider it stealing to use their coal instead of her own—of course, by mistake; she by no means considered ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... person shall, within this Commonwealth, or, being a citizen thereof, shall without the same, wilfully destroy,* or run** away with any sea-vessel, or goods laden on board thereof, or plunder or pilfer any wreck, he shall be condemned to hard labor five years in the public works, and shall make good the loss of the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... soldier attempted to pilfer a horse from a dooryard. He planned to load his knap-sack upon it. He was escaping with his prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed the animal's mane. There followed a wrangle. The young girl, with ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... showering upon him their doting love. When he can walk, Krishna starts to go about with other children and there then ensues a series of naughty pranks. His favourite pastime is to raid the houses of the cowgirls, pilfer their cream and curds, steal butter and upset milk pails. When, as sometimes happens, the butter is hung from the roof, they pile up some of the household furniture. One of the boys then mounts upon it, another climbs on his shoulders, and in this ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... of the same sound, as door, floor. One is pursued by the sheriff, many by the devil. One has invented the perpetual motion and is soon to be rich; others have already acquired vast fortunes: scraps of paper, buttons and chips are to them, large amounts of money. Many pilfer continually and without any apparent motive, while others secrete every thing they can find, their own articles as well as those of others. A majority are disposed to hoard up trifling and useless articles, as scraps of tin, leather, strings, nails, buttons, etc., and ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... he drew a long, deep breath, "that's good, but you forgot to send it through the skipper's pilfer." ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... suspected, not without cause, that she took away from his house such scraps of food and pots and pipkins as were not likely to be missed. The woman justified her conduct to herself by the argument that she was inadequately paid in coin, and that she was forced to pilfer in order to recoup herself for the outlay of time and muscle in her brother's habitation. Thomas Rocliffe was a quiet, harmless old man, crushed not only by the derision which had clung to him like a robe of Nessus ever since his escapade with the Countess Charlotte, but also by ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... disturbance, called Faithful back. She obeyed instantly, and again lay down by his side. The intention of the midnight intruder was apparently either to murder him or to pilfer his baggage, though ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... possible; he was sick of it; the life of a dog. All this he said to the corporal, who listened attentively, giving grunts of respectful assent. On the way to this post two privates took occasion to drop to the rear and pilfer in the orchard of a deserted plantation. When the sergeant discovered this absence, he grew black with a rage which was an accumulation of all his irritations. "Run, you!" he howled. "Bring them here! I'll show them—" A private ran swiftly to the rear. The remainder of the squad began ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... know 'bout that," contested Abel. "Git somebody kind o' spry an' he could pad out weth a pilfer. A pussy man 'd find it rather onhandy comin' down that chimbly an' hoppin' hether an' yan takin' things off o' the tree. Need somebody with a good strong voice, too, to call off the names.... Woosh's you'd git them things ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... has fungused out a terrible hump. This man who seduced my affianced bride, and then left her whole soul, once fair and blooming—I swear it—with its leaves fresh from the dews of heaven, one rank leprosy, this man who, rolling in riches, learned to cheat and pilfer as a boy learns to dance and play the fiddle, and (to damn me, whose happiness he had blasted) accused me to the world of his own crime!—here is this man who has not left off one vice, but added to those of his youth ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... keen-sighted animal would quickly have observed the child, if its attention had not at the moment been attracted by other and equally mischievous game. A troop of baboons came down the kloof to pilfer the white man's fruit and vegetables. They had evidently risen late for breakfast, and were in a hurry to reach their breakfast parlour before the white man should awake. There were a dozen or so of females, several huge males, and quite a crowd of children of various ages, besides ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... operation effects what is otherwise done by two. His chief reason however was, that the servants of Sky are, according to him, a faithless pack, and steal what they can; so that much is saved by the corn passing but once through their hands, as at each time they pilfer some. It appears to me, that the graddaning is a strong proof of the laziness of the highlanders, who will rather make fire act for them, at the expence of fodder, than labour themselves. There was also, what ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... "you can see the result of your dreadful example. Even this innocent child has learnt to pilfer my writing materials." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... he added: "This disposition to pilfer was, to a large extent, a part of the history of slavery. It was rare when colored people who belonged to a white family where they served as cooks, butlers, or in some other form of household service, did not feel that everything belonging to the white family belonged equally to ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... public thoroughfares, during the part of their lives which is most susceptible of impressions and most retentive of them, they acquire dirty, immoral, and disorderly habits; they become accustomed to wear filthy and ragged clothes; they learn to pilfer and to steal; they associate with boys who have been in prison, and who have there been hardened in crime by evil associates; they learn how to curse one another, how to fight, how to gamble, and how to fill up idle hours by vicious pastimes; they acquire no knowledge except ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... shared it himself, and because he was prompted by Vaudreuil. Yet, dreading another war with the English, the Indians kept quiet for a year or two, till at length the more reckless among them began to threaten and pilfer the settlers. ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman |
