"Thief" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sure process of decay. Its friends forced the issue. To the ones and to the others the harvest of generations, in the form it took, came unexpected and suddenly—a day of judgment, a crisis, like a thief in the night. It is a consummate proof of the accuracy of popular instinct, given time to work, that the uprising of 1861 rested upon recognition of the fact that the cause of the nation and of the world ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... would have gone through fire to get out of it. He threatened to have me arrested as a thief. I had no choice.—That was how I was initiated ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... 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 magistrate discharged him. The articles of dress in her ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... sacrilege was the one sin which weighed down the balance. What says the sacred text? "In that night was Belshazzar the King of the Chaldeans slain." I may instance also Judas, who having for long been a thief, added to his former sins the one last and terrible sin of selling his Master, and then a fit of madness came over him in which ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... minor faults are transmissible, we will not be surprised that graver moral defects are passed on. The grandson of a thief began to steal at three years of age, and at fourteen was an expert pickpocket. The police records show the same family names recurring ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are; For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,— Thy adverse party is thy advocate,— And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence: Such civil war is in my love and hate, That I an accessary needs must be, To that sweet thief which sourly ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... corpse. The springs relax; the muscles yield; the resistance of the stomach ceases, and the vessels containing the honey are emptied by the pressure of the thief. We see, therefore, that the Philanthus is obliged to inflict a sudden death which instantly destroys the contractile power of the organs. Where shall the deadly blow be delivered? The slayer knows better than we, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... "with abuse, and ever afterwards manifested the most deadly hatred towards him." In England and on the Continent the religious prohibition of theft and the legal punishment of it are joined with a strong social reprobation, so that the offence of a thief is never condoned. In Beloochistan, on the other hand, quite contrary ideas and feelings are current. There "a favorite couplet is to the effect that the Biloch who steals and murders, secures Heaven to seven generations of ancestors." In England and the United States ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... service, and who from long acquaintance with the pleasures of traversing the mighty ocean, feels little pleasure in staring at it like an inactive land-lubber, a character which he holds in hearty contempt; besides, to fire at a fellow Briton is against his nature; thief or no thief it crosses his grain, and he looks at his pistols and hates himself. His situation is miserable; he is truly a fish out of water; he loves motion, but is obliged to stand still; his glory is a social "bit of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... suspect Jacko at first, for he looked so honest, and in the daytime seemed to be as much interested in the chickens as I was. But one morning, when I went to call him, I found feathers at the entrance of his hole, —chicken feathers. He couldn't deny it. He was a thief. His fox nature had come out under severe temptation. And he died an unnatural death. He had a thousand virtues and one crime. But that crime struck at the foundation of society. He deceived and stole; he was a liar and a thief, and no pretty ways could hide ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... on Calvary. One cross was painted black, the other was white, and the middle one was red. Now if we look at those three crosses on Calvary from the Divine standpoint, it seems as if one cross which was black at first is now white. It is the cross of the penitent thief; all his sins have been transferred to the Sin-bearer, so now there is not one sin on him; he has been washed "whiter than snow." The cross of the impenitent thief is black, and remains black, for he dies with all ...
— The One Great Reality • Louisa Clayton
... night little Nell 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 ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... the authenticity of "La Gioconda." The correspondence relative to its sale yet exists, and even the voucher proving its payment may still be seen. Fate and fortune have guarded the "Mona Lisa"; and neither thief nor vandal, nor impious infidel nor unappreciative stupidity, nor time itself has done it harm. France bought the picture; France has always owned and housed it; it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... was thinking of something you said at dinner, do you remember? How was it—a forgiven thief, ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... I aim at the fairest. Ah, Em, sweet Em! Fresh as the flower, That hath pour To wound my heart, And ease my smart, Of me, poor thief, ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... in which they had been born and bred and married. One custom of that time, however, did not cling to them; from their earliest childhood they had never punished any of their servants. If one of them turned out to be a thief or a drunkard, then they bore with him for a long time, as one bears with bad weather, and when their patience was quite exhausted they would get rid of him by passing him on to someone else. "Let others bear ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... else betray'd; Weak victor! who thy self destroy'd must be When sickness, storms, or time besieges thee! Thou unwholesome thaw to frozen age! Thou strong wine, which youths fever dost enrage, Thou tyrant which leav'st no man free! Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be! Thou murth'rer which hast kill'd, and devil which ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... senses and to the soul. For the eternal tendencies of all toward happiness make the only point of sane philosophy. Whatever comprehends less than that—whatever is less than the laws of light and of astronomical motion—or less than the laws that follow the thief, the liar, the glutton and the drunkard, through this life and doubtless afterward—or less than vast stretches of time, or the slow formation of density, or the patient upheaving of strata—is of no account. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... occasion I can be as good a horse thief as the best Sioux or Crow or Cheyenne that ever lived, only it's our own horses that I'm going to steal. They've a guard, of course, but I'll slip past him. Now ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... goodly part of the square were far more numerous than those that had been thus hastily rallied against him, and he chuckled at his luck. But when he saw Dante where he stood he reviled him, calling him the thief that would steal a man's wife from his side, and summoning him to yield himself a prisoner instantly. He did this to put himself in the right with the people before he made an attack, and to disgrace Dante in their eyes. But Dante answered him ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... fine!" continued Miss Day, "but if five pounds are lost out of your purse, some one has taken them! Some one, therefore, whether servant or student, is a thief. I am not narrow-minded or prudish, but I confess I draw the line ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... colossal stature had stepped in the thief's passage, and laid two great hands on him. Instantly the parcel flew from the Indian, and he spun in the air to fall into the river with a sounding splash. Yells signaled the surprise and alarm caused ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... looks to a dog that begs In abject sort upon two legs! Good Mr. Knave, give me my due, I like a tart as well as you, But I would starve on good roast Beef, Ere I would look so like a thief. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... 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 at night." ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Ogilvie waited on Lady Vincent, and received her statement in regard to the robbery, promised to take prompt measures for the discovery of the thief, and retired. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... cannot but notice the frigate bird. He sees in him a rival. The latter does not make such long journeys, and does not venture so far out to sea; but he is a master in the art of flying, and he is an unconscionable thief. He follows dolphins and other fishes of prey to appropriate their catch, and forces other birds to relinquish their food when they are in the act of swallowing it. When fishermen are out drawing up their nets, he skims so low over ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... like open presses, That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantrip sleight, Each in its cauld hand held a light, By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee unchristen'd bairns, A thief, new cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape: Five tomahawks, wi' blude red-rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had strangled; A knife a father's throat had mangled, Whom ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... and a lantern in his hand, hurried down to the pig-sty. One fine porker lay bleeding on the ground, and another was not to be seen. A faint squeak from the forest on one side showed where he was gone. Rob calling on David to follow, ran on in the hopes of catching the thief. He hadn't got far when the light of the lantern fell on the back of a shaggy-haired beast, which he at once knew to be that of a bear. In its fore-paws it carried the missing porker, which still ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... unabashed, declared that he placed it there for fear of its being injured; and the traders are constantly compelled to call in the Fetishman for the protection of their stores against the prigging chiefs. Yet in Tuckey's time there was only one thief at Boma, a boy who stole a knife, confessed, and restored it. During a month's residence amongst the pagans of the interior, where the houses swarmed with serviles, and where my outfit, which was never locked ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... it to be bad, he does not give it up, but goes on wasting time. Not only is he stupid, but he is a cheat and a robber, because he knows that his work is useless, yet continues to draw his salary. Not only is he stupid and a thief, he is a villain in that he prevents any other workman from trying his skill to see if he might not produce something worth while! The deadly ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... that I was ready to fling myself at his feet, to tell him that I was a thief, a scoundrel, and, worse than all, a liar! But a feeling of shame held me back. I went up to him for an embrace, but he gently pushed ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... carrying out your programme, amusing myself with a sneak thief, and now, Mr. Senator's Son, you have evidence that Yorkers do know a thing or two, and you get yourself together and get out of this car and off the train at the next station, or I'll make a horse-fly net of you. Is that plain English? Take your own money, ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... therefrom unto the Pitris, the gods, and the guests, and who eateth of it before these all. The gift to one that has fallen away from the practice of virtuous vows, as also the gift of wealth that has been earned wrongly, are both in vain. The gift to a fallen Brahmana, that to a thief, that also to a preceptor that is false, is in vain. The gift to an untruthful man, to a person that is sinful, to one that is ungrateful, to one that officiates at sacrifices performed by all classes of people residing in a village, to one that sells the Vedas,[12] to a Brahmana ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... came and went; some with bruised heads, some with blackened eyes, one wearing a pair of handcuffs—a sneak thief, caught, with two overcoats. Was the Colonel sharing a cell with such people as these? The thought ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is in the artillery, isn't he?" he must reply: "Oh, no; he was once! Now he is carting sand." "What! carting sand?" "Oh, yes; he is carting sand, dressed in a grey shirt, and with a lot of other gentlemen in a long row A Oh, very honourable gentlemen, all of them! A thief on one side of him, and on the other a person who did not quite know the difference between mine and thine." "Your son!" ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... in view, and Loki, cautiously unfastening it, secured the coveted treasure, and forthwith proceeded to steal away with it. Heimdall immediately started out in pursuit of the midnight thief, and quickly overtaking him, he drew his sword from its scabbard, with intent to cut off his head, when the god transformed himself into a flickering blue flame. Quick as thought, Heimdall changed himself into a cloud and sent down a deluge of rain ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... one's emotions without fear or moral ambition, to come out from under the shadow of other men's minds, to forget their needs, to be utterly oneself, that is all the Muses care for. Villon, pander, thief, and man-slayer, is as immortal in their eyes, and illustrates in the cry of his ruin as great a truth as Dante in abstract ecstasy, and touches our compassion more. All art is the disengaging of a soul from place and history, its suspension ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... I intended to accomplish a purpose which I have for some years entertained, of visiting Lochwood, the ancient seat of the Johnstones, of which King James said, when he visited it, that the man who built it must have been a thief in his heart. It rained heavily, however, which prevented my making this excursion, and indeed I rather overwalked myself yesterday, and have ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... stirred. It was more. It was up in arms. There was no stronger appeal to its sympathies than the cry of "cattle-thief!" As a village it lived on the support of the surrounding ranches, and their ills became the scourge of this hornet's nest of sharp traders. McLagan had raised the cry here knowing full well the hatred he would stir, and the support ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... efforts, and started to ride them down to the horse-pond. When I reached the castle-gate and was just about to turn, I heard the castellan and the steward, with servants, dogs and cudgels, rushing out of the servants' hall after me and calling, 'Stop thief! Stop gallows-bird!' as if they were possessed. The gate-keeper stepped in front of me, and when I asked him and the raving crowd that was running at me, 'What in the world is the matter?'—'What's the matter!' answered the castellan, seizing my two black horses ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... is no wonder, then, that they so blithely bore all." That is a very stupid saying. If you suffer because of your sins, then you ought to rejoice that your sins are being purged away. And, besides, were not the saints, too, sinners? But do you fear that you are like Herod, and the thief on Christ's left hand? You are not, if you have patience. For what was it that distinguished the thief on the left hand from him on the right but the patience of the one and the impatience of the other? If you are a sinner, well; the thief, too, was ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... praises heightened it. That little thing had lovely eyes, and could be trusted thoroughly. I do like an obstinate little woman, when she is sure that she is right. And indeed if love had never sped me straight to the heart of Lorna (compared to whom, Ruth was no more than the thief is to the candle), who knows but what I might have yielded to the law of nature, that thorough trimmer of balances, and verified the proverb that the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... his arrival the linen which had been put out for washing, was stolen. Shortly after whilst the family were sitting at tea, information was given that the bedroom window was open and upon proceeding to ascertain the cause it was discovered that a thief had effected an entrance and carried off whatever he could lay his ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... of invention. Old birds are not to be caught with chaff. Old friends and old wine are best. One swallow makes not a spring, nor one woodcock a winter. People who live in glass houses should never throw stones. Possession is nine points of the law. Procrastination is the thief of time. Short reckonings make long friends. Safe bind, safe find. Strike while the iron is hot. Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. The more the merrier, the fewer the better cheer. The darkest hour is just before the daylight. The cobbler's wife ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... and bitten like wildcats, and I doubt not have come over here to see what they can steal. In my opinion a thief deserves keel-hauling at ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... and went on, "I am glad to hear it; indeed, remembering what Zikali had said, I never really suspected her of being a thief, but thought it was all part of some plan. After this things went on as before, except that Nombe took Kaatje's place and was with me day and night. Of Kaatje's disappearance she would say nothing. Zikali we did ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... within call, eh?" he jeered. "You need one. You've cut me short, all right; but I've said enough to start a fire that will rage through this part of the country until every damned thief is burned out! You've selected the wrong man ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... accustomed to the immediate contact of the soil, encased in well larded shoes, might have been seen gliding under the shadows of friendly fences, and along bypaths, with that furtive and hangdog air which, in all ages, has characterized the chicken-thief and ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... and came. The lady who was much vexed, asked the miller if he had not seen her diamond. He, being as ready to lie as another is to tell the truth, answered boldly, and asked if the lady took him for a thief? ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... his death, which happened in about three months, travelling about with him and his family, and living in green lanes, where we saw gypsies and trampers, and all kinds of strange characters. Old Fulcher, besides being an industrious basket-maker was an out and out thief, as was also his son, and indeed every member of his family. They used to make baskets during the day, and thieve during a great part of the night. I had not been with them twelve hours before old Fulcher told me that ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... and devour five sheep, because one of Isaaco's servants made off with the aforesaid mare and Isaaco's precious musket. A trustier servant was despatched on his trail. In due time he returned with the mare and the musket, and preferred not to say what had happened to the thief. The petty kingdom of Casso, which they came to next, proved very trying. There were six rivers to cross, full (says Isaaco) of alligators and hippopotami. There was the forbidding rock of Tap-Pa in the desert of Maretoumane to get by. And there was the mountain of Lambatara, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... people—a mob, as I have been taught to call it, since I came to England—who had gathered round a blind man, a little boy, and a virago of a woman, who stood upon the steps before a print-shop door. The woman accused the boy of being a thief. The boy protested that he was innocent, and his ingenuous countenance spoke strongly in his favour. He belonged to the blind man, who, as soon as he could make himself heard, complained bitterly of the damage which had been done to his dulcimer. The mob, in their first fury, had broken ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... Each man must git it for himself and then he'll do the square thing because he wants to, not 'cause he's forced to. You can make laws against thievin' and build prisons to put men in who steal, but if you don't change a man's heart, if he wants to be a thief he'll find some way o' ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... would call me a liar. Our engagement is ended, sir—yes, on the spot; You're a brute, and a monster, and—I don't know what." I mildly suggested the words Hottentot, Pickpocket, and cannibal, Tartar, and thief, As gentle expletives which might give relief; But this only proved as a spark to the powder, And the storm I had raised came faster and louder; It blew and it rained, thundered, lightened and hailed Interjections, verbs, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... added: "And now begin to drive away the crows from the hanging thief! There will always be plenty of ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... with, 'I beg your pardon—I forgot it was Sunday! Indeed, Mr. Holdsworth, I can say no more than that I was a wretch not to remember. Next time I'll write it all down in the top of my hat, with a pathetic entreaty that if my hat be stolen, the thief shall fulfil the commissions, and punctually send in the bill to ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proud of him and of himself; and when he read the unspoken praise in 'Frisco Kid's eyes he blushed like a girl at her first compliment. But the next instant the thought flashed across him that this boy was a thief, a common thief; and he instinctively recoiled. His whole life had been sheltered from the harsher things of the world. His reading, which had been of the best, had laid a premium upon honesty and uprightness, and he had learned ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... Seine made his way out and saw dreadful things in the house above. There is really no great interval or discrepancy (except in details of manners and morals) between these and the novels of detective, gentleman-thief, and other impolite life which delight many persons indubitably respectable and presumably intelligent in England to-day.[283] To sneer at ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... be done! As it is, people are talking. "The master's gone away and won't come; he can't make up his mind to give his blessing." They'll be putting two and two together. As soon as they see you're frightened they'll begin guessing. "The thief none suspect who walks bold and erect!" But you'll be getting out of the frying-pan into the fire! Above all, lad, don't show it; don't lose courage, else they'll ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... the thieves started up and offered to do this, and after the rest had highly commended him for his bravery he disguised himself, and happened to enter the town at daybreak, just by Baba Mustapha's stall. The thief bade him good-day, saying: "Honest man, how can you possibly see to stitch at your age?" "Old as I am," replied the cobbler, "I have very good eyes, and will you believe me when I tell you that I sewed a dead body together in a place where I had less light than I have now." The robber ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... kind, application was immediately made to the king, who, after some altercation, promised that the axe should be restored in the morning; and kept his word, for it was brought to us by a man who pretended that the thief, being afraid of a discovery, had privately brought it and left it at his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... heaven, to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out devils. He was appointed treasurer to the community. John in telling the story of the anointing at Bethany says that he was a thief, but John also makes him the sole objector to the waste of the ointment. According to the other evangelists all the disciples objected. Since he remained in office it could hardly have been known at the time of the visit to Bethany that he was dishonest, nor could it ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... one. And, if Bakounin was the father of terrorism, Nechayeff was its living embodiment. He was not complex, mystical, or sentimental. He was truly a revolutionist without phrase, and he can be described in the simplest words. He was a liar, a thief, and a murderer—the incarnation of Hatred, Malice, and Revenge, who stopped at no crime against friend or foe that promised to advance what he was pleased to call the revolution. Bakounin had for a long ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... sneer). Honest! humph! that depends upon what you call honest. Some people call a girl a thief if she takes a bit of cake from the pantry without saying, 'By your leave.' (Chorus of giggles and approbatory nods from the sympathizing audience ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a two-year-old ewe. Wright gives theave or theeve as the commoner forms, and in the Paston letters it is theyve, which perhaps confirms thaive, rhymed here with 'rave'. Certainly it is most advisable to avoid thieves, the plural of thief, although O.E.D. allows this pronunciation and indeed puts it ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... Never had religion, never had the church of Christ a worse enemy than you have been; now therefore, when you are about to suffer the just reward of your deeds, think no more to excuse yourself; confess your sins, like the penitent thief upon the cross. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... door of the pantry, she heard soft, whispery sounds like kissing—when the kissing is a rapture rather than a ceremony. Mrs. Kate had only been married eight years or so, and she had a good memory. She backed from the kitchen on her toes, and pulled the door shut with the caution of a thief. She did more; she permitted dinner to be an hour late, rather than disturb ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... condoling, though not in great force, as there was a fair going on down beyant, which nearly all the men and some of the women had attended. This was accounted cruel unlucky, as it left the place without any one able-bodied and active enough to go in pursuit of the thief. A prompt start might have overtaken him, especially as he was said to be "a thrifle lame-futted," though Mrs. M'Gurk, who had seen him come down the hill, opined that "'twasn't the sort of lameness 'ud hinder the miscreant of steppin' out, on'y a quare ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... slept," said Silas. Then, after a pause, he added, "Or I must have had another visitation like that which you have all seen me under, so that the thief must have come and gone while I was not in the body, but out of the body. But, I say again, search me and my dwelling, for I have ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... earthquake.'—It is remarkable, and was much noticed at the time by some German philosophers, that the earthquake which laid Lisbon in ruins about ninety-five years ago, could be as regularly traced through all its stages for some days previous to its grand finale, as any thief by a Bow Street officer. It passed through Ireland and parts of England; in particular it was dogged through a great part of Leicestershire; and its rate of travelling was not so great but that, by a series of telegraphs, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... brings out the human nature on board in great force. The Anakim tells us of one man who asked him in a confidential aside, if it was a show, whereat we all laugh. Even I laugh at the man's ignorance,—I, a thief, an assassin, a traitor, who six weeks ago had never heard of a Claude Lorraine glass; but nobody can tell who has not tried it how much credit one gets for extensive knowledge, if only he holds his tongue. In all my life I am afraid I shall never learn as much as ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... behind the latter, seized him by his capillary club, and pulling him backwards by the same, slapped his face with a most Amazon fury. This concatenation of events has taken up more of my paper than I intended it should, but I could not forbear to inform you how the beadle thrashed the thief, the constable the beadle, and the lady the constable, and how the thief was the only ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... smiling, "you make me feel like a thief. Yes; you shall have him Saturday night. Willy, my boy, do you think Mrs. Richie ought to ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... be sure; very likely Johnson would know. You are hinting at the possibility of a thief coming in through a reception-room window while we were somewhat noisy over our wine. I think such a solution highly improbable. My rooms are on the third floor, and a thief would scarcely venture to make an entrance ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... day after day with maximum efficiency. Not when the alarms were set off only by an occasional animal or falling tree limb. Mostly he had to keep watch for direct contact alarms and traps; he was an accomplished thief and an experienced burglar. At last he found himself at the fence surrounding ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... converted into oil and burned before the shrine of the demon. The superstition extends throughout other parts of Ceylon; and so long as the wreath continues to hang upon the tree, it is presumed that no thief would venture ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... was attracted by a habitual thief, Okhotin, who came under this head. He was the son of a fallen woman; had grown up in lodging-houses, and till the age of thirty had never met a moral man. In childhood he had fallen in with a gang of thieves, but he possessed a humorous vein which attracted people to him. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... finished, slept till dinner time next day, so that he only made three steps and a jump from bed to table. Panurge was of a middle height, and had a nose like that of the handle of a razor. He was a very gallant and proper man in his person, and the greatest thief, drinker, roysterer, and rake in Paris. With all that, he was the best fellow in the world, and he was always contriving some mischief or other. Pantagruel, being pleased with him, gave him the castellany of Salmigondin, which was yearly worth 6,789,106,789 royals of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... ease in its supremacy, for the lads of the other villages were always on the watch to steal it. A record of this custom amongst the Welsh reminds one that Wales was at once the land of bards and the home of Taffy the Thief. "If successful," says Owen, speaking of these Maypole robbers, they "had their ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... young fellow to desperation. What could he do? He could not satisfy Stedman because he had not eight hundred dollars and he could not confess it, at least not without answering questions which he did not dare answer. As matters stood he was a thief; he had taken money which did not belong to him. He and Stedman had not been friendly for a long time. According to George his brother-in-law would put him in jail without the slightest compunction. And, even if he managed—which he was certain he could not—to avoid imprisonment, there ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... money. On the second or third morning I went quietly out of the yard, and then ran off; but being suspected and observed, and therefore seen to go off, I was immediately called after, and so had to return. I was arrested, and being suspected to be a thief, was examined for about three hours, and then sent to jail. I now found myself, at the age of sixteen, an inmate of the same dwelling with thieves and murderers. I was locked up in this place day and night, without permission to ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... age of seventeen, after her father's death, she became a school teacher at a small school in the Rue Morceau, and at nineteen married Charles Leullier, a good-looking young scoundrel who posed as being well off, but who was afterwards proved to be an expert international thief, a member of a gang of dangerous thieves who committed robberies in ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... first campaign, was mortally offended by Disraeli's allusion to his "bloody hand" in the Taunton canvass. The Irish orator, in a bitter rejoinder at Dublin, denounced Disraeli as a Jewish traitor, "the heir at law of the blasphemous thief that ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... avoided claiming the protection of the law whilst on the Isthmus, for I found it was—as is the case in civilized England from other causes—rather an expensive luxury. Once only I took a thief caught in the act before the alcalde, and claimed the administration of justice. The court-house was a low bamboo shed, before which some dirty Spanish-Indian soldiers were lounging; and inside, the alcalde, a negro, was reclining in a dirty hammock, smoking coolly, hearing evidence, and pronouncing ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... I not give her to you one day; and did you not hang her upon a tree in the garden, with a bit of string round her neck, and say she was a thief?" ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... suddenly gave a sort of start, raised his head and gazed intently at his listener) "well, on the very next day after all those dreams, that is to say, exactly five days ago, in the evening, by a cunning trick, like a thief in the night, I stole from Katerina Ivanovna the key of her box, took out what was left of my earnings, how much it was I have forgotten, and now look at me, all of you! It's the fifth day since I left home, and they are looking for ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... no thief," interceded the youngest of the "boys." He couldn't have been a day over seventy, and it was more than likely that he was still susceptible ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... through the wretched, mud-built village of Latrun (said to be the birthplace of the Penitent Thief), a dozen long-robed Arabs were earnestly discussing some question of municipal interest in the grassy market-place. They were as grave as the storks, in their solemn plumage of black and white, which were parading philosophically along the edge of a marsh to our right. ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... it, what are you talking about? Are you trying to tell me that Phil Farnum was a thief and a convict?" ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... man? Some one she must have known years before. There was no gentleman in Lord Earle's circle who would have stolen into his grounds like a thief by night. Why had he not followed him, and thrashed him within an inch of his life? Why had ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... had the feeling as of a thief in another man's garden, and a shame before Dorothy herself came over him. Eugene Hautville's principles of honor, in spite of his fiery nature, read like a primer, with no subtleties of evasion therein. Here was another man's betrothed, and he ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... depredator, freebooter, pirate, brigand, despoiler, highwayman, plunderer, buccaneer, footpad, marauder, raider, burglar, forager, pillager, thief. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... crept along, making the six broken saints in their niches seem alive; slowly the shadows upon the ruin crept along, but a swifter shadow suddenly came forward from the steps and Adams having forgotten, in the entrancing scene the murderer and thief who lurk in all Macao's corners, turned as he heard a soft step, just in time to receive in his right arm the upward blow of a dagger aimed at his side. He lost his balance falling backward down the steps, striking his ...
— In Macao • Charles A. Gunnison
... When, like a thief, the Midianite Shall steal upon the camp, O, let him find our armour bright, And oil ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to make much the same conjecture," said Mr Gosport, "and, if I am not greatly deceived, that man is a robber of no common sort. What think you, Miss Beverley, can you discern a thief in disguise?" ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... printed, a writer in the New York "Evening Post" virtually accused the author of it of borrowing the thought from a baccalaureate sermon of President Hopkins of Williamstown, and printed a quotation from that discourse, which, as I thought, a thief or catch-poll might well consider as establishing a fair presumption that it was so borrowed. I was at the same time wholly unconscious of ever having met with the discourse or the sentence which the verses were most like, nor do I believe I ever ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of the high mountains and frequently stray from the shepherd and are lost for two or three nights; by the time they are recovered a certain number may be missing, and it is hardly possible to discover the thief, as the animals have been driven to a great distance. Tracking would be out of the question over the rocky surface, where every small plot of naked soil is trodden into countless footmarks by the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... in their bosom from the first, a vehement inclination to dishonest ways. Knavish propensities are inherent: born with the child and transmissible from parent to son. The children of a sturdy thief, if taken from him at birth and reared by honest men, would, doubtless, have to contend against a strongly dishonest inclination. Foundlings and orphans under public charitable charge, are more apt to become vicious than other children. They are ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher
... day a young Tornit took the boat of a young Inuit without asking, and in sealing with it, he ran it into some blocks of floating ice which stove in the bottom. The owner nursed his wrath until night, and then when the thief was asleep he slipped into the tent and thrust his knife ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss |
