"Stingy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unfed[obs3]; unstored[obs3], untreasured[obs3]; empty-handed. meager, poor, thin, scrimp, sparing, spare, stinted; starved, starving; halfstarved, famine-stricken, famished; jejune. scant &c. (small) 32; scarce; not to be had, not to be had for love or money, not to be had at any price; scurvy; stingy &c. 819; at the end of one's tether; without resources &c. 632; in want &c. (poor) 804; in debt &c. 806. Adv. insufficiently &c. Adj.; in default of, for want of; failing. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... breath of such pure air as this to be breathed. I was thinking of these fine young chaps, the Boy Scouts I saw there, who are trying to study God's big out-of-doors and must content themselves with stingy little parks. It's the love of Nature that takes them to the parks, and compared with this they have a poor substitute. This is the world as God made it, with all its primordial beauty. We're fortunate that circumstances placed us here, ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... Aunt Mary, you know very well she's just as good as I am; better, probably, for she's got no pies nor starch in her pedigree. Her father's a Major and her mother was of quite good family—and she's got lots of rich, stingy relations ... and she doesn't sponge on 'em. ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... nests that cling to boughs and beams As in an idiot's brain remembered words Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams! Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds Make up for the lost music, when your teams Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more The feathered ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... pull your hair if you're fooling me." "Oh, don't, love, don't! the letter is here— You can read the news for yourself, my dear. The one who sent you that white crape shawl— There'll be no end to our gold—he's dead; You know you always would call him stingy, Because he didn't invite us to Injy; And I am his only heir, 'tis said. A million of pounds, at the very least, And pearls and diamonds, likely, beside!" Mrs. Mackerel's spirits rose like yeast— "How ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... are stingy in another way, that brings with it its own punishment—they starve themselves. I know of several of your half million folks, not a thousand miles from where I now sit, whose table does not cost them fifty cents a ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... said Maurice Wayne. "Her father used to drink, and fell in the mill pond about a year ago, and got drowned. Her mother's sick, too, and Dr. Little says she can't live, and has give up goin' to see her any longer, 'cause she can't pay. He's stingy mean to do it, for he goes twice a day to see that spiteful old Mrs. March, and I'm sure she can't live, for ma said yesterday that all her money couldn't save her. When I grow up, I'm going to be a doctor, and I'll look after every poor person twice as good ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... M. de Nailles was occupied by financial speculations—operations that were no doubt made necessary by the style of living commented on by his cousin, Madame de Monredon, who was as stingy as she was bitter of tongue. The elegance that she found fault with was, however, very far from being great when compared with the luxury of the present day. Of course, the Baronne had to have her horses, her opera-box, her fashionable frocks. To supply these very moderate needs, which, ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... their crops they'd be willing to pay out of the profit for the seed they use and they'd take a lot of interest in it. The housekeeper would buy all they'd raise, and they'd feel that their gardens were self-supporting. Now they feel that the seed is given to them out of charity, and that it's a stingy sort of charity after all because they are forced to pay for the seed by giving up their vegetables whether ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... have it good, Janet. In short,—there can be no harm in saying it now,—Laetitia was so far from being like the name of her baptism,—and most names are so good that they are worth thinking about; no children are named after bad ideas,—Laetitia was so far unlike hers as to be stingy—an abominable fault. But, I repeat, the notion of such a fact was far from me then. And now ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... of that?" grumbled he. "It is a great deal too stingy, my dear Godfrey! Are we savages, that we ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... the fever seize you, you stingy cur, and send you to the devil and his angels! The miser has held out against all my attacks; but I must not drop the negotiation; for I have the other side, and there, at all events, I am sure of a ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... yet looking for perfection in them—which means oppression. Being slow and late in issuing requisitions, and exacting strict punctuality in the returns—which means robbery. And likewise, in intercourse with men, to expend and to receive in a stingy manner—which is to act the ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... GAVE, that is the word," said Porthos; "for the animal was worth at least a hundred and fifty louis, and the stingy fellow ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... producing, besides himself, the indomitable Warden Heyrick of the Collegiate Church of Manchester in his own times, and the mother of Swift in the times immediately succeeding his, is certain. That he was born in London in 1591, that he went to Cambridge, that he had a rather stingy guardian, that he associated to some extent with the tribe of Ben in the literary London of the second decade of the century, is also certain. At last and rather late he was appointed to a living at Dean Prior in Devonshire, on the confines of the South Hams and Dartmoor. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... unventilated; narrow, cramped; close-mouthed, secretive, reticent, reserved, uncommunicative, taciturn; dense, solid, compact, imporous; near, adjacent, adjoining; intimate, confidential; parsimonious, stingy, penurious niggardly, miserly, illiberal, close-fisted; exact, literal, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... I am always ready to sacrifice truth to politeness, if the truth is of that poor, stingy upstart variety everybody is familiar with and if the occasion warrants the expense. We all know politeness is not cheap, any more than honesty is politic. But surely I mistook my occasion, one day last ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... the thought that younger men should follow closely or at a distance in his steps to the highest eminences of legal success, Lord Eldon was disgracefully stingy in bestowing honors on rising barristers who belonged to his own party, but his injustice and downright oppression to brilliant advocates in the Whig ranks merit the warmest expressions of disapproval and contempt. The most notorious sufferers from ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... of the Jack-o'-lantern story comes from Ireland. A stingy man named Jack was for his inhospitality barred from all hope of heaven, and because of practical jokes on the Devil was locked out of hell. Until the Judgment Day he is condemned to walk the earth with a lantern to light ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... to make Henrietta Hen lose her temper. And she would talk very fast (and, alas! very loud, too) about jealous neighbors and how unpleasant it was to live among folk that were so stingy of their praise that they couldn't say a good word for the finest eggs that ever were seen! On such occasions Henrietta Hen generally talked in a lofty way about moving ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Well, for sure, I ain't so old like what I'll look. But Old Man Savarin was old already. He's old, old, old, when he's only thirty; an' mean—bapteme! If de old Nick ain' got de hottest place for dat old stingy—yes, for sure! ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... don't believe you're scared of work; you're only sort of shy about it. I never saw you really afraid of more'n three things—bein' a spoil-sport, or out of style, or havin' a waiter think you're stingy. No, you ain't afraid of work, but you never been properly introduced, so you're kind of standoffish about it. I've always kind of hoped you'd take a tip from Bob Standish—there's one of your own breed that knows where the durable satisfactions of life are. Just as good ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... Buyukdere, with many of the Inglesi, we went to the hotel, a clean, comfortable well-fitted house, with a good cook and good wines. It was very laughable to hear the landlord execrating the Russians. "They never," said he, "spend a penny; stingy close fellows, who would eat a tallow candle down to the very end, and leave not a drop for the waiter!" He wished to God they were at the bottom of the Black Sea, with the English fleet anchored above them. ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... got tilled in that way?" "We cannot work if we don't get food," said the hand laborers and slaves. "It lies in King Hakon's blood," remarked others; "his father and all his kindred were apt to be stingy about food, though liberal enough with money." At length, one Osbjorn (or Bear of the Asen or Gods, what we now call Osborne), one Osbjorn of Medalhusin Gulathal, stept forward, and said, in a distinct manner, "We Bonders (peasant proprietors) thought, King Hakon, when thou heldest thy ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... said Mr Marshall with a sigh, "let me ensure you that England's mourning is not yet over for Queen Elizabeth, and we may live to lament our loss of her far sorer than now we do. Folks say she was something stingy with money, loving not to part with it sooner than she saw good reason: but some folks will fling their money right and left with no reason at all. The present Court much affecteth masques, plays, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... one. I don't see the good of virtue myself. It always makes people stingy and cross and ill-mannered. I think one should always promise to do everything that is asked. Nobody would be fool enough to expect you to keep your word afterwards, and you'd give a ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... who cannot pay for their places in money may do so in provisions. A fowl, a ham, or a jug of wine, will secure a seat in the first row; a pair of pigeons, a dozen eggs, or a loaf of bread, in the second, and so on down. Peasants are proverbially stingy with their money, but will be liberal enough with their provisions; and though our purse will not be replenished, our larder will, which is equally important, since our very lives depend upon it. After that we ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... "580" on your waggons and your limbers and on the tin-hats of your Staff. Certainly not. The enemy would know about you if you did that. You have a secret sign, such as tramps chalk on your wall at home, to let other tramps know that you are a stingy devil with a dog. There are many theories as to how these signs are chosen. One is that a committee of officers sits in camera for forty-eight hours without food or drink till it has decided on an arrow or a cat, or a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... were married, and set out on their enchanted progress, stopping at doors when they liked, and offering bottles whereof the labels sounded delicious and sweet; or if a house looked poor or stingy, passing it by. Sometimes, when Lydia felt very daring, she went to the door herself to show her wares, and Eben stayed in the carriage and laughed. He said she offered a bottle of vanilla as if it ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... but I have grown stingy. The minutes are my gold-pieces. (Takes her hand.) When I hold your hand in mine, I am happy. Before I cared for you, I did not see the sun shining, and now when it rains, all the drops ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... crest is a lion holding a shell, and the motto is a Latin one which means, 'Do not touch!' Doris said the lion was holding a purse, and the motto meant, 'What I've got I'll keep'. It was a good hit at Vera, because she's very stingy, although she has plenty of pocket money. She only gave twopence to the Waifs and Strays Fund—it was less than anybody else in the class; and she'll hardly ever lend her things, either, though she often borrows from ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... thought that she had been trifled with, and held by her refusal, and did not find out the wrongs done by the step-mother until it was too late. This disappointment led to greater self-concentration and stingy money-getting until it became the absorbing passion of his life, so that the artist passion was ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... unprofessional noise they had been making. They talked in rather a low tone, but Hoskins could hear everything they said, and it was not particularly encouraging to a gagged and bound philanthropist. They agreed that he was a fool, and a stingy fool, or else he would have kept money in the house, and would have set out lemons and sugar as well as plain whiskey. They said that any man who treated poor working men in that way wasn't fit to live, and that Hoskins ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... his cousin Hal, in rather a contemptuous tone; "I think it looks stingy to servants; and no gentleman's servants, cooks especially, would like to have such a mean motto always staring them ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Cadwallader. "If I knew the items of election expenses I could scare him. It's no use plying him with wide words like Expenditure: I wouldn't talk of phlebotomy, I would empty a pot of leeches upon him. What we good stingy people don't like, is having our sixpences sucked away ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... horse-dealer to buy some horses of him at a high price on credit, to sell again cheap. Brinon laughed at all these schemes, and after having had the cruelty of keeping me upon the rack for a long time, he at last extricated me. Parents are always stingy towards their poor children; my mother intended to have given me five hundred louis d'or, but she had kept back fifty, as well for some little repairs in the abbey, as to pay for praying for me. Brinon had the ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... not be so stingy, you know. Just let me tell you how necessary land is to peasants! Eh, what? It's very necessary, ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... both ends of his long room was a triumph that made this brief inconvenience of small account. I have also seen him spend more time, and even money, utilizing some worn-out appliance than a new one would cost. He was not a stingy man, either, not by any means, but those things were ingrained and vital. They helped to provide his life with interest and satisfaction—hence, ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... good man to be, and indulged in them on minor occasions; consequently, but two dozen remained when I succeeded to the charge twenty years ago. I, too, was not sufficiently chary of them to begin with, and all but six bottles were drunk in the first ten years. Since then I have been as stingy as a miser, and but two bottles ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... the money. People always do. They all think I'm well off when I tell them who the pater is. And so I should be if he wasn't such a stingy old devil." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... shut up. I had no patience to stay and hear a book of brave adventure decried by this sanctimonious looking hum-bug,—whose mouth watered when he talked about old Fillmore and his ninety million dollars. Fillmore, so everybody said, was so stingy that he cut his own hair, and went around looking like a fright, rather than pay a barber. Worse than that, he was hated like fury by all the people who worked for him because he screwed their wages down to the lowest possible figure. But Mr. Snider thought him a great man, and boasted ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... introduce me to your swell relations; it is not worth my while to waste time on people who cant earn their own living. And never mind your governor: we can get on without him. If you are hard up for money, and he is stingy, you had better get it from me ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of the great men of the country to King Olaf, that they could not bear his just judgments. He again would rather renounce his dignity than omit righteous judgment. The accusation against him, of being stingy with his money, was not just, for he was a most generous man towards his friends; but that alone was the cause of the discontent raised against him, that he appeared hard and severe in his retributions. Besides, King Canute offered great sums of money, and the great chiefs ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... He's an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man. You know he is, Robert. Nobody knows it ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... spheral friend does. Nor was it "irony," as the new Commentators think; not at all; sincere enough, what you call sincere;—Voltaire himself had a nose for "irony"! This was what you call sincere Panegyric in liberal measure; why be stingy with your measure? It costs half an hour: it will end Voltaire's importunities; and so may, if anything, oil the business-wheels withal. For Friedrich foresees business enough with Louis and the French Ministries, though he will not enter on it with Voltaire. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... with punishment, he agreed to replace the animal he had stolen with another, and a very good horse was brought to satisfy the white men, who were now determined to pursue a rigid course with the thievish Indians among whom they found themselves. These people, the Eneeshurs, were stingy, inhospitable, and overbearing in their ways. Nothing but the formidable numbers of the white men saved them from insult, pillage, and even murder. While they were here, one of the horses belonging to the party broke ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... "It's too stingy for anything! How can we possibly have decent practice on such a rough old place? I'd like to make them come and try it for themselves, the mean wretches!" ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... said Tom, after he had kissed her again and again,—"all the same, I shall find out, after church, where the snake is staying. I shall go to the hotel and take a cigar. I shall offer him one, and he is so mean and stingy that he will take it. Perhaps this may be one of his fool days. Perhaps somebody else will treat him to the whiskey. No, Matty! honor bright, I will not, though that ten cents might give us all a Merry Christmas. Honor bright, I will not treat. But I am not a saint, Matty! If anybody else treats, ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... didn't have no food troubles at Mark Lowery's like they did somewheres else. I remember mammy told me about one master who almost starved his slaves. Mighty stingy I reckon he was. ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... 744) by his cousin and successor Yazid (No. iii.) surnamed the Retrencher. The tale in the text speaks well for him; but generosity amongst the Arabs covers a multitude of sins, and people say, "Better a liberal sinner than a stingy saint." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... discouraging to lose the corn, and John, to take the place of the shortened crop, had had a field plowed and sewed to millet. A promise of rain meant a probable crop of that substitute for the heavier grain, but it must be rain, not a mere shower. Disappointed at the stingy display of water, John wandered about the house, disturbed by ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... said this was quite what she had expected of those people; that they were horrid and stingy and vulgar; and she should see what face they would have to ask her to take tickets when they were trying to get up something. She began to be vexed with herself, she confessed, at the joke she was playing on Mr. Homos, and I noticed that she put herself rather defiantly en evidence ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... Charles X. was expelled; and Spain, which used likewise to be generous on occasions (the gifts, arms, candlesticks, baldaquins of the Spanish sovereigns figure pretty frequently in the various Latin chapels), has been stingy since the late disturbances, the spoliation of the clergy, &c. After we had been taken to see the humble curiosities of the place, the Prior treated us in his wooden parlour with little glasses of pink Rosolio, brought with many bows and ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Seth egging them on every now and then about that dime that he was cheated out of. But Mert Hagley was the worst. Of course, everybody knows Mert's just dying to hog Uncle Tony's business along with his shop, as if the stingy thing wasn't rich enough already. Well, when Mert heard about that ten-cent mistake he said it was about time there were a few business changes in Green Valley, that a few business funerals would help a lot and freshen up things; ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... crimson; in the dark corners, under the tables and chairs, the shadows tried not to be black, and glowed into a soft maroon; even the pale walls flushed, cordial and friendly. Dode was glad of it; she hated dead, ungrateful colors: grays and browns belonged to thin, stingy duty-lives, to people who are patient under life, as a perpetual imposition, and, as Bone says, "gets into heben by the skin o' their teeth." Dode's color was dark blue: you know that means in an earthly life stern truth, and a tenderness as true: she wore it to-night, as she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... who had gathered about him thinking to hear something definite looked resentfully at his back as he walked away, and Mrs. Crumpet openly expressed her opinion that he knew nothing more about it himself. "If he did, he couldn't help letting it dribble out by degrees, like a leaky kirn, being too stingy to tell it out free, like any other body," ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... obvious, in the works of the Creator, than his wonderful frugality and good economy? Where, in his domain, is any thing wasted? Where, indeed, is not every thing saved and appropriated to the best possible purpose? And will any one presume to regard his operations as narrow, or mean, or stingy? ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... God, these and many other vain customs, which are seen, by the heavenly day of Christ that dawns in the soul, to be either wrong in their original, or, by time and abuse, hurtful in their practice. And though these things seemed trivial to some, and rendered these people stingy and conceited in such persons' opinion; there was and is more in them, than they were, ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... confessed Basil candidly. "I tried to make myself as civil as possible, so that she might remember me. Between ourselves, Mallow, I am deuced hard up. My mother hasn't much money, I have none of my own, and old Octagon is as stingy as ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... into a narrow street with dwellings on each side. Some of the houses were shuttered and silent. Others were open to the street with a completeness of detail denied by our stingy window-casements—women sitting up late over their needlework, men talking round the firebox, shopkeepers adding up their accounts, ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... awful big bank-account that needs exercise," she offered. "Now, look here, Johnny, don't yell like I'd hit you with a brick. You told me to help myself once when I needed it, and I did. You ought to let me get even. All right, then; be stingy! Where's Sammy?" She had been feeling in both sleeves with a trace of annoyance, and now she turned to discover Sammy a few paces back, idly watching a policeman putting an inebriated man off the track. "Sammy!" she called him sharply. He came, running and frightened. ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... had not liked it herself by the time she got to the road's turn. But to think of him nursing his feelings all this time ... and something she had said to Mr. Pratt ... considering that she had bought them all a new harmonium ... the lazy, stingy louts with their half-crowns.... ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... the depths of her own obliviousness, "quite likely. Alas! there is another questionable question-mark. I do wish she weren't so stingy ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... seven brothers who were all humpbacks, and who looked very much alike. Ugly as these humpbacks were, still there was a lady who fell in love with one of them and married him. This lady, however, though she loved her husband well, was a very stingy woman. Finally the time came when the unmarried humpbacks had to depend on the other one for food. Naturally this arrangement was very displeasing to the wife; and in time her hate grew so intense, that she planned to kill all ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... there was great dissatisfaction. "What a shame," people said, "to disturb old Mr. Cobley, who has sat so long and voted so steadily! To be sure, he is very tiresome, and can't make himself heard a yard off, and is very stingy about subscriptions; and, if there was some rising young man to put into his seat, as the Duke of Newcastle put Gladstone, it might be all very well. But, really, Philip Vaughan is such a moody, dreamy creature, and so wrapped up in books and poetry, that he can never make ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... I should get by denouncing him to the authorities," he muttered to himself. "They are stingy in rewarding informers though, and he, probably, will pay better; besides, as he says, he may get me hung by a word; and if I get him into trouble, some of his friends are certain to avenge him. After all, too, he would probably ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... homely, hard-working life. Her husband an honest, decent man enough, was a brewer, and somewhat given to over drinking, and so he was often surly and stingy and unpleasant. ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... could be no doubt that these two would ultimately come into Mrs. Cliff's fortune, which was probably more than had been generally supposed. She had always been very close-mouthed about her affairs, and there were some who said that even in her early days of widowhood she might have been more stingy than she was poor. She must have considerable property, or Mr. Burke would not be so anxious ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... domestic economy of Harrow. Then the great and burning question of grub is always ready to hand. The "PARENT" wants to have a hand in the payment for school-books, seeing his way to getting the discount (stingy chap!) then why shouldn't we fellows have a voice choosing them? Then about taking up Greek, why shouldn't we have our say in that matter? After all, it interests us more than anyone else, as we are the fellows that will have to learn it, if it is to be retained. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... case. I could not find him; but before I concluded my search, I found that the poor people had been compelled to sell a table and some chairs to pay the rent. The next day I saw them again, and found them heartily abusing the old man as "a stingy brute," who would "sell the chairs from under them." Yet I observed that they had a new table and three new chairs. When I asked them how they came by them, they said they had been sent by an unknown hand, which they supposed to be mine. A thought struck me, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... the rest of the world, and I believe with some degree of justice, to be a generous, charitable people; but the Otaheiteans could not help bestowing the most contemptuous word in their language upon us, which is, Peery Peery, or Stingy. ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... death. Burke felt no hesitation in obliging so old a friend. Garrick, who, though fond of money, was as generous-hearted a fellow as ever brought down a house, lent Burke 1,000 pounds. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who has been reckoned stingy, by his will left Burke 2,000 pounds, and forgave him another 2,000 pounds which he had lent him. The Marquis of Rockingham by his will directed all Burke's bonds held by him to be cancelled. They amounted to 30,000 pounds. Burke's patrimonial estate was sold by him for 4,000 ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... old Two-tails some more," he muttered. "This won't do. We shall eat some, but there will be a lot to spare, and if they come and find the basket like this they will grow stingy; and I can use any ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... rode by at a trot. The former mumbled a greeting to Racey but barely glanced at the girl. Women did not interest Lanpher. He was too selfishly stingy. The stranger was more appreciative. He gave the girl a stare of frank admiration before he looked at Racey Dawson. The latter perceived that the stranger's eyes were remarkably black and keen, perceived, too, that the man as he rode past and on half turned in the saddle ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... wants you to know he ain't stingy," sang out Larry. "Look your fill, from a distance, but ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... In doing this, although they are exceedingly avaricious, yet in behalf of their vices, unchastity, and abominations, and for their wishes and desires, for the sake of gain and profit, they do not stop at trifles; nor are they stingy and careless, but open-handed and generous, and endeavor and negotiate in a thousand ways to procure what they purpose and desire. The Spaniards themselves favor, intercede and negotiate for them for the sake of their own private interest ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... in which, in allusion to the famous Canterbury Victorippick, he had said that Bradshaw had the tongue of a traitor and the heart of a coward. Though six weeks had elapsed between the speech and the challenge, Horsman did go out, and they exchanged shots; after which Bradshaw made a sort of stingy apology for his insults to the Queen, and the other an apology for his offensive expressions. Gurwood went out with Bradshaw, which he had better not have done.[15] He said, 'he had never read Bradshaw's speech, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... believed to be much richer than I am. I have the face of an old miser. It is certainly a lying face; but its untruthfulness has often won for me a great deal of consideration. There is nobody so much respected in this world as a stingy rich man. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... Bogges & Co. I made money, and was saving of what I earned. I did not gamble. I took good care of myself, and, having the respect of every person, I admit I was quite vain and proud. I was accused by the gamblers of being stingy with my money. So I thought I would do as others did, and commenced to give money to others as a stake to gamble with on shares. Soon I began to play. I won and lost, but did not play to any great extent. Mr. Bogges took me to task for gambling. He also showed me many of the tricks ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... an impression on the freshies we ought to do things in good style," Dulcie hotly contested. "I don't care how much money it costs me. I have plenty of coin. The trouble with you Nat, is you're stingy. You buy everything expensive for yourself, but you are always broke when ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... mines were collectively owned, it is certain the owners would be less stingy about taking all the technical preventive precautions (electric lighting, for instance), which would diminish the number of these frightful catastrophes which infinitely increase the anonymous multitude of the martyrs of toil and which do not even ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... I were staying with our folks at the hotel in Bramblewood that summer, and about two miles away was Pop Robins's farm. He used to bring eggs and chickens and vegetables and fruit to the hotel; and, oh my! wasn't he stingy?—you'd better believe it. He wouldn't even give you two or three blackberries, and if you asked him for an apple, he'd tremble all over. A reg'lar old miser he was, with lots of money, and a ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "Well, so I would, with joy—at this particular minute. Don't you think perhaps you'd better take advantage of it? I don't wish to insist—but I foresee that I'm much too rich not to become stingy." ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... another, Working for a stingy ten Bucks a day, some mining brother Seeing, shall walk ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... wanted his dinner. Having secured a piece of meat, formally presented to him on the end of a lodge-pole, he offered himself to the view of his own people, alarming them by his glaring eyes and sunken cheeks, and told them that he had come back to haunt them for a stingy, inconsiderate lot, because the gate-keeper of heaven had refused to admit him on so ill-conditioned a mount. The camp broke up in dismay. Wichitas and Comanches journeyed, en masse, to Fort Sill for protection, and since then they have sacrificed ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... fourteen hundred. Against you, worthy Saturius. Come, come, I must knock the lot down, which perhaps would not please some whom I could mention. Don't be stingy, friend, you have a large purse to draw on, and it is called the Roman Empire. Now. Thank you, I have fifteen hundred. Well, my friend yonder. What! Have you had enough?" and he pointed to the Alexandrian merchant, who, ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... first year Mrs. Schmidt was here, and, thank goodness, she isn't here any longer, and she hadn't learned as much as she learned afterwards. My goodness, wasn't she stingy? She thought one egg ought to be enough for six girls, I believe. It took Miss Preston about a year to get her to understand that we were not to be kept on half rations. Well, that night we were expecting something extra fine. We got it!" and Lou stopped to laugh at the ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... not as a free man, to win his own way and make a new life for himself; he came as a soil-slave, to drudge from dawn to dark for a hire that barely kept him going. The farmer was the owner of Jimmie's time, and Jimmie disliked him heartily, because he was surly-tempered and stingy, abusing his horses and nagging at his hired man. Jimmie's education in farm-economics was not thorough enough to enable him to realize that John Cutter was as much of a slave as himself—bound by a mortgage to Ashton ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... sentimental Hudibrastic, reminding one a little, too, of Wieland's Oberon;—it had touches of true drollery combined not ill with grave clear insight; showed spirit everywhere, and a plainly improved power of execution. Our stingy verdict was to the effect, "Better, but still not good enough:—why follow that sad 'metrical' course, climbing the loose sandhills, when you have a firm path along the plain?" To Sterling himself it remained dubious whether so slight a strain, new though it were, would suffice to awaken ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... father and son, on that path! But Grushenka favors neither of them, she's still playing with them, and teasing them both, considering which she can get most out of. For though she could filch a lot of money from the papa he wouldn't marry her, and maybe he'll turn stingy in the end, and keep his purse shut. That's where Mitya's value comes in; he has no money, but he's ready to marry her. Yes, ready to marry her! to abandon his betrothed, a rare beauty, Katerina Ivanovna, who's rich, and the daughter of a colonel, and ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that ye wait where ye are for a few days for him, spinding yer laisure in looking for a job. I'm a coochman in the employ of an old rapscallion of a lawyer, who's stingy enough to pick the sugar out of the teeth of the flies he cotches in his sugar-bowl. I darsn't bring ye there, but if the worst comes and ye haven't anything to ate, I'll ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... inborn tendency to arrogant and extravagant desires was matched by an inborn capacity to get the necessary money. His luxurious tastes were certainly not moderated by his associations—enormously rich people who, while they could be stingy enough in some respects, at the same time could and did fling away fortunes in gratifying selfish whims—for silly showy houses, for retinues of wasteful servants, for gewgaws that accentuated the homeliness of their homely women and coarsened ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... was there, the clostest man a-livin', Whose only bugbear seemed to be the dreadful fear o' givin'. His beard was long, his hair uncut, his clothes all bare an' dingy; It wasn't 'cause the man was pore, but jest so mortal stingy; An' there he sot by Sally Riggs a-smilin' an' a-smirkin', An' all his children lef' to home a diggin' an' a-workin'. A widower he was, an' Sal was thinkin' 'at she 'd wing him; I reckon he was wond'rin' what them rings o' hern would bring him. An' when ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Emily," she told her cousin, who was awaiting her in her bedroom. "I presume likely it'll do more harm than good, but it did ME good while I was sayin' it. The mean, stingy old hypocrite! Now let's go downstairs and fill ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... The gardeners, grooms, and gamekeepers were maintained; ten domestic servants sat down to four heavy meals in the servants' hall every day, and Lady Aylmer contented herself with receiving little or no company, and with stingy breakfasts and bad dinners for herself and her husband and daughter. By all this it must be seen that she did her duty as the wife of an English country gentleman, and properly maintained his ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... to keep apples and things in the pantry," he said, "but she must be growing stingy in her old age; there's ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... abroad. Such heart-rending letters from her. They were destitute. How I worked! how I raged! But how could I maintain her and her husband too, mere child that I was? No matter. They are dead now, both; all dead for whose sake I first ground colours and saved halfpence. And Frank Vance is a stingy, selfish bachelor. Never revive this dull subject again, or I shall borrow a crown from you and cut you dead. Waiter, ho!—the bill. I'll just go round to the stables, and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... are difficult of attainment by those that are wanting in Exertion. The Brahmana attains to prosperity by holy living, the Kshatriya by prowess, the Vaisya by manly exertion, and the Sudra by service. Riches and other objects of enjoyment do not follow the stingy, nor the impotent, nor the idler. Nor are these ever attained by the man that is not active or manly or devoted to the exercise of religious austerities. Even he, the adorable Vishnu, who created the three worlds with the Daityas and all the gods, even ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... said, "I reckon that feller was jest about as stingy as the feller you 've been tellin' about, and mebby stingier, 'cause he 'd take more risks. Anyway, he was as ornery stingy as he could be an' live. If he 'd been any wuss he 'd of died to save grub an' shoe leather. ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... Uncle Jerry had been willing to pay them, he might have found plenty of first-class listeners. But he was stingy. He was always trying to get something for nothing. And ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Mink demanded. "Why don't you do it now?" Knowing that Timothy was stingy, Peter thought that the old gentleman would soon change his mind about "doing something ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... The next day the stingy and wicked neighbors, after boiling a mess of beans, came and borrowed the magic mill. They filled it with the boiled beans, and the old man began ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of no more use than gold so inaccessible in old Mother Earth that it will never feel the miner's pick. There is plenty in this world, if we keep it moving and keep moving after it. Imagine everybody in the world stingy, living on the principle of "We can do without that," or "Our grandfathers got along without such things, and I guess I can." What would become of our parks, grand buildings, electrical improvements; of music and art? What would become of labor that nurses a tree from a forest to a piano ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... think I'm stingy about the wine,' he said; 'he might drink it all for anything I should care. I ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... carefully, and tell me candidly if there can be anything more foolish than a man's spending all the days of his life piling up and hoarding money, too mean and too stingy to use any but what is absolutely necessary, accumulating many times more than he can possibly ever use, always eager for more, growing still more eager and grasping the nearer he comes to life's end, then lying down, dying, and leaving it. It seems to me about as sensible for a ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... to help me," Peppery Polly Bumblebee said to Freddie Firefly through the darkness. "If you'd been a little less stingy with that light of yours I wouldn't have made the mistake of thinking this thistle ...
— The Tale of Freddie Firefly • Arthur Scott Bailey
... they're fobbin' your money hand over hand. These critters feel no interest in anything but cent per cent; they deaden public spirit; they hain't got none themselves, and they larf at it in others; and when you add their numbers to the timid ones, the stingy ones, the ignorant ones, and the poor ones that are to be found in every place, why the few smart-spirited ones that's left are too few to do anything, and so nothin' is done. It appears to me if I was a Bluenose I'd—but thank fortin' I ain't, so I says nothin'; but there is somethin' that ain't ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... ordinary citizen, wealthy, perhaps, but ordinary. As a matter of fact, I was once"—he looked cautiously around—"I was once a contortionist. I was once the contortionist. And now I am a wealthy man. My wife left me because she said I was stingy, and she took my child—my only daughter. I have never seen either of them since. I have searched high and low, but I cannot find them. Mr. Gubb, I would give the man that finds my daughter—if she is alive—a ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... parallel to this had kept her faith in humanity green. There must be plenty of these open-handed gentlemen in houses such as she worked in, and, perhaps, in Mrs. O'Connor's house there might be more than one such person. There were stingy people enough, heaven knew, people who would get one to run messages and almost expect to be paid themselves for allowing one to work for them. Mrs. Makebelieve anathematized such skinflints with a vocabulary which was quite ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... gentlemen, or shop-keepers, more innocently and advantageously spend an hour or two in the evening than at a coffee-house? Where they shall be sure to meet company, and, by the custom of the house, not such as at other places stingy and reserved to themselves, but free and communicative, where every man may modestly begin his story, and propose to, or answer another, as he thinks fit.... So that, upon the whole matter, spight of the idle sarcasms and paltry reproaches thrown upon it, we may, with no less truth than plainness, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... wickeder," said Ben when Black Paul had hurried away; "the de'il himsel' couldna hae taught ye a craftier trick than that. Weel ye kenned that that black fellow would fain serve under a free-handed fool than a stingy knave. Ay, ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... time. The words, "my heart," "my jewel," "my little pet," "my queen," and the amorous diminutives of 1770, had a grace that was quite irresistible when they came from his lips. In short, the chevalier had the privilege of superlatives. His compliments, of which he was stingy, won the good graces of all the old women; he made himself agreeable to every one, even to the officials of the government, from whom he wanted nothing. His behavior at cards had a lofty distinction which everybody noticed: he never complained; he ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... earthworks and stations, and law and parliamentary expenses—in fact, the whole of the outlay encountered in the formation of a railway, had for its main and ultimate object a perfectly smooth and level line of rail; that to turn stingy at this point, just when you had arrived at the great ultimatum of the whole proceedings, viz: the iron wheel-track, was a sort of saving which evinced a want of true preception of the great object of all ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... were subjected—enough in themselves to crush the spirit of men—they were, really, kept nearly half starved; they seldom knew{117} what it was to eat a full meal, except when they got it in the kitchens of neighbors, less mean and stingy than the psalm-singing Mrs. Hamilton. I have seen poor Mary contending for the offal, with the pigs in the street. So much was the poor girl pinched, kicked, cut and pecked to pieces, that the boys in the street knew her only by the name of "pecked," ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... chivvying me, George, for you won't get any good of it. You let me alone, and I'll let you. You were a stingy fellow about that money, so I've took some of ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 'Bo. We can put all sorts of crimps into this road by 'holding up' the night express! The officials of this road, whose men are too stingy to let a fellow ride on the blind baggage, are boasting they haven't had a 'hold-up' ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... is generally a shortage in width—which suggests the advisability of measuring the table top before buying, for cloths come in different widths, and one which is too narrow looks out-grown and awkward and—stingy! The average table is about 4 feet across, and requires a cloth 2 yards square, though in buying by the yard it is safe to allow an extra quarter for straightening the edges and hemming. The cloth should hang at least a foot below the edge of the table, with an increase of half ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... feminine character, it may easily happen that the flavor is unpleasant in spite of excellent ingredients; and a fine systematic stinginess may be accompanied with a seasoning that quite spoils its relish. Now, good Mr. Glegg himself was stingy in the most amiable manner; his neighbors called him "near," which always means that the person in question is a lovable skinflint. If you expressed a preference for cheese-parings, Mr. Glegg would ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... laying hold of his arm and taking him away unwillingly, "it is not polite of you to force me to invite myself. I do not suppose it is the cost of the wine you are thinking of. Mark my words: when I am elected a member, I shall not be stingy." ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... crowd in thy streets and the common people of thy grandeur. Each of thy cemeteries has a like shameful corner, hidden in the angle of a wall, where thou makest haste to bury them, and where thou castest dirt upon them in such stingy clods, that one can see the ends of their coffins protruding! One would say that thy charity stops with their last breath, that thy only free gift is the bed whereon they suffer, and that, when the hospital can do no more for them, thou, who art so vast and so superb, hast no place for them! Thou ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... straight to the palace gate, and tell the master of it that there was a crew of poor shipwrecked mariners, not far off, who had eaten nothing for a day or two save a few clams and oysters, and would therefore be thankful for a little food. And the prince or nobleman must be a very stingy curmudgeon, to be sure, if, at least, when his own dinner was over, he would not bid them welcome to the broken victuals ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... the soldiers, Horace," said Grace, with a smile of forbearance toward her brother. "I'm willing to give all my pocket-money; and I mean the other girls shall. If we're stingy to our country these days, we ought to be shot! 'Princess Hilda's' the best story in the book. I wish Isa Harrington could read it! She wouldn't make any more ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... thus stingy of your words today?" he at length began, somewhat vext: "is my company troublesome to you? or are you no longer as capable as you used to be of honouring our great teacher and giving ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... he said, jumping back to his former place on the bed. "We can buy Mr. Shopkeeper for anything we like—for nothing at all, if we choose to be stingy. His innocent daughter has made the best of all confessions, just at the right time. Basil, my boy, she ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins |
