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More "Pilfer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... those men whose plans come to nothing. He had prospered as a rogue of old in England, really his native country, though he called himself an Afrikander. Reared in the gutters of the Irish quarter of Liverpool, he had early learned to pilfer for a living, had prospered in prison as sharp young gaol-birds may prosper, and returned to it again and again, until, having served out part of a sentence for burglary and obtained his ticket-of-leave, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... account that he was tempted to steal, and this, though it would not justify, might in some degree palliate the act for which he was slain; or that he had been badly brought up, having never received any proper instruction, but had been trained and taught from his boyhood to pilfer and steal. ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... of his nobler nature, transmuting them into rank and noisome products. All love for Christ, all care for the poor, all thought of his fellow-disciples, were quenched before that remorseless passion; and at last he began to pilfer from those scant treasures, which were now and again replenished by those that loved to minister to the Master's comfort. At first, he must have been stung by keen remorse; but each time he sinned his conscience became more seared, until he finally reached ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... day advanced, the number of men and children who crowded about the steamer watching for opportunities to pilfer or pick up food became so great that it was necessary to clear the pier and put a guard of soldiers there to exclude the public altogether. Then the hungry people formed in a dense mass in the street opposite the steamer, and stood ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... members themselves have sometimes been deceived by unscrupulous agents representing their wares as the regular productions of the valid society. The audacious promoters of this so-called Society had the boldness not only to pilfer the name of the legitimate society, but also the name of its president, which was ostentatiously printed upon their letter heads, together with the name of Dr. Richard Garnett. Both of these gentlemen have recently published ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... principles. To live in seeming fellowship and secret rivalry; to have a hand for all, and a heart for none; to be everybody's acquaintance, and nobody's friend; to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile, and to dread the secret stratagems of all who smile on us; to pilfer honours and despoil fortunes, not by fighting in daylight, but by sapping in darkness: these are arts which the court can teach, but which we, by 'r Lady, have not learned. But let your court-minstrel tune up his throat to the praise of your court-hero, then come our principles into ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... that," contested Abel. "Git somebody kind o' spry an' he could pad out weth a pilfer. A pussy man 'd find it rather onhandy comin' down that chimbly an' hoppin' hether an' yan takin' things off o' the tree. Need somebody with a good strong voice, too, to call off the names.... Woosh's you'd git them things ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... are the most numerous in Alaska and are even more graceful in flight than are the Gulls and Terns, floating, skimming, sailing, plunging, and darting about with incredible swiftness and ease. Like the others of this family, they pilfer their food from the Gulls, and are also very destructive to young birds and eggs. Their eggs are either laid on the bare ground or in a slight depression, scantily lined with grasses. The eggs are indistinguishable from those of the preceding species except that they average ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... Waheatoun the Earee de hi, or king, and him we had not yet seen, nor, I believe, any other chief of note. Many, however, who called themselves Earees, came on board, partly with a view of getting presents, and partly to pilfer whatever came in ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... momentary demand—if, in jealous rivalry with neighbouring States, or with other producers, you try to attract attention by singularities, novelties, and gaudinesses—to make every design an advertisement, and pilfer every idea of a successful neighbour's, that you may insidiously imitate it, or pompously eclipse —no good design will ever be possible to you, or perceived by you. You may, by accident, snatch the market; or, by energy, ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... provost-royal. From which came, under the glorious son of the said king, the office of provost of the hotel, in which behaved rather harshly my lord Tristan of Mere, of whom these tales oft make mention, although he was by no means a merry fellow. I give this information to the friends who pilfer from old manuscripts to manufacture new ones, and I show thereby how learned these Tales really are, without appearing to be so. Very well, then, this provost was named Picot or Picault, of which some made picotin, picoter, and picoree; by some Pitot ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... and securely lashed, that it may be impossible to pilfer from them. The packages of those that are in use, should be carried in one pair of saddle-gabs, to be devoted to that purpose. These should stand at the storekeeper's bivouac, and nobody else should be allowed ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... sits down on the weight which he bore; The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store. If a thief could be here, he might pilfer at ease: She sees the musician—'tis all that ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... by the presence of our white protector said, "You may be sure we didn't pilfer 'em ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... of the Pink Hills upon our right, and travelled through a good deal of brush. Four or five natives joined us, and two followed us to the end of our day's journey. In the course of the evening, they endeavoured to pilfer whatever was in their reach, but were detected putting a tin into a bush, and soon took to their heels. This was the first instance we had of open theft among the natives of ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... you will never find me without well-tenanted pill-boxes in my pocket, and perhaps a buzzing captive or two stuck in spinning thraldom on my castor; you are petty larceners, I profess the like metier of intellectual abstractor; you pilfer among a crowd of volumes, manuscripts, rare editions, conflicting commentators, and your success depends upon reusage of the old materials; whereas I sit alone and bookless in my dining-parlour, thinking over bygone fancies, reconsidering ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... other time, however, you must, for my sake, try again; and I shall then be most ready for a rummage of your Irish treasures. Already, indeed, I have been drawing a little upon your 'Researches in the South of Ireland;' and should be very glad to have more books of yours to pilfer. ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... survive! The central idea of this modern folly about the potato is that you must pilfer the root. Let us work the idea of the healing or magical herb backwards, from Kensington to European folklore, and thence to classical times, to Homer, and to the Hottentots. Turning first to Germany, we note the beliefs, not about the potato, but about another vegetable, ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... expensive compliment of falling very ill. They thought that I would die. They tell me even to-day I did not die. I almost question it." He shrugged. "And to-day I must continue to write plays, because I never learned any other trade. And so, at need, I pilfer." The topic did not seem much ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... of low and dirty prostitution, in the age of Dodington and Sandys, it was something to have a man who might perhaps, under some strong excitement, have been tempted to ruin his country, but who never would have stooped to pilfer from her, a man whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire of gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for glory, and for vengeance. History owes to him this attestation, that at a time when anything short of direct embezzlement ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... peevish chits, "Can babes like us live by our wits? With perils compassed round, can we Preserve our lives and liberty? Ah! how escape the fowler's snare, And gard'ner with his gun in air, Who, if we pilfer plums or pears, Will scatter lead about our ears? And you would drop a mournful head To see your little pies lie dead!" "My dears," she said, and kissed their bills, "The wise by foresight baffle ills, A wise descent you claim; To bang a gun off takes some time,— A man must load, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... ape his cheek, 'Now God forfend,' I say, 'That of my portion aught to pilfer thou ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Dawson's Landing, she was her old self again; her blues were gone, she was in high feather. She would get along, surely; there were many kitchens where the servants would share their meals with her, and also steal sugar and apples and other dainties for her to carry home—or give her a chance to pilfer them herself, which would answer just as well. And there was the church. She was a more rabid and devoted Methodist than ever, and her piety was no sham, but was strong and sincere. Yes, with plenty of creature comforts and her old place in the amen ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... *"I saved this fellow," quoth he, "from the gallows when he ran away from his last master, because I thought he was harshly treated; but the rogue was no sooner safe under my protection than he began to lie, pilfer, and steal like the devil. When I first set him up in a warm house he had hardly put up his sign when he began to debauch my best customers from me. *Then it was his constant practice to rob my fish-ponds, not only to feed his family, but to trade with the ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... nosegays before 'em; Both cover their faces with mobs and all that, But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. When uncover'd, a buzz of inquiry runs round, 'Pray what are their crimes?'... 'They've been pilfering found.' 'But, pray, who have they pilfer'd?'... 'A doctor, I hear.' 'What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near?' 'The same.'... 'What a pity! how does it surprise one, Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!' Then their friends all come round me ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Genoese on deck, and could not possibly overpower them before they had time to give the alarm to other vessels. At night, when we can unite, we cannot gain the deck, for the hatch is not only closed, but would almost certainly be fastened, so that men should not get down to pilfer ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... have a sharp, but reserved look-out kept on doubtful characters as they go over the side on leave, for there will ever be found at the great naval stations a certain number of regular-built swindlers, who wander from port to port expressly to pilfer. These vagabonds enter on board newly-commissioned ships, make a great show of activity, and remain a certain time to lull suspicion. They then take up slops, that is, obtain from the purser as many ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... when the tenth of his grain is levied? Worms have destroyed half of the wheat, and the hippopotami have eaten the rest; there are swarms of rats in the fields, the grasshoppers alight there, the cattle devour, the little birds pilfer, and if the farmer lose sight for an instant of what remains upon the ground, it is carried off by robbers;* the thongs, moreover, which bind the iron and the hoe are worn out, and the team has died at the plough. It is then that the scribe steps out of the boat at the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... want no more masters!' We only could stop him By giving him vodka 580 (His weakness was vodka). The devil must needs Fling him straight at the Barin. One morning Petrov Had set out to the forest To pilfer some logs (For the night would not serve him, It seems, for his thieving, He must go and do it In broadest white daylight), 590 And there comes the carriage, On springs, with ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... porter sits down on the weight which he bore; The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store. If a thief could be here, he might pilfer at ease: She sees the musician—'tis all ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... bearing on the head a great graceful basket of yellow treasures. Opposite our window there is a wall by which they rest themselves, after their three-mile walk from the gardens. There they lounge and there they chatter. Little boys come slyly to pilfer oranges, and are pelted away with other oranges; for a single orange has here no more appreciable value than a single apple in our farmers' orchards; and, indeed, windfall oranges are left to decay, like windfall apples. During ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... before 'em; Both cover their faces with mobs and all that; 45 But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. When uncover'd, a buzz of enquiry runs round, — 'Pray what are their crimes?' — 'They've been pilfering found.' 'But, pray, whom have they pilfer'd?' — 'A Doctor, I hear.' 'What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near!' 50 'The same.' — 'What a pity! how does it surprise one! Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!' Then their friends all come round me with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... which here confronted her. Hitherto her dealings had been with honest tradespeople; now it was her misfortune, and her sisters', to get into a house where honesty was far from practised. In a thousand little ways Mrs. Dove could pilfer from the girls—she would not for the world have acknowledged to herself that she would really steal; oh, no—but she did not consider it stealing to use their coal instead of her own—of course, by mistake; she by no means considered it stealing when she baked a little joint for them ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... "you can see the result of your dreadful example. Even this innocent child has learnt to pilfer my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... and Grandma Maria say, 'Why shouldn't they—it was their money.' She say there was plenty Indians here when they settled this country and they bought and traded with them without killin' them, if they could. The Indians was poor folks, jus' pilfer and loaf 'round all the time. The niggers was a heap sight better off than they was, 'cause we had plenty to eat and a place ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... innocent-looking as Spring herself are these bright flowers. Alas, for the tiny creatures that try to climb up the rosy tufts to pilfer nectar, they and their relatives are not so innocent as they appear! While the little crawlers are almost within reach of the cup of sweets, their feet are gummed to the viscid matter that coats it, and here their struggles end as flies' do on sticky ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... say true, the liar is a captive slave of more than the spirit of lying; and therefore this Mr. Badman, as he was a liar from a child, so he was also much given to pilfer and steal, so that what he could, as we say, handsomely lay his hands on,[12] that was counted his own, whether they were the things of his fellow-children, or if he could lay hold of anything at a neighbour's house, he would take it away; you must understand me of trifles; for being yet but ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... pilfer, until exposure and decay had weakened his hand. In his first week at Dublin he carried off L1000, and it was only his fateful interview with Sir John Fielding that gave him poverty for a bedfellow. Even at the end, when he slunk from town to town, a notorious outlaw, he had inspirations ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... ruined for life; but he very shortly found that he was a gainer by the maiming. For being by nature disposed to pilfer from his companions, it would come within his experience to have many misadventures wherein his ears would be ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... which, in all early periods of society, were uniformly imposed on the female. "Why," would he say, "did the boy, Tam Rintherout, whom, at my wise sister's instigation, I, with equal wisdom, took upon trialwhy did he pilfer apples, take birds' nests, break glasses, and ultimately steal my spectacles, except that he felt that noble emulation which swells in the bosom of the masculine sex, which has conducted him to Flanders with a musket ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... perhaps as much from mismanagement, as by the weather; for, with very few exceptions, it was impossible to select from among the prisoners, or those who had been such, any who would feel an honest interest in executing the service in which they were employed. They would pilfer half the grain entrusted to their care for the cattle; they would lead them into the woods for pasturage, and there leave them until obliged to conduct them in; they would neither clean them nor themselves. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... my friend, And like the half you pilfer'd best; But sure the piece you yet may mend: Take courage, man! ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... was a passion unknown to him; but that tenderness which with us creates a horror of blood was equally unknown. Pleasure was sweet to him; but he was man enough to feel that a life of pleasure was contemptible. To pillage a city, to pilfer his all from a rich man, to debauch a friend's wife, to give over a multitude of women and children to slaughter, was as easy to him as to forgive an enemy. But nothing rankled with him, and he could forgive an enemy. Of courage he had that better sort which can appreciate and calculate danger, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... affair to lend modesty where they borrow wit, and to spare a blush to the cheek of the Lord Chamberlain. But still, as has ever been our wont since Etherege saw, and envied, and imitated your successes—still we pilfer the plays of France, and take our bien, as you said in your lordly manner, wherever we can find it. We are the privateers of the stage; and it is rarely, to be sure, that a comedy pleases the town which has not first been "cut out" from the countrymen ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... Holy Will, There was wit i' your skull, When ye pilfer'd the alms o' the poor; The timmer is scant, When ye're ta'en for a saunt, Wha should swing in a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... then with more than a hundred rakes; They said: "It here behoves thee to dance covered, That, if thou canst, thou secretly mayest pilfer." ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... (Roman Catholic,) he should no longer be C. R., (Charles Rex.) The great fire of London had been the work of the Jesuits, who had employed eighty or eighty-six persons for that purpose, and had expended seven hundred fire-balls; but they had a good return for their money, for they had been able to pilfer goods from the fire to the amount of fourteen thousand pounds: the Jesuits had also raised another fire on St. Margaret's Hill, whence they had stolen goods to the value of two thousand pounds; another at Southwark: and it was determined in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... broke off our friendship, I paid you the expensive compliment of falling very ill. They thought that I would die. They tell me even to-day I did not die. I almost question it." He shrugged. "And to-day I must continue to write plays, because I never learned any other trade. And so, at need, I pilfer." The topic did not ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... been pointed out to us as Wordsworth's residence, we began to peer about at its front and gables, and over the garden wall, on both sides of the road, quickening our enthusiasm as much as we could, and meditating to pilfer some flower or ivy-leaf from the house or its vicinity, to be kept as sacred memorials. At this juncture a man approached, who announced himself as the gardener of the place, and said, too, that this was not Wordsworth's house at all, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... counterfeited his buffoons, whom they called Egeums. This kind of farce so much pleased my master, that he made me repeat it as often as he found opportunity. He made use of this stratagem to divert those among them, whom he suspected as inclined to pilfer, and thus cunningly occupied their attention. No sooner did he make known my talent for imitating the Egeums, than I was surrounded by men, women, and children, who constantly bawled out to me ganne, (sing ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... neither kith nor kin, nor friends, nor even acquaintances; but, being something of a miser, scraped and screwed to amass money she had no need for, and dwelt in a wretched little apartment in a back slum, whence she daily issued to work little and pilfer much. ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... quaint old German physician, who lived in a fine old-fashioned house near a public play-ground. Connected with the doctor's premises was an extensive peach orchard, and, sad to say, naughty boys would sometimes climb over the orchard wall and pilfer his peaches. To guard against this practice the doctor had the top of his wall adorned with a row of very ugly iron spikes. Not far from Doctor Schroeder's place lived a family known as "the Jones's". One member of the family was a small boy nicknamed "Scramble;" so named, I presume, ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... the keyboard and strings of a piano while I watched a number of thieves break into the remnants of houses and pilfer them, while others again had got at a supply of fine groceries and had broken into a barrel of fine brandy, and were fairly steeping themselves in it. I met quite a number of Pittsburghers in the ruins looking for friends and relatives. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... that he was tempted to steal, and this, though it would not justify, might in some degree palliate the act for which he was slain; or that he had been badly brought up, having never received any proper instruction, but had been trained and taught from his boyhood to pilfer and steal. ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... not fast. rood, fourth of an acre. sloe, a kind of fruit. serf, a slave; servant. sun, the source of light. surf, a swell of the sea. son, a male child. serge, a kind of cloth. steel, refined iron. surge, to rise; to swell. steal, to rob; to pilfer. sheer, pure; clear. stile, steps over a fence. shear, to cut or clip. style, manner of writing. side, a part; a margin. stare, to look fixedly. sighed, did sigh. stair, a step. slew (slu), did slay. sweet, pleasing to the taste. slue, to slip ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... set of cheats could 309 scarcely be pointed at, as their chief business really is to prowl about the houses and stables of people of rank and fortune, in order to hold out temptations to their servants, to pilfer and steal small articles not likely to be missed, which these fellows are willing to purchase at about one-third of their real value. It is supposed that upwards of 15,000 of these depraved itinerants among the Jews are daily employed in ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... shoplifting. thievishness, rapacity, kleptomania, Alsatia[obs3], den of Cacus, den of thieves. blackmail, extortion, shakedown, Black Hand [U.S.]. [person who commits theft] thief &c. 792. V. steal, thieve, rob, mug, purloin, pilfer, filch, prig, bag, nim|, crib, cabbage, palm; abstract; appropriate, plagiarize. convey away, carry off, abduct, kidnap, crimp; make off with, walk off with, run off with; run away with; spirit away, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... faith, lives on in a miserable condition of life as outcasts from the more civilised communities. Changars are, in general, petty thieves and pickpockets, and have no settled vocation. They object to continuous labour. The women make baskets, beg, pilfer, or sift and grind corn. They have no settled places of residence, and live in small blanket or mat tents, or temporary sheds outside villages. They are professedly Hindus and worshippers of Deree or Bhowanee, but they make offerings ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... of those men whose plans come to nothing. He had prospered as a rogue of old in England, really his native country, though he called himself an Afrikander. Reared in the gutters of the Irish quarter of Liverpool, he had early learned to pilfer for a living, had prospered in prison as sharp young gaol-birds may prosper, and returned to it again and again, until, having served out part of a sentence for burglary and obtained his ticket-of-leave, he had shifted his convict's ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the men shot a wolf. The Indians brought corn, beans, and squashes, which they very readily gave for getting their axes and kettles mended. In their general conduct during these visits they are honest, but will occasionally pilfer ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... pursued by the sheriff, many by the devil. One has invented the perpetual motion and is soon to be rich; others have already acquired vast fortunes: scraps of paper, buttons and chips are to them, large amounts of money. Many pilfer continually and without any apparent motive, while others secrete every thing they can find, their own articles as well as those of others. A majority are disposed to hoard up trifling and useless articles, as scraps of tin, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... were condemned to death, and were accordingly hung in chains, as the custom of those days was, to be a terror and warning to like evil-doers, as dead crows and other birds are stuck up in a field to scare away the live ones wishing to pilfer ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... Pagan cries: "Forego thy theft, And down, false felon, from that pilfer'd steed; I am not wont to let my own be reft. And he who seeks it dearly pays the deed. More — I shall take from thee yon lovely weft; To leave thee such a prize were foul misdeed; And horse and maid, whose worth outstrips belief, Were ill, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... sticks for horses, playing with toys, torturing flies, or impaling butterflies on pins, that the brilliant circles of their dying pangs may amuse thy young soul? Why dost thou never romp and sport upon the grassy turf, pilfer sugarplums and sweetmeats, and wet the letters of thy picture book from A ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... nothing was thought valuable by them, but the single articles of our metals. Linen, and such like things, were perfectly secure from their depredations, and we could safely leave them hanging out ashore all night, without watching. The same principle which prompted our Nootka friends to pilfer from us, it was natural to suppose, would produce a similar conduct in their intercourse with each other. And, accordingly, we had abundant reason to believe, that stealing is much practised amongst them, and that it chiefly gives rise to their quarrels, of which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... mind that if this pilgrim to whom they had given shelter and food as become generous campers, showed any disposition to pilfer he would treat him in a summary manner, and chase him into the woods, just as any rascal should be made to decamp; and the fact of Stackpole's gigantic figure made not a particle of difference ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... a magazine belonging to a friend of the family. In the great eastern desert the Aeneze Bedouins are not so severe in such instances; but they would punish a Bedouin who should pilfer any thing from ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... which we cling to in cowardice, without believing, and make pictures of in vanity, without loving. False and base alike, whether we admire or imitate, we cannot learn from the Heathen's art, but only pilfer it; we cannot revive the Christian's art, but only galvanize it; we are, in the sum of us, not human artists at all, but mechanisms of conceited clay, masked in the furs and feathers of living creatures, and convulsed with voltaic spasms, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... strictly feminine curiosity filled her soul to know something of the nature of that work which demanded so stern a noiselessness. Observing rigorously the printed Rule of the Dining-Room, she could not forbear to pilfer glance after glance at the promulgator of it. Mr. Queed was writing, not reading, to-night. He wrote very slowly on half-size yellow pads, worth seventy-five cents a dozen, using the books only for reference. Now he ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... which came, under the glorious son of the said king, the office of provost of the hotel, in which behaved rather harshly my lord Tristan of Mere, of whom these tales oft make mention, although he was by no means a merry fellow. I give this information to the friends who pilfer from old manuscripts to manufacture new ones, and I show thereby how learned these Tales really are, without appearing to be so. Very well, then, this provost was named Picot or Picault, of which some made picotin, picoter, and picoree; ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... and too dangerous. I shirk King George; he has a fat pocket, but he has a long arm. [You pilfer sixpence from him, and it's three hundred reward for you, and a hue and cry from Tophet to the stars.] It ceases to be business; it turns politics, and I'm not a politician, Mr. Moore. ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... used chiefly by authors, gray fellows mostly, dried and wrinkled scholars who come here to pilfer innocently from antiquity. Among these musty memorial shelves, if anywhere, it would seem that the dusty padding feet of the lost digamma might be heard. In this room, perhaps, Christian Mentzelius was at work when he heard the ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... low and dirty prostitution, in the age of Dodington and Sandys, it was something to have a man who might perhaps, under some strong excitement, have been tempted to ruin his country, but who never would have stooped to pilfer from her, a man whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire of gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for glory, and for vengeance. History owes to him this attestation, that at a time when anything short of direct embezzlement of the public ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... attempted to pilfer a horse from a dooryard. He planned to load his knap-sack upon it. He was escaping with his prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed the animal's mane. There followed a wrangle. The young ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... Imitation is the sincerest flattery, but the dividing line between it and dishonesty is not always clear. And the law cannot every time prosecute the offender, for there is a kind of cleverness that enables a man to pilfer the ideas of another and recast them just sufficiently to "get by." It would be very stupid for a man not to profit by the experience of other men, but there is a vast difference between intelligent adaptation of ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... to employ them. She thought they ate and drank to their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors; that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another and the tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no relations or friends who cared enough for her to share her solitary struggle against her domestic foes; and her income, though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby reducing various nephews, nieces, or ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... haunts. The partridge comes to the orchard for buds; the rabbit comes to the garden and lawn; the crows and jays come to the ash-heap and corn-crib, the snow buntings to the stack and to the barnyard; the sparrows pilfer from the domestic fowls; the pine grosbeak comes down from the north and shears your maples of their buds; the fox prowls about your premises at night; and the red squirrels find your grain in the barn or steal the butternuts ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... evil times. On certain days, Trumence could not find either kind-hearted topers or hospitable housewives. Hunger, however, was ever on hand; then he had to become a marauder; dig some potatoes, and cook them in a corner of a wood, or pilfer the orchards. And if he found neither potatoes in the fields, nor apples in the orchards, what could he do but climb a fence, or ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... is to regard repetitions of phrases as examples of borrowing, except, of course, in the case of the earliest poet from whom the others pilfer, and in other cases of prae-Homeric surviving epic formulae. Critics then dispute as to which recurrent passage is the earlier, deciding, of course, as may happen to suit their own general theory. In our opinion these passages are traditional formulae, as in our own old ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... among the common people, no disposition to take advantage of the misfortune of the stranger. Although they beheld what must in their eyes have been inestimable treasures, cast, as it were, upon their shores, and open to depredation, yet there was not the least attempt to pilfer, nor, in transporting the effects from the ships, had they appropriated the most trifling article. On the contrary, a general sympathy was visible in their countenances and actions; and to have witnessed their concern, one would have supposed the misfortune to have ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... possible of what they accidentally leave on the stubble. I am not inclined to quarrel with the condition that requires the stocks to be removed ere the gleaners gain admittance; because many would be tempted to pilfer, and besides, the ground on which they stand could not be reached. But there is no doubt that the custom of gleaning was originally a public enactment; while the fact that it has spread over the whole earth, and descended to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... wild creatures become outlaws, and roam abroad beyond their usual haunts. The partridge comes to the orchard for buds; the rabbit comes to the garden and lawn; the crows and jays come to the ash-heap and corn-crib, the snow-buntings to the stack and to the barn-yard; the sparrows pilfer from the domestic fowls; the pine grosbeak comes down from the north and shears your maples of their buds; the fox prowls about your premises at night, and the red squirrels find your grain in the barn or steal the butternuts from your attic. In fact, winter, like some great ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... shall declare that your offers are inadmissible"? No such thing appears. Your Lordships will further remark, that Mr. Hastings refused the 200,000l. at a time when the exigencies of the Company were so pressing that he was obliged to rob, pilfer, and steal upon every side,—at a time when he was borrowing 40,000l. from Mr. Sulivan in one morning, and raising by other under-jobs 27,000l. more. In the distress [in?] which his own extravagance and prodigality had involved him, 200,000l. would have been a weighty benefit, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... eagerness for wealth, you catch at every humour of the populace as it shapes itself into momentary demand—if, in jealous rivalry with neighbouring States, or with other producers, you try to attract attention by singularities, novelties, and gaudinesses—to make every design an advertisement, and pilfer every idea of a successful neighbour's, that you may insidiously imitate it, or pompously eclipse —no good design will ever be possible to you, or perceived by you. You may, by accident, snatch the market; or, by energy, command it; you may obtain ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... with more than a hundred rakes; They said: "It here behoves thee to dance covered, That, if thou canst, thou secretly mayest pilfer." ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Echeloot chiefs remained with the white men to guide them on their way down the river. These were joined by seven others of their tribe, to whom the explorers were kind and attentive. But the visitors could not resist the temptation to pilfer from the goods exposed to dry in the sun. Being checked in this sly business, they became ill-humored and returned, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... found the belle by Morpheus not insnared; Coletta taught a play that mortals find Fatigues the body more than plagues the mind: A truce succeeded, but 'twas quickly o'er: Those rest not long who pilfer Cupid's store. ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... having needless bother. How miserable! Our slaves are a burden, not worth the trifles they pilfer. I wish they would all run away, then we might ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... pikilego. Pike (weapon) ponardego. Pile up amasigi. Pile (logs) sxtiparo. [Error in book: stiparo] Pile (support) paliso, subteno. Pile (heap) amaso—ajxo. Pile (electric) elektra pilo. Piles hemorojdo. Pilfer sxteleti. Pilferer sxtelisto. Pilgrim pilgrimanto. Pilgrimage pilgrimo—ado. Pill pilolo. Pillage rabegi—ado. Pillar kolono. Pillory punejo. Pillow kapkuseno. Pillow-case kusentego. Pilot piloto, gvido. Pimple akno. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... niggers and Grandma Maria say, 'Why shouldn't they—it was their money.' She say there was plenty Indians here when they settled this country and they bought and traded with them without killin' them, if they could. The Indians was poor folks, jus' pilfer and loaf 'round all the time. The niggers was a heap sight better off than they was, 'cause we had plenty to eat and a place ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... to pilfer a horse from a dooryard. He planned to load his knap-sack upon it. He was escaping with his prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed the animal's mane. There followed a wrangle. The young girl, with pink cheeks and shining eyes, ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... out of that; "Enacted" sends him to the Revised Statutes, or the Reports, and there it ends. The latter gives a bit of information; the former a step in development. Laws are necessary; but laws which are not necessary are more and worse than unnecessary;—they pilfer power from the soul; they intercept the absolute uses of life; they incarcerate men, and make Caspar Hausers of them. Now in America not only is there already much emancipation from those outside regulations which supersede moral and private judgment, but the tendency toward ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... number of men and children who crowded about the steamer watching for opportunities to pilfer or pick up food became so great that it was necessary to clear the pier and put a guard of soldiers there to exclude the public altogether. Then the hungry people formed in a dense mass in the street opposite ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... the women carried a little squirrel monkey. She put it up the big tree some distance from the tents; and when she called, it came scampering to her across the grass, ran up her, and clung to her neck. They would have liked to pilfer; but as they had no clothes it was difficult for them to conceal anything. One of the women was observed to take a fork; but as she did not possess a rag of clothing of any kind all she did do was to try to bury the fork in the sand and then sit on it; and it was reclaimed ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... join the army? As for him he would get out of it as soon as possible; he was sick of it; the life of a dog. All this he said to the corporal, who listened attentively, giving grunts of respectful assent. On the way to this post two privates took occasion to drop to the rear and pilfer in the orchard of a deserted plantation. When the sergeant discovered this absence, he grew black with a rage which was an accumulation of all his irritations. "Run, you!" he howled. "Bring them here! I'll show them—" A private ran swiftly ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... added: "This disposition to pilfer was, to a large extent, a part of the history of slavery. It was rare when colored people who belonged to a white family where they served as cooks, butlers, or in some other form of household service, did not feel that everything belonging to the white family ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... enemies of the unfortunate householders condemned to employ them. She thought they ate and drank to their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors; that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another and the tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no relations or friends who cared enough for her to share her solitary struggle against her domestic foes; and her income, though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby reducing various nephews, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... themselves. If a Soldier seems to be less fond of strong Liquors than others generally are; if he is seldom heard to swear; if he is cautious in Love-Affairs, and not openly vicious that Way; if he is not known to Steal or Pilfer, he'll be stiled a very honest, sober Fellow. But if, moreover, such a one should behave with Decency at Devine Service, and seem now and then to be attentive to what is spoken; if ever he had been seen with a Book in his Hand, either open or shut; if he was respectful to ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... know 'bout that," contested Abel. "Git somebody kind o' spry an' he could pad out weth a pilfer. A pussy man 'd find it rather onhandy comin' down that chimbly an' hoppin' hether an' yan takin' things off o' the tree. Need somebody with a good strong voice, too, to call off the names.... Woosh's you'd git them ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... have classified the crimes that the boy commits. It is scarcely worth the while. He learns to steal or becomes a burglar largely for the love of adventure; he robs because it is exciting and may bring large returns. In his excursions to pilfer property he may kill, and then for the first time the State discovers that there is such a boy and sets in action the machinery to take his life. The city quite probably has given him a casual notice by arresting him ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... page's; but, as the money was returned, I thought I had better say nothing for the present. I soon found out that the lad was correct in asserting that she was careless of her money, and that, if he chose, he might pilfer without chance of discovery; and, moreover, that he really was a good and honest lad, only full of mischief and very impudent; owing, however, to Lady R—'s treatment of him, for she rather encouraged his impudence than ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... which are common all over the African continent. Natives in canoes were busy spearing fish in the meadows and creeks, and appeared to be taking them in great numbers. Spur-winged geese, and others of the knob-nosed species, took advantage of the low gardens being flooded, and came to pilfer the beans. As we passed the Ruo, on the 7th, and saw nothing of the Bishop, we concluded that he had heard from his surgeon of our detention, and had deferred his journey. He arrived there five days ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... filled with incoherent fragments of faith, which we cling to in cowardice, without believing, and make pictures of in vanity, without loving. False and base alike, whether we admire or imitate, we cannot learn from the Heathen's art, but only pilfer it; we cannot revive the Christian's art, but only galvanize it; we are, in the sum of us, not human artists at all, but mechanisms of conceited clay, masked in the furs and feathers of living creatures, and convulsed with voltaic spasms, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... not as bad as they declare, O girls and boys of Chester Square! Be sure some little good we do, Even though we pilfer buds a few. Don't grudge them, since your trees we clear Of vermin that would cost you dear: So throw us out a crumb or two, And, as you ...
— The Nursery, February 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... be ruined for life; but he very shortly found that he was a gainer by the maiming. For being by nature disposed to pilfer from his companions, it would come within his experience to have many misadventures wherein his ears would be torn in a ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... certain pastrycook's shop, where, the better to conceal her purpose, she endeavours slily to ingratiate herself into favour with the mistress of the house. As soon as the shopkeeper's attention becomes engrossed in business, or otherwise, puss contrives to pilfer a small pie or tart from the shelves on which they are placed, speedily afterwards making the best of her way home with her booty. She then carefully delivers her prize to some of the little ones in the nursery. A division of the stolen property quickly ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... age of low and dirty prostitution, in the age of Dodington and Sandys, it was something to have a man who might perhaps, under some strong excitement, have been tempted to ruin his country, but who never would have stooped to pilfer from her, a man whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire of gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for glory, and for vengeance. History owes to him this attestation, that at a time when anything short of direct embezzlement of the public money was considered as quite fair in public men, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the qualities of his nobler nature, transmuting them into rank and noisome products. All love for Christ, all care for the poor, all thought of his fellow-disciples, were quenched before that remorseless passion; and at last he began to pilfer from those scant treasures, which were now and again replenished by those that loved to minister to the Master's comfort. At first, he must have been stung by keen remorse; but each time he sinned his conscience became more seared, until he finally reached ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... shall know I have lost a foolish Daughter, And with her all my patience, pilfer'd away By a ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... I didn't say as she did pilfer. I think that 'ere podgy gel as honest as the day. But now, can't yer guess ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... that pilfer one another, Betray my friend, and persecute my brother; Turn usurer, o'er cent. per cent. to brood, Or quack, to feed like fleas ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... town, driving the rebels before them, and, in the midst of great excitement, vowing vengeance. Then came the inevitable result: some good soldiers were carried away into acts of unwarrantable violence, and a few unprincipled scoundrels seized upon the opportunity to plunder, pilfer, and steal. But the mass of the forces entered the place under the impression (as appears from the testimony before the court-martial) that it was to be sacked and burned, as a just and proper military punishment. This impression was, unfortunately, not corrected by Colonel Turchin, because ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... on the keyboard and strings of a piano while I watched a number of thieves break into the remnants of houses and pilfer them, while others again had got at a supply of fine groceries and had broken into a barrel of fine brandy, and were fairly steeping themselves in it. I met quite a number of Pittsburghers in the ruins looking for friends and relatives. If the skiffs which were expected from Pittsburgh were ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... spoke to me to the same effect. He told me, as an illustration, of a parcel sent to him which had become quite shattered in transit (p.p. 7). The Germans transferred the contents to a sack, and, as he said, the temptation to pilfer the sorely-needed foodstuffs must have been great. My informant also spoke of the very thorough ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... vivid lines assume The garb and dignity of ancient Rome.— Let college verse-men trite conceits express, Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress; From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase, And vapid notions hitch in pilfer'd lays: Then with mosaick art the piece combine, And boast the glitter of each dulcet line: Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse His vigorous sense into the Latian muse; Aspir'd to shine by unreflected ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the husband she had lost. Married, or rather sold to him, when he was fifty and she thirty, she had lived five or six and twenty years of pure misery with him. She had starved with him, when she could not pilfer from him, and had endured patiently all these years what seemed past endurance in expectation of the closing scene. She had married and lived upon the prospect of his death, and it was come at last; and now that it ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... that had been pointed out to us as Wordsworth's residence, we began to peer about at its front and gables, and over the garden wall, on both sides of the road, quickening our enthusiasm as much as we could, and meditating to pilfer some flower or ivy-leaf from the house or its vicinity, to be kept as sacred memorials. At this juncture a man approached, who announced himself as the gardener of the place, and said, too, that this was not Wordsworth's ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... doing, Father Beret," said Alice, "I am preventing a great damage to you. You will maybe lose a good many cherry pies and dumplings if I let Jean go. He was climbing the tree to pilfer the fruit; so I pulled him ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... like a hateful ape, Detected grinning 'midst his pilfer'd hoard, A cunning man appears, whose secret frauds Are ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... mismanagement, as by the weather; for, with very few exceptions, it was impossible to select from among the prisoners, or those who had been such, any who would feel an honest interest in executing the service in which they were employed. They would pilfer half the grain entrusted to their care for the cattle; they would lead them into the woods for pasturage, and there leave them until obliged to conduct them in; they would neither clean them nor themselves. Indolent, and by long ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... his mind that if this pilgrim to whom they had given shelter and food as become generous campers, showed any disposition to pilfer he would treat him in a summary manner, and chase him into the woods, just as any rascal should be made to decamp; and the fact of Stackpole's gigantic figure made not a particle of difference ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... woman," pursued the great man, unseeing and unthinking. "The Bolingbrokes may have been wild, but they've always been men of honour, and even if they've played fast and loose now and then with a woman, they have never tried to pilfer anything that belonged ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
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