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Of course I was at once discarded from the Great House as a good-for-nothing Light o' love, and was told that if ever I presumed to show my face on the Quay-side again I should be sent to the Spinning House, and whipped. They had better have taken care of me while I was with them.

You see that you are quite astonished that a genius can be even a county magistrate, and know the difference between a spade and a poker! In fact, a genius is supposed to be the most ignorant, impracticable, good-for-nothing, do-nothing sort of thing that ever walked upon two legs.

Dave Cabarreux had never done an honest stroke of work in his life. Nothing but planning. He remembered that in this imminent moment, and laughed. "Miss Isabel, I've been a good-for-nothing dog: that's the truth. Everybody knows it: you know it. But there's a woman that I love who could put a new soul into my body. If she would."

"Next time I give that lazy, good-for-nothing Lem Wacker work he'll know it, I'm thinking! Look there and there!" The irate old railroader kicked over the wooden cuspidor in disgust. It was loaded to the top with tobacco and cigarette ends. Then he cast out half a dozen empty bottles through the open window, and went on with his grumbling.

Now that your "ship" is at last approaching the harbor, I am confident your first demonstration in honor of its arrival will be building yourself a house; exchanging your charmingly good-for-nothing air-castle for an actual flesh-and-blood, matter-of-fact dwelling-house, two-storied and French-roofed it may be, with all the modern improvements.

She was an incorrigible truant, a chip of the old block, as Tona put it, thinking of that loafer who had been responsible for her, and who also sat staring day in day out at the horizon like a good-for-nothing idiot, half awake. If Tona had had to depend on that girl for a living, a fine mess she would have been in! Lazy, irresponsible, was no name for it!

So it wasn't his failure. It wasn't even the loss of a good-for-nothing chorus-girl. It was a loss far more subtle. The recognition of it lamed Robert Stonehouse, knocked the power out of him, as though someone had struck and paralysed a vital nerve centre. He could only stammer futilely: "She's not worth bothering about." Cosgrave slumped back into his chair.

"For instance, that red-headed good-for-nothing, Cassidy, says to tell you he is building a four-room bungalow for you in their clearing, and that it will be finished by the time you arrive. Also, a squaw named Yellow Bird, and a redskin who calls himself Slim Buck, sent word that you will always be welcome in their hunting grounds.

Certainly not my father, the good-for-nothing scamp, who squandered all the Duke de Sairmeuse's money without giving us a sou of it. Besides, I'm like other men, I'm anxious to be rich, and enjoy myself. I should like to ride in my carriage like other people do. And whenever a gamin, such as I was once, opened the door for ME, I should put a five-franc piece in his hand "

This good-for-nothing fellow called himself a vicegerent of Kohlhaas, partly to inspire with fear the officers of the law who were after him, and partly, by the use of familiar methods, to beguile the country people into participating in his rascalities.