"Peace, good
mountebank, I did but utter the truth that was in my heart.
But I am very tired of it!...I'm sick and tired of having a forest and a torture-chamber in my house and of living like a
mountebank, in a house with a false bottom!...I'm tired of it!
"l feared the woman had no better thought than to make a
mountebank of her child!"
This German Socialism, which took its schoolboy task so seriously and solemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such
mountebank fashion, meanwhile gradually lost its pedantic innocence.
This was an antic fellow, half pedlar and half
mountebank, who travelled about the country on foot to vend hones, stops, razors, washballs, harness-paste, medicine for dogs and horses, cheap perfumery, cosmetics, and such-like wares, which he carried in a case slung to his back.
Heep - once did me the favour to observe to me, that if I were not in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should probably be a
mountebank about the country, swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element.
Less so, and probably far more extensive, were the operations of those mediaeval practitioners who made dwarfs and beggar-cripples, show-monsters,--some vestiges of whose art still remain in the preliminary manipulation of the young
mountebank or contortionist.
"No, for I am only embarked in certainties," replied Danglars, with the air of a
mountebank sounding his own praises; "to involve me, three governments must crumble to dust."
'Charmante!' I happen to know you as a
mountebank, and therefore trust you no more than THIS." She indicated her little finger.
A gift, a thing I sought not, for this crown The trusty Creon, my familiar friend, Hath lain in wait to oust me and suborned This
mountebank, this juggling charlatan, This tricksy beggar-priest, for gain alone Keen-eyed, but in his proper art stone-blind.
His eyes brightened and hardened, and his manner changed to what I remember it in past times--to that mixture of pitiless resolution and
mountebank mockery which makes it so impossible to fathom him.
Surely, as there are
mountebanks for the natural body, so are there
mountebanks for the politic body; men that undertake great cures, and perhaps have been lucky, in two or three experiments, but want the grounds of science, and therefore cannot hold out.