For there is something or other in my nature which makes me feel greatly shocked when I see a cavalier make a buffoon of himself, and taking pride in being able to play at thimblerig, and in dancing the chacona to perfection, I know a cavalier who boasted, that he had, at the request of a sacristan, cut out thirty-two paper ornaments, to stick upon the black cloth over a monument; and he was so proud of his performance that he took his friends to see it, as though he were showing them pennons and trophies taken from the enemy, and hung over the tombs of his forefathers.
"The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes"
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
How terribly alike are all human rogueries, whether the scene be a conference at Vienna, or the tent of a thimblerig at Ascot!
"The Fortunes Of Glencore"
Charles James Lever
I do not permit any man to thimblerig his debts to me into my debts to him.
"The Plum Tree"
David Graham Phillips