nubbing-cheat

"All I asks is," quoth the fellow with a quizzical look, "how you've fobbed the nubbing-cheat so long!"

Black Bartlemy's Treasure Jeffery Farnol 1915

He had known the Great Man at his zenith; he had wrestled with him in the hour of discomfiture; he had preached for his benefit that famous sermon on the text: ` Hide Thy Face from my sins, and blot out all my Iniquities '; he had witnessed the hero's awful progress from Newgate to Tyburn; he had seen him shiver at the nubbing-cheat; he had composed for him a last dying speech, which did not shame the king of thief-takers, and whose sale brought a comfortable profit to the widow.

A Book of Scoundrels 1896

He had known the Great Man at his zenith; he had wrestled with him in the hour of discomfiture; he had preached for his benefit that famous sermon on the text: 'Hide Thy Face from my sins, and blot out all my Iniquities'; he had witnessed the hero's awful progress from Newgate to Tyburn; he had seen him shiver at the nubbing-cheat; he had composed for him a last dying speech, which did not shame the king of thief-takers, and whose sale brought a comfortable profit to the widow.

A Book of Scoundrels Charles Whibley 1894