"Auctioneer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thanking the Lord. and impatiently waited for the sale. No sooner was the cupboard put up, than he called out, "Here, maister, here's six shillin's for un," and he put the money down on the table. "Six shillings bid," said the auctioneer—"six shillings—thank you; seven shillings; any more for that good old cupboard? Seven shillings. Going—going—gone!" And it was knocked ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... picture that every Negro in the country may contemplate with satisfaction and pride. In the stronghold of slavery, under the shadow of the legalized institution of slavery, within earshot of the slave-auctioneer's hammer, amid distressing circumstances, poverty, and proscription, three unlettered ex-slaves, upon the threshold of the nineteenth century, sowed the seed of education for the Negro race in the District of Columbia, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... her fortunes and her pride no doubt broke Lady Blessington's heart; for within a few months of the last fall of the auctioneer's hammer, she died suddenly in Paris, to the unspeakable grief of d'Orsay, who declared to the Countess's physician, Madden, "She was to me a mother! a dear, dear mother—a true, loving mother to me." Three years later this "paragon of all the perfections" ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... ladies never looked at the poor little king squatting upon his stool. They gathered at once about the chief counselor, who acted as auctioneer. ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... division, Richard did not see how he could be divided without being converted into money. Now, as he could have no fore-knowledge as to the place or person into whose hands he might be consigned by the auctioneer, he concluded that he could not venture to risk himself in the hands of the young heirs. Richard began to consider what Slavery was, and his eyes beheld chains, whips, hand-cuffs, auction-blocks, separations and countless ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Proudie, "what difficulty? The place has been promised to Mr. Quiverful, and of course he must have it. He has made all his arrangements. He has written for a curate for Puddingdale, he has spoken to the auctioneer about selling his farm, horses, and cows, and in all respects considers the place as his own. Of course he ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... being "The Colonel," who was bought, after winning the St. Leger, by George IV. for 4,000 guineas; but the horse broke down after running a dead heat at Ascot in 1831. He only realised 1,150 guineas, and was bought by the auctioneer, Mr. Tattersall. The next highest price given was for "Actaeon," which fetched 920 guineas. The total proceeds of the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... of the gallery and heard this wonderful man preach a sermon in which he illustrated an auctioneer selling a negro girl at the block. He sat as one entranced. So did the immense audience, held spellbound by the scene so graphically pictured. It was the first interesting sermon he had ever heard. It made a tremendous impression on him, not only in itself, but as a vivid contrast ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... last twelve or fifteen years, had been trying his hand at many trades. And had not come out particularly well at any. A rolling stone gathers no moss. First, he had been clerk to Mr. Carlyle; next, he had been seduced into joining the corps of the Theatre Royal at Lynneborough; then he turned auctioneer; then travelling in the oil and color line; then a parson, the urgent pastor of some new sect; then omnibus driver; then collector of the water rate; and now he was clerk again, not in Mr. Carlyle's office, but in that of Ball & ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... right," said the auctioneer, laughing (and the master of the slave re-echoed his laugh and his answer); "let us see whether we cannot ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... William W. Corcoran, was born in 1798. He began his business career in Georgetown, but for many years he has been a resident of Washington. At twenty he went into business for himself, beginning as an auctioneer. After several years of successful business he was obliged to suspend, during ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... had sailed for Europe, Mr. King started for New Orleans, taking with him his wife and daughter. An auctioneer was found, who said he had sold to a gentleman in Natchez a runaway slave named Bob Bruteman, who strongly resembled the likeness of Gerald. They proceeded to Natchez and had an interview with the purchaser, who recognized a likeness ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... passing along Walnut street, on my way to drop a letter in the Post Office, one morning, about ten o'clock, when the ringing of an auctioneer's bell came suddenly on my ears. Lifting my eyes, I saw the flag of Thomas & Son displayed before me, and read the ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... of his brother artists in all but his art. He hated school and at twelve years of age was taken from it. His father wanted him to become a warehouse merchant like himself, and he began life as clerk or apprentice to an auctioneer. He next went into the employment of some calico-printers of Manchester. The designing of calicoes can hardly be called art, even if the department of design had fallen to Holman Hunt's lot and we have no evidence that it did, but he started to be an artist nevertheless, there in the print-shop. ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... whatever was told me was told in confidence," said the auctioneer, putting his hand up to screen ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... begin at eleven o'clock, and silverware and china were first to be disposed of. The long drawing-room was full of camp chairs, and the audience had begun to assemble when Rosalind entered and sat down in a corner to wait for her uncle, who was interviewing the auctioneer. Two rows in front of her she saw Miss Betty, with Mrs. Parton ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... Heenan is represented on emerald sward, with primroses and other modest flowers springing up under the heels of his half-boots; while Mr. Sayers is impelled to the administration of his favourite blow, the Auctioneer, by the silent eloquence of a village church. The humble homes of England, with their domestic virtues and honeysuckle porches, urge both heroes to go in and win; and the lark and other singing birds are observable in the upper air, ecstatically carolling their thanks to Heaven ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... was a man who had tried dugong fishing on the Great Barrier Reef; a broken-down advance agent from a stranded theatrical company; a local auctioneer with defective vision, but who had once written a 'poem' for a ladies' journal; a baker's carter who was secretary to the local debating society; and a man named Joss, who had a terrific black eye and who told Denison, sotto voce, ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... after the Great Famine, the Government brought in an Act called the Encumbered Estates Act. A judge was appointed to act as auctioneer. The income of the estate was set out in schedule form, and a man purchased that income by competition in open court. He got with his purchase what was supposed to be the best title then known, commonly called "A Parliamentary title." If he wanted to sell again, that was enough. ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... acquired the rules of Latin verse; tried his powers; and perceiving that he could not rise above his rivals in Virgil, Ovid, or the lyric of Horace, he took up the sermoni propiora, and there overshadowed all competitors. In the following lines he describes the hammer of the auctioneer with a mock sublimity ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... All these documents have now, however, entirely disappeared,—how, or at what period since the publication of the work, is unknown; but I find by a newspaper-cutting in my possession (unfortunately without date or auctioneer's name), that a very large collection of ancient documents, filling several boxes, and relating to this church and others in the county, was sold by auction in London some years ago, probably between the years 1825 and 1830. I shall feel obliged if any of your correspondents can inform me in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851 • Various
... undertones, poor dirty worm! his shrewd, elaborate maneuvers for some petty advantage, a drink to the good or such-like deal. There rises before my eyes as I write, young Hopley Dodd, the son of the Wimblehurst auctioneer, the pride of Wimblehurst, its finest flower, with his fur waistcoat and his bulldog pipe, his riding breeches—he had no horse—and his gaiters, as he used to sit, leaning forward and watching the billiard-table from under the brim of his artfully tilted hat. A half-dozen phrases ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... of claret was put up by the auctioneer, and, thinking this a good opportunity for laying in a stock for the mess, as we would be in commission probably in warm latitudes, for the next two or three years, when the wine would come in rather handy, Larkyns listened eagerly for ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... had a claim to some money; but I have not thought much about it, except that I should give you Grote and Macaulay in dark-brown calf, with bevelled boards and red edges, like that edition you saw at the auctioneer's in Bond Street, and have talked about ever since; and a horse, perhaps; and a glass porch to ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... short time back had his pocket picked, at a milling match, of a valuable gold repeater. He has favoured the world with several literary productions, among which are Memoirs of his own Life, embellished with a view of the author, suspended from (to use the phrase of a late celebrated auctioneer) a hanging wood; and a very elaborate treatise on the Art of Rat-catching. In the advertisement of the latter work, the author engages it will enable the reader to "clear any house of these noxious vermin, however much ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... had been set up in the middle of the big room where the auction was being held. Furniture and stuff was jammed all around, even at the back of the platform where the auctioneer stood. He was a thick-set, big-mouthed man wearing a blue and red plaid ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... I want him to have a smattering of the law for home use. There's bread in that! As for literature, he's got enough of that in him already; if he begins to kick, I've concluded that I'll make him learn some trade; the barber's, say, or the auctioneer's, or even the lawyer's. That's one thing no one but the devil can do him out of! 'Believe what your daddy says, Primigenius,' I din into his ears every day, 'whenever you learn a thing, it's yours. ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... away. Doors and windows stood wide. The sofa and tea-table where the wisest and best from all parts of the world had held converse were turned out to be examined and bid for. Anybody who chose passed the sacred threshold; the auctioneer's hammer was heard on the terrace; and the hospitable parlor and kitchen were crowded with people swallowing tea in the intervals of their business. One farmer rode six-and-thirty miles that morning to carry home something that had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... which told of the interest of the crowd, the auctioneer read out a description of the bounds and acreage of Greenwood, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... shillings sterling) to redeem such articles as that sum would cover. Accordingly, they duly attended to bid, and Tom became the owner of two lots of Diggs's things:—Lot 1, price one-and-threepence, consisting (as the auctioneer remarked) of a "valuable assortment of old metals," in the shape of a mouse-trap, a cheese-toaster without a handle, and a saucepan: Lot 2, of a villainous dirty table-cloth and green-baize curtain; while East, for one-and-sixpence, purchased a leather paper-case, with a lock but no key, once handsome, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... deal of money changes hands at the races. Bets are freely offered and taken on the various horses. The pools sell rapidly, and the genial auctioneer finds his post no sinecure. The struggles of the noble animals are watched with the deepest interest. The greatest excitement prevails amongst the elite in the private stands, as well as throughout the common herd below. Every eye is strained ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... of opposites makes the happiest marriage, and perhaps it is on the same principle that men who chum are always so oddly assorted. You shall find a man of letters sharing diggings with an auctioneer, and a medical student pigging with a stockbroker's clerk. Perhaps each thus escapes the temptation to talk "shop" in his hours of leisure, while he supplements his own experiences of ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... it would be impossible to sell this "lot" alone, the Spaniard with the whip ordered George to be released and placed upon the block also, stepping forward at the same time and whispering eagerly in the ear of the auctioneer. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... did not want her, nor did that, nor alas! the other! Each and every one were eager for the boy. The auctioneer's instructions had been to sell the two together, if possible, if not, at all events to sell the boy, as he would command a good price, and money must ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... manner was supposed to help even the non-Nodin bills through at the "Australasia." At the corner opposite the Shakespeare was the Melbourne Auction Company, where I first met my most worthy old friend, George Sinclair Brodie, so well known for ten years after as the leading Melbourne auctioneer, or rather "broker," for that is nearer the home equivalent. He was the salesman, while a genial and amusing good fellow, John Carey, from Guernsey, was manager. The company had just paid 20 per cent dividend—the ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... which all the rooms are on the ground-floor. An auctioneer's advertisement often runs—"large weatherboard cottage, twelve rooms, etc.," or "double-fronted brick cottage." The cheapness of land caused nearly all suburban houses in Australia to be built ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... churches it is "unite or die!" The mallet of the auctioneer threatens the steeple-house, the young folks are off "golfing" or "hiking," and the gray-beards, lonely and terror-stricken as they see church extinction approaching, favor "a union of forces with some ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to everybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... the wisest thing she could do, but that may be the end of it. He's in an auctioneer's office, and may have a pretty good income ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... and the display was a credit to their talent. I was particularly struck with the really clever carving representing local scenes which the fishermen had done with no other tools than their jack-knives. The auction was the keynote of the evening, due largely to the signal ability of the auctioneer. His methods are effective, but strictly his own. Cakes, made generally in graded layers and liberally coated with different coloured sugar, were the favourites. As he held up the last teetering mountain he "bawled": "What ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... classification show gross ignorance, as in the instance quoted in the Athenum lately. Here we have a crop of blunders: "Title, Commentarii De Bello Gallico in usum Scholarum Liber Tirbius. Author, Mr. C. J. Caesoris. Subject, Religion.'' Still better is the auctioneer's entry of P. V. Maroni's The Opera. Authors, however, are usually so fond of fanciful ear-catching titles, that every excuse must be made for the cataloguer, who mistakes their meaning, and takes them in their literal signification. Who can reprove ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... visited that day, the slave mart at the foot of the fine statue erected in honor of Henry Clay, lived long in Paul's memory. Numbers of slaves were to be sold. The Captain and Paul pushed their way well to the front, so that they stood near the auctioneer. With feelings hard to describe, Paul saw slaves disposed of, singly and in parties. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters were bid for and sold, and the critical purchasers examined them as if they were prize cattle. While ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... feet, upon his hogshead. "No one wants him," he exclaimed, imitating the accent of an auctioneer, to the great delight of all; "no one wants him? once, twice, three times!" and, turning towards the gibbet with a sign ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... proprietors of a dry-goods store, struck with his good looks and manners, had offered him a situation, if he could make himself more presentable to their fair clients. Harry Flint was gazing half abstractedly, half hopelessly, at the portmanteau without noticing the auctioneer's persuasive challenge. In his abstraction he was not aware that the auctioneer's assistant was also looking at him curiously, and that possibly his dejected and half-clad appearance had excited the attention of one of the cynical bystanders, who was ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... feel after days and nights of prowling for food and shelter. The other two men, occupied with their own thoughts, closed their eyes; but not so Smith. Nothing, to the smallest detail, escaped him. He appraised everything with as perfect an appreciation of its value as an auctioneer. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... called themselves the Buccaneers. Some of the choice spirits of Chatteris belonged to this cheerful club. Graves, the apothecary (than whom a better fellow never put a pipe in his mouth and smoked it), Smart, the talented and humorous portrait-painter of High Street, Croker, an excellent auctioneer, and the uncompromising Hicks, the able Editor for twenty-three years of the County Chronicle and Chatteris Champion, were amongst the crew of the Buccaneers, whom also Bingley, the manager, liked to join of a Saturday evening, whenever he ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... auctioneer, and this was the regular fruit auction that is held on this same corner every morning of the year. Many other things besides fruit are sold at these auctions; in fact, almost everything in Key West is bought or sold at auction; certainly all fruit is. For an hour before ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... that I am, for even now that my tears have ceased to flow, my grief remains deeply implanted in my heart,)—the property, I say, of Cnaeus Pompeius the Great was submitted to the pitiless, voice of the auctioneer. On that one occasion the state forgot its slavery, and groaned aloud, and though men's minds were enslaved, as everything was kept under by fear, still the groans of the Roman people were free. While all men were waiting to see who would be so impious, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... poor health." He turned again to Margaret. "No one could mistake my father for an auctioneer. He has so few admirations. But he knew your ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... him, told me he us'd to come to a House where He Liv'd, and he has also Met him in the Street, Led by Millington, the same who was so Famous an Auctioneer of Books about the time of the Revolution, and Since. This Man was then a Seller of Old Books in Little Britain, and Milton lodg'd at his house. This was 3 or 4 Years before he Dy'd. he then wore ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... I shall begin now, Misto Richmond." And, to Flitter Bill's wonder, the captain stalked out to the stoop, announced his purpose with the voice of an auctioneer, and called for volunteers then and there. There was dead silence for a moment. Then there was a smile here, a chuckle there, an incredulous laugh, and Hence Sturgill, "bully of the Pocket," rose from the wagon-tongue, closed his knife, came slowly forward, and cackled his scorn straight up ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... daily food, and she excelled in all the dainty handicrafts by which women can make a home attractive. Therefore her own little sanctum had developed like an exquisite flower, and had become, as we have said, an expression of herself. An auctioneer, in dismantling her apartment, would not have found much more to sell than if he had pulled a rose to pieces, but left intact it was as full of beauty and fragrance as the flower itself. And yet her own hands must destroy it, and in a brief time ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the salesroom when he descried B. Rashkin standing on the outskirts of a little throng that surrounded the rostrum of a popular auctioneer. ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... slab-sided "Sprawleybridge Babe" or the shambling "Baldnob the Titan" have been in front of the small but active and accomplished "Duodecimo Dumps"? Why, where the vaunted "Benicia Boy" would have been after fifty rounds with TOM SAYERS—with his "Auctioneer" in full play. In fact, when a good little 'un meets a bad big 'un, it is very soon a case—with the latter—of "bellows to mend," or "there he goes; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... Schuyler de Peyster, to whom I am indebted for many traditions of early New York society, told me that upon one occasion a conversation occurred between Philip Hone and his brother John, a successful auctioneer, in which the latter advocated their adoption of a coat of arms. Philip's response was characteristic of the man: "I will have no arms except those Almighty God has ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... ordinarily wealthy family. The dining-room, library, drawing-rooms, and breakfast-room, were all large and well-arranged. The hall was handsome and spacious, and the bed-rooms were sufficiently numerous to make an auctioneer's mouth water. But the great charm of Ongar Park lay in the grounds immediately round the house, which sloped down from the terrace before the windows to a fast-running stream which was almost hidden—but was not hidden—by ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... called it 'Mr. Foote giving Tea to his Friends,' himself still the sole actor, and changing with Proteus-like celerity from one to the other. Then came his 'Auction of Pictures,' and Sir Thomas de Veil, one of his enemies, the justices, was introduced. Orator Henley and Cock the auctioneer figured also; and year after year the town was enchanted by that which is most gratifying to a polite audience, the finished exhibition of faults and follies. One stern voice was raised in reprobation, that of Samuel Johnson: he, at all events, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... instance—and they always believe in the first bank that comes among them—they continue to believe, and no effort whatever is necessary to keep the connection. It will be generations in dying out. So with a newspaper, so with an auctioneer—with everything. That which comes first is looked on with suspicion and distrust for a time, people are chary of having anything to do with it; but by-and-by they deal, and, having once dealt, always ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... not the natural observer's method of seeing things, and it is not the natural artist's method of presenting them. If the critics in this case were in the right we should have to acknowledge an auctioneer's catalogue as ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... cried the auctioneer, "here we have a beautiful thoroughbred mare, the favorite mount of Her Royal Highness the Princess, and not a bid do I hear. She's a beauty, gentlemen, sired by the famous Potiphar who won the Epsom Handicap and no end of minor stakes. Take a look ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the sights of New Orleans, negroes chained, maltreated, whipped and scourged; they came in their rambles upon a slave auction where a fine mulatto girl was being pinched and prodded and trotted up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, that "bidders might satisfy themselves," as the auctioneer said, of the soundness of the article to be sold. John Johnston and John Hanks and Abraham Lincoln saw these sights with the unsophisticated eyes of honest country lads from a free State. In their home circle it seems that slavery was always spoken of with horror. One ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... next day, a few miles off, at Oakfield Lodge. The one-horse car was again put in requisition, and our hostess—the kindest of women—accompanied us to the sale, and by nodding at intervals to the auctioneer, procured all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... plaintive face in which are set two large, dark eyes that continually seem to soften and develop. That is my picture. And what am I in the world? I will tell you. On certain days of the week I employ myself in editing a trade journal that has to do with haberdashery. On another day I act as auctioneer to a firm which imports and sells cheap Italian statuary; modern, very modern copies of the antique, florid marble vases, and so forth. Some of you who read may have passed such marts in different parts of the city, or even have dropped in and purchased a bust or a tazza for ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... my Shakespeare, and even sacrifice my old quarto Hogarth, before I will part with you. Yes, I will go to the hammer myself, ere I send you to be knocked down in the auctioneer's shambles. I will, my beloved,—old family relic that you are;—till you drop leaf from leaf, and letter from letter, you shall have a snug shelf somewhere, though I have ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... society. Scribe was the only one who would work; "Mais quelle litterature que 'Les Memoires d'un Colonel de Hussards!'" he exclaimed in horror.[*] Another plan for becoming colossally rich of which he talked seriously, was to gain a monopoly of all the arts, and to act as auctioneer to Europe: to buy the Apollo Belvedere, for instance, let all the nations compete for it against each other, and then to sell ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... Eldredge's store, situated at the corners, where the Main Road and the Depot Road—which is also the direct road to South Denboro—join, was the mercantile and social center of Denboro. Simeon Eldredge kept the store, and Simeon was also postmaster, as well as the town constable, undertaker, and auctioneer. If you wanted a spool of thread, a coffin, or the latest bit of gossip, you applied at Eldredge's. The gossip you could be morally certain of getting at once; the thread or the coffin you might have ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Victoria sits upon her throne; Our aristocracy still keep alive, And, on the whole, may still be said to thrive,— Tho' now and then with ducal acres groan The honored tables of the auctioneer. Nathless, our aristocracy is dear, Tho' their estates go cheap; and all must own That they still give society ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... To the Christians of Brantford To the Same Verses Written Immediately after Reading Horace Smith's "Bachelor's Fare!" Stanzas on the Fearful Struggle in Europe, 1854 Lines Written on the Morning, of the Dreadful Fire, March 9, 1854 To the Rev. J. W. and his Bride Stanzas on hearing an Auctioneer quote Scripture Winter's Ravages; An Appeal A Canadian National Song A Call to the Soiree An Address by the Members of the Institute at the Soiree Alcohol's Arraignment and Doom To Mr. James Woodyatt On hearing of ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... left the school financial difficulties beset my uncle's affairs. Aunt Ducie died in the midst of them, and Uncle Gervase did not long survive. Our household gods went under the auctioneer's hammer, our beautiful home became the home of strangers, and I went to live in an obscure quarter of a distant town. My means being exceeding small, I took rooms in a small house in a semi-rural suburb, and from thence began to look for work ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... young negro girl." Remembering that Emma had requested him to purchase a girl as a waiting maid for her, he examined the slave and found her in all respects the kind of house servant he desired. Going up to the auctioneer who had just mounted a bench for the purpose of selling the slave, he enquired where she had come from. The auctioneer responded by handing the doctor a small hand bill setting forth the sale. After reading it he walked up to the slave and commenced ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... abandoning the prospect of becoming another Nelson, had joined the police force as a humble constable. But he did not remain one long; and became in turn a Fleet Street publican, the proprietor of a Haymarket night-house, an auctioneer, a picture dealer, a bill discounter (with a side line in usury), and the editor of a Sunday organ. Next, the theatre attracted his energies; and in 1852 he secured a lease of Drury Lane at the moderate rental ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... neither hastened nor hurried the twenty-fourth day of December. I went to the Hotel Bullion, and took my place in Salle No. 4, immediately below the high desk at which the auctioneer Boulouze and the expert Polizzi were to sit. I saw the hall gradually fill with familiar faces. I shook hands with several old booksellers of the quays; but that prudence which any large interest inspires in even the most self-assured caused me to keep silence in regard to the reason of my unaccustomed ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... here the doctor made us all strip—men and women together naked, in the presence of each other while the examination went on. When it was concluded, thirty-eight of us were pronounced sound, and three unsound; certificates were made out and given to the auctioneer to that effect. After dressing ourselves we were all driven into the slave sty directly under the auction block, when the jail warder came and gave to every slave a number, my number was twenty. Here, let me explain, for the better information of the reader, that in the inventory of ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... priests and churchmen, come to purchase the paraphernalia of the chapel, lest they fall into desecrating hands. Others were business men and agents come to bid upon the realty. A clerical-looking brother had volunteered to wield the hammer, bringing to the office of auctioneer the anomaly of choice diction ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... contained the habitations of a great number of persons in easy circumstances; many of our families of note had their residences there: John Wm. Woolsey, Esq., in 1808, and later on first President of the Quebec Bank; the millionaire auctioneer, Wm. Burns, the god-father to the late George Burns Symes, Esq.; Archbishop Signai—this worthy prelate was born in this street, in a house opposite to La Banque Nationale. Evidences of the luxuriousness of their dwelling rooms are visible to this day, in the panelling of some doors ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... one evening about the notable orations to which he had listened, the great lawyer said that the most eloquent words he had ever heard were "spoken on the auction block by a slave mother." It seemed that she pleaded with the auctioneer and the spectators not to separate her from her children and her husband, and she made these men, who were trafficking in human life, realize the meaning of Christ's words, "Woe unto him that doth offend one of My little ones; it were better ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... you looked at that Odontoglossum Pavo, and if so, what do you think of it?" and he nodded towards a plant which stood in the centre of the little group that was placed on the small table beneath the auctioneer's desk. It bore a spray of the most lovely white flowers. On the top petal (if it is a petal), and also on the lip of each of these rounded flowers was a blotch or spot of which the general effect was similar to the iridescent ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... where he was as quick as ever—no, it was not the last time; the last time was at Douglas Kinnaird's. I have met him in all places and parties—at Whitehall with the Melbournes, at the Marquis of Tavistock's, at Robins's the auctioneer's, at Sir Humphry Davy's, at Sam Rogers's,—in short, in most kinds of company, and always found ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... quite as much as the applause of mature critics. He often exhibited all his powers of mimicry for the amusement of the little Burneys, awed them by shuddering and crouching as if he saw a ghost, scared them by raving like a maniac in Saint Luke's, and then at once became an auctioneer, a chimney-sweeper, or an old woman, and made them laugh till the tears ran down ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... vale, sprinkled with groves, and lakes, and towns, and streams; the mountains afar off, swelling tumultuously heavenward, like waves of the ocean, some incarnadined with radiance, others purpled in shade; all these, to use the language of an auctioneer's advertisement, 'are too tedious to mention, but may be seen on the premises.' I know of but one picture which will give the reader an idea of this etherial spot. It was the view which the angel Michael was polite enough, one summer ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... violation of the company's charter, and the law of the land. "If," said he, "we suffer this bill to pass we shall become the East India Company; the treasury bench will be the buyers, and on this side we shall be the sellers. The senate will become an auction-room, and the speaker an auctioneer." The recommendation of the secret committee was, notwithstanding, adopted, and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... went to work with the minuteness of an auctioneer taking an inventory, or a sheriff levying an execution. Accordingly he came back full of notes; he had studied Carolus chiefly in respect of movables and ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... strike a chord or two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she? He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he heard the hammer of the auctioneer, and a ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... I wanted to look at this place again. I made them bring me out here. When your man came, just now, to learn if I would see you, I was on the point of sending for you, to ask if you didn't mean to go on. I wanted to judge what I'm letting you have. This sala is very grand," she pursued, like an auctioneer, moving a little, as I guessed, her invisible eyes. "I don't believe you often have lived ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... Wednesday the 13th, after having sold all our goods that were saleable, making our way to the Iron Bark Gully. William enacted the part of auctioneer, which he did in a manner most satisfactory to himself, and amusing to his audience; but the things sold very badly, so many were doing the same. The tents fetched only a few shillings each, and the tools, cradles, ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... said the King, impatiently. "Is it an auctioneer's list of goods to be sold that you are hurrying over? Send your companion to me." Another page who stood at the door now entered, and to him the King gave the petition. The second page began by hemming and clearing ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... speed of one thousandth of a second," announced Uncle Teddy, displaying all the fine points of his treasure like an auctioneer. "Won't I get some great pictures of you folks diving, though!" And he stood looking at the thing in his hands as if he did not quite believe it was real. Then he came to himself with a start and tossed the pack of letters to Katherine ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... daughters should be admitted, but it was very difficult to draw the line, and when drawn, the Misses Pratt were obliged to admit it was rather ridiculous. There was much debate over an application by an auctioneer. He was clearly not a tradesman, but he sold chairs, tables and pigs, and, as Miss Hannah said, used vulgar language in recommending them. However, his wife had money; they lived in a pleasant house in Lewes, and the line went outside him. But when a druggist, with a shop in Bond Street, proposed ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... other visitors. They soon made their appearance. First, two stout old squatters with big laughs and bigger corporations, then Miss Augusta Beecham, next Joe Archer the overseer, and the two other jackeroos. After these appeared a couple of governesses, Mr, Mrs, and Miss Benson, a clergyman, an auctioneer, a young friend of Harold's from Cootamundra, a horse-buyer, a wooll-classer, Miss Sarah Beecham, and then Miss Derrick brought herself and her dress in with great style and airs. She was garbed in a sea-green silk, and had jewellery on ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... same time she wrote to an auctioneer in the Via due Macelli, requesting him to call upon her. The man came immediately. He had little beady eyes, which ranged round the dining-room and seemed to ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... she replied; and she promised to get any information she could for me within a fortnight, by which time I expected to pass that way again. I did so, and Mrs. Smith proved as good as her word. The niece had got the cup from a friend of hers, an auctioneer, and he, not she, had got it at a sale. But he was away from home—she could hear nothing more at present. She gave his address, however, and assurances that he was very good-natured and would gladly put the gentleman ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... is invaluable to Colonel Ross," said she: "he is as good as an auctioneer at telling the value of china. Look at this beautiful heath. Mrs. Ross is very ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... was walking through a side street in one of our large cities, I heard these words ringing out from a room so crowded with people that I could but just see the auctioneer's face and uplifted hammer above ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... first advertised the sale was for three days, but the auctioneer found that he could not get through in the time. The accumulations of such an ancient house as Outram Hall are necessarily vast," and he waved his hand with ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... flag—not the red flag of the loathed and deadly pestilence that has destroyed so many lives and disfigured so many fair and so many manly countenances, but (in some circumstances) the scarcely less ominous flag of the auctioneer—has been displayed from the handsome and substantial red-brick house in Kensington-Place Gardens, London, in which Thackeray lately lived, and in which he wrote the opening chapters of his last and never-to-be-completed work, which we are all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an international reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers to higher bids, was clever and amusing. I was listening to it and smiling at the jokes when a ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... blunder—which will undoubtedly cause much complaint—in waiting until almost the last moment to announce the sale. But few bidders were present, and these had things pretty much their own way, apparently owing to the gross ignorance of the auctioneer. The gem of the gallery, the famous Rembrandt found and purchased in Paris some years ago by Mr. Von Whele, was knocked down for the ridiculous sum of L2,400. The lucky purchaser was Mr. Charles Drummond, of the firm of Lamb and Drummond, ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... said I, 'what sort o' a bill, sir? Is it an auctioneer's, for a roup o' furniture ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... An auctioneer must have a compelling manner. He must be gabby and stentorian, witheringly sarcastic and plaintively cajoling. He must be able to detect the faintest symptoms of avarice and desire in the blink of an eyelid, in the tilt of a head. Behind his sing-song of patter as he knocks down a piece ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... proud and radiant withal. Had it not been for that prediction that her life was to be lengthened, I should have felt anxious. What a marvellous creation a woman is, to be sure! Man and philosopher as I am, my impulse would have been to consign the contents of the garret to the auctioneer or the ash-man, and to retain most of the least-used furniture and upholstery to eke out our new splendor. But Josephine's method was distinctly opposite. She was critical of nearly everything respectable-looking in the ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... son. We must make sure that the description sounds well to the ear. Imagine that I am the auctioneer, thus: ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... nearer came the sounds, and the villagers stood at their cottage doors waiting for the musicians to pass. Next to the firing of rockets nothing can be more heart-stirring than the martial sound of the pipes and drums. The big drum was, on this occasion, played most masterly by the auctioneer and clown of the parish church, called Jose Carcunda, or ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... the rear. During the morning I made the acquaintance of Colonel Walton, who used to command the well-known Washington Artillery, but he is now chief of artillery to Longstreet's corps d'armee; he is a big man, ci-devant auctioneer in New Orleans, and I understand he pines to return to ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... close to this city, many of these joined the club. Charles Clarke was a prominent member, also W. M. Anderson, C. B. Tenniel, together with many of our young business men, viz., Arthur Keast, the brewer; Lumley Franklin, the auctioneer; S. Farwell, the civil engineer; H. C. Courtney, the barrister; H. Rushton and Joseph Barnett, of one of the banks; Ben Griffin, mine host of the Boomerang; Godfrey Brown, of Janion, Green & Rhodes; W. J. Callingham, of McCutcheon & Callingham, drapers (the latter, by the bye, ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... let me see what I've got! There's Anne! I expect if sold on the block, at public auction, say in Alaska, where women are scarce, she would bring some price; but her digestion isn't very good and her heart is quite weak and her hair is falling out. But these things, of course, the auctioneer wouldn't reveal. She would make a fine Duchess, but the market just now is overstocked with Duchesses. And she is a good provider ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... while stationed in Montreal that our hero met Alexander Henry, ex-fur-trader and adventurer and coureur de bois—then a merchant and King's auctioneer—a notable personage and leader in many a wild exploit in the far West, an old though virile man after Isaac's ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... unique collection came under the auctioneer's hammer. Some of the larger guns were sold to the town, and planted at the corners of divers streets; others went off to the iron-foundry; the balance, numbering twelve, were dumped down on a deserted wharf at the foot of Anchor ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... another hundred, and looked as though he was ready to go on. That was the knock-down blow. Shott put his hands in his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and dolefully shook his head in response to all the coaxings and blandishments of the auctioneer. The hammer fell. "Name, please," was called; the lawyer's clerk passed up a slip of paper, and a thunderbolt fell on the company when the auctioneer read out, "Mr. Thomas Hankin." Hankin had bought the farms for L4700. "Cheque for deposit," said the auctioneer. A cheque for L470, ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... of Hungary, and Italians of Whitechapel mingled in the throng. Near East and Far East rubbed shoulders. Pidgin English contested with Yiddish for the ownership of some tawdry article offered by an auctioneer whose nationality defied conjecture, save that always some branch of his ancestry had drawn nourishment from ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... ranchman and auctioneer laughed cheerily. "Once lost, twice get there," he exclaimed, with a quizzical toss of the head, thinking he had said a good thing. "It's a year ago to the very day that I was lost out back"—he jerked a thumb over his shoulder—"and you picked me up ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he was being sold sat down and kept jeering at the auctioneer, and would not stand up when he bade him, but said joking and laughing, "Would you tell a fish you were selling to stand up?" And Socrates in prison played the philosopher and discoursed with his friends. But Phaeethon,[723] ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... money-lenders; and now even the money-lenders were tired of him. The chair in which he sat, the poker which he swung slowly to and fro as he bent over his hearth, were not his own. One of his Jewish creditors had a bill of sale on his furniture, and he might come home any day to find the auctioneer's bills plastered against the wall of his house, and the auctioneer's clerk busy with the catalogue of his possessions. If the expected victim came now to buy his practice, the sacrifice would be made too late to serve his interest. The men who had lent him the money would ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... able to pay his debts. The mortgage on the farm had been foreclosed. Day of sale had come. The sheriff stood on a box reading the terms of vendue. All payments to be made in six months. The auctioneer took his place. The old man and his wife and the children all cried as the piano, and the chairs, and the pictures, and the carpets, and the bedsteads went at half their worth. When the piano went, it seemed to the old people as if the sheriff were selling all the fingers ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... was extremely handsome. Susy, who had an auctioneer's eye for values, knew to a fraction the worth of those deep convex stones alternating with small emeralds and brilliants. She was glad to own the bracelet, and enchanted with the effect it produced on her slim wrist; yet, even while admiring it, and rejoicing ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... table and the two chairs that stood near the edge of the bank. To the fore were many white men and several chiefs. And most prominently to the fore, rifle in hand, stood Akoon. Tommy, at El-Soo's request, served as auctioneer, but she made the opening speech and described the goods about to be sold. She was in native costume, in the dress of a chief's daughter, splendid and barbaric, and she stood on a chair, that she might ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... "harmonious," or, worse than all, "descriptive." This last commonly means that the author has done for his readers precisely what they could do for themselves,—that he has made a catalogue of the natural objects to be found in a certain number of acres, which differs from the literary efforts of an auctioneer only in this, that each line begins with a capital and contains the same number of syllables. He counts the number of cabbages in a field, of cows in a pasture, and tells us how many times a squirrel ran up (or down) a given tree in a given time. He informs us that the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... a sale of the household effects, the horses and general possessions of Medallion the auctioneer, who, though a Protestant and an Englishman, had, by his wits and goodness of heart, endeared himself to the parish. Therefore the notables among the habitants had gathered in his empty house for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... late Hon. Orlando Potter, of New York, with the following touch of patriotic sentiment: "These famous trees are located in the northeast corner of One Hundred and Forty-third street and Convent Avenue; or, on lots fourteen and fifteen," said the auctioneer to the crowd that gathered at the sale. "In order that the old property with the trees may be kept unbroken, should the purchaser desire, we will sell lots 8 to 21 inclusive in one batch! How much am I offered?" "One hundred thousand dollars," quietly responded ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... conclusion of the services Mr. World conducted his friend from the church, and as they were moving again toward the surging crowds they heard the voice of an auctioneer. ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... "what are we now but three footpads?" This, and the insult his sister had received made the place poison to him; and hastened their departure by a day or two. The very next day (Thursday) an affiche on the walls of Albion Villa announced that Mr. Chippenham, auctioneer, would sell, next Wednesday, on the premises, the greater part of the furniture, plate, china, glass, Oriental inlaid boxes and screens, with several superb India shawls, scarfs, and dresses; also a twenty-one years' lease of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... doesn't want to be thowt a fooil he should niver start o' showin' off befoor fowk till he knows what he's abaat, an' ther's noan on us knows iverything. Aw remember once go in' to th' sale ov a horse, an' th' auctioneer knew varry little abaat cattle, an' he began praisin' it up as he thowt. "Gentlemen," he said, "will you be kind enough to look at this splendid animal! examine him, gentlemen; look at his head; why, gentlemen, it's as big ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... merchants, bankers, land-speculators, lumbermen, all suffered alike. Some disappeared forever; others survived the shock, but never recovered their former footing. Large amounts of property went under the auctioneer's hammer, "to be sold without limit." Lots of land which cost two or three hundred dollars in '56, were sold at auction in '58 for five or six dollars each. Thousands of people lost their all in these unfortunate land-speculations. ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... was all life and all colour, All confusion and clamour, As dealers showed the paces Of colts, untamed in the traces, To the rap of the auctioneer's hammer. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... Your conscience went. Your hope went. Your Bible went. Your heaven went. Your God went. When a sheriff under a writ from the courts sells a man out, the officer generally leaves a few chairs and a bed, and a few cups and knives; but in this awful vendue in which you have been engaged the auctioneer's mallet has come down upon body, mind, and soul: Going! Gone! "Ye ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... the tone, you know. And do you know that is how the preachers get the bronchitis. You never heard of an auctioneer getting the bronchitis, nor the second mate on a steamboat—never. What gives it to the minister is talking solemnly when they don't feel that way, and it has the same influence upon the organs of speech that it would have upon the cords of the calves of your ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... branch of the noble family of Cardigan. But things got somewhat shuffled, through too many hot suppers up to London (being south), and stacks of reds and stacks of blues were drawn in towards the dealer, and so the old mansion fell under the hammer of the auctioneer. What an all-powerful thing is an auctioneer's hammer! And now from the great parlors, and the library, and the "hall," and the guest-chambers echo the rattle of spinning-jennies and the dull booming of whirling pulleys. And above the song of whirring wheels ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... lonely, and gave up the house and property to the Countess Dowager Waldegrave, in whom the fee was vested under Walpole's will. In 1842, George, seventh Earl Waldegrave, to whom Strawberry Hill had descended, ordered the contents to be sold by George Robins, the well-known auctioneer. The sale was advertised to occupy twenty-four days, from April 25th to May 21st. The catalogue was badly compiled, and so much dissatisfaction was expressed at the intention of selling some of the collections ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... Mr. Speaker Colfax presided in rather a slap-dash-knock-'em-down-auctioneer style, greatly at variance with the decorous dignity of his predecessors, and he was ever having an eye to the nomination for Vice-President in 1869. The most popular man in the House was unquestionably James G. Blaine, who exercised a fascination over all, and whose occasional ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... our Constitution. For what is it but a scheme for taxing the colonies in the antechamber of the noble lord and his successors? To settle the quotas and proportions in this House is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may flatter yourself you shall sit a state auctioneer, with your hammer in your hand, and knock down to each colony as it bids. But to settle (on the plan laid down by the noble lord) the true proportional payment for four or five and twenty governments, according to the absolute ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Inn (Duke's Head, in the Market place) and the civil, Norfolk-talking, People. I went to Hunstanton, which is rather dreary: one could see the Country at Sandringham was good. I enquired fruitlessly about those Sandringham Pictures, etc.: even the Auctioneer, whom I found in the Bar of the Inn, could tell nothing of where ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... on the 16th I went to the Rue d'Antin. The voice of the auctioneer could be heard from the outer door. The rooms were crowded with people. There were all the celebrities of the most elegant impropriety, furtively examined by certain great ladies who had again seized the opportunity of the sale in order to be ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... pursued by the President of the United States, when he received a present of lions and Arabian chargers from the Sultan of Muscat. Being forbidden by his sovereign lords and masters, the imperial people, to accept of any gifts from foreign powers, the President sent them to an auctioneer, and the proceeds were deposited in the Treasury. In the same manner, when Captain Claret received his snuff-box and cane, he might have accepted them very kindly, and then sold them off to the highest bidder, perhaps to the donor himself, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... an only son. Your grandfather was a prosperous farmer and auctioneer. You have distant cousins, Vaughans and Williamses, and some others living at Shrewsbury named Price. I have written to none of them about your return because they never evinced any interest in me or my concerns. Your mother's ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... days later there was a fire sale by one of the merchants, and I got the job of ringing the auction bell. Late in the afternoon the auctioneer held up a brown overcoat. "Here is a fine piece of goods, only slightly damaged," he said. He showed the back of the coat where a hole was burned in it. "How much am ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... and watercolors and ask each to make an original valentine. The game of hearts, the auction of hearts and the auction of valentines are old but excellent ways of amusing a company. For the auction of hearts the girls are in a separate room and a clever auctioneer calls off their charms and merits and knocks them down to the highest bidder, who does not know who he has bought until all are sold. A fancy dress party, each girl representing a valentine, is a delightful entertainment for the evening. A small boy may be used for Cupid and blindfolded. He ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... remained filled with rage and disappointment; the hag vented her spite on her brother. ''Tis your fault,' said she; 'fool! you have no tongue; you a Chabo, you can't speak'; whereas, within a few hours, he had perhaps talked more than an auctioneer during a three days' sale: but he reserved his words for fitting occasions, and now sat as usual, sullen and ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... faces of nearly all present; and even the auctioneer paused as he was opening his mouth, and with hammer uplifted in the air, prepared to listen. At the beginning of the story, many glanced involuntarily towards the portrait; but later on, all bent their attention solely on the narrator, as his tale ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... The auctioneer was shouting above the general din the good points of a man who had just been placed on ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... people "bid jealous" as they sometimes "ride jealous" in the hunting-field. Yet, the neophyte, if he strolls by chance into a sale-room, will be surprised at the spectacle. The chamber has the look of a rather seedy "hell." The crowd round the auctioneer's box contains many persons so dingy and Semitic, that at Monte Carlo they would be refused admittance; while, in Germany, they would be persecuted by Herr von Treitschke with Christian ardour. Bidding is languid, and valuable books are knocked down for trifling ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... worry," mocked Sam. "She'll be discussing with him the future of the Greek drama. Too bad it doesn't happen to be Warfield, or mother could give him tips on the 'Auctioneer.'" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... auctioneer, addressing the young man of the tumbrel, "Suzanne would no longer hesitate if she saw you in such a hat. And with the trunk, too. Ah, mon Dieu, can ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... enough. But alas! the outward wreck was a symbol, a result, of inner dissolution. Through the door of the hoarding the two pillars of the front door told a sorry tale. Pasted on either of them was a dingy bill, bearing the sinister imprimatur of an auctioneer, and offering (in capitals of various sizes) Bedroom Suites (Walnut and Mahogany), Turkey, Indian and Wilton Pile Carpets, Two Full-sized Billiard-Tables, a Remington Type-writer, a Double Door (Fire-Proof), and other objects ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... said the auctioneer. A terrible word that fell like a blight on the sacred memories of my childhood, and dispelled my earliest illusions, the dearest of all. My entire fortune was comprised in this 'account rendered,' my future lay in a ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... that bid the highest for him. By the time the pony his father had selected was reached, he was fairly trembling with excitement. He was full of apprehension lest somebody else should take him away from them, and when the bidding began, he watched every movement and word of the auctioneer with breathless anxiety, raising quite a laugh at one time, by answering his oft-repeated question "Will anybody give me five? I have thirty—will anybody give me five?" with an eager "I will!" that was easily heard by everybody in the crowd. ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... body at auction, (For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,) I help the auctioneer, the sloven does ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... of it; and it exists—if a little the worse for wear: the bulk is enormous—if the materials be in some sort worm-eaten and crumbling. Truly, he had 'incomparable power.' He was the least capable and the most self-conscious of artists; his observation was that of an inspired and very careful auctioneer; he was a visionary and a fanatic; he was gross, ignorant, morbid of mind, cruel in heart, vexed with a strain of Sadism that makes him on the whole corrupting and ignoble in effect. But he divined and invented prodigiously if he observed and recorded ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... present of French wine, left for me, as a taste of 216 hogshead, which are to be put on sale at 20L a hogshead, at Garraway's Coffee-house, in Exchange alley" etc. The sale by candle is not, however, by candlelight, but during the day. At the commencement of the sale, when the auctioneer has read a description of the property, and the conditions on which it is to be disposed of, a piece of candle, usually an inch long, is lighted, and he who is the last bidder at the time the light goes out ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... ladies and gentlemen," he cried, with the air of an auctioneer who is about to sell it to the highest bidder, "very fine example from the eighteenth dynasty. Here is the cartouche of Thotmes the Third," he pointed up with his donkey-whip at the rude, but deep, hieroglyphics upon the wall above him. "He live sixteen hundred ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... therefore fair game. I got judgment, but no instalments were paid. I remonstrated over and over again, and was from time to time met with solemn promises, the debtor gaining time by every delay. At last I lost patience, and determined to distrain. Everybody laughed at me. 'Where will you get an auctioneer, and who will bid? they asked. I determined to carry through this one case, if it cost a hundred pounds. I got a good revolver, and succeeded in bringing an auctioneer from a distance. The debtor said he would brain me with a bill-hook if I put my foot on his ground, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... you came out. JOHNSON. 'Nay, my dear lady, there is no wit in what our friend added; there is only abuse. You may as well say of any man that he will pick a pocket. Besides, the man who is stationed at the door does not pick people's pockets; that is done within, by the auctioneer.' ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... his father's death, he was favoured with quite the usual crowd of would-be buyers. Almost everyone with either money or credit within a radius of twenty miles came into Carrowkeel for the occasion. The presiding auctioneer had done his duty beforehand by advertising old Mr. Conneally's mouldy furniture as 'magnificently upholstered suites,' and his battered editions of the classics as 'a valuable library of handsomely bound books.' It is not likely that anyone was really deceived by these announcements, ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham |
