"Purser" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were pushing their claims, every one in vain. The Oklahoma passengers, bent on having a look at Minook, crowded after the Captain. Among those who first left the ship, the Boy, talking to the purser, hard upon Rainey's heels. The Colonel stood there as they passed, the Captain turning back to say something to the Boy, and then they disappeared together through the door of the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... shrieks of adjacent engines "made night hideous." Porters and cabmen jostled women laden with baskets of linen, brought on board at the last minute, when the poor tired stewardess had no time to administer the well-merited reprimand; passengers rushed about in search of the purser, anxious to secure their state-rooms before they were usurped by some ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... "The purser tells me Escalante gave him a little packet belonging to her—very valuable, which he ordered kept in the safe until their agent should call ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... put in his partner promptly; "we didn't, that's how. But, Mr. Keith, you hadn't ought to call Mary-'Gusta a 'hand.' Zoeth and me are the hands aboard this craft. She's skipper, and engineer, and purser, and—yes, and pilot, too. And don't she make us tumble up lively when ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the man and went below, to find the music room tenanted by a full muster of his fellow passengers, all more or less indignantly waiting to be cross-examined by the party of port officials from the tender—the ship's purser standing by together with the second and third officers and a ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... brandy, and his spirits, which had been pretty fair all morning, now prodigiously rose. He proceeded to adjust his whiskers finally before the glass. 'Devilish rich,' he remarked, as he contemplated his reflection. 'I look like a purser's mate.' And at that moment the window-glass spectacles (which he had hitherto destined for Pitman) flashed into his mind; he put them on, and fell in love with the effect. 'Just what I required,' he said. 'I wonder what I look like now? A humorous novelist, I should think,' and he ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... been picked up and returned to me, and so not a dry rag of my own to help myself to, I was right glad to rig myself out in the squire's clothes, which, fitting me like what our friend the admiral would say, 'purser's shirt upon a handspike,' made me look for all the world like an unstuffed effigy of a Guy Fawkes—a figure so superlatively ridiculous, that two light-hearted young girls, who were unable to help wellnigh laughing themselves from off their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... as I was off the purser's books. Good bye to you; I only hopes as you may get a better seaman to stick to you and be your walley de sham nor Jack Pringle, that's all the harm I wish you. You didn't call me no seaman in the Bay of Corfu, when the bullets were ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... change in my identity were powerful. Besides, a "purser's name" was a common thing among sailors. And although I felt unwilling to forego my claim to American citizenship, even for a brief period, I convinced myself that no evil to anyone, but much good to myself, would be likely to result ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... weather to-day. Went on board the Cyane to see Bridge, the purser. Took boat from the end of Long Wharf; with two boatmen who had just landed a man. Row round to the starboard side of the sloop, where we pass up the steps, and are received by Bridge, who introduces us to one of the lieutenants,—Hazard. Sailors and midshipmen ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and I recognised the Harry Lauder-like voice of the second assistant purser whom I had last heard on Wednesday at the ship's concert. Now he was singing—"I Want to Marry 'arry," and "I Love to be ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... understand, are being put on board. Stewards, carrying cabin trunks, swarm in the corridors. Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place. Pushing men hustle each other at the windows of the purser's office, under pretence of expecting letters or despatching telegrams. Women passengers eye other women passengers with suspicion and distrust. It is very interesting to notice how people who scowl at each other on the first day of a voyage exchange cards and ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... eyes which showed white all around the pupil. Simpson, labouring with the clumsy oars, tried to forget him. It was hot—hotter than it had seemed at first; sweat ran into his eyes and he grew a little dizzy. The quarantine launch with its load of uniforms, among which the purser's white was conspicuous, passed, giving them its wake; there was no sound from it, only a blaze of teeth and eyeballs. Simpson glanced over his shoulder at it. The purser was standing in the stern, clear of the awning, his head quizzically ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... the captain of Malacca, a ship of 700 tons, coming from Goa. After shooting at her many times, we at length shot through her main-yard, on which she came to anchor and surrendered. We then commanded the captain, master, pilot, and purser to come on board our ship; but only the captain came, accompanied by one soldier, saying that the others would not come, unless sent for; but having got to some distance from us in the evening, all the people of the ship, to the number of about 300, men, women, and children, got on shore ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... uneasy to get away, "no doubt Miss Vance is right. We should set things in order. I am going now to give my letter of credit to the purser to lock up; shall ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... British, the disposal of an Italian child was complicated. Not born on Italian soil, she was not eligible for the state institutions for orphans. I really forget the details. I had to make a declaration, of course, being the surgeon, but the captain and purser saw the authorities. On our return voyage we learned that they had found foster parents for the child, who received a grant out of the pension due to the widow had she lived. Since then, on only one occasion, a very painful one for me, I may say, have I had anything ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... lawyer turned his attention for some time exclusively to the liqueur brandy, and his spirits, which had been pretty fair all morning, now prodigiously rose. He proceeded to adjust his whiskers finally before the glass. "Devilish rich," he remarked, as he contemplated his reflection. "I look like a purser's mate." And at that moment the window-glass spectacles (which he had hitherto destined for Pitman) flashed into his mind; he put them on, and fell in love with the effect. "Just what I required," he said. "I wonder what I look like now? A humorous novelist, I should think," and he began to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of a man of fifty, in whom he could find no gall-bladder; Patterson has seen a similar instance in a men of twenty-five. Purser describes ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... cablegram reached Skagway by the steamer City of Seattle. The purser left it at the post-office, and until two hours and a half before the steamer was listed to start on her return trip, there it lay. Then Burnham, in asking for his mail, received it. In two hours and a half he had his ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... and quite unavailing. The reason why it was unavailing was this: At the moment when that portion of the chase to which the promenade deck was apportioned, consisting of the second officer, the purser, and two stewards, approached the secluded nook where the Tyro stood guardian above the feminine Fount of Tears, they beheld and heard only a young man admonishing a stricken girl in unmistakably ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... mercantile marine, Wilmshurst strolled into the Zungeru's ship's office and asked the purser's clerk to let him have a look at the list of supernumeraries. There was a chance that some of his acquaintances might be amongst the released prisoners ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... curiously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the interesting theme, "that she is rather below my mother's nonsensical family notions. Her father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. I think he was a species of purser." ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... five of them will devour at a sitting a calf weighing 200 lbs. Mr. Hooper, one of the officers of the Plover, in his narrative of their residence on the shores of Arctic America, states that "one of the ladies who visited them was presented, as a jest, with a small tallow candle, called a purser's dip. It was, notwithstanding, a very pleasant joke to the damsel, who deliberately munched it up with evident relish, and finally drew the wick between her set teeth to clean off any ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... Gulf which kept the girls below, and not until after passing Cape San Lucas and they were steaming up the sunny Pacific did he see either of them again. Then one glorious day the trolling-lines were out astern, the elders were amidship playing "horse billiards," and "Tuck," the genial purser, was devoting himself to Paquita, when Drummond heard a scream of excitement and delight, and saw the younger sister bracing her tiny, slender feet and hanging on to a line with all her strength. In an instant he was at her side, and together, hand over hand, they finally succeeded in pulling aboard ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... the jollop purser a drop more," said Dumlow. "Here, he arn't dead neither; takes the water down as free as if it were grog. They'll come ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... for service after our arrival there. Lieutenant-Commander Theodorus Bailey was in command of the vessel, Lieutenant William H. Macomb executive officer, and Passed-Midshipmen Muse, Spotts, and J. W. A. Nicholson, were the watch-officers; Wilson purser, and Abernethy surgeon. The latter was caterer of the mess, and we all made an advance of cash for him to lay in the necessary mess-stores. To enable us to prepare for so long a voyage and for an indefinite sojourn in that far-off country, the War Department had ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... The purser was busy allotting seats at the tables, and Buel waited patiently. He had no friends on board, and did not care where he ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... sayles ar hawsed, a pleasant cole dothe blowe. The Foles assembleth as fast as they may dryue. Some swymmeth after: other as thycke doth rowe In theyr small botes, as Bees about a hyue The nomber is great, and eche one doth stryue For to be chefe as Purser and Capytayne Quarter ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... the surgeon and helped to fill cartridges, contributing his own cotton hose for the purpose when those government stores gave out in battle, and who never smiled, even when committing a marine to the briny deep; the purser, too, prim and business-like, looking as if he were a complicated key with an iron lock of his own strong chest, calculating perpetually the amount of dollars deposited in his charge, the total of pay to be deducted therefrom, and ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Mr. Coulson admitted. "I know he deposited a pocketbook with the purser, and I happened to be standing by when he received it back. I noticed that he had three or four thousand-dollar bills, and there didn't seem to be anything of the sort upon ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and I thought that if, as seemed likely, I should presently be shown about as a curiosity for the amusement of this most unbusinesslike people, I should like to look a little less like a discharged ship's purser. But in spite of all that had happened, my hand went down into my pocket again, where to my dismay it met nothing metallic except two rusty old keys, and I remembered that amidst our talk in the guest-hall at Hammersmith I had ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... Grove, the master, being a comely man, with his sword and target, holding them up in defiance against his enemies. So likewise stood up the owner, the master's mate, boatswain, purser, and every man well appointed. Now likewise sounded up the drums, trumpets, and flutes, which would have encouraged any man, had he never so little heart ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... to me a parcel of diamonds which he had received from the purser of the Elmina Castle, to whom I had sent him as my confidential agent. I had intended to deposit the diamonds with my banker, but when the prisoner arrived at my office, the banks were already closed, so I had to put the parcel, for the night, ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... author. Later he approved of my writings to the extent of one pamphlet of twenty-four pages that I wrote for Holdock, Steiner & Chase, owners of the line, when they bought some ventilating patent and fitted it to the cabins of the Breslau, Spandau, and Koltzau. The purser of the Breslau recommended me to Holdock's secretary for the job; and Holdock, who is a Wesleyan Methodist, invited me to his house, and gave me dinner with the governess when the others had finished, and placed the plans and specifications in my hand, and I wrote the pamphlet that same afternoon. ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... up the Mersey a few days since, and day before yesterday Captain Hudson called at my office,—a somewhat meagre, elderly gentleman, of simple and hearty manners and address, having his purser, Mr. Eldredge, with him, who, I think, rather prides himself upon having a Napoleonic profile. The captain is an old acquaintance of Mrs. Blodgett, and has cone ashore principally with a view to calling on her; so, after we had left our cards for the Mayor, I showed these ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be endured the next few days. The purser came along, got Knollys to pack Louis's things and then sealed them. This meant that Marcella was shut away from all association with him; it seemed an unwarrantable interference with what she considered her property. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... "sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home. We don't touch this side the Golden Gate. So you may as well see the purser when he gets up and have him assign you a berth. It's ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... passengers, and about three hundred Chinese in the steerage. The latter were returning home after some years of labor and saving in this country, for few if any of them emigrate except with a fixed purpose of returning to the Celestial Empire sooner or later. The purser of the ship informed us that there was not one of them who had not at least a thousand dollars in specie with him, and many had three times that amount, which would be sufficient to support them for life and without ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... companions remained in their hammocks for a couple of days, when they all declared themselves strong enough to get up. A large tub was brought them to wash in, and they were supplied by the purser with a seaman's suit apiece. Owen was thankful to put on clean clothing, as the garments he had on when wrecked were worn completely into rags. Thus habited, although in the dress of a common seaman, he certainly did not look like an ordinary ship's boy. Still, he was allowed to remain forward ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... white Americans, he said to himself, would behave so decently in his place; and he could not conceive of the American steamboat clerk who would use the politeness towards a waiting crowd that the Canadian purser showed when they all wedged themselves in about his window to receive their stateroom keys. He was somewhat awkward, like the porter, but he was patient, and he did not lose his temper even when some of the crowd, finding he would not bully them, made bold to bully him. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... perfect in that mode of projecting missiles. There were several other passed mates in the berth, and two assistant-surgeons—one of them old enough to be the father of any of the youngsters—and a second master and a master's assistant, and the captain and purser's clerks, and three or four other midshipmen of various ages. All of them did not belong to the frigate, but some were supernumeraries going out to other ships on the station. The fathers of some present were of high rank, and they had been accustomed to all the ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... made of the venture! Other girls not half so smart, not half so pretty as she, had feathered their nests right here before her eyes, while she was wasting her time. They had kept their heads, and they would go out in the spring, first class, with good clothes and a bank-roll in the purser's safe. Some of them were married and respectable. "Never again!" she whispered to herself. "The next one will pay." Chagrin at the treatment she had suffered filled her with a poisonous hatred of ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... our ship had a brother, who, soon after the French were beaten out of the Canadas, went out there to try his fortune. He had only three hundred pounds in the world; he has been there now about four years, and I read a letter from him which the purser received when the frigate arrived at Portsmouth, in which he states that he is doing well, and getting rich fast; that he has a farm of five hundred acres, of which two hundred are cleared; and that if he ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... I, "whence can you, having no means of your own, derive the enormous capital which is essential to this experiment? State Street, I imagine, would not draw its purser strings very liberally in ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lumber, but when his cousin, Isaac Davis, found him at it he put him aboard one of his coasting schooners as supercargo. Being faithful and capable, he was sought by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and was for several years a good purser. He and his brother George had loaned their savings to a miller, and were forced to take over the property. Mr. Davis become the accepted authority on wheat and the production of flour, and enjoyed more than forty years of leadership in the ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... some unseen person, to which Tom listened with chill misgivings, and the steward directed his young subordinate to take Tom to the purser's office and, if he got through all right there, to the ship's butcher. He gave Tom a slip of paper ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... him on deck, and they disappeared into the purser's cabin to make out the bill of lading. The hatch was opened, and the steam crane began hauling barrels and sacks out of the boat, and then depositing other great barrels in their place, according to the simplest form of barter. The barrels ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... becomes galvanized, and people really persuade themselves that they have something to do, and all the foreigners write letters hastily, or add postscripts to those already written, and lose the mail, and rush down frantically to the beach to send their late letters by favour of the obliging purser. The mail to-day was an event to me, as it has brought your long- ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... was the purser, and the one who had stood talking with Captain Hosmer when Hope ran out to him, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... name was?" he asked innocently. Until now he hadn't had the courage to put the question to any one, or to prowl around the purser's books. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... Presently the purser sent round the head-steward, a gentleman whom Arthur mistook for the first mate, so smart was his uniform, to collect the letters, and it wrung him not a little to think that he alone could send none. The bell sounded to warn all ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... said Mrs. Badger, "is very well and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen's mess when the purser's junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I—you won't think me premature if I ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... your dinner is so good that you shall be purser; and Darrell, you are a man of business, you shall be his clerk. For the rest, I think St. Maurice may ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... purser, was despatched in the Royalist to Sincapore, to purchase provisions and obtain assistance from any of the men-of-war who might be lying ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... the morning the three boats mustered, and two of the passengers, who were on one of the lifeboats, were taken on board the cutter. It now contained 37 persons, including the captain, first officer, doctor, steward, purser, several able-bodied seamen, and all the passengers; while the two lifeboats had 31 of the crew. The boats drifted about all day, there being no wind, and the burning ship was still in sight. On the third day the lifeboats were not to be seen; each had a box of ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... liquor, and set on by some ill-designing persons; for, when sober, I never knew a better-natured man, or one more inoffensive. Some little time after, at the hour of serving provisions, Mr Cozens was at the store-tent; and having, it seems, lately had a quarrel with the purser, and now some words arising between them, the latter told him he was come to mutiny; and without any further ceremony fired a pistol at his head, which narrowly missed him. The captain, hearing the report of the pistol, and perhaps the purser's words, that Cozens ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... rolling, however, even more violently than before. So rapidly did the waves follow, that many struck her stern; not, however, before her dead lights had been closed. So tremendous were some of the blows, that it seemed as if her masts would be shaken out of her. The doctor and purser, who were sitting in the gun room, were thrown off their seats sprawling under the table, fully believing that the ship had struck a rock, and that all hands would soon be struggling ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... sly, sidelong glance, "There were too many of us on the Planetara. The purser had joined us, and many of the crew. And there was Miko's sister, the Setta Moa—too many. The treasure ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... those sylvan Amazons who could handle any thing, from the hunting-knife to the ponderous axe; and she dressed in the true sylph-like costume of the backwoods. Her robe, which appeared to be the only garment with which she encumbered herself, fitted her, as they say at sea, "like a purser's shirt on a handspike," and looked for all the world like an inverted sack, with appropriate apertures cut for head and arms; she wore shoes, in compliment to her guests—her hair hung about her shoulders in true Indian style; and ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... Popery; and it was a sore struggle in his mind how far he was justified in having any dealings with the only representative of the latter power, who had for many a long year ventured to set foot on the soil of Shetland; in vain he tried to make the purser understand him. Stores for the ship of all sorts were wanted, but no arrangements could be made, and at length Father Mendez was called to their councils. The bailie believed himself so fully guarded against ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... purser to show us the passenger list. Even if they are down under some other names he'd know the Fogers if we ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... Collinson, do you think the young lady will have remained faithful all this time? Remember what numbers of soldier-officers and rich planters there are out here ready to supplant you. Ha! Ha! Ha!" and the purser laughed and rubbed his hands at ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... purser on the steamboat; in winter he is the miller. That is six white men. John Gaviller is no good yet. There is the crew of the steamboat, and the men who work for wages, maybe fifteen natives, ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... keep an important business appointment," said Thurston. "However, as the Sound boat does not sail immediately, my assistant, Mr. Gillow, will be able to look after your baggage, and secure a good berth for you. You will get hold of the purser, and see Mrs. Leslie is made comfortable in every way before you follow me, Gillow. I shall not want you ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... was made desperate by his danger, tried us all, and we were all condemned to die. The gunner and purser were hanged immediately, and I expected it with the rest. I do not remember any great concern I was under about it, only that I cried very much; for I knew little then of this world, and nothing at all ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the other two, very quiet, respectable lads, named respectively Dundas and Hinton, I took more for their health's sake than for any other reason. The assistant surgeon was named Saunders—him I shipped as surgeon—while Millar, the captain's clerk, came with me as purser; I obtained a gunner's warrant for Henderson, to his great delight; and my remaining officers consisted of a fine, smart boatswain's mate, named Pearce, who came as boatswain, and a carpenter's mate named Mills, who came as carpenter. In addition to these, I had a cabin steward, a ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... half-deck, by the quarter-masters of the watch below, assisted by other leading and responsible men among the ship's company, closely superintended, of course, by the mate of the hold, to see that no liquor is abstracted, and also by the purser's steward, who regulates the exact quantity of spirits and of water to be measured out. The seamen, whose next turn it is to take the wheel, or heave the lead, or who have to mount the mast-head to look out, as well as the marines who ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... In the rigging of the vessel hung garments drying in the sun. At the side floated half a dozen boats. Many of the crew were ashore on leave. The sailing-master was at Baltimore, and the chaplain and purser were at Washington. From the masthead floated the broad pennant of Commodore Rodgers, but he was with his family at Havre de Grace; and the executive officer, Capt. Ludlow, was dining on the sloop-of-war ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... committing this Letter to the Care of your youngest Son who having been unfortunately taken in the Brig Resistance, was sufferd to come to this City to be exchangd for the Purser of the British Ship Mermaid who is now in N York on his Parole. This Exchange I effected without Delay; and procured from the Navy Board here an Advance of fifty Dollars, for which he is to account with the Eastern Navy Board in ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... suffer him longer? Who else? Who is that cowering under the bulwarks yonder? The man who thinks he can imitate the Scottish accent! Splash! And the next one? What a crowd is here! How they block the hatchways, lumber the deck, and get between you and the purser's room — these fadmongers, teetotallers, missionaries of divers isms! Overboard with them, and hey for the Fortunate Isles! Then for tobacco in a hammock 'twixt the palms! Then for wine cooled in a brooklet losing itself in silver sands! Then for — but O these bilboes on our ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... of education in America from the purser of an illustrious liner, who affirmed the existence of a dog—in fact, his own dog—so highly educated that he habitually followed and understood human conversations, and that in order to keep secrets from the animal ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... But I declare that I had neither art not part in fitting the thumbscrews to the Spanish captain, and putting the boatswain and his mate to the ordeal of flogging and pickling. 'Twas not I, but Matcham, who is Dead, that caused the carpenter to be carbonadoed, and the Scotch purser to walk the Plank. Those were, I grant, deeds worthy of Blackbeard; but I had naught to do with them. John Dangerous had suffered too many tortures in the dungeons of the Inquisition to think of afflicting his fellow-creatures ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... figures, passed between the red-tinted Cabana and the stately Morro, and were once more upon the deep, with a remembrance behind, and a hope before us. Our Bergantina is a handsome vessel, with twenty-five guns, five officers, a doctor, chaplain, and purser, and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... be distributed by lot. Professor Mapps had provided seventy-two slips of paper, on each of which he had written a number. The boys were mustered into line, and drew out these numbers from the package. As each student drew his slip, the purser wrote down his name in a book, with ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Pepper's arm as he unshipped his bugle. "I had a talk with the purser last night, and I'm afraid we'll have to 'cut out' the bugle calls on this trip. He says they have an official bugler aboard, for the call to meals and for the salute at landings, and we would interfere with him and perhaps affect the comfort of other passengers who may not ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... round a reach of the canal where we were anchored, and we, that is the gunroom-officers, all except the second lieutenant, who had the watch, and the master, now got into our own gig also, rowed by ourselves, and away we all went in a covey; the purser and doctor, and three of the middies forward, Thomas Cringle, gent., pulling the stroke oar, with old Moses Yerk as coxswain;—and as the Dragon-flies were all red, so we were all sea-green, boat, oars, trousers, shirts, and night-caps. The strain was between ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... time no presentiment of disaster. I remember remarking to the ship's purser, as my things were being carried to my state-room, that I had never in all my travels entered upon any voyage with so little premonition of accident. "Very good, Mr. Borus," he answered. "You will find your state-room in the starboard aisle on the right." I distinctly recall remarking to ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... her seat beside me. I confess that though I was at once absorbed in this occurrence, I noticed also that some of the ladies present smiled significantly when they saw at whose table Mrs. Falchion was placed, and looked not a little ironically at the purser, who, as it was known, always tried to get for his table the newest addition to the passenger list—when it was a pretty woman. I believe that one or two rude people chaffed the chief steward about "favouring ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... under which we first heard our favourite songs; and on the evening when I met "Pretty Polly Perkins" I was on a tramp steamer in the Mediterranean, when at last the heat had gone and work was over and we were free to be melodious. My own position on this boat was nominally purser, at a shilling a month, but in reality passenger, or super-cargo, spending most of the day either in reading or sleeping. The second engineer, a huge Sussex man, whose favourite theme of conversation with me was the cricket of his county, was, it seemed, famous for this song; and that ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... Thursday to 12 noon Friday we ran 386 miles, Friday to Saturday 519 miles, Saturday to Sunday 546 miles. The second day's run of 519 miles was, the purser told us, a disappointment, and we should not dock until Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday night, as we had expected; however, on Sunday we were glad to see a longer run had been made, and it was thought we should make New York, after ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... prevail hereabouts, I ought to have mentioned that it was during one of them in this channel that the poet Falconer, whose deeply interesting poem of "The Shipwreck" had been a great favourite with Alfred and me, lost his life. The ship in which he sailed as purser foundered, and he, and I believe everybody on board, perished. No work, either in prose or poetry, so admirably, so graphically, and so truly describes a shipwreck as does his. It is curious that after its publication he should have lost ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... had collected, Mr. Osgood said—"You must be pretty well fagged out, men; I think we may have a hard night's work, yet, and I wish you to get your suppers, and then catch as much sleep as you can, at your guns." He then ordered the purser's steward to splice the main-brace. These were the last words I ever heard from Mr. Osgood. As soon as he gave the order, he went below leaving the deck in charge of Mr. Bogardus. All our old crew were on board but Mr. Livingston, who ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... to save time had taken Mabel with her. In some inexplicable manner Mabel had strayed from her side. She had made frantic search for the child and finally, not daring to go to us with the truth, had conceived the idea of making us believe that she had taken Mabel aboard the ship. She had bribed the purser, a Frenchman whom she knew, to corroborate her story, and had ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... anticipated. A general board of our guardians, vowels and consonants, was summoned to investigate the matter. The origin of the feud, or "war," as my brother called it, was inquired into. As well might the war of Troy or the purser's accounts from the Argonautic expedition have been overhauled. Ancient night and chaos had closed over the "incunabula belli;" and that point was given up in despair. But what hindered a general pacification, no matter in how many wrongs the original dispute had arisen? Who stopped ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... "The purser insists that he is going mad," the first officer said, as he helped Frona Welse down the gangway to the landing stage, "and the freight clerks have turned the cargo over to the passengers and quit work. But we're not so unlucky as the Star of Bethlehem," he reassured her, pointing to a steamship ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... Third Voyage, Anno 1556, for Russia, to every Purser and the rest of the Servants, taken for the Voyage, which may serve as good and necessary Directions to ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... purser couldn't work it out quicker," he cried in his delight. "Here's for you again! We passed the Straits and worked up to the Azores, where we fell in with the La Sabina from the Mauritius with sugar and spices. Twelve hundred pounds ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... such marvelous blue depth, no water so full of mystery, no shore so clad in magic verdure, and no night ever of such resplendent clearness. The landing-steps and grating had been rigged out from a broad porthole on the spar deck, where a quartermaster was awaiting the return of the purser and a party of gentlemen who were making late, or rather early, hours on shore; for it was nearly two o'clock in the morning, and the weary seaman, who had sat down at his post on the grating, was snoring like a wheezy trombone. The measured tread fore and aft of ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... house in King Street, the Bell, upon which the diarist bestowed some of his patronage. On his first visit he was caught in a neat little trap. "Met with Purser Washington, with whom and a lady, a friend of his, I dined at the Bell Tavern in King Street, but the rogue had no more manners than to invite me, and to let me pay my club." Which was too bad of the Purser, when Pepys' ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... and is about 40 feet in height, with a trunk that measures 7 feet in girth at 3 feet from the ground, with a spread of branches measuring 45 feet. These dimensions have been considerably exceeded in other cases. In 1837 a tree at Purser's Cross measured 60 feet and more in height. Loudon himself had a small tree in his garden at Bayswater on which a female branch was grafted. It is to be feared that this ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... running along the lower deck in search of one of the officers, to whom she might tell her fear, when she almost tumbled into the arms of the jolly fat purser, who had been so kind to all the children during the weeks ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... Well, one was being second-assistant engineer on a government collier from the Philippines with a denaturalized skipper, and for purser a slick up-state New Yorker; and both of 'em at the old game—grafting off the ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... ship, and setting those that would not agree with their villany on shore: indeed this was the next door to it both ways. However, my nephew left me two servants, or rather, one companion and one servant: the first was clerk to the purser, whom he engaged to go with me; and the other was his own servant. I took me also a good lodging in the house of an English woman, where several merchants lodged, some French, two Italians, or rather Jews, and one Englishman. Here I was handsomely enough entertained; ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... lady about my mither, though I'm doing all I can to make her one. No; I didn't take her below. Fact is, we have state apartments, as you might say, for I've rented the second lieutenant's and purser's cabins. There they are, cheek-by-jowl, as cosy as wrens'-nests, just abaft the cook's galley ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... Essper. "You're the Purser, I suppose, detected keeping a jackass among the poultry! eating all the food of our live stock, and we having kid every day. Though both my legs are off, I'll have a fling at you!" and so saying, Essper, aided by the light of the lantern, scrambled ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... awakened by my friend, Miss E., who informed me that the purser of the Berenice was in the drawing-room, and that I must go to him and pay my passage-money. I was not, however, provided with the means of doing this in ready cash, and as the rate of exchange for the thirty pounds in sovereigns which I possessed could not be decided here, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... the register of their stores. The following clause of Mistress Ching's code is still more delicate. No person shall debauch at his pleasure captive women, taken in the villages and open places, and brought on board a ship; he must first request the ship's purser for permission, and then go aside in the ship's hold. To use violence, against any woman, or to wed her, without permission, shall be punished ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... necessity. You, Mr Stroud," (to the third officer) "will mount guard at the foot of the boat-deck ladder and prevent passengers passing up until the boats are ready and I give the word. Mr Blackburn, go down and find the purser; tell him what has happened, what we are doing, and ask him to keep the people quiet until we are ready for them, and you can lend him a hand. Thank God, the boats are all provisioned, ready for any emergency, while ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... evening was a 'Frisco man whom I knew slightly. I found he had crossed the plains two days in front of me, and this was the first steamer that had left New York for Europe since his arrival. Two days before me meant a day before Bellairs; and dinner was scarce done before I was closeted with the purser. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we departed out of Dartmouth Haven four sails, to wit, the Mermaid, the Sunshine, the Moonshine, and the North Star. In the Sunshine were sixteen men, whose names were these: Richard Pope, master; Mark Carter, master's mate; Henry Morgan, purser; George Draward, John Mandie, Hugh Broken, Philip Jane, Hugh Hempson, Richard Borden, John Filpe, Andrew Madocke, William Wolcome, Robert Wagge, carpenter, John ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... "was wise enough to have it locked up in the purser's safe the moment she set foot upon the steamer. She gave me the slip when she got it back, and eluded me, somehow, on the quay. She will scarcely have had time to part with it yet, though. When she arrives here to-night, it will in all ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is out of the hands of these devils to unbar or unfasten anything in order to fall into them. As to the Quartermaster and myself, we are both elderly men, and not of much account to mankind in general, as honest Pathfinder would say; and it can make no great odds to him whether he balances the purser's books this year or the next; and as for myself, why, if I were on the seaboard, I should know what to do, but up here, in this watery wilderness, I can only say, that if I were behind that bit of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... sight. Occasionally an officer flits past, on his way up to or down from the "shade deck"; I regard him with awe, and guess reverently at his rank. The ship's company, as I know it, consists of the purser, the doctor, and the army of stewards and stewardesses. The roof of the promenade-deck weighs upon my brain. It shuts off the better half of the sky, the zenith. In order even to see the masts and funnels of the ship one has to go far ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... The efforts which F. made to improve the poem in the successive ed. which followed the first were not entirely successful. The work gained for him the patronage of the Duke of York, through whose influence he obtained the position of purser on various warships. Strangely enough, his own death occurred by shipwreck. F. wrote other poems, now forgotten, besides a useful ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... characters will, if they can, take up the greatest quantity of slops, which they convert either into money or grog, whenever an opportunity presents itself. The really steady men generally look clean and neat as long as possible, without much assistance from the purser. Then again, the boats' crews of all surveying vessels are necessarily so much more exposed, that they not only the sooner wear out their ordinary clothing, but absolutely require additional comforts in that way. I am therefore strongly of opinion that, in this department (and I speak from ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... past without any news of her, we suspected she was lost, and at the end of July the Commodore ordered all the ships to a short allowance of bread.* And it was not in our bread only that we feared a deficiency, for since our arrival at this island we discovered that our former purser had neglected to take on board large quantities of several kinds of provisions which the Commodore had expressly ordered him to receive; so that the supposed loss of our victualler was on all accounts a ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... pleasure steamers on which one may journey, at comparatively small cost, up and down the Thames. A seething mob of people, almost exclusively composed of the male sex, glared furiously at them and one another—but principally at them—as they came up the gangway, and departed in search of the purser. All the stairs down to the dining saloon were occupied by morose passengers, and an enlivening altercation was in progress between two elderly gentlemen of ferocious aspect anent the remnants of what had once been a cushion. A mild-looking being, closely clutching a tired deck-chair, was descending ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... duties be performed by the commandant of the port, whether naval or military, aided by the paymaster or purser or other officer, the accounts of each being countersigned by the other, as a check upon mistakes or error, in the same manner as is now the case with the collector and naval officer of our several principal ports, which has introduced so much ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... of them thirty miles from the advanced posts. Had I not, though I own, against my inclination, been kept at Genoa, from 8000 to 10,000 men would have been taken prisoners, and, amongst the number, General de Vins himself; but by this means the pass of the Bocchetta was kept open. The purser of the ship, who was at Vado, ran with the Austrians eighteen miles without stopping; the men without arms, officers without soldiers, women without assistance. The oldest officers say they never heard ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the dock, the safe was transferred to the ware-house, where it was forced open and to their dismay and disgust found that it contained nothing of any value. It was subsequently found out that the purser, seeing the ship in danger, had quietly transferred the safe's money to himself and when he landed had vanished and so all the hard work of raising the safe was in vain. Paul laughed at their bad luck, while the captain swore picturesquely in ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the initials on her trunk were 'G.V.' All day yesterday I tried to solve the problem, taking into consideration the utter absence of family resemblance between you, and I was almost sick with curiosity. To-day I was convinced that her name is not Ridge. She inadvertently signed her name to the purser's slip in my presence, and she did not sign the—yours. She scratched it out quickly and asked him to make out another one. Now, what is this mystery?" She bent her gaze upon his face and he could not ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... "My brother-in-law is purser on the Celestial Traveller. At Riker's Planet they make connection with the feeder line out ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... shall every week take the like account of the purser and steward of the quantity and quality of victuals that are spent, and provide for the preservation thereof without any superfluous expense. And if any person be in that office suspected[1] for the wasting and consuming of victuals, you shall remove him and acquaint me thereof, and shall give ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... phrase has become to be adopted. Be that as it may, however, the cadger and his mate sleep together, mess together, and share each other's good and bad luck; the most prudent of the two being always the purser. ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... was educated for the law, and studied his profession with the Hon. John Holmes, and, after completing his studies, became Mr. Holmes' law-partner. But he being my only brother, I was very desirous that he should obtain a commission as a purser in the navy, in order that we might be associated on duty; and, at Mr. H.'s request, he was appointed by General Harrison soon after his inauguration. My brother then joined me in Portland. It is a consolation to know that he lived and died in ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... this may sound romantic, but it is tiring, tiring, tiring to have been in the midst of it; to have taken the tickets; to have caught the trains; to have chosen the cabins; to have consulted the purser and the stewards as to diet for the quiescent patient who did nothing but announce her belief in an Omnipotent Deity. That may sound romantic—but it is ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... father's college friend, was a purser in the navy and lived in Augusta, Maine, his official residence being at Portsmouth. He had kept in closer touch with the romancer than any of his other friends had since their graduating days, and he had been from the first a believer in his coming ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... followed by a busy Monday. The arrival of so many gold cap-bands, and profusion of gilt buttons, interfered, I fear materially, with the proper delivery of the morning milk and butter by sundry maidens with golden locks; and the purser's wholesale order for beef threatened to create a famine in the Orkneys. The cheapness of whiskey appeared likely to be the cause of our going to sea with a crew in a lamentable state of drunkenness, and rather prejudiced me against Stromness; but if it had no other redeeming quality, all its faults ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... counting the days before they might hope to see Fire Island Light. On the lee side of the boat, comfortably sheltered from the wind, and just by the door of the captain's room (which was theirs during the day), sat a little group of returning Americans. The Duchess (she was on the purser's list as Mrs. Martin, but her friends and familiars called her the Duchess of Washington Square) and Baby Van Rensselaer (she was quite old enough to vote, had her sex been entitled to that duty, but as the younger of two sisters she was still the baby of the family)—the Duchess ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... to the solution of them which I preferred, or had myself to suggest. Such notes are very rare, and rather meant as danger signals than critical discussions. I have followed in the main the chronological arrangement of the letters adopted by Messrs. Tyrrell and Purser, to whose great work my obligations are extremely numerous. If, as is the case, I have not always been able to accept their conclusions, it is none the less true that their brilliant labours have infinitely lightened my task, and perhaps ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... ought to tell you that it is not the intention of the king that you should use your personal resources in order to bring this enterprise to a successful end. The purser of the frigate has a considerable sum destined to the payment of the recruits who are embarked, and for necessary expenses, once the ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... but were again disappointed; it was too dangerous to disembark. Finally it was decided to put off a boat for a rocky point about a mile and a half distant from the town. Climbing down this point we saw about twenty lepers, and "There is Father Damien!" said our purser; and, slowly moving along the hillside, I saw a dark figure with a large straw hat. He came rather painfully down, and sat near the water-side, and we exchanged friendly signals across the waves while my baggage was being got out of the hold—a long business, owing to the violence of the ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... 'Francis' and 'Frances'{111}; 'chivalry' and 'cavalry'; 'oaf' and 'elf'; 'lose' and 'loose'; 'taint' and 'tint'. Sometimes the difference is mainly or entirely in the initial consonants, as between 'phial' and 'vial'; 'pother' and 'bother'; 'bursar' and 'purser'; 'thrice' and 'trice'{110}; 'shatter' and 'scatter'; 'chattel' and 'cattle'; 'chant' and 'cant'; 'zealous' and 'jealous'; 'channel' and 'kennel'; 'wise' and 'guise'; 'quay' and 'key'; 'thrill', 'trill' and 'drill';—or in the consonants in the middle of the word, as between 'cancer' and 'canker'; ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... The purser, diving into his post-bags of sailcloth, distributed them all round, often finding it hard to read the addresses, which were not always written very skilfully, while the captain kept on saying: "Look alive there, look alive! the barometer ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... mentions here, perished in the Aurora, in which he acted as purser: he was a satirist of no mean power, and wrote that useful work, the Marine Dictionary: but his fame depends upon "The Shipwreck," one of the most original and mournful poems ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the master, being a comely man, with his sword and target, holding them vp in defiance agaynst his enemies. So likewise stood vp the Owner, the Masters mate, Boateswaine, Purser, and euery man well appointed. Nowe likewise sounded vp the drums, trumpets and flutes, which would haue encouraged any man, had he neuer so litle heart or courage ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... that mainmast! Look at the rake of it! More like a yacht than a deep-water bark, she is enough sight. And the fust mate's got a uniform cap on, like a purser on a steamboat. Make that artist feller take that cap off him, Jim. He's got to. I wish he could have seen some of my mates. They wa'n't Cunarder dudes, but they could make a crew hop 'round like a sand-flea in a ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... lantern, carried by one of them, I could see they were all armed with pistols and cutlass. They appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one fellow whisper, "There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom, the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying themselves over a glass of cold grog—the gunner taking the watch on deck—the doctor was piping anything but mellifluously on the double flagolet, while the Spanish priest, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... for her on the boat; but he could get nowhere for the crush. All the same he felt so positive she was there that when the deck hands began to draw in the gangplank he shouted to the captain not to let the boat leave as there was another person to come ashore here. The captain questioned the purser, who assured him there were no more ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... started in a coal-steamer from a northern seaport. A passport could hardly be wrested from hide-bound officialdom in so short a time, and, to save explanations in a foreign tongue at Cronstadt, the reader's most humble servant assumed the lowly office of purser—wages, one shilling per month. The passage was rough, the engineers were not enthusiastic in their work, some of the seamen were sulky; and, in a word, the name of God was frequently in the skipper's mouth. Otherwise he ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... when not busy hunting up a stray planet to check his latitude, puts in his spare time hunting kindly things to do for his two passengers—for there are only two of us, the Doctor and myself. The Doctor signed on the ship's articles as surgeon, I as purser. ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... the fashion of the time. She was not a mass of material gorgeously furnished and upholstered. She was a ship. And she was not, in the apt words of an article by Commander C. Crutchley, R.N.R., which I have just read, "run by a sort of hotel syndicate composed of the Chief Engineer, the Purser, and the Captain," as these monstrous Atlantic ferries are. She was really commanded, manned, and equipped as a ship meant to keep the sea: a ship first and last in the fullest meaning of the term, as the fact I am going to ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... The purser spied and introduced me to my host, ex-judge Nahinu, who was then deep in business, despatching and receiving goods. He was dressed in pearl-grey tweed like any self-respecting Englishman; only the band of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... black-silk tie, in a sailor's running-knot, the ends loose; his waistcoat was unbuttoned, and his coat was a kind of jacket; not to speak of his swinging walk and careless pose. In fact, he had been a sailor; he had made two voyages to India and back as assistant-purser, or purser's clerk, on board a P. and O. boat, but some disagreement with his commanding officer concerning negligence, or impudence, or drink, or laziness—he had been charged in different situations ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... another hundred when we make Calshot Light. To-night we'll find good sea-room, and leave their beacon to the lumber-heads that put it up. I thank you, lads, for honest work in an honest ship. Ask the purser for an extra tot of grog, and say the ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... John M. Berrien, Attorney-General. Eaton was from Tennessee, and was an especial favorite of General Jackson. He had been in the Senate from Tennessee, and had formed at Washington the acquaintance of a celebrated widow of a purser in the navy, Mrs. Timberlake. This woman had by no means an enviable reputation, and had been supposed the mistress of Eaton, prior to their marriage. She had found her way to the heart of Jackson, who assumed to be her especial champion. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... next morning that she had been handling a 'loose wild beast,' her horror was as great as her thankfulness for the supposed escape. In curious contrast to the natural tameness of the Kinkajou was the natural untameness of a beautiful little Night-Monkey, belonging to the purser. Its great owl's eyes were instinct with nothing but abject terror of everybody and everything; and it was a miracle that ere the voyage was over it did not die of mere fright. How is it, en passant, that some animals are naturally fearless ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... have two Thursdays, one immediately following the other (and you can have no notion how long a second Thursday can be), owing to the crossing of the imaginary but very boring line which divides the two hemispheres. The official notice came from the captain's own hand. The ship had an American purser and an American chief steward, and there were many English on board, but the gallant little commander preferred to tackle the linguistic problem unaided. On Wednesday, therefore, the board had this announcement pinned to it:—"As she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... accounts delivered to the Chilian Government and unquestioned in 1821-2, was an unworthy course, the more so as most of the explanations required were of a paltry description, even to the expenditure of a single dollar in the purser's accounts—as though amidst operations of such magnitude as had successfully resulted in the accomplishment of every object proposed, my time could be occupied in minor details, yet even to these I was compelled to attend, the Government not furnishing me with a competent person ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... lad of some two and twenty, A- by name, goes out in a nondescript capacity as part purser, part telegraph clerk, part generally useful person. A- was a great comfort during the miseries [of the gale]; for when with a dead head wind and a heavy sea, plates, books, papers, stomachs were being rolled about in sad confusion, we generally managed to lie on our backs, ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... terms with John Murray the first, who thought highly of his abilities, and offered him (October 16, 1768) a partnership in his new bookselling business in Fleet Street. In September, 1769, he embarked for India as purser of the Aurora frigate, which touched at the Cape, but never reached her destination. See Memoir, by J. S. Clarke; The Shipwreck, 1804, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... papers, one on "Cancers and Asthmas," and the other on "White Swelling of the Joints," both of which were published the next year in the first volume of the Medical Transactions. In the same year, one Archibald Campbell, a Scotchman, a purser in the navy, and called, from his ungainly countenance, "horrible Campbell," produced a small jeu d'esprit, entitled "Lexiphanes, imitated from Lucian, and suited to the present times," in which he tries to ridicule Johnson's ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... fellowship merge— The twain standing nigh—the two boatswain's mates, Sailors of his grade, ay, and brothers of his mess. With sharp thongs adroop the junior one awaits The word to uplift. "Untie him—so! Submission is enough, Man, you may go." Then, promenading aft, brushing fat Purser Smart, "Flog? Never meant it—hadn't any heart. Degrade that tall fellow? "—Such, wife, was he, Old Captain Turret, who the brave wine could stow. Magnanimous, you think?—But what does Dick see? Apron to your eye! Why, never fell a blow; Cheer up, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... I learned that Vetch's position on board was that of purser, he having been introduced to the captain by Dick Cludde. Vetch attempted no active measures of hostility against me; indeed, he kept religiously out of my way, fearing maybe that I might seize an opportunity to ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... He was sent young to sea, as an apprentice to the master of a small bark, who traded with France and Zealand; and his master, a bachelor, taking a great affection for him, left him his bark at his death. At eighteen years of age, he was purser of a ship on a voyage to the Bay of Biscay, and at twenty made a voyage to the coast of Guinea. In all these voyages he distinguished himself by extraordinary courage, and by a sagacity beyond his years. In 1565, his laudable desire of glory induced ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr |
