"Auction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they were loaded upon the slave ships. When the trade was brisk and prices high, the hold of the ship was crowded to suffocation, and intense suffering was inevitable. Landing at Savannah or Charleston, Mobile or New Orleans, the slaves were sold at wholesale, in the auction place. Later, the slave dealer drove them in gangs through the villages, where they were sold at retail. The cost of a slave varied with the price of cotton. Of the three million one hundred thousand slaves living in the South in 1850, one million ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Many estates were confiscated. Many proscribed Cavaliers found it expedient to purchase, at an enormous cost, the projection of eminent members of the victorious party. Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops, and to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put up to auction. In consequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil of England was at once offered for sale. As money was scarce, as the market was glutted, as the title was insecure and as the awe inspired by powerful bidders prevented ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... up and weave them into a "nice innocent little influence" for yourself. Eh? An influence that has already earned you three city houses, five estates, and a carriage-and-four. Have a care that the Crown Prince does not auction off all these objects under the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... lamentable business, the bourgeoisie plays the same role as the pioneers of America," continued Clousier. "It buys up great estates, which the peasantry could not otherwise acquire. It cuts them up and then sells, either at auction or in small lots at private sale, to the peasants. Everything is judged by figures in these days, and I know none more eloquent than these. France has ninety-nine million acres, which, subtracting ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... the Scotch papers that the house in Burns-street, Dumfries, in which the bard of "Tam o'Shanter" and his wife "bonnie Jean," lived and died, is about to come into the market by way of public auction. ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... was at the same time faced by financial difficulties and the problem of maintaining the existence of herself and her two children. To carry on the farm single-handed was impossible. There were, moreover, immediate liabilities to be met. She could find no way out, and the upshot was a public auction sale of the farm effects and the household furniture. Three-year-old David, not understanding the tragedy of it all, was nevertheless impressed by the scene on the day the neighbors came to bid for, and to buy, the things that made up his mother's home. Even now he can recall how ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... armament (besides our muskets) the ketch carried, close after of her fore-hatchway, a little obsolete 3-pounder gun, long since superannuated out of the Falmouth packet service. In the dim past, when he had bid for her at a public auction, Captain Pomery may have designed to use the gun as a chaser, or perhaps, even then, for decoration only. She served now—and had served for many a peaceful passage—but as a peg for spare coils of rope, and her rickety carriage as a supplement, now and then, for the bitts, which were somewhat ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... her home, she felt there was much to be thankful for. Yet she puzzled her heart and head to find schemes by which the miller's charity might be escaped. She considered her own means, and pictured her few possessions sold at auction; she had already offered to go and dwell at Newtake and dispose of her cottage. But Will exploded so violently when the suggestion reached his ears that she ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Madame Grammont, and of the charming portrait of the Mazarine at the Duke of St. Alban's, is to accompany Bianca Capello and Ninon L'Enclos in the round tower. I hope now there will never be another auction, for I have not an inch of space, or a farthing left. As I have some remains of paper, I will fill it up with a song that I made t'other day in the postchaise, after a particular conversation that I had with Miss Pelham the night before at the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... altered aspect. The fish pavilion, of which M. Zola has so much to say, was bare and deserted. The railway drays, laden with the comestible treasures of the ocean, no longer thundered through the covered ways. At the most one found an auction going on in one or another corner, and a few Seine eels or gudgeons fetching wellnigh their weight in gold. Then, in the butter and cheese pavilions, one could only procure some nauseous melted fat, while ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... "The bureaus in the two rooms are just alike. I got 'em at auction, and most likely the ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... loaves as others did, but told them they were indeed a sorry set of scoundrels, unworthy of the name of slaves, if, during the two or three hours of liberty they enjoyed before sunset, they could not find enough to keep them for a day. His bagnios used to be regular auction-rooms for stolen goods, and were besieged by indignant victims, who were reproached for their carelessness, and made to re-purchase their own valuables: in fine, 'Ali Pichinin "has the honour of having trained ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... Christopher of Paris—the monstrous statue in the great church there—that he would give him a wax taper as big as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you donkey!' said the fellow,—but softly, so that Saint Christopher should not hear him,—'do you think I'm in earnest? If I once get my foot on dry ground, catch me giving him so much ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... than L680,000. These were all the alterations he proposed in the customs; and the right honourable baronet next proceeded to the excise-duties. Among the duties which he proposed to to repeal was the auction-duty on the transfer of property. He likewise proposed that auctioneers, instead of taking out several licences, at an expense of five pounds each, for selling different articles, should take out one general licence only, at fifteen pounds each; and as the number of auctioneers was 4000, this would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... advance the price I would fetch. "And your height! It exceeds by a palm that of the next tallest captive in my lot. So, seeing you so robust, I have named you Bull. Under that name you are entered in my inventory, at your number; and under that name will you be cried at the auction!" ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... bid at auction [for the position of regidor], and the judges of the auction knocked it down to him; and after he had paid to the treasury the price and the half-annat, his title as regidor was made out in the ordinary form. When he went to take possession ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... and JOHN WILKINSON, auctioneers of literary property and works illustrative of the fine arts, will SELL by AUCTION, at their House, 3. Wellington Street, Strand, on Monday, February 10, and three following days, at 1 precisely, the valuable antiquarian, miscellaneous, and historical LIBRARY of the late Thomas Amyot, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A.; comprising the first, second and fourth editions ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... Artemas vanished bodily, Mrs. Standish in the car with her brother to see him off; Bob and Babs murmured incoherently about a boat, and disappeared forthwith; and Lyttleton, pleading overdue correspondence, Trego was snapped up for auction bridge by Mrs. Gosnold and Miss Pride, Sally being elected to fourth place as one whose defective education must be promptly remedied, lest ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... twaddle, and finally they'll fetch in a verdict that he got shot or stuck or busted over the head with something, and come to his death by the inspiration of God. And after they've buried him they'll auction off his things for to pay the expenses, and then's OUR chance." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... It is true that Ben Jonson is on the side of the lady, but I am far too orthodox to entertain any such opinion; and though I have, in this instance of history, so far resisted him as to have refrained from sending my standard historians to the auction mart—where, indeed, with the almost single exception of Mr. Grote's History of Greece (the octavo edition in twelve volumes), prices rule so low as to make cartage a consideration—I have still of late found myself ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... But in the Devil's auction of the corner building, man, woman and child were knocked down to the highest bidder, for the hell-minted price ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... dear, would you tell the butler to bring up some of the claret that was bought at Mr. Rollestone's auction. I told Sir Nicholas that he should taste it, and I don't like to mention it to poor Mervyn, as he must not ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seeming provocation, insist on picking a quarrel with the middle-aged stranger, whom we will call Mr. Z; and if further along in the voyage Mr. Z should introduce himself to you and suggest a little game of auction bridge for small stakes in order to while away the tedium of travel; and if it should so fall out that Mr. Y and his friend Mr. X chanced to be the only available candidates for a foursome at this fascinating pursuit; and if Mr. Z, being ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... they are sold to the highest bidder. In that auction Caste comes first, then wealth and position. And the chattel is bought, the bit of breathing flesh and blood is converted into property; and the living, throbbing heart of the child may be trampled and stamped down under foot in ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... third day he was convicted of duplicity. She went off for a walk alone, leaving him safely anchored in what he afterwards came to look upon as a pre-arranged game of auction-bridge. When she came in after an absence of at least two hours, the game was just breaking up. He noted the questioning look that Mrs. Gaston bestowed upon her fair charge, and also remarked that it contained no sign of reproof. The girl went up to her room without so much as a word with him. ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... on him). I mean that and a good deal more, Master Eugene, as you will both find out presently. And pray, my lords and masters, what have you to offer for my choice? I am up for auction, it seems. What do ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... said, "is listed on our wine card at $6.00 per bottle. It is not the best Madeira that we have, although it is a very fine one. Recently we served a bottle of Thompson's Auction Madeira, of which the year is not recognizable on the label, but which to my knowledge was an old wine forty years ago. This wine brought $25.00 a bottle and ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... alternate scarcity and comparative abundance of provisions;—the arrival or departure of ships from the harbour;—the commission of the first murder in the colony, and other sad accounts of human depravity and its punishment;—the gradual improvement and extension of the colony;—the first sale by auction of a farm of twenty-five acres for the sum of 13l.:—these and similar subjects occupy the history of New South Wales, not merely during the three years that elapsed between Governor Phillip's departure and the arrival ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... second book of the series, called "Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat," there was related the doings of the lad, his father and his chum, Ned Newton, on Lake Carlopa. Tom bought at auction, a motor-boat the thieves had stolen and damaged, and, fixing it up, made a speedy craft of it so speedy, in fact that it beat the racing-boat Red Streak—owned by Andy Foger. But Tom did more than race in his boat. He took his father on ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... affections have been left to the chances of association; and it does not seem that Venetian society has ever dealt severely with husbands or wives whom incompatibilities forced to seek consolation outside of matrimony. Herodotus relates that the Illyrian Veneti sold their daughters at auction to the highest bidder; and the fair being thus comfortably placed in life, the hard-favored were given to whomsoever would take them, with such dower as might be considered a reasonable compensation. The auction was discontinued in Christian times, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... of the engines, unable to dismiss the thought that their every revolution brought him so much nearer to America, so much the nearer to his hour with Ekstrom. In vain he sought to fatigue his senses by over-indulgence in his weakness for gambling. Day-long sessions at poker and auction in the smoking room—where he found formidable antagonists, principally in the persons of Crane, Bartlett Putnam, Velasco, Bartholomew, Julius Becker and Baron von Harden—served only to forward ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... the armies, and for what was wanted for accoutring, quartering, or removing them, included also an infinite consumption for the pleasures, luxuries, whims, and debaucheries of our civil or military commanders. Most of those articles were delivered in kind, and what were not used were set up to auction, converted into ready money, and divided among ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... Roman Mythology which I have mentioned, and which he must literally have worn out with reading, since no fragment of it seems to have survived his boyhood. Heaven knows who wrote it or published it; his father bought it with a number of other books at an auction, and the boy, who had about that time discovered the chapter on prosody in the back part of his grammar, made poems from it for years, and appeared in many transfigurations, as this and that god and demigod and hero upon imagined occasions ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... Bradley's voice, with the same suggestion of conveying important truths to the listening congregation within, "was took from the wreck of the Tamalpais. Brother Horley bought it at auction at Horse Shoe Bay and presented it. You know the Tamalpais ran ashore on Skinner's Reef, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... thousand sesterces to drop the affair. This was something under L2000. But Verres repudiated the arrangement with scorn. He could do much better than that with such a temple and such a minor. He puts the repairs up to auction; and refusing a bid from the trustees themselves—the very persons who are the most interested in getting the work done, if there were work to do—has it knocked down to himself for five hundred and sixty thousand sesterces, or about ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... Bibliotheca, sed in gremio Jovis;" "not in a library, but in paradise." It is not given to every one to cast angle in these preserves. They are kept for dukes and millionaires. Surely the old Duke of Roxburghe was the happiest of mortals, for to him both the chief bookshops and auction rooms, and the famous salmon streams of Floors, were equally open, and he revelled in the prime of book-collecting and of angling. But there are little tributary streets, with humbler stalls, shy pools, as it were, where the humbler fisher of books may hope to raise an Elzevir, or ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... fate, call the party formally together, and ask them if they are satisfied that you have done all that was possible to save him, and record their answers. After death, it is well to follow the custom at sea—i.e. to sell by auction all the dead man's effects among his comrades, deducting the money they fetch from the pay of the buyers, to be handed over to his relatives on the return of the expedition. The things will probably be sold at a much higher price ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... make you an offer? Otherwise I should sell them by auction for you, deducting ten per ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... fellows. Now their father died; he had a good deal of personal property, which was not easy to divide, but the brothers decided, in order that this should be no cause of disagreement between them, to put the things up at auction, so that each might buy what he wanted, and the proceeds could be divided between them. No sooner said than done. Their father had owned a large gold watch, which had a wide-spread fame, because it was the only gold watch people in that part of the country had seen, ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... natural resources be alienated from the Crown but brought into use only under short term leases, in which the interests of the public shall be properly safeguarded, such leases to be granted only by public auction. ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... between the years 1825 and 1835, in a parish church near Welbeck Abbey, the clerk used to announce the date of the Duke of Rutland's rent-day. Another correspondent states that after service the clerk used to take his stand on one of the high flat tombstones and announce sales by auction, the straying of cattle, etc., and Sir Walter Scott wrote that at Hexham cattle-dealers used to carry their business letters to the church, "when after service the clerk was accustomed to read them aloud and answer them according ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... dogs, and children. Calamity had overtaken the caravan. The mother had died; the father was disgusted with the country and everything in it; and his one idea was to sell his outfit and get the children back East, back to school and granny. At the auction, the cattle brought good prices, but no one wanted the horses. They were gaunt and weary, saddle-and spur-galled; one young and the other past middle life. It was the young horse that caught Hartigan's eye. It was rising three, ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... out. There is an auction to be held at Breidablik that noon, and he is going; there's but just time to get there now. Not that Isak any longer thinks of buying the place, but the auction—it is the first auction held there in the wilds, and it would be ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... chronicles—that Oberstein, eager to complete the coup of his lifetime, came to the lure and was safely engulfed for fifteen years in a British prison. In his trunk were found the invaluable Bruce-Partington plans, which he had put up for auction in all the naval ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... or in the storming of cities, were sold at auction—"sub corona," as it was called, because they wore a crown when sold; or "sub hasta," because a spear was set up where the auctioneer stood. These were called Servi or Mancipia. Those who dealt in the slave ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... his vices, Rome was so drained of money that he was driven to the expedient of allowing the allied cities to purchase their independence by payment, and that, too, although he was daily proscribing the richest men and selling their property by public auction. Yet he wasted money without limit upon his courtiers. What bounds can we imagine he would set to his generosity when in his cups, seeing that once, when a great estate was being sold by public auction, he ordered the auctioneer to knock it ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... you have not only a beautiful voice, but also that you have beautiful toilettes. This is a great attraction. In the second place, I allow (as a great privilege) the tickets to be subscribed for; the remaining ones are bought at auction. You see, in this way the bids go 'way up.... I am glad I secured Sarasate to ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... ordering the confiscation of their property for the benefit of the nation. This measure has been carried into execution, and the government is now the possessor of a large amount of such property. These lands will be sold at public auction, and will fall into all sorts of hands. They will be divided and parceled out, and the rightful owners when they return to France will have no power to take possession of the property that once belonged to them. Very well—now I have wondered if the purchase of ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... game never works. Of course they'd deny it and swear you down, for bribing witnesses is as easy as bribing members. I'll tell you what to do. Beat them at their own weapons. Raise a purse that will swamp theirs. That's the way the world goes. It's an auction. The highest ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... Reynolds used to tell the following anecdote relative to Pope.—"When Reynolds was a young man, he was present at an auction of very scarce pictures, which attracted a great crowd of connoisseurs and others; when, in the moment of a very interesting piece being put up, Mr. Pope entered the room. All was in an instant, from a scene of confusion and bustle, a dead calm. The auctioneer, as ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... you what you might do. There's the old paint-shop next door. You can use that for an auction place if you are a mind to be liberal for the use of ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... the burden of it should fall as much as possible on the trading community and as little as possible on the farmer. It is chiefly derived from licenses on trades, professions, and callings, 30s. per annum quit-rent on farms, transfer dues and stamps, auction dues, court fees, and contributions from such native tribes as can be made to pay them. Since we have given up the country, the Volksraad has put a very heavy tax on all imported goods, hoping thereby ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... they evaded further dispute by bringing out the book in a very small edition and with modest unstamped covers. Copies of this edition are now eagerly sought by book-collectors, and one in good condition fetches $25 or more in the auction rooms. Even the second edition (1907), bearing the imprint of B. W. Dodge & Co., carries an ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... of men and boys, such as have before been described. Each of the groups was in charge of an Arab auctioneer, who put them up to sale, much in the way that ordinary goods and chattels are disposed of at auction marts in England. A dozen or more auctioneers were busily at work together, trying to attract purchasers, pulling at the sleeve of one as he passed by, then at the skirt of another; somewhat after the fashion of old-clothes sellers in London. The Arab purchasers showed no eagerness, however, but ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... governmental nine hundred and ninety-nine years' lease at a nominal sum. I owned the lease for precisely ninety days, when I sold it to a company for half a fortune. Always it was Otoo who looked ahead and saw the opportunity. He was responsible for the salving of the Doncaster—bought in at auction for a hundred pounds, and clearing three thousand after every expense was paid. He led me into the Savaii plantation and the cocoa venture ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... de Brito was also a regidor of Manila, whose post was adjudged to him at public auction for one thousand four hundred pesos of common gold, with the third part of what was promised from the increase. He took possession of his post June 24, 1589. See Pastells's Colin, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... was a gambler! Not in cards, but in lost luggage! In America, all baggage etc. lost on trains and not reclaimed is put up to auction unopened. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... breakage and yolk-stained rompers. For I share in that delight myself, since egg-gathering always gives me the feeling that I'm partaking of the bounty of Nature, that I'm getting something for next-to-nothing. It's the same impulse, really, which drives city women to the bargain-counter and the auction-room, the sublimated passion to adorn the home teepee-pole with the fruits ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... which can be inserted invitation cards; indeed, one or two so remain, proving that the tenants even of "bed-sitting-rooms" are not excluded from social delights. The wall opposite is adorned by an oleograph of the kind Cheap Jacks sell by auction on Saturday nights in the Pimlico Road, and warrant as "hand-made." Generally speaking, it is a Swiss landscape. There appears to be more "body" in a Swiss landscape than in scenes from less favoured localities. A dilapidated ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... There was the tall boy who played Saint Saens on the Espagne, and did the funny stunt at the auction; there was the night we sat on the food box near the front at Douaumont and heard the ambulance boy whistling the bit from "Thais," far up the hill in the misty moonlight; there was the French ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... Young on the ground that Boreman's order was void. White's successor, Judge Schaeffer, in 1876 reduced the alimony to $100 per month, and, in default of payment, certain of Young's property was sold at auction and rents were ordered seized to make up the deficiency. The divorce case came to trial in April, 1877, when Judge Schaeffer decreed that the polygamous marriage was void, annulled all orders for alimony, and assessed the costs against ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... other girls did not. She could play the piano most skilfully, although as yet she had no instrument. Three weeks, however, after her return a rich man, who lived in the village which was known as "Over the River," failed, and all his furniture was sold at auction. Many were the surmises of my grandmother, on the morning of the sale, as to what "Cap'n Howard could be going to buy at the vandue and put in the big lumber wagon," which he ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... idea, Mrs. Fischlowitz! In that chest over there by the wall I got yet a jacket from Rivington Street. Right away it got too tight for me. Like new it is, with a warm beaver collar. At auction one day he got it for me. Like a top it will fit ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... won, the other lost. The croupier threw the coins in payment. I let my double stake lie, and so did Anastasius. At the next coup we lost again. The banker stuffed his winnings into his pocket and declared a suite. The bank was put up at auction, and was eventually knocked down to the same personage for fifty louis. The horse-headed Englishman cried "banco," which means that he would play the banker for the whole amount. The hands were dealt, the Englishman lost, and the game started afresh with a hundred louis in the ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... year's salary. Why not? He has fourteen years on the bench ahead of him, and ten thousand other lawyers would be willin' to put up twice as much to be in his shoes. Now, I ain't sayin' that we sell nominations. That's a different thing altogether. There's no auction and no regular biddin'. The man is picked out and somehow he gets to understand what's expected of him in the way of a contribution, and he ponies up—all from gratitude to the organization that honored ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... became is shown by a casual mention a year later, under the heading "progress of luxury. A private stock of wine brought the average 'extraordinary' price of twenty-five dollars the gallon; while at the same period one auction lot of prize goods, comprising three decanters and twelve tumblers, sold for one hundred and twelve dollars."[149] The arrival in August, 1813, of a vessel in distress, which, like the "Siren," had passed along the whole ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... as heterogeneous as the contents of a rag-picker's auction. Yet they associated with little friction, herding uniformly kind with kind, only rarely lending themselves to transient ructions. They played little jokes on each other; a fat and serious captive ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... said the redhead. "I'll wait. When you change your mind look me up. Name's Yule Larson." He slapped Tee heavily on the back and swaggered toward the door. He turned and looked back. "Better go along with me. After six months they can auction off your ship to pay for the port charges, you know." The ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... more than a dozen trunks and boxes filled with such like folderols. Some of 'em been here twenty years or more,—shawls and bonnets and ball dresses, all frills and laces and ribbons; baby bonnets, too, all held for duty and storage or wreckage and land knows what. Flung the whole lot out for auction last year, and the women swarmed like bees from the big hotels and the cottages. Got bits of yellow lace, they said, for ten cents that was worth many dollars. The men folks tried to 'kick' about fever ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... gets his sulk? not from life; for he's often too much of a recluse, or else too young to have seen anything of it. No, he gets it from some of those old plays he sees on the stage, or some of those old books he finds up in garrets. Ten to one, he has lugged home from auction a musty old Seneca, and sets about stuffing himself with that stale old hay; and, thereupon, thinks it looks wise and antique to be a croaker, thinks it's taking a ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Buildings, over against St. Clement's Church in the Strand, will be continued a concert of vocal and instrumental musick, beginning at five of the clock, every evening. Composed by Mr. Banister."—Lond. Gazette, Nov. 18. 1678. "This famous 'musick-room' was afterwards Paterson's auction-room."—Pennant's Common-place Book. ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... is with life," I said to myself;—"with time." This world is a sort of auction-room; we do not know that we are buyers: we are, in fact, more like beggars; we have brought no money to exchange for precious minutes, hours, days, or years; they are given to us. There is no calling out of terms, no noisy auctioneer, no hammer; but nevertheless, ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... his decrees in 1845, San Carlos was regarded as a pueblo, or abandoned Mission, Padre Real residing at Monterey and holding services only occasionally. The little property that remained was to be sold at auction for the payment of debts and the support of worship, but there is no record of property, debts, or sale. The glory of San Carlos ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... charity for these unhappy people, when I consider, that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... remind all lovers of beautiful illustrations of Mediaeval Art, that Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson will sell by auction on Monday next the entire stock of the magnificent publications of Mr. Henry Shaw, F.S.A., whose Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages are a type of the whole. Such an opportunity of securing copies at ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... country-house. His host was a wealthy landowner, owning some twenty-five hundred acres, and had married his guest's cousin. Volgin, tired after an evening spent in playing vint* for small stakes with [* A game of cards similar to auction bridge.] members of the family, went to his room and placed his watch, silver cigarette-case, pocket-book, big leather purse, and pocket-brush and comb on a small table covered with a white cloth, and then, taking off his ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... place of destination, the condition of the slave is scarcely less deplorable. They are advertised with cattle; chained in droves, and driven to market with a whip; and sold at auction, with the beasts of the field. They are treated like brutes, and all the influences around them conspire to ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... annually. For lightening this heavy burthen, I devised the following expedient. His wife's jewels, together with his superfluous plate and furniture in both houses, his horses and carriages, which are already advertised to be sold by auction, will, according to the estimate, produce two thousand five hundred pounds in ready money, with which the debt will be immediately reduced to eighteen thousand pounds — I have undertaken to find him ten thousand pounds at four per cent. by which means he will save one hundred ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... used to be intimate with Malgat has assured me that he met him one day in Dronot Street, before the great auction- mart. The man said he recognized him, although he seemed to be most artistically disguised. This is what has set me thinking more than once, that, if people were not mistaken, a day might, after all, yet come, when Miss ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... known as the Government mark throughout Great Britain. The destruction of tigers was so great in a few years that the Lieut.-Governor of Bengal found it necessary to reduce the reward from fifty rupees to twenty-five, and tiger-skins were periodically sold by auction at the Dhubri Kutcherry at from eight ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... had been examined and commented upon by Miss Larolles, and viewed and wondered at by Cecilia, it was restored to its place, the two ladies went together to the auction, permitting Cecilia, at her repeated request, to ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... strenuous toil! At home and abroad,—in Italy and Sicily, at Ilmenau and Carlsbad, as in his study at Weimar,—with eye or pen or speech, he was always at work. A man of rigid habits; no lolling or lounging. "He showed me," says Eckermann, "an elegant easy-chair which he had bought to-day at auction. 'But,' said he, 'I shall never or rarely use it; all indolent habits are against my nature. You see in my chamber no sofa; I sit always in my old wooden chair, and never, till a few weeks ago, have permitted even a leaning place for ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... I reckon our sale went pretty well. Just before closing time we held a rubbish auction, with Ginger in the chair. Ginger would make an absolute Napoleon among auctioneers. He can bully, lie, despair, wheedle and take you into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... on, leaning across the table and banging a dirty fist upon it, 'come to-night at ten o'clock. There are others coming at the same hour to buy my letter in the pink envelope. We will have an auction, a little auction, and the letter goes to the highest bidder. But what does your reverence want with a ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... has heard from St. Louis, and they will give him back his old job in the cigar factory. He must be there by the first of November. They are taking on new men then. We will sell the place for whatever we can get, and auction the stock. We haven't enough to ship. I am going to learn engraving with a German engraver there, and then try to ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... "Mr. Chairman, we've got one clean man left, anyway, out of the late aristocracy; and he needs money, and deserves it. I move that you appoint Jack Halliday to get up there and auction off that sack of gilt twenty-dollar pieces, and give the result to the right man—the man whom ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... don't take any new quarters at all for a while, but just keep on moving about as I have been doing the last few years. I am even considering to have my things sold at auction. ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... lover, destined to lifelong shame and misery, misunderstood to the last by a criminal, fastidious parent. But I am confronted by certain facts, on which this romance is based. A month later a handbill was posted on one of the sentinel pines, announcing that the property would be sold by auction to the highest bidder by Mrs. John Dart, daughter of Madison Clay, Esq., and it was sold accordingly. Still later—by ten years—the chronicler of these pages visited a certain "stock" or "breeding farm," in the "Blue Grass ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... clairvoyance, we have an illustration of the early acquaintance of mankind with some of the forms of mesmerism. The passage is found in Spartian's life of Ditius Julian, the rich Roman who purchased the Empire when it was put up to auction by the Praetorian guards. "Julian was also addicted to the madness of consulting magicians, through whom he hoped either to appease the indignation of the people, or to control the violence of the soldiery. For they immolated ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Sweden; Ah Wing, cook, native of Sana, China; John Brown, native of Glasgow, Scotland; John Hardy, native of London, England. The Flying Scud is ten years old, and this morning will be sold as she stands, by order of Lloyd's agent, at public auction, for the benefit of the underwriters. The auction will take place in the Merchants' Exchange at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... deposited in the front yard. Now, Mrs. Betty, you just look over there once. There's yards and yards of clothes-line covered with carpets and rugs and curtains I've been ordered to clean. It's somethin' beyond words. The whole place looks as if there was goin' to be an auction, or a rummage sale, or as if we had moved out 'cause the house was afire. Then she falls to with tubs of boilin' hot soap-suds, until it fills your lungs, and drips off the ends of your nose and your fingers, and ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... the notion of leaving Glamerton, for he had found that the patronage of the missionars in grocery was not essential to a certain measure of success; and he had no intention of proceeding to an auction of Mrs Forbes's goods, for he saw that would put him in a worse position with the public than any amount of quiet practice in lying and stealing. But there was every likelihood of Annie's being married some day; and then her ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... in the shape of commodities had been sold at the enormous price of 500 per cent—the male slaves even fetching 100 dollars per head, though the females went for less. The Hottentots now arrived, with many more of my men, who, seeing their old "flames," Snay's women, sold off by auction, begged me to advance them money to purchase them with, for they could not bear to see these women, who were their own when they formerly stayed here, go off like cattle no one knew where. Compliance, of course, was impossible, as it would have crowded the caravan with women. Indeed, to prevent ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of the senatorian order, was the only expedient that could disarm, without loss of time, the impatient avarice of Attila; and the poverty of the nobles compelled them to adopt the scandalous resource of exposing to public auction the jewels of their wives and the hereditary ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... neighbourhood she was sure. I had now a date to go upon; I learned, by careless inquiries, what sales near Fernside had taken place in a certain year. A gentleman had died at that date whose furniture was sold by auction. With great difficulty, I found that his widow was still alive, living far up the country: I paid her a visit; and, not to fatigue you with too long an account, I have only to say that she not only assured me that she perfectly remembered the bureau, but that it had secret drawers and wells, very ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... slave to bondage. I firmly, believe in our Declaration of Independence, that all men are created free and equal, and that no human being has a right to make merchandise of others born in humbler stations, and place them on a level with horses, cattle, and sheep, knocking them off the auction- block to the highest bidder, sundering family ties, and outraging the purest and ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... going down on the dolls' pantomime, and the audience was applauding and hurrying off to make the rounds of the other attractions before dinner time. In clarion tones that made themselves heard above the din Emily Davis was advertising an auction of her animals, beginning with "one perfectly ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... acquaintance, some years since, employed an artist to decorate her parlors. The walls being frescoed and tinted to suit his ideal, he immediately issued his decree that her splendid velvet carpets must be sent to auction, and others bought of certain colors harmonizing with the walls. Unable to find exactly the color and pattern he wanted, he at last had the carpets woven in a neighboring factory, where, as yet, they had only the art of weaving ingrains. ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the cold still face; so he left her, cursing, as he went, men who put themselves up at auction,—worse than Orleans slaves. Margaret laughed to herself at his passion; as for the story he hinted, it was absurd. She ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... cow. The children, she said, could n't live without milk and when Dad heard from Johnson and Dwyer that Eastbrook dairy cattle were to be sold at auction, he said he would go down ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... calves he bought for his auction next week," said Peter. "Guess he didn't pen 'em in good to-night. Well, you youngsters don't miss anything, do you? You run back to bed now, and in the morning we'll do a ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... July, and August and save fifty of their lives. You could count upon a half hour's diversion with it at faro in one of the fortified art galleries. It would furnish an education to an ambitious boy. I am told that a genuine Corot was secured for that amount in an auction room yesterday. You could move to a New Hampshire town and live respectably two years on it. You could rent Madison Square Garden for one evening with it, and lecture your audience, if you should have one, on the precariousness of the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... the Learned in England, than the Price which a small Book, intitled Spaccio della Bestia triom fante, [1] bore in a late Auction. This Book was sold for [thirty [2]] Pound. As it was written by one Jordanus Brunus, a professed Atheist, with a design to depreciate Religion, every one was apt to fancy, from the extravagant Price it bore, that there must be ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... was at the beginning of that garden suburb. God, it must be beastly living in those new houses; like beginning to colour a pipe. I'm glad we live in this old place. Well, a chap who'd bought some timber at an auction down in Surrey, and was taking it home to Laindon, dropped a log off his lorry, and I smashed into it and burst a tyre and broke half a dozen spokes in my front wheel, so I had to hunt round till I found ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... recruiting authorities issue an order on the spot imposing a fine on his family. The police then appear in the house of his parents to collect the sum of three hundred rubles. In default of cash, they attach the property of the paupers and have it subsequently sold at public auction. In the case of those who possess nothing that can be taken from them the police insist on their giving a signed promise not to leave the town. Their passports are taken from them, so that, not being able to absent ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... Ship's Steward, it had faced audiences across impromptu footlights as "The Pale Pink Pierrots," and, as such, had achieved a meteoric distinction. But unhappily the Ship's Steward was partial to oysters, and bought a barrelful at an auction sale ashore. On the face of things, it appeared a bargain; but the Ship's Steward neglected to inquire too closely into the antecedents of its contents, and was duly wafted to ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... evil. The merchant feared a financial crisis, the repudiation of Southern debts and his own consequent inability to maintain the social position which his easily earned wealth had secured; the politician, who, at the great auction-sales of Northern pride and principle held every four years, had so often sought to outbid his rivals in baseness, that his party or faction might win the Presidential prize, turned pale at the prospect of losing Southern support; the divine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... to whom I was introduced, volunteered to show me to a position from which I would safely see the whole performance, which was the auction of cattle for rent—I was quite glad to have the kind offices of this gentleman, as without them I would have seen very little indeed. As I passed down the street under the wing of the clergy, I was amused at the innocent manner in ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... sales of the cargoes of German fishing vessels and five per cent on imported supplies. Out of this they pay half of one per cent to the government on the German and one per cent on the foreign sales. No fees are charged to importers and dealers using the auction section of the fish market. Out of the percentage paid to the government by the auctioneers is provided light and water, the cleansing of the halls and the carting away of refuse for destruction. Strict regulations govern the inspection of the fish and to ...
— A Terminal Market System - New York's Most Urgent Need; Some Observations, Comments, - and Comparisons of European Markets • Mrs. Elmer Black
... auction of the wreck, which, by arrangement, is to be Pinkerton's prey, the mysterious opposition of the other bidder, so determined to win an object apparently so worthless, is no less thrilling than the sale ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... what related to the negro quarter. He had heard that himself, his wife, his daughter,—"the leetle Chloe,"—with all their fellow-slaves, were to be carried down to the city, and to be sold in the slave-market by auction. They were to be taken the following day. They were already advertised. That was all he knew. No, not all,—one other piece of information he had in store for me. It was authentic: he had heard the "white folks" talk of it to one another:—Larkin, Gayarre, ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... was goin' to be in it, too. Can't play pinochle alone, can you? And in a place like this where there's nothing goin' on but silly billiards, or that bridge auction, a feller's gotta find some amusement, ain't he? Saginaw they comes to the house 'most every night—Hoffmeyer and ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... some girl who sings to preside at the Shamrock booth and sing Irish songs as Nora O'Malley did," planned Grace. "We can't have the Mystery Auction, because we don't care to ask the girls for packages, and we can't have the Italian booth, either, it would be too hard to arrange, but we can have a gypsy camp and a Japanese booth and an English tea shop and two or three funny little shows. The best thing to do is ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... sportsmen, attended the auction of the Lordnor stables, and seemed bent on adding the entire string of splendid horses to his own far-famed ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... the situation hopeless or conclude that a period of several years must ensue before the Cardigans work out of debt, I shall recommend to the bank which holds the deed of trust and acts as trustee, that the property be sold at public auction to the highest bidder to reimburse the bondholders. Of course," he hastened to add, "if the property sells for more than the corporation owes such excess will then in due course be turned over to ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... when I found myself standing on the toppen part of a high stump with a lot of white folks walking around looking at the little scared boy that was me. Pretty soon the old master, (that's my first master) Saul Nudville, he say to me that I'm now belonging to Major Bee and for me to get down off the auction block. ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various |
