"Haggling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... herself allowing the reins of Jo's house to remain in Eva's hands. And everything feminine and normal in her rebelled. Emily knew she'd want to put away her own freshly laundered linen, and smooth it, and pat it. She was that kind of woman. She knew she'd want to do her own delightful haggling with butcher and vegetable pedlar. She knew she'd want to muss Jo's hair, and sit on his knee, and even quarrel with him, if necessary, without the awareness of three ever-present pairs ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... the church, you remember, I saw an apple-woman, from whose stores I determined to finish my dessert, which had been imperfect at home. But, mindful of meritorious and economical Prue, I was not the man to pay exorbitant prices for apples, and while still haggling with the wrinkled Eve who had tempted me, I became suddenly aware of a carriage approaching, and, indeed, already close by. I raised my eyes, still munching an apple which I held in one hand, while the other grasped my walking-stick (true to my instincts of dinner guests, as young women ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... man's eyes would water at sight of that stern, long-faced puritan, who never had much to say in the house, but went into high dudgeon over the slightest waste on the part of the domestics, scolding the farmhands for the merest oversight in the orchards, haggling and wrangling with the orange drummers for a centime more or less per hundredweight. That new daughter of his was to be the solace ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... safeguarded our honor, can bring us no other gains; we now return to the joy of fruitful work, and will grasp the sword again only if you attempt to crowd us out of that which we have won with our blood. Of a solemn peace conference, with haggling over terms, parchment, and seal, we have no need. The prisoners are to be freed. You can keep your fortresses if they do not seem to you to be worthless, if the rebuilding of them still seems worth while to you. Tomorrow is ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... had been bought by a connoisseur by special commission. He heard at every stall triumphant accounts of the grand outlay of the Travis Underwoods and Rotherwoods, and just the contrary of Mrs. Pettifer, whom he encountered going about in search of bargains, and heard haggling for a handsome table-cover, because it was quite aesthetic, and would not do except in a large house, so of ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to show their fatness. Camwood ground and made into flat cakes for sale and earthen balls, such as are eaten in the disease safura or earth-eating, are offered and there is quite a roar of voices in the multitude, haggling. It was pleasant to be among them compared to being with the slaves, who were all eager to go back to Zanzibar: some told me that they were slaves, and required a free man to thrash them, and proposed to go back to Ujiji for ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... here is gray, dirty, and malodorous—both buildings and locality, and court-yards and people. The majority of the people whom I met here were ragged and half-clad. Some were passing through, others were running from door to door. Two were haggling over some rags. I made the circuit of the entire building from Prototchny Alley and Beregovoy Passage, and returning I halted at the gate of one of these houses. I wished to enter, and see what was going on inside, but I felt that it would be awkward. What should I say ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... Housewives with perambulators and oil-cloth shopping bags. Children on rollerskates. The din of small tradesmen and the humdrum of every city block where the homes remain unbearded all summer and every wife is on haggling terms with the purveyor of her evening roundsteak ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... lantern hung in a tree by our expectant friends, towards which we steered our course to dry land. By the aid of the light we found the trail, and at length reached the Major's hotel, hungry and tired. Here we found our embarrassed host haggling and swearing with a bearer of provisions who refused to leave the goods until he ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... battle were arranged at once, without haggling on either side. Weaver was to have a repeating Winchester and a belt full of cartridges, the others such weapons as they chose. The duel was to start with two hundred and fifty yards separating the combatants, but this distance could be increased or diminished at will. Such cover as ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... blood on the earth—all the same?" Look at him beside Michael Angelo's, and then tell me the Venetians can't draw! And also, Carpaccio does it with a touch, with one sweep of his brush; three minutes at the most allowed for all the beast; while Michael Angelo has been haggling at this dragon's neck ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... wealth is boundless. The lying is mostly from fright. They dare not suggest a difference of opinion to a European, and lie to get out of scrapes which blind obedience has often got them into. As to the charges of shopkeepers, that is the custom, and the haggling a ceremony you must submit to. It is for the purchaser or employer to offer a price and fix wages—the reverse of Europe—and if you ask the price they ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... all, he can't object to that, can he? Besides, I never buy without haggling," he expostulated, suddenly ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... child who is the little housekeeper. One thinks that perhaps this early training in the art of haggling may not be good for her. Already there is a hard expression in the childish eyes, mean lines about the little mouth. The finer qualities of humanity are expensive luxuries, not to be ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... application to the welfare of the masses; he will be tempted to pay an exorbitant price for anything that can increase his personal convenience, and yet when the question is about improving the supply of necessaries to the poor, stand haggling about considerations of profitable investment, excuse himself from doing the duty which lies nearest to him by visions of distant profit, of which a thousand unexpected accidents may deprive him after all, and make his boasted scientific care for the wealth of the ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... is hard to confess that a man's ideal comes short of his expectations when put to the trial, I am free to confess that although he enjoyed it all, Kettle was not at his happiest when he was attending his crops or his sheep, or haggling with his fellow farmers on Mondays over fat ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... boy! You can't steal anything, or do anything against the law, be it of man or of morals or of the spirit—that you don't have to pay for it—and there is no use in haggling beforehand or in squealing after. The thing is to learn early enough in life what is worth while and what you really want, before you lay up ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... in order to make her escape, he would give it to her without any haggling whatever. She could name the sum. The captain was disposed to satisfy all her desires except that of living with her. He would give her a substantial amount in order to make her fortune assured ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... The doctor's views of the glory of his profession cried out against this wretched haggling, and yet what was he to do? "Where am I to get 'arf-a-crown? It is well for gentlefolk like you who sit in your grand houses, and can eat and drink what you like, an' charge 'arf-a-crown for just saying as much as, ''Ow d'ye do?' We can't pick up' arf-crowns like that. What ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... possessed of surprising endurance, and would accompany us indefinitely, heavily laden as they were. Their robes trailed in the wind as they jumped ditches, screaming out their wares without a moment's pause. An Indian of the boat's crew was haggling with a woman about a chicken. He threw her an eight-anna piece. She picked up the money but would not hand him the chicken, holding out for her original price. He jumped ashore, intending to take the chicken. She had a few yards' start and made the most of it. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... was to go, frankly fronting at once the chances of the road, he might have been at Dresden again perhaps within a week,—no Siege possible for Friedrich, hardly the big guns got up from Magdeburg. But Friedrich calculated there would be very considerable fettling and haggling on Daun's part; say a good Fortnight of Siege allowed;—and that, by dead-lift effort of all hands, the thing was feasible within that limit. On Friedrich's part, as we can fancy, there was no want of effort; nor on his people's ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Obed. He proposed to supply us with boats to cross the river, if we would give up our muskets in payment. This, of course, we refused: but offered him the whole collection of beads and trinkets that we had brought with us in the hope of trafficking for food. After some haggling—to which the handsome chief, Yootramaki, listened with seeming disdain—the toen undertook to let us have the boats; and presently one appeared, paddled by three naked savages. As this would barely hold a dozen passengers, we begged for another, that we might all ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... common sense soon accomplished in America what neither the bullying of Loudoun nor the New Englander's hatred of the French could effect. In 1756 no more than five thousand troops were raised in all New England and New York. Governor Pownall was haggling as usual with his assembly over a levy of two thousand men, when there arrived in Boston Pitt's order that henceforth colonial officers should take rank with regulars, according to the date of their commissions. ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... had been used to haggling all his life when trading in cattle, now he gazed at the strange gentleman full of admiration for such wealth. He led the way to Solheid's ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... inches of cold steel into your body at whatever point I chose; but I am a good sort of fellow, and instead of a sword-thrust I prefer to give you some advice which your master will do well to profit by. This is what I would do if I were in your place; I would hunt up Moessard and buy him without haggling over the price. Hemerlingue has given him twenty thousand francs to speak, I would offer him thirty ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... and watched him feebly scrawl a "T" and what might have been an "o"—and a haggling "m"; and then the pencil dropped. He looked so strange, he scarcely breathed; and frightened, Charley darted into the other room where his father ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... to lead a crusade to the Holy Land, which he undertook in hopes of being elected Latin emperor of Constantinople. The crusade excited no enthusiasm in Hungary, but Andrew contrived to collect 15,000 men together, whom he led to Venice; whence, not without much haggling and the surrender of all the Hungarian claims upon Zara, about two-thirds of them were conveyed to Acre. But the whole expedition was a forlorn hope. The Christian kingdom of Palestine was by this time reduced to a strip of coast about 440 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... admiring. He told them how he had obtained them at a sacrifice sale, and was thus enabled to sell them quite reasonable. The lady who led the party did not wish to bid on the articles at auction, so Andy very obligingly set a figure, and after some little haggling, the lady took three dollars' worth of goods, to be delivered at her house on the outskirts of ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... Hanneh Breineh resolved never to go down to the public dining-room again, but to make use of the gas-stove in the kitchenette to cook her own meals. That very day she rode down to Delancey Street and purchased a new market-basket. For some time she walked among the haggling push-cart venders, relaxing and swimming in the warm waves of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... door and he had to compensate the parents heavily. When that was settled another son did the same, calling on all to witness that he did this because of the injustice his parents had suffered at the hands of this man. This time a much heavier indemnity was demanded and after months of haggling it was paid. Then a third son killed himself in like manner and the payment of the still further increased blood money reduced the once wealthy man to a state poorer than his rival. Again the law suit was heard and this time the country family won ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... again. Once we had reached the haggling stage, I knew the papers would be mine all right. With Semlin's money and my own I found I had about L550, but I had no intention of paying out L500 straight away. So I beat the fellow down unmercifully and finally secured the lot ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... ship a year to trade at Porto Bello in South America. It seems a sufficiently ignoble bargain for a great nation to exact: the monopoly of carrying and selling cargoes of black men and the right to send a single ship yearly to a Spanish colony. We can hardly imagine grave diplomats of our day haggling over such terms. But the eighteenth century was not the twentieth. From the treaty the British expected amazing results. The South Sea Company was formed to carry on a vast trade with South America. One ship a year could, of course, ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... arrival of the treaty of peace Jackson lingered at New Orleans, haggling by day with the contractors and merchants whose cotton, blankets, and bacon were yet to be paid for, and enjoying in the evening the festivities planned in his honor by grateful citizens. His pleasure in the gala affairs of the time was ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... The haggling over such a matter and the coarse mercenary nature of the woman jarred upon the poet's sensitive soul. The plain fact that he hadn't got twenty guineas in the world could not be gainsaid. But he had rich friends. If he could only interest them ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... purchasers. He knew so many dealers, but he knew, too, that the war had played the devil with them as with everyone else. Still, he thought of several who would find it hard to resist the temptation. He would see them to-morrow, one by one, and get them bidding, haggling. ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... a little haggling for terms, as the two gentlemen did not wish to appear eager to go; but the matter was finally settled to the ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... perilous than they seem to think, when they enter on the field of argument with men who for many years have made it a subject of special study. It is not by "bidding down" the age of the extinct or quiescent volcanoes by a species of blind haggling, or by presuming mistake in the calculations regarding them, simply because mistakes are possible and have sometimes been made, that that portion of the cumulative evidence against a universal deluge which ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... a joke out of a Midnight Revue. Then he clipped a luridly illustrated advertisement of a nerve-medicine out of his newspaper and pinned it on my bedroom door, after I had ignored his tentative knock thereon the night before. The picture showed an anemic and woebegone couple haggling and shaking their fists at each other, while a large caption announced that "Thousands of Married Folks Lead a Cat and Dog Life—Are Cross, Crabbed and Grumpy!"—all of which could be obviated if ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... is an institution coeval with the capital. We are told that while crabbed old Davy Burns, the owner of the most valuable part of the site of Washington City, was haggling with General Washington over his proportion of lots, his neglected and intemperate brother, Tommy, was an inmate of ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... no further haggling. The Indians seemed to recognise that the time for that was past. After a brief consultation they grunted their acceptance and proceeded to pack up their goods, but with no good will. More vividly than any in the company they realised the immensity of the fraud ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... see that the consent of the Powers to this infamous scheme was only the result of the Sultan's wearisome delays, which after fourteen weeks of unprofitable haggling and bargaining have made the ambassadors anxious to get the matter settled one way or another, and be rid of the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 44, September 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... December 16, 1773. What a contention is going on far over seas at Boston, New England. The case is well known and still memorable to mankind. British parliament, after nine years of the saddest haggling, and baffling to and fro under constitutional stress of weather, and such east winds and west winds of parliamentary eloquence as seldom were, has made up its mind that America shall pay duty on their teas before infusing them, and America, Boston more especially, ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... be able to accept it, a formal treaty between the two States might be made; if it was more than Bismarck was willing to grant, then there would be an opportunity for prolonging negotiations with France, and haggling over smaller points, and he would be able to come to some agreement with Austria quickly. If he could not come to any agreement with France, and war were to break out, he would always have this advantage, that he would be able to make it appear that the cause of war arose not ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... he could gain any advantage by sacrificing either. Livingston was astonished to find that Napoleon had suddenly changed front, and that there was every prospect of gaining what for months had seemed impossible. For some time there was haggling over the terms. Napoleon at first demanded an exorbitant sum; but having once made up his mind to part with Louisiana his impatient disposition made him anxious to conclude the bargain. He rapidly abated his demands, and the cession was finally made ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of our friend, the Jew, however, we finally persuaded the sheepskin gentleman (a native of Khiva) to change his mind. After considerable haggling as to price, he disappeared, to return with two of the sorriest steeds I ever set eyes on. "We ought to reach Enzelli in about three days, if we do not get our throats cut," said the Khivan, who was to accompany ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... come to the test he would have cut off a finger before harming either of them. But Makoki knew nothing of their adventures, and on this morning when they came down to the feast he was a hundred miles away, haggling with a white man who wanted a guide. He would never know that Iskoo Wapoo was at his side that very moment, planning the thing that was to mean so much in the lives ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... long as effort endures, organisms go on from change to change, altering and being altered—that is to say, either killing themselves piecemeal in deference to the surroundings or killing the surroundings piecemeal to suit themselves. There is a ceaseless higgling and haggling, or rather a life-and-death struggle between these two things as long as life lasts, and one or other or both have in no small part to re-enter into the womb from whence they came and be born again in some form which shall give ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... not for the Passover rabble to finish its haggling over locusts and fish and oil. Ugh! The mob! And as I struggled for a place at the fish stand the sun passed over the mountain and left the valley grim. And lo, as I did travel, my fish and my sparrows slipped from me and to escape the hoofs and dust of a party of pilgrims I took my way behind ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... a half—and a half," the lawyer admitted in a tone of indifference, as much as to say that there should be no haggling about the odd $500,000. "What a pretty pile it ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... sent Seyed Majid's letter up to Jumbe, but the messenger met some coast Arabs at the Loangwa, which may be seven miles from this, and they came back with him, haggling a deal about the fare, and then went off, saying that they would bring the dhow here for us. Finding that they did not come, I sent Musa, who brought back word that they had taken the dhow away over to Jumbe at Kotakota, or, as they pronounce it, Ngotagota. Very few of the coast ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... a large supply of English goods on hand at the time, the prices of which would of course instantly fall, he set about disposing of them as soon as possible to his less informed and unsuspecting customers. The little Frenchman was one of his victims. After much haggling, and the offer of a long credit, the importer effected a bill of sale of goods to him, to the amount of something like twenty thousand dollars, taking his notes on long time in payment. These he considered perfectly good, of course, as his customer's reputation in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... choice library, which showed to the world at once how elegant was his taste and knowledge. At once it became recherche. A few copies at a guinea were for sale, with a view to let the public know something of his treasures, but it is now at a fancy price. Once when I was in a dealer's shop "haggling" over an "old play," for which I think two guineas was asked, and which seemed to me a monstrous price, Locker came in quietly, and took the book up, which was the interlude of Jacke Drum. I told him of the price—"Take it, I advise you, he said, it is very cheap. I assure you ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... the public policies the wheels of state are continually clogged by the "opposition;" always an opposition on one side or the other; and this slow wiggling uneven progress, through shorn victories and haggling concessions, is held to be the proper ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... evidence and to know how far to go in the matter of setting people right without going too far; the question of what is too far and what is sufficient evidence can only be settled by the higgling and haggling of the literary market. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... boldly there and demand them. 'Poor Becky! Poor Joseph!' her heart wailed. 'You to be beaten and neglected after having known the love of a mother.' True, it would not be easy to support them. But a little more haggling, a little more tramping, a little more mending, and a little less gorging and gormandising! They would be at school during the day, so would not interfere with her rounds, and in the evening she could have them with her as she sat refurbishing ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... please her he would have given twice twenty pesetas for half the distance. The boy was engaged without further haggling; the animals were harnessed to the big Lecomte with rope which the youth "happened" to have; and with a thrilling cry of "A-r-r-r-i! O-lah!" he struck the two ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... pushing a wheelbarrow before him filled with lobsters. Housewives followed by negro servants were purchasing meats and vegetables, holding eggs to the light to see if they were fresh, tasting pats of butter, handling chickens, and haggling with the farmers about the prices of what ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... act for General Cromwell in the matter of settlements, over which there was considerable haggling, though Oliver writes that "the report of the young lady's godliness causeth him to deny himself in the matter of moneys." More correspondence ensued, as to the settlement of Hursley upon Dorothy and her heirs male, and the compensation to her younger sister Anne. Cromwell was anxious to hurry ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... hide her weeping. "Reasons! reasons!" she stammered. "What does the heart know of reasons? I ask a favour—the first I ever asked of you—and you answer it by haggling ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... priest but newly arrived from his native island of Asia," said Bottles piously; "and it ill beseems you, mother dear, to be haggling when you might be getting the holy man and I ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... to have a good idea of the value of the trifles we offered, there was no 'haggling,' and latterly, when trade slackened, it came to be, "Sir! if you like this, I will give it to you, and ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... sits a Chinaman, casting up accounts, with the ancient abacus [165] still serving him for practical reckoning. Another is ready at the counter to strike the bargain, whilst a third crafty Celestial lounges about the entrance to tout for custom, with a margin on his prices for haggling which is high or low according to whether the intending purchaser be ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... hundred francs last month? You turn up the books, lad, and see what we make by placards and the registers at the Prefecture, and the work for the mayor's office, and the bishop too. You are a do-nothing that has no mind to get on. You are haggling over the horse that will carry you to some pretty bit ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... case. On the contrary, Mrs. Trimmings watched with a vigilant eye, and was ready to pounce on Phillis at the least mistake or oversight, seeing which Phillis grew cooler and more off-hand every moment. There was a great deal of haggling over the cut of the sleeve and arrangement of the drapery. "If you will kindly leave it to me," Phillis said once; but nothing was further from Mrs. Trimmings's intention. She had not a silk dress every day. And she had always been accustomed ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... food of the chief, and after considerable haggling on the part of the monarch succeeded in obtaining a meal. He then tried to draw out others of the tribe, especially the young man whom he had captured in the bush, but M'ganwazam's presence sealed ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... various groups of Iligan natives and Moros from the hills, all squatting on the ground, and haggling over the price of fish and eggs. There were Moro chiefs, looking world-wearied and indifferent, followed by their attendant slaves; there were thrifty Moros willing to sell one anything from a ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... the young dry goods dealer was selling at one price—a custom which has also lasted without interruption, and which has spread to all the great houses. He fixed his price, after careful consideration, at what he thought the goods could and would bring, and would not deviate from it for any haggling, or to suit individual cases. Of course, he followed the fluctuations of the market, and marked his goods up or down in accordance with it; but no difference in the price was made to different people. Perhaps those who had some art in 'beating ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Poupit, pulpit. Pouse, a push. Poussie, a hare (also a cat). Pouther, powther, powder. Pouts, chicks. Pow, the poll, the head. Pownie, a pony. Pow't, pulled. Pree'd, pried (proved), tasted. Preen, a pin. Prent, print. Prie, to taste. Prief, proof. Priggin, haggling. Primsie, dim. of prim, precise. Proveses, provosts. Pu', to pull. Puddock-stools, toadstools, mushrooms. Puir, poor. Pun', pund, pound. Pursie, dim. of purse. Pussie, a hare. Pyet, a magpie. Pyke, to ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... as white as a sheet, got up and went back to the yard. It was dreary enough out there, but not as insufferable as sitting in the close room listening to the haggling. ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... to make his portrait, paying him without haggling, in order that he might appear at the Exhibition, quite as good a way as any other of introducing his insignificance among the famous men who were painted by the artist. After that he was on intimate terms with ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... glanced at the clock, when, after much haggling, the deal was concluded, and the Burman knotted the remainder of his money in a small corner of his loongyi, and stood rubbing his elbows, looking at ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... Johnston a positive order to move his army to Manassas. The order was obeyed with a hesitation which imperiled the issue of battle. And while on the march, Beauregard's pickets exchanging shots with McDowell's skirmish line, Johnston began the first of his messages of complaint and haggling to his Chief at Richmond. Jealous of Beauregard's popularity and fearful of his possible insubordination, Johnston telegraphed Davis demanding that his relative rank to Beauregard should be clearly defined before the juncture ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... rising; but to the evenings—Caleb never understood the rush and confusion that entered the big market and grocery with the lighting of the flaring gas jets. To him it was a time for quiet meditation and sleep—not for haggling over the price of ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... saw, but when first I ever had any words with him, the giant stepped out of a sedan chair in the Poultry, whither he had come with a tipsy Irish servant parading before him, who announced him, bawling out his Reverence's name, whilst his master below was as yet haggling with the chairman. I disliked this Mr. Swift, and heard many a story about him, of his conduct to men, and his words to women. He could flatter the great as much as he could bully the weak; and Mr. Esmond, being younger and hotter ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... he was crossing the street, and saw him enter a house, after saying something to a second-hand clothes man who was bawling out his goods from the open store on the ground floor. By the time I had bought two silk handkerchiefs and a pair of boots, and was haggling like mad over a collection of linen collars, size 16—a present for you, Steingall—his nobility came downstairs, but not alone; there was a girl with him. Luckily, she was no Hungarian, but Italian, and they talked in broken English. 'They no come-a here-a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... very well that the old woman had not a penny of her own. Uncle Jabez would never have given her a cent without knowing just what it was for, and haggling over the expenditure then, a good deal. To his view, Aunt Alviry was an object of his charity, too, although for more than ten years the old woman had kept his house like wax and had saved him the wages ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... never advancing on offers, or bargaining; let taking or leaving things at once be the rule. Time and delays are money to the traveller, and it is worth much to save time in haggling. Your donkey-boy will soon ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... are arranged on the sand, baskets full of eggs and dates, flanked by piles of bread and little round cakes of white butter; bundles of fire-wood are heaped up close by, and pails of goat's or camel's milk abound; and amid all these sit rows of countrywomen, haggling with tall Persians, who in broken Arabic try to beat down the prices, and generally end by paying only double what they ought. The swaggering, broad-faced, Bagdad camel-drivers, and ill-looking, sallow youths stand idle everywhere, insulting ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... snow as she went, to a door that rang a noisy bell as she opened it and went in. A musty smell filled the close room. Packages, great and small, lay piled high on shelves behind the worn counter. A slovenly woman was haggling with the pawnbroker about the money for a skirt ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... on the ground; see how we shake our garments. Come, no haggling, lay down your sword; we threw away everything while crossing from one side of the stage to ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... my income in England, paid weekly too, by your agreeable self, with whom it is a pleasure to talk over old times. Therefore that proposal is out of the question. Tell Colonel Morley, with my compliments, that if he will double the sum, and leave me to spend it where I please, I scorn haggling, and say 'done.' And as to the girl, since I cannot find her (which, on penalty of being threshed to a mummy, you will take care not to let out), I would agree to leave Mr. Darrell free to disown her. But are you such a dolt as not to see that I put ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... less; and this book, perhaps, when it is old and foxy, and some one picks it up in a corner of a book-shop, and glances through it, smiling at the old, graceless turns of speech, and perhaps for the love of Alma Mater (which may be still extant and flourishing) buys it, not without haggling, for some pence—this book may alone preserve a memory of James Walter Ferrier ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... side. This was what may be called the rag fair of Moscow. The booths or shops contain all the articles either for dress or household purposes used by the mujicks. The sellers and purchasers were all talking and laughing, and haggling and chattering away as if the affairs of the nation depended on what they were about, and yet probably a few kopecks would have paid for any one of the articles bought or sold. At the end of the street the travellers came ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... did not quail before the insults. He had often heard his Patron use these same words when holding somebody up to ridicule, or haggling with certain cattle drovers. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... continental visits, and tours in England, Scotland, and Wales, all undertaken apparently with professional objects,—incessant squabblings with his engravers, the most wearisome haggling with picture-dealers, genuine hard work, and the production of very perfect specimens of landscape art, and the outlines of Turner's life seem to be fairly sketched. His passion for his profession was intense, yet with it was the keenest love of its emoluments. His industry was beyond all praise, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... hands. He bore now trophies greater, perhaps, than any man of his age ever had brought home with him. What Washington had defended was not so great as that which Lewis won. It required them both to make an America for us haggling ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... of dealing with me put me in a fury, and I was especially enraged by the manner which that venomous toad assumed in discharging his commission. I exclaimed that if the Duke gave me ten thousand crowns I should not be paid enough, and that if I had ever thought things would come to this haggling, I should not have settled in his service. Thereupon the surly fellow began to abuse me, and I ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... stored home-made firkins full of yellow butter, and great cheeses, and heaps of substantial home-baked bread. Kegs of hard cider and spruce beer and perhaps more potent brews are abroach, and behind the haggling and jesting and bustle you may catch the sound of muskets or the whoop of the Indians from afar. Meanwhile, in the settlements, all manner of industries were stimulated, and a great number of women throughout the country, left to take ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... tomahawk, or the like, and all this was agreed to, Cho being a great assistance in explaining and dealing with his people. But it proved very difficult to keep them up to bringing a sufficient supply, and as they had a full share of the universal spirit of haggling, the commissariat was a very harassing and troublesome business, and as to the boys, it was evident that the experiment was not successful. Going to New Zealand was seeing the world. Horses, cows, sheep, a town, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was closed. Thursday next the first audience would be held at Can Mallorqui. Febrer, who had heard the conversation, glanced at the verro, who held himself aloof, as if his greatness prevented his condescending to wretched haggling over ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Vassilyevitch went shopping before dinner, and, after persistent haggling, bought a tiny gold cross on a little velvet ribbon. "Though she declares," he thought, "that she never takes presents, we all know what such sayings mean; and if she really is so disinterested, Emilie won't be so squeamish." So ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... progressing. A basis for haggling had been established. Sam Turner, however, had the advantage. He knew the sharp advance in walnut announced that morning. Old man Gifford would not be aware of it until the rural free delivery brought his evening paper, of the night before, some time that afternoon. In view ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... me. One bit of haggling or hesitation might have hardened me even now; the serpent within me would have lifted its head and struck. But you have saved yourself—and very well for that! The articles are those six ball-and-claw-foot chairs with violin backs. I will ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... Liverpool.'—And there, sure enough, it is. Now my impulse was, and is, decidedly to return it. Twenty pounds is not of moment to me; and any sacrifice of independence is worth it twenty times' twenty times told. But haggling in my mind is a doubt whether that would be proper, and not boastful (in an inexplicable way); and whether as an author, I have a right to put myself on a basis which the professors of literature in other forms connected with the Institution cannot afford to occupy. Don't ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... "Rhal bois-canot!"... Then as the boat is pulled through the surf and hauled up on the sand, the pushing and screaming and crying become irritating and deafening; the fishermen lose patience and say terrible things. But nobody heeds them in the general clamoring and haggling and furious bidding for the pousson- ououge, the dorades, the volants (beautiful purple-backed flying-fish with silver bellies, and fins all transparent, like the wings of dragon-flies). There is great bargaining even for a young shark,—which makes very nice eating cooked after ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... you are; nothing will come right until you drop your insincere chatter, your haggling, your agitating and compromising, and begin to think. Here is a people that has lost the basis of its existence, because, in its blind faith in authority, it staked that existence on prosperity and power; and both are gone. Do you want to stake our existence, on ships, soldiers, mines, ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... properly dismissed as plainly frivolous. In the end of the letter more sincerity peeped out, as the writer lapsed from formality into friendship. "I know I shall surprise many people and grieve some, but I'm sick of the thing. I can't endure the perpetual haggling between what I ought to do and what I'm expected to do; the compromises that result satisfy me as little as anybody. In fine, my dear Constantine, I'm going back to my pictures, my books, my hills, and my friends." Constantine read with a genuine sorrow ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... without a purchase, however slight. It was a saying of his that while it took half-a-crown to purchase you two hours' amusement at a theatre, for a couple of shillings, or even less, you might divide out a whole Saturday most enjoyably in the old book-shops. He simply rioted in haggling over a threepenny piece. Even old Henderson feared him. This Henderson was a thirsty old bookseller who kept a shop at the corner of Cowcaddens and Ingram Street, and whose leading speciality was second-hand family Bibles, with the former genealogical ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... is he?" says he. "Rising eight," says I. "Well," he says, "what do you want for it?" "Why, the first and last figure for the whole concern is five-and-twenty pound!" "That's very cheap!" he says, looking at me. "Ain't it?" I says. "I told you it was a bargain! Now, without any higgling and haggling about it, what I want is to sell, and that's my price. Further, I'll make it easy to you, and take half the money down, and you can do a bit of ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... rest—the grimace of an over-strained philosophy. It's rather a comfort, for the curiosity-shops are amusing. You have bad moments indeed as you stand in their halls of humbug and, in the intervals of haggling, hear through the high windows the soft splash of the sea on the old water-steps, for you think with anger of the noble homes that are laid waste in such scenes, of the delicate lives that must have been, that might still be, led there. You reconstruct ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... won't take a pice less than Rs. 100." After several minutes wasted on haggling, it was agreed that Asu Babu should be paid Rs. 40 on the nail and Rs. 35 more if he won the suit. The pleader pocketed this first instalment, and assured Samarendra that he would prove the sale to have been perfectly valid. Then the trio separated, Samarendra returning to Bipin's house where ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... Maria! Is this the woman who, anon, braved the jeers and brutal wrath of swindling hackney-coachmen; who repelled the insolence of haggling porters, with a scorn that brought down their demands at least eighteenpence? Is this the woman at whose voice servants tremble; at the sound of whose steps the nursery, ay, and mayhap the parlor, is in order? Look at her now, prostrate, prostrate—no strength ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the situation into which they had been brought was harsh and exasperating, and utterly injudicious, imprudent, and mischievous in all its bearings, producing a condition of things truly scandalous. His notions and methods, acquired in his mercantile life; his haggling with the people about the terms of his salary; and his general manner and tone, particularly so far as they had been formed by residence in West-India slave Islands,—were thoroughly distasteful, and entirely repugnant, to the feelings, notions, ideas, and spirit of the farmers ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... and worries my life out with haggling and bargaining, but has not yet agreed to any terms, and I am half distracted with all the various advice tendered me.... In the mean time, I am much comforted about my readings; for I received yesterday morning a very ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... a customer, and, with much haggling after the manner of his kind, disposed of his boat, the last tie, if tie there was, that bound him to his present life. Waterman he had always been, and now had come to him the call of the Father of All Waters. The tang of the ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... moment their voices sounded through the floor of the kitchen, an indistinct, continuous murmur. Then the party returned and passed by Vandover again and stood for a long time in the front room haggling. The cottage rented for fifteen dollars. The young woman was willing to take it at that, but with the understanding that Geary should pay the water rent. Geary refused, unwilling even to listen to such a thing. Every other tenant ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... returned to Maracaibo again, where they demanded a ransom of thirty thousand pieces of eight for the city. There was no haggling here, thanks to the fate of Gibraltar; only it was utterly impossible to raise that much money in all of the poverty-stricken region. But at last the matter was compromised, and the town was redeemed for twenty thousand pieces of eight and five hundred head of cattle, and tortured Maracaibo ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... new ways of satisfying them come to view, lies the main hope of developing the Potomac water resource in such a way as to avoid waste of money, waste of water itself, and waste of the landscape and the general environment. Without it, nothing can result but a piecemeal haggling to bits of the river system as local demands grow acute and local pressures force the adoption of one-shot measures. With it, towns and areas and industries can be guided toward sensible and thrifty action that fits in with the wellbeing of the whole Potomac region—toward ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... remain in Eva's hands. And everything feminine and normal in her rebelled. Emily knew she'd want to put away her own freshly laundered linen, and smooth it, and pat it. She was that kind of woman. She knew she'd want to do her own delightful haggling with butcher and grocer. She knew she'd want to muss Jo's hair, and sit on his knee, and even quarrel with him, if necessary, without the awareness of three ever-present pairs ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... always haggling over the question of how many dollars and cents he will sell his services for, little realizes how he is cheating himself by not looking at the larger salary he can pay himself in increasing his skill, in expanding his experience, and in making himself a better, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... more and more; but Carew will neither sell nor let; and my money grows and grows in vain. I tell you I have laid by a fortune only to pour into his hand. It is ready for him to-night; there would be no haggling, no asking for time—it would be paid him in hard cash. How long, thought I, will this madman balk me with his whim? He will die some day in his cups, or break his neck in hunting, and I shall surely come in with my offer to his heir, and have my way ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... day, that is, when you are not playing football and have just a few clothes on. I am now at a disadvantage. You could never get me to impugn your statements courageously—not in that costume. It would be like haggling with Apollo Belvedere. Why do you wear those ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... the other, 'thou shalt have half and I half.' 'Not so,' insisted Mesrour; 'I will have three- quarters.' 'Thou shalt have two-thirds, then,' rejoined Ibn el Caribi; 'and I the other third.' To this Mesrour agreed, after much haggling, and they returned ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... he must buy it and would not listen to the blacksmith who tried to dissuade him because, although the animal was full grown, it had had no calf and was probably barren. Bhagrai however preferred to be guided by the signs of which his mother had told him, and after a certain amount of haggling bought the animal for five rupees. The money was paid and he and the blacksmith set off homewards with ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... vagabond; and the word ripe for one who is very profane. The following phrases are common, "a power of people," "a hantle of money," "I can't awhile as yet." The words like and such frequently occur as expletives in conversation, "I won't stay here haggling all day and such." "If you don't give me my price like." The monosyllable as is generally substituted for that; "the last time as I called," "I reckon as I an't one," "I imagine as I am not singular." Public characters are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... a war was raging. The prejudices of the King, the haughtiness of Pitt, the jealousy, levity, and treachery of Newcastle, delayed the settlement. Pitt knew the Duke too well to trust him without security. The Duke loved power too much to be inclined to give security. While they were haggling, the King was in vain attempting to produce a final rupture between them, or to form a Government without them. At one time he applied to Lord Waldegrave, an honest and sensible man, but unpractised in affairs. Lord Waldegrave had the courage ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had the reputation now of being difficult to deal with, of haggling over fractions, and it was of this that Bowers was thinking. To others he would never admit that she was anything but perfect, though to himself he acknowledged the hardening process that was going on in her. He saw the growth of the driving ambition which made her indifferent ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... twiddling diplomats, Haggling here, plotting and hatching there, Who make the kind world but their game of cards, Till millions die ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... haggling and bargaining between Jerry and the Indian, the amount of ransom was agreed upon, and the brave rode off to bring the boys, while Jerry and I started for the train to procure the blankets, powder, brass wire, beads and tobacco, we were to give ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... procured it, the dowry was restored. If adultery were proved, the aggressor and the aggrieved [husband] came to terms—the same being done in the case of the wife—in regard to the sum that was agreed upon, after considerable haggling, and they generally remained fast friends. Consequently, some husbands were wont to make a business of that, such was their barbarism, arranging tricks, and providing occasions for their wives to repeat their adulteries, in order that they might derive infamous gains. If ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... suspicious, old vinegar-faced Honor, and her partner Pride—as penny-wise and pound-foolish a she-skinflint as herself—have the monopoly of the article. And what with the time they lose in adjusting their spectacles, hunting in the precise shelf for the precise quality demanded, then (quality found) the haggling as to quantum—considering whether it should be Apothecary's weight or Avoirdupois, or English measure or Flemish—and, finally, the hullaboloo they make if the customer is not perfectly satisfied with the monstrous ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... replied Pratt. "I've made up my mind. I'll have my own terms. It's no use—not one bit of use—haggling or discussing matters further. I'm in possession of the will—and therefore of the situation, Mrs. Mallathorpe, you've just got to ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... consideration of haggling and trafficking between Great Britain and Ireland is loathsome to every true Unionist who considers Englishmen and Irishmen as still citizens of one nation. But, when Gladstonians propose to divide the United Kingdom into two States, it is as essential as it is ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... some time found it difficult to keep up the respectful manner necessary to be observed to Sovereigns, but here, at the thought of our respective parents obstinately haggling over the same bit of jewellery, with a jeweller who was in great terror of offending either, we both threw etiquette to the ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... communication. The unlucky householder, taking no thought of the morrow, was without a spade. But if Henders would clear away the snow from his door he would be "varra obleeged." Henders, however, had to come to terms first. "The chairge is saxpence, Davit," he shouted. Then a haggling ensued. Henders must be neighborly. A plate of broth, now—or, say, twopence. But Henders was obdurate. "I'se nae time to argy-bargy wi' ye, Davit. Gin ye're no willin' to say saxpence, I'm aff to Will'um Pyatt's. He's ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... had been listening in the courtyard. Such had been his curiosity that he had come down and posted himself there, but the moment he understood the state of the case he went upstairs again and enjoyed the treat of telling Rose. Dear me! They were just haggling in her behalf! He dinned his words into her ears; she ran off to the property room. They were silent as she entered. She looked at the four men. Muffat hung his head; Fauchery answered her questioning glance with a despairing shrug of the shoulders; as to Mignon, he was busy discussing ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola |
