"Hard up" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they will buy.' She moved a little under his look, but when he said, 'I'm hard up,' ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... wrought, And these sad hands have right to tell their story, It was no hard up striving after glory, Catching and losing, gaining and failing, Raging me back at the world's raucous railing. Simply and humbly from stone and from wood, Wrought I the things that to ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Lou, there isn't a foreign nobleman, from the Emperor down, who is above grabbing a few million dollars. They're all hard up, and what do they gain by marrying ladies of noble birth if said ladies are the daughters of noblemen who are as hard up as all the rest of 'em? Besides, hasn't Maud been presented at Court? Didn't ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... owe you too much already, old man. Besides I had a sort of superstition that this temporary starvation—that's what it was, and it hurt— would bring me luck later. It's over and done with now, and none of the syndicate know how hard up I was. Fire away. What's the exact state of affairs ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... HARD UP. The tiller so placed as to carry the rudder close over to leeward of the stern-post. Also, used figuratively for being in great distress, or poverty-struck; obliged to bear up for ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... out of his breast pocket, where it had been since the previous day. "My mother sent it to me," he explained; "you see she guesses that I am hard up, and, thanks to my father, she can't send me money. This piece of jewellery she has had for many years, but as it is rather old-fashioned she never wears it. So she sent it to me, hoping that I might get ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... green as I thought," he said to himself. "Curse his prudence! I must get the money somehow, for I am precious hard up." ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... he'd scarcely take me for a man yet," said Tony, at the same time drawing himself up to his full height; "though I don't know as I should care to work for him. I'd rather have a crossing, and be my own master. But if I get hard up, do you think he'd take to me, if you ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... about wages and assault warrants, so I was given to him to make the matter up. Between you and I, the Cornet was very hard up." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... lady's kindness is long-sighted," said my husband, as he placed it on his finger. "I shall be hard up, though, before I part with this. Wynnie, I've actually got a finer diamond than Mr. Baddeley! It is a beauty, ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... from what he got from his uncle, I knew that he had finished up the jumping season well on the right side of the ledger. Why, then, was he lunching the girl at this God-forsaken eatery? It couldn't be because he was hard up. ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... owns a good house and lot with about fifty acres of ground. His house is well furnished, and he has got some splendid horses and cattle. He is intelligent and has a bank account. I don't know how the 'niggers' are in your community, but Tobe Jones is a gentleman. Once, when I was hard up, I went to Tobe Jones and borrowed fifty dollars; and he hasn't asked me for it yet. I don't know what kind of 'niggers' you have down your way, but Tobe Jones ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... mother, but, if I have any cause even to suspect that you have told her who I am, I shall not hesitate to put the police on your track. You must vanish, and be dumb—for three months at least. If you are hard up, I will give you some money—sufficient for a fortnight's needs—and you can write to me for further supplies at my London address. Even a rascal like you must be permitted to live, I suppose, so I risk breaking the law myself by screening you from justice. Those are ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... Emperor's power became more and more limited; rebels and thieves infested the roads; the route between Metemma and Magdala was closed; the Gaffat people had none to spare; and at one time it seemed as if it was perfectly impossible for messengers to reach us. Though for months we were rather hard up, what by employing servants of political prisoners, friends or relatives of the rebels, by using the influence of the Bishop, or through the protection of Wagshum Gobaze, money again found its way to Magdala, and relieved us from our apprehensions. Theodore knew indirectly ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... Penhallow worked hard up to the time set by Stanton, and meanwhile made his arrangements to leave for the field. "Now that you are going away," said Stanton, "I wish to express my warm thanks for admirable service. I may say to you that Hooker has been removed and Meade put ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... not take in the oars. One of them sat and kept a frenzied watch while they ran before the wind. It looked very awkward, but it was evident that it gave greater command of the boat. Then they suddenly dropped the sail and rowed the boat hard up against the wind—when a sea was about to break. None of the fishermen could recollect ever having seen such navigation before; it was young blood, and they knew what they were about. Every instant one felt one must say Now! But the boat was like a living thing that understood how ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... black fellow you sent me the other day, Don Ernesto—the fellow that was molesting a mad woman in the camp—- I've got him seventeen years in the line for that. I wish you would send me a few more, for hardly a letter comes from Santa Fe in which I am not asked to send in recruits, so hard up are they for ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... They're here with their cousins, the Vails, summers. Two or three died between those two, I believe. Lucky, perhaps, for the family has been awfully hard up. Lived on in their big old place, in Maryland, with no money at all. I've an idea Madge's mother wasn't so sorry to die—had a hard life of it with the fascinating Colonel." The Bishop's hand dropped from the boy's shoulder, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... sail, Mike," cried the guide, at the same time putting the helm hard up. The boat flew round, obedient to the ruling power, made one last plunge as it left the rolling surf behind, and slid gently and smoothly into still water under the lee of ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... make such a fuss about it. Of course I'll pay it. I had no idea the poor fellow was hard up. I'm as shocked as any of you about it. [Putting his hand into his pocket] Here you are. [Finding his pocket empty] Oh, I say, I havnt any money on me just at present. Walpole: would you mind lending me half-a-crown just ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... in Wall street have not been fortunate of late," resumed the stranger; "and I am in consequence hard up." ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... p.m. we decide to take the big iron boat of the steamer and go hunting. The natives are exceedingly skilful and know all the likely places for hippo. They first paddle hard up stream and having arrived at the hunting ground allow the boat to drift down with the current in perfect silence. It is clear moonlight, but it is necessary to cover the fore sight of the rifle with white paper in order ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... saying how he would like to crib him if he was only out, on the general election coming on, and make him take a drop of what he called election whiskey. And you know, sir, it's hard for a body to stand up against all these things, specially when a body's bin disappointed in love. It's bin a hard up and down with him. To-day he would make a bit of good weather, and to-morrow he'd be all up in a hurricane." And the old sailor takes a fresh quid of tobacco, wipes Tom's face, gets the brush and fusses over him, and tells him to cheer ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her to understand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to put too fine a point upon it," a favourite apology for plain speaking with Mr. Snagsby, which he always offers with a sort of argumentative frankness, "hard up! My little woman is not in general partial to strangers, particular—not to put too fine a point upon it—when they want anything. But she was rather took by something about this person, whether by his being unshaved, or by his hair being in want of attention, or by what other ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... "always go to pieces after they've been hard up for a while and finally get grub. Then they feed up and get strong again. It's the grub comin' all of a sudden that makes you weak. Your mind feelin' easier, you feel you ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... the oldest in Europe, are but little in evidence. They stay indoors, and outside their old palaces one hears little about them. Even in Palma, where times change but slowly, times have changed for them. They are woefully hard up—the result of heavy gambling in a past generation, and the depreciation of land in this. Indeed, with one exception, all classes down to the peasants are poor; but they are not unhappy. It would be impossible to find a race more contented with ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... at Portsmouth, waiting for a boat from the frigate I commanded, I was much surprised to see Billy Culmer, in a dirty sailor's dress, a few yards from me. He perceived me, and pulled off his hat. "Hulloa!" said I, "Billy; where have you come from? I understood you were dead." "Not so hard up as that, sir," replied he. "I am d——d." "Explain yourself," said I. "Why," said he, "I am d——d in the King's service, for I shall never be able to enter it again, in consequence of my folly in requesting you to get me discharged." "I probably may have interest ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... the wind blows hard up there. They do not stop to think that I am carried by the wind, and whether I am in a dead calm or sailing at the rate of one hundred miles an hour, I am perfectly still; and when I went the ten miles in seven minutes I did not feel the slightest breeze; and ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... degree, and unlike what she should be. There's besides another ridiculous thing. This took place the last time I gave you the money to get me those trifles. Well, two days after that, she saw me, and she began again to represent that she had no money and that she was hard up. Nevertheless, I did not worry my brain with her goings on. But as it happened, the servant-girls subsequently quitted the room, and she at once started finding fault with me. 'Why,' she asked, 'do I give you my savings ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Short stages and took my ease; So all day long till sundown I’d camp beneath the trees. Then I’d walk up to the station, The manager to see. “Boss, I’m hard up and I want a job, Oh! don’t you ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... coffee-house they were talking about raising a subscription to you because they hear you're devilish hard up and because you made such a plucky fight against Volney. Some one mentioned that you had a temper and were proud as Lucifer. 'He's such a hothead. How'll he take it?' asks Beauclerc. 'Why, quarterly, to be sure!' cries Selwyn. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... Gad. What a kindly old soul was the projector of this wonderful enterprise, that he should take a couple of tired old elephants off on a Mediterranean trip out of the sheer kindness of his heart! Was it not the acme of generosity for a man who had lately been so hard up that he had mortgaged his farm to go to the expense of building a huge floating barge on which the gorillas, giraffes, and rhinoceri of the land, having lately shown signs of enfeebled health, might take a winter's trip to the ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... between Scylla and Charybdis; surrounded by shoals, surrounded by breakers, surrounded by quicksands; at cross purposes; not out of the wood. reduced to straits; hard pressed, sorely pressed; run hard; pinched, put to it, straitened; hard up, hard put to it, hard set; put to one's shifts; puzzled, at a loss, &c (uncertain) 475; at the end of one's tether, at the end of one's rope, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus, at a standstill; graveled, nonplused, nonplussed, stranded, aground; stuck fast, set fast; up a tree, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... used with a malicious pompousness when she wished to "put something hard up" to her lord, was of course an ironical misnomer in this modern household. In the first place there was no house, which demanded the service and the protection of a strong male,—merely a partitioned-off corner in a ten-story brick box, where no man was necessary even to shake the furnace or ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... had become almost reconciled to the boarders, who made possible the more elaborate table; and it seemed to him quite impossible that so small a sum could make any great difference. He meant to pay it in time, but just now he was hard up. He had made the mistake of trying to be a society man, to compete with those whose incomes were many times as large as his own. In his heart he knew the purchase of that fan for Madelaine was a piece of inexcusable ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... him any permanent good with five pounds (that is, get him home again) I will give you the money. But I should be very much indisposed to give it him, merely to linger on here about town for a little time and then be hard up again. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... actual control over the affairs of the firm was non-existent. Notwithstanding these facts, the young man was guilty of countless extravagances, and was a reckless gambler. Within the last twelve months he could hardly have paid away at the club less than a thousand pounds. He had been extremely hard up before the loss of the money, and it was in his offices that the roll of banknotes had been lost. As for Probable Thief Number Two, he played rook to Number One's pigeon. He had a visible hold upon him; Number One trembled before him, and did what he ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... In the first place, they tried in San Francisco to find out something about McLeish, but no one knew of such a man. They then began to consider some persons they did know about. They had heard in Lima that some of the people of the Castor had been rescued, and if any of them were hard up, as most likely they were, Shirley and Burke thought that by rights they ought to have some of the treasure that they had found. Shirley said at first they had gone on the idea that each of them would have six thousand dollars and could ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... possession of the notes was traced to the officer's Burman servant, who looked after his clothes and attended on him at table. The boy was caught in the act of trying to change one of the notes. He was arrested, and he confessed. He was very hard up, he said, and his sister had written asking him to help her. He could not do so, and he was troubling himself about the matter early that morning while tidying the room, and he saw the notes on the table, and so he took them. It was a sudden temptation, and he fell. When the officer learnt all ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... to care about ridin'," said the drover, while a wan smile flitted over his yellow-grey features. "I've rode him far enough. I've rode that horse a thousand miles. I wouldn't sell him, only I'm a bit hard up. Sellin' him now to get the money to ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... or no I should offer an excuse for the communication I am about to make; but the matter I have to relate is simply this: Being hard up last night (for though a rich man's son I often lack money), I went to a certain pawnshop in the Bowery where I had been told I could raise money on my prospects. This place—you may see it some time, so I will ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... the usual thing. Everybody is back—everybody is hard up or says he is—everybody is full of lies, as usual, and is turning them loose on anyone who will listen, credulous or sophisticated, it makes no difference. It's the telling, not the believing that's the thing. Oh! the little cad Mattison is ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... Ralph Captain, as a goodly familiar name, feeling, no doubt, that Mister was cold between father-in-law and son-in-law, and not quite daring to drop all reverential title;—"if you're a little hard up, as I know you are, you can have three or four hundred if you want it." Ralph did want it sorely. "I know how you stand with old Moggs," said Neefit, "and I'll see you all right there." Neefit was very urgent. He too had heard something ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... with smooth fields, and even orchards, reaching almost to the top of it! Why, our sheep pasture at Merleville is a deal more like a mountain than that. It is only a hill, and moderate at that. You must have been dreadful hard up for mountains, to call that one. You've forgotten all about Merleville, Rosie, to be content with that ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... older than myself and quite independent as far as money went. He knew how small my means were, and would gladly have lent me money. But through the whole of my life I never borrowed from my friends, or in fact from anybody, though I was forced sometimes when very hard up for ready money, and when I knew that money was due to me but had not arrived when I expected it, to apply to some friend for a temporary advance. I will try and recall the lines in which I once applied to Gathy for such ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... got stood to, when they were hard up for a mount, and it was this way. The squatters weren't alike, by any manner of means, in their way of dealing with them. Many of them had lots of fine riding-horses in their paddocks. These would be yarded some fine night, the best taken and ridden hard, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... give him the credit where real cleverness is concerned. Vimpany suggested the thing. He found me well-nigh as desperately hard up as he is himself. He suggested it. At first, I confess, I did not like it. I refused to listen to any more talk about it. But, you see, when one meets destitution face to face, one will do anything—everything. Besides, as I will show you, this is not really a fraud. It ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... said, "you haven't got rid of all the money yet? You can't have spent it in the time. I didn't think you could be hard up again so soon. Even when I heard that Madame wanted to ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... famous Chinese scent which had proved a clue to the letter. Of course the direction on the packet and the inscribed slip of paper were in feigned handwriting, so he could gather nothing from that. Still, he did not think that Mrs. Jasher had sent the emerald. She was desperately hard up, and if she had become possessed of the gem by murder—presuming her to have been the woman who talked to Bolton through the window—she assuredly would have sold it to supply her own needs. Certainly, if guilty, she would still possess the other emerald, of equal value; but undoubtedly, ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... laughed boisterously, and said one could not raise anything on that; adding, with an air of authority, that he believed I spoke the truth, for it was not likely the hag would have kept anything from her oldest boarder. 'I dare say the real truth is,' he wound up, 'that you are hard up, like me, and want to do ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the Tennessee Shad. "Between you and me and the lamppost, Doc is devilishly hard up. Offer him a couple of dollars ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... are as candid as they make them," he said, eyeing her with his mild eye. "But what's the matter with your brother? Hard up?" ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... She meant no 'arm. She's on'y a bit of a lass, w'en all is said an' done. Mebbe it's my fault, or yours, or the fault of both of us. An' now, David, I'll tell you wot I 'ad in me mind in comin' 'ere this morning. You're hard up. You don't know where to turn for a penny. If you're agreeable, I'll put a trustworthy man in this office an' give 'im full powers to pull your affairs straight. Mind you, I'm doin' this for Iris, not for ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... money again,' returned Mr. O'Brien, ruffling up his gray hair in a discontented fashion; 'he says he is hard up. But that is only one of Joe's lies; he tells lies by the peck. He had a good coat on, and looked as thriving as possible, and I know from Atkinson, who has been in Leeds, that he is a traveller to some house in the wine trade. And yet he comes here, the bullying rascal! fretting ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... discovered a field of endeavor as virgin as the unplowed steppe. Only scientists desperately hard up for an unusual topic for a strictly academic discussion and recklessly willing to risk incurring universal unpopularity would have dreamed of unearthing those volumes. He promptly aroused Count Tolstoy's ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Washington, who was said, again, to have mentioned the fact to an Italian colleague, who had repeated it in writing to his sister, who lived somewhere in Piedmont and had spoken of it to some one else; and so on, till the story had reached the ears of a newspaper paragraph-writer who was hard up for a 'stick' of 'copy.' All this the Princess knew, or invented, and she ran off her explanation with a ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... enough, be he's hard up for money. I guess he's going to fail. If you'll lend me a couple of dollars, I'll go ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... Forester pointed it toward the river. They supposed that he was going out to the edge of the river, and that then he would turn and come back; but, to their utter amazement, he pushed boldly on directly into the current, and then, putting his helm hard up and calling out to the crew to give way strong, the boat swept round into the very center of the stream and shot down the river over ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... have more money. With this disease, the rich get well, the poor die. Well! I thought this fellow needed money to get well—that was all; and, like a lot of them, he was ashamed of being hard up and didn't want ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... paces before the mob of gentlemen who read with ease. There has been much prate lately of as innocent a foible as ever served to make men self-forgetful for a few seconds of time—the collecting of first editions. Somebody hard up for 'copy' denounced this pastime, and made merry over a virtuoso's whim. Somebody else—Mr. Slater, I think it was—thought fit to put in a defence, and thereupon a dispute arose as to why men bought first editions dear when they could ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... was. A touchy, selfish man all but a hundred years old, who would have seen them all die rather than deprive himself of a pinch of snuff or a single one of the pins that were always stuck on the lapels of his coat. Ah, poor child! He must be hard up indeed before he could ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... 'Hard up, air ye, Pawliney? Well, well, don't colour up so, we all hev our scarce times. I ain't partial to payin' forehanded, but you was awful kind to Mis' Croaker when her rheumatiz was bad on her, an' I ain't ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... which he was perhaps estimating his own powers of persuasion against his brother's powers of resistance, and coming to the conclusion that it was not worth his while to contend with him any longer, "I have come to say this. I am hard up—devilish hard up. But that's not all. It is not enough to offer me a five-pound note or a ten-pound note and tell me to spend it as I please. I want something definite. You seem to have plenty of money: I have ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... days when her father gave these royal invitations. Then she remembered she had not been sacrificed to Josiah Brown for nothing, and that even if dear, generous papa should happen to be a little hard up again, a few hundred francs would be nothing to her to slip ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... half of it from her some time ago. She was badly hard up for a hundred pounds and I let her have the money." He threw away his cigarette half-smoked, with a free gesture that seemed to imply that he was capable of parting with a hundred pounds just ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... moment, for he felt very hard up. He wished to go to the theater in the evening with a friend, ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and ailerons hard up, and held them there. They were going at a rate of close to a hundred miles an hour at the moment, and their velocity brought them around in a pretty loop. There was no way for them to tell if the serpent had been dislodged, so, to make as sure as he could of accomplishing his purpose, Tom ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... against the skyline, the sentry-boxes at the corners were invisible. Harold now took hold of the two ends of the rope, and Jake, stepping back a few yards from the wall, threw the pole over it. Then Harold drew upon the rope until there was a check, and he knew that the pole was hard up against the edge of the wall. He tied one end of the rope-ladder to an end of the double cord and then hauled steadily upon the other. The rope running through the loop drew the ladder to the top of the wall. All this was done ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... hard up we are for comic stuff in the Corrugated Trust these days when we can squeeze a laugh out of such a serious-minded party as Hartley. But you know how it is. I expect some of them green-eyed clerks on the tall ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... the young midshipman by his side, "run forward and have the main-yard hauled; give her a good full, quartermaster," he said to the veteran seaman at the helm, and then watched the water over the side to see when she gathered headway through it. "Now! Hard up with the helm! Flatten in the head sheets! Round in the weather braces! ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Nellie. "I've got a pretty good billet. A pound a week and not much lost time! But I went to room there when I was pretty hard up. It's a small room and was cheap. Then, after, I took to boarding there as well. That was pretty cheap and suited me and helped them. I suppose I might get a better place but they're very kind, and I come and go as I like, and—" she hesitated. "After all," she went on, "there's ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... instance. There are five or six shareholders in it, and I know I could buy half of their interests at, say $20 per foot, now that flour is worth $50 per barrel and they are pressed for money. But I am hard up myself, and can't buy—and in June they'll strike the ledge and then "good-bye canary." I can't get it for love or money. Twenty dollars a foot! Think of it. For ground that is proven to be rich. Twenty dollars, Madam—and we wouldn't part with a foot of our 75 for five times the sum. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fellow, and gave promise of doing well, but his head would not stand alcohol, and by it he was undermined in no time. In considerably less than a twelvemonth all the spare capital in his coffers from the disposal of Bruggabrong and the Bin Bins had been squandered. He had become so hard up that to pay the drovers in his last venture he was forced to sell the calves of the few milch-cows retained for ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Kitty's old home as anything could well be, She has made her rooms pretty enough, but it was easy to see she is hard up for flowers. She's got an old rose-colored Sevres bowl that was my Grandmother's, and there it was, filled with bramble leaves and Traveller's Joy, (which she calls Old Man's Beard; Kitty always would differ from her elders!) and a ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... gladly in it. One night neighbours of his stole some of his grain, but in their haste or carelessness they left a bag. He found it, and ran after them to restore it, "for," said he, "fellows who have to steal must be hard up." And by this Christlike spirit he saved both himself and them, for he kept the spirit of love in his own heart, and they were converted and became ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... once said to him, for that was the name which Alick ordered him to use, 'if you don't like going to the galley, I'll go for you. You ain't used to this kind of thing, you ain't. But I'm a sailor; and I can understand the feelings of any fellow, I can.' Again, he was hard up, and casting about for some tobacco, for he was not so liberally used in this respect as others perhaps less worthy, when Alick offered him the half of one of his fifteen sticks. I think, for my part, he might have increased the offer to a whole ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Maryland judge of his house servants, Johnson himself bein' a Marylander, unless they had some understanding. Your sudden marriage, an' your pappy's embarrassments, will be put together, by smoke! an' thar is some blunt enough to say that when Jedge Custis is hard up, he'll git ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... things! The bootmakers, the capmakers, the furriers! And now they say the tailors are going to strike; more fools, too, when the trade is so slack. What with one thing and another (let me put your cravat straight, my little love), it's just the people who can't afford to buy new clothes that are hard up, so that they can't afford to buy second-hand clothes either. If the Almighty is not good to us, we shall come to ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... acknowledged by other travellers, in several instances. I have lost my way twice—met three wolves—been four times benighted—and indebted to lights at a distance for a bed at midnight, after the horses have refused to proceed. All is incident, and I am quite hard up for description. Now, I have marked down a fine passage in —'s work—a beautiful description of a cathedral with a grand procession. (Reads.) "What with the effect of the sun's brightest beams upon the ancient glass windows—various hues reflected upon ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... would satisfy Mr. Vattel, sir," returned Captain Truck, as the man in the chains sung out, 'and a half hree!' "Hard up with the helm, and lay the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... be very hard up, only he certainly did not give that impression. Still, "no money at all, except twopence!" Would it be safe to try to get the half-crown into his pocket? That was what she wanted to do, but felt she might easily blunder over it. If she was to achieve it, she must be quick, for the public within ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... We are desperately hard up at home just now, and we are denying ourselves in order to send these charitable contributions to the richest country in the world. Gorlebeff himself (head of the Russian Red Cross Society) has L30,000 a year. Armenians are literally rolling in ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... dawn broke when sea and sky were lighted up. And then, and even then, what was it? There it sat up in the cross-trees, a hairy, sulky bulk of man or beast, black, and the creature looked hard down whilst all hands were staring hard up. ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... reasoned as the middle-class parents of to-day. They discounted the future, and however hard up they were, they resolved to make sacrifices for his education. And as the schools of Thagaste were inadequate, it was decided to send this very ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Works," vol. iv. p. 538. The canon and his man join the pilgrims during the fourth day's journey. Contrary to Chaucer's use, such a keen animosity appears in this satire of alchemists that it seems as if the poet, then rather hard up, had had himself a grudge against ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... "I'm too hard up to be noble," said Wenlock drily. "I've not come here on philanthropy, and marrying that girl is part of my business. Besides, hang it all, man, think of what she is, and think of what I am." He looked himself up and down with a half humorous ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... of me!" she thought. "I'm doing a commonplace, rather common thing—and I'm trying to make it seem a daring, romantic adventure. I MUST be hard up for excitement!" ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... is strung up to an intense pitch of gratitude, having barely escaped a terrible fate. Let her come back to the normal. Anstruther's shady record must gradually leak out. That will disgust her. In a week she will appeal to you to buy him off. He is hard up—cut off by his people and that sort of thing. There you probably have the measure of his scheming. He knows quite well that he can never marry your daughter. It is all a matter ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... carrying out a secret reconnaissance in South Africa I came across a farmhouse from which the owner was absent at the moment of my arrival. I had come far and would have still further to go before I came across any habitation, and I was hard up for a lodging ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... confided a little of my perplexities. He laughed at me and said that they could be settled with the greatest ease. All I had to do was to visit a certain local medium who for a fee of one guinea would tell me everything I wanted to know. Although I rather grudged the guinea, being more than usually hard up at the time, I called upon this person, but over the results of that visit, or rather the lack of them, I ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... while we talked; clocks struck unheeded by me. It amazed me at last, to discover how long she had held me captive. Still, I knew nothing of her affairs, excepting that she was hard up—that, by comparison, I was temporarily prosperous. I did not even know where she meant to go when we moved, nor did it appear necessary to inquire yet, for the sentiment in her tones assured me that she would dismiss me ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... ye, who still the cumbrous load of life Push hard up hill; but at the farthest steep You trust to gain, and put on end to strife, Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep, And hurls your labours ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... little circumstance with suspicion, then brooded over it until it has become magnified and now occupies your whole mind. Take my advice, old chap, and think nothing more about it. Why should you make yourself miserable for no earthly reason? You're a rising man—hard up like most of us—but under old Eyton's wing you've got a brilliant future before you. Unlike myself, a mere nobody, struggling against the tide of adversity, you're already a long way up the medical ladder. If you climb straight you'll end with an appointment of Physician-in-Ordinary ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... mate ordered the boy at the helm to put it hard up, when the whale, with greatly accelerated speed, struck the ship with his head just forward ...
— Bark Kathleen Sunk By A Whale • Thomas H. Jenkins
... together, they have not said much about it; description depends so much on comparison, and comparison necessitates a something like. If there existed another Niagara on the earth, travellers might compare this one to that one; but as there does not exist a second Niagara, they are generally hard up for a comparison. In the matter of roar, however, comparisons are still open. There is so much noise in the world that analysis of noise becomes easy. One man hears in it the sound of the Battle of the Nile-a statement ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... a year isn't so bad," he answered good-humoredly. "It may seem poverty to you, who have been used to millions, my darling; but all my life I have been hard up, and I am thankful for twenty pounds ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... word where a cheaper one would do. In these days of failure, shortage at both ends and financial stringency generally, I often wonder that some people should go on, day after day, using just as extravagant language as they did during the flush times. When I get hard up the first thing I do is to economize in my expressions in every day conversation. If there is a marked stringency in business, I lay aside first, my French, then my Latin, and finally my German. Should the times become greatly depressed and failures and assignments ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... shut off from the tropical fats supply were hard up for food and for soap, for lubricants and for munitions. Every person was given a fat card that reduced his weekly allowance to the minimum. Millers were required to remove the germs from their cereals and deliver them to the war department. Children were set to gathering ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... hail the dawn of the golden age for old clothes; for in the fear that shabbiness may be merely a whimsical disguise or the mark of a millionaire's eccentricity the whole world (which is very imitative and very hard up) will begin to fawn upon it, and then at last many of us will enter ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... effect of a soul surprised by passion and brought hard up against an opposing force which dashes it back upon itself with a flare and explosion of self-revealment. Nor shall we ever be able to foretell just how small a circumstance, just how slight an exigency, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... as any of us, and he sprang to the very part of the vessel where he was most needed. He had a seaman's faculties in perfection, though ratiocination was certainly not his forte. A motion of my hand ordered him to put the helm hard up, and the answering sign let me know that I was obeyed. We could do no more just then, but the result was awaited in ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... to the goddess of love, imploring her assistance; and she, granting his request, gave him three golden apples, and instructed him how to use them. The race beginning, as Hippomenes perceived his mistress to press hard up to him; he, as it were by chance, let fall one of these apples; the maid, taken with the beauty of it, failed not to step out of her way to pick ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... away to study medicine. He worked very hard and progressed very rapidly. By the time he was twenty he was no longer "the doctor's boy." He was a real assistant in all but fees. He had no share in the doctor's income and always was desperately hard up. ...
— Benefits Forgot - A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love • Honore Willsie
... away when Miss 'Liza treated my Katie so mean, an' when I tole him 'bout it, he war tearin' mad, an' went ober an' saw ole Gundover, an' foun' out he war hard up for money, an' he bought Katie and brought her home to lib wid me, and we's been a libin in clover eber sence. Marster Robert has been mighty good to me. He stood by me in my troubles, an' now his trouble's come, I'm a gwine to stan' by him. I used to think Gundover's ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... Desborough admitted. 'We are deadly hard up. But the Pri—- Mr. Godall is going to do something for us. That ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Turks coming hard up the next gully,' he panted. 'We've got to bunk like blazes if we want to ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... of finance in the language of a monte dealer describing a prize fight, and whose notion of a successful career is something between a gambler, a revolutionist and a buccaneer. He is supposed to vibrate in cheerful nonchalance between Delmonico's and a beanery, according as he is in funds or hard up, and to exhibit a genial assurance that "a member of the New York Stock Exchange, sir," will prove a pleasant addition ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... of himself, but it is mostly brag, and in half the instances it isn't true at all; but in my case—well, I wasn't subscribing to the heathen in those days. I made up my mind that poverty didn't pay, and I have succeeded in remedying the state of affairs. But I haven't forgotten how it felt to be hard up, and I sympathise with those who are. Nothing would afford me greater pleasure than to give a helping hand to a fellow—that is, to a clever fellow who was worth saving—who is down at bed rock. Don't ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... was that he wrote to Simmy Dodge, asking him to sell the furnishings and appliances in his office, sublet the rooms, and send to him as soon as possible the proceeds of the sale. He confessed frankly and in his straightforward way that he was hard up and needed the money! ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... a somewhat precarious source from which to derive an income, so Vandeloup soon found himself pretty hard up, and was at his wit's end how to raise money. His gay life cost him a good deal, and Kitty, of course, was a source of expense, although, poor girl, she never went anywhere; but there was a secret drain on his purse of which no one ever dreamed. This ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume |
