"Pawn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fetched his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel; Brisk Ned hath bought a ruff of lawn With droppings of the barrel; And those that hardly all the year Had bread to eat or rags to wear Will have both clothes and dainty fare, And all ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... man was Thomas Esmond. He had a fancy to my Lord Castlewood's savings, the amount of which rumor had very much exaggerated. Madame Isabel was said to have Royal jewels of great value; whereas poor Tom Esmond's last coat but one was in pawn. ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... we must accept. Milton no doubt was attracted by the dramatic superiority of this version, which makes the Creation of Man a minor incident in the great war, so that the human race comes, a mere token and pawn— ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... the ornament with care, and slightly colouring,—for in fact the jewels had been a present from Philip the Good to the Duke of Bedford, and the exigencies of the civil wars had led, some time since, first to their mortgage, or rather pawn, and then ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... latter case it is liable to be taken en passant, with a pawn that could have taken it had it been played only ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... were probably inimical at heart. Indeed, intelligence of some act of disaffection was continually coming to General Walker; and thereupon he would oust the offender, confiscate his estate to the government, and, perhaps, grant it to some one of his officers, or pawn it to foreign sympathizers for military stores. The neighborhood of Rivas was dotted with ranch-houses, distenanted by these means,—rank grass growing in the court-yards, the cactus-hedges gapped, and the crops swept away by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... "Oh, not pawn-shop poor. I made VanZile boost my salary, last week, and with my Touricar stock I'm getting a little over four thousand dollars ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... punctual fair dealer. And what then?—why, then, he may borrow again whenever he will, he may take up money and goods, or anything, upon his bare words, or note; when another man must give bondsmen, or mainprize, that is, a pawn or pledge for security, and hardly be trusted to neither. ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... this fine casket here? I locked the press, I'm very clear. I wonder what's inside! Dear me! it's very queer! Perhaps 'twas brought here as a pawn, In place of something mother lent. Here is a little key hung on, A single peep I shan't repent! What's here? Good gracious! only see! I never saw the like in my born days! On some chief festival such finery Might on some noble lady blaze. How would this ...
— Faust • Goethe
... genius for success in whatever he undertook, pushing his way to his end with a shrewd, direct energy that never faltered. She sometimes wondered whether she, too, like the men he used as tools, was merely a pawn in his game, and her consent an empty formality conceded to convention. Perhaps he would marry her even if she did not want to, she told herself, with the sudden illuminating smile that was ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... paid. It is a good and forcible illustration of the degradation which debt always implies, though it may not always be outwardly visible, as here at Axim. The Governor himself, who is a native of Amsterdam, and apparently a mulatto, is one of those pawn-brokers who deal in human pledges. He is a merchant-soldier, bearing the military title of lieutenant, and doing business as a trader. The Governor of El Mina is his superior officer, and the fort at Axim is garrisoned by twelve black soldiers from the former ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... he remembered, who had been foolish enough and irritating enough to find her way to Oued Tolga, he felt towards her, in listening to the story of her coming, as an ardent student might feel towards a persistent midge which disturbed his studies. If the girl could be used as a pawn in his great game, she had a certain importance, otherwise none—except that her midge-like buzzings must not annoy him, or ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... adventures enough in his life to outvie Munchausen; with a purse always penniless, as the camp sentence runs; who thrust his men through the body as coolly as others kill wasps; who roasted a shepherd over a camp-fire for contumacy in concealing Bedouin where-abouts; yet who would pawn his last shirt at the bazaar to help a comrade in debt, and had once substituted himself for, and received fifty blows on the loins in the stead of his sworn friend, whom he loved with that love of David for Jonathan which, in Caserne life, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... successor, Nicephorus, resolved to obliterate this badge of servitude and disgrace. The epistle of the emperor to the caliph was pointed with an allusion to the game of chess, which had already spread from Persia to Greece. "The queen (he spoke of Irene) considered you as a rook, and herself as a pawn. That pusillanimous female submitted to pay a tribute, the double of which she ought to have exacted from the Barbarians. Restore therefore the fruits of your injustice, or abide the determination of the sword." At these words the ambassadors cast a bundle of swords before the foot of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... involved. But to the pawns in the game, the horizon is limited: it is just their own destination, their own life, their own fate that looms up big and blots out the rest. It's not the other hundred thousand who matter at the moment—it's the pawn himself who wonders, and laughs, and sings, ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... prisoners. 12. The trial of M. Guizot and his colleagues. 13. The reduction of Vincennes and Fort Valerien, still held by the troops for the king. 14. All officials under Louis Philippe to be released from their oaths. 15. All objects at the Mont de Piete (the Government pawn-broking establishment) valued under ten francs, to be restored. 16. All National Guards dismissed under preceding Governments to be reinstated. 17. The million of francs expended on the court to be given to disabled workmen. 18. A paternal ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... old chap," said Mahin, when Mitia telling him about his troubles, showed the coupon and the fifty kopeks, and added that he wanted nine roubles more. "We might, of course, go and pawn your watch. But we might do something far better." And Mahin ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... for Larry. "You'd better go after your d—d ring, then!" said he, looking like a handsome, angry schoolboy. "I can give you the pawn-ticket; and I bet Peter Storm—or Stanislaws—will lend the money to redeem the beastly thing. As for Mrs. Shuster, we won't bring her name into this. She and I will settle our affairs, official and unofficial, although you seem to be so deep ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... bracelet; and I sent you off to telephone while I rushed round the corner to a little jeweller's where I'd been before, and pawned it so that you shouldn't have to pay for the children.... But now, darling, you see, if you've got all that money, I can get it out of pawn at once, can't I, and send it ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... would have reflected that the ring was not theirs to pawn; but Sam, as the reader has found out by this time, was not a boy of high principles. He had a very easy code of morality, and determined to make the ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... his master, was his aide-de-camp. He redeemed or renewed pawn-tickets, and visited the districts most threatened with famine, while his ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... that. The Prince drilled a hole in the rock, and we got out. We've put the garrison in pawn, so to speak, but I've been mighty anxious these last few days because the sail-boat they had here, and two of the garrison, escaped to the mainland with the news. We were anxiously watching your yacht, fearing it was Russian. Jack thought it was the Czar's ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... put to sea they were attacked by pirates. They escaped only by running their vessel on shore on the coast of Finland. Here the king found himself in a state of almost absolute destitution, so that he had to pawn his clothing to satisfy the most urgent demands. At length, after meeting with various strange adventures, he found his way to the Hague, where he was, for ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... he with whom the grenadier-private is now playing chess is the very same general who might order him a hundred lashes to-morrow, should he take a step on parade without his command! And now he contends with him to make a queen out of a pawn! ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... said Gorman, "that she wouldn't behave in this wild way. If she wants to subscribe to the party funds why doesn't she write a cheque instead of shying jewellery at me? I should certainly be arrested on suspicion if I went to try and pawn those things. Nobody would believe that she gave them ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... wilt thou flatly keep from me my Father's heritage, then, intrusted to thee in his hour of death? Regardless of God and man, and of the last look of a dying Brother? Uncle worse than pawnbroker; for it is a heritage with NO pawn on it, with much the reverse!" thought the Nephew,—and stabbed said Uncle down dead; having gone across with him in the boat; attendants looking on in distraction from the other side of the river. Was called ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... don't care. Yours is a 'spectable calling. To save your 'spectability, it's worth your while to pawn every article of clothes you've got, sell every stick in your house, and beg and borrow every penny you can get trusted with. When you've done that and handed over, I'll leave you. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Litvinov's heart. A rich cousin of the Princess Osinin, struck by the impression created by the girl at the ball, had taken her to Petersburg, to use her as a pawn in his struggle for power. Utterly crushed, Litvinov threw up the University and went home to his father in the country. He heard of her occasionally, encircled in splendour. Her name was mentioned with curiosity, respect, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... be here sooner, if you wish it," replied Barry, "but I do not want all this," and he gave back one of the bank notes. "I don't owe a cent to any one, but I have some gear of mine in pawn." ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... of a fountain wherein wisdom and knowledge of the future lay concealed, out of which he drank every morning. Odin was once obliged to lay one of his eyes in pawn, in order to obtain a draught from this fountain. He was likewise, when Surtur should attack the gods, to ride to this fountain and seek counsel from Mimer on his ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... late last night, saying he wanted to make up a large bill, and he wished I would let him have all, or part of the payment. Heaven knows, I have not a farthing in the house; but I will send poor little Nanny to pawn my silver spoons, for, alas! I have no other means ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... in action to a pepperbox. Marked "Ell's Patent." The cataloguer has never before seen a pistol of this type. Good condition. .31 Cal. Purchased in a Philadelphia pawn-shop, and said to be a favorite arm of the Negroes in ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... a certain sapphire and diamond ring which she didn't like and never wore that Sir Isaac had given her as a birthday present two years ago. But of course she would never dream of selling anything; at the utmost she need but pawn. She reflected and decided that on the whole it would be wiser not to ask Peters how one pawned. It occurred to her to consult the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the subject, but though she learnt ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... climb this rock, provided that he should receive a certain reward. Although general of the Achaean League, and one of the greatest men of his day, Aratus was far from being rich; and, in order to obtain the required sum, he had to sell all he had, and even pawn his wife's ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... for Israelitish zeal! Thou hast been a pawn for her to play during these months. Long ago had she surrendered if ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... influx of truth or beauty,—as a nun over her missal. In short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another pawn, in the shape of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would of course take—to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally provide. In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive phrase, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... past before it was announced, and before her guests assembled round the table. If our readers are curious to know why, here was the reason: All that remained of the plate had that very morning been put in pawn, and when tea should have been served it was found that tea-spoons were wanting! Whilst these were being sent for to the house of a friend who lent them, Madame la Duchesse took charge of her guests, and drowned their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... hilariously. "That I had an errand on hand. A good joke, split me, Roxholm! Come with me; I go to see the picture of a beauty, stole by the painter, who is always drunk, and with his clothes in pawn, and lives in a garret ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his delight, but consulting his pockets found he had not the means of paying for their seats, and he could not pawn any clothes, for he had but two sets. One (yellowish) that government compelled him to wear by daylight, and one a present from his master (black). That, together with a mustache, admitted him into ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... shown in the above drawing (Fig. 83) in the case of the white queen and the black queen, &c. The castle, the knight, and the pawn being about the same height are measured from the fourth line of ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... morning. The kind-hearted skipper, who was also the owner of the vessel, took a sudden fancy to the sore-footed, blue-eyed boy who came aboard to bargain for a passage to the city. The truant was not, indeed, overstocked with ready money, but was willing to pawn what valuables he had about him, and hinted at a rich aunt in the city who would make good what moneys were lacking. The skipper has a shrewd suspicion how the matter stands, and, with a kindly sympathy for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... breathing stertorously. As for Pennyloaf, she was so overwearied that hours passed before oblivion fell upon her aching eyelids. She was thinking all the time that on the morrow it would be necessary to pawn her wedding-ring. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... tankard was her own. Her mother had given it her, and she had had it for five years. It was to get the tankard out of pawn that she had taken Kerrel's waistcoats, needing thirty shillings. The blood on the handle was due to her ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... dubiously opined that it was poor policy to swap horses crossing a stream, "though, to be sure, Haig was a good name and French had a foreign sound, say what you might." Not a move on the great chess-board of king or bishop or pawn escaped Susan, who had once read only Glen St. Mary notes. "There was a time," she said sorrowfully, "when I did not care what happened outside of P.E. Island, and now a king cannot have a toothache in Russia or China ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... would there be for the Commissioners, if both regiments were ordered to the Castle?" Several said, "They would be safe, and always had been safe." "As safe," said Gray, "without the troops as with them." And Irving said, "They never had been in danger, and he would pawn his life that they should receive no injury." "Unless the troops were removed," it was said, "before evening there would be ten thousand men on the Common." "The people in general," Tyler said, "were resolved to have the troops ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... I grew as vain over his enlarging powers as if I had been the Mover of the Game, not a pawn. I felt, gloriously, that I had not lived for nothing. A great naturalist is not born every day, no, nor every year, nor even every century. And I had caught me a great burglar and I had hatched me a great naturalist! My Latin soul was enraptured ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... his own strength, could not stick to warn them in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell aforehand in which button he will give the venew, or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint aforehand with which pawn and in what place he will give ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... joueur—nature has made me so, as she made my brother devot. The Archbishop of Strasbourg is of our parents; I saw his grandeur when I went lately to Strasbourg, on my last pilgrimage to the Mont de Piete. I owned to him that I would pawn his cross and ring to go play: the good prelate laughed, and said his chaplain should keep an eye on them. Will you dine with me? The landlord of my hotel was the intendant of our cousin, the Duc d'Ivry, and will give me credit to the day of judgment. I do not abuse his noble confidence. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... welfare. He will need to think less of 100 percent Americanism, which, as it is commonly used means not to think at all, and more of how he himself is molding American tradition for the generation that is to follow. If he is not to be a pawn merely in the struggle for American unity, he must think more clearly and deeply than has been ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... to pawn everything you own, or sell it if you can, and take the boy on your back and tramp to the country. You will get work there probably more easily than in the city. Here are ten shillings to ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... it now seemed plain that I had been marked down as a pawn in the game prior to that day when we travelled together from York to London. I had not altogether recovered from the effect of what had been administered to me. Often I felt a curious sensation of dizziness and of overwhelming depression, which I knew ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... and the sergeant took out his note-book, "seven pawn tickets, five pennies, and a New Testament ...
— In The Far North - 1901 • Louis Becke
... to do some governing; but finding all very anarchic, grew unhopeful; took to making matters easy for himself. Took, in fact, to turning a penny on his pawn-ticket; alienating crown domains, winking hard at robber barons, and the like—and after a few years, went home to Moravia, leaving Brandenburg to shift for itself, under a Statthalter (Viceregent, more like a hungry land-steward), whom nobody took the trouble of respecting. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... things that lived or grew upon them had been seen by us hundreds of times, but after some months at school they always seemed new again, and we got our little pawn nets and baskets, and went prawning with ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... Board spent L50,000 or so on a deep dock which they have not got, and the harbour is in pawn to the Board of Works, which collects the tolls, and otherwise endeavours to indemnify itself. The Harbour Board meets as usual, but it has no powers, no money, no credit, no anything. This is a fair specimen of the business management which ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Jerry was all unwittingly permitting himself to become a pawn in a larger game of whose rules and etiquette he had no knowledge, and his domestic methods were no longer to pass uncensored in the privacy ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... lurk in his cover till the hounds were safe at home again. In Hungary once I met a certain fellow who had been kicked by a highway thief after he had emptied his pockets. I tell you what. A man may well pawn his last doublet, if he may thereby gain a larger. He need never redeem the first, and it is given some folks to coin gold ducats out of humbler folks' sins. Ah! If I had a fox for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... which Fritiof's words to Bjrn are also made to convey an answer to Hilding. Kung and bonde refer to Helge and Fritiof, but they are also the chess terms for king and pawn. Note also the ingenious ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner
... dilemma, there came a Spaniard on board by composition to see our ship. He came on board again the next day, and we allowed him quietly to depart. The following day two Spaniards came, on board, without pawn or surety, to see if they could betray us. When they had seen our ship, they were for going again on land; but we would not let them, saying, as they had come on board without leave, we should not permit them to go away till we thought fit, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... Pawnbroking is esteemed an honourable, as well as lucrative, business in China, and the brokers are influential men and often have considerable property in their shops. The people are so poor that they sometimes pawn their winter clothes in summer and their ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... hawker showed greenly behind the tidiest muslin blinds you ever sor! and Mrs. William Keyse, expectant mother of a potential Briton, sat behind them, and as she patched the shirts that had been taken out of pawn—and whether they're let out on hire to parties wanting such things or whether the mice eat 'oles in 'em, who can say? but the styte in which they come back from Them Plyces is something chronic!—she sang, sometimes "Come, Buy My ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Salamanca; an attempt to assassinate her; Columbus recommended to her by the marchioness of Moya; her ability in military affairs; receives a letter from the prior of La Rabida; invites Columbus to court; Luis de St. Angel reasons with her; signifies her assent; declares her resolution to pawn her jewels to defray the expenses; her enthusiasm in the cause; her motives; her joy at learning the success of Columbus; her reception of him; her zeal for the welfare of the Indians; her anxiety in respect to the conversion of the Haytiens; ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... when next morning at break of day we arrived in Elbing, we found our money exhausted by the lavish use of the express coach, and were compelled to return; we discovered, moreover, that even by using the ordinary coach we should be obliged to pawn ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... to boil as he thought of it. Now, as he had time and silence in which to look back on what had happened, he was enraged at the pictures that flashed one after another before him. He had allowed himself to be used as nothing more than a pawn in a strange and mysterious game. It was not through his efforts alone that he had been saved in the fight on the Saskatchewan trail. Blindly he had walked into the trap at the coyote. Still more blindly he had allowed himself to be led into the ambush at the Wekusko camp. And more like a child than ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... those ladies who interest themselves with the poor. The poor are too apt in times of distress to pawn their bedsteads and keep their beds. Never, if you have influence, let that happen. Keep the bedstead, whatever else may go, to save the sleeper from the carbonic acid on ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... as young Johnston rode his horse out of the stable gate, old Robin walked at his side. Just in front of the pawn-shop Robin pulled out his ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... coming to-night to kill him. To-night sometime the world would stop for him. He felt no longer a personal entity—he was merely part of a situation. It was as if he were a piece in a chess problem—any moment the player might move and solve the play by taking a pawn. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he was compelled to resign. He retired to his old dwelling at Mortlake, in a state not far removed from actual want, supporting himself as a common fortune-teller, and being often obliged to sell or pawn his books to procure a dinner. James I. was often applied to on his behalf, but he refused to do any thing for him. It may be said to the discredit of this king, that the only reward he would grant the indefatigable Stowe, in his days of old age and want, was the royal permission to beg; but no ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... brilliants, bloodless rubies, pearls either too large or too opaque for value; miniatures mounted with diamonds that had ceased to dazzle; snuffboxes presented to—or by—the too-questionable great; cups, trays, taper-stands, suggestive of pawn-tickets, archaic and brown, that would themselves, if preserved, have been prized curiosities. A few commemorative medals, of neat outline but dull reference; a classic monument or two, things of the first years of the century; ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... he should find the most prolific; but he was a clumsy hand at both, and came on board again with only a very small quantity of coffee. It, however, afforded some relief, and in the afternoon we reached the town of Dort, and, on lodging my baggage in pawn with a French inn-keeper, he advanced me the means of going on to Rotterdam, where I got cash for the bill which I had on a merchant there. Once more furnished with the "sinews of war," with my feet on terra firma, I lost no time ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... Christmas garlands, and colored lamps glowed like open fireplaces. Lee passed slowly before them, glad that he had been able to get back at such a season. For the moment he had forgotten the woman he sought, and was conscious only of his surroundings. He had paused in front of the window of a pawn-shop. Over the array of cheap jewelry, of banjos, shot-guns, and razors, his eyes moved idly. And then they became transfixed and staring. In the very front of the window, directly under his nose, was a tarnished silver loving-cup. On it was engraved, ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... him. He's only a cipher—a pawn in the great game we have in hand. If we win, it'll be for a prize worth winning—fame and fortune," went on Zuker, as he strode to and fro with rapid strides. "Yes, fame and fortune, and we shall have dealt a staggering blow at a country that we hate. The risk is great, but the stakes are ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... here longer. It's more than I can bear. For God's sake, for Christ's sake, write to your sister Klavdia Abramovna. Let her sell and pawn everything she has; let her send us the money. We will go away from here. Oh, Lord," he went on miserably, "to have one peep at Moscow! If I could see it in ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... acres, from Grecian ports they sail, and Turkey sends her fakers to gather in the kale; old brooding Europe breeds them, these mighty men of brawn; our Strong Man takes and kneads them, and puts their hopes in pawn. ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... up the chirper! ripe ale winks in it; Let's have comfort and be at peace. Once a stout draught made me light as a linnet. Cheer up! the Lord must have his lease. Maybe—for none see in that black hollow— It's just a place where we're held in pawn, And, when the Great Juggler makes as to swallow, It's just the sword-trick—I ain't ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... of light devour it. Now and then a word stood out boldly. Finally the wind carried the brown ashes up the chimney, I would keep the other letter—the one she had asked for—and the withered rose till the earth passed over me. She was a Princess; I was truly an adventurer, a feeble pawn on the chess-board. What had I to do with Kings and bishops and knights? The comedy was about to end—perhaps with a tragedy. I had spoken my few lines and was going behind the scenes out of which I had come. As ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... worthy of Alexander the Great, or Harry the Fifth, or Robin Hood. Most gentle is he, and thoughtful to the poor, and merciful to the vanquished. When Jeremy Diddler, who had lost twenty pounds at his table, lay in inglorious pawn at his inn—when O'Toole could not leave Noirbourg until he had received his remittances from Ireland—the noble Lenoir paid Diddler's inn bill, advanced O'Toole money upon his well-known signature, franked both of them back to their native country ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Barbarossa's time, year 1171, Herstal had been given in pawn to the Church of Liege, for a loan, by the then proprietor, Duke of Lorraine and Brabant. Loan was repaid, I do not learn when, and the Pawn given back; to the satisfaction of said Duke, or Duke's Heirs; never quite to the satisfaction of the Church, which had been in possession, and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to the core, Lay open to my probing sense That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence But could not, — nay! But needs must suck At the great wound, and could not pluck My lips away till I had drawn All venom out. — Ah, fearful pawn! For my omniscience paid I toll In infinite remorse of soul. All sin was of my sinning, all Atoning mine, and mine the gall Of all regret. Mine was the weight Of every brooded wrong, the hate That stood behind each envious thrust, Mine every greed, mine every lust. And all the while for every ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... to send it. We were all three stony at the time and had to borrow it from another girl who is going in for logic honours, but she's quite rich, so it doesn't matter. Hilda didn't want to, and said she'd give her two gold safety pins, which she got last Christmas, if Selby-Harrison would pawn them for her. But he wouldn't, and I thought it was hardly worth while for the sake of one and fourpence, besides making her mother more furious than ever. We ought not to have had to borrow more than fourpence, for Selby-Harrison had a shilling the night before, but went and ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... one of his pieces out along a radial line toward the rim. Blount promptly took a pawn, which, under Ulleran rules, entitled him to a second move. He shifted another piece, a sort of combination knight and bishop, to threaten ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... from 1-1/4 to 16 talers. The Duke ordered that each of his subjects was to purchase one of these large coins, the size of the coin to be acquired depending on the individual's wealth. The owners were not allowed to use these pieces in everyday trade, but could pawn them in case of dire need. They were expected to produce them at any time upon demand. Thus a means of hoarding, a "treasure piece," was created, and the risk of draining the country's wealth through replacement of good, full-weight silver coins with imported base currency was to some extent limited. ...
— Mine Pumping in Agricola's Time and Later • Robert P. Multhauf
... if they were in doubt, and seeking to gain something which was bent on resisting. But no sooner had they seen this than my men began laughing coarsely, and exclaimed in the vernacular that it was a pawn-shop which the common people were trying to loot. Of course, it was certain that every pawn-shop would go sooner or later; but the sight of an actual attack in progress seemed strange while the populace was still so terror-stricken. To our further surprise, on coming ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... and had the option; but the dear boy had no money left and wouldnt give you away by telling his name; and anyhow he couldnt have brought himself to buy himself off and leave me there; so hes doing his time. Well, it was two forty shillingses; and Ive only twenty-eight shillings in the world. If I pawn my clothes I shant be able to earn any more. So I cant pay the fine and get him out; but if youll stand 3 pounds I'll stand one; and thatll do it. If youd like to be very kind and nice you could pay the lot; but I cant ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... of the silence was plainly in the young woman who walked beside him, and whose effective entrance argued no little practice and experience. She was of a type that catches the eye involuntarily and holds it,—tall, well-rounded, fresh-complexioned, with heavy coils of shimmering gold hair. Her pawn, which was far from unbecoming, was in keeping with those gifts with which nature had endowed her. She carried her head high, and bestowed swift and evidently fatal glances to right and left during her progress through ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... neither said a word, nor moved. Sir Tancred was trying to see how to work the affair on seven shillings, and debating whether to call in the help of the police. Instinct assured him that he had no time to lose, no time to walk to Beachley and pawn his watch, that he must not lose sight of them, and in delicate matters he relied chiefly on instinct. Mr. Biggleswade would not have looked so triumphant, had not the 4000 pound reward satisfied him; it ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... who is going to play with you.' First you shall learn where to move the pieces and how to tell me what Grandy has moved—then, we shall tie a handkerchief over my eyes—as we do when you and I play hide the thimble—my hands shall not touch the men at all. I shall say 'Pawn to Queen's Rook's square' and you shall put this little man here—this is the Queen's Rook's square—" It must have been the oddest game in the world, really, between that stern old man and the blindfolded ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... her mother's watch. She had no idea that she ought to dispute the dictum of the bald young man with the fishy eyes and the high collar. It did not occur to her that she was paid too little. What she realized was that she had wanted to pawn something all her life—it was a deliciously effective extremity. She reserved her rings with the distinct purpose of having the experience again. Then she made a substantial lunch at a rather expensive restaurant. "It isn't time yet," she thought, "for crusts ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... throw on so much spaniel! Say, are there any more at home like you? You're not the only lion after Daniel, You're not the only oyster in the stew. Get next, you pawn-shop sport! Come oft the fence Before I make you look ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... and plums all pick'd, and suet all chopp'd fine, To mix into a pudding rich for all the mess to dine; I pawn'd my ear-rings for the beef, it weigh'd at least a stone, Now my fancy man is sent to sea, and I am left alone. Here's Bet and Sue Who stand here too, A shivering by my side; They both are dumb, They both look glum, And watch the ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... I got paroled out inside of two years, and for nearly six months I had to report to the police ever' so often. Every time I reported I had my pockets full of loot I'd snitched durin' the month, stuff the bulls were lookin' for in every pawn-shop in town, but to save my soul I couldn't somehow manage to get myself caught with the goods on me. Say, I'd give two years off of my next sentence if I could cross my legs for five or ten minutes. This is gettin' worse ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... the milk left at the neighbours' doors into the dust-bin, then he accused the janitor of stealing it and got him dismissed. A year later, he nearly succeeded in causing the arrest of a pawnbroker, whom he accused of having lent him money on a cloak, it being illegal in Italy to accept anything in pawn from a minor. The cloak, however, was discovered by his mother hidden in the cellar. At ten years of age, he alleged that his father had brutally ill-treated him, and as severe marks and bruises on his body gave colour to the accusation, the poor man was ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... genius, rid of sentiment and hope, believing in nothing but himself, to whom come, as from the darkness, all the violent questions of life and death. "Fathers and Children" is simply an exposure of our power to mould our own lives. Bazarov is a man of astonishing intellect—he is the pawn of an emotion he despises; he is a man of gigantic will—he can do nothing but destroy his own beliefs; he is a man of intense life—he cannot avoid the first, brainless touch of death. It is the hopeless fight of mind against instinct, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... finds the main interest to lie, undoubtedly, in the great campaigns, where a man, a regiment, a brigade, is but a pawn in the game. But there is a charm also in the more free and adventurous life of partisan warfare, where, if the total sphere be humbler, yet the individual has more relative importance, and the sense of action ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... stayed for a twelvemonth or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see. No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at you shortly, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the query, "Where was then the miracle in the days of Moses?" The Israelites saw but that, in his time, which the natives of those countries behold in ours. Thus the devil played at chess with me, and, yielding a pawn, thought to gain a queen of me; taking advantage of my honest endeavours; and, whilst I laboured to raise the struc- ture of my reason, he strove to undermine the edifice of ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... old signs which indicated the callings of shopkeepers have been swept away. Indeed, the three brass balls of the pawn-broker and the pole of the barber are all that are left of signs of the olden time. Round the barber's pole gather much curious fact and fiction. So many suggestions have been put forth as to its origin and meaning ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... and of the lives of actors have greatly changed since the generation went out to which such men as Junius Booth and Augustus A. Addams belonged. No tragedian would now be so mad as to put himself in pawn for drink, as Cooke is said to have done, nor be found scraping the ham from the sandwiches provided for his luncheon, as Junius Booth was, before going on to play Shylock. Our theatre has no longer a Richardson to light up a pan of red fire, as that old showman once did, to signalise the ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... at home, they had no money, and then she would lie on the bed and cry, and he would try to comfort her. Those were the times when he would stay away from school and go forth to sell things at the pawn shop. The happiest nights he could remember were the ones when he had come home with money in his pocket, to a lighted lamp in the window, and a fire on the hearth and his mother's smile of welcome. But those times were few and far between; he was much more ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... with great beauty of scene and circumstance? And will you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is in the whites? I'll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but if I told you the whole truth - for I did extenuate there! - and he seemed to me essential as a figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives in the story. Now it would have taken a fairish dose to disgust Wiltshire. - Again, the idea of publishing the Beach substantively is dropped - at once, both on account of expostulation, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is sin, and sin only, that hath made the devils devils; and yet for this, for this vile, this abominable thing, some men, yea, most men, will venture the loss of their soul; yea, they will mortgage, pawn, and set their souls to sale for it (Jer 44:4). Is not this a great waster? doth not this man deserve to be ranked among the extravagant ones? What think you of him who, when he tempted the wench to uncleanness, said to her, If thou wilt venture thy body, I'll venture ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... all, by fuller diet. Yes, not only shall Paris be fed, but the King's hand be seen in that work. The household goods of the Poor shall, up to a certain amount, by royal bounty, be disengaged from pawn, and that insatiable Mont de Piete disgorge: rides in the city with their vive-le-roi need not fail; and so by substance and show, shall Royalty, if man's art can popularise it, be popularised. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... out my king's pawn; then the king's bishop; then the queen. My heart was in my mouth; surely so experienced a player was not going to walk open-eyed into such a booby-trap. But the sirens had lured his attention away. Next move I gave him "fool's ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... England is justified. Indeed, I am inclined to believe the Germans when they assert that in case of war Germany would not be likely to invade Britain. She would be far more likely to invade Belgium, because Belgium has always been the pawn in the great game of European politics, and has often been, and may again become, the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... it was neither the one nor the other, but a sort of epicurean selfishness with perhaps a little dash of swagger away down at the bottom of it. What had I ever had from my chronometer like the quiet thrill of satisfaction when the fellow brought me the pawn ticket and told me that the ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... to myself, I can leave for Ayrshire now. I wakened early next morning and began my preparations. I got speldrins and scones, tying them in the silk handkerchief mother wore round her neck on Sundays. That and her bible was all I had of her belongings. Where the rest had gone, a number of pawn tickets told. I was in a hurry to be off and telling the woman I was going to try the country I bade her goodbye. She said, God help you, poor boy, and kissed my cheek. The bells at the Cross were chiming out, The blue ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... outshining him in conversation. This was rather nice calculating, but Murray Bradshaw always calculated. With most men life is like backgammon, half skill and half luck, but with him it was like chess. He never pushed a pawn without reckoning the cost, and when his mind was least busy it was sure to be half a dozen moves ahead of the game ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... quoth he, "I shall bring thee meat." With that, like a madman, he rose up, and ranged up and down the woods, seeking to encounter some wild beast with his rapier, that either he might carry his friend Adam food, or else pledge his life in pawn for his loyalty. ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... I live!" thought Tom to himself. "'Frailty, thy name is woman!' The canting, little, methodistical humbug! She must have slipped it off my waist as I lay senseless. I suppose she means to keep it in pawn, till I redeem it by marrying her. Well I might take an uglier mate certainly; but when I do enter into the bitter bonds of matrimony, I should like to be sure, beforehand, that my wife was ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... fingers. If during a period of affluence he had succeeded in establishing a little semblance of credit, he would maintain his regal style of living as long as it lasted. Then he would come down to the hall bedroom or even the ten-cent lodging house, the lunch wagon, and the pawn shop. But even at the lowest ebb of his fortunes, he never seemed to lose his cheerfulness, his good nature, his grand manners, and his easy, confident hope and conviction about the huge sums that were to come into his possession ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... thousand! Umph! Let's see! Bond and mortgage'll do for me. Good! That gal that passed me by Scornful like—why, mebbe I Some day'll hold in pawn—why not?— All her father's prop. She'll spot What's my little game, and see What ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... it is getting hold of the threepence. Sometimes you meet a pal and borrow it. Sometimes you pawn something and get it. If the Home boat's in, you go down to the quay, pick out a new chum—that's anyone from the Old Country—offer to show him round a bit, and he naturally treats you. Then ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... powerful, but by no means pleasing. The eyes were eager and piercing, the lines about the mouth firm and deep-cut; the features in general somewhat coarse, and plainly those of a man in the lower walks of life, and one accustomed to hard toil both of mind and body. The paper had proved to be the pawn ticket of a watch pledged in Belfast for the sum of one pound, the name upon it being Henderson. Mr. Smith had redeemed the watch, which now lay before him with ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... to Pierre, "needed an advance of ten francs to get a mattress out of pawn; and I didn't have the money by me at the time. But I've since procured it. She lives in the house, you know, in silent poverty, on so small an income that it hardly keeps ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... maintenance. Neither of them had any private means. When, in 1527, Luther was lying apparently on his deathbed, he had nothing to leave his wife but the cups which had been given him as presents, and it happened that he was obliged to pawn even these to find money ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... to pawn the things, I suppose," Evelina continued in a weary unmoved tone. "Well, I've been through worse than that. I've been ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... of Hearts. The cards are dealt, the fatal pool is lost, And all her golden hopes for ever cross'd. Yet still this card-devoted fair I view—Whate'er her luck, to "honour" ever true. So tender there,—if debts crowd fast upon her, She'll pawn her "virtue" to preserve her "honour." Thrice happy were my art, could I foretell, Cards would be soon abjured by every belle! Yet, I pronounce, who cherish still the vice, And the pale vigils keep of cards and dice—'Twill in their charms sad havoc make, ye fair! Which "rouge" in vain ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... jewels. He, of course, asked no questions of the pawn-broker. They were probably sold at auction and ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... that; they contained articles from the Mont-de-Piete that the French party were taking with them into exile. Articles from the Mont-de-Piete, that is to say, the spoils of the poor! The poorer the city the richer its pawn-shops. Few could boast such wealth as those of Avignon. It was no longer a factional affair, it was a theft, an infamous theft. Whites and Reds rushed to the Church of the Cordeliers, shouting that the municipality must ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Strange beings these husbands! They beat us, they drink up our money, they pawn our furniture. Why on earth ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... "If I could pawn him," he thought, just as the sound of wheels was heard, and he saw old Colonel Tiffton driving ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... all about among the people. Let not one hungry one perish for lack of Heaven's bread while there is enough and to spare lying all about useless! "Her father took it!" What for? to learn the way to Paradise? Ah! no—to pawn for the hot liquid that must drown him in perdition. And the dealer in the dreadful traffic took it—dared to snatch from his fellow man the comforting words sent unto him by a loving God, and to substitute instead the poisonous and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... beastly things are heirlooms, as I suppose you know. We can't sell or pawn them, or I should have done one or the other long ago. They're insured by the trustees, who are the bane of our lives, for the estate. But a sporting sort of company has blossomed out lately, which insures against 'loss of use'—I think that's the expression. I pay the premium myself—even ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... that "it is neither a marriage, nor anything adventurous, foolish, frivolous, or imprudent. It is a serious and scientific affair, about which it is impossible for me to tell you a word, because I am bound to the most absolute secrecy."[*] He had to borrow from his mother and from a cousin, and to pawn his jewellery to obtain money for his expedition. On the way he stayed with the Carrauds at Frapesle, where he was ill for a few days; and he went from there to pay his "comrade" George Sand a three days' visit at Nohant. He found her in man's attire, smoking a "houka," very sad, and working ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... matter, so long as we are not cheating anybody? The pawnshop is a most honorable and useful institution. No one is the worse for it, and many a one the better. Even the tradespeople will be a trifle the better. I shall be quite proud to know that I have a pawn-ticket in my pocket to fall back upon. Oh, there's that old silk dress your mother sent me—I do believe that would bring more. It is in good condition, and looks quite respectable. If Eve had got into a scrape like ours, she would have been helpless, poor thing, ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... and from thence made a journey to Paris, where he continued for some time, and where, notwithstanding the vast estate he had when the civil war broke out, his circumstances were now so bad, that himself and his young wife, were reduced to pawn their cloaths for sustenance[6]. He removed afterwards to Antwerp, that he might be nearer his own country; and there, tho' under very great difficulties, he resided for several years, while the Parliament in the mean time levied vast sums upon ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber |
