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Auction   Listen
noun
Auction  n.  
1.
A public sale of property to the highest bidder, esp. by a person licensed and authorized for the purpose; a vendue.
2.
The things sold by auction or put up to auction. "Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys?" Note: In the United States, the more prevalent expression has been "sales at auction," that is, by an increase of bids (Lat. auctione). This latter form is preferable.
Dutch auction, the public offer of property at a price beyond its value, then gradually lowering the price, till some one accepts it as purchaser.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Auction" Quotes from Famous Books



... think I had. There's three or four American clipper ships in port with cargoes that must be sold, and no demand. I bought a lot of stuff at auction, and I never paid such a low ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... a midshipman's pay was always nothing, and find yourself, Master Godfrey," said Ned. "And as for your chest and its contents, they've been sold by auction on the capstan-head long ago, so that it would be a hard job ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... mirror, between the once gilt frame and glass of which can be inserted invitation cards; indeed, one or two so remain, proving that the tenants even of "bed-sitting-rooms" are not excluded from social delights. The wall opposite is adorned by an oleograph of the kind Cheap Jacks sell by auction on Saturday nights in the Pimlico Road, and warrant as "hand-made." Generally speaking, it is a Swiss landscape. There appears to be more "body" in a Swiss landscape than in scenes from less favoured localities. A dilapidated mill, a foaming torrent, a mountain, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... and Co., auctioneers of literary property and works illustrative of the fine arts will SELL by AUCTION, at their House, 3. Wellington Street, Strand, on Monday, December 3. and seven following days, (Sunday excepted), at 1 precisely each day, the second portion of the important and valuable STOCK ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various

... "Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat," there was related our hero's adventures in a fine craft which was recovered from the thieves and sold at auction. There was a mystery connected with the boat, and for a long time Tom could not solve it. He was aided, however, by his chum, Ned Newton, who worked in the Shopton Bank, and also by Mr. Damon and Eradicate Sampson, an aged colored whitewasher, ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... Letters to Jim Cahews in regard to the store, which Cahews was admirably managing, contained humorous accounts of the various deals which Henley had put through. At one time he had bought a roller-skating rink, which was sold by auction at a great sacrifice because the town was too small to support it. Henley had bid it in, packed it up, and shipped it to a thriving young city, advertised a big opening, and sold it for a handsome profit while the novelty was at its height. On another occasion he was the highest bidder ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... too bad," said Kagig simply. "Such women suffer more terribly than the hags who merely die by the sword. Ten times by the count —during ten succeeding massacres I have seen the Turks sell Armenian wives and daughters at auction. I am ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... solicitor of the Loughboro' Factory Company, stating that law proceedings were about being instituted in Dublin, at the Superior Courts. He could only reply by regretting his inability to meet the demand, and offering, as an instalment, to auction all his furniture and books, and forward the proceeds. And so things went on, despair deepening into despair, until one morning he came to me, his face white as a sheet, and held out to me, with tremulous hands, a tiny sheet, pointing with his finger to one particular notice. It was not ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... made of a vein running close to that settlement; but the returns not being adequate to the expense it was let to farm, and in a few years fell into such low repute as to be at length disposed of by public auction at a rent of two Spanish dollars.** The English company, also having intelligence of a mine said to be discovered near Fort Marlborough, gave orders for its being worked; but if it ever existed no trace ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... indeed have brought tears into Mr. Quirk's eyes, if he had been used to the melting mood, which he was not; having never been seen actually to shed a tear but once—when five-sixths of his little bill of costs (L196, 15s. 4d.) were taxed off in an auction on a Bill of Exchange for L13.[7] As it was, he tweedled the letter about in his hands for about five minutes, in a musing mood, and then stepped with it into Mr. Gammon's room. That gentleman took the letter with an air of curiosity, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... countrymen the brilliant and perilous career of foreign conquest. The joy which this great success excited in Rome had its echo in the Roman custom, continued down to a late age, of concluding the festal games with a "sale of Veientes," at which, among the mock spoils submitted to auction, the most wretched old cripple who could be procured wound up the sport in a purple mantle and ornaments of gold as "king of the Veientes." The city was destroyed, and the soil was doomed to perpetual desolation. Falerii and Capena hastened to make peace; the powerful Volsinii, which ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... her head. "I have the key, but there's not a stick of furniture in the place. We had a village auction last week and got rid of everything that we didn't plan on taking with us." She sighed. "Well, there's nothing for it, I guess. The nearest motel is thirty miles away, so I'll have to put you up at my house. I have a few articles of furniture left—wedding gifts, mostly, that I was ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young

... eloquence of the great orator more than by the clamors of the tribunes, would have viewed the agrarian laws in quite a different light. He then would have understood that the interest of the treasury was only a pretext; that, when the captured lands were put up at auction, the patricians hastened to buy them, in order to profit by the revenues from them,—certain, moreover, that the price paid would come back to them sooner or later, in exchange either for supplies furnished by them to the republic, or for the subsistence of the multitude, who could buy ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... found myself standing on the toppen part of a high stump with a lot of white folks walking around looking at the little scared boy that was me. Pretty soon the old master, (that's my first master) Saul Nudville, he say to me that I'm now belonging to Major Bee and for me to get down off the auction block. ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... wide and distant, and there were mysterious rumours about the numbers of copies, all identically the same in edition and minor individualities, which he possessed of certain books. I have known him, indeed, when beaten at an auction, turn round resignedly and say, "Well, so be it—but I daresay I have ten or twelve copies at home, if I could ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... years ago it appears to have been the deliberate judgment of Congress that tracts of land containing coal beds or coal fields should be sold, after three months' notice, to the bidder at public auction who would give the highest price over $20 per acre, and that a citizen engaged in the business of actual coal mining on the public domain should only secure a tract of 160 acres, at private entry, upon payment of $20 per acre and formal ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... and strayed, half by chance, half by intention, to the old furniture shop at the other end of the High Street, which was a favourite resort of the higher classes in Carlingford, and where periodically there was an auction, at which sometimes great bargains were to be had. Mr. May went into this dangerous place boldly. The sale was going on; he walked into the midst of temptation, forgetting the prayer against it, which no doubt he had said that morning. And as evil ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... By attending auction sales, visiting dealers constantly and all exhibitions, reading all art periodicals, she soon learned the commercial value of ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... help me. I rescued, too, for Margarita, a rich carved mahogany chair from a cow stall ("ole Marse Lockwood's pay chair") and a graceful, brass-handled serving-table, "what his grandpa done leave fo' li'l Marse Lockwood fer ter rec'leck' him by." I picked up a silver cup, at a roadside auction (and bid high for it against a Fifth Avenue dealer) engraved with his mother's coat-of-arms, and shamelessly inveigled Margarita into taking it, later, and giving me in return the silver bowl that stood for so long under the Henner etching. It stands there still, but not in the old ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... at Blocksby's auction-room, in a street near the Strand, on the eve of a great book-sale three years before, that we had met, for almost the last time, as I believed, though it is true that we had not spoken on that occasion. It is necessary that I should ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... was not shared by the pretorians. Pertinax was promptly massacred; the throne was put up at auction; there were two or three emperors at once, and presently the purple was seized by Septimus Severus, a rigid, white-haired disciplinarian, who, in his admiration for Marcus Aurelius, founded that second dynasty of the Antonins ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... itself; and we can see just how people behave when they are buying a schooner, and how prices are running, so that when the time comes we will be more experienced. Besides, the club remembered the ship auction scene in "The Wrecker" and felt that the occasion might be one ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... He seed him watchin' Lissa. He seed de lustful look in his eyes, but 'twuzn' Lissa he lustin' after; 'twuz money he seed in her slender swayin' body, in de smooth warm brown skin, an' de quick, clean way she gleam de wheat. Stripped to de wais' on de Alabama auction block she would bring near 'bout a thousan' dollars. Cleve 'gun to sweat. He turned so sick an' skeered dat he could hardly swing de scythe through de wheat. Marse Drew done took his baby away, an' now ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... by the Commonwealth government, and when the lands forfeited by the wars of 1690 came to be sold at Chichester House in 1703, the Irish were declared by the English Parliament incapable of purchasing at the auction, or of taking a lease of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... rapidly in the mother's mind; and, with her fear of losing an admirer for her Phoebe, the value of that admirer suddenly rose in her estimation. Thus, at an auction, if a lot is going to be knocked down to a lady, who is the only person that has bid for it, even she feels discontented, and despises that which nobody covets; but if, as the hammer is falling, many voices answer to the question, Who bids more? then her anxiety ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... sat beside her, feeling very hot and uncomfortable in the crape veil in which I was pinned. The others walked behind us, two by two, in a long procession. We went five times around the circle, while Sim Williams, on the wood-shed roof, tolled a big auction bell, which he had borrowed for ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... most skilfully, although as yet she had no instrument. Three weeks, however, after her return a rich man, who lived in the village which was known as "Over the River," failed, and all his furniture was sold at auction. Many were the surmises of my grandmother, on the morning of the sale, as to what "Cap'n Howard could be going to buy at the vandue and put in the big lumber wagon," which he ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... of our hotel was so curious that I cannot forbear repeating it, "The Slavansky Bazaar," and they call their smartest restaurant "The Hermitage." I felt as if I could be sold at auction in "The Bazaar," and as if I ought to fast and pray ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... the boat's crew, and three-fourths to the Government Inspector. They keep whichever heap he chooses to kick; so that, being uncertain which they will get for themselves, the boat's crew are sure to make a fair division. These heaps are then divided and sold by auction in thousands, and then subdivided again and again. Of course it is always a matter of speculation as to whether you get good pearls, bad pearls, or no pearls at all, though this last ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... a store with a red auction flag waving in the doorway. In the window was a tempting array of cheap jewelry, watches, and holiday goods. Surely there must be something that would be suitable for ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... servant regarded each other as two enraged tigers might do, whenever they met. Mrs. Lisle made up her mind she would have Kizzie taken to the Court House and sold. Court was to be holden in a week or so; at such a time more or less slaves were put up at auction. ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... Under the guidance of a musically inclined Ship's Steward, it had faced audiences across impromptu footlights as "The Pale Pink Pierrots," and, as such, had achieved a meteoric distinction. But unhappily the Ship's Steward was partial to oysters, and bought a barrelful at an auction sale ashore. On the face of things, it appeared a bargain; but the Ship's Steward neglected to inquire too closely into the antecedents of its contents, and was duly wafted ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... think, and bringing him all sorts of delicacies. His way of raising money was to give a mortgage on his estate of a hundred thousand dollars at a time, and receive that nominal amount in goods, which he would immediately sell at auction for perhaps thirty thousand. He died by a chicken-bone. Near the house are the remains of a covered way, by which the French once attempted to gain admittance into the fort; but the work caved in and buried a good many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... the world, Sam," said Mr. Hopewell; "there are some repudiative States that don't keep me; and if you go to the auction rooms, you'll see some beautiful carriages for sale, that say, 'the United States' Bank used to keep me,' and some more that say, 'Nick Biddle ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... which Macduff dashes out the truth: "Your royal father's murder'd." We have a still more emphatic instance of the same kind in Goneril and Regan's hollow-hearted, and therefore highly rhetorical professions of love, when the doting old King invites his three daughters to an auction of falsehood, by proposing, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... I went back with Selincourt to his rooms and we sat up the rest of the night smoking and playing auction piquet. He won about five pounds off me. Ask ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... leased fisheries on individual streams sometimes amounts to between L6000 and L7000 a year. Net fisheries, worked by licence-holders in the principal rivers and along the sea-shore, are not nearly so profitable as the closed fisheries—called In—which are from time to time sold by auction for fixed periods of years. Salted fish forms, along with boiled rice, one of the chief articles of food among the Burmese; and as the price of salted fish is gradually rising along with the prosperity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold by auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained unpaid. Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his brother-in-law Bezukhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due for value received. And to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder, as the creditors threatened, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... up the notion of leaving Glamerton, for he had found that the patronage of the missionars in grocery was not essential to a certain measure of success; and he had no intention of proceeding to an auction of Mrs Forbes's goods, for he saw that would put him in a worse position with the public than any amount of quiet practice in lying and stealing. But there was every likelihood of Annie's being ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... numerous and varied in matter. I have heard upon good authority that the proprietor of any one of these journals draws at least L4000 to L5000 per annum from the profits of them. It is not difficult to account for these enormous gains. Every thing here is sold by auction, and the advertisements are in consequence more numerous than they would otherwise be. An auctioneer alone, in good business, will pay each of the papers about L1000 per annum for printing and advertising his numerous sales. We have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... of Asia.] We know little of the arrangements for the taxation of Asia made by Gracchus. He provided that the taxes should be let by auction at Rome, which would undoubtedly be a boon to the Roman capitalists and a check to provincial competition. He is said also to have substituted the whole system of direct and indirect taxes for the previously existing ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... also levies a very considerable sum from the Chinese, for the privilege of selling opium. It is put up annually to auction, and in some years as much as forty-five thousand dollars have been paid for the monopoly, though this year it has brought considerably less in consequence of the dulness of trade. From this circumstance it will be inferred that there is a considerable Chinese population in the place. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... dusting once a week—how any one can lay his eyes on other people's property, without consideration of his own, as will be after his poor mother's time, is to me quite a puzzle and a pin-prick. Not as if they was owing for, or bought at auction, or so much as beaten down by sixpence, but all at full price and own judgment, paid for by airnings of labour and perils of the deep. And as Widow Shanks said, the last time she was here, by spoiling of the enemies of England, who makes us pay tremenjious for 'most everything we lives on. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... which grew a little moist under her spectacles. She wished Richard could have seen the girls dressed, 'just once.' But Rose treated the cards with no sort of tenderness. 'If one could but put them up to auction,' she said flippantly, holding them up, 'how many German opera tickets I should get for nothing! I don't know what Agnes feels. As for me, I have neither nerve enough for the people, nor money enough ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... town to town; offered by auction at two-pence a day; harnessed to gravel carts; mocked by being sent with a barley straw fifteen miles a day; imprisoned in pits, and kept standing morning after morning in a public pound. Such were the scenes which induced Horton to lecture through the country on redundant population and ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... wealth he had amassed enabled him to gratify this devilish desire. He opened his bags of gold and unlocked his coffers. No monster of ignorance ever destroyed so many superb productions of art as did this raging avenger. At any auction where he made his appearance, every one despaired at once of obtaining any work of art. It seemed as if an angry heaven had sent this fearful scourge into the world expressly to destroy all harmony. Scorn of the world was expressed ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... of Candle. An auction where bids are taken so long as an inch of candle burns, the last bid before the flame ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... accepted, and before long the young man was intrusted with the purchasing of all goods for the store. He bought for cash, going into lower New York in search of the cheapest market, frequenting auction sales of merchandise, and often entering into combines with other grocers to bid off large lots, which were afterward divided between them. Thus they were enabled to buy at a much lower rate than if the goods had passed through the hands of wholesale dealers, and Barnum's ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... people that, but for the show of the thing, a great deal more good would have resulted if everybody had carried a tin mug of water and thrown it upon the fire. Still, they did learn this truth at last, and the result was that one day the old fire-engine was sold by auction in the marketplace of the nearest town and bought for a trifle ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... of the interest in the corporate properties which the firm had acquired and stock in the Connecticut concern. There was also a library which realized, when sold at auction, about five ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell

... a week for you," the woman answered. "Bring me the money by then and you shall have them. If I don't hear anything of you, they'll go to the auction mart." ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... expenditures must redound to the benefit of the government and people of the islands. We have already stated, in the report on the public land act, that it is proposed, under that act, which allows the organizing of town sites, to sell the public land in suitable lots at auction so that every one interested shall have the opportunity to obtain a good lot upon which to ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... prices. In the midst of the most terrible crisis the country had ever seen, when old and established houses were breaking all around him, he was carrying on a thriving business. His cash sales averaged five thousand dollars per day. Other houses, to save themselves, were obliged to sell their goods at auction. Thither went Stewart regularly. He bought these goods for cash, and sold them over his counters at an average profit of forty per cent. On a lot of silks for which he paid fifty thousand dollars he cleared twenty ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... comments, letters from correspondents, and everybody talked about the church. The ash barrels and the church doors had bills posted on them announcing that the Church of the Sea and Land would be sold at auction on April 19, 1893. The property, however, was withdrawn when the best offer was $15,000 short of what was expected. ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer

... known to go to a house within twelve hours of the death of the last surviving member of the family, and offer to negotiate with a servant or friend of the deceased for a chair, table, clock or sideboard he coveted. I doubt if an auction of old furniture has occurred for four years within one hundred miles of him where he has not been the first and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... was felt the presence of James T. Duncan, who looked like a dignified red-mustached Sunday-school superintendent, but who traveled for a cloak and suit house, gambled heavily on poker and auction pinochle, and was esteemed for his straight back and knowledge ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... scarcely blame the worthy burghers for mistrusting the newcomers and refusing to grant them welcome. They were unfortunate enough to have been robbed at Jamaica where they rested on their journey; when they reached here there was the disgrace of an auction in which their goods were sold to pay for their passage, and two of the passengers, David Israel and Moses Ambrosius, were held for security. You remember how a law suit was brought against them by Jacques de la Motthe, master of the vessel, for this same passage money; and ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... never known her, for instance, to put a pink bow on an afghan and then have the subsequent development turn out to be a boy, or vice versa. And the very day before Mr. Ostermaier fell and sprained his ankle she had picked up a roller chair at an auction sale, and in twenty minutes he ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... moment the steward entered. "Jackson," said the Colonel, in the very same tone he was speaking in, "put up my race-horses to auction by public advertisement." ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... again it was at an auction of articles donated for a charity under the patronage of the Empress, and open to the public. Cotton stuffs justled my lady's satins, and the half-world stared at short range into the ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... in Coorg and many of the larger native plantations are held under what are called "The Waste Land Rules," under which land is put up to auction by the State at an upset price of 2 rupees per acre (10 rupees is the upset price in Mysore), plus the value of the timber, which adds somewhat to the price. As a rule there is now considerable competition for land, and as much as 100 to 150 rupees has frequently to be paid per acre. The land ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... very clumsy and heavy, and are seldom used by Europeans, who, as Mr. Hardy had done, generally bring English saddles from home. After an absence of a month, Mr. Hardy returned with the welcome news that he had made his choice, and had bought at the public auction a tract of four square leagues, upon a river some twenty miles to the south of the town of Rosario, and consequently only a few days' journey from Buenos Ayres. Mr. Thompson looked a little grave when he heard the ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... of persons similarly situated as my fellow-traveller. "Why," thought I, "should literature alone lag in the age of steam? Is there no way by which a man could be made to swallow Scott or bolt Bulwer, in as short a time as it now takes him to read an auction bill?" Suddenly a happy thought struck me: it was to write a novel, in which only the actual spirit of the narration should be retained, rejecting all expletives, flourishes, and ornamental figures of speech; to be terse and abrupt in style—use monosyllables always in preference ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various

... born on a plantation near Fayetteville, N. C., and I belonged to J. B. Smith. His wife wus named Henrietta. He owned about thirty slaves. When a slave was no good he wus put on the auction block in Fayetteville ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... I reckon our sale went pretty well. Just before closing time we held a rubbish auction, with Ginger in the chair. Ginger would make an absolute Napoleon among auctioneers. He can bully, lie, despair, wheedle and take you into his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... of beautiful illustrations of Mediaeval Art, that Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson will sell by auction on Monday next the entire stock of the magnificent publications of Mr. Henry Shaw, F.S.A., whose Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages are a type of the whole. Such an opportunity of securing copies ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various

... virtually says: 'The poor we will not have with us; we will put them out of our sight.' For in many towns in New-England, and probably in other States, it is customary to contract with some individual for their support; or, in other words, to sell them by auction, to him who will support them by the year, for the least sum per head. To illustrate some of the results of this system, the following incidents are related from memory, having been witnessed by me in my native ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... customers from our office since I saw him last. By-the-bye, I shall have half a day at the seaside on Monday. There's a sale of building-plots down at Whitsand. The estate agents run a complimentary special train for people going down to bid, and give a lunch before the auction begins. Not bad business.' ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... devotion the captive must have perished, and who, Anna revealed, was the schoolmistress banished North in 'Sixty-one. What she kept untold was that, by favor of Greenleaf, Hilary had been enabled to auction off the poor remains of his home belongings and thus to restore the returned exile her gold. The speaker let her eyes wander to an approaching orderly, and a lieutenant took the chance to mention that early ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... of a friend,—and mark their similarity in several characteristic circumstances. The resemblance is easily accounted for: slavery wherever it prevails produces similar effects.—"Having heard that there was to be a sale of cattle, farm stock, &c. by auction, at a Veld-Cornet's in the vicinity, we halted our waggon one day for the purpose of procuring a fresh spann of oxen. Among the stock of the farm sold, was a female slave and her three children. The two eldest children were girls, the one about ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... Mr. Nicol the printer sold by auction a number of books and manuscripts in his possession, which had formerly belonged to the well-known publisher Dodsley; and in arranging them for sale, the original agreement for the sale of the manuscript of 'Peter Wilkins,' by the author, 'Robert Pultock of Clement's Inn' ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various

... vent, disposal; auction, roup, Dutch auction; outcry, vendue[obs3]; custom &c. (traffic) 794. vendibility, vendibleness[obs3]. seller; vender, vendor; merchant &c. 797; auctioneer. V. sell, vend, dispose of, effect a sale; sell over the counter, sell by auction &c. n.; dispense, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... passed before I got the chance I had been looking out for. I went home in good spirits (for me) to report what had happened, and found the brokers in the house carrying off the furniture which I had bought with my own money for sale by auction. I asked them how they dared touch it without my leave. They answered, civilly enough I must own, that they were acting under my husband's orders; and they went on removing it before my own eyes, to the cart outside. I ran up stairs, and found my husband on the landing. ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... Shirley's masque, entitled The Triumphs of Peace. In 1789, when Dr. Burney published the third volume of his History of Music, it was in the possession of Dr. Morton of the British Museum.—Query, Was Dr. Morton's library disposed of by auction, or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various

... day to Bazuel, and the following day to Bethencourt, near Caudry, from which place we were destined finally to be scattered to the four winds. From here we sent back most of our horses and mules, with others from the Brigade, to an Auction sale at Prisches, where they were sold in a most entertaining manner by a French Auctioneer at good prices to the local inhabitants. Our Transport vehicles were sent to ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman

... general judgment as that of the public, tho it may be mistaken in some details, is likely to be a resultant of broad experience. There is in competitive trade a public, a social character, which monopoly destroys. Even in a simple auction, when the bidding is really competitive, price depends far less on shrewd bargaining, on bluff, or on stubbornness, than is the case in isolated trade. Each bidder is compelled by self-interest to outbid his less eager competitors, ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... alphabetical list of their names will be found at the beginning of the volume. It ought also to be observed that accounts of the different libraries rarely mention the number of books contained in them, but when they have been sold by auction I have found by a careful examination of the sale catalogues that on an average each lot may be reckoned as consisting of about a volume and ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... one comfort. He had his old umbrella, which he loved, in the lamp cabin. At last he took his stand on the chair, and was at the top in a moment. Then he handed in his lamp and got his umbrella, which he had bought at an auction for one-and-six. He stood on the edge of the pit-bank for a moment, looking out over the fields; grey rain was falling. The trucks stood full of wet, bright coal. Water ran down the sides of the waggons, over the white "C.W. and ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... orders, and as for titles, they are the cheapest and most convenient of all, as they cost absolutely nothing. Ah, a jest just now occurs to me. We will amuse ourselves a little to-day. We will have a title-auction. Call our courtiers, attendants, and servants. We shall have a gay time of it! We will have a game at dice. Bring the dice! I will at each throw announce the prize, and the dice shall then decide who is ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... to the white man. For my defence of the rights of Sechele and the Bakwains, I was treated as conniving at their resistance, and my house was destroyed, my library, the solace of our solitude, torn to pieces, my stock of medicines smashed, and our furniture and clothing sold at public auction to pay ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... mostly pass through the hands of racing men, who, with a view to securing a good animal, either arrange with the dealers for private gallops, when the various performances are carefully timed by stop-watch, or buy their fancies at public auction without speed tests ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... Brito was also a regidor of Manila, whose post was adjudged to him at public auction for one thousand four hundred pesos of common gold, with the third part of what was promised from the increase. He took possession of his post June 24, 1589. See Pastells's Colin, iii, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... carriage, though moderate enough by sea (in a wool ship), is enormous as soon as it reaches Lyttleton, and goods have to be dragged up country by horses or bullocks. There are very good shops where you can buy everything, and besides these there are constant sales by auction where, I am told, furniture fetches a price sometimes under its English value. House rent about Christchurch is very high. We looked at some small houses in and about the suburbs of the town, when we were undecided about our ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... probable that Elizabeth would also have turned stubborn and have suffered the articles to go to the auction-room had not her personal pride and interests demanded the sacrifice. But she had already introduced Lord Sudleigh to these family treasures, and she could not endure to go to Sudleigh Castle and take with her no heirlooms to ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... a lot of cheap shoes to farmers which I got at a bargain at an auction," explained Joe. "Then I struck a fine new scheme. It brought me here. I'll explain to you later. Your story is the one that interests me. Tell me how you came to be ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman

... a pair of gray horses with beautiful harness. Another offered twelve acres of land, and he also was refused. On the registers of Alkmaar it is recorded that in 1637 there were sold in that city, at public auction, one hundred and twenty tulips for the benefit of the orphanage, and that the sale produced one hundred and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... affair would be like that of Hojeda or one of the others, but I restrained myself when I learnt for certain from the friars that their Highnesses had sent him. I wrote to him that his arrival was welcome, and that I was prepared to go to the Court and had sold all I possessed by auction; and that with respect to the immunities he should not be hasty, for both that matter and the government I would hand over to him immediately as smooth as my palm. And I wrote to the same effect to the friars, but neither he nor they ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... marauders and had had a sharp fight in repelling them, but in the second voyage he met with the negro in a way that to him was more memorable. He and the young fellows with him saw, among the sights of New Orleans, negroes chained, maltreated, whipped and scourged; they came in their rambles upon a slave auction where a fine mulatto girl was being pinched and prodded and trotted up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, that "bidders might satisfy themselves," as the auctioneer said, of the soundness of the article to be sold. John Johnston and John Hanks and Abraham Lincoln ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... of the sale by auction of his collection of art works and treasures, etc., was between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds. The estate of the dead man was only just equal to the demands upon it, however. His popularity ought to have brought him wealth, but, strange to say, he was always embarrassed. Yet he did not gamble, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... To dream of an auction in a general way, is good. If you hear the auctioneer crying his sales, it means bright prospects and fair ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... the bourgeoisie plays the same role as the pioneers of America," continued Clousier. "It buys up great estates, which the peasantry could not otherwise acquire. It cuts them up and then sells, either at auction or in small lots at private sale, to the peasants. Everything is judged by figures in these days, and I know none more eloquent than these. France has ninety-nine million acres, which, subtracting highways, ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... a fabulous price on this part of our treasure; I think in our ignorance we mentioned ten thousand pounds as about their value; but when they were sold in London some months after, in a well-known auction room, they realised but little more than a tithe of ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... their movements,—ignorant of everything but what related to the negro quarter. He had heard that himself, his wife, his daughter,—"the leetle Chloe,"—with all their fellow-slaves, were to be carried down to the city, and to be sold in the slave-market by auction. They were to be taken the following day. They were already advertised. That was all he knew. No, not all,—one other piece of information he had in store for me. It was authentic: he had heard the ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... were angry, the Regiment were furious, and the Bandsman swore— like troopers. The Drum-Horse was going to be put up to auction—public auction—to be bought, perhaps, by a Parsee and put into a cart! It was worse than exposing the inner life of the Regiment to the whole world, or selling the Mess Plate to a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... bell and shouting that Thomas Russell at the auction room on Queen Street would sell a great variety of plain and spotted, lilac, scarlet, strawberry-colored, and yellow paduasoys, bellandine silks, sateens, galloons, ferrets, grograms, and harratines at half past ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... to different people; and at last he ran away that he might not be put in prison; and the people to whom he owed so much money came and seized his fine house and gardens, and the coach, and all the furniture, and sold them by auction, to raise money to pay the debts; so Charles found that, instead of being rich, he ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... public sale herein described is taken from the statement of Herodotus (see Herodotus, vol. i., p. 196. Compare "Nic. Dam. Fr.," 131, and AElian. "Var. Hist.," iv. 1), who says all the marriageable virgins in all the towns of the empire or kingdom were sold at public auction. The beautiful maidens were sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds were deposited before the herald. The ugly maidens in turn were then put up, and the bidders were called upon to take them as wives with the smallest dowry to be paid from the proceeds of the sales of the beautiful maids, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... stag-picture called, "The Monarch of the Glen," and well known all over the world from engravings, was recently exposed to auction, when it fetched the enormous price of 6,510 pounds. It is said that the painter sold it off his easel for 800 guineas. The bidding at the sale began at 2,000 pounds, and by bids of one hundred guineas reached 4,000 pounds, at which price it was hoped that it might have been secured ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... eulogium at great length, and after liberally dispensing "soft soap" on the listeners, declared the auction had commenced. I stood by for some minutes, gazing around and watching the operations, and was not long in discovering that Senator Huff kept running up the articles by pretended bids, and was evidently ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... sick a great deal—in fact, I had suffered with chills and fever ever since Mr. Reid bought me. He, therefore, concluded to sell me, and, in November, 1844, he took me back to Richmond, placing me in the Exchange building, or auction rooms, for the sale of slaves. The sales were carried on in a large hall where those interested in the business sat around a large block or stand, upon which the slave to be sold was placed, the auctioneer standing beside him. When I was placed upon the block, a Mr. McGee came ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes

... arms, the horses and the trappings, and the favorites of Commodus, but gave to the Pretorians all that he had promised and to the people one hundred denarii apiece. All the articles that Commodus had gathered by way of luxury and for armed combats and for chariot driving were exposed in the auction-room, the principal object sought being their sale, though there was a further intention to show what were the late emperor's deeds and practices and to ascertain ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... war, some plague, or famine they foresee, Some revelation hid from you and me. Why Shylock wants a meal, the cause is found— He thinks a loaf will rise to fifty pound. What made directors cheat in South-Sea year? To live on venison when it sold so dear. Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys? Phryne foresees a general excise. Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum? Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum. Wise Peter sees the world's respect for gold, And therefore hopes this nation may be sold: Glorious ambition! Peter, swell thy store, And be ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... in Dorinda. "You sound like Sim Eldredge sellin' somethin' at auction. DO be quiet! And you ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... going to explain; but Miss Milner entered, and put an end to the discourse. She had been passing the whole morning at an auction, and had laid out near two hundred pounds in different things for which she had no one use, but bought them because they were said to be cheap—among the rest was a lot of books upon chemistry, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... transfer from one owner to another when the slave acquiesced in the transfer before a notary, but it was often done without regard to the slave. They were even bequeathed and sold as personal property at auction. Notices for sale were frequent. There were rewards for runaway slaves. Negroes whose terms had almost expired were kidnapped and sold to New Orleans. The legislature imposed a penalty for such, but it was not generally enforced. They were taxable property valued according to ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson

... the land, by proclamation of the President, is offered for sale at public auction by half quarter sections, or tracts of 80 acres. If no one bids for it at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, or more, it is subject to private entry at any time after, upon payment of $1.25 cents per acre at the time of entry. No credit ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... the readiness with which, in these railroad days, a manufacture can be transplanted, was exhibited at Tewkesbury four years ago. The once- fashionable theatre of that decayed town was being sold by auction; it hung on the auctioneer's hammer at so trifling a sum that one of the new made M.P.'s of the borough bought it. Having bought it, for want of some other use he determined to turn it into a silk mill. In a very short space of time the needful machinery was obtained from Macclesfield, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... price of the commodity. The room in which the sales are conducted is not a large one, and usually not more than a hundred people, buyers, pressmen, etc., are present. Not a single cacao bean is visible, and it might be an auction sale of property for all the uninitiated could tell. The cacao is put up in lots. Usually the sales proceed quietly, and it is difficult to realize that many thousands of bags of cacao are changing hands. The buyers have perfect trust in the broker's ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... I attended a meeting of the Committee, and presented for audit the accounts of the expenditure incurred up to that date. On the 16th I had a sale of all my private effects, furniture, etc. by auction, and arranged my affairs in the best way that the very limited time ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... skeletons of the guardians strewed all over the place. The books of a good library—my solace in our solitude—were not taken away, but handfuls of the leaves were torn out and scattered over the place. My stock of medicines was smashed; and all our furniture and clothing carried off and sold at public auction to pay the expenses of the foray. I do not mention these things by way of making a pitiful wail over my losses, in order to excite commiseration; for though I feel sorry for the loss of lexicons, dictionaries, &c., &c., which had been the ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... about,—they'd known before of such things as failing rich;" but the mouths of these last were stopped when they heard that the household furniture, every thing, was given up for the benefit of his creditors, and was to be sold at auction during ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes

... gentlemen of the West India Company, in Holland, found all their property mercilessly confiscated. Colonel Nicholls seized on everything upon which he could lay his hand. He seemed anxious to eradicate every vestige of the former power. This property was sold at auction that it might thus be distributed among a large number of individual owners. The Colonel shrewdly imagined that he might thus interest all these persons in the maintenance of the ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... children were still in bondage. In 1856, the mistress of these remaining ones died; and in settling up her estate, it became necessary to sell all her servants at auction with her other property. This was the decision of the Court; and commissioners were appointed to carry out the sale, on the 1st of January, 1857. I felt now, that I had gone as far as I could in getting my family free; for I felt very certain ...
— A Narrative of The Life of Rev. Noah Davis, A Colored Man. - Written by Himself, At The Age of Fifty-Four • Noah Davis

... juniper, but the whitebeams that patch the deeper green of the oaks and beeches with glaucous grey. The box-trees, though their thick, snaky stems look as if they might be any age, are not all of them old. The trees have more than once been cut and sold. Sir Henry Mildmay put them up for auction for L12,000 in 1795 and apparently sold them for L10,000 two years later, with twelve years to cut the wood in. In later days, the wisdom of a War Office cleared a wide space of trees and built a fort there; the wisdom of another War Office abandoned ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... worthier name. But, really, I had seen much Jewisher things in Hester Street, on our own East Side. The market did not begin so early as I had been led to expect it would. The blazing forenoon of my visit was more than half gone, and yet there was no clothes' auction, which was said to be the great thing to see. But by nine o'clock there seemed to be everything else for sale under that torrid July sun, in the long booths and shelters of the street and sidewalks: meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, glassware, ironware, boots and shoes, china and crockery, women's ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... Strangeways and others. But he had won through these libel cases, and now devoted his vast wealth to improving our breed of horses by racing at Newmarket, Epsom, Doncaster, Gatwick, Sandown and Brighton. Racing had, in fact, become to him what Auction Bridge was to the Society gamblers of those days, only instead of losing and winning tens and hundreds of pounds, his fluctuations in gains and losses were in thousands, generally with a summing up on the right ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... of thirty-seven cents. He determined to start a school at a place called Winchester, some fifteen miles from Jacksonville, and as he had little money, walked the entire distance. Arriving in Winchester the first sight that met his eyes was a crowd assembled at an auction, and he secured employment for the time being as clerk for the auctioneer. For this service, which lasted three days, he received $6, and with this sum he started a school, which occupied his attention during ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... Denmark was to such a degree restrictive that imported manufactures had to be delivered to the customs, where they were sold by public auction, the proceeds of which the importer received from the custom-houses after a deduction was made for the duty. To this restriction, as regards foreign intercourse, was added a no less injurious system of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... much joviality indulged (in Wales) as on that of an auction "under a distress for rent," (which was the case here)—an occasion of calamity and ruin to the owner. Even in the event of an auction caused by a death, where the common course of nature has removed the possessor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... means also for raising a stock for the community, which had been so much impoverished of late, and was so unable to defray other expenses, and especially those of a war, that they exposed their very statues to sale, a regular process being observed, and sentence of auction passed upon each of them by majority of votes, as if they had been so many criminals taking their trial: in the course of which it is said that while condemnation was pronounced upon all other statues, that of the ancient ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... and blowing off a happier steam than any engine ever blew on that railroad, whose unmarketable stock had singed Dr. Renton's fingers. There was a yellow gleam flickering from the blazing fire on the sober binding of a good old Book upon a shelf with others, a rarer medical work than ever slipped at auction from Dr. Renton's hands, since it kept the sacred lore of Him who healed the sick, and fed the hungry, and comforted the poor, and who was also the ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor

... went to-day into the City, but in a coach, and sossed(9) up my leg on the seat; and as I came home, I went to see poor Charles Barnard's(10) books, which are to be sold by auction, and I itch to lay out nine or ten pounds for some fine editions of fine authors. But 'tis too far, and I shall let it slip, as I usually do all such opportunities. I dined in a coffee-house with Stratford upon chops and some of his wine. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... with a cloth to avoid contact with the outer air, which is apt to turn them brown. They are then placed in baskets that contain twenty-three to twenty-five pounds and sent to market, where they are sold at auction as they arrive. Or they may be sent to preserved-vegetable manufacturers, who contract for them at an ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... don't mean that the chickens themselves was on the poster, but a statement that a lot would be sold at auction. I'll bid 'em in for you if they're a good lot. If you, a city chap, was to bid, some straw-bidder would raise 'em agin you. I know what they're wuth, and everybody there'll know I do, and they'll try no ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... accounts showed affairs in a sad plight. Paper was very dull, so Joslin wrote. The lots sent forward were not as good as usual, (which was a falsehood,) so that much that had been sold was returned to him, (another lie,) and he had been forced to sell the most of it at auction to cover his advances, and the last cargo of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... 1636 for an annuity of L500, entered on the company's books and paid yearly as the "king's clog." Both classes of shares have become so valuable that they have been subjected to frequent sub-division. At a sale by auction, which took place in London, 15 Nov., 1893, an undivided adventurers' ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... 1794 (Library of Congress). A few original manuscripts, such as a letter of November 8, 1784, to John Avery and a letter of January 22, 1794, to George Clinton, have passed into private hands at auction sales. Certain manuscripts have been withheld by their owners; but in most instances the entire text of the same has been available, so that it is believed that all the important existing materials of Adams have been comprised ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... see the Warren collection of pictures which has been sent here for sale at auction, and one little landscape impressed me so deeply that all last night in my dreams I seemed to be walking unaccompanied in the waste places of the artist's vision. It was a picture by Rousseau; a Sunset it was called, though something in the wide look of expectancy and the purity ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... the death of its connoisseur possessor, and the dispersion of his effects, it has again returned to its natal soil,) and is now, it may be, to be had for twice or three times as much, as you yourself might have procured it for in Christie's auction-rooms a few months before, unless you possess an accurate taste, and an intimate knowledge of what you buy. (Not, depend upon it, to be acquired, as almost all other knowledge may now be, in six lessons.) You must know that it is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... books, which was rather extensive, and rich in Oriental, especially Sanscrit literature, was sold by auction in Bonn, December, 1845. It appears by a chronological list prefixed to the catalogue, that reckoning both his separate publications and those contributed to periodicals, his printed works number no fewer than 126. Besides these he left many unpublished manuscripts, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... can about it, and you will be sure to succeed. What I mean by studying on speculation, is that aimless learning of things because they may be useful at some time; which is like the conduct of the woman who bought at auction a brass door-plate with the name Thompson on it, thinking it might ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... choose the things at the Senior auction. She has lived in a house all her life and knows about furnishing. You can't imagine what fun it is to shop and pay with a real five-dollar bill and get some change—when you've never had more than a few cents in your life. I assure you, Daddy dear, ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster

... him fifty Louis on it; but if he does not redeem it to-morrow I will have the stone taken out before a judge, and afterwards I shall sell it by auction." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Lake, where the Bent Arrow runs red as pale blood under its crust of ice, Reese Beaudin heard of the dog auction that was to take place at Post Lac Bain three days later. It was in the cabin of Joe Delesse, a trapper, who lived at Lac Bain during the summer, and trapped the fox and the lynx sixty miles farther north ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... Ville-aux-Fayes and Blangy, the capital of the township—made an elaborate inventory, and sought out the heirs of the singer, who never knew she had any. Eleven families of poor laborers living near Amiens, and sleeping in cotton sheets, awoke one fine morning in golden ones. The property was sold at auction. Les Aigues was bought by Montcornet, who had laid by enough during his campaigns in Spain and Pomerania to make the purchase, which cost about eleven hundred thousand francs, including the furniture. The general, no doubt, felt the influence of these luxurious apartments; and I was arguing with ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... whose foundations were made of boxes of plug tobacco—part of a jettisoned cargo—used instead of more expensive lumber; and the adjacent warehouse where the trunks of the early and forgotten "forty-niners" were stored, and—never claimed by their dead or missing owners—were finally sold at auction. I remember the strong breath of the sea over all, and the constant onset of the trade winds which helped to disinfect the deposit of dirt and grime, decay and wreckage, which were stirred up in the later evolutions of ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... p. 134, begins in good earnest, and, except for the idle dilletante reader, all the foregoing, from the first Chapter, might go by the board—that is, as far as the Baron can make out. He speaks only for himself. The Chapter describing the sale by auction is first-rate; no doubt about it. The Baron's spirits, just now down to zero, rose to over 100 deg.. On we go: Throw over OSBOURNE, and come along with Louis STEVENSON of Treasure Island. Bah! that exciting Chapter was but a flash in the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various

... went on, leaning across the table and banging a dirty fist upon it, 'come to-night at ten o'clock. There are others coming at the same hour to buy my letter in the pink envelope. We will have an auction, a little auction, and the letter goes to the highest bidder. But what does your reverence want ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... these unhappy people, when I consider that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... building, bearing the names Gottlieb & Quibble. Our own offices were in the rear, the front rooms being given over to clerks, runners, and process servers. A huge safe bought for a few dollars at an auction stood in the entrance chamber, but we used it only as a receptacle for coal, its real purpose being simply to impress our clients. We kept but few papers and needed practically no books; what we had were thrown around indiscriminately, upon chairs, tables—even ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... worked industriously, and produced a large number of instruments, but a far greater number are attributed to him than he could possibly have made. His usual price for a violin was about twenty dollars, (Haweis says fifty dollars), but a fine specimen from his hand now sells in the auction room for hundreds of dollars. In 1888, a Stradivarius violin brought the large sum of five thousand dollars, and double this sum was paid a few years since for the celebrated "Messie" violin, made by Stradivarius ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... three centuries, was bought at Earl Mountnorris's sale at Arley Castle in December 1852, by Mr Henry Stevens of Vermont, who, as he himself informs us, after partly copying it, and endeavouring in vain to place it in some public or private library in England or the United States, threw it into auction, where it was sold by Messrs Puttick and Simpson in May 1854, for 44, as lot 474, Sir Thomas Phillipps being the purchaser. The manuscript still adorns the Phillipps library at Cheltenham. In 1868 a copy of this most suggestive volume was obtained by the late Dr Leonard Woods for the Maine ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens

... her head in surprise when she saw what had been done without even "By your leave." She had found auction sales, sheriff's notices and tax warnings opposite her window, but never copper mines. The longer she looked at it the better she liked it. There was a cheery bit of color in its blazing letters, and she was partial to bits of color. That's why she kept plants all winter in the little sitting-room ...
— Abijah's Bubble - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... in the carriage: friends always do. Keep them all, like my other pictures, at your house: and make what use of them you please. The head of Dante is, I suppose, the same as the one L. Hunt shewed us engraved in a book: a theatrical one, I thought. . . . Have you been to any auction-rooms? I have forgot all about them: and can live very well without pictures. I believe one loses all one's tastes in the country: and one is not the less happy. We have had glorious weather: new pease and young potatoes—fresh milk (how ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... Tipperary? This is the miserable sum of money for which the merchants and landowners and nobility of England are exposing themselves to the tremendous peril of losing Ireland. The sinecure places of the Roses and the Percevals, and the 'dear and near relations,' put up to auction at thirty years' purchase, would almost amount ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... triumph is short, for the third aspirant soon arrives, who, true to principle, takes another step in the ascending series. So it goes till the block is finished, the whole thing looking as if architecture was a sort of auction, in which the prize of success was awarded to ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... been on distant voyages, and after a long absence received a newspaper from home, who cannot understand the delight that they give one. I read every part of them—the houses to let; things lost or stolen; auction sales, and all. Nothing carries you so entirely to a place, and makes you feel so perfectly at home, as a newspaper. The very name of "Boston Daily Advertiser" ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... had reached the auction-room. He found some difficulty, on account of the inertness of those whose only inducement to an action is a mere wish from another, in getting the information he stood in need of, but it was at last accorded ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... forest path, the roof filled with nests, the church tower surrounded by tombs? Where is the street, the faubourg, the lamp burning bright before the door, the friends, the workshop, the trade, the customary toil? And the furniture put up for sale, the auction invading the domestic sanctuary! Oh! these eternal adieux! Destroyed, dead, thrown to the four winds, that moral existence which is called the family hearth, and which is composed not only of loving converse, of caresses and embraces, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... and subject races having been sucked into Rome to fill the vacuum left as the Romans themselves perished in war. The continuous killing of the best left room for the "post-Roman herd," who once sold the imperial throne at auction to the highest bidder. As the Romans vanished through warfare at home and abroad, came an inrush of foreign blood from all regions roundabout. ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... the best circles there; only I shall have him accompanied on his calls by a sentry of two disguised as valets. For the Earl's to be on sale, mind; so much ransom; that is, the nobleman, Lord Selkirk, shall have a bodily price pinned on his coat-tail, like any slave up at auction in Charleston. But, my lad with the yellow mane, you very strangely draw out my secrets. And yet you don't talk. Your honesty is a magnet which attracts my sincerity. But I rely ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... Loves Labour Lost, the Curate plays the fool egregiously; and so does the Poet too: there he clenches the Nail, there he gives Shakespear a bold stroke, there obstinacy and malice appear in true colours: And yet if a parcel of the ones Plays, were set up by way of Auction against t'others Sermons and Essays; nay, tho the Loyal and Politick Desertion discussd was thrown in to boot, I know not what the Grave would do, but I am sure the Wise would quickly find difference. ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet

... ajar. Closet doors are screens simply, and ought to hide the interior of the closet when they are partially open, as well as when they are closed. They may be as light as it is possible to make them. In many houses one-half the doors might wisely be sent to the auction-room and the proceeds invested in portieres, which are often far more suitable and convenient than solid doors, especially for chamber closets, for dressing-rooms, or other apartments communicating in suites, and not infrequently a heavy curtain is an ample barrier between the ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... to act as a justice of the peace for the Colony, I had thought it my duty to accept the responsibility. Already it had led me into a good deal of trouble. But that I should be forced to seize the large store of a company, and threaten an auction of goods for payment, without even a policeman to back me up, had never entered my mind. It was, however, exactly what I now felt called upon to do. To my intense surprise and satisfaction the trader immediately turned ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... the nation freedom and free institutions for all, chains and fetters for none, are forever incorporated in the fundamental law of regenerated and united America. Slave codes and auction blocks, chains and fetters and blood-hounds, are things of the past, and the chattel stands forth a man, with the rights and the powers of the freemen. For the better security of these new-born civil rights ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... stage at one end of the salle-a-manger. And what a sight it was to see M. de Vauversin, with a cigarette in his mouth, twanging a guitar, and following Mademoiselle Ferrario's eyes with the obedient, kindly look of a dog! The entertainment wound up with a tombola, or auction of lottery tickets: an admirable amusement, with all the excitement of gambling, and no hope of gain to make you ashamed of your eagerness; for there, all is loss; you make haste to be out of pocket; it is a competition who shall lose most money ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... scheme, intended to attract more European settlers, was adopted. The lands of the state—other than woods and forests—but especially the barren lands and brushwoods situated in the plains, were offered for colonization, to be disposed of (1) by sale at a fixed price, (2) by auction, and (3), in certain cases, by agreement. Purchasers were to be Frenchmen, or Europeans naturalized as French citizens, who had never held "colonization lands''; and they were obliged, under pain of forfeiture, either to take up residence themselves on their property within six months ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... article was forgotten, or left or lost, on a railway, and, more amazing still, it was never claimed, but after having been advertised, and having lain in the lost goods office the appointed time, it was sold by auction with other things. Many of the articles were powerfully suggestive of definite ideas. One could not look upon those delicate kid gloves without thinking of the young bride, whose agitated soul was incapable of extending a thought to such trifles. That Mrs Gamp-like umbrella ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... visited by 150,000 persons in thirty-two days. And he is still in the full tide of success, pre-eminently the greatest master of the out-of-doors of modern times, while to-day the work of Meissonier has fallen into such disrepute that no owner dares offer one of his canvases at public auction except under the keenest necessity. The first master expresses the refinement of extreme realism, or rather detailism; the other is a pronounced impressionist of the sanest of the open-air school of to-day. How long this pendulum will continue to swing no one can tell. Both men ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... hands by a purchase at auction, some twenty years after I had abandoned the Legend of the Cave and the Hawks as a hopeless quest. In running over its contents, I found that a Colonel George Talbot was once the Surveyor-General of Maryland; and in two short marginal notes (the substance of which I afterwards found in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... prize, which was advertised in the Sydney Gazette for sale by auction, Mr. Lord, the auctioneer, setting forth that ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke

... moment advertised the pure air of the Surrey highlands, and by the time I came upon the scene trim villas had sprung up by hundreds, and wealth was already in possession. The merest cottage in this favoured district provoked keen contest in the auction-room. Indeed, in the true sense, there were no cottages; they had been transformed, added to, rebuilt, till only a remnant of their primitive rusticity remained. It was the same everywhere. I was too late by twenty years ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson

... Boston for a month. They packed away the furniture they wanted to keep for upper rooms, in the attics of their house at Z——. They had an auction of all the furniture of their drawing-room, dining-room, library, and first floor of sleeping-rooms. Then they were to let their house. Meanwhile, one was to be fixed upon and fitted up in Boston. In all this Mrs. Megilp ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... suddenly placed in a stage of civil society which as yet could afford no literature, discovered the philosophical cast of his genius, when he filled his almanacs with proverbs, by the ingenious contrivance of framing them into a connected discourse, delivered by an old man attending an auction. "These proverbs," he tells us, "which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, when their scattered counsels were brought together, made a great impression. They were reprinted in Britain, in a large sheet of paper, and stuck ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... perfectly reconciled his mind to the stroke of death. He made his will thirteen days previous to it, and dictated and signed plain and accurate orders respecting his funeral. He directed his library of books and all his pictures to be sold by auction, and the money arising therefrom, together with what money he might have at his bankers or in his strong box, he bequeathed to his executor, Mr. Jesse Foot, of Dean Street, Soho. To Mrs. Mangeon (his landlady) he gave "all his prints ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... always the same people. To give one instance, some of the wine, said to have been damaged, was sold at 260 crowns the thousand litres, while undamaged wine brought 320 crowns, and the firm of Riboli, the only one which appeared at the so-called auction, was only asked to pay 30 crowns. Thus a considerable number of people in Rieka were anxious that the town should not come under any Government which might punish the culprits or make them disgorge. And Nitti ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... and particularly of my CANONICAL—[James Brydges, duke of Chandos, built a most magnificent and elegant house at CANNONS, about eight miles from London. It was superbly furnished with fine pictures, statues, etc., which, after his death, were sold, by auction. Lord Chesterfield purchased the hall-pillars, the floor; and staircase with double flights; which are now in Chesterfield House, London.]—pillars. My bust of Cicero is a very fine one, and well preserved; it will have the best place in my library, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield



Words linked to "Auction" :   underbid, auction bridge, auctioneer, overbid, sell, by-bid, auction house, commerce, upset price, offer, tender, sale



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