"Bidder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frequently heard from my father, that death is more tolerable than poverty. Being struck with those reflections, I gathered together the ruins of my estate, and sold all my moveables in the public market to the highest bidder. Then I entered into a contract with some merchants that traded by sea, took the advice of those whom I thought most capable to give it, and resolving to improve what money I had, went to Balsora, a port in the Persian gulph, and embarked with several merchants, who joined with ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... and Hammer":—"Any number of persons may play, one of whom must be appointed cashier. The cashier then distributes an equal number of counters to each player, puts up for sale the five cards separately, and knocks them down with the hammer to the highest bidder. The produce is put into the pool; each player must pay four counters into the pool. The cashier has first throw, and when all blanks are thrown each player pays one to the holder of the white horse. If with ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... absurdly cheap,—a prayer for a ticket to heaven, a diploma for an honourable citizenship. Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. Why do men and women like to advertise themselves so much? Is it not but an instinct derived from ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... to contract on the occasion of letting] shall withdraw, for the sake of causing the gathering and pressing of the olives to be let at a dearer rate; except when [the joint bidder] immediately names [the other bidder] as his partner. If this rule shall appear to have been infringed, all the partners [of the company with which the contract has been concluded] shall, if desired ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... get it at that. There was an anonymous bidder who fortunately hadn't got the cash with him, or I gathered that he was willing to go to a ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... up and asked: 'Who is that fine man?' 'Sigurd the lads call me,' said he, 'and I am thought to be a son to Bui: not yet are all the vikings of Jomsborg dead.' 'Thou must of a surety be a true son to Bui; wilt thou have quarter?' 'That dependeth upon who is the bidder thereof,' said Sigurd. 'He offereth it who hath power to give it, to wit Earl Eirik.' 'Then will I take it,' and loosed was he from the rope. Then said Thorkel Leira: 'Though thou grantest quarter, Earl, to all these men, yet never shall Vagn Akason depart hence alive,' & so saying ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... employer, "I am up against a bad proposition. I am driving these Buford cattle, you understand, on a sub-contract. I was the second lowest bidder with the government, and no sooner was the award made to The Western Supply Company than they sent an agent who gave me no peace until they sublet their contract. Unfortunately for me, when the papers ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... chats with him. When I undertook the management of E. H. Southern, he was very much interested because he knew young Sothern's father, the original Lord Dundrery; so, when Mr. Sothern appeared in the first play under my management, "The Highest Bidder," I invited Mr. Booth to witness the performance. He expressed his delight at seeing his old friend's son doing such delightful work, and the three of us afterwards met at a little supper at the Players'. He told us that he came nearly being the Godfather of young Sothern, and that he ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... bred be seized with contumely in the market-place. No more should all the nobler services of his native land be closed to him, his faith be banned, his priests proscribed! No more should he be driven to sell his valour to the highest bidder, and pour forth his blood in foreign causes, under the walls of old Vienna, and on every stricken field from Almanza to the Don. For on this day Ireland should rouse herself from the long nightmare, the oppression ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... system by enacting a law permitting the enslavement of Indians, the only condition upon the master being a bond of a small sum, that he would not abuse or cruelly treat the slaves. Under the provision of the same law, Indians could be arrested as vagrants and sold to the highest bidder within twenty-four hours after the arrest, and the buyer had the privilege of the labor for a period not exceeding four months.[25] An Indian arrested for a violation of a law could demand a jury trial, but could not testify in his own behalf against a white ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... and gentlemen," he cried, with the air of an auctioneer who is about to sell it to the highest bidder, "very fine example from the eighteenth dynasty. Here is the cartouche of Thotmes the Third," he pointed up with his donkey-whip at the rude, but deep, hieroglyphics upon the wall above him. "He live sixteen hundred years before Christ, and this ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... value their hire very high, as there is so many mast cutting, running from place to place to get sticks for the highest bidder." [Dec. 25, 1782.] ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... PUBLIC VENDUE, to the highest Bidder, on Wednesday the 3d Day of November next, at four o'Clock in the Afternoon (if not Sold before at Private Sale) by me the Subscriber, A valuable FARM in Groton, in the County of Middlesex, pleasantly situated on the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... development of the thoroughbred horse. M. Delatre (green jacket and cap) raises every year, at La Celle St. Cloud, some twenty yearlings, of which he keeps but three or four, selling the rest at Tattersall's, Rue Beaujon, to the highest bidder. They generally bring about six thousand francs a head, on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... State; that the property of one Lambert Meredith, who had been attainted, both by proclamation and by trial, of high treason, was therefore within the act; and, finally, that there would be sold to the highest bidder, at the court-house of the town of Brunswick, on the sixteenth day of August next ensuing, the said property of the said Lambert Meredith; namely, "Two likely negro women, who can cook and spin," and thirty thousand acres of choice arable farm and wood lands under cultivation lease, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... interfered, the greater hazard he ran of exposure. He therefore slightly lamented that such harmless children should apprehend any danger from him, and withdrew, while the sequestrators proceeded to sell the goods by public auction. Not a bidder stepped forward. The parishioners were dissolved in tears, and every article exposed to sale excited some associated recollections of the goodness of the owner or his family; they saw the chairs on which they had sat while he mildly pointed out their best interests; the tables at which ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... saleable. As Walpole says, "She would have sold the King's honour at a shilling advance to the best bidder." From Bolingbroke's family she took L20,000 in three sums—one for a Peerage, another for a pardon, and the third for a fat post in the Customs. Gold poured in a ceaseless and glittering stream into her coffers. She refused no bribe—if it was big enough—and was ready to sell ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... the rates or charges of all such corporations may be regulated by law or ordinance; and by far the most notable trend of legislation in this particular has been that franchises of corporations should be limited in time and should be sold at auction to the highest bidder. Thus, by a California law of 1897, all municipal franchises must be sold for not less than three per cent. of the gross receipts and after a popular vote or referendum on the question. It has been matter of party platform for some years that all franchises should thus be submitted to the local ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... something else at present quite unforeseen takes place, she will once more play the undignified part of a floating music hall. It seems that although she was certainly sold, as we have stated, the transaction was not completed. Her owners then cast about for the next highest bidder, who at once took her. He is, we understand, a Manchester cotton spinner, and he paid L25,500 for her. It is no secret that Messrs. Lewis made a considerable sum out of the ship last year, and the knowledge of this fact has no doubt induced her ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... in, here's this nigger sitting up here. Here's a lot of folks waitin' to buy him. One would say, 'I bid so much.' Another would say, 'I bid so much.' That would go on till the biddin' got as high as it would go. Then the little nigger would go to the highest bidder ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... every one merely took into consideration how much profit he would derive from them. Oh, my sisters, we rich Jewesses are treated just in the same manner as the poor princesses; we are sold to the highest bidder. And we have not got the necessary firmness, energy, and independence to emancipate ourselves from this degrading traffic in flesh and blood. We bow our heads and obey, and, in the place of love and happiness, we fill our hearts with pride and ostentation, and yet we ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... circumstance which cannot fail to have the most beneficial influence in the progress of agriculture. In return for these great public accommodations, and to help to keep them in repair, the Governor has established toll-gates* in all the principal roads. These are farmed out to the highest bidder, and were let during the year 1817, for the ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... wrong in the case. You must allow me to say that you take an exclusively feminine view of the matter, which, of course, is narrow. I have as much right to sell my brains to the highest bidder as my friend Vivian has to sell his pictures when he gets the chance—which ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... looking at him inquiringly. 'I hardly ever meet anybody else, you know, and I'm positively bored to death by them, and that's the truth, really. It's most unlucky, under the circumstances, that I should happen to be the daughter of one peer, and be offered promiscuously as wife to the highest bidder among half a dozen others, if only I would have them. But I won't, Mr. Le Breton, I really won't. I'm not going to marry a fool, just to please my mother. Nothing on earth would induce me to marry ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... Laws and Customs he cites the following: "It sometimes occurs that the entreaties of the daughter prevail over the avarice of the father; but such cases, the Kaffirs admit, are rare ... the highest bidder usually gains the prize." Holden adds that when a girl is obstreperous "they seize her by main strength, and drag her on the ground, as I have repeatedly seen;" and in his chapter on polygamy he gives the most harrowing details of the various cruelties practised ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Valtelline with Chiavenna and Bormio (Cleves and Worms) were ill-treated by the people of the Grisons. Offices and justice were regularly jobbed and sold to the highest bidder. The people of Valtelline hastily entered into alliance with France, while the oppressed peasantry in the Grisons rebelled against the ruling family of Salis, which had long been in the pay of the French kings, and ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... number of petty nobles whose whole business in life it was to form companies of trained horsemen, and with these bands to hire themselves out to the republics and the despots. Gain was the sole purpose of these captains. They sold their service to the highest bidder, fighting irrespectively of principle or patriotism, and passing with the coldest equanimity from the camp of one master to that of his worst foe. It was impossible that true military spirit should survive this ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the money to buy young slaves, teach them a trade at Cato's expense for a year, and then dispose of them. Many of these Cato retained in his own service, paying the price offered by the highest bidder, and deducting from it the original cost of the slave. When endeavouring to encourage his son to act in a similar manner, he used to say that it was not the part of a man, but of a lone woman, to diminish ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... later, they be awakened from their delusion, and find the cathedral turned into a meeting-house, and all painted white; the railing melted down; the silver transformed into dollars; the Virgin's jewels sold to the highest bidder; the floor washed (which would do it no harm), and round the whole, a nice new wooden paling, freshly done in green—and all this performed by some of the artists from ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... agreement," admitted the successful bidder, "but the farm is sold, all right. I'll give this check to Miss Hope now—" he hastily filled out a blank slip from his book—"as an evidence of good faith. Then I want to hear Bob's tale, and then I must do a bit of telephoning. ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... Burnt-Offering: It opens a Door to the Fate of Nations; and there we might see the Duke of S—y bought three times, and his subjects sold every time; Portugal bought twice, and neither time worth the Earnest; Spain bought once, but loth to go with the Bidder; Venice willing to be Bought, if there had been any Buyers; Bavaria Bought, and run away with the Money; the Emperor Bought and Sold, but Bilkt the Chapman; the French buying Kingdoms he can't keep, the Dutch keep Kingdoms they never Bought; and the English paying ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... despicable man than Tom Paine cannot be found among the ready writers of the eighteenth century. He sold himself to the highest bidder, and he could be bought at a very low price. He wrote well; sometimes as pointedly as Junius or Cobbett (who had his bones brought to England). Neither excelled him in coining telling and mischievous phrases; neither surpassed him in popularity-hunting. He had the art, which was almost equal ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... opera house. The old opera house fronting on Wabasha street, on the ground that is now occupied by the Grand block, was finished that winter and opened with a grand entertainment given by local talent. The boxes and a number of seats in the parquet were sold at auction, the highest bidder being a man by the name of Philbrick, who paid $72 for a seat in the parquet. This man Philbrick was a visitor in St. Paul, and had a retinue of seven or eight people with him. It was whispered around that he was some kind of a royal personage, and when he paid $72 for a seat at the opening ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... you do, Freddy, boy," continued Lawless; "and it's not such a bad dodge either, is it? Your governor lays down the broad principle that the highest bidder shall be the purchaser, and on this ground backs the drysalter; now if I drive over this morning, propose in due form for your cousin's hand, and outbid the aforesaid drysalting individual, the governor must either sacrifice his consistency, or ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... imaginary circumstances the plaintiffs were eager to prove; it was, in short, the publication of a ready-made case, which gave the first knave that came a chance of earning some money by making a lying deposition in favour of the highest bidder. The inevitable effect of the monitory, when it was drawn up with a bias, was to arouse public hatred against the accused. The devout especially, receiving their opinions ready-made from the clergy, pursued the victim without ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... him and mastered him; he knew not what to do or to say, but remained like a stone in the midst of the crowd, gazing. The bystanders, who were ignorant that Alischar had so soon dissipated his patrimony, never doubted that he had come in order to be a bidder for the beautiful slave. The crier moved his situation so as to stand right opposite to him, with the girl in his hand, and began to call out the usual words more loudly than before, "Ye rich merchants, ye honourable ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... Woodburn's cow and oxen, which the former had found the means to have on the spot, in readiness for the sale, the moment the assembly broke up. "Oyez! A cow and oxen, taken on execution, now about to be sold to the highest bidder, gentlemen. We will take the oxen first; as fine a yoke as ever drew plough Who will give us the first bid? Shan't dwell three minutes. Who bids, I say? One pound bid, gentlemen; one pound ten! one pound ten! and on Mr. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... any implication that such misleading was accomplished by the telling of untruths. A fiction writer is, by definition, a professional liar; he makes his living by telling interesting lies on paper and selling the results to the highest bidder for publication. Since fiction writing is my livelihood, I cannot and will not deny that I am an accomplished liar—indeed, almost an habitual one. Therefore, I feel some small pique when, on the one occasion on which I stick ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... are sold to the highest bidder. In that auction Caste comes first, then wealth and position. And the chattel is bought, the bit of breathing flesh and blood is converted into property; and the living, throbbing heart of the child may be trampled and stamped down under foot in the mire and the ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... mine because I was the only bidder with wealth enough to pay the exorbitant prices demanded, other oases are mine, and villages and tracts of rich lands. Also the respect of my neighbours, also are their tongues tied on account ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... concessions, to supersede them for a time in the favor of my too believing countrymen,—whose despair of finding justice at any hands has often led them thus to carry their confidence to market, and to place it in the hands of the first plausible bidder. The many vicissitudes of popularity which their own illustrious Whig, Grattan, had to encounter, would have wearied out the ardor of any less magnanimous champion. But high minds are as little affected by such unworthy returns for services, as the sun is by those fogs which ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... found one of those little occasional droppings of the aristocracy, very well known among the secrets of the chivalry, and called foundlings, nicely fixed up in a basket.—It's among the secrets though, and mustn't be told abroad.—The finders labelled it, 'Please sell to the highest bidder,' and left it at his door. There was a fund of ominous meaning in the label; but Norman very coolly took the little helpless pledge under his charge, and, with the good nursing of old Bina, made him tell to the tune of two hundred ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... contemporaries, who assuredly were no atheists. One mark perhaps of the wide interval which, in Caesar's age, had begun to separate the Roman nobility from the hungry and venal populace who were daily put up to sale, and bought by the highest bidder, manifested itself in the increasing disdain for the tastes and ruling sympathies of the lowest vulgar. No mob could be more abjectly servile than was that of Rome to the superstition of portents, prodigies, and omens. Thus far, in common with his order, and in this ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... world—they treat the Greeks more like brutes than human beings." And in the same paper was an advertisement, which said: "Eight well built Virginia and Maryland Negro fellows and four wenches will positively be sold this day to the highest bidder!" And what astonished me still more was, to see in this same humane paper!! the cuts of three men, with clubs and budgets on their backs, and an advertisement offering a considerable sum of money for ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... the hard things I sometimes said on that tour. I tak' back nothing that was deserved; there were toons, and fine they'll ken themselves wi'oot ma naming them, that ought to be ashamed of themselves. There was the book I wrote. Every nicht I'd auction off a copy to the highest bidder—the money tae gae tae the puir wounded laddies in Scotland. A copy went for five thousand dollars ane ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... sold by public auction: the custom at Batavia is to begin high and to lower the price till some person bids; and the first bidder is the buyer. She was accordingly put up at 2000 rix-dollars but to my great disappointment no one offered to purchase before the auctioneer had lowered the demand to 295 rix-dollars, for which price she was sold, the purchaser being ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... Nice several houses were searched by the gendarmes, and all Bibles and tracts carried away. This is contrary to the Constitution of the country, and yet it was done. Englishmen will make a cry about it, and demand justice (a thing generally sold to the highest bidder); but it is no use,—only harm will be done by it. Every day things in kind differing in degree are done throughout the State. The long and short of the matter is this; the minds of the people must open, and be allowed time to open gradually, ere the liberal Constitution ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... of Gallas, mostly women, habited in silk and gauze dresses, with their hair prettily ornamented to increase their personal attractions, which were far superior to those of the negroes. Close to the group stood a man who acted as auctioneer, ready to hand his goods over to the highest bidder. The purchasers were chiefly Arabs, who walked about surveying the hapless slaves, and ordering those to whom they took a fancy to be paraded out before them, after which they examined the mouths and limbs of any they thought of purchasing, striking their breasts and pinching ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... that she was expected to figure at this function, and to figure largely; it would be such an opportunity, said Henry, for her to get to know his set. Sir James Bidder would be there, and all the Cahills and the Fussells, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Warrington Wilcox, had fortunately got back from her tour round the world. Henry she loved, but his set promised to be ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... nature. He found in the occupant of St. Peter's Chair, in Boniface IX., a man, ambitious, avaricious, insincere in his dealings, and guilty of the most flagrant simony, bestowing all Church preferments upon the best bidder, without regard to merit or learning, and making it his study to enrich his family ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... the parasitic class have given the names Bidder and Maunder, both meaning beggar. The first comes from Mid. Eng. bidden, to ask. Piers Plowman speaks of "bidderes and beggers." Maunder is perhaps connected with Old ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... He will outbid the white man every time in the matter of price when renting land for farming purposes and the land-owner doesn't give a darn then whether he rents to white or yellow—so long as he gets the highest bidder's money. The chink spends hardly anything on clothes, he lives in a hovel; eats rice, works seven days in the week, pays no taxes except a paltry Road Tax of something like four dollars a year—and ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... former possessions. If your answer is decidedly unfavourable, the return of your friends to France will be thenceforward impracticable, and their chateau, as well as their house in Paris, will be declared national property, and sold without delay to the highest bidder. To you, who have as much understanding as beauty, it is unnecessary to say more. Consult your heart, charming Victoire! be happy, and make others happy. This moment is decisive of your fate and of theirs, for you have to answer a man of a ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... been taken by them and added to their marine. Upon the slaves being landed at Algiers they were marched to the Dey's or Bashaw's palace, when he selected the number which according to law belonged to him; and the rest were sold in the slave market to the highest bidder. A moiety of the plunder, cargoes and vessels taken also belonged to the Dey. Occasionally, a person by pretending to renounce his religion, and turning Mahometan would have ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... a slave by his intended bidder. 'T is pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features Are bought up, others by a warlike leader, Some by a place—as tend their years or natures; The ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... evil days, when religion suffered most in the house of her friends, so was it with Savonarola. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the increasing corruption and licentiousness of popes and clergy. The offices of cardinal and bishop were put up to auction, and sold to the highest bidder. The bishop extorted money from the priests, and these robbed the people. The grossest immorality was prevalent in all ranks of the Church, and without concealment. Even the monasteries and convents were often dens of vice. "Italy," said Machiavelli, "has lost all piety and all religion. We ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... Revolution proclaimed freedom of business transactions; it said—"Sell and buy freely. Sell, all of you, your products, if you can produce, and if you do not possess the implements necessary for that purpose but have only your arms to sell, sell them, sell your labour to the highest bidder, the State will not interfere! Compete among yourselves, contractors! No favour shall be shown, the law of natural selection will take upon itself the function of killing off those who do not keep pace with the ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... the circles of morning amusements—that I find very entertaining;—particularly the street orators and mountebanks in Piazza St. Marco;—the shops and stalls where chickens, ducks, &c. are sold by auction, comically enough, to the highest bidder;—a flourishing fellow, with a hammer in his hand, shining away in character of auctioneer;—the crowds which fill the courts of judicature, when any cause of consequence is to be tried;—the clamorous voices, keen observations, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of their deceased friends and acquaintances,—let them see A's favorite horse, or B's favorite country-seat, or C's favorite books and pictures knocked down, amid the laughter of the crowd and the smart sayings and witty retorts of the auctioneer, to the highest bidder,—and they will be sadder, if not wiser, men than they were before. Such scenes should have more effect on them than all the fine sermons on the vanities and nothings of life ever preached. Sir Richard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... troubled eyes the stern conference of hostile nations was turned to comedy. A hundred and twenty eager reporters publicly put up their support for sale in exchange for information to the highest bidder. The representative of a great country was heard boasting to the gentlemen of the press of his own prowess. "The Japanese could not read in my face," said M. Witte, "what was passing in my heart." Isn't it wonderful? ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... is another subject dwelt on by Louise. We learn that in money matters the kings and princes of her acquaintance—and her acquaintance embraces all the monarchs of Europe—are "dirty," that royal girls are given in marriage to the highest bidder, and that poor princes have no more chance to marry a rich princess than a drayman ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... but you needn't bother. Do you imagine, fellow, that an Army officer's honor is of so little importance to him that he'll sell it to a higher bidder. Now, I've had enough of you. Get out ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... money for the gunboats, and as a result of his patriotism won back the fortune he had risked; but at the time of course it hampered him intolerably to be without funds. He had, besides, other difficulties to contend with. At least one of his sub-contractors or head-workmen was a disappointed bidder for the gunboat contract, and was on a salary which ran till the boats were finished; and while Eads would not mention such a suspicion in public, he suggested in a private letter that this had been an additional ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... into the king's wardship, and all profit from his lands went during the period of wardship to the king. If the estate fell to an heiress, her hand was at the king's disposal, and was generally sold by him to the highest bidder. These rights of "marriage" and "wardship" as well as the exaction of aids at the royal will poured wealth into the treasury while they impoverished and fettered the baronage. A fresh source of revenue was found in the Church. ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... wife's relations, if they have the means of so doing and are satisfied with the conduct of the husband. Some travelers have represented that the "marriage by purchase" among the Indians is a mere sale of the woman to the highest bidder, whose slave she becomes. Matthews regards this a misrepresentation so far as it concerns the Hidatsa, the wedding gift being a pledge to the parents for the proper treatment of their daughter, as well as an evidence of the wealth of the suitor and his kindred. ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey
... Amos, quickly growing more wide awake, and addressing the ceiling as a neutral and impartial listener, "that Mr. Blake has offered me five hundred more than Maria Maxwell, and though I want ter favour her (in buyin', property goes to the highest bidder; it's only contract work that's fetched by the lowest, and I never did work by contract—it's too darned frettin'), I can't throw away good money, and neither of 'em yet knows that whichsomever of 'em buys it has got ter give me a life right ter live in the summer kitchen and fetch my drinkin' water ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... advantageous that each son,' says Miss Edgeworth, 'of the original tenant should live on his subdivided little potato garden without further exertion of mind or body.' Further on she continues: 'Not being in want of ready money, my father was not obliged to let his land to the highest bidder. He could afford to have good tenants.' In the old leases claims of duty-fowl, of duty-work, of man or beast had been inserted. Mr. Edgeworth was one of the first to abolish them. The only clause he continued in every lease was the alienation fine, which was ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... Thirty-two three times! Seven fine cases of soap. Am I bid anything more? Once, twice! Three times! Am I bid anything more?"—his hand was up again—"and sold to Mr.—?" He leaned over and looked curiously into the face of his young bidder. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... booty. Swedes! I can assure you, there is not a Swede left in the Swedish army, or, at all events, very few. The men the great Gustavus Adolphus brought over the Baltic Sea are gone long ago, and those who have taken their places will sell both soul and body any day to the highest bidder.' ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... of all criminality. Such, at least, is the verdict of my own soul, on the supposition that I am to be the slave; that my wife is to be sold from me for the vilest purposes; that my children are to be torn from my arms, and disposed of to the highest bidder, like sheep in the market. And who am I but a man? What right have I to be free, that another man cannot prove himself to possess by nature? Who or what are my wife and children, that they should not be herded with four-footed beasts, as well as others ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... smile at once bewitching and haughty. She was called Maria, I believe. In a tableau which represented "A Slave Market," she displayed the imperial despair and the stoical dejection of a nude queen offered for sale to the first bidder. Her tights, which were torn at the hip, disclosed her firm white flesh. They were, however only poor girls of London. All had dirty ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... on with his bitter voice to utter a furious philippic against our celebrated literary men. He attacked them all, with scarcely an exception. This one sold his pen to the highest bidder; that one levied contributions of all sorts on the vanity of authors and artists; another was a mere actor; a fourth was nothing but a mountebank; a fifth was a mere babbler; and so on he went through the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... from the right bidder, for that girl's free papers dated ahead to when you come of age, bidder ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... and demand. Let our future sieges of Sebastopol be done by contract—no capture, no pay—(I admit that things might sometimes go better so); and let us sell the commands of our prospective battles, with our vicarages, to the lowest bidder; so may we have cheap victories, and divinity. On the other hand, if we have so much suspicion of our science that we dare not trust it on military or spiritual business, would it not be but reasonable to try whether some ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the watch in Cincinnati. A fake auction in a pawnshop attracted my attention as I walked along a street near the depot. The auctioneer was offering a "solid gold, Swiss movement, eighteen jeweled watch" to the highest bidder. "This watch belongs to my friend Joe Coupling," he said, "a brakeman on the B. & O. He was in a wreck and is now in the hospital. Everybody knows that one of the best things a railroader has is his watch. He ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... Art Club has opened its ninth exhibition; so I suppose that the Daily Telegraph will have to make up its mind, sorrowfully, of course, and with regret, that there are folk still in London who are not always ready to sell their talents to the highest bidder. ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... last beaver-skin it is! Do you think I was old Cam's private secretary for nothin'? Not I! I say—get your wares as you may and sell 'em to the highest bidder. So here I am, snugly berthed, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, all through judicious—distribution—of—information." And the boy gurgled with pleasure over his own cleverness. "And say, Gillespie, I'm in regular clover! The Little Statue's here, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thou not that if gold were my desire I have but to discover the place where the treasure lies to some stalwart knave sworn to do my bidding, and all would be mine? Could I not sell this golden secret to the highest bidder, an wealth was all I craved? Foolish, foolish boy—impetuous like all thy race! What hast thou to offer me that I may not obtain by one ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... sale was merely an auction to the highest bidder and in the later days of the monarchy and early part of the republic, rich plebeians must have become possessed of large tracts of land in this way; the privilege of acquiring property in land having been extended to them some time before ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... just begun the subservient task of fusing diverse types of architecture in order to satisfy an American woman's appetite for startling effect, and told him to arrange to dispose of the lot and its immature walls to the highest bidder. His precise plans for the future were still uncertain when Selma called on him, and found comfort for her own miseries in ministering to his solitude, but he expressed an inclination to return to his native Western town, as the most ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... announced Bart. "Please do not degrade yourself and embarrass me, Colonel Harrington, by saying anything further on this score. I will not sell my honor, nor swerve a hair's breadth from a line of duty plain and clear. The package you refer to was legally purchased by the highest bidder, I hold it temporarily in trust for him. It is as safe and sacred with me as if it was the property of the First National ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... in Ulster at L4 a year. She was abundantly able to pay, but for her own reasons preferred to be evicted, and, finally, by an understanding with him, offered her tenant-right for sale. A man who had made money in iron-mines in the County of Durham was a bidder, and finally offered L240 for the holding. It was knocked down to him. He then saw the agent, who told him he had paid too much. The woman was then appealed to, and she admitted that the agent was right. But it was shown that others had ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... The previous message had raised his hopes that Vincent would succeed in getting her bought by some one who would be kind to her, but he knew well that she might nevertheless fall to the lot of some higher bidder and be taken hundreds of miles away, and that he might never again get news of her whereabouts. He had then suffered terrible anxiety all day, and the relief of learning that Vincent himself had bought her, and that she was ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... living master-piece of the divine studio as the theme of money-changers, the prize of the highest bidder! ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... (He points) For that lot. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. (He bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva) There's fine depth for you! What, boys? That give you a hardon? (He shoves his arm in a bidder's face) Here wet the deck and wipe ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... thou say, oh Taurus Antinor?" said Dea Flavia raising her pencilled eyebrows with a slight expression of scorn, "nay! I had not seen the hammer descend! The girl until then is not sold, and open to the highest bidder. Or am I wrong, O praefect, in thus interpreting the laws ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... affair, entirely. Mr. Daggett does not hold Clawbonny as administrator at all; but as a purchaser under a mortgage sale. He did not buy it himself, of course; but has received a deed from a nephew of his, who was a bond fide bidder. The amount bid,—five thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars,—is duly endorsed on your bond, and you have credit for it. If no one bid higher, the property ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... was heart-breaking—to those unaccustomed to such a scene to witness the expression of utter despair on the faces of these poor creatures. Then, as the sale proceeded, this expression would sometimes give way to one of feverish hope as the purchaser of a husband or parent would become a bidder for the wife or child. In one or two rare cases the hope was realised; and as husband and wife, or parent and child, found themselves once more reunited—once more the property of the same man—their joy was enough to wring tears from the heart of a stone. But in most cases ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... that's old horses. It's freight from the S.P. railroad that's never been called for by the consignees, and after it's in the warehouse a year and isn't called for, we have an old horse sale and auction it off to the highest bidder. Savey?" ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... he ain't no good. Say—what'll you give for him, hah? Yere he goes to the highest bidder—for richer, for poorer, for better, for worser, up and down, in and out, swing your partners—what's bid? He ken plow as crooked as a mule's hind leg, sleep hard as a 'possum in wintertime, eat like a snake, git ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... learned that Alfred Fluette was trying to buy it from the Paternostros. I at once determined that he should not have the stone if money could prevent it. So I too became a bidder. ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... causes me to this hour a feeling of remorse. I did not conceal what I knew. Afterwards I denounced the murderer, by way of atoning for my fault. A trial took place, but as in Spain justice goes to the highest bidder, the assassin was set free, and I became a victim. I was drummed out of my regiment, and transported to the fisheries of Ceuta, on the unhealthy coast of Africa. There I was compelled to remain for many years, ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... sold and auctioned off, 'cause I's put up to the highest bidder myself. Massa traded me to William Green jus' 'fore the war, for a hundred acres land at $1.00 a acre. He thought I'd never be much 'count, 'cause I had the glass eye, but I'm still livin' and a purty fair Negro to my age. All the ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... traveled more than a thousand miles on a flatboat selling groceries to the plantations of Mississippi, and these two trips enabled him to see what slavery was like. He saw negroes being placed on the auction block and knocked down to the highest bidder, separated forever from their wives and families. He saw them toiling in the fields and triced up under the lash. It was then, without doubt, that he formed the opinions that directed his policy from the White House in later years when ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... I mean," retorted the great man with unconcealed contempt. "What you don't know is your own game. Always seek the highest bidder before you sell, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... call her a vampire, one of the cigarettes she had for sale. With one hand, she was playing, graceful as a cat, with her last package of regalias, tied with green ribbon, which, when offered to the highest bidder, brought an enormous sum. Her sister Colette was selling flowers, like several other young girls, but while for the most part these waited on their customers in silence, she was full of lively talk, and as unblushing in her eagerness to sell as a 'bouquetiere' ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... journeyed to America— where the raisins grow all over the place and where a much brighter future awaits us and our children. And he took his ewes by the horn for the last time, led them to the highest bidder, and said: Now this one is my good Goldbrow who brings back her two lambs from Mulata every fall. And what do you say to the coat of wool on Bobbin here? She's a fine sturdy lass, Bobbin, ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... could suffer hardship just as well. At any rate, I would rather suffer anything and be with him and all of you than stop here. The people have murdered my father. My mother would sell me to the highest bidder. If the chances are so great that you will never get through your journey in safety, my being with you cannot make them so much greater. I have only Chebron in the world, and I will go where he goes and die where he dies. The gods can protect me just as well on a journey as here. ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... a symptom of the centralising policy which the Porte is adopting, that the government now farms the customs of these provinces, in place of selling the right of doing so to the highest bidder, as was formerly ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... warming rivalry. Mr. Bowyer was a bidder, and this was too exasperating. Bowyer couldn't afford it, and only wanted to hinder every other man from making a figure. The current carried even Mr. Horrock with it, but this committal of himself to an opinion fell from him with ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... sane from overwork, trouble, and, worse than all, from insomnia, can never be forgotten while a trace of memory is left. Soon after my insolvency there came a date when all my interests in my books then published must be sold to the highest bidder. It seemed in a sense like putting my children up at auction; and yet I was powerless, since my interests under contracts were a part of my assets. These rights had been well advertised in the New ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... established on this coast a manufacture of an excellent kind of soap from palm-oil and ashes, which is carried on for the king's account. All the trade of this coast, to the kingdom of Manicongo exclusively, is farmed out every four or five years to the highest bidder. Great Negro caravans bring gold and slaves to the stations on the coast. The slaves are either prisoners taken in war, or children whom their parents have parted with in the hope of their being carried to a more fertile country. For above ninety years after the first discovery of this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... conspicuous waste places with a greater aggregate area than the strips along the public highway. In certain foreign countries, these strips are planted to fruit trees and the right of harvest awarded to the highest bidder. The revenue so obtained goes a long way toward keeping the highways in good condition. It is possible that this practice may sometime be introduced into the United States, but until public opinion is radically changed, the planting of fruit trees along the highways can ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... be sell'd the morn to the highest bidder—that's no the morn, Lord help me! which is the Sabbath, but on Monday, the first free day; and the furniture and stocking is to be roupit at the same time on the ground. It's the opinion of the haill country that the sale has been shamefully ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... on rout of Germans in Poland with which the world is ringing; but said nothing about capture of KAISER'S cloak. SARK suggests that this interesting robe should be put up for sale to highest bidder (as if it were the First L1 note), proceeds to be contributed to Fund for Relief of Belgians. This would give opportunity for remarking that having taken off his coat to devastate the homes of the Belgians, WILHELM gave them ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... been born Advancing age diminished his tendency to other carnal pleasures Advised his Majesty to bestow an annual bribe upon Lord Burleigh Affecting to discredit them Age when toleration was a vice Agreements were valid only until he should repent All offices were sold to the highest bidder All denounced the image-breaking All his disciples and converts are to be punished with death All the majesty which decoration could impart All reading of the scriptures (forbidden) All Protestants were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... for. The same was the case with most of those near Vicksburg. In some instances, there were several applicants for the same plantation. The agents announced their determination to sell the choice of plantations to the highest bidder. The competition for the best places was expected to be ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... among them. They have all very much the same general features, pleasing and displeasing. All feeding-establishments have something odious about them,—from the wretched country-houses where paupers are farmed out to the lowest bidder, up to the commons-tables at colleges, and even the fashionable boarding-house. A person's appetite should be at war with no other purse than his own. Young people, especially, who have a bone-factory at work in them, and have to feed the living ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... kitchen has blubbered over it by the light of a surreptitious candle, conceiving herself the while the magnificent Georgiana, and Lord Mordaunt, Georgiana's lover, the pot-boy round the corner. Tied up with many a dingy brother, the auctioneer knocks the bundle down to the bidder of a few pence, and it finds its way to the quiet cove of some village library, where with some difficulty—as if from want of teeth—and with numerous interruptions—as if from lack of memory—it tells its old stories, and wakes tears, and blushes, and laughter as of ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... to its shame the party in New York City made a bargain with Apollo Hall, an organisation gotten up by James O'Brien, the ex-sheriff, for the purpose of selling to the highest bidder. In 1871 by skilful manoeuvres the party freed itself from any suspicion of an alliance with this faction, and had thus to a very great extent obtained the direction of the Reform movement; but now, by dropping Barlow, ignoring his disclosures, and accepting ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... women were compelled to let their labor by contract, the decision of whose terms was wholly in the hands of the whites; and those who failed to contract were to be seized as 'vagrants,' heavily fined, and their labor sold by the sheriff at public outcry to the highest bidder. The terms 'master' and 'mistress' continually recur in the statutes, and the slavery that was thus instituted was a far more degrading, merciless and mercenary than that which was blotted out by ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... to yield his influence in St. Stephen's to old Gradus, that he may preserve his character at Newmarket, and continue his pack and fox-hunting festivities at home. The representation of the place is now disposed of to the best bidder, but the ambition of the father has long since determined upon sending his son (when of age) 37 into parliament—a promising candidate for the "loaves and fishes." Richard Gradus, M.P.—you may almost perceive ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... forward, because it could not be delayed, and Imray, from being a man, became a mystery—such a thing as men talk over at their tables in the club for a month and then forget utterly. His guns, horses, and carts were sold to the highest bidder. His superior officer wrote an absurd letter to his mother, saying that Imray had unaccountably disappeared and his bungalow stood empty ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... influence with the other officers. They are not to be bribed, of course, but in the cause of the country each man would find his services well rewarded. Think before you answer me, man! Duke Gustave is sunk in pleasure and has sold the country over and over again to the highest bidder, and only got out of his share of the bargain by Selpdorf's infernal cleverness. This time we will play an open game. With Germany to stand by us, we have ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... of Fez, in Morocco, are allowed to appoint a sultan of their own, who reigns for a few weeks, and is known as Sultan t-tulba, "the Sultan of the Scribes." This brief authority is put up for auction and knocked down to the highest bidder. It brings some substantial privileges with it, for the holder is freed from taxes thenceforward, and he has the right of asking a favour from the real sultan. That favour is seldom refused; it usually consists in the release of a prisoner. Moreover, the agents ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... broken jargon" then current in England as gypsy. From a misshapen Welsh groom this queer lawyer's clerk learned Welsh pronunciation, and to the consternation of his employer, "turned Sir Edward from the door," and gladly admitted the petty versifier Parkerson who sold his sheets to the highest bidder in the streets; worse even than this was his audacity in contending against a wealthy archdeacon that Ab Gwilym was the superior of Ovid. This gentleman was probably the Rev. John Oldershaw, Archdeacon of Norfolk from 1797 till his death, January 31st, 1847, aged ninety-three. As he was ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... grooms in the royal livery, was enough to make the blood dance in the veins of any lover of horse-flesh. And to think that they were being led ignominiously to the auction mart to be sold under the hammer—knocked down to the highest bidder! It was a sin and a shame surely! And they seemed to feel it themselves; and that was the reason they acted so obstreperously, sometimes lifting the grooms off their feet as they reared and snorted and struck sparks with their steel-shod hoofs ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... selling their stock. One day he went to Cleveland and had a long talk with a banker there. Hugh was at work on a corn-cutting machine and already he had secured an option on it. "Perhaps when the time comes to sell the factory there'll be more than one bidder," he told Ernestine, the soap maker's daughter, who had married him within a month after the sale of the car-unloading device. He grew indignant when he told her of the disloyalty of the two men in the bank, and the rich farmer, Tom Butterworth. "They're ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... either by himself or by anybody else at the sale should be esteemed the value on which the rental was to be calculated during the twenty-one years next following the sale. In case the present holder of the lease was the highest bidder, this was the only result of the sale; but in case he was outbid he was bound to transfer the lease to the best bidder, on receiving from the government the amount at which his improvements had been valued. This payment might be made in government bonds, bearing interest ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... was for the future to disclose. At once construction began in Canada. A. M. Ross was appointed chief engineer, and S. P. Bidder general manager, both on the nomination of the English bankers and contractors. Plant was assembled in Canada, orders for rails and equipment were placed in England, and navvies came out by the ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... deficient in those foxlike qualities which were necessary to save the lion from the toils spread for him by Italian intriguers. He had already shown that he knew how to push his own interests, by changing sides and taking service with the highest bidder, as occasion prompted. Nor, though his character for probity and loyalty stood exceptionally high among the men of his profession, was he the slave to any questionable claims of honour or of duty. In that age of confused politics and extinguished patriotism, there was not indeed much scope for ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... our commerce into the coffers of princes, whose enmity cannot hurt, nor friendship help us; who set their subjects to sale, like sheep or oxen, without any inquiry after the intentions of the buyer; and will withdraw the troops, with which they have supplied us, whenever a higher bidder ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... offered her gold heart to a woman who seemed lonely and desolate; but the woman only cared for the hearts of men, and threw back the princess's in her face. And then somebody advised her to set it up for auction, to go to the highest bidder, as that was generally considered the correct thing to do with regard to well-regulated women's hearts; but she didn't like that suggestion at all. At last the poor princess grew tired of offering her treasure to people who didn't want it, and so she locked it up ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... Jews, and the income of the custom house, which is now rented at the yearly rate of eighty thousand piastres. Besides these there are several civil appointments in the town, which are sold every year at Constantinople to the highest bidder: the Janissaries are in the possession of the most lucrative of them, and remit regularly to the Porte the purchase money. The outward decorum which the Janissaries have never ceased to observe towards the Porte is owing to their fear of offending public opinion, so as to endanger ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... hydro-electric buzz-saw. Indeed, I would have to sell it, for with the juice developed here I could not hope to compete in a limited field with the established power companies. I would proceed to negotiate the sale of this by-product to the highest bidder. Bill, do you know that I've seen enough flood water running down the San Gregorio every winter to have furnished, if it could have been stored in Agua Caliente Basin, sufficient water to irrigate the San Gregorio ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... taxed, and there is no direct taxation. As above explained, there is no land tax, nor ground rent, and every man builds his own house and is his own landlord. The right of retailing the following articles is "farmed" out to the highest bidder by the Government, and their price consequently enhanced to the consumer:—Opium (but only a few of the nobles use the drug), foreign tobacco, curry stuff, wines and spirits (not used by the natives), salt, gambier (used for chewing with the betel or areca nut), tea (little used ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... Scot through all Europe equivalent to that of a pitiful mercenary, who knows neither honour nor principle but his month's pay, who transfers his allegiance from standard to standard, at the pleasure of fortune or the highest bidder; and to whose insatiable thirst for plunder and warm quarters we owe much of that civil dissension which is now turning our swords against our own bowels. I had scarce patience with the hired gladiator, and yet could hardly help laughing at the ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... habitual slavery to his passions, which involved him in many perplexities. He happened at that time to be engaged in the pursuit of some trifling gratification, and, being without money for the present occasion, sold his poem to the first bidder, and perhaps for the first price that was proposed, and would probably have been content with less if less had ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... them, if possible, some better method. It but augmented his indignation and distress to find their condition and methods worse even than at home, since in some he actually found the fees wrung from these unhappy prisoners to amount to so much that the office of jailer was sold to the highest bidder, the sum paid for the position often amounting to as much as L40 ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... "Flitter" for four months, and it was being overhauled and put into condition for the voyage. It had been Brown's special pride, but at his death it went to heirs who were ready and eager to rent it to the highest bidder. It would not have been easy to find a handsomer yacht in New York waters. A picked crew of fifty men were under command of Captain Abner Perry. The steward was a famous manager and could be relied upon to stock the larder ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... things the most improbable. And Pauline Malincourt, your mother, had been taught to abhor the idea of living on small means—trained to regard her beauty and breeding as marketable assets, to go to the highest bidder. For, although her parents came of fine old stock—there's no better blood in England than the Malincourt strain, my dear—they were deadly hard-up. So hard-up, that when they died—as the result of a carriage accident which occurred a week after Pauline's marriage—they ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler |
