"Half-pay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a hundred men in twenty-five canoes loaded with provisions, goods, munitions, and tools. He was accompanied by Alphonse de Tonty, brother of Henri de Tonty, the companion of La Salle, and by two half-pay lieutenants, Dugue and Chacornacle, together with a Jesuit and a Recollet.[30] Following the difficult route of the Ottawa and Lake Huron, they reached their destination on the twenty-fourth of July, and built a picket fort sixty yards square, which by order of the governor they named Fort Ponchartrain.[31] ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... you're spoken to, little girl! That's a question you are not qualified to answer. I'm on half-pay at present, and I haven't ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... was a cornet in a cavalry regiment when I first met my darling. We were quartered in a stupid seaport town, where my pet lived with her shabby old father—a half-pay naval man. It was a case of love at first sight on both sides, and my darling and I made a match of it. My father is a rich man, but no sooner did he hear that I was married to a penniless girl than he wrote a furious letter telling ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the Republic usually kept only a garrison of one hundred half-pay Sclavonians, happened to contain at that time two thousand Albanian soldiers, who were ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a loaf or no bread. If Chiawassee blows in again, it will be on borrowed money. If you men will take half-pay in cash and half in promises, the promised half to be paid when we can sell the stacked pig, we go on. If not, we don't. Talk it over among yourselves and let us have ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... 42d Regiment, in which he served to the close of the Pyrenees' campaign. Wounded at the battle of Toulouse, by a musket-ball penetrating his right shoulder, and otherwise debilitated, he retired from active service on half-pay, and with a pension for his wound. He now fixed his abode in Edinburgh, and devoted himself to literary pursuits. He contributed to Constable's Magazine, and other periodicals. For one of the earlier volumes of "Constable's Miscellany," he wrote ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... it happens, more than you think, since Vespasian, being gracious and pleased with my report, has granted me half-pay for all my life, to say nothing of a gratuity and a share of the spoil, whatever that may bring. Still I grieve, who can never hope to lift ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... Chancellors of the Exchequer, and Lord Chamberlains, when my attention was turned to a very animated scene going on between a pair who seemed perfectly unconscious of all the external creation. One of the parties was a showy-looking fellow, with the mingled expression of roueism and half-pay, which is so frequent and so unmistakeable in the neighbourhood of St James's. The lady was a calm and composed personage, whom, on a second glance, I remembered to have seen wherever the world could bow down to the fair possessor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... rather suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr. Gundry, who had spent some years in California, was now returning to England by the Bridal Veil. This was Major Hockin, an officer of the British army, now on half-pay, and getting on in years. His wife was going home with him; for their children were married and settled in England, all but one, now in San Francisco. And that one being well placed in the firm of Heniker, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Schultz carefully, obsequiously waited upon the three strangers. He gave them their choice of soup, thick or clear, of gooseberry pie or Half-Pay pudding. He accepted their shillings gratefully, and when they departed for the links he bowed them on their way. And as their car turned up Jetty Street, for one instant, he again allowed his eyes ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... War to the restored king, was partial to officers who had served in Spain. Only not even the marshal's protection could secure for him active employment. He remained irreconcilable, idle and sinister, seeking in obscure restaurants the company of other half-pay officers, who cherished dingy but glorious old tricolour cockades in their breast pockets, and buttoned with the forbidden eagle buttons their shabby uniform, declaring themselves too poor to afford the expense of ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Boulogne before my husband was sent to the Cape," she said, choosing her words with care—"for the advantages of education, of course, and—well, dear Mrs Jardine, you know what half-pay means as well as I do, and I need not apologize, need I? Two elderly cousins of Sir Arthur's happened to pass through, and we were able to offer them hospitality when the packet was prevented crossing by a storm. They took ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... consorts of the King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, was the daughter of Mr. George Hopkins Walters, a half-pay officer of one of the regiments of British Dragoons, who came to Lucknow as an adventurer. He there united himself (though not in marriage) to the widow of Mr. Whearty, an English merchant or shopkeeper of that ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... not been expecting Arsene Lupin, I should certainly never have recognized him in the person of this old half-pay officer: ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... were limited, yet he was not destitute. He had an annual income of a few hundred dollars, in addition to his half-pay as a colonel in the revolutionary army. For two or three years before his death he suffered under the effects of a paralysis. Much of the time he was in a measure helpless, so far as locomotion was concerned. His general health, however, was tolerably good, by using great ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... aboard, His blithesome crew convulsive roar'd, To see him altered so. The Admiralty did insist That he upon the Half-pay List Immediately should go. ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... year following, Captain Luttrell, having been appointed to the Ganges, took with him Mr. Riou as second lieutenant. He served in this ship until the following summer, when he retired for a time on half-pay, devoting himself to study and continental travel until March, 1786, when we find him serving under Admiral Elliot as second lieutenant of the Salisbury. It was about this time that he submitted to the Admiralty a plan, doubtless suggested by his voyage with Captain Cook, "for ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... India there were good opportunities of saving; then out of that sum I bought the house, and with my half-pay, our income will be very fair, and there would be a pension afterwards for you. This seems to me all ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nearly a year and a half. My half-pay I have given up to satisfy my creditors, and my child supports me by her industry: sometimes by fine needlework, sometimes by painting. She leaves me every night, and goes to a lodging near the bridge; but returns ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... galleons and galleys—and that very moderately—we needed one thousand infantrymen; but all the islands could only furnish six hundred paid soldiers. In order to supply this lack, three hundred and eighty men were provided from the citizens of this city, and from captains, alferezes, and sergeants on half-pay—the captains numbering thirty-four, the alferezes one hundred and six, the sergeants eighty, and the common soldiers one hundred and sixty. These men showed a willingness to take service on this occasion for honor. But to fulfil their obligations they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... fortune" that overtook one of the most brilliant of modern dramatists. About the same period, another drama of the English courts ended in a startling and terrible peripety. A young lady was staying as a guest with a half-pay officer and his wife. A valuable pearl belonging to the hostess disappeared; and the hostess accused her guest of having stolen it. The young lady, who had meanwhile married, brought an action for slander against her quondam friend. For several days the case continued, and everything ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... abundant examples when we come to treat of gentility-mongers. But the heavy swell, who is of all classes, from the son and heir of an opulent blacking-maker down to the lieutenant of a marching regiment on half-pay, is utterly destitute of brains, deplorably illiterate, and therefore incapable, by nature and bringing-up, of respecting himself by a modest contented demeanour. He is never so unhappy as when he appears the thing he is—never so completely in his element as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... slight and passing as they were, contributed to the pride and glory of my existence; and even now—shall I confess it?—when some gray hairs are mingling with the brown, and when my old dragoon swagger is taming down into a kind of half-pay shamble, I feel my heart warm ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... an evening he went down to the bridge of Tours. There was a lieutenant there on half-pay, an Imperial naval officer, whose manly face, medal, and gait had made an impression on the boy's imagination, and the officer on his side had taken a liking to the lad, whose eyes sparkled with energy. Louis, hungering ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... himself, from his weakness and folly, to have been the murderer of his child, that he felt himself despicable, and could not longer remain with the regiment. As soon as the regiment arrived at Lyons, he sent in his retirement, and has ever since been living at Pau, in the south of France, upon his half-pay and the ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... the quilt Wrapp'd round her in haste as she jumped out of bed, And ran down to the coast, Where she looked like a ghost, Though 't was he was departed—the vagabone fled And she cried, "Well-a-day! Sure my heart it is grey: They're deceivers, them sojers, that goes on half-pay." ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... with affected sternness, but a twinkling in his eye, "you take your half-pay, make tracks, enjoy yourself, and don't worry about a trifle of a dollar or two. If you happen to drop around this way about nine o'clock, I'll be ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... day, April 3rd, all the officers on half-pay assembled at the fountain to be reviewed by a general and a sub-inspector, and as these officers were late, the order of the, day issued by General Ambert, recognising the Imperial Government, was produced and passed along the ranks, causing such ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... think you would care when I told you of a soldier, a Waterloo man too, and you only call him a half-pay officer!' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... And he half felt that what in them was grace Made the unlucky weakness of his race. 40 What powers he had he hardly cared to know, But sauntered through the world as through a show; A critic fine in his haphazard way, A sort of mild La Bruyere on half-pay. For comic weaknesses he had an eye Keen as an acid for an alkali, Yet you could feel, through his sardonic tone, He loved them all, unless they were his own. You might have called him, with his humorous twist, A kind of human entomologist; 50 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... must push Rawdon's fortune in their own country. She must get him a place or appointment at home or in the colonies, and she determined to make a move upon England as soon as the way could be cleared for her. As a first step she had made Crawley sell out of the Guards and go on half-pay. His function as aide-de-camp to General Tufto had ceased previously. Rebecca laughed in all companies at that officer, at his toupee (which he mounted on coming to Paris), at his waistband, at his false ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the bondsman. "That loud-voiced fellow is Leftenant-Colonel Lee, a half-pay officer. Many and many 's the time I've seen him—and if I had n't, I'd have known the other for the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... was by birth an Englishman, and a cadet of an ancient family, who, after having spent a dissolute youth and early manhood, had come to Canada. Here he became acquainted with an old, half-pay Highland officer of Wolfe's Army, who for his signal services rendered during the operations of the British force before Quebec, had been rewarded with a grant of land in that vicinity. Like others of his countrymen, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... which party administers the government, women will continue to get only subordinate positions and half-pay, not because of the party's or the president's lack of chivalric regard for woman, but because, in the nature of things, it is impossible for any government to protect a disfranchised class in equality of chances. Women, to get justice, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... in the service of his country, and his chief wish now was to spend the remainder of his days in quiet and respectability; his means, it is true, were not very ample; fortunate it was that his desires corresponded with them; with a small fortune of his own, and with his half-pay as a royal soldier, he had no fears for himself or for his faithful partner and helpmate; but then his children! how was he to provide for them? how launch them upon the wide ocean of the world? This was, perhaps, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... one-sidedness. His ear is deficient in the sense of harmony, and he deafens and disgusts you by harping on one string. The retired nabob holds you by the button, to hear his wearisome diatribes on Indian economics; the half-pay officer is too fluent on his worn-out recollections of the Peninsular War, and becomes savage if you broach a new theme, or move to adjourn the debate; the university pedant distracts you with his theories on philology and scansion—with his amended translation ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... the field. Instantly dropping the pail, she hastened to the cannon, seized the rammer, and with great skill and courage performed her husband's duty. The soldiers gave her the nickname of Major Molly. Congress voted her a sergeant's commission with half-pay through life.] ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... general sense of the House was that Harley offered too little, and that Montague demanded too much. At last, on the fourteenth of January, a vote was taken for three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Four days later the House resolved to grant half-pay to the disbanded officers till they should be otherwise provided for. The half-pay was meant to be a retainer as well as a reward. The effect of this important vote therefore was that, whenever a new war should break out, the nation would be able to command the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it seemed, had been in Africa about five years, his father having emigrated there on the death of his mother, as he had nothing but the half-pay of a retired naval captain, and he hoped to better his fortunes in a new land. He had been granted a farm in the Graaf-Reinet district, but like many other of the early settlers, met with misfortunes. Now, to make money, he had taken ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... here to receive my—I needn't mention the word; you know what I mean. Kenwigs and Susan, yesterday was a week she eloped with a half-pay captain!' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... together, in a way not so creditable to the lady, that she was far from forbidding their private meetings; on the contrary, that, on a certain time, she had set one that had formerly been her footman, and a half-pay officer, her relation, to watch an opportunity, and to frighten him into a marriage with the lady: That, accordingly, when they had surprised him in her chamber, just as he had been let in, they drew their swords upon ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... first-rate actors, of celebrated poets. These are at the head; we are struck with the glittering eminence on which they stand, and long to set out on the same tempting career,—not thinking how many discontented half-pay lieutenants are in vain seeking promotion all their lives, and obliged to put up with 'the insolence of office, and the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes'; how many half-starved strolling players ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... with glory, and inflict another bitter humiliation on poor Mrs. Oswald? If only she had known sooner that Ernest was stopping at the Oswalds, she wouldn't have been so loud in praise of the Le Breton family; she would in that case have dexterously insinuated that Lady Le Breton was only a half-pay officer's widow, living on her pension; and that her boys had got promotion at Oxford as poor scholars, through the Archdeacon's benevolent influence. It was too late now, however, to adopt that line of defence; ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... and young men intolerable. She throws out dark hints of her intention to compose a great work which shall settle everything. Then she bursts into poetry, and pens poems of so fiery a passion that her family are in consternation lest she should elope with the half-pay officer who meets her by moonlight on the pier. Then she plunges into science, and cuts her hair short to be in proper trim for Professor ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... well as requisite supplies and refreshments, occasioned private expences which considerably abridged his emoluments. It is true that, as far as related to himself, he might have contrived to live in retirement on his pension and half-pay; but he could by no means make any suitable provision for those whom he conceived to have claims on his protection. This expedition, he trusted, would enable him, at length, to accomplish the wish of his heart, by placing all ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... British barristers there this year that they called the "Hotel des Quatre Saisons" the "Hotel of Quarter Sessions." There were judges and their wives, serjeants and their ladies, Queen's counsel learned in the law, the Northern circuit and the Western circuit: there were officers of half-pay and full-pay, military officers, naval officers, and sheriffs' officers. There were people of high fashion and rank, and people of no rank at all; there were men and women of reputation, and of the two kinds of reputation; there were English boys playing ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... how long I might be spared to linger near her; but now, when of both I am assured, wherefore should I hesitate longer? With the title of captain, that for which I have so long pined, I am at liberty to retire on half-pay, till farther orders; the adopted son and acknowledged heir to my uncle, Lord Delmont, I have now enough to offer her my hand, without one remaining scruple. You are silent. Oh, Mr. Grahame, must ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... road, at which the emperor's horse started so violently as nearly to dismount his rider, and under the difficulty of the moment compelled him to withdraw the hand which held up the handkerchief, and suddenly to expose his features. Precisely at this critical moment it happened that an old half-pay officer passed, recognised the emperor, and saluted him. Perhaps it was with some purpose of applying a remedy to this unfortunate rencontre, that the party dismounted at a point where several roads met, and turned their horses adrift to graze at will amongst the furze and brambles. Their own purpose ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... his servants about, drink his whisky and smoke his cigarettes, and generally invite themselves to luncheon and tea and dinner. And then, when they are ready to go back to their villas or hotel, take his motor-boat without a thank-you. The colonel has about three thousand pounds outside his half-pay, and they are all crazy to marry him because his sister is a countess. As a bachelor he can live like a prince, but as a married man he would have to dig. He told me that if he had been born Adam, he'd have climbed over Eden's walls ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... that sail to Nueva Espana, it is ordered that this be distributed according to their rank and wealth. Notwithstanding, the governors do not make the allotment in accordance with this order. Sometimes they give it, under pretext of gratuities, to officers on half-pay, thus obliging the inhabitants to buy space at excessive prices. Sometimes they allot many toneladas for charitable purposes, in order that these may be sold, and the price [obtained for them] be used therefor, to the prejudice of the general welfare; this results from ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... lady was of no particular family; an orphan daughter of an admiral who educated her on his half-pay, and her conduct struck but at the man ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... disbanded, his comrades are scattered, and he himself has nothing to do, not even the poor resource of having to study economy on half-pay, or of looking for more additional means to eke ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... is Chaleco of Valdepenas; in the time of the French I served as bragante, fighting for Ferdinand VII. I am now a captain on half-pay in the service of Donna Isabel; as for my business here, it is to speak with you. Do you know ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... Glory;—Glory's a great thing:— Think what it is to be in your old age Maintained at the expense of your good King: A moderate pension shakes full many a sage, And Heroes are but made for bards to sing, Which is still better—thus, in verse, to wage Your wars eternally, besides enjoying Half-pay for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... 50s, per month and 55s. per month to foremast-men, who before went for 26s. per month; besides subjecting the merchant to the insolence of the seamen, who are not now to be pleased with any provisions, will admit no half-pay, and command of the captains even what they please; nay, the king himself can hardly ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... 'm ready to stop My galloping anapests' clatter and pop— In fact, if you say so, retire from to-day To the garret I left, on a poet's half-pay. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... press-gang, but was in reality intended for a procession. Though joined by a proprietor from a neighbouring parish, a lawyer from a neighbouring burgh, a small coast-guard party, with its commanding officer, and two half-pay Episcopalian officers besides, the number who walked, including boys, did not exceed twenty-five persons; and of these, as I have said, only ten were parishioners. The processionists had a noble dinner in the head inn of the place—merrier ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... a young commercial traveler named Gaudissart, who frequented the Cafe David, sat drinking from eleven o'clock till midnight with a half-pay officer. He was so rash as to discuss a conspiracy against the Bourbons, a rather serious plot then on the point of execution. There was no one to be seen in the cafe but Pere Canquoelle, who seemed to be asleep, two waiters who were ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... about London since my ship was paid off two years ago. At first, of course, it didn't matter, for I have enough to live upon; but recently I have been fool enough to fall in love with a girl whose parents would never dream of allowing her to marry a half-pay lieutenant of the navy with no chance in the world of getting employed again, for I have no ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... him the highest rank that the profession could offer, until he became an admiral from seniority, they thought that they had done enough; and had it not been that Captain M—-, by his zeal and abilities, had secured a personal interest at the Board, he might have languished on half-pay; but his services were appreciated, and he was too good an officer not to be employed. His father was dead, and the payment of debts which he had contracted, and the purchase of an annuity for his ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... stated that he was wounded in his feelings, though he said no, and insisted on the distinction. Once a day his walk for constitutional exercise compelled him to pass before Lady Camper's windows, which were not bashfully withdrawn, as he said humorously of Douro Lodge, in the seclusion of half-pay, but bowed out imperiously, militarily, like a generalissimo on horseback, and had full command of the road and levels up to the swelling park-foliage. He went by at a smart stride, with a delicate depression of his upright bearing, as though hastening to greet a friend ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dismal science.[351] He writes, however, with enough vivacity and fervour of belief in his creed to redeem him from the charge of absolute dulness. An abler thinker was Colonel (Robert) Torrens (1780-1864).[352] He had served with distinction in the war; but retired on half-pay, and was drawn by some natural idiosyncrasy into the dry paths of economic discussion. He was already confuting the French economists in 1808; and was writing upon the Bank-charter Act and the Ten Hours' Bill in 1844. Torrens held himself, apparently ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... my act to half-pay. I'd be full of them tricks—wouldn't I? Show me another jaw act measures up to mine. Show me the strong-arm number that ever pulled down the coin a jaw act did. I'd be a, sweet boob, wouldn't I, to cut my pocket-book in two? I need money, Airy-Fairy. My God! how ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... perhaps never, before that day, entered the metropolis together. Their stock of money was soon exhausted. In his visionary project of an academy, Johnson had probably wasted his wife's substance; and Garrick's father had little more than his half-pay.—The two fellow-travellers had the world before them, and each was to choose his road to fortune and to fame. They brought with them genius, and powers of mind, peculiarly formed by nature for the different ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... morning was tinged by that fairy legend, which tinged Linda's countenance also, rose-colour. Mr. Wynn the elder was slightly mystified; for the topics of promotion by purchase in the army, and the emigration of half-pay officers, seemed to have no leading reference ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... missing, and the owners ceased the monthly remittance of Samuel's half-pay to his wife. It was the question of the child's legitimacy that preyed on her mind, and, when all hope of Samuel's return was abandoned, she drowned herself and the child in the loch. And here enters ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... interesting only in its past. To-day it is a suburb, a lung, of London; the rapid recuperator of Londoners with whom the pace has been too severe; the Mecca of day-excursionists, the steady friend of invalids and half-pay officers. It is vast, glittering, gay; but ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... election for Shrewsbury, in the reign of George I., a half-pay officer, who was a nonresident burgess, was, with some other voters, brought down from London at the expense of Mr. Kynaston, one of the candidates. The old campaigner regularly attended and feasted at the houses which were opened for the electors in Mr. Kynaston's interest ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... Pickersgill, 'your boat is manned, do me the favour to step into it; and you, sir, do the same. I should be sorry to lay my hands upon a peer of the realm, or a king's officer even on half-pay.' ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... not fit for sea. I don't think I should have minded so much if I had got post rank before being laid on the shelf. The difference of pension, too, would have been a help, for goodness knows it is hard work making ends meet on a lieutenant's half-pay. However, that is not the question now. The thing that I have got to consider is what is the best thing ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... [entretenimientos] in the forts of Terrenate. They were reduced to opportunities for profit, of various amounts, in order to distribute that money among half-pay alferezes. Each substituteship was worth four hundred and fifty pesos, or a total of one thousand eight hundred pesos. This was abolished entirely 1,800 ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... but only consider: a dun is a horridly vulgar creature; it is a creature I cannot endure the thought of: and a cottage lets him in so easily. Now a castle keeps him at bay. You are a half-pay officer, and are at leisure to command the garrison: but where is the castle? and who ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... day, poor Molly, no longer a furious Amazon, but a sad-faced widow, with swollen eyes, and a scanty bit of crape pinned on her broad young bosom, was presented to Washington, and received a sergeant's commission with half-pay for life. It is said that the French officers, then fighting for the freedom of the colonies, that is, against the English, were so delighted with her courage that they added to this reward a cocked hat full of ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... painting the different manner in which two married couples finish their day. The first husband is a lord, an eldest son, and therefore heir to all the family property; the second is his younger brother, the husband of Pamela, who has been disinherited on account of his marriage, and lives on half-pay in a state but little ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... duties were practically nil. Half the privates of his regiment had been dismissed to their native villages. The rest, though nominally in barracks, and paraded once or twice a month (very badly), were wont to eke out their half-pay (supposed to be whole, but actually shared with two lofty administrators whose names were known to a certain astute Moscow official) by working in the Artels that ply their various crafts in the Russian cities throughout ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... a half-pay ensigncy, that some of these lazy fellows, who must have a four-legged beast to carry them to the wars, have heard of the 'south side.' South side! I believe I must put an advertisement in the London Gazette, calling that amphibious soldier ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... heard me speak of Lina Dale, my English governess before I had Mary Gibson. Mary Gibson is an excellent girl, but she has not the talent that Lina had. Lina's father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking old lady, who spoke with a hesitating, apologetic manner and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Moore's father received, through the interest of Lord Moira, the post of Barrack-Master in Dublin, and thus became independent. In 1815, "Retrenchment" deprived him of this office, and he was placed on half-pay. The family had to seek aid from the son, who entreated them not to despond, but rather to thank Providence for having permitted them to enjoy the fruits of office so long, till he (the son) was "in a situation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... good man, the cheerfullest man of his age;[1175] a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family, whose study was to make four-pence do as much as others made four-pence halfpenny do. But, when he had got money, he was very liberal.'[1176] I presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick, in his Lives of the Poets.[1177] 'You say, Sir, his death eclipsed ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... it is to be acquainted with my worthy friend, little Major British; and heaven, sure, it was that put the Major into my head, when I heard of this awkward scrape of poor Fog's. The Major is on half-pay, and occupies a modest apartment au quatrieme, in the very hotel which Pogson had patronized at my suggestion; indeed, I had chosen it from Major British's ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rented the house for six months from a Captain Marchmont, a half-pay officer, naval or military, I don't know which, for we never saw him, and all the negotiations were managed by an agent. Captain Marchmont and his family, as a rule, lived at Ballyreina all the year round—they ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... were soon joined by the father, now reduced to inaction and to play something like third fiddle in his narrow household. The emancipation of the slaves had deprived them of their last resource beyond the half-pay of a captain; and life abroad was not only desirable for the sake of Fleeming's education, it was almost enforced by reasons of economy. But it was, no doubt, somewhat hard upon the captain. Certainly that perennial boy found a companion in his son; they were both active and ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... runs down money, it's because he has got none and wishes he had. If you and I had only a few hundreds a year over the half-pay to rattle in our pockets, we should have lots of little pleasures, and you might have lived in England, with all sorts of variety and comfort, instead of wandering about India with a gang of stupid old chaps who have been so busy ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... season. The Chestnuts is a mansion built in modern style for a former landowner. As it is outside the great hunting centres it is let at a low rental compared with its accommodation. The labourers are glad to see that the place is let again, for although the half-pay officer—the new occupant—who has retired, wounded and decorated, from the service of a grateful country, has probably not a third the income of the tradesman, and five times the social appearance to maintain, still there will be profit to ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... troops in order, and given the necessary directions, he began at daybreak to ascend the difficult and steep defile, leading the advanced guard in person, directly before which was a forlorn hope of twenty half-pay officers much experienced in similar warfare. He had scarcely got half way up the mountain when he was attacked with the utmost fury by Quintuguenu; but animating his troops by his voice and example, he sustained for more than an hour ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr |
