"Purser" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cost, up and down the Thames. A seething mob of people, almost exclusively composed of the male sex, glared furiously at them and one another—but principally at them—as they came up the gangway, and departed in search of the purser. All the stairs down to the dining saloon were occupied by morose passengers, and an enlivening altercation was in progress between two elderly gentlemen of ferocious aspect anent the remnants of what had once been a cushion. A ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... Hewitt the following encounter is recorded, referring to the period between 1758-96: "Catherine (Martin), wife of a purser in the navy, and conspicuous for her beauty and impulsive, violent temper, having quarrelled with her excellent sister, Dorothea Fryer, at whose house in Staffordshire she was staying, suddenly set off to London on a visit to her great-uncle, the ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... "My brother-in-law is purser on the Celestial Traveller. At Riker's Planet they make connection with the feeder line ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... some unseen person, to which Tom listened with chill misgivings, and the steward directed his young subordinate to take Tom to the purser's office and, if he got through all right there, to the ship's butcher. He gave Tom a slip of paper to hand ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... carried by one of them, I could see they were all armed with pistol and cutlass. They appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one fellow whisper, "There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom, the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying themselves over a glass of cold grog—the gunner taking the watch on deck the doctor was piping any thing but mellifluously on the double flageolet, while the Spanish ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... I'll not deny,' he went on. 'Ye've established some kind of a claim upon Gresson, which may come in handy ... Speaking about Gresson, I've news for ye. He's sailing on Friday as purser in the Tobermory. The Tobermory's a boat that wanders every month up the West Highlands as far as Stornoway. I've arranged for ye to take a trip on that ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... Lucas and they were steaming up the sunny Pacific did he see either of them again. Then one glorious day the trolling-lines were out astern, the elders were amidship playing "horse billiards," and "Tuck," the genial purser, was devoting himself to Paquita, when Drummond heard a scream of excitement and delight, and saw the younger sister bracing her tiny, slender feet and hanging on to a line with all her strength. In an instant he was at her side, ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... unsullied to his arms. She continued thus: "Perhaps I give it a wrong epithet in the word fatal; but a wretched night I am sure I may call it, for no woman who came off victorious was, I believe, ever in greater danger. One night I say, having drank his spirits high with punch, in company with the purser, who was the only man in the ship he admitted to his table, the captain sent for me into his cabin; whither, though unwilling, I was obliged to go. We were no sooner alone together than he seized me by the hand, and, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... comely spouse very willing to do. There were other children in the home who were only too ready to welcome the pretty little Toni; and after a stay of some weeks in the noisy Brixton house Roger Gibbs had bidden his little daughter farewell, and had gone forth once more, this time as assistant purser on a liner, a post to which one of his former employers had assisted him opportunely. It was a chance to see more of the world, and the man embraced it gladly enough, though it would certainly prove irksome ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... at Valparaiso in South America in the year 1836, where he met a purser in the American navy who had realized about 3000 pounds sterling; this person here quitted the American service and laid out his capital in the purchase of a small vessel in which, having embarked a cargo ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... A.D. 1851, one John Caphart, of Norfolk, Va., came to Boston, in pursuit of one Shadrach, alleged to be a fugitive slave and the property of John Debree, a purser in the navy, and attended by Seth J. Thomas, Esq., as counsel, made his complaint, as agent and attorney of the said owner, before George T. Curtis, Esq., U. S. Commissioner. On the evening of the 14th, the following warrant was placed in the hands of special marshal ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... his legs back, for as to coiling away his body, that would be impossible. The master, old Billhook, is a rough diamond, but he understands navigation, and spins tough yarns by the score; I'll tell you some of them one of these days. The purser, Simon Cheeseparings—that isn't his real name— was a slopseller in Wapping, but outran his creditors and had to come to sea to escape from Newgate; and the doctor's a Scotchman whose name begins with Mac, and ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... father's college friend, was a purser in the navy and lived in Augusta, Maine, his official residence being at Portsmouth. He had kept in closer touch with the romancer than any of his other friends had since their graduating days, and he had been from the first a believer in his coming literary ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... supplied from the purser's stores with plenty of fine oakum and a couple of bottles of ink. This latter he made boiling hot and poured over the oakum, hanging it to dry by the cook's fire; and while he was doing this I arranged with the cook to have a bucket of tallow and whiting ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... was made desperate by his danger, resolving to clear the ship of his enemies, tried us all, and we were all condemned to die. The manner of his process I was too young to take notice of; but the purser and one of the gunners were hanged immediately, and I expected it with the rest. I do not remember any great concern I was under about it, only that I cried very much, for I knew little then of this world, and nothing at all of ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... which we give a figure is growing at Broadlands, Hants, and is about 40 feet in height, with a trunk that measures 7 feet in girth at 3 feet from the ground, with a spread of branches measuring 45 feet. These dimensions have been considerably exceeded in other cases. In 1837 a tree at Purser's Cross measured 60 feet and more in height. Loudon himself had a small tree in his garden at Bayswater on which a female branch was grafted. It is to be feared that this specimen has long ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... Margaret, called by her friends "Peg" O'Neill. Before she was sixteen years of age she married a handsome naval officer, John Bowie Timberlake. He died—some say that he committed suicide—at Port Mahon, in 1828, leaving his accounts as purser in a very mixed condition. After the death of Timberlake, Commodore Patterson ordered Lieutenant Randolph to take the purser's books and perform the duties of purser. On the return home of the Constitution it was discovered that Timberlake or Randolph was a defaulter to the Government to ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... children it was different; they seemed to like him a little; but never did he follow one of them that a mother did not call from the house-door: "Pierre! Marie! come away quick! That bad dog will bite you!" Once when he ran down to the shore to watch the boat coming in from the mail-steamer, the purser had refused to let the boat go to land, and called out, "M'sieu' MacIntosh, you git no malle dis trip, eef you not call ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... remains between decks but the mess-tables, stools, and the soup and grog kids. Long before this hour, the greater number of the whole ship's company have dressed themselves and are ready for muster; but the never-ending sweepers, the fussy warrant-officers' yeomen, the exact purser's steward, the slovenly midshipmen's boy, the learned loblolly boy, and the interminable host of officers' servants, who have always fifty extra things to do, are often so sorely pressed for time, that at the first tap of the drum beating to divisions, these idlers, as they are technically ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... in May and joined the Benguela off Lagos Bar. My voyage down coast in her was a very pleasant one and full of instruction, for Mr. Fothergill, who was her purser, had in former years resided in Congo Francais as a merchant, and to Congo Francais I was bound with an empty hold as regards local knowledge of the district. He was one of that class of men, of which you most frequently find representatives ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Descartes, sa famille, son lieu de naissance, &c. (1901); Richard Lowndes, Ren Descartes, his Life and Meditations (London, 1878); J. P. Mahaffy, Descartes (1902), with an appendix on Descartes's mathematical work by Frederick Purser; Victor de Swarte, Descartes directeur spirituel (Paris, 1904), correspondence with the Princess Palatine; C. J. Jeannel, Descartes et la princesse palatine (Paris, 1869); Lettres de M. Descartes, ed. Claude Clerselier (1657). A useful sketch of recent biographies is to be found ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... had collected, Mr. Osgood said—"You must be pretty well fagged out, men; I think we may have a hard night's work, yet, and I wish you to get your suppers, and then catch as much sleep as you can, at your guns." He then ordered the purser's steward to splice the main-brace. These were the last words I ever heard from Mr. Osgood. As soon as he gave the order, he went below leaving the deck in charge of Mr. Bogardus. All our old crew were on board but Mr. Livingston, who ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... he is purser on the steamboat; in winter he is the miller. That is six white men. John Gaviller is no good yet. There is the crew of the steamboat, and the men who work for wages, maybe fifteen ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... house was hired for the warrant and petty officers. The people that were ill were put under the care of Mr. Zimers, the Surgeon-General. Governor Wanjon did me and Lt. Hayward the honour of lodging and entertaining us in his own house. Mr. Corner, the second Lieutenant and Mr. Bentham, the Purser, were received in the house of Mr. Fruy, the Lieutenant-Governor. Lt. Larkin and Mr. Passmore were taken into the house of Mr. Brouberg, the Captain-Lieutenant of the Company ship, and Mr. Hamilton, the surgeon, was accommodated in the house of Mr. Zimers, the Surgeon-General, ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... worked from time immemorial. It is known to have been wrought a hundred years before it was taken by the present company, who have had it between thirty and forty years, and, under the able direction of the present manager and purser, Mr Stephen Harvey James, it has paid the shareholders more than 100,000 pounds. The profit in the year 1844 was 24,000 pounds. At the termination of one period of working it left a profit of 300,000 ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... sidelong glance, "There were too many of us on the Planetara. The purser had joined us, and many of the crew. And there was Miko's sister, the Setta Moa—too many. The treasure divides better ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... or the purser's strong room, I imagine," Tom answered. "Hardley didn't actually see it, but he said those two places were constantly guarded. I'm inclined to think the purser would have charge of the gold. ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... The purser spied and introduced me to my host, ex-judge Nahinu, who was then deep in business, despatching and receiving goods. He was dressed in pearl-grey tweed like any self-respecting Englishman; only the band of his wide-awake was made of peacock's feather.—"House by and by," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more were pushing their claims, every one in vain. The Oklahoma passengers, bent on having a look at Minook, crowded after the Captain. Among those who first left the ship, the Boy, talking to the purser, hard upon Rainey's heels. The Colonel stood there as they passed, the Captain turning back to say something to the Boy, and then they disappeared together through the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... boarded and took the ship. Burgh accused Cumberland's people of plundering. All agreed on the magnificence of the prize. Burgh wrote: 'I hope, for all the spoil that has been made, her Majesty shall receive more profit by her than by any ship that ever came into England.' The purser of the Santa Cruz deposed that the Madre de Dios contained precious stones, pearls, amber, and musk worth 400,000 crusados. She brought two great crosses and a jewel of diamonds, presents from the Viceroy to the King. She had 537 tons of spices. The pepper alone ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... Henry, who was two years my junior. It was not a place of profit, it was only a place of promise. He was "mud" clerk. Mud clerks received no salary, but they were in the line of promotion. They could become, presently, third clerk and second clerk, then chief clerk—that is to say, purser. The dream begins when Henry had been mud clerk about three months. We were lying in port at St. Louis. Pilots and steersmen had nothing to do during the three days that the boat lay in port in St. Louis and New Orleans, but the mud clerk had to begin his labors at dawn and continue them ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... Pacific, from San Francisco. Ar. with husband and son Mrs. Edward. McPhadden, Mrs. July. Str. Brother Jonathan, Ar. with father, mother and brother. from S. Francisco. Maiden name Harrison Moore, John. July. Str. Cortez, from San Francisco. Ar. with father, mother and brother. Purser C.P.R. Co. Moore, William. July. Str. Cortez, from San Francisco. Ar. with father, mother and brother. Miner in Alaska Moore, James. May. Via Bellingham Bay, Ar. single; gold miner from San Francisco. Phillips, July. ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... master of a bark, in which he used to trade along the shore, and sometimes to carry merchandise into Zealand and France. His master dying, left him his bark as a mark of his good-will, and when but eighteen he became purser of a vessel frequenting the ports of Biscay. He shortly afterwards entered a ship commanded by Master John Hawkins, engaged in the slave trade. Having obtained a cargo partly by the sword and partly by other ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... most positive authority that the recent fire at the Army and Navy Club did not originate from a spark of Colonel Sibthorp's wit falling amongst some loose jokes which Captain Marryatt had been scribbling on the backs of some unedited purser's bills. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... up the Mersey a few days since, and day before yesterday Captain Hudson called at my office,—a somewhat meagre, elderly gentleman, of simple and hearty manners and address, having his purser, Mr. Eldredge, with him, who, I think, rather prides himself upon having a Napoleonic profile. The captain is an old acquaintance of Mrs. Blodgett, and has cone ashore principally with a view to calling on her; so, after we had ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... their persons. One unfortunate victim of their wiles appealed strongly to my sympathies. He was an English sailor, and had been two or three years up in the gold mines, and had $3,000 or $4,000 in gold dust in a buckskin bag on his person. He showed it to me. I advised him to deposit it with the purser for safety; that I had done so with mine. He said they could not rob him. He was about the happiest man I ever saw. He was richer, in feeling, than the Vanderbilts. He said he had a wife and children in Liverpool, and would ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... Pepper's arm as he unshipped his bugle. "I had a talk with the purser last night, and I'm afraid we'll have to 'cut out' the bugle calls on this trip. He says they have an official bugler aboard, for the call to meals and for the salute at landings, and we would interfere with him and perhaps affect the comfort of other passengers who ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... Collinson, do you think the young lady will have remained faithful all this time? Remember what numbers of soldier-officers and rich planters there are out here ready to supplant you. Ha! Ha! Ha!" and the purser laughed and rubbed his hands ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... brandy, and his spirits, which had been pretty fair all morning, now prodigiously rose. He proceeded to adjust his whiskers finally before the glass. "Devilish rich," he remarked, as he contemplated his reflection. "I look like a purser's mate." And at that moment the window-glass spectacles (which he had hitherto destined for Pitman) flashed into his mind; he put them on, and fell in love with the effect. "Just what I required," he said. "I wonder what I look ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... kindness of Capt. Meyer, and Purser Williams, of the steamer "Princess Louise," my whole outfit, men, canoe and supplies, were taken to Massett, at which point I resumed the examination of Massett Inlet, which being concluded, we explored in succession Virago Sound, Naden Harbor, and all the bays, inlets ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... the officers as knew about me—the doctor, the purser, and the stewards—I appeared in the light of a broad joke. The fact that I spent the better part of my day in writing had gone abroad over the ship and tickled them all prodigiously. Whenever they met me they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... clumsy oars, tried to forget him. It was hot—hotter than it had seemed at first; sweat ran into his eyes and he grew a little dizzy. The quarantine launch with its load of uniforms, among which the purser's white was conspicuous, passed, giving them its wake; there was no sound from it, only a blaze of teeth and eyeballs. Simpson glanced over his shoulder at it. The purser was standing in the stern, clear of the awning, his head quizzically on one side ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... before." The duties of a good crew after the fight are carefully laid down: "Chirurgeon (surgeon) look to the wounded and wind up the slain, and give them three guns (volleys) for their funerals" (as we do still). "Swabber, make clean the ship! Purser, record their names! Watch, be vigilant! Gunners, spunge your ordnance! Souldiers, scour your pieces! Carpenters, about your leaks! Boatswain and the rest, repair sails and shrouds! Cook, see you observe your directions against the morning watch!" ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... willed to do she went about at once, and in less than an hour she had interviewed the captain, the purser, and the doctor, and, while the passengers were at dinner, Bessie was lifted carefully in Jennie's strong arms and taken to Miss Grey's state-room, where she was laid upon the lounge under the window, as the place ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... here on the boat. And I haven't seen her since she was so high. Sister Mary ought to have warned me by letter; but she was always a slouch at letter writing. There, that'll do, Mrs. Johnson. She's coming round; I reckon I can manage the rest. But you go now and tell the purser I want one of those inside staterooms for my niece,—MY NIECE, you hear,—so that you can be near ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "Tepaleen," is engr. by F. Finden from a drawing by W. Purser; the Title-vignette, "Constantinople," is engr. by E. Finden from a drawing by ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron |
