"Small change" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our love to whoever loves us? A fine parcel of paupers we should all be, wasting our inheritance in pitiful small change! Shall I give a thousand beggars a half hour's happiness, or shall I make one soul ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... a five-franc piece, and she gave me a quantity of small change rapidly, which, as I counted it, I found to contain one Greek piece of fifty lepta very manifestly of lead. This I held up angrily before her, and (not without courage, for it is hard to deal with the darker powers) ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... trousers were patched. This was all the better for Cecile's hidden treasure, and as she was a wise little girl, she took the hint given her by the coffee-man, and not only hid her money, but next time she wanted anything offered very small change. This was rendered easy, for the man at the coffee-stall had given ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... other, and saw the young mariner, to whom he had alluded, standing at the foot of a ruined tower, which was crumbling under the slow operations of time, at no great distance from the place where he stood. Throwing a handful of small change to the seamen, he wished them a better meal, and crossed the fence, with an apparent intention of examining the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Queen Elizabeth, "and you have all men's hearts and purses." If we would only let nature act kindly, free from affectation and artifice, the results on social good humour and happiness would be incalculable. The little courtesies which form the small change of life, may separately appear of little intrinsic value, but they acquire their importance from repetition and accumulation. They are like the spare minutes, or the groat a day, which proverbially produce such momentous results in the course ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... trodden in the dust; the aureole which once encircled their wigs was gone, and they were often snubbed and silenced by ignorant justices. The punishment for being found out is life-long and terrible. Their clients paid the fees partly in small change ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... that there was no occasion for cutting down the tree, but just to back the buggy. Pleased at the good sense of the fellow, Judge Marshall told him that he would leave him something at the inn hard by, where he intended to stop, having then no small change. In due time the man applied, and a dollar was handed him. Being asked if he knew who it was that gave him the dollar, he replied: "No, sir: I concluded he was a gentleman by his leaving the money, but I think he is the ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... lump-sugar bowl and extracted a couple of aces; and the other mimics followed suit with two, three, and four spots. The breaking of this fast cost forty-five cents for the meal, and fifty-five for the waiter just to make the "eat" come to even money, and they were too large socially to take away small change economically. Every meal they put into their waste baskets necessarily extracted one day from the other end of their excursion via the fire escape, and that is one reason why they returned so soonly. Cyclone, having drawn on his personal ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... themselves to use—lest worse befall. "Wretched mumchancer!" he said. "Where's Mr. Plattner?" The boys are agreed on the very words. ("Wobbler," "snivelling puppy," and "mumchancer" are, it seems, among the ordinary small change of Mr. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... "He gave Agashka a ruble!" When he reached the ground, the boy joined the crowd which was following me. I went out into the street: various descriptions of people followed me, and asked for money. I distributed all my small change, and entered an open shop with the request that the shopkeeper would change a ten-ruble bill for me. And then the same thing happened as at the Lyapinsky house. A terrible confusion ensued. Old women, noblemen, peasants, and children crowded into the shop with outstretched ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... match-box and the bag refused to fill up; after three weeks of the most rigid economy they contained but eighteen dollars and some small change. What was that compared with four hundred? Trina told herself that she must have her money in hand. She longed to see again the heap of it upon her work-table, where she could plunge her hands into it, her face into it, feeling the cool, smooth metal upon her cheeks. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... was introduced by the president of the club, who, quoting from the Mark Twain autobiography, recalled the day when the distinguished writer came to New York with $3 in small change in his pockets and a $10 bill sewed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the narrow gate of the vast city of more than a million souls. Immediately we were greeted by the "wailers" and lepers,—this was my first sight of the loathsome leprosy. Our guide had supplied himself with a quantity of small change. Twenty-five cents of our money made about a quart of their small change. A moment later we met the funeral cortege of a rich merchant. First came wailers and then men beating on drums; then sons of the deceased dressed in white (white is their emblem of mourning); then the servants carrying ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... glanced over his shoulder at the hot, dusty street where a swarm of hot, dusty children were shrilling and shrieking, or staring at him round-eyed, dived into his pockets, fished up a handful of small change, whistled to insure their greater attention, and flung the coin among them. While they were snatching at the money like a flock of pigeons over a handful of grain, the elderly gentleman rang the bell. He could hear it jangling through the house, but it brought no immediate response. ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... which leads by increase of gray to the neutral centre, and on to the opposite hue red-purple, RP 4/5, is full of pitfalls for the inexpert. It combines great change of hue and chroma, with small change ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... suddenly jerked up to a height of 16 feet. The amount of work done in all these cases, as far as the raising of the weight is concerned, would be absolutely the same. The work done at one and the same place, and neglecting the small change of gravity with the height, depends solely upon two things; on the quantity of matter lifted, and on the height to which it is lifted. If we call the quantity or mass of matter m, and the height through which it is lifted h, then the product of m into h, or mh, expresses, or is proportional ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... be obstacles to our union. I just want you—your dainty little self—if you had only your 'wee coatie,' as Burns says. Now look here! I want you to bring your influence to bear upon your mother, and so make a small change in our plans. The earlier we can have our honeymoon, the more pleasant the hotels will be. I do want your first experiences with me to be without a shadow of discomfort. In July half the world starts for its holiday. ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... principle, as employed by Reid. The removal of a solitary word may cast a luminous ray over a whole body of philosophy: "If we had called the infinite the indefinite," says Condillac, in his Traite des Sensations, "by this small change of a word we should have avoided the error of imagining that we have a positive idea of infinity, from whence so many false reasonings have been carried on, not only by metaphysicians, but even by geometricians." The word reason has been used with ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Out upon your avarice! Can that low vice alloy so much ambition? I tell thee, fellow, that two thalers in Small change will subdivide into a treasure. Do not five hundred thousand heroes daily 680 Risk lives and souls for the tithe of one thaler? When ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... as this here, but what little I've got ain't quite divided up enough to be handy; I don't mind gettin' a fifty into new Gover'ment greenbacks myself. My wife 'n' me are countin' on stayin' on here a consid'able of a spell, maybe, an' small change is handiest.' ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... am very sorry, but I have no small change—nothing but sovereigns and half crowns. ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... seen the expression of her face in the darkness it would have satisfied him that she did not receive that style of compliment like many of the belles of his acquaintance, who would take the small change of flattery with the smiling complacency ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... On the dressing table, together with a bunch of keys and some small change, lay a brown leather pocketbook. Evidently Sir Thomas did not share Lady Blunt's impression that the world was waiting for a chance to rob him as soon as his ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... greatness of the loss, at once named six new marshals of France. Montecucculi resigned his command. Having had the honour, he said, of fighting Turenne, and having even defeated him, he would not risk his reputation against men who were the small change for the great man who was dead. Lewis XIV had 220,000 men under arms. Conde defeated William at Senef. As often as Vauban defended a fortress, he held it; as often as he besieged a fortress, it fell. The balance of victory inclined to France. England gave no assistance, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... people are conducted in this way. They have gold in rods which they weigh, and they reckon its value by its weight in saggi, but they have no coined money. Their small change again is made in this way. They have salt which they boil and set in a mould [flat below and round above],[NOTE 4] and every piece from the mould weighs about half a pound. Now, 80 moulds of this salt are worth one saggio of fine gold, which is a weight so called. So this salt ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... a bad young man—that is, he did not expect his people to support him—and he worked occasionally, especially about election time, and what he made in bets and in backing himself to swim supplied him with small change. Then he fell in love with Miss Casey, and the trouble and happiness of his life came to him hand and hand together; and as this human feeling does away with class distinctions, I need not feel I must apologize for him any longer, ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... sure enough, there was your fine gentleman partaking of a good dinner washed down by a bottle of good wine at your expense. Your gold-piece is safe and one of the dollars. He used the other and the small change for his refreshments. Here, take your pocketbook, and I wish to say that there are not many grown people who could observe and describe so well the thief who ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... of anxiety and sorrow, I had seen depart two, whose very names were the symbol of greatness and virtue. But such miseries could never intrude upon the domestic circle left to me, while, secluded in our beloved forest, we passed our lives in tranquillity. Some small change indeed the progress of years brought here; and time, as it is wont, stamped the traces of mortality on our pleasures and expectations. Idris, the most affectionate wife, sister and friend, was a tender and loving mother. The feeling was not with her as with many, a pastime; ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... true! She had not been willing to pay, except with smiles and pretty speeches, the small change, and it seemed that was not enough. She had not been willing to pay the price of a good position in her world which she wanted, nor Snowden's price for mercy to her father. Of course not that! But now she must pay somehow for what she got: for her food and her clothes and her shelter ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... in the existing currency, and especially the scarcity of small change, a scarcity so peculiarly distressing to the poorer classes, strongly recommend the carrying into immediate effect the resolution already entered into concerning the establishment of a mint. Measures have been taken pursuant to that resolution for procuring some of the most necessary ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... drew forth the complete uniform of a Uhlan lieutenant. "Turn your back for a little, Fraulein," he said softly. "I must make a small change ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... that the motion of her feet seemed not circular at all.... Then the bell was answered, and he delivered into Withers' hands one, two tins of corned beef and a round ox-tongue. He put the basket on his head and came down the street again, shrilly whistling. If Diva had had any reasonably small change in her pocket, she would assuredly have given him some small share in it. Lacking this, she trundled home with all speed, and began cutting out roses with swift and certain strokes of ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... used by the Mexicans as money. Even in Humboldt's time, when there was no copper coinage, they were used as small change, six for a halfpenny; and Stephens says the Central Americans use them to this day. A mat in Mexican is petlatl, and thence a basket made of matting was called petlacalli—"mathouse." The name passed to the plaited grass cigar-cases that are ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... shape, that could be termed political news. In these matters, its conductor had to say, with Canning's knife-grinder: 'Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir.' Not that the political world was unfruitful in affairs of moment; it was a time of no small change, interest, and excitement. In the period referred to, the Grenville ministry had endeavoured to burden the American colonies, by means of the stamp-duties, with some of the debt contracted in the late war. Thereupon, immense discontent had arisen at home and abroad; that administration had ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... to the Cosmopolis. No misgivings came to mar his perfect contentment. He felt no qualms about separating Reggie from another thousand dollars. Except for a little small change in the possession of the Messrs. Rockefeller and Vincent Astor, Reggie had all the money in the world and could afford to lose. He hummed a gay air as he entered the lobby and crossed to the cigar-stand to buy a few cigarettes to see him through ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... us be off!" Ledantec repeated, leaving go of me, and at that time I paid attention to what he said, and, after throwing some small change onto the floor, I followed him, to make him understand, when he should be quite sober, that he saw before him a poor Albino prostitute, who had several brothers ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... ago—och, don't ax me to stop. Isn't your lightsome laugh, whin you wor young, in my ears? and your step that 'ud not bend the flower of the field—Kathleen, I can't, indeed I can't, bear to think of what you wor, nor of what you are now, when in the coorse of age and natur, but a small change ought to be upon you! Sure I ought to make every struggle to take you and these sorrowful crathurs out of ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... that the Factor displayed before them the wares of John Bull, Uncle Sam, or Johnny Canuck, or any seductive lure made in Germany. Ig-ly-o-bok and Nan-a-sook-tok bought what they found to their liking, took small change out of two silver-fox skins, and put the remaining six pelts back into the wooden box which formed at once their savings bank and letter of credit for the season to come. The hungry-eyed H.B. man confided to us that two of these coveted pelts had been thus ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... have taken nothing,' Ortensia objected, quite unable to be afraid of anything while her hand was in his. 'How can he accuse us of robbing him? Pina and I have a comb and piece of soap between us! As for money, she may have a little small change, for all I ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... Not having small change, Mr. Fitzsimons asked me to lend him a tenpenny-piece to purchase the dish of lobsters; but his lady, handing out one of the guineas I had given her, bade the girl get the change for that, and procure the supper; which she did presently, bringing back only a very few shillings out of the ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... grains); therefore, when it became profitable to withdraw the dollar-pieces and substitute gold, it gave exactly the same profit to withdraw two halves or four quarters in silver. For this reason all the subsidiary silver had gone out of circulation, and there was no "small change" in the country. The legislation of 1853 rectified this error: (1) by reducing the quantity of pure silver in a dollar's worth of subsidiary coin to 345.6 grains. By making so much less an amount of silver equal to a dollar of small coins, it was more valuable in that ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... carry much small change about them. They were dark, silent chaps, soon talked out; and then they sat sucking their pipes before the fire, (as dumb as their own wooden effigies in front of a tobacconist's shop,) until the spirit moved them, and they vanished in their canoe ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... Europe to get war-weary. We started with a vision—the achieving of justice; we shall not grow weary till that vision has become a reality. When one has faced up to an ultimate self-denial, giving becomes a habit. One becomes eager to be allowed to give all—to keep none of life's small change. The fury of an ideal enfevers us. We become fanatical to outdo our own best record in self-surrender. Many of us, if we are alive when peace is declared, will feel an uneasy reproach that perhaps ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... seasons; he the man of definite conquering tasks, the familiar of wide horizons, and in his very repose holding aloof from these agglomerations of units in which one loses one's importance even to oneself. They had no common conversational small change. They had to use the great pieces of general ideas, but they exchanged them trivially. It was no serious commerce. Perhaps she had not much of that coin. Nothing significant came from her. It could not be said that she had received ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... little bright eyes! You girls, I suppose, need a lot to set off your fair faces and rosy blushes; he, he, he! But I haven't any money! It will be on me, he, he, he! Hold out your apron! [He tosses her some small change; the girl bows and goes out] Now, then, Gordey Karpych, tell ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... of his poverty and who was not half as poor as any given Samana. He did not treat the rich foreign merchant any different than the servant who shaved him and the street-vendor whom he let cheat him out of some small change when buying bananas. When Kamaswami came to him, to complain about his worries or to reproach him concerning his business, he listened curiously and happily, was puzzled by him, tried to understand him, consented that he was a little bit right, only as much as he ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... the bill," answered Cutter from within; and Madame Patoff could hear the landlord counting out the small change upon a plate, the ringing silver marks and the dull little clatter of the ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... composed of slabs of marble and plate-glass, sat a lady dressed in the richest manner, Diamonds on head and hand, Lace, Muslin, &c. This is the Landlady; by her a little boy, about 4 years old, stood in charge of a drawer from whence the small change was issued; this, if it happened to be copper, was delicately touched by the fair hand, which was immediately washed in a glass of water as if contaminated by the vulgar metal. She never spoke to the waiters, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... while he was saying this, was taking out some small change from his pockets to give to the children. He gave a small ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... Mademoiselle La Neige. These ladies had the tranquil manners of the highest gentility. In my cabin is a great Buddha on his throne, and before him is a lacquer tray, on which my faithful sailor servant places any small change he may find in the pockets of my clothes. Madame Prune, whose mind is much swayed by mysticism, at once supposed herself before a regular altar; in the gravest manner possible she addressed a brief prayer to the god; then drawing out her purse (which, according ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... put him in charge, and tell him to follow us to Mbango's village; then we four shall start off light, and hunt our way south, travelling as fast as we can, and carrying as many strings of beads, by way of small change, as we can stuff into our pockets ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the measure of the wheels. He believed that he had a star. He pitched his half-crowns to the turnpike-men, and sought to propitiate Fortune by displaying a signal indifference to small change; in which method of courting her he was perfectly serious. He absolutely rejected coppers. They "crossed his luck." Nor can we say that he is not an authority on this point: the Goddess certainly does not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... us all," he said. "We spend our lives robbing flowers from cemeteries, keeping our souls in our trousers pockets along with the other small change. Hullo!" ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... Grand Couronne. Until, if ever, I give my heart again no man shall possess me. I play, I kiss, I philander—as you call it—but what are these trifles? Des bagatelles, rien de tout!" He did not realise her serene indifference to the small change of love and her respect for its true gold. But I do not think that Rust, when Madame consented to be his companion at Brighton, seriously misjudged her motives. He did not know, of course, or in the last degree suspect that she designed his ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... would otherwise not have occurred. I considered how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command any thing. What well laid, and what better executed scheme of his is there, but what a small change of nature is entirely able to defeat and abolish. If but one element happens to encroach a little upon another, what confusion may it not create in his affairs, what havoc, what destruction: the servant destined to his use, confines, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... and they're about ready to make over their bank- accounts to him. They LIKE him, you know,—a lot of folks DO like just that kind of slippery snake. It's funny,—you'd think anyone with ordinary common-sense would grab hold of his watch and his small change, and hang on to it—hard, as soon as Br'er Snider hove in sight. But no,—they try to crowd their money onto him... Real gold! Of course it was real,—that's what fetched 'em. They don't stop to think that there's no connection proved between the gold and the sea-water. What got 'em interested ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... but unless one had ready money in small notes, none of the restaurants would accept an order. Here, and here only, was a snag concerning food. It is true that women went for twenty-four hours without food, but the reason was the lack of small change, not of eatables. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... and I like the French. They have much of the old Latin urbanitas, many kindly qualities, and most of the minor virtues which do duty as the small change of social intercourse. But for the sake of France, I am glad that Paris has lost its prestige, for its rule has been a blight and a curse to the entire country; and for the sake of Europe, I am glad that France has lost her military ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... me to be careful my father placed a little small change in my charge and required me to keep an account of it. He also entrusted me with the duty of winding his valuable gold watch for him. He overlooked the risk of damage in his desire to train me to a sense of responsibility. When we went out together for our morning walk he would ask ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... a dynamo the rate of speed when a small change in the speed of rotation produces a comparatively great change in the electro-motive force. It corresponds to the same current (the critical current) in any ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... omitted in the text but it is evidently the "Nusf" or half-dirham. Lane (iii.235), noting that the dinar is worth 170 "nusfs" in this tale, thinks that it was written (or copied?) after the Osmanh Conquest of Egypt. Unfortunately he cannot tell the precise period when the value of the small change fell so low. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... post-office order for five bob, enough to prove that he was kept in mind, enough to keep him in hope, beer, and tobacco. 'But what would you have?' thought Morris; and ruefully poured into his hand a half-crown, a florin, and eightpence in small change. For a man in Morris's position, at war with all society, and conducting, with the hand of inexperience, a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was already a derision. John would have to be doing; no mistake of that. 'But ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Mosquito Man did much to induce the well-to-do citizens to subscribe according to their means. He still tells with relish of the club of women which took up a collection, after his talk, and presented him with two dollars, in small change. ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... purse Made of ratching leather skin; We want some of your small change To line it well within. Love and ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... horses. It assesses the Cherokees, and they yield a tithe, and sometimes a greater proportion of their ponies, in obedience to its requisitions. Hence, indeed, the name of the club. It relieves young travellers, like yourself, of their small change—their sixpences; and when they happen to have a good patent lever, such a one as a smart young gentleman like yourself is very apt to carry about him, it is not scrupulous, but helps them of that too, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... houses resorted to the use of their own notes as a convenience. The government stamps were not well adapted to circulate as currency, and they soon gave way to notes of handsome design which came into universal use as the "small change" of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... they invariably want it back in such very small change. That is the worry. Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces, and always prevent us from ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... insight to erudition or to poetic intuition? In either case we discover a depth which few would have surmised. It was once said of Scott, that he was a millionaire of genius whose wealth was all in small change—that his scenes and characters were all massed from a vast collection of little details. This would be equivalent to declaring that he was a great novelist without a great idea. Perhaps this is true, but the clairvoyance of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... bent down, and, raising the lid, shook her head tearfully as she regarded the contents. Then she gathered up the clothes under her left arm, and, still sobbing, took his watch, his knife, and some small change from his chest, while the crew in dumb show inquired of the deceased, who was regarding her over the edge of the bunk, what ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... housewives feeding poultry. Willie Todd, the best man, who had never come out so strong in his life before, slipped through the back window, while the crowd, led on by Kitty McQueen, seethed in front, and making a bolt for it to the "'Sosh," was back in a moment with a handful of small change. "Dinna toss ower lavishly at first," the smith whispered me nervously, as we followed Jess and Willie into the ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... moved off; they attended to your case with neatness and dispatch. Their work was expedited for them by reason that already they knew where you carried your valuables. Once Marr ran his swift and practiced fingers over your body he knew where your watch was, your wallet, your purse for small change, your ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... they must; very proper indeed!' rejoined Miss Knag with that sort of half-sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society; 'and that's what I very often tell my brother, when our servants go away ill, one after another, and he thinks the back-kitchen's rather too damp for 'em to sleep in. These sort of people, I tell him, are glad to sleep anywhere! Heaven suits the back to the burden. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... thankfully bundled her flock into the funicular. "You can't get along anywhere without tipping. The government may try its best to arrange fixed prices, but every one who goes sightseeing must be prepared to part with a good deal in the way of small change. The guides are not such brigands as they used to be, thank goodness. Thirty or forty years ago I suppose it was hopeless to come unless you brought a courier with you from Naples to keep the others off. Well, you ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... of small change is useful in a State, and tends to reduce the price of small articles. Perhaps it would not be amiss to coin three, more pieces of silver, one of the value of five tenths, or half a dollar, one of the value of two tenths, which ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... witticisms. Of the agreeable but rather light Comtesse de Fiesque, she said: "What preserves her beauty is that it is salted in folly." Of James II of England, she remarked, "The Holy Spirit has eaten up his understanding." The saying that the eight generals appointed at the death of Turenne were "the small change for Turenne" has been attributed to her. It is certainly not to a woman of such keen insight and ready wit that one can attach any of the affectations which later crept into ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Dashutka, too, was arrested, taken to the town and put in prison. It soon became known, from what Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch had been present at the murder. A search was made in his room, and money was found in an unusual place, in his snowboots under the stove, and the money was all in small change, three hundred one-rouble notes. He swore he had made this money himself, and that he hadn't been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified that he was poor and had been in great want of money of late, and that he used to ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... such readiness of resource, such familiarity with divers nooks and crannies in the practical experience of life, in a man now so hard put to it for a livelihood. There are persons, however, who might have a good stock of talent, if they did not turn it all into small change. And you, reader, know as well as I do, that when a sovereign or a shilling is once broken into, the change scatters and dispends itself in a way quite unaccountable. Still coppers are useful in household bills; and when Waife was really at a pinch, somehow ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said, "You will have to take it out of the sack as I have no coin." He said, "Are you going to sell it?" "Yes," I said. "Well," said he, "You can sell it at the counter on the other side, and pay that clerk." "All right," said I, and sold my dust. It amounted to $425. He counted out the $25 in small change, and slipped it out onto the counter. I let it lay there until he had counted out ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... cabin is a great Buddha on his throne, and before him a lacquer tray, on which my faithful sailor servant places any small change he may find lying loose in the pockets of my clothes. Madame Prune, whose mind is much swayed by mysticism, at once supposed herself before a regular altar; in the gravest manner possible she addressed a brief prayer to the god; then, drawing out her purse (which, according ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... of the purse there were fifteen louis d'or, and in the other some small change. The theft was so flagrant, and denied with such effrontery, that Hippolyte no longer felt a doubt as to his neighbors' morals. He stood still on the stairs, and got down with some difficulty; his knees ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... But travelers themselves destroy one of their chief pleasures. No doubt we planted the notion in the McGregor mind that the small kindnesses of life may be made profitable, by offering to pay for the milk; and probably the next travelers in that Eden will succeed in leaving some small change there, if they use ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Where he had come from I don't know, and don't care, but I'm quite sure it wasn't any respectable place. Those salesmen are all a parcel of thieves and libertines! And then, too, the hog actually gave me all my money in small change!" ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... content to let the few odd cents go, having received more garden stuff than I had ever seen offered for a dollar in any part of the world. And indeed I was satisfied. The farmer, however, nothing content, offered me a coon skin or two, but these I didn't want, and there being no other small change about the farm, the matter was dropped, I thought, for good, and I had quite forgotten it, when later in the evening I was electrified by his offering to carry a letter for us which we wished posted, some seven miles away, ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... method of carrying money, which in these lands should never be intrusted to box or bag. A common cotton purse secured in a breast pocket (for Egypt now abounds in that civilized animal the pickpocket) contained silver pieces and small change. My gold, of which I carried twenty-five sovereigns, and papers, were committed to a substantial leathern belt of Maghrabi manufacture, made to be strapped round the waist under the dress. This is the Asiatic method of concealing valuables, and a more civilized ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Turkish money in spite of our reiterated assertions that it had suffered a serious slump in value. One old lady to whom I showed a Turkish one pound note—worth about the cost of printing—simply jumped at it, and immediately fished out an enormous bag of small change. She was quite upset at my refusal to part with the note; and we haggled for a quarter of an hour about whether she would give me, roughly, sixteen shillingsworth of Turkish silver for a piece of worthless paper, ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... some sane way of spending the afternoon in her society. He wanted to keep her, but he did not know how to keep her. He was quite at a loss. Strange that a man great enough and brilliant enough to get buried in Westminster Abbey had not sufficient of the small change of cleverness to retain the company of a Mrs. Alice Challice! Yet so it was. Happily he was buoyed up by the thought ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... whole crowd yelled murder, and I started for our hotel on a run, and the whole population of Rome seemed to follow me, and I might as well have been a negro accused of crime in the states. I thought they would burn me at the stake, but dad came out of the hotel and threw a handful of small change into the crowd, and ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... herself. Hans dropped the lid of his stein and pushed it away. His heart always warmed at the sight of this goose-girl. So she had a dowry and was going to be married? He felt of his wallet, and a kindly thought came into being. He counted down the small change for the beer, slid back his chair, and sauntered to the bar. Gretchen recognized him, and the recognition brought a ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Church best in the long run, would be to close our professedly Christian Churches the moment war is declared by us, and reopen them only on the signing of the treaty of peace. No doubt to many of us the privation thus imposed would be far worse than the privation of small change, of horses and motor cars, of express trains, and all the other prosaic inconveniences of war. But would it be worse than the privation of faith, and the horror of the soul, wrought by the spectacle of nations praying to their common ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... high literary attainments was seen in a gay gathering sitting quietly by herself in a corner, and, being questioned by a friend as to her silence, replied, half bitterly, "I have no 'small change,' and my bank bills are all of too large denomination for the occasion." This is a difficulty that one should strive to overcome, for, after all, it is small change, rather than bank bills, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... presents and articles for payment, as of money, it is essential to have a great quantity and variety of small change, wherewith the traveller can pay for small services, for carrying messages, for draughts of milk, pieces of meat, etc. Beads, shells, tobacco, needles, awls, cotton caps, handkerchiefs, clasp-knives, small axes, spear and arrow heads, generally ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... number two entered the house through the open library window, found the safe ajar and helped himself. Let's consider what he took—five thousand dollars in government bonds, two deeds, an insurance policy, and a quart of small change—a very suggestive lot of loot if you think about it enough. After the robbery he disappeared, nothing seen of him for five or six days; then he turned up again for a day or so, and finally disappeared ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... was why you wanted so much small change, Augusta," said the Senator. "Mr. Bebbini says there's a law against them nowadays. Now that you mention it, I'm disappointed there too. Municipal progress in Italy is something you've not prepared for somehow. I daresay ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... wanting in America for small change. We have none but those of the King of England. After one silver or gold medal is struck from the dies, for the person to be honoured, they may be usefully employed in striking copper money, or in some cases ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... ground by this inquiry, you bestow upon her such little compliments as you can spare and which are, as it were, the small change, the sous, the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the sake of his health and the last twenty years of his life. Josephine, the dear girl, made her feet a breeze beneath her skirts, and got him into the living room, with its piano and its earthenware bowls with beaded edges. When he was leaving, he brought out his small change, which Josephine received in her gray, young-girl's fingers. On the other side of the fjeld, Solem was given two crowns for acting as guide, and that was good pay. All went so well that the ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... native mistrust for intellectual discretion, and our native relish for sonorous superlatives. As a critic he was very much more generous than just, and his mildest terms of approbation were "stupendous," "transcendent," and "incomparable." The small change of admiration seemed to him no coin for a gentleman to handle; and yet, frank as he was intellectually, he was personally altogether a mystery. His professions, somehow, were all half- professions, and his allusions to his work and circumstances left something dimly ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... to me recommended as one of the best bar-keepers in New Orleans; he was posted up in all the fancy drinks and fancy names, he wore fancy clothes and had a fancy dog, and I fancied pretty soon that the rascal had taken a fancy to my small change, so I discharged him in ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the coast under cover of darkness. Someone would discover the loss of the tell-tale compass, which would naturally confirm that suspicion. Convinced of this I steered more to the eastward, feeling of the face of the compass again to assure myself of the direction. I found even this small change an advantage in more ways than one, as the boat moved steadier, and I was able to spread a larger amount of canvas. Lashing the tiller, I crept forward and shook out an additional reef, hauling the ropes taut. By this time the wind had steadied into a brisk breeze, and the ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... new departure in journalism is beginning to attract attention. An increasing number of people read nothing except the newspapers. Consequently, they get little except scraps and bits; no subject is considered thoroughly or exhaustively; and they are furnished with not much more than the small change for superficial conversation. The habit of excessive newspaper reading, in which a great variety of topics is inadequately treated, has a curious effect on the mind. It becomes demoralized, gradually loses the power ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... what he never granted before... nor since—permission for the boys to come up on the promenade deck. You see, Miss Caruthers was a swimmer, and she was interested. She took up a collection of all our small change, and herself tossed it overside, singly and in handfuls, arranging the terms of the contests, chiding a miss, giving extra rewards to clever wins, in short, managing the ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... majesty's orders, and that my absence Would be short. I then began collecting our small portion of plate, etc.; but while thus occupied, I received a message from Madame d'Henin, to tell me I must bring nothing but a small change of linen, and one band-box, as by the news she had just heard, she was convinced we should be back again in two or three days, and she charged me to be with her in an hour from that time. I did what she directed, and put what I most valued, that was not too large, into a hand-basket, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... come conveniently within his range. Of this kind of game they had fewer chances, and the stroll would doubtless have appeared a very monotonous affair to a person fond of rational conversation. Nor was there much even to themselves of diversification till they got into a small change-house at Davidson's Mains, where, with a rampant authority, they contrived to get served up to them a kind of dinner, intending to make up for the want of better edibles by potations of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... horn of brandy," said the first, "that the chap has either a pocket-book or a snug little hoard of small change, stowed away amongst his shirts. And if not there, we shall find it in his ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... out those in trouble, found her and told a needless lie by declaring he had been commissioned by a certain nameless publisher to get her to write certain articles about this and that. Then he emptied his pockets of all the small change he had, as an advance payment, and he hadn't very much, and started out to find the publisher who would buy the prospective "hot stuff." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... company, an old gentleman who was sometimes a little absent-minded, went to bed one night and left the magical packet in one of his pockets; and his wife, probably looking for small change, found it. She could not imagine what it was, but she was afraid it was something connected with witchcraft, and was greatly troubled about it. The next day she told her husband of the discovery, and was so very persistent that he should explain to her ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... sell their tongue to the surgeons and live only through their eyes. What's the use of existing without talk—ay, and small talk too. Small talk is (as somebody I believe says, although I am not certain, but no matter) the small change of society, and who hasn't the small change, ten chances to one hasn't the large. However, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... acknowledge this to be so, unless they thought that he would pardon them. After some further conversation, the two officers, with their companions, took their leave, feeling that they had taken very small change out of His Highness. ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... is in the air. I can't explain where it comes from, but there it is. The roaring winds of the Pacific make you drunk to begin with. The aggressive luxury on all sides helps out the intoxication, and you spin forever "down the ringing grooves of change" (there is no small change, by the way, west of the Rockies) as long as money lasts. They make greatly and they spend lavishly; not only the rich, but the artisans, who pay nearly five pounds for a suit of clothes, and ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... society, and we sewed after school and on Saturdays in the barn. The boys are waiting around the corner for their money now. There's ten of 'em, and I owe each one a nickel. So give me part of the money in small change, please, mother. Todd's there, too, 'cause I told him that you said you'd pay the very hour ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... respect. She had engaged companions before, who being entertaining were not trustworthy, or being trustworthy were insufferably dull. She could trust Dolly with the most onerous of her domestic or social charges, she found, and there was no fear of her small change disappearing or her visitors being bored. So the position of that "young person" became an assured and ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... independent circulation sufficient to lower the temperature so that glaciers could form. This may have been owing to the shallow sea bottom south of Cape Horn having been above the surface of the water, the channel having since been formed by a comparatively small change in the ocean's level. For, while considering this subject, it is well to keep in mind that whenever the western continent extended to the antarctic circle it prevented the independent circulation of the Southern Ocean waters, consequently during such times ice periods could ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... English, a phantom speech, ghostly but familiar, such as he might hear in a land of dreams. He recognises its broad lineaments; its lesser details evade, or confuse, him. He acknowledges that the two tongues have a common basis. Their grammatical framework is identical. The small change of language—the adverbs and prepositions,—though sometimes strangely used in America, are not strange to an English ear. And there the precise resemblance ends. Accent, idiom, vocabulary give a new turn to the ancient speech. The ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... venture to send me any of his wisdom, in the way of advice, layin' round loose, like counterfeit small change, cheap as dirt?" ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... in | | society. | | | | 9. It is said by critics to entirely destroy a certain faculty of the | | mind. | | | | 10. It renders one's breath very repugnant to a companion. | | | | 11. It is continually drawing on the pocket for the small change that | | might be laid up. | | | | 12. When taken as snuff it wonderfully impairs and often paralyzing | | and destroys the Olfactory nerves and deprives one of the sense of | | smell. | | | | 13. It creates a craving for Alcoholic drinks, it prostrates the | | system to such an ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous
... whence the small change for the Channel Islands was being obtained, the sou was equivalent to twelve deniers, the double-liard or half-sou to six deniers, and the liard ...
— The Coinages of the Channel Islands • B. Lowsley
... in good time. Dad took the horse out of the dray and tied him to a tree. Dave led Bess about, and we stood and watched the shanty-keeper unpacking gingerbeer. Joe asked Dad for sixpence to buy some, but Dad had n't any small change. We remained in front of the booth through most of the day, and ran after any corks that popped out and handed them in again to the shanty-keeper. He did n't ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... two soldiers here whom he never met and never heard of, but the cipaye is a broth of a boy, and I am a broth of a boy myself; and if we don't get a full meal of meat, and a turban, and slippers, and the value of a gold mohur in small change as a matter of convenience, bedad, my friend, I could lay my finger on a garden where there is going ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at receptions, dinners, ordinary social affairs, is merely chatter made up, of persiflage and repartee. One must be able to furnish it, however, for small talk is conversational "small change," without which it is not easy to "do business." Lacking it, one is like Mark Twain's man with the million dollar check and not change enough to ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... erected in the market square, the proprietors and attaches of two peregrinating theatres, several peep-shows, and a dozen various games of chance, are vying with each other in the noisiness of their demonstrations to attract the attention and small change of the crowd to their respective enterprises. Like every other highway in this part of France the Marne and Bhine Canal is fringed with an avenue of poplars, that from neighboring elevations can be seen winding along the beautiful valley ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the one man who had it in his power to make me comfortable; and with whose help it was possible that I might eventually escape from the crater. I gave him all the money in my possession, Rs. 9-8-5—nine rupees eight annas and five pie—for I always keep small change as bakshish when I am in camp. Gunga Dass clutched the coins, and hid them at once in his ragged loin-cloth, his expression changing to something diabolical as he looked round to assure himself that no one had ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... said he, with a smile, as at some strange, unheard-of incident. "I have run short of small change. I am afraid I shall have to call upon the ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pouring in gently a little Mercury at F, I raise it again to its desired height, by this contrivance I make all the sensible rising and falling of the Mercury to be visible in the surface of the Mercury in the Pipe F, and scarce any in the head AB. But because there really is some small change of the upper surface also, I find by several Observations how much it rises in the Ball, and falls in the Pipe F, to make the distance between the two surfaces an inch greater then it was before; and the measure that it falls in the Pipe is the length ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke |
