"Auction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... declare his property, which,—convinced of his innocence, and expecting soon to be released, he does without reservation. But hardly has the key of the dungeon turned upon him, when all his effects are seized and sold by public auction, it being well understood that they never will be restored to him. After some months' confinement, he is called into the Hall of Justice, and asked if he knows why he is in prison; they advise him ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... overwork, trouble, and, worse than all, from insomnia, can never be forgotten while a trace of memory is left. Soon after my insolvency there came a date when all my interests in my books then published must be sold to the highest bidder. It seemed in a sense like putting my children up at auction; and yet I was powerless, since my interests under contracts were a part of my assets. These rights had been well advertised in the New York and county papers, as the statute required, and the popularity of the ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... different editions of this book in my library discloses the fact that there are no fire formulas in the second edition, 1635, which is the earliest I have (first editions are very rare and there is only one record of a sale of that edition at auction). From the fact that this formula was published during the time that Powell was appearing in England I gather that that circumstance may account for its addition to the book. It does not appear in the German or ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... then the stalls are anxious to clear out their stock at any old price. The wise wife—and Johnnie's missus is one—waits until this hour before making her large purchases. For now excellent joints and rabbits and other trifles are put up for auction. The laureates are wonderful fellows, many of them, I imagine, decayed music-hall men. A good man in this line makes a very decent thing out of it. The usual remuneration is about eight or ten shillings for the night and whatever ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... have one's distractions," Selingman protested. "I confess that auction bridge, as it is played over here, is the one game in the ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to-day there will be put up for auction an unread and unsoiled copy of yesterday's Times. The donor of this superb gift desires to remain anonymous, but his incredible generosity is expected to benefit charity to the extent of ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... October 9-10; and on the battlefield during the 10th and 12th, were collected 23 guns, 27 tomahawks, 80 blankets, and great numbers of war-clubs, shot-pouches, powder-horns, match-coats, deer-skins, "and other articles," all of which were put up at auction by the careful commissary, and brought nearly L100 to the army chest.—R. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... and Ohio R. R. Stock were sold at public auction on Monday last at $101.00 per share, next dividend off being one per cent advance. This is some evidence of the estimation in which this stock is held. The next dividend to be struck 1st January and to which the purchaser will not be entitled would probably have added about ...
— A Pioneer Railway of the West • Maude Ward Lafferty
... he failed to visit the Circle Cross. Instead, he appeared to Potter in the office of the Kicker with copy for a poster announcing the sale by auction of a thousand of Dunlavey's best cattle. He ordered Potter to print it so that he might post copies throughout the county within a week. The night following the issue of the Kicker containing the announcement concerning the coming of the law Potter had informed Hollis that ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... do please say "Done!" (after a pause, formally) In the event of no party making a better offer, more satisfactory to myself and associates, I'll knock myself down to you—on my own terms—just as if I was selling an estate by auction. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... by proclamation of the President, is offered for sale at public auction by half quarter sections, or tracts of 80 acres. If no one bids for it at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, or more, it is subject to private entry at any time after, upon payment ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... has historic associations, the meeting of an uncommon group or organization, the approach of the anniversary of an event, the election or appointment of a person to a position, an unusual occupation, an odd accident, an auction, a proposed municipal improvement, the arrival of a well-known person, an official report, a legal decision, an epidemic, the arrest of a noted criminal, the passing of an old custom, the publication of the city directory, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... parties, this batture was surveyed into squares and lots, and sold at public auction, and the money deposited in the Bank of Louisiana, to the credit of the Supreme Court of the United States, to abide the decision of that tribunal as to the rightful ownership. The decision gave it to the city. Grymes, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the shop had been well nigh cleared of all the goods, the premises themselves were sold. Brown, Jones, and Robinson had taken them on a term of years, and the lease with all the improvements was put up to auction. When we say that the price which the property fetched exceeded the whole sum spent for external and internal decorations, including the Magenta paint and the plate-glass, we feel that the highest possible testimony is ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... sin; or, as he more simply, but truthfully and characteristically expresses it—a beautiful specimen indeed of his simplicity of views—'he is replevined from the pound of human fraility—no longer likely to be brought to the devil's auction, or knocked down to Satan as a bad bargain.'—For ourselves, we cannot help thinking that this undoubted triumph of religious truth, in the person of Darby O'Drive, is as creditable to the zeal of Mr. M'Slime, as it is to his sincerity. Encouraged by this great success, Mr. M'Slime, seconded ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Plympton, as elsewhere, a set of men who neither valued art nor the fame of their eminent townsman. Men who would convert the very mace of office into cash, could not be expected to keep a portrait; so it was sold by auction, and for a mere trifle. It was offered to the nation; and by those whose business it was to cater for the nation, pronounced a copy. The history of its sale did not accompany the picture; when that was known, as it is said, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... The library that made such a sensation in the bibliographical world when it was sold at auction in the latter part ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... criminal, fastidious parent. But I am confronted by certain facts, on which this romance is based. A month later a handbill was posted on one of the sentinel pines, announcing that the property would be sold by auction to the highest bidder by Mrs. John Dart, daughter of Madison Clay, Esq., and it was sold accordingly. Still later—by ten years—the chronicler of these pages visited a certain "stock" or "breeding farm," in the "Blue Grass Country," famous for the popular ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... authorities to the tender mercies of contractors, who engaged to land them in the West Indies or America, it being one of the conditions of the contract that the services of the prisoner were the property of the contractor for a given number of years. On landing, these wretched prisoners were put up to auction and sold to the highest bidder—in other words, they were slaves. Many men made large sums of money in this inhuman trade, trafficking in the lives of their fellow-countrymen. The thing at last reached such a ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Indian title may have been extinguished at the time of settlement. It has been found by experience that in consequence of combinations of purchasers and other causes a very small quantity of the public lands, when sold at public auction, commands a higher price than the minimum rates established by law. The settlers on the public lands are, however, but rarely able to secure their homes and improvements at the public sales at that rate, because these combinations, by means of the capital they command and their ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... purchasing large-sized volumes of the period of the subjects of his forgeries, and using the blank leaves for the purpose of fabricating the letters. In May, 1891, a number of alleged Burns' letters were put up for sale by public auction at Edinburgh, fetching the surprising paltry price of from twenty to ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... cried McClave, springing to his feet. "Your call has made me forget the auction, which, as justice of the peace, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Saturday from ten to six. M. La Barre (whom I guess to have been a Royalist refugee) will reopen instruction for young ladies and gentlemen in the French language on the 12th inst. The tolls and profits of the Saltash and the Ashburton turnpikes will be bidden for by public auction. The schooner Brothers and the fast-sailing cutter Gambier are for sale, together with the model of a frigate, "about six feet two inches long, copper-bottomed, and mounted with thirty-two guns." The Royal Auxiliary Mail will start from Congdon's ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... you! Joseph Bright, the father of John Bright, never voluntarily paid church-tithes. Every year the bailiff came, demanded money, was courteously refused, and proceeded to levy on goods which were carried away, duly advertised and sold at auction. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... said dam was estimated at two thousand dollars. This company left off working on the twenty-fourth day of September, having taken out, in all, gold-dust to the amount of forty-one dollars and seventy cents! Their lumber and tools, sold at auction, brought about two ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... contracting matrimonial alliances common among many nations, and illustrations of which we find at all ages of the world. For example, among the ancient Assyrians it was a custom to sell wives to the highest bidder, at auction, the sums received for the handsomer one being given to the less favored ones as a dowry, to secure a husband for every woman. The same custom prevailed in Babylon in ancient times, and has been practiced in modern ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... auction of the wreck, which, by arrangement, is to be Pinkerton's prey, the mysterious opposition of the other bidder, so determined to win an object apparently so worthless, is no less thrilling than the sale of the fur coat in Boisgobey's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Romans exercised the right to the full. Captives were treated as a part of the booty and were therefore either sold to slave-merchants who followed the army or, if taken to Rome, were put up at auction.[130] After every war thousands of captives, men and women, were sold as slaves. Children born of slave mothers would themselves be slaves. Thus it was the conquered peoples who furnished the slave-supply for ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... successful also. To this each person contributes a pound of something useful, all of which is sold by auction during the evening, causing a ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm
... proceed thus to the new land of the Jews. The lots in provinces and towns will be sold by auction, and paid for, not in money, but in work. The general plan will have settled on streets, bridges, waterworks, etc., necessary for traffic. These will be united into provinces. Within these provinces sites for towns will be similarly sold by auction. The ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... purchased, but it was in the neighbourhood she was sure. I had now a date to go upon; I learned, by careless inquiries, what sales near Fernside had taken place in a certain year. A gentleman had died at that date whose furniture was sold by auction. With great difficulty, I found that his widow was still alive, living far up the country: I paid her a visit; and, not to fatigue you with too long an account, I have only to say that she not only assured ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rising louder with every repetition of that smart, sharp, slapping sound, produced by an open hand on tender flesh. Annie sympathizes, though without experience of such direful woe. Lo! the town crier again, with some new secret for the public ear. Will he tell us of an auction, or of a lost pocketbook, or a show of beautiful wax figures, or of some monstrous beast more horrible than any in the caravan? I guess the latter. See how he uplifts the bell in his right hand, and shakes it slowly at first, then with a hurried motion, till the clapper seems ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... up the street, a friend of the writer witnessed, in the forties, a man selling his wife by auction, {181} who stood on the top of a barrel, with a halter round her neck, and a crowd collected round, examining her merits, as might not long ago have been seen in a slave market in Egypt. She was sold for £30, in the street, opposite a small inn then called “The Horse ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... very much alarmed on that score," replied Mrs. Warne. "I have been very economical. Many of the most expensive articles have been hired for the occasion, while the rest have been picked up cheap at auction sales. The expense, I assure you, will not ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... Europeans, who, as Mr. Hardy had done, generally bring English saddles from home. After an absence of a month, Mr. Hardy returned with the welcome news that he had made his choice, and had bought at the public auction a tract of four square leagues, upon a river some twenty miles to the south of the town of Rosario, and consequently only a few days' journey from Buenos Ayres. Mr. Thompson looked a little grave when he heard the location of the property, but he only said that ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... and next was the auction - Everything to be sold: Mid things new and old Stood this glass in her former chamber, Long in her use, ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... ignorant of all their movements,—ignorant of everything but what related to the negro quarter. He had heard that himself, his wife, his daughter,—"the leetle Chloe,"—with all their fellow-slaves, were to be carried down to the city, and to be sold in the slave-market by auction. They were to be taken the following day. They were already advertised. That was all he knew. No, not all,—one other piece of information he had in store for me. It was authentic: he had heard the "white folks" talk of it to one another:—Larkin, Gayarre, and a "negro-trader," who ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... Closet doors are screens simply, and ought to hide the interior of the closet when they are partially open, as well as when they are closed. They may be as light as it is possible to make them. In many houses one-half the doors might wisely be sent to the auction-room and the proceeds invested in portieres, which are often far more suitable and convenient than solid doors, especially for chamber closets, for dressing-rooms, or other apartments communicating in suites, and not infrequently a heavy curtain is an ample barrier ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... my irregular way of living I had wretchedly misspent my time which is the most valuable thing in the world. Struck with those reflections, I collected the remains of my furniture, and sold all my patrimony by public auction to the highest bidder. Then I entered into a contract with some merchants, who traded by sea: I took the advice of such as I thought most capable to give it me; and resolving to improve what money I had, I went to Balsora and embarked with several merchants ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... up some sort of auction business, but his real-estate mania had ruined it and eaten up all he had except three thousand dollars, which Dora had contrived to save from the wreck. With this she had bought a cigar-and-stationery store on Washington Heights by means of which she now supported the family. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... silk apron from one of the neighbours. I sat beside her, feeling very hot and uncomfortable in the crape veil in which I was pinned. The others walked behind us, two by two, in a long procession. We went five times around the circle, while Sim Williams, on the wood-shed roof, tolled a big auction bell, which he ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... a few words, and described her as if she had been some knick-knack for sale at an auction. Her hair came low on her forehead like a golden net, her skin was dazzlingly white, while her bright eyes threw out glances that were like those flashes of summer lightning which dart across the sky on a calm ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... bidding," said Donovan, "with the Emperor and a king in the ring, if the island was up for auction. But it's not. I'm not going back on my bargain. I'm very well satisfied with Salissa as a place of residence. I feel I might live a long time on Salissa. Come to think of it, there's no reason why any ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... generally a polygamous family life. When he came to the Southern Colonies his whole family life was made irregular and unhappy, due to the evil conditions of slavery there. The slave might marry on the plantation, but the very next day he might be sold, and separated from his wife and parents. The auction block is the foulest stain on the whole parasitic institution of slavery in the United States. In Brazil the sale of slaves from one master to another apparently was never as extensive as in our own country.[25] Moreover, the sanctity of marriage was far more highly regarded ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... resources, with depleted stock, for they had begged about all the odds and ends people would consent to part with. What goods remained to them were of inferior worth and slow to dispose of, so they concluded their enterprise with a "grand auction," Peter Conant acting as auctioneer, and cleaned up the entire stock "in a blaze of glory," as Mary Louise enthusiastically described ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... slavery of the thing. We went to the storage warehouse and sent three or four vanloads of the rubbish to the auctioneer. Some of the pieces we had not seen for years, and as each was hauled out for us to inspect and decide upon, we condemned it to the auction-block with shouts of rejoicing. Tender and sacred associations! We hadn't had such light hearts since we had put everything in storage and gone to Europe indefinitely as we had when we left those things to be carted out of our lives forever. Not one had been a pleasure to us; the sight ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "By auction, Sir? What, when it had my name upon it? Upon my vord!—how come you to do dat, sir? Will you tell ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... should call off our forces from New Orleans to defend some other point, what is to prevent the masters from reducing the Blacks to Slavery again; for I am told that whenever the rebels take any Black prisoners, free or slave, they immediately auction them off! They did so with those they took from a boat that was aground in the Tennessee river a few days ago. And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it! For instance, when, after the late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition went out from ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... her gold heart to a woman who seemed lonely and desolate; but the woman only cared for the hearts of men, and threw back the princess's in her face. And then somebody advised her to set it up for auction, to go to the highest bidder, as that was generally considered the correct thing to do with regard to well-regulated women's hearts; but she didn't like that suggestion at all. At last the poor princess grew tired of offering ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... answered Helmsley, with emphasis. "Honest to your womanly instincts, and to the simplest and purest part of your nature. I should have proved for myself the fact that you refused to sell your beautiful person for gold—that you were no slave in the world's auction-mart, but a free, proud, noble-hearted English girl who meant to be faithful to all that was highest and best in her soul. Ah, Lucy! You are not this little dream-girl of mine! You are a very realistic modern woman with whom a man's 'ideal' ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... that I don't take any new quarters at all for a while, but just keep on moving about as I have been doing the last few years. I am even considering to have my things sold at auction. ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... reached the auction-room. He found some difficulty, on account of the inertness of those whose only inducement to an action is a mere wish from another, in getting the information he stood in need of, but it was at last accorded him. The auctioneer's ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... He had his old umbrella, which he loved, in the lamp cabin. At last he took his stand on the chair, and was at the top in a moment. Then he handed in his lamp and got his umbrella, which he had bought at an auction for one-and-six. He stood on the edge of the pit-bank for a moment, looking out over the fields; grey rain was falling. The trucks stood full of wet, bright coal. Water ran down the sides of the waggons, over the white "C.W. and Co.". Colliers, ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... there once. There's yards and yards of clothes-line covered with carpets and rugs and curtains I've been ordered to clean. It's somethin' beyond words. The whole place looks as if there was goin' to be an auction, or a rummage sale, or as if we had moved out 'cause the house was afire. Then she falls to with tubs of boilin' hot soap-suds, until it fills your lungs, and drips off the ends of your nose and your fingers, and smells ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... caravan. The mother had died; the father was disgusted with the country and everything in it; and his one idea was to sell his outfit and get the children back East, back to school and granny. At the auction, the cattle brought good prices, but no one wanted the horses. They were gaunt and weary, saddle-and spur-galled; one young and the other past middle life. It was the young horse that caught Hartigan's eye. It was rising three, a well-built skeleton, but with a ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... exclaimed impetuous Montfanon, whose severe face again expressed one of those contrarieties which caused it to brighten when he was with one of whom he was fond as he was of Dorsenne. "You would not have gone to see the King assassinated in '93? The selling at auction of the old dwelling of Pope Urban VII is almost as tragical! It is the beginning of the agony of what was Roman nobility. I know. They deserve it all, since they were not killed to the last man on the steps of the Vatican when the Italians took the city. We should have done it, we who had no ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... on, leaning across the table and banging a dirty fist upon it, 'come to-night at ten o'clock. There are others coming at the same hour to buy my letter in the pink envelope. We will have an auction, a little auction, and the letter goes to the highest bidder. But what does your reverence want ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... auction bridge, family budgets and mind-training. A great many people have ideas on what should be done to relieve the country of certain undesirable persons who have displayed a lack of sympathy with American institutions. ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... see the haughty woman—whose image I am said to be—in her trailing velvet robe, with plumes waving amid the curls arranged in a towering mass upon her head. She was dressed in that way when the men came to sell our house in the Kramgasse at auction. She must have been one of the women under whose management, as a matter of course, the household ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 1872 that James Leach and David Hey and myself purchased a large shark at Hull. The shark had apparently been harpooned at sea, and washed into the Humber. It was secured by some fishermen, and they offered it for sale by public auction. A brother of George Swire, of Keighley, chanced to be in Hull at the time, and hearing of the sale, he sent word to us at Keighley about it. My friend Leach—who would be close upon sixty years old at the time—was deputed to Hull to purchase the shark, and he effected the bargain ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... and Tatler are full of delightful glimpses of the town life of those days. In the company of that charming guide, we may go to the opera, the comedy, the puppet show, the auction, even the cockpit; we can take boat at Temple Stairs, and accompany Sir Roger de Coverley and Mr. Spectator to Spring Garden—it will be called Vauxhall a few years hence, when Hogarth will paint for it. Would you not like ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... bad debts in the collection of the taxes, until the chief had been made bankrupt and his goods and chattels sold to make good the sums which he could not collect from his group, whether it arose from their poverty, death, or from their having absconded. I have been present at auction sales of live-stock seized to supply taxes to the Government, which admitted no excuses or explanations. Many Barangay chiefs went to prison through their inability or refusal to pay others' debts. On the other hand, there were among them some profligate characters who ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... as being always right about unimportant matters and idealistically wrong about important matters, politely intruding into everything, being earnest about the morality of the poor and auction bridge and the chaperonage of nice girls, possessing a working knowledge of Wagner and Rodin, wearing fifteen-dollar corsets, and believing on her bended knees that the Truegates and Winslows were the noblest ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... institution, with a pretty Kanaka girl to carry the drum and pass round the saucer; and every night when he hadn't a special engagement he would make the round of the bars, picking up what little he could. If there was a ship to be sold at auction, or a public meeting to protest against a high-handed something, it got to be the fashion to plaster the notice of it on Doc's back, him playing under a tree for all he was worth with the sweat pouring down his face, while all hands turned out to see what was ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... vanishing into thin air to-morrow morning at the auction mart, eighteen hundred francs! To repay my friends, as much again! Three quarters' rent to the landlord—whom you know.—My ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... a long, elephantine gait, slowly wandered over the town, lingering especially in the busy marts of trade. Peter's curiosity had strengthened with years, and, wherever a crowd gathered round a monkey and hand organ, a vender's wagon, an auction stand, or the post office at mail time, there stood Peter, black as coal, with "the beautiful boy in white," the most conspicuous figure in the crowd. As I told Peter never to let children kiss the baby, for fear ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... auction, and among them the Harmony of the Old and New Testaments which he had compiled during many years with such exquisite neatness and a huge collection of MS. sermons—being all in fact that he had ever written. These and the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... protested Philip, quite bewildered for want of a lighted cigar to relieve his embarrassment, "you make me feel like a fool. I'm no hero; it isn't in me to play any grand parts. I shall be known, after I'm dead, by the auction catalogue of my collection of rare books, and by nothing else. 'The Gouverneur Sale' will long be remembered by collectors. That sort of distinction fits me. But you and Charley are making me ridiculous with all ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... some auction-rooms, where you may find any article of wearing apparel or household furniture, from a lady's wig a la Caraculla to a bed a la Grecque: here are as many puffers as in a mock auction in London; and should you be tempted ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... a delightful country house. It is an opportunity that the Deschars have seized upon, the folly of a man of letters, a charming villa upon which he lavished one hundred thousand francs and which has been sold at auction for eleven thousand. Caroline has a new dress to air, or a hat with a weeping willow plume—things which a tilbury will set off to a charm. Little Charles is left with his grandmother. The servants have a holiday. The youthful pair start beneath the smile of a blue sky, flecked with ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... all sheep or goats, he is entitled to a fifth. On the sale of every slave, he has, in addition to the head-money, a dollar and a half, which, at the rate of 4,000, gives another 6,000 dollars. The captured slaves are sold by auction, at which the sultan's brokers attend, bidding high only for the finest. The owner bids against them until he has an offer equal to what he considers as the value of the slave; he has then three-fourths of the money paid to him, while one-fourth is paid by the purchaser to ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... boy very cruel is the Parson," Abel whined. "Has he not strained Gwen for his tithes? Auction her he did and bought her himself for three ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... auction bridge that afternoon in a private room at one of the hotels with the three men he had lunched with. Luck seemed to be with him. He won eighty dollars, and thrust it loose in his trousers pocket. Money seemed to bring money! If he could carry ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the party—Lloyd was called the dancing man (practically the Chief's handsome son) of Vailima; he was also, in his character I suppose of overseer, compared to a policeman—Belle had that day been the almoner in a semi-comic distribution of wedding rings and thimbles (bought cheap at an auction) to the whole plantation company, fitting a ring on every man's finger, and a ring and a thimble on both the women's. This was very much in character with her native name Teuila, the adorner of the ugly—so of course this was the point of her verse and at a given moment ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the seat of Sir Egerton Brydges. Sir Egerton Brydges subsequently decided on selling the entire collection, though entailed, and it was disposed of by Mr. Sotheby, April 12, 1826. In the auction catalogue it is described as "a small but high interesting collection of the Rarest Old Plays in the English Drama." There were, in fact, only 142 lots, of which Jack Juggler and Thersites were 141 and 142, and "The Taming of a Shrew," 1594, No. 109. Mr. Inglis seems to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... which it was constructed, and as the only vestige of the establishment to which it was annexed. Upon part of the Priory buildings being taken down, a few years since, the Chair with other old furniture found on the premises, was sold by auction, when it was rescued from the hands of a person who was bidding for it as a smoking chair, by a gentleman, who allowed a drawing to be taken of it. Of the Priory of Southwick very scanty information is to be obtained: ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... 1812, she had been captured at sea by a British cruiser, and, after seeing all sorts of service, was at last employed as a government packet in the Australian seas. Being condemned, however, about two years previous, she was purchased at auction by a house in Sydney, who, after some slight repairs, dispatched her on the ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... now held: and then he could take no steps as to the tenants; could neither receive money nor pay it away, and was altogether at his wits' ends. Lady Fitzgerald looked to him for counsel in everything, and he did not know how to counsel her. Arrangements were to be made for an auction in the house as soon as she should be able to move; but would it not be a thousand pities to sell all the furniture if there was a prospect of the family returning? And so he waited for Mr. Prendergast's letter with an uneasy heart and vexation ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... what I say is—Done for! Best he can do is—sell the practice, and lease, and plate, and pictures, furniture, and so on, for whatever he can get—the movables would have provoked spirited biddin' at auction if the verdict had been Guilty, but, under the circumstances, they won't bring a twentieth part of their valoo—and go Abroad." Tait's gesture ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... nice room and in their time—how long ago it now seemed!—both husband and wife had been proud of their carefully chosen belongings. Everything in the room was strong and substantial, and each article of furniture had been bought at a well-conducted auction held in a ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... her of this last humiliation. Of course decency was observed. Jack's and Edith's wardrobes, and some pieces of ancestral furniture that he pointed out as belonging to his wife, were removed before the auction flag was hung out. When this was over he still temporized. Edith's affectionate entreaties to him to leave the dreadful city and come home were evaded on one plea or another. He had wild schemes of going off West or South —of disappearing. Perhaps he ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... indignant. "I am going to tell them about my mother and the auction; I never said a word about an auctioneer; there mightn't have been one, for all ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... on the upper slat of the back of each, a badly tattered hair-cloth sofa, of a very antiquated pattern, and a small old piano, whose tinny tones were only matched by its entire lack of tune. The last two valuable articles had been bought at auction, and some of the keys of the piano had been permanently silenced by its ride in an ox-cart from ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... dissolved, but the country was deprived of its ancient name and designated "Southern Bavaria," and the castle of the Tyrol, that had defied the storms of ages, and whose possessor, according to a sacred popular legend, had alone a right to claim the homage of the country, was sold by auction. The national pride of the Tyrolese was deeply and bitterly wounded, their ancient rights and customs were arbitrarily infringed, and, instead of the great benefits so recently promised, eight new taxes were levied, and the tax-gatherers not infrequently ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... 1911 a curiously shaped pipe was put up for sale in Mr. J.C. Stevens's Auction Room, Covent Garden, which was described as that which Raleigh smoked "on the scaffold." The pipe in question was said to have been given by the doomed man to Bishop Andrewes, in whose family it remained for many years, ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... ones of which to buy. Purchasers seldom want any but first-rate stocks, they are generally cheapest in the end. There is usually a difference of about a dollar in the spring and fall prices, and five and six dollars are common charges. I have known them sell at auction at eight, but in ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... the readiness with which, in these railroad days, a manufacture can be transplanted, was exhibited at Tewkesbury four years ago. The once- fashionable theatre of that decayed town was being sold by auction; it hung on the auctioneer's hammer at so trifling a sum that one of the new made M.P.'s of the borough bought it. Having bought it, for want of some other use he determined to turn it into a silk mill. In a ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... elapsed since the castle and lands had been sold at auction and fallen into the possession of a company of speculators, who had divided it and resold it to various purchasers. Only the farm of Valpendant, with a house of ancient and vast construction, built in the time of Philippe-Auguste, remained to an old ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... because at that time it was exceedingly popular and aristocratic, and gave tone to citizenship. Among the leading Free-Masons of New-York were Peter Irving and his brother William, Martin Hoffman, the founder of the great auction business, and father of the late L. M. Hoffman. Moving among these magnates, John Jacob Astor became Grand Treasurer. Mr. Astor had a brother of the same thrifty turn, though not so successful in acquiring wealth. He was a butcher by trade, and slaughtered ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was a supply of cereals, flour, bacon, and other necessities for meals. With the thrift of a good housekeeper, Mrs. Dickens had laid in a stock of purchases when the Army Supply had been sold off at auction in the city. So Mrs. Vernon found gallon cans of stewed prunes ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... do you think that Art would be more worthily treated, and the public taste and artists better served, by having even a smaller collection of works so arranged, than by a much larger one merely housed and hung four or five deep, as in an auction room?—Yes. But you put a difficult choice before me, because I do think it a very important thing that we should have many pictures. Totally new results might be obtained from a large gallery in which the chronological arrangement was perfect, and ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... easy consciences, after the fashion of the Israelites in Canaan, and priests to sing solemn Te Deums over battle-fields where men lay weltering in one another's blood. It has given slave-owners the coveted proof that the peculiar system was a divine institution, and has founded the auction block for human cattle solidly upon the laws of God. It has supplied Joseph Smith with a warrant for polygamy in the social usages of the Arab sheiks three thousand years ago. It has opened a sacred ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... has befallen the original canvas. In 1875, it was sold at auction, and was bought by a firm of dealers for the then highest price paid for a single picture in England. The publicity gained by this was taken advantage of by the purchasers to exhibit the picture. One morning when the gallery was opened, the frame ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... idea of a comic performance; the comic men seemed violent rowdies and not at all funny; but when he thought of the great pit of the audience yawning before him he realised that his was an altogether too delicate talent for such a use. He was impressed by the charm of selling vegetables by auction in one of those open shops near London Bridge, but admitted upon reflection his general want of technical knowledge. He made some enquiries about emigration, but none of the colonies were in want of shop assistants without capital. He kept up his ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... an annuity of L500, entered on the company's books and paid yearly as the "king's clog." Both classes of shares have become so valuable that they have been subjected to frequent sub-division. At a sale by auction, which took place in London, 15 Nov., 1893, an undivided ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... of profound peace, of all the landed property in Bengal, upon most extraordinary pretences. Strange as this may appear, he did so confiscate it; he put it up to a pretended public, in reality to a private corrupt auction; and such favored landholders as came to it were obliged to consider themselves as not any longer proprietors of the estates, but to recognize themselves as farmers under government: and even those few ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ashamed for the poor women who were the first wives of your daughters' husbands, and for the children whom such men abandon and forget! In leading your innocent daughters to courts and receptions you are only leading them to the auction-room; and in dressing and decorating them you are preparing them for the market of base men. Last week some titled philanthropist had hauled up a woman in the East End of London for attempting to sell her daughter. How shocking! everybody ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... "that your Republic authorizes such practices! You say that man is free. And you put ideas up to public auction." ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... them, but in the second voyage he met with the negro in a way that to him was more memorable. He and the young fellows with him saw, among the sights of New Orleans, negroes chained, maltreated, whipped and scourged; they came in their rambles upon a slave auction where a fine mulatto girl was being pinched and prodded and trotted up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, that "bidders might satisfy themselves," as the auctioneer said, of the soundness of the article to be sold. John ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Crown Street has become Liberty Street; King Street, Pine Street; and Queen Street, then one of the most fashionable quarters of the town, Pearl Street. Pearl Street is now chiefly occupied by the auction dealers, and the wholesale drygoods merchants, for warehouses and counting-rooms.] had been transferred to the Locusts, and gave to the room that indescribable air of comfort, which so gratefully announces the approach of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... dar, what's he do but go roun' to all de slabe-pens an' buy up a heap ob worn-out, or'nary old niggers, what had been worked to def in de rice-swamps, an' nobody wouldn't gib five dollars for. Den he marries de peartest ob de gals to de mizzablest ob de ole men. When de time fur de auction come, dar was plenty ob buyers for de gals, but nobody wanted dem good-for-nuffin' ole husbands. 'Can't help it,' says de driber—'Can't help it, no way whatsumebber: it's ag'in our principles to part families. Ef yer want de woman, yer mus' take her ole man too.' An' so dey gin'rally did, an' ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... high in heaven and blazed in the winding side-streets so that the tarred timberwork sweated and the gutters stank; from the harbor came the sound of the crier, with his drum, crying herrings, and announcing an auction. The people streamed to church in breathless conversation concerning this child of fortune, Alfred, who had climbed ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... "Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat," there was related our hero's adventures in a fine craft which was recovered from the thieves and sold at auction. There was a mystery connected with the boat, and for a long time Tom could not solve it. He was aided, however, by his chum, Ned Newton, who worked in the Shopton Bank, and also by Mr. Damon and Eradicate Sampson, an aged colored ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... or removing them, included also an infinite consumption for the pleasures, luxuries, whims, and debaucheries of our civil or military commanders. Most of those articles were delivered in kind, and what were not used were set up to auction, converted into ready money, and divided among ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was rather extensive, and rich in Oriental, especially Sanscrit literature, was sold by auction in Bonn, December, 1845. It appears by a chronological list prefixed to the catalogue, that reckoning both his separate publications and those contributed to periodicals, his printed works number no fewer than 126. Besides these he left many unpublished manuscripts, which, says ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... be young enough to catch a butterfly in Lady Adela—still be bold enough to chain a panther in Flora Vyvyan. Let the world know—your world in each nook of its gaudy auction-mart—that Lione: Haughton is no pauper cousin—no penniless fortune-hunter. I wish that world to be kind to him while he is yet young, and can enjoy it. Ah, Morley, Pleasure, like Punishment, hobbles after us, pede claudo. What would have delighted us yesterday does ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... so introduced? Certainly not by the very puny efforts made hitherto. The quantity sent should be multiplied many times, and arrangements made to forward it on arrival, to some, if not all, of the great cities in the interior. There it should be sold at auction to the highest bidders, as done here in the Lane. Were this done for two or three years, the introduction would be accomplished (it has not been begun yet) and the tea would then ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... streams sometimes amounts to between L6000 and L7000 a year. Net fisheries, worked by licence-holders in the principal rivers and along the sea-shore, are not nearly so profitable as the closed fisheries—called In—which are from time to time sold by auction for fixed periods of years. Salted fish forms, along with boiled rice, one of the chief articles of food among the Burmese; and as the price of salted fish is gradually rising along with the prosperity and purchasing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... day. The advertisements are numerous and varied in matter. I have heard upon good authority that the proprietor of any one of these journals draws at least L4000 to L5000 per annum from the profits of them. It is not difficult to account for these enormous gains. Every thing here is sold by auction, and the advertisements are in consequence more numerous than they would otherwise be. An auctioneer alone, in good business, will pay each of the papers about L1000 per annum for printing and advertising ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... only waiting for our decision, to seize the part we should leave them. The new projects of these would be intemperate; and, in the zeal of rivalship, the present evils of comparatively sober dealing would be aggravated beyond all estimate in this new and heated auction of bidders for life and limb. We might indeed by regulation give an example of new principles of policy and of justice; but if we were to withdraw suddenly from this commerce, like Pontius Pilate, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... guineas a piece, his remuneration for painting this valuable series was but a few shillings more than one hundred pounds. On the demise of Mr. Lane, they became the property of his nephew, Colonel Cawthorn, who very highly valued them. In the year 1797 they were sold by auction, at Christie's, Pall Mall, for the sum of one thousand guineas; the liberal purchaser being the late Mr. Angerstein. They now belong to government, and are the most attractive objects in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... years,—the years that changed us from young men into men. The brick alone, sixty thousand dollars! For, to boys who have still left a few of their college bills unpaid, who cannot think of buying that lovely little Elzevir which Smith has for sale at auction, of which Smith does not dream of the value, sixty thousand dollars seems as intangible as sixty million sestertia. Clarke, second, how much are sixty million sestertia stated in cowries? How much in currency, gold being at 1.37 1/4/? Right; go up. ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... died in April of the same year; and the very day of her funeral, Madame Georges Mniszech's creditors pushed her and her maid into the street, and rifled the house in the Rue Fortunee. The booty was transported to the auction-room known as l'Hotel Drouot, and there a sale was held by order of justice of Balzac's library, his Buhl cabinets, and some of his MSS., including that of "Eugenie Grandet," which had been given to Madame Hanska on December 24th, 1833. ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... left was barely enough for the funeral expenses. The bonds which were found proved to be so many worthless pieces of parchment. The jewellery of recent workmanship consisted of a set of valueless shirt-studs and a watch that would not have fetched ten florins at auction. Of silver there was a tablespoon, a teaspoon, a ladle, and two or three pieces of tableware, bent, crooked, and broken, hardly worth the mentioning. Of horses there were two lean and decrepit-looking animals, and the cattle consisted ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... Necomus, that a woman named Antonia, in the Territory of Mutina, Italy, now called Modena, had brought forth 40 sons before she was forty years of age, and that she had had 3 and 4 at a birth. At the auction of the San Donato collection of pictures a portrait of Dianora Frescobaldi, by one of the Bronzinos in the sixteenth century, sold for about $3000. At the bottom of this portrait was an inscription stating that she was the mother of 52 children. This remarkable woman never had ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... 1835, Mr. Nicol the printer sold by auction a number of books and manuscripts in his possession, which had formerly belonged to the well-known publisher Dodsley; and in arranging them for sale, the original agreement for the sale of the manuscript of 'Peter Wilkins,' by the author, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... their affairs, and Nicholas again put it off. But in the spring of that year, he received a letter from his mother, written without his father's knowledge, and that letter persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and take matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and they would all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted Mitenka so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took advantage of him and things were going from bad to worse. "For God's sake, I implore you, come at once if you do not wish to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... "An auction," she said, hesitatingly. "Is that the best place? I don't think the bindings will be apt to be handsome of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... interest. Each instrument of the greatest makers has a pedigree, as well authenticated as those of the great masterpieces of painting, though there have been instances where a Strad or a Guarnerius has been picked up by some strange accident for a mere trifle at an auction. There have been many imitations of the genuine Cremonas palmed off, too, on the unwary at a high price, but the connoisseur rarely fails to identify the great violins almost instantly. For, aside from their magical beauty of tone, they are made with the ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... till to-morrow or the day after, and do not think that I am deceiving you in any particular, or you will be sorry for it. They will come here and empty your mails, boxes, and pockets, a list will be made, and they will be sold by auction the same day. If the sum realized is greater than the debt the surplus will go in costs, and you may depend upon it that a very small sum will be returned to you; but if, on the other hand, the sum is not sufficient to pay everything, including the debt, costs, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... your wishes. We have much money, many ribbons for orders, and as for titles, they are the cheapest and most convenient of all, as they cost absolutely nothing. Ah, a jest just now occurs to me. We will amuse ourselves a little to-day. We will have a title-auction. Call our courtiers, attendants, and servants. We shall have a gay time of it! We will have a game at dice. Bring the dice! I will at each throw announce the prize, and the dice shall then decide ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... was just going down on the dolls' pantomime, and the audience was applauding and hurrying off to make the rounds of the other attractions before dinner time. In clarion tones that made themselves heard above the din Emily Davis was advertising an auction of her animals, beginning ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... prodigal nabob who held that there was only one good glass in a bottle. As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips. On the Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian's Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly colored as the Tales of Scherezade; on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of La Bruyere; on the Thursday, a scene from common life, equal ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the New Cure hovered round him with a mournful and harmlessly deceptive kindness. But the end had to come, and practically all the parish was present when it came. That was on the day when the contents of the Manor were sold at auction by order of the Court. One thing Jean Jacques refused absolutely and irrevocably to do from the first—refused it at last in anger and even with an oath: he would not go through the Bankruptcy Court. No persuasion had any effect. The very suggestion seemed to smirch his honour. His lawyer ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... together some means. He used to take odd volumes to a binder in Belfast and employ him to get the "vol." at the beginning and end of an odd volume erased, so as to pass it off among the unwary as a perfect book, and generally furbish it up. Then he used to sell his literary wares by auction in the streets of Belfast. The knowledge he thus acquired of public sales procured him a clerkship with a Dublin auctioneer. He opened first a book-stall, and then a regular book-shop, in Dawson street, a leading thoroughfare of Dublin. There he became eminent. He sold lottery-tickets, speculated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... pulled in pieces, and the materials of them sold. The very library and medals at St. James's were intended by the generals to be brought to auction, in order to pay the arrears of some regiments of cavalry quartered near London; but, Seiden, apprehensive of the loss, engaged his friend Whitlocke, then lord-keeper for the commonwealth, to apply for the office of librarian. This expedient ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... sale, vent, disposal; auction, roup, Dutch auction; outcry, vendue[obs3]; custom &c. (traffic) 794. vendibility, vendibleness[obs3]. seller; vender, vendor; merchant &c. 797; auctioneer. V. sell, vend, dispose of, effect a sale; sell over the counter, sell by auction &c. n.; dispense, retail; deal in &c. 794; sell off, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... me, that by a singularly fortunate chance, there took place that day an auction of 'cast horses,' as they are termed, which had been used in the horse police force; and that from long riding, and training to stand fire, nothing could be more suitable than one of these; being both easy to ride, and not given to start ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... of this most doubting of Thomases, pulled a piece of paper from her satchel and passed it to him to read. It related at some length the sale in a London auction-room of a stuffed Great Auk in imperfect condition for one ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... steel plates, wood-cuts, stereotype plates, &c. of Walter Scott's works, and of his life, by Lockhart, were to be sold in London, by auction, on the 26th March. This property belonged to the late Mr. Cadell of Edinburgh. The copyright of "Waverly" has five years more to run, and that of the works generally does not terminate for twenty years. This is the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... at the enormous price of 500 per cent—the male slaves even fetching 100 dollars per head, though the females went for less. The Hottentots now arrived, with many more of my men, who, seeing their old "flames," Snay's women, sold off by auction, begged me to advance them money to purchase them with, for they could not bear to see these women, who were their own when they formerly stayed here, go off like cattle no one knew where. Compliance, of course, was impossible, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... by showing us a collection of pottery famous in England, that had belonged to the fifth duke, his father. Every piece of it, by the way, afterwards brought an enormous sum at auction. Supper was served in a warm little room of oak. The game was from Derresley Manor, the duke's Nottinghamshire seat, and the wine, so he told us, was some of fifty bottles of rare Chinon he had inherited. Melted rubies it was indeed, of the sort which had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... naturalized the gaming-table and the keeping of mistresses as customs of Irish society; the other sold or allowed the highest offices and honours of the state—from a weighership in the butter market to an earl's coronet—to be put up at auction, and knocked down to the highest bidder. How cheering in contrast with the shameful honours, flaunted abroad in those shameful days, are even the negative virtues of the Whig patricians, and how splendid the heroic constancy of Charlemont, Grattan, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... all, when "Lucky" Richard Forrest had lost everything in a series of calamities, so that San Francisco debated what price his Nob Hill palace would fetch at auction, he grubstaked one, Del Nelson, to a prospecting in Mexico. As soberly set down in history, the result of the said Del Nelson's search for quartz was the Harvest Group, including the fabulous and inexhaustible ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... go, I reckon our sale went pretty well. Just before closing time we held a rubbish auction, with Ginger in the chair. Ginger would make an absolute Napoleon among auctioneers. He can bully, lie, despair, wheedle and take you into his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... Terre, the privateers would often make public sale of their cargoes and prizes by auction. And the most respectable inhabitants of the State were accustomed to journey there in order to purchase the goods which the Barratarians had to offer. They would smile, ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston |
