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Pawn   Listen
noun
Pawn  n.  
1.
Anything delivered or deposited as security, as for the payment of money borrowed, or of a debt; a pledge. See Pledge, n., 1. "As for mortgaging or pawning,... men will not take pawns without use (i. e., interest)."
2.
State of being pledged; a pledge for the fulfillment of a promise. (R.) "Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown." "As the morning dew is a pawn of the evening fatness."
3.
A stake hazarded in a wager. (Poetic) "My life I never held but as a pawn To wage against thy enemies."
In pawn, At pawn, in the state of being pledged. "Sweet wife, my honor is at pawn."
Pawn shop, a shop where a pawnbroker does business.
Pawn ticket, a receipt given by the pawnbroker for an article pledged.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pawn" Quotes from Famous Books



... Mary Makebelieve went to the pawn office with something. They lived for a time on the only capital they had—the poor furniture of their room. Everything which had even the narrowest margin of value was sold. Mary's dresses kept them for six days. Her mother's Sunday skirt fed them for ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... case it is liable to be taken en passant, with a pawn that could have taken it had it been played only ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... her own. Her mother had given it her, and she had had it for five years. It was to get the tankard out of pawn that she had taken Kerrel's waistcoats, needing thirty shillings. The blood on the handle was due to her having ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... the other, sneeringly, "I am longing to give it back to you; but unfortunately, in my poverty, I have been obliged to pawn it for fifty ounces of silver. If you have so much money about you, give it to me and I will return the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... not even a pawn in the game—as, indeed, I begin to believe he never really was, but has been from the first a dupe of Buckhurst—it is the duty of every honest man to watch Buckhurst and warn the authorities that he possibly has designs on ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the State which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and more or less of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... is bountiful. An thou have no silver, I will give thee bread and have patience with thee till weal betide thee." And quoth the fisherman, "By Allah, O master, I have indeed no money! But give me bread enough for my family, and I will leave thee this net in pawn till the morrow." Rejoined the baker, "Nay, my poor fellow, this net is thy shop and the door of thy daily subsistence; so an thou pawn it, wherewithal wilt thou fish? Tell me how much will suffice thee?"; and replied the fisherman, "Ten half-dirhams' worth."[FN235] So he gave him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... dull that politeness or boredom leads me to accept. The board is produced, I remind myself that the queen stands on a square of her own colour, and that the knight goes next to the castle; I push forward the king's pawn two squares, and we are off. Yes, we are off; but not for one game only. For a month at least I shall dream of chess at night and make excuses to play it in the day. For a month chess will be even more to me than golf or billiards—games which I adore because I am so ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne

... I will try him, and if this be true I'le pawn my life I'le find it; if't be false, And that you clothe your hate in such a lie, You shall hereafter doat in your own ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... Squash hath fetched his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel; Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn With droppings of the barrel; And those that hardly all the year Had bread to eat, or rags to wear, Will have both clothes and dainty fare, And all ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... and her heart began to beat quick with excitement as she went on. 'It's a great huge game of chess that's being played—all over the world—if this IS the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I WISH I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should LIKE ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll

... banking hours were over, his financial affairs were put in order, and he walked forth with two letters of credit and enough bank-notes and gold to carry him around the world, if so he planned. Next, he visited a pawn-shop and laid down a dozen mutilated tickets, receiving in return a handsome watch, emerald cuff-buttons, some stick-pins, some pearls, and a beautiful old ruby ring, a gift of the young Maharajah of Udaipur. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... furniture, and behold an Eden! Pots of ferns purchased from a street hawker showed greenly behind the tidiest muslin blinds you ever sor! and Mrs. William Keyse, expectant mother of a potential Briton, sat behind them, and as she patched the shirts that had been taken out of pawn—and whether they're let out on hire to parties wanting such things or whether the mice eat 'oles in 'em, who can say? but the styte in which they come back from Them Plyces is something chronic!—she sang, sometimes ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... arrived in Elbing, we found our money exhausted by the lavish use of the express coach, and were compelled to return; we discovered, moreover, that even by using the ordinary coach we should be obliged to pawn the sugar-basin and cake-dish. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... like nine-pins—at once included in the education of "Izunsabe," which he took upon himself, a course of elemental doctrine in the one true game. And the boy fought his way up at such a pace that he jumped from odds of queen and rook to pawn and two moves in less than two years. And now he could almost give odds to his tutor, though he never presumed to offer them; and trading as he did with enlightened merchants of large Continental sea-ports, who had plenty of time on their ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... Their music—perhaps the most characteristic of all the city's characteristic sounds—has been called "the voice of Charleston." Of the silver only a few fragments have been returned. One piece was found in a pawn shop in New York, and another in a small town in Ohio. Mais ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... old By men thine elders Durolitum? There Are hind and fawn couched close in one green lair? Speak: hast thou not my faith in pawn, to hold Fast as my brother's heart this love, untold And undivined of all men? must ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... to take up people, but it is with as much caution and timidity as women of quality begin to pawn their jewels; we have not ventured upon any great stone yet! The Provost of Edinburgh is in custody of a messenger; and the other day they seized an odd man, who goes by the name of Count St. Germain. He has been here these two years, and will not tell ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... whose episcopate we meet with this first trace of the De Wessyngtons, was a nephew of king Stephen, and a prelate of great pretensions; fond of appearing with a train of ecclesiastics and an armed retinue. When Richard Coeur de Lion put every thing at pawn and sale to raise funds for a crusade to the Holy Land, the bishop resolved to accompany him. More wealthy than his sovereign, he made magnificent preparations. Besides ships to convey his troops and retinue, he had a sumptuous galley ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... defeating the young South American champion, Caranda, shortly afterwards, when the latter visited England and played a series of exhibition games in London on his way to Moscow, where he was engaged in the championship tourney. Once again it was masterly pawn play which brought Crewe a fine victory, and aged chess enthusiasts who followed every move of the game with trembling excitement, declared afterwards that Crewe's conception of this particular game had not ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... condescending and amiably contemptuous; a little feline, for he allows his adversary a moment's freedom to escape and then pounces upon him with the soft-furred claws; assured of his superiority in the game, yet using only half his mind; fencing with one arm pinioned; chess-playing with a rook and pawn given to his antagonist; or shall we say chess-playing blindfold and seeing every piece upon the board? Is Bishop Blougram's Apology a poem at all? some literary critics may ask. And the answer is that through it ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... tail, but this is a new way of gittin' married on the sly, with all the street to keep the secret. There's no mistake, secrets are dead funny. Spend yer last penny to 'elp yer friend out of a 'ole, an' it niver gits about, but pawn yer last shirt, an' nex' day all the bloomin' street wants to know if yer don't feel ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... Guisando!" said the king, gravely, "I purchase the salvation of my army in this holy war at a marvellous heavy price; and if the infidels hold out much longer, we shalt have to pawn our very patrimony ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... was there on the baize! When we engaged that daring Alexis Kossloffsky, and won seven thousand louis on a single coup, had we lost we should have been beggars the next day; when he lost, he was only a village and a few hundred serfs in pawn the worse. When at Toeplitz the Duke of Courland brought fourteen lacqueys, each with four bags of florins, and challenged our bank to play against the sealed bags, what did we ask? 'Sir,' said we, 'we have but eighty thousand florins in bank, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... did was to visit a pawn-broker's and pawn her turquoise ring, her one piece of jewellery. They gave her a rouble for the ring . . . but what can you get for a rouble? You can't buy for that sum a fashionable short jacket, nor a big hat, ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... told you that Colvin is gone; however, he is coming back again; has left clothes in pawn ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... quite possible that he with whom the grenadier-private is now playing chess is the very same general who might order him a hundred lashes to-morrow, should he take a step on parade without his command! And now he contends with him to make a queen out of a pawn! ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various

... appeared to her under the shape of gain, that she would not have undertaken. She knew most of the ways of the town, having not only herself been upon, but kept up constant intelligences in promoting a harmony between the two sexes, in private pawn-broking, and other profitable secrets. She rented the house she lived in, and made the most of it, by letting it out in lodgings; though she was worth, at least, near three or four thousand pounds, she would not allow herself even the necessaries, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... State that he was obliged to wear patches of cloth, as near like the trousers as possible, on their seat; and his poor young wife, during her life, had always been obliged, as rent-day drew near, to carry the soup-ladle and six silver covers to the pawn-shop. ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... What with mine honour I cannot obey, Which lies at pawn against it, and a friend Equally dear as that, or life, engag'd, Not for ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont

... them considerably. There was no deep-seated desperation in the crowd after all, only, that wild lawlessness which leads to deeds of cruelty, but not to stubborn battle. Around the corner from the prison is a row of pawn and second-hand shops, and to these the mob took like the ducks to the proverbial mill-pond, and the devastation they wrought upon Mr. Fink's establishment was beautiful in ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... but they are denied thee. What said I to thee, Goody Dickisson, in the clough yonder, by the hollow trunk of the oak? Rememberest thou, when thou saidest thou wouldst pawn thy body for the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... usual on first proceedings before a magistrate. Viner himself proved the finding of the body; the divisional surgeon spoke as to the cause of death; the dead man's solicitor testified to his identity and swore positively as to the ring; the pawnbroker gave evidence as to the prisoner's attempt to pawn or sell the ring that morning. Finally, the police proved that on searching the prisoner after his arrest, a knife was found in his hip-pocket which, in the opinion of the divisional surgeon, would have caused the wound found in ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... Kaiser Barbarossa's time, year 1171, Herstal had been given in pawn to the Church of Liege, for a loan, by the then proprietor, Duke of Lorraine and Brabant. Loan was repaid, I do not learn when, and the Pawn given back; to the satisfaction of said Duke, or Duke's Heirs; never quite to the satisfaction ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... la Verrerie, where, I suppose, you got them a little cheaper." And, so saying, he showed to the guilt-stricken Gambouge how the name of that coffee-house was inscribed upon every one of the articles which he had wished to pawn. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... industry needed to support a growing family. When his debts overwhelmed him and he was carried off to the Marshalsea prison, Charles was only ten years old, but already he took the lead in the house. On him fell the duty of pacifying creditors at the door, and of making visits to the pawn-broker to meet the daily needs of the household. His initiation into life was a hard one and it began cruelly soon. If he was active and enterprising beyond his years, with his nervous high-strung temperament he was capable of suffering acutely; and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... him. Now he knew that he must obtain what he wanted somehow and somewhere. His mother could not give it to him; his father would not. He had nothing to sell that was of any value. Yes, there was one thing. He could pawn his watch, that beautiful watch that had been his grandfather's and which he was to use when he was twenty-one. In the meantime it was his, left him by his grandfather's will. On the spur of the moment he rose and hurried into ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb

... then to a pawn shop where he picked out a thirty-two calibre revolver and several boxes of cartridges. ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... me so, as she made my brother devot. The Archbishop of Strasbourg is of our parents; I saw his grandeur when I went lately to Strasbourg, on my last pilgrimage to the Mont de Piete. I owned to him that I would pawn his cross and ring to go play: the good prelate laughed, and said his chaplain should keep an eye on them. Will you dine with me? The landlord of my hotel was the intendant of our cousin, the Duc d'Ivry, and will give me credit to the day of judgment. I do not abuse ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... consider him in the desired light, made Ned very wroth; and in revenge he went out, and, between drink and gaming, rid himself of every penny he possessed. He thereupon begged that Madge would let him pawn some of her jewelry. She refused to do so; until their ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... they contained articles from the Mont-de-Piete that the French party were taking with them into exile. Articles from the Mont-de-Piete, that is to say, the spoils of the poor! The poorer the city the richer its pawn-shops. Few could boast such wealth as those of Avignon. It was no longer a factional affair, it was a theft, an infamous theft. Whites and Reds rushed to the Church of the Cordeliers, shouting that the municipality must render them ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... and I sent you off to telephone while I rushed round the corner to a little jeweller's where I'd been before, and pawned it so that you shouldn't have to pay for the children.... But now, darling, you see, if you've got all that money, I can get it out of pawn at once, can't I, and send ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... had been only more of the brute left in the Gladwin strain undoubtedly there would have been a sensational clash between the two men for the benefit of the beautiful young girl who, Gladwin strove to acknowledge, was the helpless pawn of circumstances. But the refinements of blood rob the physical man of his savage resources and impose a serious hamper upon his ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... we Brabanters are a frugal people: Madame Philippa was wealthy when she married you, and twenty years had quadrupled her private fortune. She gave you every penny of it that you might fit out this expedition; now her very crown is in pawn at Ghent. In fine, the love of Madame Philippa gave you France as lightly as one might bestow a toy upon a child who whined ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... mere pawn on the political chess-board and his master occasionally has him elected to office. Then the master tells him how to decide, not all, but ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... cannot help saying that you have shewn yourself the vilest of women in inciting de Pyene, who may be an honest man for all I know, to assassinate me. In fine, rich or not, and though I owe you nothing, I will give you enough money to take your property out of pawn, and I may possibly take you to Colmar myself, but you must first consent to my giving your charming daughter a proof ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Archy, 'tis thought, Was near catching a Tartar (the first ever caught In N. Lat. 2l.)—and his Highness Burmese, Being very hard prest to shell out the rupees, And not having rhino sufficient, they say, meant To pawn his august Golden ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... my ability may undergo, And nobleness impose: at least, thus much; I'll pawn the little blood which I have left To save the ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare

... message that was full of meaning to that poor poet and cast itself at his feet. It was a life-preserver! This was a complication. And then I had an idea—he never had any, especially when he was going to write poetry; I suggested that we pawn the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... king's pawn; then the king's bishop; then the queen. My heart was in my mouth; surely so experienced a player was not going to walk open-eyed into such a booby-trap. But the sirens had lured his attention away. Next move I gave him "fool's mate." ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... with it, who he knew would make him a great man, even for this very gift's sake); yet in gratuity and stead of other requital of this jewel, he desired our Captain to accept these four pieces of gold, as a token of his thankfulness to him, and a pawn of ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols

... on: "You see we fellows, three of us, are sparring our way down to St. Louis. We have got trusted for our passage. We've friends in St. Louis, and when we get there we shall be in funds. Our luggage is in pawn for our passage money. When we come down to get our luggage, I will pay you the six bits I owe you for the cards. ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... for two months. When a merchant has a bill that will become due at the end of two months, and wants payment before that time, the bank advances that payment to him, deducting therefrom at the rate of five per cent, per annum. The bill of exchange remains at the bank as a pledge or pawn, and at the end of two months it must be redeemed. This transaction is done altogether in paper; for the profits of the bank, as a bank of discount, arise entirely from its making use of paper as money. The bank gives bank notes to the merchant in discounting the bill of exchange, and the redeemer ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... invariably justify their trade by alleging noble motives. Madame Nourrisson posed as having lost several opportunities for marriage, also three daughters who had gone to the bad, and all her illusions. She showed the pawn-tickets of the Mont-de-Piete to prove the risks her business ran; declared that she did not know how to meet the "end of the month"; she was robbed, ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... Diu, which were carried thither by Diego Rodriguez de Azevedo, who likewise carried a message from Don Juan de Castro requesting the city to lend him 20,000 pardaos for the use of the army, sending a lock of his whiskers in pawn for the faithful repayment of the money. The city respectfully returned the proposed pledge, and sent him more money than he wanted, and even the ladies of Goa on this occasion sent him their earrings, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... her husband and lifted a pawn in her thin, blue-veined hand; but the vicomte had not finished, and she replaced the pawn and leaned back in her chair, moving the two little coffee-cups aside so that she could see what her husband was doing with ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... As if for motion ne'er design'd. Constables, whom the laws admit To keep the peace by breaking it; Beadles, who hold the second place By virtue of a silver mace, Which every Saturday is drawn, For use of Sunday, out of pawn; Treasurers, who with empty key Secure an empty treasury; 1510 Churchwardens, who their course pursue In the same state, as to their pew Churchwardens of St Margaret's go, Since Peirson taught them pride and show, Who in short transient pomp appear, Like almanacs changed every ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... tampered with—that he is not responsible for the decisions that have been made in his name—that he is going to lose his position and his reputation and his career for something that he would never have done in his right mind—that he has been the duped pawn ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett

... pleasure-drive, and then planned a longer tour in the Alps. Barriers were in the way, for both money and passports were lacking; but fertility of invention swept all such barriers away. Forged letters, purporting to be from their parents, brought passports for the party, and books, put in pawn, secured money. Forty-three days were spent in travel, mostly afoot; and during this tour George Muller, holding, like Judas, the common purse, proved, like him, a thief, for he managed to make his companions pay one third of his ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... the beastly things are heirlooms, as I suppose you know. We can't sell or pawn them, or I should have done one or the other long ago. They're insured by the trustees, who are the bane of our lives, for the estate. But a sporting sort of company has blossomed out lately, which insures against 'loss of use'—I think that's ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... not the kind of man that deceives himself as to his own aspect in the eyes of others. Be as kind as she might, Amy could not set him strutting Malvolio-wise; she viewed him as a poor devil who often had to pawn his coat—a man of parts who would never get on in the world—a friend to be thought of kindly because her dead husband had valued him. Nothing more than that; he understood perfectly the limits of her feeling. But this could not put restraint upon the emotion with which he received ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... but let them push their way to the highest row, how soon do they exchange this course for the 'crooked policy of the knight,' or jump over principles with queen, castle, or bishop! Woe to the poor pawn in their way. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... and sending them back, I wonder often if I oughtn't to go into a war hospital. Do you remember the little cameo pin you used to wear till father thought it was too dressy for you? If you haven't lost it, I wish you'd send it down here for me to pawn. I can get it back after the war. I think of you often though I don't ...
— Benefits Forgot - A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love • Honore Willsie

... "Young Chevalier" when France took it into her head to make a pawn of him in the political chess-game with England. As a man he was beneath contempt; as a "King"—well, he was a Roi pour rire; but at least the Royal House he represented might be made a useful weapon against the arrogant Hanoverian who sat on his father's throne. That rival stock ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... head on her hands, and tried to think of some way to get a few cents. She had nothing she could sell or pawn, everything she could do without had gone before, in similar emergencies. After sitting there some time, and revolving plan after plan, only to find them all impossible, she was forced to conclude that they ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... the noble game of the same name, and in order to impress this fact on his men and his neighbours he adopted at times strange terminology. For example, when one of his ewes presented him with a lamb, he would say that it had "queened a pawn"; when he put up a new barn against the highway, he called it "castling on the king's side"; and when he sent a man with a gun to keep his neighbour's birds off his fields, he spoke of it as "attacking his opponent's rooks." Everybody in the neighbourhood ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... of his mother, was content, and gart her pawn a hundred crowns and a tun of wine upon the English-men's hands; and he incontinent laid down as much for the Scottish-men. The field and ground was chosen in St. Andrews, and three landed men and three yeomen chosen to shoot against ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... obtained with perfect nonchalance five pounds upon her mother's watch. She had no idea that she ought to dispute the dictum of the bald young man with the fishy eyes and the high collar. It did not occur to her that she was paid too little. What she realized was that she had wanted to pawn something all her life—it was a deliciously effective extremity. She reserved her rings with the distinct purpose of having the experience again. Then she made a substantial lunch at a rather expensive restaurant. "It isn't time yet," she thought, "for crusts and dripping," and tipped the ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... away: If the Bull-Queen is divested, We shall be in every way Hunted, stripped, exposed, molested; 140 Let us do whate'er we may, That she shall not be arrested. QUEEN, we entrench you with walls of brawn, And palisades of tusks, sharp as a bayonet: Place your most sacred person here. We pawn 145 Our lives that none a finger dare to lay on it. Those who wrong you, wrong us; Those who hate you, hate us; Those who sting you, sting us; Those who bait you, bait us; 150 The ORACLE is now about ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... the Public Works Department must be much the same as the Sultan of Turkey's—no money, no friends. And no wonder! It drained the State of all spare cash for the edification of its day-labor joss, and is about to pawn the State to foreign money lenders for more. Being now on its absolute uppers, the Public Works Department is handing over work to a private syndicate to be carried out on a percentage basis. The longer the work takes and the more it costs, the ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor

... wounds of Mrs William Taylor, whose husband, having returned home furiously drunk upon the closing of the public houses on the previous night, had proceeded to vent his spleen upon his long-suffering wife, because, having no money and nothing that she could pawn, she had failed to have a hot supper ready for him ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... Israelitish zeal! Thou hast been a pawn for her to play during these months. Long ago had she ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... the presence of his decision and imperial energy they melted away. He begged his father to take him out of the poorhouse, even if he had to subsist like the Hottentots. He told him that he would sell his books and pawn his handkerchief, by which he thought he could raise about twelve shillings. He said he could live upon blackberries, nuts, and field turnips, and was willing to sleep on a hayrick. Here was real grit. What were impossibilities to such a resolute, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... angelic purity. Her milk-white skin reflected the light like a mirror. The delicate pink in her cheeks might have been laid on with a brush. She was called Cydalise, and, as will be seen, she was an important pawn in the game played by Ma'ame Nourrisson ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... historic in God's estimate. The obscurest among us has his place in the Divine plan, his lesson to learn, his work to do. The century opening before us can no more dispense with us than an orchestra with the piccolo. A pawn on God's chessboard may take a knight, or give check to a king. "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God has before prepared (R.V.), that we should walk in them" (Eph. ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... guild who had paid a tax of 150 per annum for ten years without failure was eligible to belong to it. The Honourable Merchants are free from all imposts, conscriptions, etcetera, and pay no taxes. Another mode Nicholas took of ruining the old nobility was to establish a pawn bank, where they could at all times pledge then property. By encouraging their extravagance, many were unable to redeem it, and, being put up for sale, it was bought up by the Honourable Merchants and other members of the trading community. The late ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... and war," he quoted, gaily. "I wanted a document to prove to some banker or pawn-broker that I have an equity in this ranch and it is worth three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, in the opinion of the astute financier who holds a first mortgage on it. Really, I think I'd be foolish to give away this ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... She has done it very well too, and I am happy to recall that, in another place, I was among the many who prophesied good concerning her future when she made her debut as a novelist with The Stars in their Courses in Mr. FISHER UNWIN'S "First Novel Library." A Pawn in Pawn comes very properly from the same publisher. It has one of those plots which it is most particularly a reviewer's business, in the reader's own interest, not to reveal, but it is permissible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various

... me," quoth he, "I shall bring thee meat." With that, like a madman, he rose up, and ranged up and down the woods, seeking to encounter some wild beast with his rapier, that either he might carry his friend Adam food, or else pledge his life in pawn for ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... neither said a word, nor moved. Sir Tancred was trying to see how to work the affair on seven shillings, and debating whether to call in the help of the police. Instinct assured him that he had no time to lose, no time to walk to Beachley and pawn his watch, that he must not lose sight of them, and in delicate matters he relied chiefly on instinct. Mr. Biggleswade would not have looked so triumphant, had not the 4000 pound reward satisfied him; it seemed likely that he would leave for town that very day. On the other hand, Sir Tancred ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... peace!" my lord, O mark me well! For what my jolly hound befell You shall sup twenty-fold, O! For every tooth Of his, i'sooth, A stag in pawn I hold, O. ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare

... said in contemptuous pity. He clenched his hands and strode up and down before the couch. "Oh, if I could but waken thee—if I could but waken thee! I'd use thee, poor tool as thou art—I'd make thee, a worthless pawn, queen to play my game for me! Thou art mine, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, to do with as I will. Sometimes my hands itch to shake into thee the sense thou lackest—or else to shake the useless life out ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... Does to his best, look upward still. Weep all you customers, that use His Pills, his Almanacks, or Shoes! And you that did your fortunes seek, Step to this grave, but once a week! This earth which bears his body's print You'll find has so much virtue in it; That I durst pawn my ears, 'twill tell Whate'er concerns you, full as well (In physic, stolen goods, or love) As he himself ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... property was missing and returned to the house, but could get no answer to his ring. The officer took note of the address and promised to keep an eye on the place. Later on he saw a young woman come out of the house and enter a near-by pawn shop. He followed her and saw that she was pawning the watch whose description had been given him. He arrested her and discovered she was the famous Light Fingered Sal, whom the police of a dozen cities were looking for. The house was searched, but the other inmates had fled. But it seems that ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey

... from his unsuccessful ventures, he never came back to his wife without some present from a foreign clime as a tangible proof of his remembrance, and because these were usually mere curiosities, without intrinsic value, they often evaded the pawn-shop in those years of dire distress, when more negotiable articles passed irretrievably away from the family possession. And with them too, in stiff, decorous frames, are those certificates and testimonials which a master mariner always collects, together ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... left it to him. There was a general feeling that I didn't know what I wanted—house or flat, north or south of the Park, all the rest of it—; they said there would be a scandal if I employed a young maid, I couldn't afford two, and an old one would pawn my clothes to buy gin. I am quoting your husband now; I know nothing of business. Every one agreed, too, that I must have a drain of some kind. Would you say it took long to find a bed-sitting room with ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... simple words came back to me! A slave, day after day mowing his owner's cotton and cane, plucking the maize from the savannahs, yet happy and gay! Should I be equal to this spirit? The Honourable George had lost; so I, his pawn, must also submit like ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... from far a courser came, Threaten'd at once the King and Royal Dame; Thought himself safe when he the post had seized, And with the future spoils his fancy pleased. 341 Fired at the danger a young Archer came, Rush'd on the foe, and levell'd sure his aim; (And though a Pawn his sword in vengeance draws, Gladly he'd lose his life in glory's cause). 345 The whistling arrow to his bowels flew, And the sharp steel his blood profusely drew; He drops the reins, he totters to the ground, And his life issued murm'ring through the wound. Pierced by the Foot, this Archer ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... I know not if himselfe will vaunt t'have beene The princely author of the slavish sinne, Or any other; he would have resolv'd me, Had you not come, not by his word, but writing, 200 Would I have sworne to give it him againe, And pawn'd mine honour to him ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... Folio omits 'a,' and in the next line reads 'nere' for 'nor.' Perhaps the first line should read 'My life I ne'er held but as pawn to wage.')] ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see. No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... more carefully than he did for these visits, and to meet the expense was no easy matter for him. Indeed, I know that to pay for all our gayeties he usually had to carry his guitar to a neighboring pawn-broker where the instrument was always good for an eight-dollar loan. But from the time Richard first began to make his own living one of the great pleasures of his life was to celebrate, or as he called it, to "have a party." ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... doing, he said, every other adversary he would have despised, but your array of forces met him at every corner where he hoped to escape, and the dear little Rosie gave him check-mate, like a gallant little knight's pawn as she is. 'Who could have guessed that child would have such a confounded memory?' he said, for Edward had listened with a sort of interest that had made him quite forget that he was Rose's father, and that this wicked cunning Colonel was working ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... parents. Forty years old. Married. Wife dead. One child living with his sister in Pennsylvania. Carpenter by trade. Did not belong to the union. Had been out of work all winter. All his tools were in pawn. The Army had been helping him at times. Said he had to leave his child on account of not working. He looked like a very hard drinker. Had ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb

... always governed by this policy? It goes a great deal further. These excellent and trusty servants of the king, justly fearful lest they themselves should have lost all credit with the world, bring out the image of their gracious sovereign from the inmost and most sacred shrine, and they pawn him as a security for their promises:—"His Majesty relies on your prudence and fidelity for such an explanation of his measures." These sentiments of the minister and these measures of his Majesty can only relate to the principle and practice of taxing for a revenue; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of a thousand shifts and wiles look here! See one straightforward conscience put in pawn To win a world! See the obedient sphere By bravery's ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... up her mind to pawn most of her jewellery, and we arranged that Bob should manage the business. He was up at the cottage for a night or two, though no one was aware of that fact, for he kept close, for fear Mr. Eric ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... occasion he had arrived in very bad plight indeed: he had brought away from Cork nothing but what he could carry on his body, and had been forced to pawn what he could pawn in order that he might subsist. And then he had been taken with ague, and with the fit strong on him had crawled away to Spinny Lane, and had there been nursed by the mother and daughter whom he had ill used, deserted, and ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... Jewry. The mercers in this reign sold woollen clothes, but not silks. In 1371, John Barnes, mercer, mayor, gave a chest with three locks, with 1,000 marks therein, to be lent to younger mercers, upon sufficient pawn and for the use thereof. The grateful recipients were merely to say "De Profundis," a Pater Noster, and no more. This bequest seems to have started among the Mercers the kindly practice of assisting the young and struggling members ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... the holes on to their heads when they were singing; and would my lord bishop please to look at the holes in their clothes and tell her to provide them with new ones? Other wicked prioresses used sometimes even to pawn the plate and jewels of the convent, to get money for their own private purposes. But Eglentyne was not at all wicked or dishonest, though she was a bad manager; the fact was that she had no head ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... and Harrison to come out here left us in the lurch three days after we reached St. Louis. He said he was going on to San Francisco, and he had only money enough to pay his own expenses. As Luke and I were not provided with money, we had a pretty hard time at first, and had to pawn some of our clothes, or we should have starved. Finally I got a job in the 'Democrat' office, and a week after, Luke got something to do, though it didn't pay very well. So we scratched along as well as we could. Part of the time since we ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... the books of the community are to be kept under three locks, and to be assigned by the warden and sub-warden to the use of the Fellows under sufficient pledge[261]. In the second statutes of University College (1292), it is provided, "that no Fellow shall alienate, sell, pawn, hire, lett, or grant, any House, Rent, Money, Book, or other Thing, without the Consent of all the Fellows"; and further, with special reference ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... Pawn-brokers' establishments, distinguished by the mystic symbol of the three golden balls, were conveniently accessible; though what personal property these wretched people could possess, capable of being estimated in silver ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... fortune, sometimes flourishing in affluence, and at others being obliged to struggle with almost incredible difficulties. To-day wallowing in luxury, and to-morrow reduced to the coarsest and most homely fare. My fine clothes being often on my back in the evening, and at the pawn-shop the next morning. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... It is a good and forcible illustration of the degradation which debt always implies, though it may not always be outwardly visible, as here at Axim. The Governor himself, who is a native of Amsterdam, and apparently a mulatto, is one of those pawn-brokers who deal in human pledges. He is a merchant-soldier, bearing the military title of lieutenant, and doing business as a trader. The Governor of El Mina is his superior officer, and the fort at Axim is garrisoned by twelve black soldiers from the ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... sir. I spoke to you of it Michaelmas was four years: when her Ladyship put the diamonds in pawn. It was Towler, sir, took 'em in two cabs to Dobree's—and a good deal of the plate went the same way. Don't you remember seeing of it at Blackwall, with the Levant arms and coronick, and Lord Levant settn oppsit to it at the Marquis of Steyne's ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... worthy of his conduct at Castelnaudary; as, only three days after the battle, he suffered himself to be persuaded that his best policy would be to throw himself upon the clemency of the King. His infantry disbanded themselves in disgust, and he was compelled to pawn his plate in order to defray the arrears of his foreign allies; while the province of Languedoc, which regarded him as the destroyer of its idolized Governor, returned to its allegiance, and refused ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... and piercing, the lines about the mouth firm and deep-cut; the features in general somewhat coarse, and plainly those of a man in the lower walks of life, and one accustomed to hard toil both of mind and body. The paper had proved to be the pawn ticket of a watch pledged in Belfast for the sum of one pound, the name upon it being Henderson. Mr. Smith had redeemed the watch, which now lay before him with the ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare

... themselves, and unless Mendoza lies they offered to share it with him if he would agree to a private arrangement. Mendoza says he answered that he would give twice as much to chastise such a bandit as Drake. Elizabeth thought it should be kept as a captured pawn in the game, and so in fact it remained after the deductions which we ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here! See one straightforward conscience put in pawn 30 To win a world; see the obedient sphere By ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... council chamber. Catharine spoke of her husband and herself as Ferdinand's subjects. The young king wrote that he would obey Ferdinand as he had obeyed his own father. His obedience was soon to be tested. Ferdinand seized on his new ally as a pawn in the great game which he was playing on the European chess-board, a game which left its traces on the political and religious map of Europe for centuries after him. It was not without good ground that Henry the Seventh faced so coolly the menacing growth of France. He saw ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... counsel him to lurk in his cover till the hounds were safe at home again. In Hungary once I met a certain fellow who had been kicked by a highway thief after he had emptied his pockets. I tell you what. A man may well pawn his last doublet, if he may thereby gain a larger. He need never redeem the first, and it is given some folks to coin gold ducats out of humbler folks' sins. Ah! If I had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... has wanted a man to talk well on these subjects it has generally been compelled to advance money to him before he could make a speech. Sometimes he has to be taken from the pawn-shop. Webster, it is said, was the most successful lawyer, after he returned to Boston, that the State of Massachusetts has ever known; and yet his mail was full of notices from banks down East, announcing that ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... that learning strengthens her like a tonic and becomes her like a decoration. It has been discovered that she can compete with men in the domain of lighter labor, in several of the professions, and in not a few of the useful arts. The impression of her as a pawn, a property or a plaything, came down from paganism to Christianity and was too long retained by the Christian world. There is even danger of excess in the liberality now extended to her. The toast, "Woman, Once Our Superior and Now Our Equal," is not without satire as well ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... exclaimed, "that you could not let me know yesterday! Today is Sunday; it will be impossible for me to get at any money. Raymond is certain only to have a pound or two on him, if he has as much; the Bank is closed. I have some jewellery by me on which I could easily raise ten or twelve pounds, but the pawn-shops are not open on Sundays. What am I to do? Can you not wait ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... long pauses of the game, when Mamma sat stone-still, hypnotised by the green and white chequers, her curved hand lifted, holding her pawn, ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... ours!" cried Marie, clapping her hands. "We still had a few things then. We took them to the pawn-shop when father lay ill after his fall." And then she would meet his gaze, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... most part falsely, for they all solicit the Indians as much as they can, and after begging their money from them, compel them to leave their blankets, leggings, and coverings of their bodies in pawn, yes, their guns and hatchets, the very instruments by which they obtain their subsistence. This subject is so painful and so abominable, that I will forbear saying anything more ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... he, "easy go. Get out and rustle some more cows or hold up the stage again. We ain't a-runnin' no pawn-shop." ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... firmer basis. The death of the Regent, in 1723, who expired suddenly, as he was sitting by the fireside conversing with his mistress, the Duchess de Phalaris, deprived him of that hope, and he was reduced to lead his former life of gambling. He was more than once obliged to pawn his diamond, the sole remnant of his vast wealth, but successful play generally enabled him to redeem it. Being persecuted by his creditors at Rome, he proceeded to Copenhagen, where he received permission from the English ministry to reside in his native country, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... squeak, squeak of a child's new boots coming up the first flight of stairs; and a squeak, squeak, squeak up the second flight of stairs; and a little girl, not twelve years old, resplendent in such tawdry finery as might have stepped out of an East End London pawn shop, presented herself framed in the doorway of the reporter's room. She plainly belonged to the immigrant section of Smelter City. The news-editor never took his eyes from Bat's copy. They were eyes made for drilling holes into the motives ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... between Anna and Madame Montford was striking; Madame Montford's mysterious searches and inquiries for the woman Monday had something of deep import in them. Mag Munday's strange disappearance from Charleston, and her previous importuning for the old dress left in pawn with McArthur, were not to be overlooked. These things taken together, and Mr. Snivel saw a case there could be no mistaking. That case became stronger when his fashionable friend engaged his services to trace out what had become of the woman Mag Munday, and to further ascertain what the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... ripe ale winks in it; Let's have comfort and be at peace. Once a stout draught made me light as a linnet. Cheer up! the Lord must have his lease. May be—for none see in that black hollow - It's just a place where we're held in pawn, And, when the Great Juggler makes as to swallow, It's just the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... says I. "Haven't you got me for a friend? Didn't I take a fancy to you when first you left your step-mother and came to lodge in this house? And haven't I been sisters with you ever since? Suppose you are alone in the world, am I much better off? I'm an orphan like you. I've almost as many things in pawn as you; and, if your pockets are empty, mine have only got ninepence in them, to last me for all the rest of ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... nun over her missal. In short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another pawn, in the shape of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would of course take—to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally provide. In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive phrase, "put him through" all the material part of life; see him sheltered, warmed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... rooms, the furnishing whereof seemed to them incomplete without the piano of which their friends and relatives boasted. Not a few professional swindlers came to the office; confederate rogues, vouching for each other's respectability, got possession of pianos merely to pawn or sell them, having paid no more than the first month's charge. It was Mr Lord's experience that year by year the recklessness of the vulgar became more glaring, and deliberate fraud more artful. To-day he had successfully prosecuted a man who seemed to have lived for some ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... still remained in pawn; they had indeed arisen on the first alarm, and pushed manfully to gain the door; but what with the narrowness of the stalls, and the crowding of terrified priests and choristers, the attempt had been in vain, and they had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the dollar, and went out of the pawn broker's with a gold watch, and chain of the same color, with only two dollars left of his ill-gotten money. This was somewhat inconvenient, but he rejoiced in the possession of ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger

... a chess board always at her elbow," Sally suggested. "I can fancy the game, the white queen and her pawn against the whole black force, each man neatly tagged with his name ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... regiment, unable to stand the strain of anything so hot and high and dry. Possibly the Third was so overjoyed at getting out of Arizona on any terms that they would gladly have left their eye-teeth in pawn. Whatever may have been the cause, the transfer was an accomplished fact, and Van was one of some seven hundred quadrupeds, of greater or less value, which became the property of the Fifth Regiment of Cavalry, U.S.A., in lawful exchange for a like ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... Lichfield, we found our resources so straitened in returning, that, employing as our messenger of need his younger brother Alfred, who had joined us from Tamworth, where he was a student-engineer, we had to pawn our gold ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... purchase. The banks and trust companies were loaded up with our securities pledged for loans, and before there could be any conviction behind our prosperity it behooved us to get all our valuables out of pawn. I went to Mr. Rogers and frankly told him I had solved our problem and his by a financial invention of my own. I entered into the details of our plan, explaining it would not even be necessary for us to buy any gas of him, because we would turn over a sufficient number of our ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... pint of ale in his treasury; lastly, that circumstance was deeply pathetic; for what so heart-rending as the exhibition of fallen greatness, of broken-down prosperity, of affluence regularly stumped and hard-up! The fact is, that "Punch," his theatre, and corps dramatique, are in pawn ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... pay her wages out of the proceeds of my jewels, but was willing to delay the step as long as possible; rather, I believe, from repugnance to enter the pawn-shop, than from disinclination to part with the trinkets. But, as soon as I had spoken, Jemima burst into an Irish wail, mingled with sobs and tears, crying between ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... ugly is in the whites? I'll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but if I told you the whole truth - for I did extenuate there! - and he seemed to me essential as a figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives in the story. Now it would have taken a fairish dose to disgust Wiltshire. - Again, the idea of publishing the Beach substantively is dropped - at once, both on account of expostulation, and because it ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... we don't want to get all excited, Mary V. Sit down here and stop for-gracious-saking, and tell dad and Bill what it is you've seen. If it's anything that'll help run down them horse thieves, you'll get that Norman car, kitten, if I have to pawn my watch." Sudden gave Bill a lightened look of hope, and pulled Mary V down beside him on the striped porch swing. Then he snorted at something he saw. "What's the riding breeches and boots for? Didn't ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... with sympathetic comprehension. "I know; but it's worst when you've nothing left to pawn. As for clothes, they give you nothing on them, at least round here. But you want to know the time." She opened the window and listened a moment. "It's just on six. I can hear the periwinkle man coming, and he's never late. This is the last part of his round, you see, because ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... come to pawn something, that is all!" With this he drew from his pocket a flat old silver watch. A globe was engraved inside the lid, and the chain ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... a measure recovered from the effects of Luck's smile. He picked up the slips and glanced at them indifferently. "There's a pawn-shop just down the street, I believe," ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... present, and forevermore. The universe, cleft to the core, Lay open to my probing sense That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence But could not, — nay! But needs must suck At the great wound, and could not pluck My lips away till I had drawn All venom out. — Ah, fearful pawn! For my omniscience paid I toll In infinite remorse of soul. All sin was of my sinning, all Atoning mine, and mine the gall Of all regret. Mine was the weight Of every brooded wrong, the hate That stood behind each envious thrust, Mine every greed, ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... debts; even during the periods of splendour in his varied fortunes of a Costaguana general, when he held high military commands, his gold-laced uniforms were almost always in pawn with some tradesman. And at last, to avoid the incessant difficulties of costume caused by the anxious lenders, he had assumed a disdain of military trappings, an eccentric fashion of shabby old tunics, which had become like a second nature. But the faction Barrios joined needed to fear ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... the Commissioners, if both regiments were ordered to the Castle?" Several said, "They would be safe, and always had been safe." "As safe," said Gray, "without the troops as with them." And Irving said, "They never had been in danger, and he would pawn his life that they should receive no injury." "Unless the troops were removed," it was said, "before evening there would be ten thousand men on the Common." "The people in general," Tyler said, "were resolved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... hands on another, To coin his labor and sweat, He goes in pawn to his victim For ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... sometimes forced to carry him to the Mont-de-piete, upon which he fell into a state of sombre chagrin, and did not recover his serenity until he was able to make amends for his impious act. He never failed, moreover, to renew his avowals in prosperous times, and finally to take his god out of pawn. ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee

... or Staunton, on whose calculations, I will suppose, you have staked L100, brook your insane solicitations to spare this pawn or withdraw that knight from prise, on the board which is but the toy type of that dread field where all the powers of eternal intellect, the wisdom from above and the wisdom from beneath—the stupendous intelligence that ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... went on for three years before the king found any means of sending news of himself to his dear queen, but at last he contrived to send this letter: 'Sell all our castles and palaces, and put all our treasures in pawn and come and deliver me out ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... promise Palamon accepts; but prayed, To keep it better than the first he made. Thus fair they parted till the morrow's dawn; For each had laid his plighted faith to pawn; Oh Love! thou sternly dost thy power maintain, And wilt not bear a rival in thy reign! Tyrants and thou all fellowship disdain. This was in Arcite proved and Palamon: Both in despair, yet each would love alone. Arcite returned, and, as in honour tied, His foe ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden

... a train for home at six, that same flier he once had raced. There would be time enough for a man to look into the progress of the fine arts as represented in the pawn-shop windows of the stockyards neighborhood, before striking a line for the Union Station to nail down a seat in the flier. It was while engaged in this elevating pursuit that Lambert glimpsed for an instant in the passing stream of people ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... though the foundations of his life were shaken. He had never experienced such a feeling before. He did not think it was fear; rather it was awesomeness. For a moment he regarded life, his own life, from a new standpoint. He was only a pawn on a chess-board, one of a million of human beings, none of whom had any personality, any will. Life and death were nothing. Each had to fill his place, and to do what was allotted to him, regardless ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... effects were examined many pawn tickets were discovered, and following up the clues thus afforded Colonel Colby managed to get back many of the articles stolen from the school. These included Professor Duke's heirloom watch and a number of the ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer

... him; and, what is more, although I am poor enough myself—for I am just starting, you see, in New York—I offered to pawn my watch and pay the rent myself, but the man would not ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... found nothing but a new crop of sorrows and anxieties awaiting him, together with "three or four months of hard labour" in perspective. His publisher, Werdet, had not been able to meet his payments, and his sister Laure had been obliged to pawn all her brother's silver at the Mont-de-Piete, in order to save the notes from being protested. On the other hand, his mother was seriously ill; it was feared the result would be either death or insanity, and his brother Henri had reached a state ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... the modus operandi. A common trick occurred to him. In former transactions with his wife, he had pledged his word of honour to repay her. It had become a stale pledge, and very worthless, as Michael felt. What if he put his life in pawn! Ah, capital idea! This would secure to her every farthing of her debt. Dear me, how very easy! He had but to insure his life for the amount he wanted, and let what would happen, she was safe. His spirit rejoiced. Oh, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... what your black lover did, Spit the feathers from your mouth, and munch roast beef; Iago he may go and be toss'd in the coverlet That smother'd you, because you pawn'd my handkerchief. ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... chap," said Mahin, when Mitia telling him about his troubles, showed the coupon and the fifty kopeks, and added that he wanted nine roubles more. "We might, of course, go and pawn your watch. But we might do something far better." And ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... inborn craving for freedom. Should she have forced herself to give that up because any man chose to say, "I love you," while she did not love him? Was she to be blamed for Crysostom's death. For not loving him? Would not that have been to pawn her modesty and her womanly honor and virtue? And why should he have wanted to rob her ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... what a man likes, and how to make him happy, if you can keep her from drink; but you can't keep her; she's that artful she'll get it under your very eyes, without you knowing it. If she can't get any more of your things to pawn or sell, she'll steal her neighbours'. That's how she got into trouble first when I was with her. During the six months she was in prison I should have felt happy if I had not known she would come out again. And then she did come out, and before she had ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... as I live!" thought Tom to himself. "'Frailty, thy name is woman!' The canting, little, methodistical humbug! She must have slipped it off my waist as I lay senseless. I suppose she means to keep it in pawn, till I redeem it by marrying her. Well I might take an uglier mate certainly; but when I do enter into the bitter bonds of matrimony, I should like to be sure, beforehand, that my wife ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... just as I did to my customers, and their insincerities were only another source of repugnance to me. But I frequented them in spite of it all, in spite of myself. I spent on them more than I could afford. Sometimes I would borrow money or pawn something for the purpose of ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... oars with a will, and were soon out of sight in the darkness. Nothing more was ever heard of them by the boys, but as some time ago a sailor was arrested on the Bowery trying to pawn a candlestick of solid gold marked Buena Ventura, it is reasonable to suppose the men eventually got ashore. The prisoner gave the name of Jones, but as he had red hair it is not unreasonable to assume ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... solicited the loan of a few pounds from one of the proprietors of the hell in which he had been plundered. 'What security will you give me?' asked the fellow. 'My word of honour,' was the reply. 'Your word of honour! That's poor security, and won't do,' rejoined the hellite; 'if you can pawn nothing better than that, you'll get no money out of me.' 'Then you won't lend me a couple of pounds?' 'Not without security,' was the reply. 'Why, surely, you won't refuse me a couple of sovereigns, after having lost so much?' 'I ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... admirable as reading equally well from the initial letter forwards and from the terminal letter backwards. The poor lady, seated with her companion at the chess-board of matrimony, had but just pushed forward her one little white pawn upon an empty square, when the Black Knight, that cares nothing for castles or kings or queens, swooped down upon her and swept her from the larger board ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... each other brutally, and drank till they had drunk everything which they could pawn to the indulgent Vaviloff. And thus they passed the autumn days in open wickedness, in suffering which was eating their hearts out, unable to rise out of this vicious life and in dread of the still crueller days ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... of $40,000 was completed within forty-eight hours, and before the end of another week Lyons had rescued the bonds of the Parsons estate from pawn, and disposed of his line of stocks carried by Williams & Van Horne. They were sold at a considerable loss, but he made up his mind to free his soul for the time being from the toils and torment of speculation and to nurse his dwarfed ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... cheap china plates, cracked or chipped, with fragments of a past meal, and nickel forks—the plate of the Paris poor; a basket full of potatoes and dirty linen, with a smart gauze cap on the top; a rickety wardrobe, with a glass door, open and empty, and on the shelves sundry pawn-tickets,—this was the medley of things, dismal or pleasing, abject and handsome, that ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... come back," said Nora. "I will go to the first pawnbroker's and pawn everything of value I possess; but go ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... it was: Adam was hungering for the sight of Dinah, and when that sort of hunger reaches a certain stage, a lover is likely to still it though he may have to put his future in pawn. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot



Words linked to "Pawn" :   hock, soak, cat's-paw, chessman, supporter, instrument, consign, pledge, borrowing, helper, chess game, pawn ticket, commercialism, charge, chess piece



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