"Purser" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrangement was that the ruby ring changed owners. The Purser bought it for two thousand in cash. He knew a good thing when he saw it. But Peter Nichols ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... His wife and daughters ran to him. The steamer's big whistle was sounding. All was now confusion. There was only a moment to decide, but Harris proved equal to the situation. He stepped to the purser, surrendered his passage ticket, kissed his wife and two daughters, saying to his son, "Alfonso, take charge of the party as I go back ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... Pepper's arm as he unshipped his bugle. "I had a talk with the purser last night, and I'm afraid we'll have to 'cut out' the bugle calls on this trip. He says they have an official bugler aboard, for the call to meals and for the salute at landings, and we would interfere with him and perhaps affect the comfort of other passengers who ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... of the officers as knew about me—the doctor, the purser, and the stewards—I appeared in the light of a broad joke. The fact that I spent the better part of my day in writing had gone abroad over the ship and tickled them all prodigiously. Whenever they met me they referred to my absurd ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... here till the 6th of October, at which time we met the galeon of the captain of Malacca, a ship of 700 tons, coming from Goa. After shooting at her many times, we at length shot through her main-yard, on which she came to anchor and surrendered. We then commanded the captain, master, pilot, and purser to come on board our ship; but only the captain came, accompanied by one soldier, saying that the others would not come, unless sent for; but having got to some distance from us in the evening, all the people of the ship, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... and can we bear the heavy mass of water we have taken on board, and which has let loose all the table furniture in the officers' mess, and has beaten open the door of the little passage between the purser and me, and is swashing about, even there and even here? The purser snores reassuringly, and the ship's bells striking, I hear the cheerful 'All's well!' of the watch musically given back the length ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... I sent you, was the 29 of May last past from Aleppo, by George Gill the purser of the Tiger, which the last day of the same moneth came from thence, and arriued at Feluge the 19 day of Iune, which Feluge is one dayes iourney from hence. Notwithstanding some of our company came not hither ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... sunshiny morning in December. The leaves were all gone, and the long lines of white frame houses that were hid away in the thick trees during the summer, showed themselves standing in straight rows now that the trees were bare. And Purser, Pond & Co.'s great factory on the brook in the valley below was plainly to be seen, with its long rows of windows shining and shimmering in the brilliant sun, and its brick chimney reached up like the Tower of Babel, and poured out a steady ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... purser a drop more," said Dumlow. "Here, he arn't dead neither; takes the water down as free as if it were grog. They'll come ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... took was regularly entered on the register of their stores. The following clause of Mistress Ching's code is still more delicate. No person shall debauch at his pleasure captive women, taken in the villages and open places, and brought on board a ship; he must first request the ship's purser for permission, and then go aside in the ship's hold. To use violence, against any woman, or to wed her, without permission, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... and stowed in chests lined with hides and covered with gunny; and these cases are locked in by stays, spars and bulkheads to prevent jamming. Helter-skelter and confusion alow and aloft, on the yards, rigging, deck, between decks and under hatches. The captain and purser are gloating over the sycee silver, for the Chinese government is as jealous of its exportation as of the importation of opium; and the sky and the sea are dark and angry. In a slovenly way the sails are trimmed, and she edges clumsily around the point with the bullion and opium, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... passengers, and about three hundred Chinese in the steerage. The latter were returning home after some years of labor and saving in this country, for few if any of them emigrate except with a fixed purpose of returning to the Celestial Empire sooner or later. The purser of the ship informed us that there was not one of them who had not at least a thousand dollars in specie with him, and many had three times that amount, which would be sufficient to support them for life and without ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... mulattos. Occasionally they are joined by Indians, and these latter are always conspicuous for the cruelties they perpetrate. Now and then a white man enters upon this lawless course; and, in the year 1839, a native of North America, who had been a purser in a ship of war, was shot in Lima for highway robbery. These robbers are always well mounted, and their fleet-footed steeds usually enable them to elude pursuit. It is no unfrequent occurrence for slaves belonging to the plantations to mount their masters' finest ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... carried by one of them, I could see they were all armed with pistol and cutlass. They appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one fellow whisper, "There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom, the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying themselves over a glass of cold grog—the gunner taking the watch on deck the doctor was piping any thing but mellifluously on the double flageolet, while the Spanish priest, and aide—de—camp to the general, were playing at chess, and wrangling ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... The grog also is now mixed in a large tub, under the half-deck, by the quarter-masters of the watch below, assisted by other leading and responsible men among the ship's company, closely superintended, of course, by the mate of the hold, to see that no liquor is abstracted, and also by the purser's steward, who regulates the exact quantity of spirits and of water to be measured out. The seamen, whose next turn it is to take the wheel, or heave the lead, or who have to mount the mast-head to look out, as well as the marines who are to be planted as sentries at ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... in the third voyage, Anno 1556. for Russia, to euery Purser and the rest of the seruants, taken for the voyage, which may serue as good and necessary directions, to all ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... cablegram reached Skagway by the steamer City of Seattle. The purser left it at the post-office, and until two hours and a half before the steamer was listed to start on her return trip, there it lay. Then Burnham, in asking for his mail, received it. In two hours and a half he had ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... which kept the girls below, and not until after passing Cape San Lucas and they were steaming up the sunny Pacific did he see either of them again. Then one glorious day the trolling-lines were out astern, the elders were amidship playing "horse billiards," and "Tuck," the genial purser, was devoting himself to Paquita, when Drummond heard a scream of excitement and delight, and saw the younger sister bracing her tiny, slender feet and hanging on to a line with all her strength. In ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... shall barely have time to keep an important business appointment," said Thurston. "However, as the Sound boat does not sail immediately, my assistant, Mr. Gillow, will be able to look after your baggage, and secure a good berth for you. You will get hold of the purser, and see Mrs. Leslie is made comfortable in every way before you follow me, Gillow. I shall not want you for ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... a lady's birthday anniversary with toasts, speeches, a poem, and so forth. We also had a mock trial. No ship ever went to sea that hadn't a mock trial on board. The purser was accused of stealing an overcoat from stateroom No. 10. A judge was appointed; also clerks, a crier of the court, constables, sheriffs; counsel for the State and for the defendant; witnesses were subpoenaed, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the people had collected, Mr. Osgood said—"You must be pretty well fagged out, men; I think we may have a hard night's work, yet, and I wish you to get your suppers, and then catch as much sleep as you can, at your guns." He then ordered the purser's steward to splice the main-brace. These were the last words I ever heard from Mr. Osgood. As soon as he gave the order, he went below leaving the deck in charge of Mr. Bogardus. All our old crew were on board but Mr. Livingston, who had left us, and Simeon Grant, one of my companions ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... were produced to him at a tavern dinner, given by the booksellers, it appeared, that he had been paid a hundred pounds and upwards more than his due. The author of a book, called Lexiphanes[s], written by a Mr. Campbell, a Scotchman, and purser of a man of war, endeavoured to blast his laurels, but in vain. The world applauded, and Johnson never replied. "Abuse," he said, "is often of service: there is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence; his name, like a ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... I'm on this ship without a ticket. I've got to go down in a minute and tell the purser that. Maybe he'll throw me overboard; maybe he'll lock me up. I don't know what they do with people like me. Maybe they'll make a stoker of me. And then I shall have to stoke, with no chance of ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... ship lay at the wharf, Hardy, her English captain, Cuthbert, the purser, and Everett ate on deck under the awning, assailed by electric fans. Each was clad in nothing ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... coming over on the ship?" I told him I played no cards with any young man on the vessel. "Have you got proof of that?" said the business man to whom the money belonged. "Yes," said I, and I sent to the hotel and got the Captain and the purser, who testified that the young man did not play a card coming over. So I was acquitted, and that was the last of it, as they were all satisfied that the boy did nothing wrong, and really had lost ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... we departed out of Dartmouth Haven four sails, to wit, the Mermaid, the Sunshine, the Moonshine, and the North Star. In the Sunshine were sixteen men, whose names were these: Richard Pope, master; Mark Carter, master's mate; Henry Morgan, purser; George Draward, John Mandie, Hugh Broken, Philip Jane, Hugh Hempson, Richard Borden, John Filpe, Andrew Madocke, William Wolcome, Robert Wagge, carpenter, John Bruskome, ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... specially across. There was only one of my own countrymen on board, a fireman from Hull, one of the strongest men I ever met, and certainly the most truculent ruffian. His name was Tordoff on the ship's books, but that was a "purser's name." He spoke pure English when he forgot himself, and certainly had ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... request, the first cabin passengers of the Titanic gathered in the saloon and the passengers of other classes in corresponding places on the rescue ship. Then the collecting of names was begun by the purser and the stewards. A second table was served in both cabins for the new guests, and the Carpathia's second cabin, being better filled than its first, the second class arrivals had to ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... in their hammocks for a couple of days, when they all declared themselves strong enough to get up. A large tub was brought them to wash in, and they were supplied by the purser with a seaman's suit apiece. Owen was thankful to put on clean clothing, as the garments he had on when wrecked were worn completely into rags. Thus habited, although in the dress of a common seaman, he certainly did not look like an ordinary ship's boy. Still, he was allowed to ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... Coulson admitted. "I know he deposited a pocketbook with the purser, and I happened to be standing by when he received it back. I noticed that he had three or four thousand-dollar bills, and there didn't seem to be anything of the sort upon him when he ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dock, the safe was transferred to the ware-house, where it was forced open and to their dismay and disgust found that it contained nothing of any value. It was subsequently found out that the purser, seeing the ship in danger, had quietly transferred the safe's money to himself and when he landed had vanished and so all the hard work of raising the safe was in vain. Paul laughed at their bad luck, while the captain swore picturesquely in several languages. Preparations were ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... at the top—a steamer that has broken the record, and is considered the best boat in the Atlantic service for the time being. If you get a word from the captain of such a boat you may consider yourself a peculiarly honoured individual, and even the purser is apt to answer you very shortly, and make you feel you are but a worm of the dust, even though you have paid a very large price for your state-room. On The Tub there was nothing of this. The officers were genial good fellows who admitted ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... stated that the cow took ill, and died on 23rd June last, and the purser now claimed the value of the animal, namely, L5O, and also a further sum of L5, being the loss which he sustained through the want of milk, butter, and cheese, supplied by said cow from the date of her death to the date of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... as crafty as a purser's clerk,' quoth Solomon. 'I have seen Reuben Lockarby, who sends his love to you. He is still kept in his bunk from his wound, but he meets with good treatment. Major Ogilvy tells me that he has made such interest for him that there is every chance that he will gain his ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wanted to know was how I got on the steamer, but how to find that out without asking questions that the steamship people would think peculiar, was a puzzle to me. Finally, I decided to pretend to want to change my room, and when I went to the purser I asked him if that was the only room ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... of our account, and the wind continued fixed from the westward. On the 11th of July, necessity obliged us to reduce the allowance of water; the whole allowance now to each man for all purposes, cooking, drinking, etc. was two purser's quarts for twenty-four hours, and the weather was exceedingly sultry, which made it ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... was our war-ship Clampherdown That carried an armour-belt; But fifty feet at stern and bow, Lay bare as the paunch of the purser's sow, To the hail of ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... he read before the College two papers, one on "Cancers and Asthmas," and the other on "White Swelling of the Joints," both of which were published the next year in the first volume of the Medical Transactions. In the same year, one Archibald Campbell, a Scotchman, a purser in the navy, and called, from his ungainly countenance, "horrible Campbell," produced a small jeu d'esprit, entitled "Lexiphanes, imitated from Lucian, and suited to the present times," in which he tries to ridicule Johnson's prose ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... once applied to the authorities for guides, and a party was sent off, under the master and purser, to search the coast to the northward for the wreck of the Concorde, and to assist any of the crew who might have escaped. The sea was still too rough to allow of an expedition by water. Ralph in the meantime was ordered ...
— The Two Shipmates • William H. G. Kingston
... was that other house in King Street, the Bell, upon which the diarist bestowed some of his patronage. On his first visit he was caught in a neat little trap. "Met with Purser Washington, with whom and a lady, a friend of his, I dined at the Bell Tavern in King Street, but the rogue had no more manners than to invite me, and to let me pay my club." Which was too bad of the Purser, when Pepys' head and heart were full of "infinite business." ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... of opportunity of contrasting with the gay attire of the citizens we had come across; and I thought that if, as seemed likely, I should presently be shown about as a curiosity for the amusement of this most unbusinesslike people, I should like to look a little less like a discharged ship's purser. But in spite of all that had happened, my hand went down into my pocket again, where to my dismay it met nothing metallic except two rusty old keys, and I remembered that amidst our talk in the guest-hall at Hammersmith I had taken the cash out ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... then, that Jane McCarthy be chief officer—that is, the next in line to the captain—with Margery as purser, Hazel as third officer, and Tommy, what would you like ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... feathered their nests right here before her eyes, while she was wasting her time. They had kept their heads, and they would go out in the spring, first class, with good clothes and a bank-roll in the purser's safe. Some of them were married and respectable. "Never again!" she whispered to herself. "The next one will pay." Chagrin at the treatment she had suffered filled her with a poisonous hatred of all mankind, and soundlessly ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... it didn't cause a mutiny! I think it would have done so, but half the crew were laid up with colds in their heads, from the suddenness of the change, though an extra allowance of rum was served out to rub them with to prevent such consequences; but the purser not giving any definite directions, whether the application was to be external or internal, the liquor, I regret to say, for the honour of the British navy, was applied much lower down. For some weeks the men seemed half-crazed, and were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... I cannot; my year's pay would be all exhausted in a fortnight." "My dear fellow," replied the American commodore, "do you suppose, that I am so foolish as to go to such an expense, or to spend my pay in this manner; I have nothing to do with them except to give them. My purser provides everything, and keeps a regular account, which I sign as correct, and send home to government, which defrays the whole expenses, under the head of conciliation money." I do not mean to say that this is ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... this day may be considered as the first in which Jack really made his appearance on board, and it also was on this first day that Jack made known, at the captain's table, his very peculiar notions. If the company at the captain's table, which consisted of the second lieutenant, purser, Mr Jolliffe, and one of the midshipmen, were astonished at such heterodox opinions being stated in the presence of the captain, they were equally astonished at the cool, good-humoured ridicule with which they were received ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... named respectively Dundas and Hinton, I took more for their health's sake than for any other reason. The assistant surgeon was named Saunders—him I shipped as surgeon—while Millar, the captain's clerk, came with me as purser; I obtained a gunner's warrant for Henderson, to his great delight; and my remaining officers consisted of a fine, smart boatswain's mate, named Pearce, who came as boatswain, and a carpenter's mate named ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... sports, dances, concerts—this has always been a gay ship, and the purser is a rare hustler. We are due at Marseilles to-morrow morning, and we take in a cargo of the lazy luxurious folk who abhor 'the Bay,' and have travelled overland. I'd have done the same, only I'm frightfully hard up; three months at home, having a ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... Calpe, was appointed captain of the San Antonio, now called the St. Antoine; Lieut. Lamburn, first of the Caesar, to command the Calpe; Mr. Beard, master's mate of the Caesar, to be lieutenant of the St. Antoine, to which ship the purser and warrant officers of the Thames, also, were appointed. Mr. Champion, secretary to Sir James, was made purser of the Thames, while warrant officers were selected from the class of petty officers in the Caesar; Mr. John Brenton was appointed to fill the vacancy of lieutenant ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... on board of the Gomberoon Indiaman, having made a tolerable voyage; by which I hope I shall be enabled to repay, with interest, the seven hundred pounds which I borrowed of you before my departure from England. I take this opportunity of writing by our purser, who goes express with despatches for the Company, that you may have this satisfactory notice as soon as possible, relating to one whom I suppose you have long given over as lost. I have enclosed it in a letter to my broker, who, I hope, knows your address, and will forward it ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... may sound romantic, but it is tiring, tiring, tiring to have been in the midst of it; to have taken the tickets; to have caught the trains; to have chosen the cabins; to have consulted the purser and the stewards as to diet for the quiescent patient who did nothing but announce her belief in an Omnipotent Deity. That may sound romantic—but it is just a record ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... lower deck in search of one of the officers, to whom she might tell her fear, when she almost tumbled into the arms of the jolly fat purser, who had been so kind to all the children ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... probably owing to so many of the latter being members of this fraternity, that this seafaring phrase has become to be adopted. Be that as it may, however, the cadger and his mate sleep together, mess together, and share each other's good and bad luck; the most prudent of the two being always the purser. ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... strongly to my sympathies. He was an English sailor, and had been two or three years up in the gold mines, and had $3,000 or $4,000 in gold dust in a buckskin bag on his person. He showed it to me. I advised him to deposit it with the purser for safety; that I had done so with mine. He said they could not rob him. He was about the happiest man I ever saw. He was richer, in feeling, than the Vanderbilts. He said he had a wife and children in Liverpool, ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... before they might hope to see Fire Island Light. On the lee side of the boat, comfortably sheltered from the wind, and just by the door of the captain's room (which was theirs during the day), sat a little group of returning Americans. The Duchess (she was on the purser's list as Mrs. Martin, but her friends and familiars called her the Duchess of Washington Square) and Baby Van Rensselaer (she was quite old enough to vote, had her sex been entitled to that duty, but as the younger of two sisters she was still ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... recital. Shall we suffer him longer? Who else? Who is that cowering under the bulwarks yonder? The man who thinks he can imitate the Scottish accent! Splash! And the next one? What a crowd is here! How they block the hatchways, lumber the deck, and get between you and the purser's room — these fadmongers, teetotallers, missionaries of divers isms! Overboard with them, and hey for the Fortunate Isles! Then for tobacco in a hammock 'twixt the palms! Then for wine cooled in a brooklet losing itself in silver sands! Then for — but O these bilboes ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... stripped until they stood naked to the waist, waiting for the fight to begin. For we could see nothing of what was going forward. I was pacing up and down, for it was a task to quiet the nerves in that dingy place with the gun-ports closed, when about three bells of the dog, Mr. Mease, the purser, appeared on ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... another hundred when we make Calshot Light. To-night we'll find good sea-room, and leave their beacon to the lumber-heads that put it up. I thank you, lads, for honest work in an honest ship. Ask the purser for an extra tot of grog, and say the ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... The purser came and laughed at his distress, assuring him that he would survive. Next day he felt better and crawled out upon the deck. The sea still ran high, though the sky was clear, and the sun shone on the wildly ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... vague hopes, and paying ancient debts by contracting new ones, never presented itself in more amusing or kindly shape. A word should be added of the father of the girl that Herbert marries, Bill Barley, ex-ship's purser, a gouty, bed-ridden, drunken old rascal, who lies on his back in an upper floor on Mill Pond Bank by Chinks's Basin, where he keeps, weighs, and serves out the family stores or provisions, according to old professional ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... to tell you that it is not the intention of the king that you should use your personal resources in order to bring this enterprise to a successful end. The purser of the frigate has a considerable sum destined to the payment of the recruits who are embarked, and for necessary expenses, once the ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... first glimpses of education in America from the purser of an illustrious liner, who affirmed the existence of a dog—in fact, his own dog—so highly educated that he habitually followed and understood human conversations, and that in order to keep secrets from the animal it was necessary to spell out the keyword of a sentence instead of ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... purser of the Ariadne had been sent to the sick-bay and was likely to die (and did die subsequently), Ferens was put into his uniform-three- cornered cocked hat, white knee-breeches, and white stockings. The purser of a man-of-war was generally a friend of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... As the vessel was British, the disposal of an Italian child was complicated. Not born on Italian soil, she was not eligible for the state institutions for orphans. I really forget the details. I had to make a declaration, of course, being the surgeon, but the captain and purser saw the authorities. On our return voyage we learned that they had found foster parents for the child, who received a grant out of the pension due to the widow had she lived. Since then, on only one occasion, a very painful one for me, I may say, have I had ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... seeing others off, till the bell rang, when there was a rush to the tug, and the big paddle-wheels got in motion. The children ran up and down the long, narrow saloon on to the decks at each end, while Miss Prosody was vainly trying to wrest the key of a sleeping-berth from the purser, who, the supply not being equal to the demand, was having rather a ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... service after our arrival there. Lieutenant-Commander Theodorus Bailey was in command of the vessel, Lieutenant William H. Macomb executive officer, and Passed-Midshipmen Muse, Spotts, and J. W. A. Nicholson, were the watch-officers; Wilson purser, and Abernethy surgeon. The latter was caterer of the mess, and we all made an advance of cash for him to lay in the necessary mess-stores. To enable us to prepare for so long a voyage and for an indefinite sojourn in that far-off country, the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of these devils to unbar or unfasten anything in order to fall into them. As to the Quartermaster and myself, we are both elderly men, and not of much account to mankind in general, as honest Pathfinder would say; and it can make no great odds to him whether he balances the purser's books this year or the next; and as for myself, why, if I were on the seaboard, I should know what to do, but up here, in this watery wilderness, I can only say, that if I were behind that bit of a bulwark, it would take a good deal of Indian logic ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... Badger, "is very well and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen's mess when the purser's junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I—you won't think me premature if ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... "Ask the purser to show us the passenger list. Even if they are down under some other names he'd know the Fogers if ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... how to confiscate a keg of claret, which Nips, the purser, keeps under his bunk. The old nipcheese lies there drunk half the day, and there's no getting ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Scotch-American, the Second an Irish-American, the Chief Engineer a plain unhyphenated American from Baltimore, Maryland. The purser, Mr. Codge, was still an Englishman, although he had lived in the United States since he was two years old,—a matter of forty-seven years and three months, if we are to believe Mr. Codge, who seemed rather proud of the fact that his father had neglected to forswear allegiance to ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... the purser, one of the mates, one of the marine officers, and the fourth lieutenant, to keep me company, Sir Gervaise," answered the secretary, smiling like one accustomed to his superior's jokes, and who cared very little about them. "When you send us all back to Scotland, I'm thinking ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Edinburgh; a barber's son; spent most of his life at sea; perished in the wreck of the frigate Aurora, of which he was purser; author of the well-known poem ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... N. treasurer; bursar, bursary; purser, purse bearer; cash keeper, banker; depositary; questor^, receiver, steward, trustee, accountant, Accountant General, almoner, liquidator, paymaster, cashier, teller; cambist^; money changer &c (merchant) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the convention to which he had once conformed: "If Robertson's style is bad, that is to say, too big words and too many of them, I am afraid he caught it of me." Lucian would have dealt as mercilessly with that later style as Archibald Campbell, ship's purser and son of an Edinburgh Professor, who used the form of one of Lucian's dialogues, "Lexiphanes," for an assault of ridicule upon pretentious sentence-making, and helped a little to get rid of it. Lucian laughed ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... in, sir. But I thinks you'd better go ashore, for the Harlow's purser's ashore. If you can't get passage on the Harlow my schooner's here doing nothin' while I goes to St. Johns for goods, and I'll have my men run you ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... man. "North o' Point Barrow, a year an' more ago. Brought me up all standin'. What are you? Steamer man? Purser, maybe?" ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... gratified and stimulated his natural taste for adventures, and also proved financially successful, his trading ventures at last met with a sad reverse, and he resolved to abandon commerce, and enter the service of the Royal Navy. He was made purser, and in this position he entered upon a new series of adventures. He was present at many naval engagements. But he lost neither life nor limb. At last he was pensioned, and became a resident at Greenwich Hospital. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... or the purser's strong room, I imagine," Tom answered. "Hardley didn't actually see it, but he said those two places were constantly guarded. I'm inclined to think the purser would have charge of the gold. But ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... heads of the crocodiles was in the hands of Felix, who was the clerk of the captain on board the ship, and it was proper to make him purser of the Blanchita. What to do with it was the next question. Louis's advice was asked for, and he promptly suggested that it should be divided into ten parts, and a share given to all but himself; and this was ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... meekest and most vexatious of the passengers, and Basil mutely blessed his servile soul. Few white Americans, he said to himself, would behave so decently in his place; and he could not conceive of the American steamboat clerk who would use the politeness towards a waiting crowd that the Canadian purser showed when they all wedged themselves in about his window to receive their stateroom keys. He was somewhat awkward, like the porter, but he was patient, and he did not lose his temper even when some of the crowd, finding ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "The purser tells me Escalante gave him a little packet belonging to her—very valuable, which he ordered kept in the safe until their agent should call for ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... unwinking eyes which showed white all around the pupil. Simpson, labouring with the clumsy oars, tried to forget him. It was hot—hotter than it had seemed at first; sweat ran into his eyes and he grew a little dizzy. The quarantine launch with its load of uniforms, among which the purser's white was conspicuous, passed, giving them its wake; there was no sound from it, only a blaze of teeth and eyeballs. Simpson glanced over his shoulder at it. The purser was standing in the stern, clear of the awning, his head quizzically on one side and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... the captain, tersely. "Get her to bed. Number Eight, take her ticket to the purser, get her stateroom key, and ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... only two other patients in the white men's ward: the purser of a gunboat, who had broken his leg falling down a hatchway; and a kind of railway contractor from a neighbouring province, afflicted by some mysterious tropical disease, who held the doctor for an ass, and indulged in secret debaucheries of patent medicine which his Tamil servant used to smuggle ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the southwest and northwest, but the wool is of coarse grade. An important industry in these regions, especially in the neighborhood of Azua, is goat-raising. My inquiry as to the population of Azua was answered by the purser of the Clyde line steamer: "About three thousand people and about three million goats." Though his estimate of the number of goats may have been somewhat exaggerated, the fact is that they are everywhere in evidence and charge through the streets in droves, and ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... main companionway. Here the two men left us, to seek certain distinguished passengers, I suppose, whose views upon the questions of the day were (presumably) anxiously awaited by an expectant public. Godfrey stopped in front of the purser's office, and passed his card through the little window to ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... lower deck I found him with the purser. As I spoke he turned, thrust out to me an eager hand—and then I saw what was that difference that had so moved me. He knew, of course by my silence and involuntary shrinking the shock my closer look had given me. His eyes filled; he turned brusquely ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... sylvan Amazons who could handle any thing, from the hunting-knife to the ponderous axe; and she dressed in the true sylph-like costume of the backwoods. Her robe, which appeared to be the only garment with which she encumbered herself, fitted her, as they say at sea, "like a purser's shirt on a handspike," and looked for all the world like an inverted sack, with appropriate apertures cut for head and arms; she wore shoes, in compliment to her guests—her hair hung about her shoulders in true Indian style; and altogether she was a genuine sample of backwoods' civilization. ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... We are now at Purser's Cross, and after a digression southward shall presently return. East End House, pulled down in 1885, stood at the corner where Delvino Road now joins the Green. It was the residence for some time of Mrs. Fitzherbert, morganatic wife of George, ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... before them, and by 5.30 we were all packed on the boat, one hundred and twenty horses and some two dozen men. We were a seedy and careworn lot, in vivid contrast with the smartly uniformed purser of the boat. The rates were exorbitant, but there was nothing to do but to pay them. However, Borland and I, acting as committee, brought such pressure to bear upon the purser that he "threw in" a dinner, and there was a joyous rush for the table when this good news was announced. For the first ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... our ship had a brother, who, soon after the French were beaten out of the Canadas, went out there to try his fortune. He had only three hundred pounds in the world; he has been there now about four years, and I read a letter from him which the purser received when the frigate arrived at Portsmouth, in which he states that he is doing well, and getting rich fast; that he has a farm of five hundred acres, of which two hundred are cleared; and that if he only had some children large enough to help him, he would soon be worth ten ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... officers thought it advisable to despatch her for relief to the Isle of France, distant about four hundred miles. The superior officers finding it impossible to leave the crew, dedicated the charge of her to the purser. We furnished him with two sextants, a navigation book, sails, oars, and log line. Six officers and eight men, who perfectly understood the management of the boat, joined him. He was directed to run first into the latitude, and then bear up for the land. On the 17th he arrived at the Mauritius, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... for some time exclusively to the liqueur brandy, and his spirits, which had been pretty fair all morning, now prodigiously rose. He proceeded to adjust his whiskers finally before the glass. 'Devilish rich,' he remarked, as he contemplated his reflection. 'I look like a purser's mate.' And at that moment the window-glass spectacles (which he had hitherto destined for Pitman) flashed into his mind; he put them on, and fell in love with the effect. 'Just what I required,' he said. 'I wonder what I look like now? A humorous novelist, I should think,' and he began ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... sir. If either of the midshipmen that have been killed is about my size, I should be glad to rig myself out with a suit from his chest, for my appearance at present is rather undignified for a British officer. I should also be glad if the purser's clerk would issue a couple of suits for my two men. I may tell you that they have been with me in every ship in which I have served, and indeed entered the navy with me. I therefore regard them quite as ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... it was not until December 8, 1782, that he was ready to sail, which he did the next day. Lieutenants Patrick Fletcher and Nicholas Gardner, John Buckley, Master; James Geagan, Surgeon, and Samuel Cooper, Purser, demanded two-thirds of their wages, "though they had received as much prize-money as they knew what to do with." Captain Barry informed them that he had no authority to pay them and had no money if he had. They refused to go on board the "Alliance" and do their duty. Accordingly, Captain ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... little piles made of the gold, but neither the captain nor Arthur were much the wiser. The purser might have computed it, but Captain Beresford did not propose this, thinking perhaps that it was safer that no report of a treasure should ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... almost unbroken by a good harbor, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Gibraltar, their services in communicating with the shore were simply invaluable. The head Kroomen exercised despotic power over their respective gangs, and the men were given fanciful names, and so entered on the purser's books. Bottle-o'-Beer, Jack Frying-Pan, Tom Bobstay, Upside Down, and the like, were favorite names; and our fun-loving young sailing-master hints, in his letters of the time, that the archives of the fourth auditor's office at Washington may possibly embalm the ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... some two and twenty, A- by name, goes out in a nondescript capacity as part purser, part telegraph clerk, part generally useful person. A- was a great comfort during the miseries [of the gale]; for when with a dead head wind and a heavy sea, plates, books, papers, stomachs were ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... coarseness, while his indolence is accommodated by the industry, of his secretary. Then Young[5] knows many people, many places, and many things; nobody knows whence he comes or what is his origin, but he was a purser in the navy, and made himself useful to the Duke of Devonshire when he went to Russia, who recommended him to Melbourne. He was a writer and runner for the newspapers, and has always been an active citizen, struggling and striving to get on in the world, and probably with no inconsiderable ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... in a few moments also left his seat, but proceeded in the opposite direction. He made his way into the purser's room, and carefully ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... second or other assistant engineer, mate, purser, assistant purser, or surgeon, 86 per cent in addition to the above-allowed sum; that is ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson
... on the subject of the apparent anomaly. A forecastleman, addressing a petty officer, inquired how she could hail from San Francisco, then belonging to the United States, and fly the Peruvian flag. "Why, look ye, you nincompoop," was the reply, "can't there be more'n one Jack Jones on the purser's books, and wherefore shouldn't there be more than one San Francisco in the chart of the world? Doesn't it stand to reason, seeing it's a saint's name, and they're all Catholics along that coast, that they should have a ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... account of all provisions received from the victualler. He kept the ship's muster-book, with some account of every man borne upon it. He made out passes, or pay-tickets for discharged men (ibid.), and, according to Boteler, he was able "to purse up roundly for himself" by dishonest dealing. The purser (Boteler says the cook) received 6d. a month from every seaman, for "Wooden Dishes, Cans, Candles, Lanthorns, and Candlesticks for the Hold" (Monson). It was also his office to superintend the steward, in the serving out of the provisions and other ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... skipper of the Thompson craft, with "My daughter"—that's what her ma always called her—as first mate, and Milo as general roustabout and purser. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... man. He wore a black-silk tie, in a sailor's running-knot, the ends loose; his waistcoat was unbuttoned, and his coat was a kind of jacket; not to speak of his swinging walk and careless pose. In fact, he had been a sailor; he had made two voyages to India and back as assistant-purser, or purser's clerk, on board a P. and O. boat, but some disagreement with his commanding officer concerning negligence, or impudence, or drink, or laziness—he had been charged in different situations and at different times with all these vices, either together or separately—caused ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... A.D. 1851, one John Caphart, of Norfolk, Va., came to Boston, in pursuit of one Shadrach, alleged to be a fugitive slave and the property of John Debree, a purser in the navy, and attended by Seth J. Thomas, Esq., as counsel, made his complaint, as agent and attorney of the said owner, before George T. Curtis, Esq., U. S. Commissioner. On the evening of the 14th, the following warrant was ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... feet in height, with a trunk that measures 7 feet in girth at 3 feet from the ground, with a spread of branches measuring 45 feet. These dimensions have been considerably exceeded in other cases. In 1837 a tree at Purser's Cross measured 60 feet and more in height. Loudon himself had a small tree in his garden at Bayswater on which a female branch was grafted. It is to be feared that this specimen has ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... "sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home. We don't touch this side the Golden Gate. So you may as well see the purser when he gets up and have him assign you a berth. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Publishers." On opening it there were his "Andernach" and "St. Goar," and his "Salzburg" opposite a beautifully-engraved plate, all hills, towers, boats, and figures moving picturesquely under the sunset, in Turner's manner more or less, "Engraved by E. Goodall from a drawing by W. Purser." It was almost like being Mr. ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... alarm had been passed on to those aboard the liner. That great craft, bound up from South Africa, carried diamonds and gold coin, in the purser's vaults in the hold, amounting in value to more than four ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... "The purser will fetch your husband, madame," said the man. "In fact, that officer has already been notified that you are entertaining a man other than your husband behind the locked door ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had served as a midshipman in an East Indiaman, the Asia, but having been caught red-handed robbing the purser of brandy and wine, he was flogged and sent to serve as a sailor before the mast. In 1750, while in the Red Sea, he deserted his ship and entered the service of the Sultan of Ormus. Finding Johnson to be a clever sailor, the Sultan appointed him admiral of his ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... was the purser, and the one who had stood talking with Captain Hosmer when Hope ran out to him, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... sunlight, and they played about like a shoal of young porpoises. I must have stayed there an hour, for when I came down there was considerable stir on board. A passenger was missing and we were being held while a search of the ship was made. I was getting most excited when the purser, who is the sternest and best looking man you ever saw, came up and pounced upon me. "Have you been inspected?" he demanded, eyeing me from head to foot. "Not any more than at present," I answered meekly. "Come with ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... the captain said. "You see, the water-spout is only six feet long from the wall to the eaves. There's good footing on the brackets. It's three quick steps. Then one vigorous heave over the parapet. There you are, snug as a purser's ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... "You're the Purser, I suppose, detected keeping a jackass among the poultry! eating all the food of our live stock, and we having kid every day. Though both my legs are off, I'll have a fling at you!" and so saying, Essper, aided by the light of the lantern, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... surveillance, that the worst characters will, if they can, take up the greatest quantity of slops, which they convert either into money or grog, whenever an opportunity presents itself. The really steady men generally look clean and neat as long as possible, without much assistance from the purser. Then again, the boats' crews of all surveying vessels are necessarily so much more exposed, that they not only the sooner wear out their ordinary clothing, but absolutely require additional comforts in that way. I am therefore ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... Co. in Nassau, the "King Conch" as he was irreverently styled by us outside barbarians. Speaking of the firm upon one occasion he assured me the members were as wealthy as the "Roths children." My good purser and the old captain were fast friends, the former fighting the old fellow's battles in Rebeldom; and once, when the latter was unjustly treated in Wilmington, the purser "took the daggers," and bore him triumphantly through ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... Samuel Linton. Thomas Shelby. James Alexander. Robert Harris, Jun. John Foard. Jonathan Buckaloe. Charles Alexander, Sen. Henry Powell. William Rea. Samuel Hughes. Charles Alexander, Jun. William Shields. Charles Polk, Jun. John Purser. William Lemmond, 'Clerk to the said company, and Shurgeon ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... that you are Miss Allen, at your old trade of picking up little art relics for wealthy families in England and America. You will have yourself rowed directly over to the Slavonia's landing ladder—you can see it there, not two hundred feet away—and go on board and secure a stateroom from the purser. The clearing papers can be attended to later. I'll have the Laminian dingey take me ashore, somewhere down near Barcola, if it can possibly be done in this wind. Then I'll come out to the Slavonia later, having, you see, just arrived ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... mortification to see the ship set sail without me; however, my nephew left me two servants, or rather one companion and one servant; the first was clerk to the purser, whom he engaged to go with me, and the other was his own servant. I then took a good lodging in the house of an Englishwoman, where several merchants lodged, some French, two Italians, or rather Jews, and one Englishman. Here I stayed above nine months, considering what course to take. ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... thanked the man and went below, to find the music room tenanted by a full muster of his fellow passengers, all more or less indignantly waiting to be cross-examined by the party of port officials from the tender—the ship's purser standing by together with the second and third officers and a number ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... gingery little go one day, with the whole crew of the castle, from head purser down to the second assistant pan wrastler, holding their breath in the background, and I was playing shower bath for the Boss with a leather bucket, dipping out of the fountain pool and sousing it over him, when I spots a ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... complicated accounts delivered to the Chilian Government and unquestioned in 1821-2, was an unworthy course, the more so as most of the explanations required were of a paltry description, even to the expenditure of a single dollar in the purser's accounts—as though amidst operations of such magnitude as had successfully resulted in the accomplishment of every object proposed, my time could be occupied in minor details, yet even to these I was compelled ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... of the most striking novels - not plays, though it's more of a play than anything else of his - I ever read. He had such a sweet, sound soul, the old boy. The death of the two pirates in FORTUNE BY SEA AND LAND is a document. He had obviously been present, and heard Purser and Clinton take death by the beard with similar braggadocios. Purser and Clinton, names of pirates; Scarlet and Bobbington, names of highwaymen. He had the touch of names, I think. No man I ever knew had such a sense, such a tact, for English nomenclature: Rainsforth, Lacy, Audley, Forrest, Acton, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for a change in my identity were powerful. Besides, a "purser's name" was a common thing among sailors. And although I felt unwilling to forego my claim to American citizenship, even for a brief period, I convinced myself that no evil to anyone, but much good to myself, would be likely ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Janet was purser and steward. She had to decide what food was wanted, and to keep the money. Hester was the official letter-writer, and was under a promise to write home every other evening. Robert was the guide and geographer; he kept the maps. He was ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... wrecked off Cape Colonna, on the coast of Greece, before he was eighteen; and this misfortune is the subject of his poem. Again, in 1760, he was cast away in the Channel. In 1769, the Aurora frigate, of which he was the purser, foundered in Mozambique Channels, and he, with all others on board, went down with her. The excellence of his nautical directions and the vigor of his descriptions establish the claims of his poem; but it has the additional interest attaching to his curious experience—it ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... trip with a Finnish skipper, disconcertingly cross-eyed, a Lascar mate who looked like a pirate and had a voice like a school-girl, a purser addicted to the piccolo late at night, and fellow-passengers who jabbered interminably about nothing at all in half a dozen languages. So Trask regarded the spires and red roofs of Manila with the hungry eyes of a man who has been ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... "Tepaleen," is engr. by F. Finden from a drawing by W. Purser; the Title-vignette, "Constantinople," is engr. by E. Finden from a drawing by ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... reached the shore at the same time. When they grounded in the shallow water there was still five yards of rolling surf between them and dry sand. Then half-clothed Caribs dashed into the water, and brought in on their backs the Valhalla's purser and the little native officials in their cotton undershirts, blue trousers with red stripes, and ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... it, which has only just now been picked up and returned to me, and so not a dry rag of my own to help myself to, I was right glad to rig myself out in the squire's clothes, which, fitting me like what our friend the admiral would say, 'purser's shirt upon a handspike,' made me look for all the world like an unstuffed effigy of a Guy Fawkes—a figure so superlatively ridiculous, that two light-hearted young girls, who were unable to help wellnigh ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... in stealing our vessel, since Hartog considered his punishment in having been marooned upon a desert island commensurate with his offence. He was, therefore, permitted to join us in the cabin, and was given employment as ship's purser, for which he was well suited. He expressed great contrition for what he had done, and I honestly believe at the time he intended to serve us faithfully. But treachery once practised is oft-times repeated, so I made up my mind to keep a watchful ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... on deck, and they disappeared into the purser's cabin to make out the bill of lading. The hatch was opened, and the steam crane began hauling barrels and sacks out of the boat, and then depositing other great barrels in their place, according to the simplest form of barter. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... to be done, I suppose," he said; "for the old rule runs, 'obey orders, if you break owners'; though the maxim which says, 'one hand for the owner, and t'other for yourself,' is quite as good, and has saved many a hearty fellow from a fall that would have balanced the purser's books. Not that I mean a purser's books are not as good as any other man's; but that when a man is dead, his account must be closed, or there will be a false muster. Well, if the thing is to be done, the next question is, how ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... substantial or in better repair. A garrison, composed of marines from the United States' ships, and volunteers enlisted from the American settlers in the country, is now stationed here. The post is under the command of Purser Watmough, of the United States sloop-of-war Portsmouth, commanded by Captain Montgomery. During the evening I visited several public places (bar-rooms), where I saw men and women engaged promiscuously at the game of monte. Gambling is a universal vice in California. All classes and both sexes ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... East India Company: for the sub-lieutenants get 280 pounds, brigadiers, 2,400 pounds, and generals of divisions, 4,000 pounds. What with the military men, a number of rich young Englishmen on their travels, and the hospitable efforts of the purser, the time passed quickly on the Mongolia. The best of fare was spread upon the cabin tables at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the eight o'clock supper, and the ladies scrupulously changed their toilets twice a day; ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... things, his heart was elated, and he rejoiced in the death of Smallbones, and no longer felt any compunction. But a light is coming aft, and Vanslyperken is waiting the anticipated report. It is a solitary purser's dip, as they are termed at sea, emitting but feeble rays; and Vanslyperken's eyes are directed to the door of the cabin to see who carries it. To his horror, his dismay, it is brought in by the drowned Smallbones, who, with a cadaverous, and, as he supposes, unearthly ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... scanty pay by defrauding the crew. Weevilly biscuits and meat of briny antiquity were therefore the rule, excess of salt and close packing being deemed adequate safeguards against decay. Finally the indurated mass became so susceptible of polish as in the last resort to provide the purser with a supply of snuff-boxes. One little comfort was allowed, namely, cocoa for breakfast. But the chief solace was rum, cheap, new, and fiery, from the West Indies. This and the rope-end formed the nexus of the crew. As for the pay, from which alone the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... it almost drove me mad with jealousy, and in a fit of frenzy I stabbed her to death with her own toy dagger and left her lying on the bed. The next morning I quietly boarded the steamer for Europe, and keeping out of sight until away from land, I started to go to the purser's office to pay for my passage, when the very first person I met was you. You can well imagine how it startled me to see one whom I thought was dead. But after the first shock had passed away, and learning from ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... pier to ship. Fenley, therefore, would have a sharp eye for the quietly dressed men who stand close to the steamer officials at the head of the gangway, but would hardly expect to find Nemesis hidden in the purser's cabin. Through a porthole Furneaux saw every face and, on the third essay, while the fashionable crowd which elects to pay higher rates for the eleven o'clock express from Victoria was struggling like less exalted people to be on board quickly, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... "In summer he is purser on the steamboat; in winter he is the miller. That is six white men. John Gaviller is no good yet. There is the crew of the steamboat, and the men who work for wages, maybe fifteen natives, ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner |
