"Auction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to all de slabe-pens an' buy up a heap ob worn-out, or'nary old niggers, what had been worked to def in de rice-swamps, an' nobody wouldn't gib five dollars for. Den he marries de peartest ob de gals to de mizzablest ob de ole men. When de time fur de auction come, dar was plenty ob buyers for de gals, but nobody wanted dem good-for-nuffin' ole husbands. 'Can't help it,' says de driber—'Can't help it, no way whatsumebber: it's ag'in our principles to part ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... process, the goods will be sour and hurt the business, if the lot gets out under the trade-mark. The best thing to do with it is to send it to the coal heap, for if you try to get your money back at a Front Street auction room, some hand-cart syndicate will nab it and cut your price. They'll undersell the direct trade, and when you have finished writing an explanation to the men on the road, you'd wish you had eaten the whole ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... was, and promised to bring his endorsement in a few days, which was satisfactory to them, and they let him have the goods. But the paper did not come. One of the firm went to New York and there found some of the goods in an Auction store, and a part of them sold. He got out a writ and arrested Frank. His father was sent for, and settled this matter satisfactorily. I thought I would go up to New Hartford and see Capt. Merrills about ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... |was never lovelier than in her singularly simple | |wedding gown of satin with pearl trimmings, tulle | |sleeves, and enormous wedding veil. | | | |Society is dancing its way through the season. The | |fever is making inroads even upon the incessant | |auction-bridge playing, and he or she who neither | |dances nor plays auction has a dull time of it. | |Washington society is rather methodical in its | |dancing. Monday nights are given up to the | |subscription dances at the Playhouse, and another | |set at ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... neglect the other resources of a skilful virtuoso. Every auction afforded some picture, in which, though it had been overlooked by the ignorance of the times, he recognised the style of a great master, and made a merit of recommending it to some noble friend. This commerce he likewise ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... "corral" at one end of the island, and the best of the younger ones carefully culled out, the rest being set free again. Those selected are then at the first opportunity put on board a ship and carried off to Halifax, where rough, shaggy, ungroomed, and untamed, they are sold at auction to the ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... accomplishment which the other girls did not. She could play the piano most skilfully, although as yet she had no instrument. Three weeks, however, after her return a rich man, who lived in the village which was known as "Over the River," failed, and all his furniture was sold at auction. Many were the surmises of my grandmother, on the morning of the sale, as to what "Cap'n Howard could be going to buy at the vandue and put in the big lumber wagon," which ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... so much joviality indulged (in Wales) as on that of an auction "under a distress for rent," (which was the case here)—an occasion of calamity and ruin to the owner. Even in the event of an auction caused by a death, where the common course of nature has removed the possessor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... strewed all over the place. The books of a good library—my solace in our solitude—were not taken away, but handfuls of the leaves were torn out and scattered over the place. My stock of medicines was smashed; and all our furniture and clothing carried off and sold at public auction to pay the expenses of the foray. I do not mention these things by way of making a pitiful wail over my losses, in order to excite commiseration; for though I feel sorry for the loss of lexicons, dictionaries, &c., &c., which had been the companions of my boyhood, yet, after all, ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... sell a portion of the College lands. From 1858 to 1860, therefore, forty-four lots, averaging in size one hundred by one hundred and twenty feet, were offered for sale by the University. Some of these were sold at auction. They were situated on Sherbrooke, Victoria, Mansfield and University Streets. Money was also loaned by the College authorities to purchasers of lots to enable them to erect buildings. The temporary revenue of the College was ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... clairvoyance, we have an illustration of the early acquaintance of mankind with some of the forms of mesmerism. The passage is found in Spartian's life of Ditius Julian, the rich Roman who purchased the Empire when it was put up to auction by the Praetorian guards. "Julian was also addicted to the madness of consulting magicians, through whom he hoped either to appease the indignation of the people, or to control the violence of the soldiery. For they immolated certain victims ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... sheep than a lamb, and human life on the whole was held rather cheap in consequence. They are the days when in Liverpool the privateers were daily fitting out or bringing in the "prizes," and when, in Lord Street Offices, distant cargoes of "living ebony" were put to auction by steady, intensely respectable, Church-going merchants. But especially they are the days of war and the fortunes of war; days of pressgangs, to kidnap unwilling rulers of the waves; of hulks and prisons filled to overflowing, even in a mere commercial port like Liverpool, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... called Grand Terre, the privateers would often make public sale of their cargoes and prizes by auction. And the most respectable inhabitants of the State were accustomed to journey there in order to purchase the goods which the Barratarians had to offer. They ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... (the second Earl of that name), experienced some pecuniary difficulties, and the valuable collection of pictures and books formed by his predecessor, was sold by auction, and dispersed for the benefit of his creditors. Aubrey's description, from his own familiar knowledge of them before the sale, is therefore ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... Mann bought my mother-in-law (Dedonia). She was eighteen years old. They sold them off on Cavalry Depot where the ship landed. They put her up to stand on a barrel and auctioned them off at public auction. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... neighbouring villages, the sultan receives yearly 10,000 dollars. Of all sheep or goats, he is entitled to a fifth. On the sale of every slave, he has, in addition to the head-money, a dollar and a half, which, at the rate of 4,000, gives another 6,000 dollars. The captured slaves are sold by auction, at which the sultan's brokers attend, bidding high only for the finest. The owner bids against them until he has an offer equal to what he considers as the value of the slave; he has then three-fourths of the money paid to him, while one-fourth is paid by the purchaser ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... entitled "Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat," there was related our hero's adventures in a fine craft which was recovered from the thieves and sold at auction. There was a mystery connected with the boat, and for a long time Tom could not solve it. He was aided, however, by his chum, Ned Newton, who worked in the Shopton Bank, and also by Mr. Damon and Eradicate Sampson, ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... the firm now occupies was built nearly twenty years ago. It had been the site of an old-fashioned hotel—which, like many others of its class, bore the name of 'Washington,' and which was eventually destroyed by fire. Mr. Stewart bought the plot at auction for less than $70,000, a sum which now would be considered beneath half its value. To this was subsequently added adjacent lots in Broadway, Reade and Chambers streets, and the present magnificent pile reared. To such of our readers as walk Broadway, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... up there. One advantage of membership is that its roster includes experts in every known line of erudition, from scarabs to skeeing. For example, I am now going to telegraph for aid from old Millington, who seldom misses a book auction and is a human bibliography of the wanderings of all rare volumes. I'm going to find out from him what British publication of the late seventeenth century in Latin is very valuable; also what volumes of that time have changed hands in ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to see, at the American Art Galleries, the great collection of late Gothic and early Renaissance furniture and other art treasures, brought together in the restored Davanzati Palace of Florence, Italy. The collection was sold at auction, and is now scattered. Of course those who saw it in its natural setting in Florence, were most fortunate of all. But with some knowledge and imagination, at the sight of those wonderful things,—hand-made all of them,—the most casual among those who crowded the galleries ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... gaming-table and the keeping of mistresses as customs of Irish society; the other sold or allowed the highest offices and honours of the state—from a weighership in the butter market to an earl's coronet—to be put up at auction, and knocked down to the highest bidder. How cheering in contrast with the shameful honours, flaunted abroad in those shameful days, are even the negative virtues of the Whig patricians, and how splendid the heroic constancy of Charlemont, Grattan, Curran, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... obliged, from his extreme poverty, to carry the timber on his shoulders from the Albany Basin to his shop—a distance of two miles. This labor he performed at evenings. The article done, he had then to carry it to the furniture auction rooms in Chatham-square, for sale. The profit, over and above the cost of the materials, constituted the whole of his income—sometimes amounting to a dollar upon each, and sometimes to not more than two and six-pence—according to the run of the sales. And ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... sharp eyes of the revenue solicitors, and was, by extents from the court of Exchequer, soon reduced below his original state to that of confinement in the Fleet. All his effects were sold, and among the rest his books, by an auction at Portsmouth, for a very small price; for the bookseller was now discovered to have been perfectly a master of his trade, and, relying on Mr. Boyce's finding little time to read, had sent him not only the most lasting wares of ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... give to Sam, the strange colored boy, and she and Rose and Vi came downstairs with them to the room in which the children had been playing at first. Russ and Laddie had set up the sectional bookcase once more and the room looked less like the wreck of an auction ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... heard a strange, wild strain Sound high above the modern clamor, Above the cries of greed and gain, The curbstone war, the auction's hammer; And swift, on Music's misty ways, It led, from all this strife for millions, To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... books, which was rather extensive, and rich in Oriental, especially Sanscrit literature, was sold by auction in Bonn, December, 1845. It appears by a chronological list prefixed to the catalogue, that reckoning both his separate publications and those contributed to periodicals, his printed works number ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... repelling them, but in the second voyage he met with the negro in a way that to him was more memorable. He and the young fellows with him saw, among the sights of New Orleans, negroes chained, maltreated, whipped and scourged; they came in their rambles upon a slave auction where a fine mulatto girl was being pinched and prodded and trotted up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, that "bidders might satisfy themselves," as the auctioneer said, of the soundness of the article to be sold. John Johnston and John Hanks and Abraham Lincoln saw these ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... a burden of as much as five thousand talents' weight; 202 and in each one there is a live ass, and in those of larger size several. So when they have arrived at Babylon in their voyage and have disposed of their cargo, they sell by auction the ribs of the boat and all the straw, but they pack the hides upon their asses and drive them off to Armenia: for up the stream of the river it is not possible by any means to sail, owing to the swiftness of the current; and for this reason they make their boats ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... enough to catch a butterfly in Lady Adela—still be bold enough to chain a panther in Flora Vyvyan. Let the world know—your world in each nook of its gaudy auction-mart—that Lione: Haughton is no pauper cousin—no penniless fortune-hunter. I wish that world to be kind to him while he is yet young, and can enjoy it. Ah, Morley, Pleasure, like Punishment, hobbles after us, pede claudo. What would have delighted us yesterday does not catch us up ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Southland of our America, we stood a well formed, sound limbed, healthy, intact young woman on the auction block and sold her to the biggest bidder for her beauty, her virtue, her heart, her honor, her soul and her body, and the established average price paid for such a young woman was eighteen hundred dollars ...
— Chicago's Black Traffic in White Girls • Jean Turner-Zimmermann
... auction-rooms, where you may find any article of wearing apparel or household furniture, from a lady's wig a la Caraculla to a bed a la Grecque: here are as many puffers as in a mock auction in London; and should you be tempted to bid, by the apparent ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... sick persons exposed at street-corners in order that they might beg the passers-by to prescribe for them, the prostitution of her votaries within the courts of the goddess Mylitta, and the disposal of marriageable girls by auction: Herodotus, however, regretted that this latter custom had fallen into abeyance. And yet to the attentive eye of a close observer even Babylon must have furnished many unmistakable symptoms of decay. The huge boundary wall ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... one's distractions," Selingman protested. "I confess that auction bridge, as it is played over here, is the one game in the world ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... transcendentalism, because it is full of immoderate dicta which would disorganize society, and should never be uttered, in my opinion, except behind the veil, among priests. As to displaying before the great, innocent eyes of a girl like Una all the horror of a slave-auction—a convent is better than such untimely revelations. Now, you must not think I am a Catholic. I know the Lord withholds the pure from seeing what they should not—blessed be the Lord!—but I will not be the one to put what should not be seen before ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... whereon his camp was pitched, had been sold, notwithstanding that circumstance, for its full value. So barefaced a contempt stung Hannibal to the quick; he, therefore, on the other side, put up to auction the shops of the goldsmiths round the Forum. After this bravado he retired, and, in his march, plundered the rich temple ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... would be more worthily treated, and the public taste and artists better served, by having even a smaller collection of works so arranged, than by a much larger one merely housed and hung four or five deep, as in an auction room?—Yes. But you put a difficult choice before me, because I do think it a very important thing that we should have many pictures. Totally new results might be obtained from a large gallery in which the chronological arrangement was perfect, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... lady, who had heard of my castle, once offered me for it a buhl cabinet, of angry and alarming redness and a huge idol of a gilded trough, standing on bandy legs, and gorged with artificial flowers. And I thanked her for her kind intentions, ordered a handcart, sent the lumber to auction, and applied the proceeds to the benefit of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hundred pounds and the lease and furniture of this house were all he left; but every day I find bills unpaid, many of them long-standing accounts, and my stock of money is diminishing rapidly. I think I should have an auction, dispose of the lease if I could, and go into cheap lodgings with Agnes and Eddie; but I fear I shall not be able to pay for his classes and colours. Can you suggest anything ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... He made his will thirteen days previous to it, and dictated and signed plain and accurate orders respecting his funeral. He directed his library of books and all his pictures to be sold by auction, and the money arising therefrom, together with what money he might have at his bankers or in his strong box, he bequeathed to his executor, Mr. Jesse Foot, of Dean Street, Soho. To Mrs. Mangeon (his landlady) he gave "all his prints in the room ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... of 'em been here twenty years or more,—shawls and bonnets and ball dresses, all frills and laces and ribbons; baby bonnets, too, all held for duty and storage or wreckage and land knows what. Flung the whole lot out for auction last year, and the women swarmed like bees from the big hotels and the cottages. Got bits of yellow lace, they said, for ten cents that was worth many dollars. The men folks tried to 'kick' about fever and small-pox in the old stuff, but not a woman would listen. Look ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... managers as myself. I further considered that by my irregular way of living I had wretchedly misspent my time which is the most valuable thing in the world. Struck with those reflections, I collected the remains of my furniture, and sold all my patrimony by public auction to the highest bidder. Then I entered into a contract with some merchants, who traded by sea: I took the advice of such as I thought most capable to give it me; and resolving to improve what money I had, I went ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... in which Cromwellian Ireland was Catholicized. Many of those who became large landowners by the Cromwellian confiscations, having no religious prejudices (some might say, no religious or humane feelings), when the leases of their tenants fell in, put the farms up to auction regardless of the feelings of the occupiers. As the Roman Catholics were content with a simpler manner of life than the Protestants, they generally offered higher rents; the dispossessed Protestants, driven from their homes, joined their brethren in ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... fiftieth year Jason Hartsorn knew nothing whatever about the position of his liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, spleen, and stomach except that they must be somewhere inside of him; then he attended the auction of old Doctor Hemenway's household effects and bid off for twenty-five cents a dilapidated clothes basket, filled with books and pamphlets. Jason's education as to his anatomy began almost at once then, for on the way home he fished out a coverless volume ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... begin stall-hunting as soon as you leave school or college and continue until past middle age, absorbing information from stalls, from catalogues, and from sale-rooms. The records of prices at which books have been sold in the auction rooms, and which are regularly issued, are useless in the hands of an inexperienced person. To make up your mind on Monday that you are going to begin a career of successful bargain-hunting and book-collecting is only ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... interpreted, had a special signification of their own: "It is stipulated, on my part, that I put myself up to auction, and that my estimate shall be regulated by your ladyship's highest bid." Thoroughly understanding the stipulation, Lady ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... of the missions were sold by public auction. The Indian converts, formerly attached to some of the missions, but now demoralized and wandering idly and miserably over the country, were ordered to return within a month to the few remaining missions, or those also would be sold. The Indians, having had enough of legislation and ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... in her folly until her husband's property was reduced to a mere pittance. There was a heavy mortgage upon the farm, and even a chattel-mortgage upon the furniture, and as the man who held them was stern and unrelenting, he had foreclosed, and the house was to be sold at auction. "Why has mother kept it from us?" said Maude, and Mrs. De Vere replied, "Pride and a dread of what you might say prevented her writing it, I think. I was there myself a few weeks since, and she said it could do no ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... government service during the war as a supply vessel, and was afterward sold at auction; her machinery was removed and sold as old iron. She was then converted into a sailing ship, and of late years has been used as a grain carrying vessel between San Francisco and Great Britain. On a recent voyage to Boston she was strained ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... said Bradley's voice, with the same suggestion of conveying important truths to the listening congregation within, "was took from the wreck of the Tamalpais. Brother Horley bought it at auction at Horse Shoe Bay and presented it. You know the Tamalpais ran ashore on Skinner's Reef, jest ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... The long tables which had so often, to use a hackneyed phrase, "groaned" beneath the weight of civic fare—the cosy high-backed stuffed chairs which had held many a portly citizen—nay, the very soup-kettles and venison dishes—all were to be submitted to the noisy ordeal of the auction hammer. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... few days later, that the Imperial wish was gratified, the occasion being an auction for the benefit of the American Red Cross Fund held one afternoon in the gold ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Tea was served with music by the Philadelphia orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and the tickets were ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... Sale.— N. sale, vent, disposal; auction, roup, Dutch auction; outcry, vendue[obs3]; custom &c. (traffic) 794. vendibility, vendibleness[obs3]. seller; vender, vendor; merchant &c. 797; auctioneer. V. sell, vend, dispose of, effect a sale; sell over the counter, sell by auction &c. n.; dispense, retail; deal in &c. 794; sell off, sell ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... cherished the idea of having her hospital incorporated, and placed in charge of the Zion African Methodist Church of Auburn, and she was particularly anxious to come into possession of a lot of twenty-five acres of land, near her own home, to present to it as a little farm. This lot was to be sold at auction, and on the day of the sale Harriet appeared with a very little money, and a determination to have the land, cost what ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... or two cowboys and several other citizens standing around talking earnestly. Sheriff comes out of open door with hand-lettered placard. He tacks it up beside a notice of an auction sale of stock, close to door. Draws attention of bystanders, who crowd ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... subject. He was ignorant of all their movements,—ignorant of everything but what related to the negro quarter. He had heard that himself, his wife, his daughter,—"the leetle Chloe,"—with all their fellow-slaves, were to be carried down to the city, and to be sold in the slave-market by auction. They were to be taken the following day. They were already advertised. That was all he knew. No, not all,—one other piece of information he had in store for me. It was authentic: he had heard the "white folks" talk of it to one another:—Larkin, Gayarre, ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... Mr. Stewart's collection, it never left his gallery until the auction sale of his collection, March 25th, 1887, when it was purchased by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt for the sum of $55,000, and presented to the Metropolitan Museum ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... supplies: 100 pounds of flour 2 pounds 10 shillings; 24 pounds of sugar 18 shillings; 3 pounds of tea 12 shillings; one bar of soap 4 shillings. Total 4 pounds 4 shillings. The money Mr. Williams gave for the stores was a higher amount than would have been obtained at a township by public auction. Neither did he purchase them so much because he wanted them as to oblige me. He also supplied us with as much beef and butter as we required to take with us, and would not accept payment for any supplies that ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... attached to the various commodities in which they deal. Thus, a person receiving a fish, a loaf, or a piece of meat, finds the advertisement of a dealer in silks and satins attached to the tail of the fish; that of an auction sale of domestic flannels wrapped around the loaf; and perhaps flattering notices of a compound for the extermination of rats ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... won the finest silver tea-service this side of the Aran Islands. Murphy knew no distinctions of race, creed or sex in the holy cause of charity. When our Methodist minister, who is universally popular, as his knowledge of a horse would be a credit to any denomination, got up an Auction Bridge Drive in aid of the Anti-Gambling League, Murphy came home with three pink antimacassars, a discourse by JEREMY TAYLOR and two months' pay out of the pocket of McDougal, the organist, who seems to play cards by ear. But Nemesis was lying in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... was delusive. Erasmus exclaimed, "If Christ does not deliver his people from this multiform ecclesiastical tyranny, the tyranny of the Turk will become less intolerable." Cardinals' hats were now sold, and under Leo X. ecclesiastical and religious offices were actually put up to auction. The maxim of life had become, interest first, honor afterward. Among the officials, there was not one who could be honest in the dark, and virtuous without a witness. The violet-colored velvet cloaks and white ermine ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... tattered hair-cloth sofa, of a very antiquated pattern, and a small old piano, whose tinny tones were only matched by its entire lack of tune. The last two valuable articles had been bought at auction, and some of the keys of the piano had been permanently silenced by its ride in an ox-cart from ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... are at auction on a beach, for example, the man of chief distinction in the town should not step in among a poor fraternity to take advantage of an occasion of cheapness, though it be done, as he may protest, to relieve the fishermen of a burden; nor should such a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rich, and the opening up of Schliemann's Division, where town lots were sold at auction, and Anheuser-Busch played an important part, helped ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... thousands of pounds for a gallery of paintings, and some poor boy or girl comes in, with open mind and poetic fancy, and carries away a treasure of beauty which the owner never saw. A collector bought at public auction in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare; but for nothing a schoolboy can read and ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... down on the dolls' pantomime, and the audience was applauding and hurrying off to make the rounds of the other attractions before dinner time. In clarion tones that made themselves heard above the din Emily Davis was advertising an auction of her animals, beginning with "one ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... Jose. The little immigrants flourished and multiplied in the bountiful pastures of the Santa Clara Valley, sending off three swarms the first season. The owner was killed shortly afterward, and in settling up his estate, two of the swarms were sold at auction for $105 and $110 respectively. Other importations were made, from time to time, by way of the Isthmus, and, though great pains were taken to insure success, about one half usually died on the way. Four swarms were brought ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... came to the inn, there was the postchaise in front of the door, the horses being led away to bait, and a little group of villagers standing round; for though the auction of the Why Not? was in itself a trite thing with a foregone conclusion, yet the bailiff's visit always stirred some show of interest. There were a few children with their noses flattened against the windows of the ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... a house, or even a piece of plate, was to many a man, who belonged to no political party, his death-warrant; for, although the confiscated property belonged to the state, and had to be sold by public auction, the friends and dependents of Sulla purchased it at a nominal price, as no one dared to bid against them. Oftentimes Sulla did not require the purchase-money to be paid at all, and in many cases he gave such property to his favorites without even the formality of a ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... to the gardener, who was sweeping up the newly-mown grass in the front of the house. She gave him hasty and unlimited directions, only seeming intent—if any one had been suspiciously watching her words and actions—to hurry him off to the distant village, where the auction was to take place. ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... match odd gauntlets, to lay out a maze of walks within five acres of ground, these were the grave employments of his long life. From these he turned to politics as to an amusement. After the labours of the print-shop and the auction-room, he unbent his mind in the House of Commons. And, having indulged in the recreation of making laws and voting millions, he returned to more important pursuits, to researches after Queen Mary's comb, Wolsey's red hat, the pipe which Van Tromp smoked during his last sea-fight, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... humble advantages. To have heard Coleridge was a thing to remember with pride as a trophy, but with pain as a trophy won by some personal sacrifice. To have heard Coleridge has now indeed become so great a distinction, that if it were transferable, and a man could sell it by auction, the biddings for it would run up as fast as for a genuine autograph of Shakespeare. The story is current under a thousand forms of the man who piqued himself on an interview which he had once enjoyed with royalty; and, being asked what he could ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Literary Property, will SELL by AUCTION, at their Great Room, 191. Piccadilly, on MONDAY, May 26, and five following Days, a most curious Collection of BOOKS, the property of a Gentleman, including Works on Animal Magnetism, Mesmerism, and Mesmeric Sleep; Angels and their Ministrations; Apparitions, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... Sly's King's Arms and Royal Hotel stands. Mim's travelling giant, otherwise Pickleson, happened at the self-same time to be trying it on in the town. The genteel lay was adopted with him. No hint of a van. Green baize alcove leading up to Pickleson in a Auction Room. Printed poster, "Free list suspended, with the exception of that proud boast of an enlightened country, a free press. Schools admitted by private arrangement. Nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the most fastidious." Mim swearing most horrible and terrific, in a pink ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... them, included also an infinite consumption for the pleasures, luxuries, whims, and debaucheries of our civil or military commanders. Most of those articles were delivered in kind, and what were not used were set up to auction, converted into ready money, and divided ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the quarrel occurred, he would undoubtedly have cited the case of Servilius Caepio and Livius Diusus. They married each other's sisters, and were united in the closest intimacy, and seemingly in the dearest mutual love; but as rivals in bidding for a ring at an auction- sale they had their first quarrel, which grew into intense mutual hatred, led almost to a civil war between their respective partisans, and bore no small part in starting the series of dissentions which issued in the Social War, and the destruction of not far from three ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... with potatoes, he told me quite seriously that he doubted if the crop could ever be sold, as he didn't think there were enough people in the country to eat them! I remember a parallel incident at the first auction sale of stock ever held at Chipping Campden, a lovely old town and, for centuries now long past, a leading centre of the Cotswold wool trade. The pens, in the wide spaces between the road and the footways, were, as I stood watching, rapidly filling ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... hundred head of this noble and beautiful race of animals, or the largest number of them owned by any one man in the world. In 1841, he announced his first sale of young bulls, and every year since that date has put up at public auction the male progeny of the herd. These sales usually take place in the first week of October, and are attended by from 300 to 500 persons from all parts of the kingdom. After carefully inspecting the various lots, they adjourn to a substantial luncheon ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... murder'd." We have a still more emphatic instance of the same kind in Goneril and Regan's hollow-hearted, and therefore highly rhetorical professions of love, when the doting old King invites his three daughters to an auction ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... mattered little to her, then, how or where she lived; all places were alike, since he was not in any of them, and she mechanically assented to any proposal that was made her, though she did cry out as one hurt, when John proposed an auction for the sale of household effects. "Oh, I can't," she moaned. "Your father made some of that furniture with his own hands," but the worldly-wise son, who had outgrown "foolish sentimentality," over-ruled ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... combination of marriageable qualities. I asked the value of a great auk's egg, and was surprised to learn that a specimen had recently been sold at auction for something like three hundred pounds. I inquired whether all the great auks' eggs that came on the market were genuine, or whether "faked" specimens were to be met with. I had heard, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... and make advances on them previously to their being lodged in that grand repository. There, money was lent on them at an interest of 10 per cent; and if the article pledged was not redeemed by a certain time, it was sold by public auction, and, the principal and interest being deducted, the surplus was paid to the holder of the duplicate. Thus the iniquitous projects of usury were defeated; and the rich, as well as the poor, went to borrow at the Mont de Piete. To obtain a sum ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... twaddle, and finally they'll fetch in a verdict that he got shot or stuck or busted over the head with something, and come to his death by the inspiration of God. And after they've buried him they'll auction off his things for to pay the expenses, and then's OUR ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... question), which, however, was disavowed by Taylor, but not till after many thousand copies had been sold. I dare say many people believe still that he was the author of this pamphlet. All his effects either have been or will be sold by auction. The funeral took place a fortnight after his death. Nothing could be managed worse than it was, and except the appearance of the soldiers in the chapel, which was extremely fine, the spectacle was by no means imposing; the cold was intense, and it is only ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... of joy. He has rich food to eat every day. He goes to the show every evening, when he is not on duty. He has a fine shirt on his back; patent-leather boots on his feet; the pick and choice of a dozen houses. He is of any age—chiefly of the conscript age; ranges singly or in couples; haunts auction houses; dodges enrolling officers; eats canvass-backs; smells of greenbacks; swears allegiance to both sides; keeps faith with neither; is hand and glove with ABE'S detectives as well as with WINDER'S Plugs; smuggles in an ounce of quinine for the Confederate Government, and smuggles ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... before we left, the sketches and other matter were sold by auction, it having been previously decided to devote the proceeds of the sale to the last No. 1 Hut annual ball. By way of explanation, it must be noted that the hut had an annual ball once a week, "dancing strictly prohibited." ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... a lot of cheap shoes to farmers which I got at a bargain at an auction," explained Joe. "Then I struck a fine new scheme. It brought me here. I'll explain to you later. Your story is the one that interests me. Tell me how you came to be ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... malt, vinous or spirituous liquors—or all three of them at once—and should, without seeming provocation, insist on picking a quarrel with the middle-aged stranger, whom we will call Mr. Z; and if further along in the voyage Mr. Z should introduce himself to you and suggest a little game of auction bridge for small stakes in order to while away the tedium of travel; and if it should so fall out that Mr. Y and his friend Mr. X chanced to be the only available candidates for a foursome at this fascinating pursuit; and if Mr. Z, being ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... the counts of Benavente, and contained not more than one hundred and twenty volumes. Many of these were duplicates; of Livy alone there were eight copies. The cathedral churches in Spain rented their books every year by auction to the highest bidders, whence they derived a ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... indefinite in its meaning, the verb may follow in the plural, as—Una cantidad de generos se vendio, or vendieron en subasta: A quantity of goods was or were sold by auction. ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... used to announce the date of the Duke of Rutland's rent-day. Another correspondent states that after service the clerk used to take his stand on one of the high flat tombstones and announce sales by auction, the straying of cattle, etc., and Sir Walter Scott wrote that at Hexham cattle-dealers used to carry their business letters to the church, "when after service the clerk was accustomed to read them aloud and ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... swollen? What is that God worth that allows such things in the world He governs? Did He govern this country when it had four millions of slaves?—when it turned the cross of Christ into a whipping-post—when the holy bible was an auction-block on which the mother stood while her babe was sold from her breast?—when bloodhounds were considered apostles? Was God governing the world when the prisoners were confined in the Bastille? ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... steel plates, wood-cuts, stereotype plates, &c. of Walter Scott's works, and of his life, by Lockhart, were to be sold in London, by auction, on the 26th March. This property belonged to the late Mr. Cadell of Edinburgh. The copyright of "Waverly" has five years more to run, and that of the works generally does not terminate for twenty years. This is the largest copyright property ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... the two dates. It was evident that somewhere between April 18th and May 5th Tom had come a cropper. With a smile, half bitter, Frederick skimmed on through the correspondence: "There's a wreck on Midway Island. A fortune in it, salvage you know. Auction in two days. Cable me four thousand." The last he examined, ran: "A deal I can swing with a little cash. It's big, I tell you. It's so big I don't dare tell you." He remembered that deal—a Latin-American revolution. He had sent the cash, and Tom had swung it, and himself as well, into a prison ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... but positive) at the bottom of that close fraternity created by the faith in the Saviour. Between brethren, the relation of master and slave, of merchant and merchandise, cannot long subsist. To sell on an auction-block or deliver over to a slave-driver an immortal soul, for which Christ has died, is an enormity before which the Christian sense of right will always recoil in the end. "In this," it is written, "there is neither Greek nor Jew, nor circumcision nor ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... not a town where the houses are not "turned out of windows," and all the furniture of every kind piled up in the streets; and as if to show a pretty general bankruptcy, together with the artist's own poverty, you would imagine an auction going on in every other house, by the Turkey carpets and odds and ends hanging from the windows. We have even seen a "Rag Fair" in a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... accumulate, is unknown to these poor slaves, who hold their lands by the most uncertain of all tenures,"[108] We are told, that the provision ground, the creation of the negro's industry, and the hope of his life, is sold by public auction to pay his master's debts. Is it wonderful that the term prudence should be unknown in the ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... freehold and Middlecoat's is freehold, and it's nature, I suppose, to be jealous of any third party interlopin'. But I don't want the land, and so I've told him; nor I won't bid against him and run up the price,—though that's what they're aimin' at by an auction." ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... your cows over to the shire and auction them off for what they'll bring. You can sue this town and recover the real value of the cows, along with interest at twelve per cent. That is to say, you can get judgment against ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... previous to landing, a bazaar was held on the boat for the benefit of the French hospitals. This was a very successful affair; contributions were made or supposed to be made by all the passengers. Among other things, I donated a quart bottle of champagne. This was sold at auction, the first bid was one dollar, made with the understanding that the last bid was to be no higher, but was to get the champagne. These bids continued until the bottle finally brought seventy-five dollars. It turned out to be a very good article ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... stood with a wooden hammer behind the table, and the gaming public swarmed on the other side. Numbers ranging from "low field" and forty-five to sixty-five and "high field" were sold by auction to the highest bidder. Excitement was intense while the cartographer in clerical glasses ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... in the afternoon the sale took place. Everything worked as the Squire had expected. It being the general popular supposition that there were to be no more sheriffs' sales, there were no persons present at the auction save the officers of the law and the gentlemen who were to bid. Only here and there an astonished face peered out of a window at the proceedings, and a knot of loafers, who had been boozing away the afternoon, stood staring in the door of the tavern. That was all. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... the irrelevant violence of tongues, the broken, half-comprehensible tumult, was smitten and divided by a wave of rhythmic sound. It pushed aside the cries of the sweetmeat sellers, and mounted above the cracked bell that proclaimed the continual auction of Krist, Dass and Friend, dealers in the second-hand. In its vivid familiarity it seemed to make straight for the two Englishmen, to surround and take possession of them, and they paused. The source of it was plain—an open door under a vast white signboard dingily lettered "The Salvation Army." ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the all-important bar, where drinks flow as freely as the river outside; but there is another feature in the aisles which contrasts strangely with the pictorial ornaments round the dome above—a succession of platforms are to be seen, on which human flesh and blood is exposed to public auction, and the champions of the equal rights of man are thus made to endorse, as it were, the sale ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... sort of fellow gets his sulk? not from life; for he's often too much of a recluse, or else too young to have seen anything of it. No, he gets it from some of those old plays he sees on the stage, or some of those old books he finds up in garrets. Ten to one, he has lugged home from auction a musty old Seneca, and sets about stuffing himself with that stale old hay; and, thereupon, thinks it looks wise and antique to be a croaker, thinks it's taking ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... shape of commodities had been sold at the enormous price of 500 per cent—the male slaves even fetching 100 dollars per head, though the females went for less. The Hottentots now arrived, with many more of my men, who, seeing their old "flames," Snay's women, sold off by auction, begged me to advance them money to purchase them with, for they could not bear to see these women, who were their own when they formerly stayed here, go off like cattle no one knew where. Compliance, of course, was impossible, as it would have ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... houses.[271] A year later J. C. Gentry opened the "Western Horse Market" at the corner of Market and Fourth Streets. He advertised that he conducted a livery stable, and also sold on commission, at public or private sale, horses, carriages, cattle, wagons and slaves; and that he would conduct an auction on Wednesdays and Saturdays.[272] A similar case was that of A. C. Scott, who in 1854 opened a real estate and land office but who stated in the press that he not only bought and sold land and rented houses ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... midnight. A small party of tourists were taken to the East End by a city missionary to witness the Saturday night sale of decaying vegetables and fruit, which, owing to the Sunday laws in London, could not be sold until Monday, and, as they were beyond safe keeping, were disposed of at auction as late as possible on Saturday night. On Mile End Road, from the top of an omnibus which paused at the end of a dingy street lighted by only occasional flares of gas, we saw two huge masses of ill-clad people clamoring around two hucksters' ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... heavy burthen, I devised the following expedient. His wife's jewels, together with his superfluous plate and furniture in both houses, his horses and carriages, which are already advertised to be sold by auction, will, according to the estimate, produce two thousand five hundred pounds in ready money, with which the debt will be immediately reduced to eighteen thousand pounds — I have undertaken to find him ten thousand pounds at four per cent. by which means he will save one ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... from vanishing into thin air to-morrow morning at the auction mart, eighteen hundred francs! To repay my friends, as much again! Three quarters' rent to the landlord—whom you know.—My 'uncle' ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... years older than Cicero; and, till Cicero's fame surpassed his, he was accounted the most eloquent of all the Romans. He was Verres's counsel in the prosecution conducted against him by Cicero. Seneca relates that his memory was so great that he could come out of an auction and repeat the catalogue backward. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... pressure of the war should call off our forces from New Orleans to defend some other point, what is to prevent the masters from reducing the Blacks to Slavery again; for I am told that whenever the rebels take any Black prisoners, free or slave, they immediately auction them off! They did so with those they took from a boat that was aground in the Tennessee river a few days ago. And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it! For instance, when, after the late battles ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... He played auction bridge that afternoon in a private room at one of the hotels with the three men he had lunched with. Luck seemed to be with him. He won eighty dollars, and thrust it loose in his trousers pocket. Money seemed to bring money! If he could carry the thousand ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sickness brought upon him, old Mr. Prentiss felt that he could bear everything except the sight and sound of his wife's struggles for breath. He hardly saw the neighbor women who filled the house, taking advantage of this opportunity to inspect the furniture with an eye to the auction which would follow the removal of the old people to the city. He hardly heeded the doctor's desperate attempts with all varieties of new-fangled scientific contrivances to stay the hand of death. He hardly knew that his son had come, and in his competent, prosperous way was managing everything ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... landmark by Bloom's End, and were drawing near the Quiet Woman Inn, a lone roadside hostel on the lower verge of the Egdon Heath, since and for many years abolished. In stepping up towards it Car'line heard more voices within than had formerly been customary at such an hour, and she learned that an auction of fat stock had been held near the spot that afternoon. The child would be the better for a rest as well as herself, she ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... only recommendation, for it was not only small, but furnished in the plainest and scantiest style. The entire furniture of the house would not have brought twenty-five dollars at auction, yet for twenty-five years it had been the home of John and Jane Trafton and for twelve ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... We know little of the arrangements for the taxation of Asia made by Gracchus. He provided that the taxes should be let by auction at Rome, which would undoubtedly be a boon to the Roman capitalists and a check to provincial competition. He is said also to have substituted the whole system of direct and indirect taxes for the previously existing system ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... is an auction to be held at Breidablik that noon, and he is going; there's but just time to get there now. Not that Isak any longer thinks of buying the place, but the auction—it is the first auction held there in the wilds, and it would be ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... administering the Sagar and Nerbudda territories. Those territories, which had been annexed from the Marathas two years previously, are now included in the jurisdiction of the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces. In such a recently-conquered country, where the sale of all widows by auction for the benefit of the Treasury, and other strange customs still prevailed, the abilities of an able and zealous young officer had ample scope. Sleeman, after a brief apprenticeship, received, in 1822, the independent civil charge ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Cavaliers found it expedient to purchase, at an enormous cost, the protection of eminent members of the victorious party. Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops, and to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put up to auction. In consequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil of England was at once offered for sale. As money was scarce, as the market was glutted, as the title was insecure, and as the awe inspired by powerful ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... good as proscribed; impracticable and ludicrous attempts even were made to exclude its use in Johannesburg, where hardly any Uitlander understood Dutch, whilst every Boer official was well versed in English: market and auction sales were to be conducted only in Dutch; bills of fare at hotels and restaurants were also to be in full-fledged Dutch only—and all this, it must be remembered, some years before the Jameson ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... thought it would be fairer to put it up to auction. There were other enquiries. Oh! She's a leery old bird—reminds me of one of those pictures of Fate, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Liberty and Equality of which you prate shall have made free white Christians cheaper in the labor market than by auction ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... practically the only infantry in Europe, and all the Powers came, purse in hand, to draw from the mighty reservoir of their mountains. The consequence was that these rude children of William Tell, put up to auction by the nations, and carried away from the humble, hardy life of a mountain people into cities of wealth and pleasure, had lost, not their ancient courage, but that rigidity of principle for which they had been distinguished before their intercourse with other nations. From being models of honour ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his partners in the seigniory had planned great things. They had begun the erection of a mill, an enterprise which Comporte's heirs could not continue. So the guardian of the children determined to sell at auction their third of the seigniory. The sale apparently took place in Quebec in October, 1688. We have the record of the bids made. Hazeur began with 410 livres; one Riverin offered 430 livres; after a few other bids Hazeur raised his to 480 livres; then Riverin ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... simple-hearted traits as being always right about unimportant matters and idealistically wrong about important matters, politely intruding into everything, being earnest about the morality of the poor and auction bridge and the chaperonage of nice girls, possessing a working knowledge of Wagner and Rodin, wearing fifteen-dollar corsets, and believing on her bended knees that the Truegates and Winslows were the noblest families in the Social Register, Aunt Emma Truegate ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... proposal, and made some alterations in it, which they hoped would render it more acceptable. The principal change was a stipulation that the government might redeem these debts at the expiration of four years, instead of seven, as at first suggested. The bank resolved not to be outbidden in this singular auction, and the governors also reconsidered their first proposal, and sent in a ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... got a dandy idea. She would come to the Kulanche County Fair at Red Gap, assemble all her stock there, give one of these here demonstrations in economic canning, and auction off the whole lot with a glad hurrah. She thought mebbe, with her influence, she might get Secretary Baker, or someone like that, to come out and do the auctioning—all under the auspices of Mrs. Genevieve May ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... dead man was his brother as a Freemason. It came out that a wave had doubled the poor fellow over the heel of the bowsprit and broken his back. The news spread like a flash, for, contrary to general custom, the Frenchman held an auction of the dead man's kit,—he had no friends at St Malo or Miquelon,—and everything was spread out on the top of the house, from his red knitted cap to the leather belt with the sheath-knife at the back. Dan and ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... ninety-nine years' lease at a nominal sum. I owned the lease for precisely ninety days, when I sold it to a company for half a fortune. Always it was Otoo who looked ahead and saw the opportunity. He was responsible for the salving of the Doncaster—bought in at auction for a hundred pounds, and clearing three thousand after every expense was paid. He led me into the Savaii plantation and ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the preceding meeting, was last at this; he who had been second was first; and so on through the whole three years. At the expiration of the engagement the books were sold by auction, but only among the members themselves; each man had his share of the common stock, in money or in books, as he chose to be a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... friend Lockwood would have taken off his hands; but Lockwood had only written him word that a Jew broker from Liverpool would give him forty pounds for his house effects, and as for 'the screws,' there was nothing but an auction. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... give up beating about the bush, Pa?" she demanded, with contemptuous pity. "You might as well own up what's taking you to Carmody. I can see through your design. You want to get away to the Garland auction. That is what is ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... taxes. The class which imposes the taxes has refused to touch the burden of the war with one of its fingers; and every month new doles at the public expense are distributed under the camouflage of 'social reform.' At every election the worldly goods of the minority are put up to auction. This is far more immoral than the old-fashioned election bribery, which was a comparatively honest deal between two persons; and in its effects it is far more ruinous. Democracy is likely to perish, like the monarchy of Louis XVI, through ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... visit, and Jetson, expressing his sympathy and promising all help in his power, continued his way to the office. She called in the afternoon and handed him over the keys, retaining one for herself. She wished the furniture to be sold by auction, and he was to accept almost any offer for the house. She would try and see him again before sailing; if not, she would write him with her address. She was perfectly cool and collected. She had called on his wife and daughters in the afternoon, and ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... sort of a clod. He stood well with the ryots, and the mark of his factory always brought out keen bidding at Thomas's auction-mart in Mission Row and was held in respect in the Commission Sale Rooms in Mincing Lane. He was a good shikaree and could hold his own either at polo or at billiards; but being somewhat shy and not a little clumsy ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... of the cost price. This would be about $75. The window cost $750. Meanwhile the McKinley tariff bill was passed by Congress, and as the duty was greatly increased he would not pay it. Finally the window was sold at auction by the customs' officials, and Dean Hart bought it for $25. As we rode about the city the courteous driver, a Mr. Haney, pointed out a beautiful house embowered in trees, which had a romantic history. A young man of Denver was engaged to be married to a young woman. She jilted ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... train of his own thoughts just then, although since his first visit to the palace a great change had passed over it. The clear daylight found its way now into empty rooms. To raise funds for the war, Aurelius, his luxurious brother being no more, had determined to sell by auction the accumulated treasures of the imperial household. The works of art, the dainty furniture, had been removed, and were now "on view" in the Forum, to be the delight or dismay, for many weeks to come, of the [36] large public of those who were curious ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... unto the said Martin William Charlesworth and Arthur James Wyatt upon trust for the following purposes to be carried out by them under the following instructions, namely:—As soon after my death as is conveniently possible they will sell all my real estate, either by private treaty or by public auction; they shall sell all my personal property of any nature whatsoever; they shall sell my business at Mallathorpe's mill in Barford as a going concern to any private purchaser or to any company already in existence or formed for the purpose of ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... 't is a monstrous price; Say two and six and further talk shun." "Take it," cried Jove; "we can't be nice,— 'T would fetch twice that at Leonard's auction." ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... fight, and those who could not ride hired those who could. Just so did Agamemnon act very wisely in receiving a valuable mare, and thereby allowing a rich man to purchase his discharge from military service. Agesilaus now gave orders that the heralds who conducted the sale of captives by auction, should strip them of their clothes, and put them up for sale in a state of perfect nudity. Their clothes were sold separately, and the Greek soldiers laughed heartily at the white and soft skins, which never had felt the sun or wind, displayed by these Asiatics, and began to feel contempt ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... Nicodemus to death, and explained how he was going to do it. He had a noble new skeleton—the skeleton of the late and only local celebrity, Jimmy Finn, the village drunkard—a grisly piece of property which he had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at auction, for fifty dollars, under great competition, when Jimmy lay very sick in the tan-yard a fortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had gone promptly for whiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of ownership ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pictures of Vermeer sold at public auction in Amsterdam. Of these 21 the experts claim to have discovered 16. But the bother of the question is that 100 other pictures were also sold at the same time; furthermore, the sale is said to have taken place after the death of a venerable mediocrity, also named Vermeer, but hailing from ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the day I hope is approaching when, from principles of gratitude as well as justice, every man will strive to be foremost in showing his readiness to comply with the golden rule. Not less than twenty thousand pounds sterling would all my Negroes produce if sold at public auction to-morrow. I am not the man who enslaved them; they are indebted to Englishmen for that favor; nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and for cutting off the entail of slavery. Great powers oppose ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... last. There's considerable to tell. Jim got into trouble with the police and finally sent for me. He told me everything and—it wasn't pretty; I'd rather not repeat all he said, but it opened my eyes and showed me why they brought you here, how they put you on the auction block, and how they cried for bids. He told me things you know nothing about and could never guess. When he had finished I thanked God that they had flung you into my arms instead of—some other man's. It's a miracle that ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... returning from a country walk; presently the lamps were lighted, and then immense excitement reigned in the little place for at the corner where the two main streets crossed each other at right angles a cheap-jack had set up his stall and, with flaring naptha lamps to show his goods, was selling by auction the most wonderful clocks at the very lowest prices in fact, the most superior glass, china, clothing, and furniture that the people of Firdale had ever had the privilege of seeing. Erica listened with no little amusement to his fervid appeals ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... on the face; so he left her, cursing, as he went, men who put themselves up at auction,—worse than Orleans slaves. Margret laughed to herself at his passion; as for the story he hinted, it was absurd. She forgot it in ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... Rights of Man, which rejects all establishments, all discipline, all ecclesiastical, and in truth all civil order, which will triumph, and which will lay prostrate your Church, which will destroy your distinctions, and which will put all your properties to auction, and disperse you over the earth. If the present establishment should fall, it is this religion which will triumph in Ireland and in England, as it has triumphed in France. This religion, which laughs at creeds and dogmas and confessions of faith, may be fomented equally amongst all descriptions ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... flower, and the hand that gripped the ax was strong and brown and capable. Back home she had been known to the society reporters as "an out-door girl," by which it was understood that rather than afternoon auction at henfests, she affected tennis, golf, swimming, and cross-country riding. She could saddle her own horse, and paddle a canoe for hours on end. Even the ax was no stranger to her hand, for upon rare occasions when her father had returned ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... not pay for them, and the population of the district would have made the place very uncomfortable for any of the clergymen's friends who showed an anxiety to buy up the impounded beasts. In some cases when cattle were sold by public auction no bidder ventured to come forward but the farmer himself who owned the cattle, and they had to be knocked down to him at a purely nominal price because there was no possible competitor. The farmer drove home ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Behnes, and Hilton's oil-painting of Clare, remained in Mr. Taylor's hands during his lifetime, and after his death (1864) were sold by public auction, at Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods, March 17, 1865, when they came into the possession of the author ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... up the street, a friend of the writer witnessed, in the forties, a man selling his wife by auction, {181} who stood on the top of a barrel, with a halter round her neck, and a crowd collected round, examining her merits, as might not long ago have been seen in a slave market in Egypt. She was sold for £30, in the street, opposite a small inn then called ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom by auction, because it is a mere project.... Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in the end to our Constitution.... Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint of the Colonies." What was "that proposition"? Give the substance of Burke's ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... laws which relate to the position of women. In this connection reference may first be made to the marriage-by-auction custom, which Herodotus described as follows: "Once a year in each village the maidens of age to marry were collected all together into one place, while the men stood round them in a circle. Then a herald called up the damsels one by one, and offered them for sale. He began with the most beautiful. ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... pictures, by European and American artists. I visited the galleries, accompanied by an amateur friend who has a fine artistic education, having travelled some six months on the Continent. Being engaged in the picture-auction business, I am not altogether a tyro in art, and determined to send you a few notes taken on the spot, the combined effort of amateur friend and myself. The walk to the gallery, extending over a half-hour in time, was ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... was made of a vein running close to that settlement; but the returns not being adequate to the expense it was let to farm, and in a few years fell into such low repute as to be at length disposed of by public auction at a rent of two Spanish dollars.** The English company, also having intelligence of a mine said to be discovered near Fort Marlborough, gave orders for its being worked; but if it ever ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... whom I was introduced, volunteered to show me to a position from which I would safely see the whole performance, which was the auction of cattle for rent—I was quite glad to have the kind offices of this gentleman, as without them I would have seen very little indeed. As I passed down the street under the wing of the clergy, I was amused at the innocent manner in which a half-dozen or so would ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... M'Carthy, I sent my portmanteau and some of my heavy things to be sold by auction, as I could not possibly ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... of several things beside books. Now and then at an auction sale on someone's death he picked up odd articles that were of value. And so his study was a kind of conglomerate. He had a cabinet of coins from different parts of the world and curios from India and Egypt. Napoleon's campaign in Egypt had awakened ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... class of our tastes and feelings, becoming rapidly Egyptianized? Why, I expect in a year or two to see coffins introduced into the parlors of the Fifth Avenue, and to find them, when their owners fail or absquatulate, advertised for sale at auction, with the rest of the household furniture, at a great ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... there is anything to let out on contract, he should order this to be done, and concerning the work which he wishes to be thus accomplished he should give his order in writing. As regards the cattle he should order them to be sold by auction, and in the same way should sell the oil, if the price of oil has risen; likewise the superfluous wine and corn of the estate. He should also order to be sold worn-out bulls, blemished cattle, blemished sheep, wool, hides, any plow that is old, old tools, old slaves, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... tell you; he rented The mill of an orphan, Until the Court settled To sell it at auction. Then Ermil, with others, Went into the sale-room. The small buyers quickly Dropped out of the bidding; Till Ermil alone, With a merchant, Alternikoff, 380 Kept up the fight. The merchant outbid him, Each time by a farthing, Till Ermil grew ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... book and we all composed ourselves to the ordeal; Mrs. Gaston, who is the insincerest creature on earth and has no thoughts beyond Auction Bridge, even going so far as to say, ecstatically, "A new ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... Rochambeau, May, 17, 1794 (Library of Congress). A few original manuscripts, such as a letter of November 8, 1784, to John Avery and a letter of January 22, 1794, to George Clinton, have passed into private hands at auction sales. Certain manuscripts have been withheld by their owners; but in most instances the entire text of the same has been available, so that it is believed that all the important existing materials of Adams have been comprised ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... give a daily account of sales to the treasurer of the Orphan fund, to which institution 1 1/2 per cent. is to be paid from the proceeds of sales. He is also to furnish a list of articles to the treasurer, previous to the auction, under the penalty of forfeiture of recognizances he enters into at the time he is appointed ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann |
