"Bidder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wrote to Hazen and Jarvis at Newburyport, Massachusetts, a letter in which he complains of "that rascal negro, West" who cannot be got to do a quarter of a man's work. In an advertisement in a Halifax paper in 1769 are offered for sale to the highest bidder "two hogsheads of rum, three of sugar and two well-grown negro girls aged 14 and 12." Those were clearly a consignment from the West Indies. The executors of John Margerum of Halifax deceased, in their accounts give credit for L29.9.4.1/2 "net proceeds of a negro boy sold at Carolina." In ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... studies, and dreads the interference that may take him away from them. An independent bachelor can afford to follow unremunerative study; a married man, unless he is rich, must lay out his time to the best pecuniary advantage. His hours are at the disposal of the highest bidder. ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Frenchman named Pierre, or he may be an Englishman for anything I know. I hailed him and found that he is all right, but I didn't see him. However, I sent him a note to tell him that there was fun on here to-night, which was generous of me, as he may be a rival bidder." ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... rather lucky to get it at that. There was an anonymous bidder who fortunately hadn't got the cash with him, or I gathered that he was willing to go to a great ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and opened on December 15th, 1903. Only one bidder proposed to carry out the work on the basis of unit prices, but the prices were so low that the acceptance of the proposal was deemed inadmissible; no bid based on caisson methods was received; several offers were made to perform the work by the shield ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Alfred Noble
... bid, unless it be more than two hundred dollars, can be accepted. Come, now, friends, here is a fine opportunity for a shrewd business man. One need not be a showman, or have any personal need of a tent, in order to become a bidder. Whoever buys this tent to-day will be able to realize handsomely on his investment by selling this big-top tent in turn to some showman in need of a tent. Who will start the bidding at ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... sell yourself to the highest bidder," he said, "I suppose there's no stopping you. But you're making a mistake. If Parrish were all you claim for him, you might not repent of his marriage so long as you did not care for somebody else. But I know you love me, and it breaks my heart to see you blundering ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... at least, is the verdict of my own soul, on the supposition that I am to be the slave; that my wife is to be sold from me for the vilest purposes; that my children are to be torn from my arms, and disposed of to the highest bidder, like sheep in the market. And who am I but a man? What right have I to be free, that another man cannot prove himself to possess by nature? Who or what are my wife and children, that they should not be herded with four-footed beasts, ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... dad, is not that the way to put it? Horses and cattle are bought and sold at auction, knocked down to the highest bidder, or purchased at a private sale. The stocks and bonds and securities in which you deal are handled in precisely the same way. And now, when you are in an extremity, when your back is to the wall, a man whom I had always supposed ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... Peter would not place them in any other hands. Peter, at this, gave a laugh of harsher cadence than he intended, asking, justly enough, on what privilege his visitor rested such a demand and why he himself was disqualified from offering his wares to the highest bidder. "Surely you wouldn't hawk such things about?" cried Mr. Locket; but before Baron had time to retort cynically he added: ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... what market I mean," retorted the great man with unconcealed contempt. "What you don't know is your own game. Always seek the highest bidder ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... himself. Regnard joined the party, and sailed with them from Civita Vecchia in an English ship bound for Toulon. The vessel was captured, off Nice, by a Barbary corsair, and brought into Algiers; the crew and passengers were sold to the highest bidder. One Achmet Talem paid fifteen hundred livres for Regnard, and one thousand for the lady. This low price might lead us to imagine that the Moorish taste in beauty differed from that of Regnard; but the Algerine market may have been overstocked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... has opened its ninth exhibition; so I suppose that the Daily Telegraph will have to make up its mind, sorrowfully, of course, and with regret, that there are folk still in London who are not always ready to sell their talents to the highest bidder. ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... king's banner is spread to the winds, and do your duty to your country, but there will be no occasion for you to become a mere knight adventurer—a class I detest, ever ready to sell their swords to the highest bidder, and to kill men, against whom they have no cause of complaint, as indifferently as a butcher would strike down ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... dreary saloon. "Now thy son Gustave is a fine fellow—brave, handsome, and of a good race. It is true he is not as rich as Madelon will be by-and-by; but I am no huckster, to sell my daughter to the best bidder" ("and I doubt if there would be many bidders for her, if I were so inclined," thought the Baron, in parenthesis); "and if thy son should take a fancy to her, and she to him, it would please me well ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... his Triumph, and after that, unless he changes his mind, which is not likely, since he prides himself upon never having reversed a decree, however hastily it was made, or even added to or taken from a judgment, you must, alas! be set up in the Forum and sold as a slave to the highest bidder." ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... witness the expression of utter despair on the faces of these poor creatures. Then, as the sale proceeded, this expression would sometimes give way to one of feverish hope as the purchaser of a husband or parent would become a bidder for the wife or child. In one or two rare cases the hope was realised; and as husband and wife, or parent and child, found themselves once more reunited—once more the property of the same man—their ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... said the landlord; 'he was there, and was offered for seventy pounds, but didn't find a bidder at any price. What do you ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Hammer":—"Any number of persons may play, one of whom must be appointed cashier. The cashier then distributes an equal number of counters to each player, puts up for sale the five cards separately, and knocks them down with the hammer to the highest bidder. The produce is put into the pool; each player must pay four counters into the pool. The cashier has first throw, and when all blanks are thrown each player pays one to the holder of the white horse. If with the blanks the bell, or hammer, or both are thrown, ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... is regarded as an asset of so much value, not to be parted with until that price is paid, and, while she is allowed some freedom in the choice of a husband, parental pressure usually forces her to the highest bidder. ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... swear you down, for bribing witnesses is as easy as bribing members. I'll tell you what to do. Beat them at their own weapons. Raise a purse that will swamp theirs. That's the way the world goes. It's an auction. The highest bidder gets the article." ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice, and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... money to his slaves, if they desired it. They used with the money to buy young slaves, teach them a trade at Cato's expense for a year, and then dispose of them. Many of these Cato retained in his own service, paying the price offered by the highest bidder, and deducting from it the original cost of the slave. When endeavouring to encourage his son to act in a similar manner, he used to say that it was not the part of a man, but of a lone woman, to diminish ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... went. Azalea had many offers for her wigwam, if she would sell it after the fair. She agreed to let it go to the highest bidder, and finally received ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... arrived, when the 'slaves, horses, and other cattle' of Charles Ardinburgh, deceased, were to be put under the hammer, and again change masters. Not only Isabella and Peter, but their mother, were now destined to the auction block, and would have been struck off with the rest to the highest bidder, but for the following circumstance: A question arose among the heirs, 'Who shall be burdened with Bomefree, when we have sent away his faithful Mau-mau Bett?' He was becoming weak and infirm; his limbs were painfully rheumatic and distorted-more from exposure and hardship than ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... Writ. The Methodist Episcopal Church decided in 1840 against allowing any "colored persons" to give testimony against "white persons." The College Church of the Union Theological Seminary, Prince Edward County, was endowed with slaves, who were hired out to the highest bidder for the pastor's salary. Lastly, Professor Moses Stuart, of Andover, who is accounted the greatest American theologian since Jonathan Edwards, declared that "The precepts of the New Testament respecting the demeanor of slaves and their masters beyond all question recognise the existence ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... which they gave instant adoption; Master Francis Sark had been dismissed, and to the Admiral's grave hint of possible treachery Ferne had answered, "Ay, John Nevil, I also think him a false—hearted craven, Spaniolated and perverse, a huckster, whose wares do go to the highest bidder! Well, with our hand at his throat we do ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... his promise to his father, and for the ulterior purpose of giving the squire some daily interest to distract his thoughts from the regrets and cares that were almost weakening his mind. It was 'Roger Hamley, Senior Wrangler and Fellow of Trinity, to the highest bidder, no matter what honest employment,' and presently it came down to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... immediately conclude that this candidate was the only man in the State who could save the nation from destruction. Had not Haines seen men who had sold their unsuspecting delegates for cash to the highest bidder rise in the convention hall and in impassioned, dramatic voice exclaim in praise of the buyer, "Gentlemen, it would be a crying shame, a crime against civilization, if the chosen representatives of our ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... always nominally for sale, and, as the annual election approached, a majority of stockholders stood ready to sell their votes to the highest bidder. Commodore Vanderbilt cleverly secured the cooperation of the "reformer" element, corralling their proxies, and thus he appeared to be in a position to oust the Drew interests without difficulty. On the Sunday preceding the election the Commodore saw Drew ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... improvements), and that the amount bid for it either by himself or by anybody else at the sale should be esteemed the value on which the rental was to be calculated during the twenty-one years next following the sale. In case the present holder of the lease was the highest bidder, this was the only result of the sale; but in case he was outbid he was bound to transfer the lease to the best bidder, on receiving from the government the amount at which his improvements had been valued. This payment might be made in government bonds, bearing interest ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... threatened to throw a brickbat of exposure into the camp. He was appealing to the good people of the city to put a stop to the simple and effective methods the boarding masters used to separate Jack from his money, and then barter his carcass to the highest bidder. I had heard the Swede, himself, say, "Ay ban got him before election!" And this is how the reverend gentleman had been "got"—crimped into an outward bound windjammer, with naught but a ragged red shirt and a pair ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... be L75 out of pocket at the end of the five years; to say nothing of the expense of keeping the place in repair during all that time. (Disturbance.) He moved as an amendment that the alterations be made, and that they then invite tenders, and let the place to the highest bidder. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... hands and fix their hair—comb and cut and braid their hair and dress them to be auctioned off. They sold a lot of children from Virginia all along the way and he was put up in Tennessee and auctioned off. He was sold to the highest bidder. Bill Thomas at Brownsville, Tennessee was the one bought him. Papa was ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... boys at the head of his table wished for a helping of lentils instead of dessert—for we had dessert—the offer was passed down from one to another: "Dessert for lentils!" till some other epicure had accepted; then the plate of lentils was passed up to the bidder from hand to hand, and the plate of dessert returned by the same road. Mistakes were never made. If several identical offers were made, they were taken in order, and the formula would be, "Lentils number one for dessert number one." The tables were ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... railroads, the mills, the factories, and all the tools and implements of trade and commerce, and the workingman has only one thing to sell. That is his labor, his life; and he has to sell that to the highest bidder. ...
— Industrial Conspiracies • Clarence S. Darrow
... regarding things. It is, possibly, an atavistic relapse into the views of his ancestors, who, when they were sick of their wives, led them with a halter round their necks into the marketplace and sold them to the highest bidder. They say it is not so long ago that this pretty custom has gone out ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... man who had just parted with the home of his fathers, poor old Sir Anthony was in high spirits. Lock, stock and barrel, Merry Down had been sold to the highest bidder. Of that there was no manner of doubt. What was more to the point was that the purchaser, who had paid a good price, was of English blood, and had known Derry Bagot at Eton, and soldiered with him first in South Africa and afterwards in France. The place had passed into good clean hands and ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... occasionally, on its merits. We say occasionally, because nine times out of ten one of the parties bids privately for the benefit of his honour's good opinions. Sometimes both suitors do this, and then judgment is knocked down to the highest bidder. The loser departs incontinently cursing the law and its myrmidons to the very top of his bent, and perhaps meditating an appeal to a higher court, from which he is only deterred by prospects of further expense and repeated failure. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... submits the lowest bid would logically be the one selected but here again the architect's judgment is valuable. First, he can rapidly determine whether the provisional saving suggested by substitution of unspecified materials is a wise change. Second, he knows whether the bidder under consideration is dependable or inclined to skimp in ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... and cheap jewelry. A really good article is put up, and passed around through the crowd as a sample. It draws bids rapidly, and is knocked down to the highest bidder. It has by this time been handed back to the auctioneer, and when the purchaser demands it, he is given some worthless article, which the dealer and his assistants swear was the one exhibited to the crowd. Remonstrances are useless. The bogus ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... beings. It is clear, then, that since 990 men, urged by want, will crowd upon the supports which would only maintain a hundred, the ten capitalists will be masters of the market. They will obtain labour on the hardest conditions, for they will put it up to auction, or the highest bidder. And observe this,—if these capitalists entertain such pious sentiments as would induce them to impose personal privations on themselves, in order to diminish the sufferings of some of their brethren, this generosity, which attaches to morality, will be as noble ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... nobility kept the country in anarchy, and religious persecution, which had disappeared elsewhere, was still rampant. It was the gold distributed by interested powers, that controlled the vote of the Diet, and since it was merely a (p. 187) question of the highest bidder, Frederick the Great and Catherine came to an understanding. They decided to elect Stanislas Poniatowski, a Polish noble. France and Austria supported the Prince of Saxony, who was also the choice of the Court party. After the death ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... He first visits the Pass of Roncesvalles, and is nearly killed by the indignant Frenchmen whom he asks about the defeat of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers. Pedro then proceeds to Bayonne, where he is so shocked by the sight of young girls selling their hair to the highest bidder that he determines to leave France, and we next find him in a Swiss chalet, where he is disgusted by the lack of cleanliness. His feelings can be imagined when he finds that the peasants have no popular traditions and are not acquainted even with the name of William Tell. In despair, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... foiled me! But that is not to the point. My name is Renaud L'Estang. My father was a gentleman, poor and without influence; I had good blood in my veins but no money in my purse. My only chance of wealth lay in my sword. I sold it to the highest bidder. In short, monsieur, I am an adventurer, no better and no worse ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... I tak' back nothing that was deserved; there were toons, and fine they'll ken themselves wi'oot ma naming them, that ought to be ashamed of themselves. There was the book I wrote. Every nicht I'd auction off a copy to the highest bidder—the money tae gae tae the puir wounded laddies in Scotland. A copy went for five thousand dollars ane nicht ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... on in a manner that delighted the multitude and shocked the prudes. Bath and Tunbridge Wells had rung with her sayings and doings; and finally she surrendered herself, not altogether unwillingly, to the highest bidder. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... troubled eyes the stern conference of hostile nations was turned to comedy. A hundred and twenty eager reporters publicly put up their support for sale in exchange for information to the highest bidder. The representative of a great country was heard boasting to the gentlemen of the press of his own prowess. "The Japanese could not read in my face," said M. Witte, "what was passing in my heart." Isn't it wonderful? Would not the diplomatists of another age be ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... mountainous eastern border is inhabited by the Momunds, Afridis, Arakzais, Zymukts, Waziris, who have never been subdued. Their sense of independence, however, does not prevent them from selling their friendship for ready money to the highest bidder. On the watershed of the Helmund and Indus dwell the independent Pathans and Biluchis. The Persian-speaking Kizilbashis in Kabul, comprise 3,000,000 of Shiahs, who are not Afghans, many of whose 30,000 fighting men are in the Ameer's regular army. The Tajiks— about 10,000 men—are ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... it to you, as a man, is it fair of you to pay her open attentions, and compromise her? You must not think me very mercenary; I am not the man to give my daughter to the highest bidder. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... of cohabitation which must be horrible and detestable to any girl of decent instincts, no matter which way she looked at it, and yet it was a state of white slavery which society fully condoned and ever approved. Hundreds of virtuous girls thus sold themselves—to the highest bidder. The slums had no monopoly of the white slave traffic; it flourished equally well on fashionable Fifth Avenue, where its countless victims, for the honor of the system, managed to conceal their tears from the world. ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... afflicted nation was—shall I be believed in relating it?—the landed interest of a whole kingdom, of a kingdom to be compared to France, was set up to public auction! They set up (Mr. Hastings set up) the whole nobility, gentry, and freeholders to the highest bidder. No preference was given to the ancient proprietors. They must bid against every usurer, every temporary adventurer, every jobber and schemer, every servant of every European,—or they were obliged to content themselves, in lieu of their extensive domains, with their house, and such a pension ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... himself for the attacks by pillorying the journalistic profession in his novels. Lousteau, Finot, Blondet, and other members of the press appear in his pages as unprincipled men, only too willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder. Of course, such retaliation carried with it injustice; and men of high principle, like Jules Janin, resented this prejudiced condemnation of a class for no better reason than its having black sheep, which existed in every circle, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... him, "Here is a fine gem. Would you guard it carefully in a casket and store it away, or seek a good price for it and sell it?" "Sell it, indeed," said the Master—"that would I; but I should wait for the bidder." ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... latter;—what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children—those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own—being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that His Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... ever dealt severely with husbands or wives whom incompatibilities forced to seek consolation outside of matrimony. Herodotus relates that the Illyrian Veneti sold their daughters at auction to the highest bidder; and the fair being thus comfortably placed in life, the hard-favored were given to whomsoever would take them, with such dower as might be considered a reasonable compensation. The auction was discontinued in Christian times, but marriage contracts still partook of the form of a public and ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... have life and wit, We women are of all things wretchedest, Who first must needs, as buys the highest bidder, Thus buy a husband, and our ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... should be misled. What I most certainly do deny is any implication that such misleading was accomplished by the telling of untruths. A fiction writer is, by definition, a professional liar; he makes his living by telling interesting lies on paper and selling the results to the highest bidder for publication. Since fiction writing is my livelihood, I cannot and will not deny that I am an accomplished liar—indeed, almost an habitual one. Therefore, I feel some small pique when, on the ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... their stock. One day he went to Cleveland and had a long talk with a banker there. Hugh was at work on a corn-cutting machine and already he had secured an option on it. "Perhaps when the time comes to sell the factory there'll be more than one bidder," he told Ernestine, the soap maker's daughter, who had married him within a month after the sale of the car-unloading device. He grew indignant when he told her of the disloyalty of the two men in the bank, and ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... I'm sure," drawled the fortunate bidder. "Won't you join me in a whisky and soda ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... brand not only the bribers, but the bribed with a white-hot iron, so that the owner might identify his property. This brand should be burned into the political mavericks who, since the convening of this Assembly, have run with every herd, and openly sought the highest bidder for their worthless carcasses. For these cattle of unknown pedigree I have ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... you have accepted the bargain in good faith, believing that I agree to sacrifice my freedom and human rights for riches. They have deceived you, sir! I am not ready to give myself up to the highest bidder. I am a woman, with a heart to love and hate, who esteems affection superior to wealth. I cannot marry you, and I beg you not to teach me ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... in so far as Great Britain is concerned, in Mr. John Lawler's excellent little volume 'Book Auctions in England in the Seventeenth Century,' of which a new edition was published in 1906. The fashion of selling books to the highest bidder is, in this country, of comparatively recent date; for the first auction of books held in London was presided over in 1676 by one William Cooper, an enterprising bookseller, who disposed in this manner of the library belonging ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... entitled "An act providing for the sale of the tract of land at the lower rapids of Sandusky River," passed on the 27th day of April, 1816, it was enacted that all the lands in the said tract, except the reservations made in the said act, should be offered for sale to the highest bidder at Wooster, in the State of Ohio, under the direction of the register of the land office and the receiver of public moneys at Wooster, and on such day or days as shall, by a public proclamation of the President of the United States, be ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... stock (retaining the slaves) were advertised for sale, and on a certain day named, all would be disposed of at a public sale, or to the highest bidder. ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... than Tom Paine cannot be found among the ready writers of the eighteenth century. He sold himself to the highest bidder, and he could be bought at a very low price. He wrote well; sometimes as pointedly as Junius or Cobbett (who had his bones brought to England). Neither excelled him in coining telling and mischievous phrases; neither surpassed him in ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... I can assure you, there is not a Swede left in the Swedish army, or, at all events, very few. The men the great Gustavus Adolphus brought over the Baltic Sea are gone long ago, and those who have taken their places will sell both soul and body any day to the highest bidder.' ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... sporting extravagant, has been compelled to yield his influence in St. Stephen's to old Gradus, that he may preserve his character at Newmarket, and continue his pack and fox-hunting festivities at home. The representation of the place is now disposed of to the best bidder, but the ambition of the father has long since determined upon sending his son (when of age) 37 into parliament—a promising candidate for the "loaves and fishes." Richard Gradus, M.P.—you may ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... high to low, at home or abroad, from Florence in his great house to the coarse churl who was feeding the fire then smoking before them, everyone set up some claim or other to a share in his dead boy, and was a bidder against him! Could he ever forget how that woman had wept over his pillow, and called him her own child! or how he, waking from his sleep, had asked for her, and had raised himself in his bed and brightened ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... reply for you, then. His right is to sell his labor to the highest bidder; his right is to work where he pleases; for what hours he desires; his right is to reject abusive employers and to find those congenial; his right is to produce as little or as much as he thinks best; his right is to think for himself, to act for himself, ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... this time the presence of a traitor in the devoted city; and that this wretch was a Swiss will be a matter of no surprise. The despicable valor of these republicans has everywhere formed the best defense of tyrants, and their fidelity has always been at the service of the highest bidder. The recreant was a lieutenant in the Swiss Guard of the Duke; and when he had led the Germans into Mantua, and received the reward of his infamy, two German soldiers, placed over him for his protection, killed him and plundered him ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... the colored churches in Philadelphia, and in the early forties, during my apprenticeship, he was a bidder for the contract to build the first African Methodist Episcopal brick church of the connection on the present site at Sixth and Lombard streets in Philadelphia. A wooden structure which had been transformed from a blacksmith shop to a meeting house was torn down to give place to the new ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... ashore, when to their amazement and dismay Grandsteiner laid the hand of the law upon them and told them they were "redemptioners." A redemptioner was an emigrant whose services for a certain period were liable to be sold to the highest bidder for the payment of his passage to America. It seems that in fact a large number of those on board the Johanna had in some way really become so liable; but it is equally certain that of others, the Kropps, the Schultzheimers, ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Gracchus until the first consulship of Marius, Rome was governed by a venal and profligate oligarchy, formed from a coalition of the most powerful families. Shame was unknown to this body; the offices of state were openly sold to the highest bidder, redress of grievances was to be obtained only by paying a heavier sum for vengeance than the oppressor would give for impunity: advocacy of popular rights was punished as treason, and complaints were treated as criminal acts of sedition. The young patricians, under such a system, became the scourge ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... dismissed as of the brood of Esau, willing to sell to the highest bidder anybody's birthright upon which he could lay hands. Ferguson's confident assurance that the stolen campaign fund contribution,—if that was what it had been intended to be,—implicated the Government in no ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... not particularly in evidence as the legal method of redress; though it too was no doubt here and there arranged for. But for the most part the villein took the law into his own hands, left his manor, and openly sold his labour to the highest bidder. ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... on rout of Germans in Poland with which the world is ringing; but said nothing about capture of KAISER'S cloak. SARK suggests that this interesting robe should be put up for sale to highest bidder (as if it were the First L1 note), proceeds to be contributed to Fund for Relief of Belgians. This would give opportunity for remarking that having taken off his coat to devastate the homes of the Belgians, WILHELM gave them his ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... peasantry to starvation. And now a splendid aristocracy claimed to rule a subject world, while the "Roman people" that had conquered that world were a degenerate mob, whose suffrages in the elections were purchasable—almost openly—by the highest bidder. The way was not clear before Drusus; he only saw, with his blind, Pagan vision, that no real liberty existed under present conditions; that Pompeius and his allies, the Senate party, were trying to perpetuate the aristocracy in power, and that Caesar, the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... America an advertisement is put into the paper mentioning the different kinds of people on board whether smiths, tailors, carpenters, laborers, or the like and the people that are in want of such men flock down to the vessel. These poor Germans are then sold to the highest bidder and the captain of the vessel or the ship holder puts ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... broken jargon" then current in England as gypsy. From a misshapen Welsh groom this queer lawyer's clerk learned Welsh pronunciation, and to the consternation of his employer, "turned Sir Edward from the door," and gladly admitted the petty versifier Parkerson who sold his sheets to the highest bidder in the streets; worse even than this was his audacity in contending against a wealthy archdeacon that Ab Gwilym was the superior of Ovid. This gentleman was probably the Rev. John Oldershaw, Archdeacon of Norfolk from 1797 till his death, January 31st, 1847, aged ninety-three. ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... three o'clock this afternoon there will be sold to the highest bidder all the common property of the Little Sisters of Samaria, at the home of the Sisterhood, in Bonhomme Street. The sale will dispose of the building, ground, and the complete furnishings of the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... fixed rate. This guaranty is called a bond. In actual practice, instead of borrowing the money required and then giving bonds for its return, countries usually issue the bonds first, and sell them to the highest bidder. For instance, if our government needed to borrow $1,000,000 it would issue bonds for this amount, stating definitely the rate of interest to be paid, and call for bids. If the rate of interest were four per cent. and a buyer paid more than $1000 for a $1000 bond he would, of course, ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... to extend business on a greater scale; but when he came to open negotiations with the score or more of landholders, he found himself in the alarming position of a bidder against an unknown but clever rival, who watched, waited, and quietly forestalled his ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... supported; but to that intemperate desire of pleasure, and habitual slavery to his passions, which involved him in many perplexities. He happened, at that time, to be engaged in the pursuit of some trifling gratification, and, being without money for the present occasion, sold his poem to the first bidder, and, perhaps, for the first price that was proposed; and would, probably, have been content with less, if ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... sympathies of the people. Justice and probity had for a time been banished from the civil service of China. The example of the few men of honor and capacity served but to bring into more prominent relief the faults of the whole class. Justice was nowhere to be found; the verdict was sold to the highest bidder. The guilty, if well provided in worldly goods, escaped scot-free; the poor suffered for their own frailties as well as the crimes of wealthier offenders. There was seen the far from uncommon case of individuals sentenced ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... subject of this memoir, was born at Crooks, in the parish of Westerkirk, on the 22d of February 1788, and was brought up under the care of his grandfather. He received an ordinary training at the parochial school; and when his grandfather relinquished his farm to a higher bidder, he was necessitated to seek employment as a cow-herd. In 1805, he proceeded as a farm-servant to the farm of Cassock, in the parish of Eskdalemuir. In 1809, he entered the service of the Rev. Dr Brown,[29] minister of Eskdalemuir, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... long an account, I have only to say that she not only assured me that she perfectly remembered the bureau, but that it had secret drawers and wells, very curiously contrived; nay, she showed me the very catalogue in which the said receptacles are noticed in capitals, to arrest the eye of the bidder, and increase the price of the bidding. That your father should never have revealed where he stowed this document is natural enough, during the life of his uncle; his own life was not spared long enough to give him much opportunity to explain afterwards, but I feel perfectly persuaded in my ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... length my case and my design; Yea, all my passion and desire and love-longing in verse, As pearls in goodly order strung it were, I did enshrine. Yet thou repaidst me with constraint, rigour and perfidy, To which no lover might himself on any wise resign. How many a bidder unto love, a secret-craving wight, How many a swain, complaining, saith of destiny malign, "How many a cup with bitterness o'erflowing have I quaffed! I make my moan of woes, whereat it boots not to repine." Quoth thou, "The goodliest of things ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... are so worthless that if put up and sold to the highest bidder, the auctioneer would have ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... of the parasitic class have given the names Bidder and Maunder, both meaning beggar. The first comes from Mid. Eng. bidden, to ask. Piers Plowman speaks of "bidderes and beggers." Maunder is perhaps connected with Old ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... to tell him that his wife had been bought by Vincent. The joy of the negro was extreme. The previous message had raised his hopes that Vincent would succeed in getting her bought by some one who would be kind to her, but he knew well that she might nevertheless fall to the lot of some higher bidder and be taken hundreds of miles away, and that he might never again get news of her whereabouts. He had then suffered terrible anxiety all day, and the relief of learning that Vincent himself had bought her, and that she was now installed as a house ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Arabian astronomer was so called (died A.D. 820). Jedediah Buxton, of Elmeton, in Derbyshire, was also called "The Calculator" (1705-1775). George Bidder, Zerah Colburn, and a girl named Heywood (whose father was a Mile End weaver) all exhibited ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... offer to give away anything. Just because your father left you comfortably well off is no reason that you shouldn't sell things if people want to buy. Sell and sell while you've got the market, and sell to the highest bidder. Look at me, I am selling to both sides; that is my way of stopping this war." He turned to the young newspaper man. "Is there anything ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... for the future to disclose. At once construction began in Canada. A. M. Ross was appointed chief engineer, and S. P. Bidder general manager, both on the nomination of the English bankers and contractors. Plant was assembled in Canada, orders for rails and equipment were placed in England, and navvies came out by the thousand. At one time 14,000 men were directly employed ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... said land for a market place, and public landing as to them shall seem convenient; and when the said town shall be so laid out, the said directors and trustees shall have full power and authority to sell all the said lots, by public sale or auction, from time to time, to the highest bidder so as no person shall have more than two lots."[13] The money arising from the sale was to be paid to the two Alexanders and ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... that his great-grandfather sat in it too. Here sat his son, and his son's son— the Lord Mayor as was—and his son, my father, ladies and gents, who died in it besides, and whose son now hoffers it to the 'ighest bidder. You'll observe its antiquity, ladies an' gents. That's its beauty. It's what I may call, in the language of the haristocracy, a harticle of virtoo, w'ich means that it's a harticle as is surrounded by virtuous memories in connection with the defunct. Now then, say ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... Well, let him go. She told herself that, had he loved her truly, no power on earth would have been great enough to keep him from her. She said to herself scornfully—she, Vera Nevill, who was prepared to sell herself to the highest bidder—that it was Mrs. Romer's money that kept him from her. Well, let him go to her, then? but for herself life ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... imprisonment for debt. The right of suffrage is vested in all free white male adult citizens. All patronage is taken from the General Assembly; judicial and executive officers are to be elected by the people; and the public printing to be given to the lowest responsible bidder. No new county can be formed without the sanction of the majority of voters in all the counties of which the boundaries would be changed. Provision is made for the liquidation of the State debt; and no new debt can be created by ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... of twenty-three millions authorized by the act of the 28th of January, 1847, the sum of five millions was paid out to the public creditors or exchanged at par for specie; the remaining eighteen millions was offered for specie to the highest bidder not below par, by an advertisement issued by the Secretary of the Treasury and published from the 9th of February until the 10th of April, 1847, when it was awarded to the several highest bidders at premiums varying from one-eighth of per cent to 2 per cent above par. The premium has been paid into ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... employer, "I am up against a bad proposition. I am driving these Buford cattle, you understand, on a sub-contract. I was the second lowest bidder with the government, and no sooner was the award made to The Western Supply Company than they sent an agent who gave me no peace until they sublet their contract. Unfortunately for me, when the papers were drawn, my regular attorney was out of town, and I was compelled to depend on a stranger. ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... first place, I argued that, in sales of slaves made by the State, I would forbid the separation of families, letting the father, mother, and children, be sold together to one person, instead of each to the highest bidder. And, again, I would advise the repeal of the statute which enacted a severe penalty for even the owner to teach his slave to read and write, because that actually qualified property and took away a part of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... standing upon the platform of a pillory was selling human flesh and blood. He saw the boy who had stood beneath the yews of the old Hall, who had fought at Worcester beneath his father's eye; the man who had lain in prison and in the noisome hold of the ship, put up and sold to the highest bidder. He saw him carried away with other merchandise to the home of his purchaser. He saw a Virginia plantation lying fair and serene beneath a Virginia heaven; and a wide porch, and standing therein an angelic vision, all grace and beauty, vivid youth ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... by his intended bidder. 'T is pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features Are bought up, others by a warlike leader, Some by a place—as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash—but all ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... All this was accompanied with such Speeches as you may have heard Horse-coursers make in the Sale of Nags, when they are warranted for their Soundness. You understand by this Time that I was left in a Brothel, and exposed to the next Bidder that could purchase me of my Patroness. This is so much the Work of Hell; the Pleasure in the Possession of us Wenches, abates in proportion to the Degrees we go beyond the Bounds of Innocence; and no ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the opinion of this necessity, endeavored to render that dubious engagement as beneficial as possible to the Company. They began by putting up the contract to the highest bidder. The proposals were to be sealed. When the seals came to be opened, a very extraordinary scene appeared. Every step in this business develops more and more the effect of this junction of public monopoly and private influence. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... set forth the crime and all the imaginary circumstances the plaintiffs were eager to prove; it was, in short, the publication of a ready-made case, which gave the first knave that came a chance of earning some money by making a lying deposition in favour of the highest bidder. The inevitable effect of the monitory, when it was drawn up with a bias, was to arouse public hatred against the accused. The devout especially, receiving their opinions ready-made from the clergy, pursued the victim without ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Sumroo went off and entered the service of the celebrated chief of Rohilkhand, Hafiz Rahmat Khan. This he soon quitted from fear of the English. He raised two battalions in 1772, which he soon afterwards increased to four; and let out always to the highest bidder—first, to the Jat chiefs of Dig, then to the chief of Jaipur, then to Najaf Khan, the prime minister, and then to the Marathas. His battalions were officered by Europeans, but Europeans of respectability were unwilling to take service under a man so precariously situated, however great their ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... bet your last beaver-skin it is! Do you think I was old Cam's private secretary for nothin'? Not I! I say—get your wares as you may and sell 'em to the highest bidder. So here I am, snugly berthed, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, all through judicious—distribution—of—information." And the boy gurgled with pleasure over his own cleverness. "And say, Gillespie, I'm in regular clover! ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... ran up rapidly till it reached twenty-five dollars, where it stopped, Samson Newell being the successful bidder. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... moment when he had turned his stateroom key on unconscious Charlie Hammerton, he had recognized it as his one chance. And now he was too late. Clever Ryan, who missed nothing, doubtless suspecting that the faithless editor who had sold out once to him might now be planning to do it again to a higher bidder, had outstripped him. And the Gazette ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Hammer, who rose with his right hand held high, his small finger and thumb doubled in his palm, like a bidder at an auction. ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... ladies and gentlemen," he cried, with the air of an auctioneer who is about to sell it to the highest bidder, "very fine example from the eighteenth dynasty. Here is the cartouche of Thotmes the Third," he pointed up with his donkey-whip at the rude, but deep, hieroglyphics upon the wall above him. "He live sixteen hundred years before Christ, and ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... said to have exclaimed [Footnote: "Urbem venalem, et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit"—Sallust's "Jugurtha," chapter 35.]: "A city for sale, ready to fall into the hands of the first bidder!" These memorable words, whether really uttered by the Numidian or not, well characterize the state of affairs ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... oh Taurus Antinor?" said Dea Flavia raising her pencilled eyebrows with a slight expression of scorn, "nay! I had not seen the hammer descend! The girl until then is not sold, and open to the highest bidder. Or am I wrong, O praefect, in thus interpreting the laws ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... debtor, fearing that something may befall the creditor while in his house, and, therefore, suspicion fall on him, he is moved to use all possible endeavors to answer the demand. Women are sold in marriage and the highest bidder takes them. Their government is patriarchial and despotic. The emperor is styled Holy Son of Heaven, Sole Governor of the Earth. Their religion ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... will be sell'd the morn to the highest bidder—that's no the morn, Lord help me! which is the Sabbath, but on Monday, the first free day; and the furniture and stocking is to be roupit at the same time on the ground. It's the opinion of the haill country that the sale has been shamefully forced on at this time, when there's ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... be considered one and the same question. At a meeting of Presbyterian ministers in Philadelphia, it was pertinently asked, "Have two men chosen to represent a poor English borough that has sold its votes to the highest bidder any pretence to say that they represent Virginia or Pennsylvania? And have four hundred such fellows a right to take our liberties?" In Parliament, on the other hand, as well as at London dinner tables, and in newspapers and pamphlets, it was repeatedly urged that the Americans need not make so ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... that efforts have been made to stop this sport, but that they have all been unavailing. It constitutes a source of municipal income, the right to open cockpits being annually conceded to the highest bidder by the various municipalities. Raffles and lotteries are also permitted by law, being subject to taxation by the municipalities, and in one or two cities there ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... plantations near Lake Providence had been leased or applied for. The same was the case with most of those near Vicksburg. In some instances, there were several applicants for the same plantation. The agents announced their determination to sell the choice of plantations to the highest bidder. The competition for the best places was ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... added that his pride, all the habits of thought of a conqueror of women, had been shocked by that stupefying rejection of him, which Cecilia had intimated to her father with the mere lowering of her eyelids. Conceive the highest bidder at an auction hearing the article announce that it will not have him! Captain Baskelett talked of it everywhere for a month or so:—the girl could not know her own mind, for she suited him exactly! and he requested the world to partake of his astonishment. Chronicles of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of oppression that is not easily removed. And although, in these short leases, the rent was gradually to increase after short periods, yet, as soon as the terms elapsed, the land was let to the highest bidder, most commonly without the least effectual clause for building or planting. Yet, by many advantages, which this island then possessed, and hath since utterly lost, the rents of lands still grew higher upon every lease ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... led his comrades to the assault of the town by a way which he learnt during his imprisonment. The attack succeeded, and Dancaster, to avoid involving his master in a formal breach of the truce, professed to hold the town on his own account and to be willing to sell it to the highest bidder. Of course the highest bidder was Edward III. himself, and thus Guines became the southern outpost of the ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... the Praetorians, apprehensive that, in this private contract, they should not obtain a just price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the ramparts; and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to be disposed of to the best bidder by public ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... woman the great lords of my kingdom have made quarrel concerning me, as though forsooth,' she added with a flash of passion, 'I were a deer to be pulled down by the hungriest wolf, or a horse to be sold to the highest bidder. Let my lord pardon me if I weary my lord, but it hath pleased my lord to say that he loves me, Nyleptha, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi, and therefore would I say that though my love and my hand be not much to my lord, yet to me are ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... them for a time in the favor of my too believing countrymen,—whose despair of finding justice at any hands has often led them thus to carry their confidence to market, and to place it in the hands of the first plausible bidder. The many vicissitudes of popularity which their own illustrious Whig, Grattan, had to encounter, would have wearied out the ardor of any less magnanimous champion. But high minds are as little affected by such unworthy returns for services, as the sun is by those fogs which the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... recourse to deceit in order to sell a thing for more than its just price, because this is to deceive one's neighbor so as to injure him. Hence Tully says (De Offic. iii, 15): "Contracts should be entirely free from double-dealing: the seller must not impose upon the bidder, nor the buyer upon ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... what shall we do now? I have read that Benniger such a lecture, and taken the money ad depositum. But, good heaven! that fellow is a wild ferocious beast. He says, it is a bargain; that the receiver is the thief, and not the bidder. He insists on having the patent for the monopoly dispatched; if not, he swears ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... their seals and their arms, converted their masters' substance into their own, and, as it were, sucked them dry under the shelter of those repealed laws. The Roman Empire, formerly sold by auction to the highest bidder, and the Turkish emperors, whose necks are exposed every day to the bowstring, show us in very bloody characters the blindness of those men that make authority to consist only ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... were furnished with almost regal splendor. Thus did you unconsciously contribute to the existence of two rivals, who received a greater share of my attentions than you did. In conclusion, as you are now without resources, I would advise you to sell your charms to the highest bidder. There are many wealthy and amorous gentlemen in New York, who will pay you handsomely for your smiles and kisses. I shall not be jealous of their attentions to my sixth wife! I intend to marry six more within the next six months. Yours truly, LIVINGSTON.' Thus wrote the ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... fabric of royal laws; a princess yet possessing less liberty than the meanest of her peasants. Nothing belonged to her, not even her heart, which was merchandise, a commodity of exchange, turned over to the highest bidder. "Royalty," he mused, "is a political slave-dealer; the slaves are ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... the kitchen has blubbered over it by the light of a surreptitious candle, conceiving herself the while the magnificent Georgiana, and Lord Mordaunt, Georgiana's lover, the pot-boy round the corner. Tied up with many a dingy brother, the auctioneer knocks the bundle down to the bidder of a few pence, and it finds its way to the quiet cove of some village library, where with some difficulty—as if from want of teeth—and with numerous interruptions—as if from lack of memory—it tells its old stories, and wakes tears, and blushes, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... offers for sale to the highest bidder, up to Doomsday next, several choice lots of tombstones. Bidders will state price and terms of payment, and accepted purchasers will remove the monuments from their present localities, at their own risk. The ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... to range her cherries on, saying that to-day it was the turn of the nation; and a picture of the king was torn down from the walls, and, after being stuck up in derision outside the gates for some time, was offered for sale to the highest bidder.[2] In the Assembly the most violent language was used. An officer whose name has been preserved through the eminence which after his death was attained by his widow and his children, General Beauharnais, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... calculating machine, invented by Mr. Wertheimber, he is desirous of asking the inventor, through the ubiquitous pages of PUNCH, whether his, Mr. W.'s apparatus—which, as his friend George Robins would say, is a lot which seems to be worthy only of the great Bidder—(he thinks he had him there)—whether this automatical American, or steam calculator, could solve for him the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... influence with the other officers. They are not to be bribed, of course, but in the cause of the country each man would find his services well rewarded. Think before you answer me, man! Duke Gustave is sunk in pleasure and has sold the country over and over again to the highest bidder, and only got out of his share of the bargain by Selpdorf's infernal cleverness. This time we will play an open game. With Germany to stand by us, we ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... merchants had bid, Saouy happened to pass that way, and judging that it must be a slave of extraordinary beauty, rode up to Hagi Hassan and desired to see her. Now it was not the custom to show a slave to a private bidder, but as no one dared to disobey the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... off a piece of land that a white man would starve on. He will outbid the white man every time in the matter of price when renting land for farming purposes and the land-owner doesn't give a darn then whether he rents to white or yellow—so long as he gets the highest bidder's money. The chink spends hardly anything on clothes, he lives in a hovel; eats rice, works seven days in the week, pays no taxes except a paltry Road Tax of something like four dollars a year—and generally manages to evade ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... and was ordered sold for the benefit of the State; that the property of one Lambert Meredith, who had been attainted, both by proclamation and by trial, of high treason, was therefore within the act; and, finally, that there would be sold to the highest bidder, at the court-house of the town of Brunswick, on the sixteenth day of August next ensuing, the said property of the said Lambert Meredith; namely, "Two likely negro women, who can cook and spin," and thirty thousand acres ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... his bitter voice to utter a furious philippic against our celebrated literary men. He attacked them all, with scarcely an exception. This one sold his pen to the highest bidder; that one levied contributions of all sorts on the vanity of authors and artists; another was a mere actor; a fourth was nothing but a mountebank; a fifth was a mere babbler; and so on he went through the whole catalogue of authors. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... with a large stock, and such credit among all the merchants, who were acquainted with my master, that I could command whatever was imported curious or valuable. For five years I proceeded with success proportionate to close application and untainted integrity; was a daring bidder at every sale; always paid my notes before they were due; and advanced so fast in commercial reputation, that I was proverbially marked out as the model of young traders, and every one expected that a few years ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... should like, gentlemen; any bidder of that description would get them on more favourable terms than a trader, he would," he returns, quickly. The man of feeling, now wealthy from the sale of human beings, hopes gentlemen will pardon his nervousness ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... 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 his beasts amid the exultation of the whole neighborhood, and ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... with the past neglect. The Old Testament doctrine that the criminal should suffer the consequences of his act has had its effect, and the factor of expense has not been forgotten. Some of the States still permit county commissioners to commit the care of the poor to the lowest bidder. On the other hand the poorhouse has been transformed into a "Home for the Aged and Infirm" in some States, and inspections of public institutions by the grand jury are becoming more than merely cursory. State boards of charities ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... by the press, that election conditions had become intolerable and that in his judgment one-third of the votes in the county were purchasable. Elections, he said, had degenerated into "an auction wherein offices went to the highest bidder." ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various
... his all many times in succession, sympathetically contributed his only shovel, for which act he was enthusiastically cursed and liberally treated at the bar, while the shovel was promptly sold at auction to the highest bidder, who presented it, with a staggering slap between the shoulders, to its original owner. The remaining non-legal tenders were then converted into gold-dust, and the whole dispatched by express, with a grim note from Pentecost, to the society's treasurer at Boston. As the society was controlled ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... ran on with warming rivalry. Mr. Bowyer was a bidder, and this was too exasperating. Bowyer couldn't afford it, and only wanted to hinder every other man from making a figure. The current carried even Mr. Horrock with it, but this committal of himself to an opinion fell from him with so little sacrifice of his neutral expression, that the bid ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... girl, in a very grave voice, "you inspire me with horror. That Ardea should have lost all scruples, and that he should wish to sell his title of a Roman prince at as high a price as possible, to no matter what bidder, is so much the more a matter of indifference, for we Venetians do not allow ourselves to be imposed upon by the Roman nobility. We all had Doges in our families when the fathers of these people were bandits in the country, waiting for some poor monk of their name to become Pope. That ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of Alcme'na (wife of Amphit'ryon). A type of venality of the lowest and grossest kind. Phaedra is betrothed to Judge Gripus, a stupid magistrate, ready to sell justice to the highest bidder. Neither Phaedra nor Gripus forms any part of the dramatis personae of Moli['e]re's Amphitryon ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... obviously new announcement "For Sale." Already a queue of prospective purchasers was lining up. When the owner—a sallow man of about fifty—appeared, he was besieged. The shack was sold in a few minutes to the highest bidder. Angela, nervous but determined, interrogated ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... holding off won't do with me. I'm getting tired of waiting, and—and so's another party up to London. Tell her so, Sybilla, with G. W. P.'s compliments, and say that I give her just two more days, and if she doesn't come to book before the end of that time, I'll sell her secret to the highest bidder." ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... supply and demand. Let our future sieges of Sebastopol be done by contract—no capture, no pay—(I admit that things might sometimes go better so); and let us sell the commands of our prospective battles, with our vicarages, to the lowest bidder; so may we have cheap victories, and divinity. On the other hand, if we have so much suspicion of our science that we dare not trust it on military or spiritual business, would it not be but reasonable ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... of 12,000 in the whole population, and that Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford had not a Member among them. While Burke perorated about the ways of providence, they pointed to that auctioneer who put up for sale to the highest bidder the fee simple of the Borough of Gatton with the power of nominating two members for ever. That auctioneer is worth quoting: "Need I tell you, gentlemen, that this elegant contingency is the only infallible source of fortune, titles, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... Mr. Jones Adams, a neighbor and great friend of my father, brought over a two bushel sack of turnip greens and a ham. I remember seeing him shake them out of the bag. At this sale for the first, and only time, I saw a negro put on a block and sold to the highest bidder. I can't understand how my father could have allowed this. His name was "Big Bill," to distinguish him from another "Bill". He was a widower or a batchelor and had no family. There was one colored man my father valued highly, and wanted to take with him, ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... marble vases, and so forth. Some of you who read may have passed such marts in different parts of the city, or even have dropped in and purchased a bust or a tazza for a surprisingly small sum. Perhaps I knocked it down to you, only too pleased to find a bona fide bidder amongst my company. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... she viewed it for the first time in definite particulars, its true aspect struck her with a sudden dismay. She was expected to do nothing less than exhibit herself for sale, put herself up at auction for the highest bidder, set out her charms as a bait. And when the bait drew, and the bidders offered, and the buyer awaited—what then? She would never, her pride alone would never let her, degrade herself to a position at the very thought of which she caught her breath with horror. Come what may, the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... They have all very much the same general features, pleasing and displeasing. All feeding-establishments have something odious about them,—from the wretched country-houses where paupers are farmed out to the lowest bidder, up to the commons-tables at colleges, and even the fashionable boarding-house. A person's appetite should be at war with no other purse than his own. Young people, especially, who have a bone-factory at work in them, and have to feed the living looms of innumerable growing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... for the society are principled against the maintenance of any religious ministry, and of course cannot conscientiously pay toward the support of the established church. In consequence of their refusal of payment in the latter case, their goods are seized by a law-process, and sold to the best bidder. Those, who have the charge of these executions, behave differently. Some wantonly take such goods, as will not sell for a quarter of their value, and others much more than is necessary, and others again kindly select those, which in the sale will be attended with the least loss. This amount, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... unacquainted with Mr. Christie's happy talent at exaggerated description, became the highest bidder, paid his deposit, and posted down into Essex to examine his new purchase, when, to his great surprise and disappointment, he found no part of the description realized, the promised Paradise having faded into an airy vision, "and left not a wreck behind!" The ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... signed by Alva himself, and set out in full his powers, which were considerable, his responsibilities which were small, and other matters, excepting only the sum of money that he had paid for the office, that, given certain conditions, was, as a matter of fact, sold to the highest bidder. As may be guessed, this post of governor of a gaol in one of the large Netherland cities was lucrative enough to those who did not object to such a fashion of growing rich. So lucrative was it, indeed, that the salary supposed to attach to the office was never paid; ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... they put the folks on blocks as high as that house and sell em to the highest bidder. No ma'm, I wasn't sold cause my mother had three or four chillun and boss man wouldn't sell dem what had chillun cause dem chillun ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... a flatboat selling groceries to the plantations of Mississippi, and these two trips enabled him to see what slavery was like. He saw negroes being placed on the auction block and knocked down to the highest bidder, separated forever from their wives and families. He saw them toiling in the fields and triced up under the lash. It was then, without doubt, that he formed the opinions that directed his policy from the White House in later years when ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... been put aside for want of a bidder, a fine cow was put up, and all the usual cajoling and seductive provocations to competition and purchase were held out, but in vain. Every nourish of the bailiff, who acted as auctioneer, was lost, as it were, on empty space, and might as well have been ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... hurrah!" adding only as an afterthought, "The Lord's will be done." But midsummer was his great opportunity. Then took place the rouping of the seats in the parish church. The scene was the kirk itself, and the seats being put up to auction were knocked down to the highest bidder. This sometimes led to the breaking of the peace. Every person was present who was at all particular as to where he sat, and an auctioneer was engaged for the day. He rouped the kirk-seats like potato-drills, beginning by asking for a bid. Every ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... sheep's clothing; jilt; shuffler^, stool pigeon. liar &c (lie) &c 544; story-teller, perjurer, false witness, menteur a triple etage [Fr.], Scapin^; bunko steerer [U.S.], carpetbagger [U.S.], capper [U.S.], faker, fraud, four flusher [Slang], horse coper^, ringer [Slang], spieler^, straw bidder [U.S.]. imposter, pretender, soi-disant [Fr.], humbug; adventurer; Cagliostro, Fernam Mendez Pinto; ass in lion's skin &c (bungler) 701; actor &c (stage player) 599. quack, charlatan, mountebank, saltimbanco^, saltimbanque^, empiric, quacksalver, medicaster^, Rosicrucian, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... National domain was the name given to the confiscated property of the emigres, which was sold from time to time at auction to the highest bidder.—TR. ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... you ought to buy your things of me," whispered the keeper of the general store to the latter bidder. "I trust you till the money for ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer |
