"Half-pay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was partial to officers who had served in Spain. Only not even the marshal's protection could secure for him active employment. He remained irreconcilable, idle and sinister, seeking in obscure restaurants the company of other half-pay officers, who cherished dingy but glorious old tricolour cockades in their breast pockets, and buttoned with the forbidden eagle buttons their shabby uniform, declaring themselves too poor to afford the ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... drink, poverty, and a crack on the skull at the battle of Steenkirk had served to injure the former; and the Ensign was not in his best days possessed of any share of the latter. He had really, at one period, held such a rank in the army, but pawned his half-pay for drink and play; and for many years past had lived, one of the hundred thousand miracles of our city, upon nothing that anybody knew of, or of which he himself could give any account. Who has not ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... moderately—we needed one thousand infantrymen; but all the islands could only furnish six hundred paid soldiers. In order to supply this lack, three hundred and eighty men were provided from the citizens of this city, and from captains, alferezes, and sergeants on half-pay—the captains numbering thirty-four, the alferezes one hundred and six, the sergeants eighty, and the common soldiers one hundred and sixty. These men showed a willingness to take service on this occasion for honor. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... her—just as she was, all covered with dust and blood—to Washington, who gave her the commission of sergeant as a reward for her bravery; in addition to that he recommended her to Congress as worthy to have her name placed upon the list of those entitled to half-pay ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... the feeder; and the world is full of remarks unless he becomes a good clothier also. But everything went against this father, with nine little Stubbards running after him, and no ninepence in any of his pockets, because he was shelfed upon half-pay, on account of the depression of the times and of his ribs. But Miss Dolly Darling was resolved to see him righted, for she hated all ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... measures with them; and that they were previously advised of his coming, before he arrived in Scotland: For, on Saturday the 6th of August, their friends at Edinburgh were apprized of it; and early next morning Captain John Dalziel, a half-pay officer, who, in view of this rebellion had thrown up his commission to the Earl of Orkney, was sent out to give the alarm to his brother, the Earl of Carnwath, then at Elliock, where he arrived that night; and, ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... conventions. Having been a successful teacher in the State of New York fifteen years of her life, she had seen the need of many improvements in the mode of teaching and in the sanitary arrangements of school buildings; and more than all, the injustice to women in their half-pay as teachers. Her interest in educational conventions was first roused by listening to a tedious discussion at Elmira on the "Divine ordinance" of flogging children, in which Charles Anthony, principal of the Albany Academy, quoted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... I shall have to exchange into another regiment, and I shall wander from garrison to garrison; but certainly, when I am an old commandant or old colonel, on half-pay, I shall come back, and live and die here, in the little house that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the family. I am the youngest of ten, and devil a copper have I but my pay, or am I likely to have. You may talk about descent, but a more descending family than mine was never in existence, for here am I with twenty-five pounds a-year, and a half-pay of 'nothing a day, and find myself,' when my great ancestor did just what he pleased with all Ireland, and everybody in it. But this is all nothing, except to prove satisfactorily that I am not worth a skillagalee, and that is the reason which induces ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... poorbox and if you wish to put something in you can do so—a sixpence most visitors put in, or a shilling if you insist upon it. You know we are not a rich parish—the wool all goes to Manchester now, and the factory-hands are on half-pay and times are scarce. You will come again some time, come when the heather is in bloom, won't you? That's right. Oh, stay! the boxwood there in the garden was planted by Charlotte's own hands—perhaps you would like a sprig of it—there, I ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... no particular family; an orphan daughter of an admiral who educated her on his half-pay, and her conduct struck but at the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one would inhabit it. I smiled at what seemed to me so idle a story. I spent some money in repairing it, added to its old-fashioned furniture a few modern articles,—advertised it, and obtained a lodger for a year. He was a colonel on half-pay. He came in with his family, a son and a daughter, and four or five servants: they all left the house the next day; and, although each of them declared that he had seen something different from that which had scared the others, a something ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... fit for sea. I don't think I should have minded so much if I had got post rank before being laid on the shelf. The difference of pension, too, would have been a help, for goodness knows it is hard work making ends meet on a lieutenant's half-pay. However, that is not the question now. The thing that I have got to consider is what is the best thing to ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... de Trailles had fallen back into his former state of existence. He went to the baths every year and gambled; he returned to Paris for the winter; but, though he received some large sums from the depths of certain niggardly coffers, that sort of half-pay to a daring man kept for use at any moment and possessing many secrets of the art of diplomacy, was insufficient for the dissipations of a life as splendid as that of the king of dandies, the tyrant of several Parisian clubs. Consequently Comte Maxime was often uneasy ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... shall ask anybody here to receive my—I needn't mention the word; you know what I mean. Kenwigs and Susan, yesterday was a week she eloped with a half-pay captain!' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... just before Tom reached home he met Captain Bulldog, an old officer of the Guards, who had retired on half-pay, with an extra pension for the loss of one of his legs, which he had left on the field, and to him Tom recounted all the circumstances of the assault. The Captain immediately told Tom that he had but one course to pursue, which was, to call Chanticleer out. Tom did not at first ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... centenarian as a miracle of longevity, and he is careful to tell us his age if he have not lost the power of speech; but if the coats of poor men could speak, how much more marvellous in our eyes would their powers of life appear! A stranger would have taken the Count for a half-pay officer of good birth in straitened circumstances. The expression of his face at the time in question was grave and thoughtful, as though he were thinking of matters weightier to his happiness, if not more necessary to his material ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... and position. We had, however, an aunt, my mother's maiden sister, Miss Honoria Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we were occasionally allowed to pay short visits at this lady's house. Julia went there at Christmas two years ago, and met there a half-pay major of marines, to whom she became engaged. My stepfather learned of the engagement when my sister returned and offered no objection to the marriage; but within a fortnight of the day which had been fixed for the wedding, the terrible event occurred which ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... undertaking. "The opera, a tawdry, expensive and meretricious lady, who had been accustomed to high keeping, was now reduced to a very humble state. Her establishment was not only diminished, but her servants reduced to half-pay. Pescetti seems to have been her prime minister, Carestini her head man, the Muscovita her favourite woman, and Andreoni a servant for all work." Concerts and pasticcios formed the main repertory, and Burney ascribes such success as they enjoyed to the fact that the Little Theatre ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... spoke Mr. Stirling with affected sternness, but a twinkling in his eye, "you take your half-pay, make tracks, enjoy yourself, and don't worry about a trifle of a dollar or two. If you happen to drop around this way about nine o'clock, I'll be glad of ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... thoroughly national and the most thoroughly democratic was the arrny; it was accordingly against the army that the noblesse directed its first efforts. Financial difficulties made a large reduction in the forces necessary. Fourteen thousand officers and sergeants were accordingly dismissed on half-pay; but no sooner had this measure of economy been effected than a multitude of emigrants who had served against the Republic in the army of the Prince of Conde or in La Vendee were rewarded with all degrees of military rank. Naval officers who had quitted the service of France and entered that of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... you, Jack!" The dying man turned his pale grim face towards me—for his face was always somewhat grim, do you see—nodded and said, or I thought I heard him say, "All right, old chap." The next moment . . . my eyes water. He had a high heart, got into a scrape whilst in the marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbed him of nearly all he had. But he had good qualities, and I know for certain that he never did half the bad things laid to his charge; for example, he never bribed ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... rented the house for six months from a Captain Marchmont, a half-pay officer, naval or military, I don't know which, for we never saw him, and all the negotiations were managed by an agent. Captain Marchmont and his family, as a rule, lived at Ballyreina all the year round—they found ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... war, the Rangers were disbanded, the officers being placed on the half-pay list. Young Simcoe had meanwhile been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. During the progress of hostilities he had conceived an intense dislike to the colonists and their political principles, and the termination of the war caused no change in his sentiments toward them. This aversion accompanied ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... or nine years ago—I write from memory, and am not very certain as to dates—a young Irish emigrant girl was hired into the service of Captain Kinnaird, an officer on half-pay, who had purchased a farm about thirty miles in the rear of Toronto; but the name of the township, and the county in which it was situated, I have forgotten; but this is of little consequence to my narrative. Both circumstances could be easily ascertained ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... a crown sterling. My ancestor was Colonel Hamilton, as stout a Cromwellian as ever led a squadron of Noll's Ironsides to a charge. If my education was not of the first order, it was for no lack of instructors. My father, a half-pay dragoon, had me on the pig-skin before my legs were long enough to reach the saddle-skirt; the keeper, in proper time, taught me to shoot: a retired gentleman, olim, of the Welsh fusileers, with a single leg and sixty pounds per annum, paid quarterly by Greenwood and Cox, indoctrinated ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... the Loughbank as missing, and the owners ceased the monthly remittance of Samuel's half-pay to his wife. It was the question of the child's legitimacy that preyed on her mind, and, when all hope of Samuel's return was abandoned, she drowned herself and the child in the loch. And here enters the greater tragedy. The Loughbank was not lost. By ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... of New York, entered the service of the Crown, and was a captain in the regiment of Sir John Johnson. In 1783 he settled near Cornwall, Upper Canada, and received half-pay; held several civil offices, such as those of Magistrate, Judge of the District Court, Associate Justice of King's Bench, etc. He continued to reside on his property near Cornwall until his decease in 1836, at ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... bill was Robert Isaac Dey Gray, the young Solicitor General, the son of Major James Gray, a half-pay British Officer. He studied law in Canada. He was elected member of the House of Assembly for Stormont in the election of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... be acquainted with my worthy friend, little Major British; and heaven, sure, it was that put the Major into my head, when I heard of this awkward scrape of poor Fog's. The Major is on half-pay, and occupies a modest apartment au quatrieme, in the very hotel which Pogson had patronized at my suggestion; indeed, I had chosen it from Major ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... windows being previously closed, but in the public street, in a loud military voice, alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a particular house. The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning over the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman. He was a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a neighbouring railway, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the little town; and if, in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection with the obnoxious ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... writes, however, with enough vivacity and fervour of belief in his creed to redeem him from the charge of absolute dulness. An abler thinker was Colonel (Robert) Torrens (1780-1864).[352] He had served with distinction in the war; but retired on half-pay, and was drawn by some natural idiosyncrasy into the dry paths of economic discussion. He was already confuting the French economists in 1808; and was writing upon the Bank-charter Act and the Ten Hours' Bill in 1844. Torrens held himself, apparently ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... a pair of lovely dark eyes; and the Butcher, as evidently forgetful of his usual calling, was sympathising with, and endeavouring to soothe her into composure, and fondling the child. In another, a person who had the appearance of an Half-pay Officer, with Hessian boots, blue pantaloons, and a black silk handkerchief, sat with his arms folded almost without taking notice of what was passing around him, though a rough Sailor with a pipe in his mouth occasionally 380 enlivened the scene by accompanying ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... "you seem to me to hold a middle rank between a half-pay captain and the king of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Vaughan went this winter. Well, we are all permanently shelved upon the world's half-pay list as it is. The obituary column is just the last formality which gazettes us out of the service altogether," and Sutch stretched out and eased his crippled leg, which fourteen years ago that day had been crushed and twisted in the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... Luttrell, having been appointed to the Ganges, took with him Mr. Riou as second lieutenant. He served in this ship until the following summer, when he retired for a time on half-pay, devoting himself to study and continental travel until March, 1786, when we find him serving under Admiral Elliot as second lieutenant of the Salisbury. It was about this time that he submitted to the Admiralty a plan, doubtless suggested by his voyage ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... India there were good opportunities of saving; then out of that sum I bought the house, and with my half-pay, our income will be very fair, and there would be a pension afterwards for you. This seems to me all we can ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fashion, of which we shall give abundant examples when we come to treat of gentility-mongers. But the heavy swell, who is of all classes, from the son and heir of an opulent blacking-maker down to the lieutenant of a marching regiment on half-pay, is utterly destitute of brains, deplorably illiterate, and therefore incapable, by nature and bringing-up, of respecting himself by a modest contented demeanour. He is never so unhappy as when he appears the thing he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... centre sits the banker, gold and silver in piles and rouleaux, and bank-notes before him. On either hand, the croupier, as before, now wielding the rakes and plying them to bring in the money, now balancing them, now shouldering them, as soldiers do their muskets, half-pay officers their canes, and dandies their silk umbrellas. The banker's cards are, as throughout all the Rhenish gaming-places, of French design; the same that were invented, or, at least, first used in Europe, for crazy Charles the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... gentleman to fight at pleasure; and for the others whose blood was hotter and younger, for the three Kerry Cocks, the Conclave had not been more surprised if a Cardinal had risen and denounced the Papacy, nor an assembly of half-pay captains been more astonished if one of their number had denounced the pension system. The Colonel was a Sullivan and an Irishman, and it was supposed that he had followed the wars. Whence, then, these strange words, these unheard-of opinions? Morty felt his cheek flush with ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... regiment was stationed at Edinburgh, and the wife and me had a holiday, and went down and saw Colonel and Mrs Maine, and those children grown up a'most into a man and woman. But Colonel Dyer had exchanged into another regiment, and they say he is going to retire on half-pay, on account ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... not profess to avoid the introduction of actual persons and events, often even with no pretence of disguise, we need not hesitate to think that he would make no difficulty of turning the eccentricities of a half-pay officer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... which are expended daily by this Method, are realy surprizing. I knew a Clerk to a Vestry, a Half-pay Officer, a Chancery Sollicitor, and a broken Apothecary, that made a tolerable good Livelihood, by calling into a Tavern all their Friends that passed by the Window in this manner. Their Custom was to sit with a Quart of White-Port before them in a Morning; ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... together. Two such candidates for fame, perhaps never, before that day, entered the metropolis together. Their stock of money was soon exhausted. In his visionary project of an academy, Johnson had probably wasted his wife's substance; and Garrick's father had little more than his half-pay.—The two fellow-travellers had the world before them, and each was to choose his road to fortune and to fame. They brought with them genius, and powers of mind, peculiarly formed by nature for the different vocations to which each of them felt himself inclined. They acted ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... poor Gentleman wrote to me of his endless satisfaction; and how he hoped to get through his building, and retire on half-pay this very season, thenceforth to belong to the Academy and me; he had been Member for twenty years past." With this view, thinks Formey, he most likely hastened on his buildings too fast: certain it is, a barrack ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... should be made from the army as a whole, and not from the colony- or State-line alone, and most unpopular of all, that since Continental soldiers could not otherwise be obtained, a bounty should be given to secure them, and that as compensation for their inadequate pay half-pay should be given them after the war. He eventually carried these points, but at the price of an entire alienation of the democratic party in the Congress, who wished to have the war fought with militia, to have all the officers elected annually, and to ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... speak of Lina Dale, my English governess before I had Mary Gibson. Mary Gibson is an excellent girl, but she has not the talent that Lina had. Lina's father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the young officer who had been slain at Badajoz, kept house for us after my sister's death. She was a lady of good Welsh family, who after many years of genteel poverty had come into a legacy of seven thousand pounds from an East Indian uncle; and my father—a simple liver, content with his half-pay—had much ado in his blindness to keep watch and war upon the luxuries she untiringly strove to smuggle upon him. For the rest, Miss Plinlimmon wore corkscrew curls, talked sentimentally, worshipped the manly form (in ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... torch of wedded love beam brighter than in Canada, where the husband always finds "the wife dearer than the bride." I have seen many an accomplished and beautiful English girl, "forgetting with her father's house," the amusements of a fashionable life, to realize with a half-pay officer or "younger brother," the purer, holier pleasures of domestic love in this country, where a numerous issue, the fruits of their union, are considered a blessing and a source of wealth, instead of bringing with them, as in the old ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... rendered important services to the officers commanding the British army, and coming to England was employed by Lord George Germaine, and rewarded with the rank of a provincial lieutenant-colonel, which entitled him to half-pay. [Picture: No. 45 Brompton Row] In 1784 he was knighted, and officiated for a short time as one of the under-secretaries of state. He afterwards entered the service of the King of Bavaria, in which he introduced ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... was that Harley offered too little, and that Montague demanded too much. At last, on the fourteenth of January, a vote was taken for three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Four days later the House resolved to grant half-pay to the disbanded officers till they should be otherwise provided for. The half-pay was meant to be a retainer as well as a reward. The effect of this important vote therefore was that, whenever a new ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... strange characters, and grew red-hot of their own accord. In short, there were a thousand extravagant reports. But what is most remarkable is, that this population of Kolomna, made up of pensioners, half-pay officers, petty functionaries, obscure artists, and others equally necessitous, preferred bearing the utmost distress to having recourse to the dreaded money-lender. They all declared they would rather mortify their bodies than destroy their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... services;(296) and therefore he deems it indispensable to present himself at the foot of the throne for that purpose now that he is able to "bear his body more seemly" (like Audrey) in the royal presence. He hopes also to arrange for receiving here his half-pay, when sickness or affairs or accident may prevent his crossing the Channel. Choice and happiness will, to his last breath, carry him annually to France ; for, not to separate us from his son, or in the bud of life, to force that son's inclination in fixing ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... on half-pay! hear this, port-admirals and captains afloat! I have often heard that the service was deteriorating, going to the devil, but I never became a ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... parsonage, and a settled job. He's sort of a Gospel promoter, that goes around plantin' churches here and there,—home missionary, he calls it, though I always thought a home missionary was one that was home from China on a half-pay visit. ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... been suggested that, instead of giving men pensions for long servitude, it might be more useful to allow their wages to increase gradually year by year, at some small rate, and at the end of fourteen years give them half-pay of the rating to which they had reached, if they chose ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... was kilt, As she roar'd with the quilt Wrapp'd round her in haste as she jumped out of bed, And ran down to the coast, Where she looked like a ghost, Though 't was he was departed—the vagabone fled And she cried, "Well-a-day! Sure my heart it is grey: They're deceivers, them sojers, that goes on half-pay." ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... situation, with regard to the difficulties of obtaining intelligence, as well as requisite supplies and refreshments, occasioned private expences which considerably abridged his emoluments. It is true that, as far as related to himself, he might have contrived to live in retirement on his pension and half-pay; but he could by no means make any suitable provision for those whom he conceived to have claims on his protection. This expedition, he trusted, would enable him, at length, to accomplish the wish of his heart, by placing all ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... Edwardian culture did not go very deep; the country gentlefolk and elder business men, the middling professionals and half-pay officers, never abandoned the Victorian tradition. They could not but deplore the imprudence of their too affable leaders, whom, nevertheless, it was their duty and pleasure to admire. They knew that Mr. Balfour was addicted ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... a half-pay lieutenant; but at the end of the war, having no expectation of promotion, he had left the service and joined his elder brother, our Uncle Godfrey (after whom I was named), in a mercantile business at ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... occasion of arrangement, I had declined the Hague, which certainly is the first of all the situations in that line, but which still has the objection of banishing from all connections, social as well as political, and of cutting across all other expectations except those of an invalid upon half-pay. ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... livery stable, Secure the RIBBONS and the DAY-BILL, And mount a gig that had a spring Some summer's back: and then take wing Behind (in Mr. Hamlet's tongue) A jade whose "withers are unwrung;" Who stands erect, and yet forlorn, And from a HALF-PAY life of corn, Showing as many POINTS each way As Martial's Epigrammata, Yet who, when set a-going, goes Like one undestined to repose. 'Tis LIFE to revel down the road, And QUEER each o'erfraught chaise's load, To rave and rattle at the GATE, And shower upon the gatherer's pate Damns ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... printing became a pauper. I began to smoke in days when the task was one of some danger, and paid the penalty of my crime. I was flogged most fiercely for my first cigar; for, being asked to dine one Sunday evening with a half-pay colonel of dragoons (the gallant, simple, humorous Shortcut—heaven bless him!—I have had many a guinea from him who had so few), he insisted upon my smoking in his room at the "Salopian," and the consequence was, that I became so violently ill as to be reported intoxicated upon ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that Blair and Holker wrote to me about when at Rome, the end of 1751. He has been a constant correspondent of John Murray's, and all along suspected of being a spy. Cameron's remarks leave it without a doubt.' Samuel, Edgar adds, is now a half-pay lieutenant in French service, at Dunkirk. Lord Ogilvie and Lochiel mean to secure him, but Lord Lewis Drummond does not think the evidence sufficient. From 'The Scots Magazine' of September 1753, we learn that a court-martial of Scottish ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... is Chaleco of Valdepenas; in the time of the French I served as bragante, fighting for Ferdinand VII. I am now a captain on half-pay in the service of Donna Isabel; as for my business here, it is to speak with you. Do ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... talk about their people, and it appeared that they were both descendants of French peasants. That was why Jean loved the country folk around Longueval. And when he had served his time in the army, he thought he would retire on half-pay—an old colonel, perhaps—and come back ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... loud-voiced fellow is Leftenant-Colonel Lee, a half-pay officer. Many and many 's the time I've seen him—and if I had n't, I'd have known the other for the general in ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... that, under these circumstances, my request to be permitted to remain on half-pay until the completion of the publication of the results of some years' toil is not wholly unreasonable. It is the only reward for which I would ask their Lordships, and indeed, considering the distinct pledge given in the minute to which I have referred, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... officer to leave the service; but should you be compelled to come on shore, and turn your sword into a reaping-hook, I have made such arrangements as will enable you to do so without having to depend solely upon your pittance of half-pay," wrote ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... constitution, consequently the young women won't taste my wit, and it is a long while before wit makes its own way in the world; especially, as I never prove it, by assuring people that I have it by me. Indeed, if I were disposed to brag, I could quote two or three half-pay officers, and an old aunt or two, who laugh prodigiously at every thing I say; but till they are allowed judges, I will not brag of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... second year of his incumbency he was known to be paying his addresses to a young lady of the neighborhood, Miss Edith Saltine, the only child of an ex-army officer. The colonel was a widower, and in poor health, and since he was living mainly on his half-pay, and had very little to give his daughter, the affair was looked upon as a love match, the rather since Edith was a handsome young woman of charming character. The Reverend David Poindexter certainly had every appearance of being deeply in love; and it is often seen that the passions ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... both in the field and office during the closing months of 1847, but I broke down at last, and was sent to recover my health under the care of my family. That family consisted of my father—a half-pay English officer—my mother and three sisters, then living au troisieme in the Rue Neuve de Berri, not far from the newly-erected Russian church, and the windows of the appartement commanded a side view down the Champs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... and of measures permitted under it. The Anti-Federalist party in Connecticut is sometimes said to have been born in 1783 out of opposition both to the Commutation Act of the Continental Congress, voting five years' full pay instead of half-pay for life to the Revolutionary officers, and to the formation of the Cincinnati. Both of these measures touched the main spring of party difference. America had caste as well as Europe. Though of a different type, it existed in every town and county. There were the people ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... le secretaire-general, just one sentence which I will ask your leave to complete. When Napoleon I fell from power, the Restoration placed a certain number of officers on half-pay. These officers were suspected by the authorities and kept under observation by the police. They remained faithful to the emperor's memory; and they contrived to reproduce the features of their idol on all sorts of objects of everyday use; snuff-boxes, rings, ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... was an ensign in a cavalry regiment when I first met my little darling. We were quartered at a stupid seaport town, where my pet lived with her shabby old father, a half-pay naval officer; a regular old humbug, as poor as Job, and with an eye for nothing but the main chance. I saw through all his shallow tricks to catch one of us for his pretty daughter. I saw all the pitiable, contemptible, palpable traps he set ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... I left G. H. Q., feeling quite convinced that for the moment there was no room for me in German diplomacy; for the only policy which I regarded as right, had no prospect of being realized. After my return from America, I was placed on half-pay. I was therefore at liberty to return home, however unwilling I may have felt, at that moment of great tribulation for my country, to give myself up to a life of ease and idleness. During my period of rest, a Reichstag resolution was passed, ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... that she must push Rawdon's fortune in their own country. She must get him a place or appointment at home or in the colonies, and she determined to make a move upon England as soon as the way could be cleared for her. As a first step she had made Crawley sell out of the Guards and go on half-pay. His function as aide-de-camp to General Tufto had ceased previously. Rebecca laughed in all companies at that officer, at his toupee (which he mounted on coming to Paris), at his waistband, at his false teeth, at his pretensions to be a lady-killer ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... occurs, I will have his acting order confirmed. At Quebec, he shall, of course, leave the ship, and go with you. I don't pretend to detain him from his duty; but you will observe, that if he does obtain his rank, he will also obtain his half-pay, which, if he remains in Canada with you, will be a great assistance; and if things should turn out so well, that you can, after a year or two, do without him, and allow him to return to the service, he will then have already gained the most important step, ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... spot of uncleared land. It may easily be supposed that no persons would encounter these hardships who have not a young family to establish in the healthful ways of independence. This family renders the residence of such a head still more valuable to the colony; and the half-pay officer, by thus leading the advanced guard of civilization, and bringing into these rough districts gentle and well-educated females, who soften and improve all around them by mental refinements, is serving his ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... which the Republic usually kept only a garrison of one hundred half-pay Sclavonians, happened to contain at that time two thousand Albanian soldiers, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Captain George had been decorated with the Victoria Cross. Janet's heart thrilled within her as the Major told in simple, unexaggerated terms of the special deed of heroism by which the great distinction had been won. The Major told also how George was now invalided on half-pay; and her heart thrilled with a still sweeter emotion when he went on to say that the young soldier would henceforth reside with him at Eastbury—at Eastbury, which was only two short miles from Deepley Walls! The feeling with which she heard this simple piece ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... while Bunter was away, I called regularly on Mrs. Bunter every Saturday, just to see whether she had any use for my services. It was understood I would do that. She had just his half-pay to live on—it amounted to about a pound a week. She had taken one room in a quiet little ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... (The), a comedy by George Colman, the younger (1802). "The poor gentleman" is Lieutenant Worthington, discharged from the army on half-pay because his arm had been crushed by a shell in storming Gibraltar. On his half-pay he had to support himself, his daughter Emily, an old corporal and a maiden sister-in-law. Having put his name to a bill for [pounds]500, his friend died without effecting an insurance, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... that purpose, should be sufficient to answer and cancel all exchequer-bills, to the amount of two millions seven hundred thousand pounds. Another supply was voted for the payment and reduction of the army, including half-pay to such commission officers as were natural born subjects of England. They granted one million four hundred thousand pounds, to make good deficiencies. They resolved, That the sum of two millions three hundred and forty-eight thousand one hundred and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now, among us; and if I had to begin again, I would mould myself accordingly. Crabbe's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracticable subject, and * * * is retired upon half-pay, and has done enough, unless he were to do as he ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to be in your old age Maintained at the expense of your good King: A moderate pension shakes full many a sage, And Heroes are but made for bards to sing, Which is still better—thus, in verse, to wage Your wars eternally, besides enjoying Half-pay for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... army, by the vieux de vieille, and by the durs a cuirs. In these good old bygone times the writers in the Constitutionel wore a blue frock closely buttoned up to the chin, to the end that they might pass for officers of the old army on half-pay. In 1830 the fortunes of the Constitutionnel had reached the culminant point. It then counted 23,000 subscribers, at 80 francs a year. At that period a single share in the property was a fortune. But the avatar of the Citizen King spoiled in ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... seclusion; for the ordinary stream of life does not run through this little, quiet pool, and few or none of the inhabitants seem to be troubled with any business or outside activities. I used to set them down as half-pay officers, dowagers of narrow income, elderly maiden ladies, and other people of respectability, but small account, such as hang on the world's skirts rather than actually belong to it. The quiet of the place was seldom ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eyes, fair hair plastered down upon an anxious forehead, a small drawn-bonnet of faded green taffetas lined with pink, a white gown with violet spots, and leather shoes. The count recognized the wife of some poor, half-pay captain, a puritan, subscribing no doubt to the "Courrier Francais," earnest in virtue, but aware of the comfort of a good ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... comrades are scattered, and he himself has nothing to do, not even the poor resource of having to study economy on half-pay, or of looking for more additional means to eke out ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... whose paying patients were no longer able to call him in on all occasions; Carey, the banker, whose private bank, it was whispered darkly, was struggling in deep waters; Colonel Russell, who had come home from India on half-pay and his savings, which every year he found more inadequate for the expenses of an increasing family. All these gray-headed men, growing haggard and careworn, agreed that in the present depressed state of the commercial world, young ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... when he was invited to be present at his sister's marriage with a Belgian banker. At the age of sixteen he lost his father, who, on dying, did not leave behind him enough of the world's wealth to pay for his own burial. His half-pay of course died with him, and young Tudor ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... it seemed, had been in Africa about five years, his father having emigrated there on the death of his mother, as he had nothing but the half-pay of a retired naval captain, and he hoped to better his fortunes in a new land. He had been granted a farm in the Graaf-Reinet district, but like many other of the early settlers, met with misfortunes. Now, to make money, he had taken ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... the part played by Great Britain in the comedy of the Bourbon and Orleanist collapse. Captain Duncan had retired from the army, changing his career from one of a chartered to an unchartered uselessness, and he herded with tarnished aristocracy and half-pay failures in the ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... Izzy, though! In the mornin' he comes around just like nothin' had happened and wants to know if I'll sub. for him on his evenin' job the night he goes to the ball. To show I don't carry any grouch, I says I will; but he offers only half-pay and makes me agree to split the tips ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... collected at Newburg on the Hudson, watching the British in New York. Word might come at any day that the treaty had been signed, and the army did not wish to be disbanded until certain matters had been settled primarily the question of their pay. The officers had been promised half-pay for life, but nothing definite had been done toward carrying out the promise. The soldiers had no such hope to encourage them, and their pay was sadly in arrears. In December, 1782, the officers at Newburg drew up an address in behalf ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... had counted on chance. The disbandment of the Imperial troops and the reorganization of the Royal army caused a change in the destination of many officers, who returned, some on half-pay, others with or without a pension, to their native towns, —all having a desire to counteract their luckless fate, and to end their life in a way which might to Rose Cormon be a happy beginning of hers. It would surely ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... deputation of chiefs to receive him from the hands of Onontio, and calling upon them to do so without delay, lest he should think that they had forgotten him. Along with the messengers, Frontenac ventured to send the Chevalier d'Aux, a half-pay officer, with orders to observe the disposition of the Iroquois, and impress them in private talk with a sense of the count's power, of his good-will to them, and of the wisdom of coming to terms with him, ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... of the business which caused my visit in this direction, and Mrs. Bradley need have no fears as to the validity of her title. I have the papers with me that will place her in full possession of the estate. Besides, she is entitled to a large amount from the Government as half-pay for her husband's services during the Revolution, which she will receive on application through the proper channel." It was now getting late, and Col. Godfrey was told that his room was ready if he wished to retire. ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... wondered which of these was the habitation of Captain Sedgewick, concluding that the half-pay officer and his niece must needs live in one of them. He reconnoitred them as he went by the low garden-fences, over which he could see the pretty lawns and flower-beds, with clusters of evergreens ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... dining-hall, you are likely to find most of the people, English and American, whose movements are recorded in the society papers, taking their mid-day meal. The American millionaire at Carlsbad, however, fares just as simply and just as cheaply as does any half-pay captain, for Dr. Krauss and Dr. London are no considerers of ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... Two out of the three, Major Denham and Lieutenant Clapperton, R.N., had won their laurels already in the great war with France, and, being but little over thirty, were by no means disposed to settle down quietly on half-pay. These two, and their companion, Dr. Audney, had felt that strange summons which comes to one man and another in every age and nation, the call into the unknown, into the mysterious places where none of their race have ever trod. And if they did not expect ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... interval the war had ended, and Napoleon had departed for St. Helena. Peace had led to the pensioning of militia officers, or reducing to half-pay of the juniors. The elder Borrow had settled in Norwich. George was set to study at the Grammar School there, while his brother worked in Old Crome's studio, for here was a moment when Norwich had its interesting Renaissance, and John Borrow was bent on ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... after this interview, at night, in Derville's room, the notary commissioned to advance the half-pay on Derville's account to his eccentric client, came to consult the attorney on a serious matter, and began by begging him to refund the six hundred francs that the ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... they at their works again?" said an English half-pay captain, with one eye, who was a very frequent ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... compensation which follow them, have been weakened in both directions. The career of eminent men ordinarily begins with colleges and the memories of Miltiades, and ends with fortune and fame; woman begins under discouragement, and ends beneath the same. Single, she works with half-preparation and half-pay; married, she puts name and wages into the keeping of her husband, shrinks into John Smith's "lady" during life, and John Smith's "relict" on her tombstone; and still the world wonders that her deeds, like her opportunities, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... was a cornet in a cavalry regiment when I first met my darling. We were quartered in a stupid seaport town, where my pet lived with her shabby old father—a half-pay naval man. It was a case of love at first sight on both sides, and my darling and I made a match of it. My father is a rich man, but no sooner did he hear that I was married to a penniless girl than he wrote a furious letter telling me that he would never ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... dropping the pail, she hastened to the cannon, seized the rammer, and with great skill and courage performed her husband's duty. The soldiers gave her the nickname of Major Molly. Congress voted her a sergeant's commission with half-pay ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr. Gundry, who had spent some years in California, was now returning to England by the Bridal Veil. This was Major Hockin, an officer of the British army, now on half-pay, and getting on in years. His wife was going home with him; for their children were married and settled in England, all but one, now in San Francisco. And that one being well placed in the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., had obtained ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... enough to be the mother of her charge, and of unexceptionable manner. She must know society thoroughly herself, and respect its laws. She should be above the suspicion of reproach in character, and devoted to her work. In England there are hundreds of widows of half-pay officers—well-born, well-trained, well-educated women—who can be hired for money, as was Mrs. General, to play this part. There is no such class in America, but there is almost always a lady who will gladly perform the task of chaperoning ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... for a man of thirty-six years; he received the cross of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon upon the field of battle, he is an ex-colonel, and had it not been for the Restoration, which put him upon half-pay, he would be a general. These ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... Washington advised the boy to send another letter of resignation, then to go home and join the troops that his own State would soon be raising. On hearing Harry's story, Washington had given a momentary smile and a look at Major-General Charles Lee, who had but recently published his resignation of his half-pay as a retired British officer, and who did not know yet whether that resignation would be accepted or ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... story of the swallows; and it goes on to tell, as you would expect, how the Colonel died that year, before the swallows came flying north and home again. He was buried, while little Rupert and Rupert's mother looked on, in that untidy corner of the Boulogne Cemetery, where many another English half-pay officer had been ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... house,—furnishing the rooms, (with a particular account of the furniture, including a dozen flag-bottomed chairs, which he always dilated upon, whenever the subject of furniture was alluded to,)—going off to sea again, leaving his wife half-pay, like a fool,—coming home and finding her "off, like Bob's horse, with nobody to pay the reckoning;" furniture gone,—flag-bottomed chairs and all;—and with it, his "long togs," the half-pay, his beaver hat, white linen shirts, and everything else. His wife he never saw, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... I, "that you Croesuses make a half-pay Major of Artillery's head reel. If I were like you, I should go into a shop and buy a super-dreadnought, and stick a card on it with a drawing pin, and send it to the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... those whom I have specified are the only persons who will take an active part on such occasions. There is another class, who, from what I have individually seen, will, I am certain, become able and zealous leaders,—not only the employed, but the half-pay officers of the navy, now so widely spread over the coasts of the United Kingdom. Living in retirement in time of peace, they would not allow their energies to sleep when their brother seamen were in danger, but come forward with the conscious feeling, that those distinguished characters ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary
... and even, at last, when she had reason to apprehend, from their being surprised together, in a way not so creditable to the lady, that she was far from forbidding their private meetings; on the contrary, that, on a certain time, she had set one that had formerly been her footman, and a half-pay officer, her relation, to watch an opportunity, and to frighten him into a marriage with the lady: That, accordingly, when they had surprised him in her chamber, just as he had been let in, they drew their swords upon him, and threatened instantly to kill him, if he ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... commission to a half-pay ensigncy, that some of these lazy fellows, who must have a four-legged beast to carry them to the wars, have heard of the 'south side.' South side! I believe I must put an advertisement in the London Gazette, calling that amphibious soldier to an account If he be a true man, he will not hide ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... meeting took place on the 9th instant, at Calais, between Lieut. Finch, 20th regiment of Dragoons, and Lieut. Boileau, on half-pay of the 41st regiment. Lieut. Finch was bound over, some days back, to keep the peace in England; in consequence of which he proceeded to Calais, accompanied by his friend, Captain Butler, where they were followed by Lieut. Boileau and his friend Lieut. Hartley. It was ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... as soon as he had gone. "As Sir Louis said last night, he has a wife and family besides the unofficial ladies on his string. All they'll have to divide between them soon, at the rate he's going, will be his half-pay. He has fought for promotion all his days, to keep abreast of expenses. What that string of cormorants will do with his four hundred pounds a year, when he oversteps at last and gets retired, beggars imagination! However, ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... comes Captain Mungo MacTurk, a Highland lieutenant on half-pay, and that of ancient standing; one who preferred toddy of the strongest to wine, and in that fashion and cold drams finished about a bottle of whisky per diem, whenever he could come by it. He was called the Man of Peace, on the same principle ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Pont Neuf, I must relate to you an adventure which, in the year 1786, happened to our friend P——-, who is now abroad, in a situation of considerable trust and emolument. He was, at that time, a half-pay subaltern in the British army, and visited Paris, as well from motives of economy as from a desire of acquiring the French language. Being a tall, fresh-coloured young man, as he was one day crossing the Pont Neuf, he caught the eye of a recruiting-officer, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... contributed to the pride and glory of my existence; and even now—shall I confess it?—when some gray hairs are mingling with the brown, and when my old dragoon swagger is taming down into a kind of half-pay shamble, I feel my heart warm at the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... them was grace Made the unlucky weakness of his race. 40 What powers he had he hardly cared to know, But sauntered through the world as through a show; A critic fine in his haphazard way, A sort of mild La Bruyere on half-pay. For comic weaknesses he had an eye Keen as an acid for an alkali, Yet you could feel, through his sardonic tone, He loved them all, unless they were his own. You might have called him, with his humorous twist, A kind of human entomologist; 50 As these bring home, from every walk ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... over which he has laid a draw-bridge, and planted his court-yard with patereroes continually loaded with shot, under the direction of one Mr. Hatchway, who had one of his legs shot away while he acted as lieutenant on board the commodore's ship; and now, being on half-pay, lives with him as his companion. The lieutenant is a very brave man, a great joker, and, as the saying is, hath got the length of his commander's foot—though he has another favourite in the house called Tom Pipes, that was his boatswain's ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... The man whose conduct proves him to be of gentlemanly mould, is everywhere treated as an equal; and though his occupation and mode of living be ever so humble, he loses nothing in the consideration of his fellow-colonists. The half-pay officer, or gentleman farmer, who occasionally drives his own cart, or sows the seed which he has purchased in the market, is not thought less qualified to act as a magistrate, nor is less respected by the great and small in his neighbourhood. His cares ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... from the British Government 50 pounds per annum half-pay as a chaplain in the King's American regiment during the War of the Revolution; and a few of his fast friends in England— among them Dr. Horne, then Dean of Canterbury, Rev. Jonathan Boucher, and William Stevens, ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... man, Washington considered it right to pay her for her services as if she had been a man. He therefore gave her the commission of a sergeant and recommended that her name be placed on the list of half-pay officers for ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... always somewhat grim, do you see—nodded and said, or I thought I heard him say, 'All right, old chap.' The next moment . . . my eyes water. He had a high heart, got into a scrape whilst in the Marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbed him of nearly all he had. But he had good qualities, and I know for certain that he never did half the bad things laid to his charge; for example, he never bribed Tom Oliver ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... sub-lieutenant. The others I am only watching carefully... though I am pretty sharp-sighted too. It's the same over again as it was in the X province: two students, a schoolboy, two noblemen of twenty, a teacher, and a half-pay major of sixty, crazy with drink, have been caught with manifestoes; that was all—you can take my word for it, that was all; it was quite a surprise that that was all. But I must have six days. I have reckoned ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... tale of Cinderella. Every subject of conversation introduced for the morning was tinged by that fairy legend, which tinged Linda's countenance also, rose-colour. Mr. Wynn the elder was slightly mystified; for the topics of promotion by purchase in the army, and the emigration of half-pay officers, seemed to have no leading reference ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... his incapacity in Italy, in 1800, put him on the full half-pay, and has lately made him a commander of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... it. Early in June, 1701, he left La Chine with a hundred men in twenty-five canoes loaded with provisions, goods, munitions, and tools. He was accompanied by Alphonse de Tonty, brother of Henri de Tonty, the companion of La Salle, and by two half-pay lieutenants, Dugue and Chacornacle, together with a Jesuit and a Recollet.[30] Following the difficult route of the Ottawa and Lake Huron, they reached their destination on the twenty-fourth of July, and built a picket fort sixty yards square, which by order ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... enthusiasm had been aroused by the travels of Mungo Park. This Dr. Oudney was a friend of Hugh Clapperton, a lieutenant in the Navy, three years his senior, who had distinguished himself in Canada and elsewhere, but had been thrown out of employment and reduced to half-pay by ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... within this structure and its internal arrangements might have perceived in a corner, fastened to the planks, and immovable on its four wheels, the old hut of Ursus, placed on half-pay, allowed to rust, and from thenceforth dispensed the labour of rolling as Ursus was relieved from the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... winter, regimental duties were practically nil. Half the privates of his regiment had been dismissed to their native villages. The rest, though nominally in barracks, and paraded once or twice a month (very badly), were wont to eke out their half-pay (supposed to be whole, but actually shared with two lofty administrators whose names were known to a certain astute Moscow official) by working in the Artels that ply their various crafts in the Russian ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... to look forward to a return to the bosom of my family with as much satisfaction as most men, the restoration of peace excited in me sensations of a very equivocal nature. At the age of eighteen, and still enthusiastically attached to my profession, neither the prospect of a reduction to half-pay, nor the expectation of a long continuance in a subaltern situation, were to me productive of any pleasurable emotions; and hence, though I entered heartily into all the arrangements by which those about me strove to evince their gratification at the glorious termination of the war, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... Quatre Saisons" the "Hotel of Quarter Sessions." There were judges and their wives, serjeants and their ladies, Queen's counsel learned in the law, the Northern circuit and the Western circuit: there were officers of half-pay and full-pay, military officers, naval officers, and sheriffs' officers. There were people of high fashion and rank, and people of no rank at all; there were men and women of reputation, and of the two kinds ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray |
