"Hard up" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sick to care about ridin'," said the drover, while a wan smile flitted over his yellow-grey features. "I've rode him far enough. I've rode that horse a thousand miles. I wouldn't sell him, only I'm a bit hard up. Sellin' him now to get the money ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... we decide to take the big iron boat of the steamer and go hunting. The natives are exceedingly skilful and know all the likely places for hippo. They first paddle hard up stream and having arrived at the hunting ground allow the boat to drift down with the current in perfect silence. It is clear moonlight, but it is necessary to cover the fore sight of the rifle with white paper in order to see it clearly. After a time, up rises a great ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... silent, here joined in; he had not forgotten the remark about the 'undertaking,' and, lifting his eyelids almost imperceptibly, said it was all very well for people who never made money to talk. He himself intended to live as long as he could. This was a hit at George, who was notoriously hard up. Bosinney muttered abstractedly "Hear, hear!" and, George ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... believe anything you like to tell me, if you'll come home. I'm sure I have done very wrong. You know I'm always hard up, but I declare I'd give a hundred pounds if you'd come home with me at once. I don't believe there's a ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... then—well, I'll thank you for a space of pleasant comradeship, and go on my way again. The mountain province is sufficiently good for me, and some day I'll find either a gold mine in it, or, more likely, a grave. If not, you can count on a visit whenever I am hard up and hungry." ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... the spanker-sheet! Stand by to slack off and haul in! Man the braces for wearing ship, the rest o' you! Hard up the wheel! Check in port main and starboard cro'-jack braces! Shiver the topsail! ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... anything on that; adding, with an air of authority, that he believed I spoke the truth, for it was not likely the hag would have kept anything from her oldest boarder. 'I dare say the real truth is,' he wound up, 'that you are hard up, like me, and want to do the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... have a pretty story against a woman, and to smutch a man, do you? Well, I'm hard up; I don't mind gossip among ourselves; but sell the stuff to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... officer's Burman servant, who looked after his clothes and attended on him at table. The boy was caught in the act of trying to change one of the notes. He was arrested, and he confessed. He was very hard up, he said, and his sister had written asking him to help her. He could not do so, and he was troubling himself about the matter early that morning while tidying the room, and he saw the notes on the table, and so he took ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... sitting down on the edge of the bed in a confidential attitude, with the dark lantern in one hand and the mask in the other, 'when you're as hard up as we are, there's not much of a living to be made honest. I'm sure I wonder we don't all of us turn burglars, so I do. And that glass of yours—you little beggar—you did me proper—sticking of that thing in my pocket like what you did. Well, it kept ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... these matters of sufficient importance and difficulty to require learning by experience and careful inquiry, just as much as any other art? They do not come by inspiration to the lady disappointed in love, nor to the poor workhouse drudge hard up for a livelihood. ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... phrase, which Milly used with a malicious pompousness when she wished to "put something hard up" to her lord, was of course an ironical misnomer in this modern household. In the first place there was no house, which demanded the service and the protection of a strong male,—merely a partitioned-off ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... bringing his hand down emphatically upon it. 'The cuss was hard up. Luck had gone agin him and he had lost every cent he had. Jem Macey was a-dealin' and Cazot didn't seem to grasp that fact, but kept bettin' heavy. You see, young feller, ye ain't over likely to win at cards when yer playin' agin ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... governor-general. Now I am staying at the governor's home. I am having a grand time and I am flirting desperately with his wife and daughter. I only haven't decided whom to begin with. I think with the mother first, because she seems ready to accept all terms. You remember how hard up we were taking our meals wherever we could without paying for them, and how once the pastry cook grabbed me by the collar for having charged pies that I ate to the king of England? Now it is quite different. They lend me all the money I want. They are an awful lot ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... Atlantic City last winter—one of those wonderfully dressed, patient, pathetic children, always with the grown-ups! The little chap must have a rather queer life of it drifting about from hotel to hotel. They're hard up, and I believe most of the shops and hotels have actually black-listed them. He would seem to be the sort of man who cannot hold on to anything, and, of course, there's the drinking! She's not the girl to save him. She drinks rather recklessly ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... early lapidary's work. It was presented in the ninth century by Charles the Bald to St. Denis, and was always used to contain the consecrated wine when Queens of France were crowned. Henry II. once pawned it to a Jew when he was hard up, and in 1804 it was stolen and the old gold and jewelled setting removed. It was found again in Holland, and was remounted within ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... whom he supped, and dined, and indulged his wit. He earned from seven to eight hundred francs a month, a sum which he found quite insufficient for the prodigality peculiar to the impecunious. Indeed, Lousteau found himself now just as hard up as when, on first appearing in Paris, he had said to himself, "If I had but five hundred francs a month, I should ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... callers, and to a good deal of card-playing and late hours. The racehorses, too, like most racehorses, ate up more money than they earned. So that Mr. Gavan Blake, though a clever man, with a good practice, always seemed to find himself hard up. ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... to be precious hard up before I turned whaler," observed Billy Blueblazes. "It is hot work at night, but it must be terrible in a calm, with the blazing sun beating down on the poor ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... by way of being even more reasonable than that. The four hundred and fifty-six was repayable in monthly instalments of twenty quid, and I kept them up religiously until the sixth payment fell due. That was soon after Christmas, when one's always hard up, and for the first time I was a day or two late—not more, mind you; yet what do you suppose happened? My cheque was returned, and the whole blessed balance ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... penny in the way o' fancy articles, just now; but 'tain't the time for prime plantation-stock. Planters are all buying, and breeders down Virginia way won't give a feller a chance to make a shaving. It drives a feller hard up, ye see, and forces more business in ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... open threats, and with telling results. All they need do, when conditions in the South become intolerable, is to move away, provided, however, there are economic opportunities for them in the North. By so doing they will render the South decidedly hard up for labor, and thus force it to make concessions to them or face economic stagnation.[182] While there might be a possibility of putting this suggestion into effect, yet a little inquiry into the nature of migration will show that its use as an economic weapon is greatly ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... have lost everything, Julia, but I mustn't lose you... After all, it doesn't so much matter, so long as we are not separated. I don't care about money, and we can have a nice little house in London all to ourselves. And if we get too hard up, we'll both go out as daily governesses. I think I could teach a little music, to young children, you know; you'd teach the older ones.' Emily looked at Julia inquiringly, and going over to the piano, attempted to play her favourite polka. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... sure do some close figurin'. I sure paid ten for 'em. Got 'em from a Chola puncher what was hard up. Mebby you ain't figurin' that they's about twenty bucks' worth of hand-worked silver conchas on 'em which ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... "always go to pieces after they've been hard up for a while and finally get grub. Then they feed up and get strong again. It's the grub comin' all of a sudden that makes you weak. Your mind feelin' easier, you feel ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... nothing whatever about her," sighed the little woman, "and we are only doing it because we are so dreadfully hard up; my maid says that I shall soon not have a stitch to my back, and that would be so fearfully improper. At least"—she hesitated—"I am doing it because times are bad. Tim really knows nothing about it; I mean that he does not know that Miss Dexter is a 'paying guest', and it does sound ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... I got back to the wood, where I found my guide. Thinking I might be pursued, as I have no doubt I was, we made a very roundabout course, and kept a bright look-out for enemies on every side. We managed to keep clear of them, however, but were very hard up for food; and I'm not sorry, let me tell you, mate, to find ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the old man's hard up so soon," the exchange editor said to the editorial writer at the next desk, "It's only ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... done, seeing that the wind is hauling. Hard up, boy, and run her under the stern of the ship at anchor. Hold! keep your luff again; eat into the wind to the bone, boy; lift again; let the light sails lift. The slaver has run a warp directly across our track. If there's law ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... not delay speaking to Marion too long," she observed. "Something must be done, that's sure, and if you wait, Marion and her mother may find out how hard up we really are, and then Marion may refuse you ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... diagonal bands of colour: claret, gold, and blue. It was obvious to us that Pete Corcoran, or, to give him his proper name, Mr. Corcoran, had said what he did merely in a humorous way, or possibly satiric, implying that we are generally so hard up for something to write about that we would even undertake so trifling a subject as haberdashery; but as we went downstairs again to our kennel, au dixieme, as Mr. Wanamaker would call it, we thought seriously about this and decided that we would ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... I got five shillings for that little essay; not much, you will say, but better than nothing. The editor praised me and asked for more. I write occasionally in 'The Flower of Youth,' and when I am very hard up I am glad of the few shillings my ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... you," she declared. "I've wanted to confess it, though I'm horribly ashamed to—and I'm afraid you'll think I did not value it. I did indeed—I hated to part with it; but I was so hard up, and I didn't know which way to turn, or what else ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... not good like my snow pearl. I am sick now. Boss he sack me. I land Thursday Island. I gamble fantan. I no care. Soon I hab no pearl at all. I hab no work. I am hard up. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... I knows they be hard up," he began. "They hasn't a chance where they are. T' neighbours blames Roderick for several little troubles which happened to t' southard, and t' traders won't advance more'n he can pay for. If it was any one else, and to-morrow ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... the evening—they've put a visitor into my room. I'm obliged to stay here. My brother has done it on purpose. Julius helps me when I'm hard up—and bullies me afterward. He has sent me here, on duty for the family. Somebody must be civil to Lady Lundie—and I'm ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... another scrap of anything in my diggings to eat. I think old Jack is pretty hard up for grub in his shack, too. He hated to give up the onion, but I worried ...
— Options • O. Henry
... Wazeer, if you're so hard up for a title," he said, and the little idiom sounded ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... wrote to Simmy Dodge, asking him to sell the furnishings and appliances in his office, sublet the rooms, and send to him as soon as possible the proceeds of the sale. He confessed frankly and in his straightforward way that he was hard up and needed ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... look here, I'd better tell you straight that there's no blackmail about this at all. He's my father, isn't he? Well, can't a son come to his father if he's hard up? Where are your threatening letters? Where's the blackmail? Anyway, what's he going to do about it? Put ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... the Final Memory of those who took part in it. The man who stood on the street-corner and offered ten-dollar gold-pieces for a dollar had no harder task. Blood from stones! Milk from dry cows! Although ten per cent. on each share was all the cash that was asked apparently some farmers were so hard up that if yarn were selling at five cents per mile, they couldn't buy enough of it to make a pair of ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... was hard up in search of, a French "chestnut," I might have told him the following little anecdote. It is more funny than his, and would have been less insulting: Two little street boys are abusing each other. "Ah, hold your tongue," says one, "you ain't got ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... never saw the ambassador, and neither did the old German lady who kept the shop. She told me she bought it from a Japanese acrobat who was out of an engagement and desperately hard up. But she told me also that the acrobat had told her that the garment had belonged to an ambassador who had given it to him as a reward of his skill, and that he never would have parted with it if ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... seven figure bunch, at least. Accordin' to Duke, though, the Mallory income needed as much stretchin' as the pay of a twenty-dollar clothing clerk tryin' to live in a thirty-five dollar flat. And this is the burg where you can be as hard up on fifty thousand a year as ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... strong an expression. I can't imagine among either my enemies or my friends a being so hard up for something to do as to quarrel with me. "To disappoint one's friends" would be nearer the mark. Most, almost all, friend ships of the writing period of my life have come to me through my books; and I know that a novelist lives in his work. He stands there, the only reality in an invented ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... I—I'm hard up, I'm desp'rate, pretty nigh. I'll let you have my five hundred shares of Wellmouth Development Company for just half what I paid for it—ten dollars a share. If you wasn't my friend, I wouldn't—What ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... you everything," said Sowerby. "I am infernally hard up for a little ready money just at the present moment. It may be, and indeed I think it will be, the case that I shall be ruined in this matter for the want ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... repeated, "Phelps is terribly hard up and after Gordon. And that's not all about our handsome leading man, Mr. Kennedy." She leaned forward. A certain intensity crept into her voice. She began to toy with his sleeve with the slender fingers of one hand, as though in that ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... should only have made bad worse. No, my dear chap, you've plunged enough. Do you put yourself in my hands or do you not? Very well, then you plunge no more, and I undertake not to present my check. Unfortunately there are the other men; and still more unfortunately, Bunny, I'm as hard up at this moment ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... uses of adversity!" continued this cheerful monitor. "If we had not been hard up this while, we should not come with a full relish to meat three times a week, which, unless I am an ass (and I don't see myself in that light)," said Triplet dryly, "will, I apprehend, be, after this day, the primary condition ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... dollars. If you are ever hard up and want money come to me, and I'll give it to you willingly, but don't you ever let me see or hear of you staking a cent on a card again. I'm running a gambling house, and as gambling houses go, it's an honest one, but I'm not out plucking lambs like you. Your intentions were probably good ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... and his proposed interview with Haydon. The two brothers went together to call upon the 'painter of the heroic' at his studio in Connaught Terrace, Hyde Park. There was some difficulty about their admission, and it turned out afterwards that Haydon thought they might be duns, as he was very hard up at the time. His eyes glistened at the mention of the L100. 'I am not very fond of painting portraits,' he said, 'but a mayor is a mayor, and there is something grand in that idea of the Norman arch.' And thus ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... mean that; I know well enough what it is to be hard up." Margaret clasped her stays across her plump figure and walked to the door for her dress. She was a pretty girl, with a snub nose and large, clear eyes. Her hair was lighter in tone than Esther's, and she had brushed it from her forehead so as to ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... she said aloud. "He's up to some fresh devilment, an' 'pears like he's scairt. Trouble with Creed is, he ain't got no nerve—he's all mouth. I sure was hard up fer a man when I tuk him—but he treats me middlin' kind, an' I'd kind of hate to see him git caught—'cause he ain't no good a liar, an' a man anyways smart'd mix him up in ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... didn't set with his views, exactly—never did. He took the pork, though—it was right in the coldest weather we had that winter—and hauled it back about seven miles here to where they lived, and handed it all out himself. Course they were awful hard up, but then they might 'a' got along without it. They do now, sometimes. Charlie's too good that way. It's his one fault, if you might so speak ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... neatness of his personal appearance. Indeed, he has become rather a favorite among them, in consequence of his frankness, and his willingness at all times to lend a helping hand to a comrade temporarily "hard up." He has adopted to a great extent the tastes and habits of the class to which he belongs, and bears with acquired philosophy the hardships and privations which fall to their lot. Like "Ragged Dick," he has a sense of humor, which is apt to ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... the lot cost me sixteen fifty, hard rocks, and 'twas dirt cheap, 'cause the 'ooman alone'll bring more'n thet. I couldn't hev bought har fur thet, but har owner wus hard up. Ye see he's Gin'ral——, down ter Newbern, one of yer rig'lar 'ristocrats, the raal ole-fashioned sort—keeps a big plantation, house in town; fine wines; fine wimmin; fast hosses; and goes it mighty strong. Well, he's allers a trifle under—ev'ry year 'bout two thousand short; ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in the world; for I've no memory of a mother, and me father died at sea. My oldest daughter, she's a good un, goes for the eels and cuts 'em up, and she an' me wife does all the hard work. I've only to sit at the stall and sell, and they do make 'em tasty. There's no better. But we're hard up. I'd do better if I'd a little more money to buy with. I can't get a draught like some of the men, and them that gets by the quantity can give more. The boys tells me there's one man gives 'em as much as eight pieces; that's what they calls a lumping ha'p'worth. And the liquor's ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... charming girl, I may mention; there was every excuse for me, still it was a rotten thing to do, I quite admit. I told her that I was hard up and feeling desperate, and I even said I was going to sit up late! And on top of that Sir Reginald was murdered that very night. Imagine my sensations for the next few days, living in the same house with the woman who had heard me say that! She held my fate in her hands, but, ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... Selincourt was her only brother and very dear to her, but there was no denying that his career had its seamy side. He was not, like her father, a family skeleton—he had never been warned off the Turf: but he was rarely solitary and never out of debt. "Poor Lucian, he's hard up too. I wish I could send him fifty pounds, but if I ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... "chonkings" of the frozen apples, the work of the squirrels in getting at the seeds; not an apple had been left, and apparently not a seed had been lost. But the squirrels in this particular locality evidently got pretty hard up before spring, for they developed a new source of food-supply. A young bushy-topped sugar-maple, about forty feet high, standing beside a stone fence near the woods, was attacked, and more than half denuded of its bark. The object of the squirrels seemed to be ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... "Just as I was properly spoofing everybody as I—I mean just as I was getting used to a better life. But you can save me, miss; you can say as you were hard up for money and that, knowing as I knew the ropes, you got me to pawn it for you. Put it in that way and there's not a policeman in England as ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... whether or no I should offer an excuse for the communication I am about to make; but the matter I have to relate is simply this: Being hard up last night (for though a rich man's son I often lack money), I went to a certain pawnshop in the Bowery where I had been told I could raise money on my prospects. This place—you may see it some time, so I will not ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... True, it is short and does not lend itself well to weaver's work. A few long sprigs of another cottony plant, the Helichrysum staechas, or wild everlasting, inserted here and there, will give body to the structure. Thus does the Shrike manage when hard up for his favourite materials: keeping to the same botanical family, he is able to find and employ substitutes among the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... the boys were. Colonel West has been ill there. Brain-fever, Mrs. West says, but he doesn't look like it. Anyhow, they're hard up, I believe; their home is broken up and they have five or six children at school, and a boy in Gallipoli. They seemed very ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... his last terms at college. He was as gloomy as a death's-head at parties, which he avoided of his own part, or to which his young friends soon ceased to invite him. Everybody knew that Pendennis was "hard up." That man Bloundell, who could pay nobody, and who was obliged to go down after three terms, was his ruin, the men said. His melancholy figure might be seen shirking about the lonely quadrangles in his ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... extremis; between two stools, between Scylla and Charybdis; surrounded by shoals, surrounded by breakers, surrounded by quicksands; at cross purposes; not out of the wood. reduced to straits; hard pressed, sorely pressed; run hard; pinched, put to it, straitened; hard up, hard put to it, hard set; put to one's shifts; puzzled, at a loss, &c (uncertain) 475; at the end of one's tether, at the end of one's rope, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus, at a standstill; graveled, nonplused, nonplussed, stranded, aground; stuck fast, set fast; up ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that you are the Ethie about whom Frank used to talk so much, and a lock of whose hair he kept so sacred. I remember I tried to buy a part of it from him, but could not succeed until once, when his funds from home failed to come, and he was so hard up, as we used to say, that he actually sold, or rather pawned, half of the shining tress for the sum of five dollars. As the pawn was never redeemed, I have the hair now, but never expected to meet with its fair ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... after the rest, made his address to the goddess of love, imploring her assistance; and she, granting his request, gave him three golden apples, and instructed him how to use them. The race beginning, as Hippomenes perceived his mistress to press hard up to him; he, as it were by chance, let fall one of these apples; the maid, taken with the beauty of it, failed not to step out of her way ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... hundred strangers calling for their mail," he explained, "so we always forward a list of the employees. This mail, just before pay day, when the crowd is usually hard up, brings a good many money letters from friends. That rubber stamp you saw the manager give me O.K.'s all the registered cards at the post office. Once the wagon was robbed. The looters made quite a haul. Not when I was on ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... but how do I know how long it will be paid? I should like to see the principal. A hundred thousand pounds, or something like it, is a precious large stake to have in one man's hands, and he preciously hard up himself. I'll tell you what, doctor—I shall ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... "Gilrae, the owner, is a keen sportsman, and before he became so hard up he spent a lot of money on the estate, which, I believe, has always been considered one of the very best in the southwest. There's salmon, they say, down in the Glen yonder—but ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... acres of ground. His house is well furnished, and he has got some splendid horses and cattle. He is intelligent and has a bank account. I don't know how the 'niggers' are in your community, but Tobe Jones is a gentleman. Once, when I was hard up, I went to Tobe Jones and borrowed fifty dollars; and he hasn't asked me for it yet. I don't know what kind of 'niggers' you have down your way, but Tobe ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... Neale rode hard up the trail under the pines. A blackened heap lay where once the cabin had stood. Neale's heart gave a terrible leap and then seemed to cease beating. He could not breathe nor speak nor move. His eyes were fixed on the ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... nigh mad, and now and again the depressing cry of the curlews which abound here. This combination is such that after six or eight hours of it you will be thankful to hear your shipmates start to work the winch. I take it you are hard up when you relish a winch. And you will say—let your previous experience of the world be what it may— Good Heavens, what ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... for'ard, 'you do seem to be hard up for victuals when you'd shoot a small thing like that!' 'Not at all, my good man,' says he—an' the critter had a kindly smile an' a sensible face enough—'you must know that I am shootin' birds for scientific purposes. I am ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... sketches are too "impressionist" to show handkerchiefs! Anyhow, her hand was in the king's, for that was her way of riding with her gray-clad lover; though when she went alone she rode boldly astride. Poor Henri couldn't say nay to the becoming green satin and red hat, though he was hard up in those days. After paying a bill of Gaby's, he asked his valet how many shirts and handkerchiefs he had. "A dozen shirts, torn," was the ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... steward he had seen the world, and was a splendid servant and much liked by the whole Ambulance. This only added to the alarm that had seized us all, which was due to the very insufficient protection we had on the side the bullets were coming from. Agassiz and I lay hard up against the north side of our dug-out—little more than a few dry lumps of clay—while Wallace's body was stretched alongside us. As I have said, this attack ended in twenty-three minutes, but at 8.30 there was a second and ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... scrape the roots clean and wash them, then take the heads of an hundred and lay them even, bind them hard up into a bundle, and so likewise of the other hundred; then have a large skillet of fair water, when it boils put them in, and boil them up quick with some salt; being boil'd drain them, and serve them with beaten butter and salt about the dish, ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... in Hythe since the skulls first began to bleach on the inhospitable shore. When Earl Godwin suddenly appeared with his helm hard up for Hythe, the little town on the hill faced one of the best havens on the coast. It was, as every one knows, one of the Cinque Ports, and at the time of the Conqueror undertook to furnish, as its quota of armament, five ships, one hundred and five men, and five boys. Even in the ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... leaned so hard up stream," returned Jasper seriously, "that I had difficulty in trimming ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... HARD UP. The tiller so placed as to carry the rudder close over to leeward of the stern-post. Also, used figuratively for being in great distress, or poverty-struck; obliged to bear up for Poverty Bay; ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... not yet. But they're skilled miners. 'N when they git hard up, a couple on 'em put in a month's work for some skalliwag 'company' or other, 'n so they keep agoin'. The three married ones ain't up ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... battery! Load with grape! Sail trimmers! stations for wearing ship! Hard up the helm! ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... grandmother, each would be sure of a greeting and a few words of talk when they met the Rector on his rounds. In society he might at times be too impetuous or insistent, when questions were stirred in which he was deeply interested. Tennyson tells us how he 'walked hard up and down the study for hours, smoking furiously and affirming that tobacco was the only thing that kept his nerves quiet'. Green compares him to a restless animal, and Stopford Brooke speaks of his quick-rushing walk, his keen face ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... disobedient or rebellious, his mistress would try to hire "Big Joe" Kestril or some equally strong person to whip him with a "black-snake." Also it was said that she had sold his wife away from him, and might try to sell Clem himself if ever she got "hard up," though it was felt that she would be wise not to go too ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... They're having a devil of a time to rake up the money every month to meet the pay-roll when it's due. They aren't taking in the money as fast as they're paying it out. Their salesmen are on the road trying to sell tin plate, but the tinners are so hard up that few of them ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... snacks and I chuck it up altogether," said Mr. Chase, heatedly. "If I wasn't hard up I'd ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... overcoat and hat, when he announced that he had bought a second-hand parlor organ the evening before, on credit, for seventy-five dollars, to be paid in instalments of twelve dollars and a half each. He had been very hard up for a month past, as I had abundant occasion to know, and it was therefore with a feeling rather stronger than surprise, that I received the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... him the credit where real cleverness is concerned. Vimpany suggested the thing. He found me well-nigh as desperately hard up as he is himself. He suggested it. At first, I confess, I did not like it. I refused to listen to any more talk about it. But, you see, when one meets destitution face to face, one will do anything—everything. Besides, as I will show you, this is not really ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... shouting somewhere ahead and then a shot. We ran toward the sounds, yelling to the people not to shoot; for in the darkness and panic there was this danger also. Then there came two of the game-keepers racing hard up the drive with their lanterns and guns; and immediately afterward a row of lights dancing toward us from the house, carried ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... nothing. It would cost them all a good deal more if they sat like lumps on a log and played tiddledy-winks while Shelgrim sold out from under them. Then there was this, too: the P. and S. W. were hard up just then. The shortage on the State's wheat crop for the last two years had affected them, too. They were retrenching in expenditures all along the line. Hadn't they just cut wages in all departments? There was this affair of Dyke's to prove it. The railroad ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... the mob of gentlemen who read with ease. There has been much prate lately of as innocent a foible as ever served to make men self-forgetful for a few seconds of time—the collecting of first editions. Somebody hard up for 'copy' denounced this pastime, and made merry over a virtuoso's whim. Somebody else—Mr. Slater, I think it was—thought fit to put in a defence, and thereupon a dispute arose as to why men bought first editions ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... for money. I was worse than Hamish, and he was pretty hard up then; though he seems to have staved off the fellows since—he best knows how. I told him one day I should like to borrow the receipt, and he laughed and said he'd give it to me with all the pleasure in life if it were transferable. Ask him if he remembers saying it. When Galloway was sending the ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Jew clothing-store, with suits new and old, military and agricultural. My resolution was formed, and I went to the stable, taking with me a newly fledged cavalry officer, who needed and was able to pay for an elegant cavalry saddle. Being "hard up" for cash, I must sell: and he flush of money and pride, must buy. Thus I was rid of one chief evidence of the military profession. A small portion of the price purchased a plain farmer-like saddle and bridle. An accommodating dealer in clothes ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... dropped over the young eagle's eyes. He struck out and his assailant went down. Then his revolvers began to speak and the crowd fell back. They rolled, leaped, or crawled to shelter, and when the bloody mist cleared away from his brain, Mose found himself in his saddle, his swift pony galloping hard up the street, with pistols cracking behind him. His blood was still hot with the murderous rage which had blinded his eyes. He did not know whether he had begun to shoot first or not, he did not know whether he ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... the draughting and figuring work myself," he said. "However, if you are hard up you can earn two dollars a day wheeling broken rock until ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... I wrote yesterday I asked them to telegraph. I suppose they're horribly hard up, the poor dears, and they thought a letter would do as well as a telegram." The colour had risen to her face. "That's why I wrote instead of telegraphing; I haven't a penny to ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... for borrowing if he was hard up, but knew he could pay. But most men are deceitful creatures, anyway. Don't let Aunt Ella write to father. He was always sore about her influence over Quincy, and he mustn't think Aunt Ella made this match. If the Countess would write him, puffing up Reggie's ancestors, and his blue blood ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... but here's the devil to pay. Ellen's come back. She's been lying out these three nights, and is awful hard up. It's not my fault, I have sent her money enough, in ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... more money. With this disease, the rich get well, the poor die. Well! I thought this fellow needed money to get well—that was all; and, like a lot of them, he was ashamed of being hard up and didn't ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... be hard up,' said I, 'and all I can say is, you've come to the right place. If you have the least use for a hundred pounds, or any such trifling sum as that, please mention it. It's here, quite at ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... toward the river. They supposed that he was going out to the edge of the river, and that then he would turn and come back; but, to their utter amazement, he pushed boldly on directly into the current, and then, putting his helm hard up and calling out to the crew to give way strong, the boat swept round into the very center of the stream and shot down the river over ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... rough customer, and have done plenty of mean things, but this is the first job of the kind I ever attempted. I wouldn't have done it, only I heard the old man say in the cars, that he had a lot of money with him. I was hard up, and on my way to Cedarville, to try to get work, but when I heard what he said, the devil tempted me, I believe, and I determined to keep you both in sight, and get out where you did. I've tried and failed, and that's the end of it. It's my ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... "Hard up," replied the man sullenly. "And a friend told us that the last time he held up a mail train, he and his pal found twelve thousand dollars ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... she afraid she was going to be left all alone?" laughed Pauline. "She has only gone to get me a hansom, dear. I shall spoil my dress if I go by omnibus, and it is too far to walk. Have you five shillings in your purse you can lend me? I am hard up till ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... fellow!" said Berkeley; "I fancy that he is dreadfully overrun and hard up. There always was something absurdly domestic about Armstrong. They say he has grown red, fat, and bald. Think of a man with Armstrong's education—and he had some talent, too—keeping a sort of Dotheboys Hall! I haven't seen him for eight or nine years. The last time was at Jersey City, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... my going to him. He lives in a two-pair back, only one room, 'which serves him for kitchen and parlor and all:' dines at a cook shop for nine-pence a day, and makes his own porridge night and morning. He told me so once, for he isn't a bit ashamed of it. But he must be precious hard up sometimes. However, as he contrives to keep a decent coat on his back, and pay his classes at the University, and carry off the very first honors going there, nobody asks any questions. That's the good of London life, Aunt Hilary," said the young fellow, drawing himself up with ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... reconciled to the boarders, who made possible the more elaborate table; and it seemed to him quite impossible that so small a sum could make any great difference. He meant to pay it in time, but just now he was hard up. He had made the mistake of trying to be a society man, to compete with those whose incomes were many times as large as his own. In his heart he knew the purchase of that fan for Madelaine was a piece of inexcusable extravagance, but he had been ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... he ever will be. I doubt if he plays again. You'll have to look after him. How're you going to? You can't expect to sing every night to the tune of two hundred and fifty. Not with war marching in on us. Not with everybody hard up." ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... that the lady bought that carriage from you for two hundred and sixty guineas—a good deal more than its worth, I should imagine. You heard her say that she was thinking of buying a victoria, and you offered her yours—pressed her to buy it. It was too small for your horses, you said, and you were hard up. You even had it sent round to her stables without her consent. I have heard this story before, sir, and I have furnished myself with proofs of its falsehood. This, gentlemen," he added, drawing some papers from his pocket, ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... approvingly. "Splendid fellow, Sabatini," he continued,—"full of race to his finger-tips. Brave as a lion, too, but unscrupulous. He'd wring a man's neck who refused to do what he told him. Yet do you know, Chetwode, he wouldn't take money from me? He was desperately hard up one day, I know, and I offered him a cheque, but he only shook his head. 'You can look after Fenella,' he said. 'That's all you've got to do. One in the family is enough.' The night after, he played ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Lance made the discovery, during a cow hunt the fall before, of the correspondence between Scales and the Florida girl, he said to us around the camp-fire that night: "Well, all I've got to say is that that girl down in Florida is hard up. Why, it's entirely contrary to a girl's nature to want to be wooed by letter. Until the leopard changes his spots, the good old way, of putting your arm around the girl and whispering that you love her, will continue to ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... broke when sea and sky were lighted up. And then, and even then, what was it? There it sat up in the cross-trees, a hairy, sulky bulk of man or beast, black, and the creature looked hard down whilst all hands were staring hard up. ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... can't paint a picture. He has not a spark of imagination, nor an idea of art; he has no eye for color, or effect. He can paint admirably what he sees, but then he sees nothing but bare facts. He is always hard up, poor fellow, and it would be a real boon to him to take me for three months and stick at it hard with me, and by the end of that time I ought to be able to take my place in some artist's school in ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... a thing I wanted to speak about last night," the organist said. "Poor old Miss Joliffe is very hard up. She hasn't said a word to me about it—she never would to anyone—but I happen to know it for a fact: she is hard up. She is in a chronic state of hard-up-ishness always, and that we all are; but this is an acute attack—she has her back against the wall. It is the fag-end ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... of Molly's eggs. They arranged to start between two and three. Graham got up at two, and when Repetto came to call him was dressed and just going to have breakfast. I spent part of the morning photographing, and took the Henry Green family sitting in front of their house. I found Mrs. Green so hard up for cotton that she was unravelling a piece of boat canvas. The mountaineers returned in the early evening. Graham much enjoyed the day, and thinks they must have walked thirty miles. Going up they watched the sealer cautiously sailing round Inaccessible. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... studying," Bobby went on, disdaining her interruption. "Now, when you get hard up for ideas, Arlt, when you actually can't get enough out of your gray matter to fill up your pattern, you go off somewhere and study ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Strings, which will else spoil the goodness of the Bottom, wherein the Strings will remain; to do this, lay the Artichoke upon a Table, and hold it down hard with one Hand, while with the other Hand you pull the Stalk hard up and down, till it quits the Artichoke, and will then pull away the Strings along with it; this being done, lay the Artichokes in Water for an Hour, and then put them into a Kettle of cold Water to boil, till they are tender ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... isn't so bad," he answered good-humoredly. "It may seem poverty to you, who have been used to millions, my darling; but all my life I have been hard up, and I am thankful for twenty ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... candid as they make them," he said, eyeing her with his mild eye. "But what's the matter with your brother? Hard up?" ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... belongs to me. I take what I want, and what I can, and return it over the footlights. Now, if you will, let's let it go at that. I came in to see you about something else. We've been pretty good friends for some months, and I'm going to take the risk of offending you again. I know you are hard up for money—never mind how I found out, a boarding house is no place to keep such matters secret—and I want you to let me help you out of the pinch. I've been there often enough myself. I've been getting a fair salary all the season, and I've saved some money. You're ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... are,' said Edith; 'it could be no possible satisfaction to you to know that a friend and colleague of yours is either distressingly hard up or painfully penurious.' ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... he was called to the West on business, and was gone a month. When he came back, there was another note from Vyse, who was still ill, and desperately hard up. "I'll take anything for the book, if they'll advance me two hundred dollars." Betton, full of compunction, would gladly have advanced the sum himself; but he was hard up too, and could only swear inwardly: "I'll write to Apthorn." ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... and spoil your little game. You're making money of your little game. I can help you as to carrying on your little game, better than you do at present. I don't want to blow upon you. But as you're making money out of it, I'd like to make a little too. I am precious hard up,—I am." ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... isn't so green as I thought," he said to himself. "Curse his prudence! I must get the money somehow, for I am precious hard up." ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... was in want of copying work to do and was, not to put too fine a point upon it," a favourite apology for plain speaking with Mr. Snagsby, which he always offers with a sort of argumentative frankness, "hard up! My little woman is not in general partial to strangers, particular—not to put too fine a point upon it—when they want anything. But she was rather took by something about this person, whether by his being unshaved, or ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... books over to the lib'ry," he heard himself meandering on, "with a queer story in it. I got to reading it through, one night last winter. It was about a feller named 'Fed'rigo.' A wop of some kind, I guess. He got so hard up he didn't have anything left but a pet falcon. Whatever a falcon may be. Whatever it was, it must'a been good to eat. But he set a heap of store by it. Him and it was chums. Same as me and Chum are. Then along come a lady he was in love with. And she stopped ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... said Jack afterward. "When we are hard up we can send him off on a lecturing-tour. But wasn't it rather over the ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... chugging and breathing hard up on the sheltered trail below the evergreens. She reined her horse to the slowest ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... is long-sighted," said my husband, as he placed it on his finger. "I shall be hard up, though, before I part with this. Wynnie, I've actually got a finer diamond than Mr. Baddeley! It is a beauty, if ever there ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... that! I don't pretend to be in the same class with Old Ben or Young Ben, or even of the fox terriers; but if I'm not more of a dog than that lot of splay-footed freaks, I'll go bite myself! If they're that hard up for dogs, I'll be cornswizzled if ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... angry storming and churning of liquid mountains. One midnight, when eight bells had been struck to call the middle watch, there suddenly appeared on the poop the commander, who was known to be a man of God. He gave the order to hard up the helm and make sail. When she came before the wind the crew were puzzled to know the cause of this strange proceeding, and their captain did not keep them long in doubt. He called all hands aft, and when they had mustered he began: ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... be told that Eric and his thrall Jon rode hard up Stonefell and across the mountains and over the black sand, till, two hours before sunset, they came to the foot of Mosfell, having Hecla on their right. It is a grim mountain, grey with moss, standing alone in the ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... The scheme has the additional advantage that it makes a man's teeth negotiable property in the sense that whereas under the old system he couldn't very well sell his teeth, under the new system he can sell the bond if he gets hard up. Moreover, the City Government having acquired control has to pay all his dentist's bills, supply tooth powder and so on, which results in a great saving to the individual. It hardly costs the city anything, except for the Tooth Inspector, who is paid $1,200 ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... pursued the Alderman, 'there's a great deal of nonsense talked about Want—"hard up," you know; that's the phrase, isn't it? ha! ha! ha!—and I intend to Put it Down. There's a certain amount of cant in vogue about Starvation, and I mean to Put it Down. That's all! Lord bless you,' said the Alderman, turning to his friends again, 'you ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... and I've a notion of goin' back and doin' it, for I've felt like thrashin' somebody for a good while. The bar ain't wuth fifteen cents, and won't be nothin' but a bother. Mebbe though he might be good for 'fresh,' if we git hard up." ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... began gingerly, almost wishing that I hadn't purposely put the pink paper where Terry would be sure to pick it up. "And I don't see why you should call the advertiser in my paper an ass. If you were hard up, and ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "Hard up with the helm!" screamed out Captain Miles, Mr Marline jumping to the spokes of the wheel at the same time to help the man steering, when, fortunately, the Josephine payed off handsomely, righting again at the same ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... he wondered how it was that less than half an hour earlier he had been ready to upset the boat and drown every one in it indiscriminately. Nevertheless he believed that if there had been a stiff breeze just then, enough for his purpose, he would have stopped the boat's way, and then put the helm hard up again, without slacking out a single sheet, and he knew the little craft well enough to be sure of what would have happened. Murderous intentions enough, as he thought of it all now, in the calm water under the great cliff from which ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... "if there's any little thing I can do to help you, like lending you money if you're left hard up, or anything of that sort, you know" (he was blushing furiously now), "it's for you I'd do it," he blurted out. ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... scarce out of my mouth as we swept beneath the pitch-black opening. I threw the bow hard up, dragged the speed lever to its last notch, and clutching a stanchion with one hand and the steering-wheel with the other hung on like grim death and consigned my ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... be a good enough motive." It would also, Rand thought, furnish an explanation for the burning of Rivers's record-cards. "I'll mention it to Mick McKenna; he's hard up for a good usable suspect. And by the way, the news of this killing will be out before evening, but in the meantime I wish you wouldn't mention it to anybody, or mention that I was in here ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... trifle marred this merry plan— I had contrived, though barr'd up, To typify the future man, By getting very hard up. ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... so, but I will: we are very hard up ourselves and if you could help him and me with the loan of a little money ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... The nephew looked at him somewhat taken aback. "Well, by my soul, you can't help conceding to me that a man who is alive must live, and that's what your artist by profession hardly ever succeeds in doing, for he's always hard up." And he went on with a long rigmarole of bosh, which he clothed in fine words and stereotyped phrases. The end of it all appeared to be pretty much this—that by living he meant little else than having ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... "You must be hard up for something to worry about, to take those young ones on your mind. They ain't yours nor mine, and what's more, nobody knows who they do belong to, and nobody cares. Soon as breakfast's over we'll pack 'em off to some institution ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... leaving Dubuque. You see, I didn't have any skiff, and didn't feel that I could afford to buy one. So I was calculating to build one after we'd got started. Then a raft came along, and the fellows on it must have been awfully hard up, for they offered to sell their canoe so cheap that I just had to take it. Two dollars was all I gave for it; and though ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... lad, for they are hard up for an assistant blacksmith just now, and I happen to be hand-and-glove with some o' the chief men of the yard, who'll be happy to ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... her idea. If Susy was at a loose end, and hard up, why shouldn't she take charge of the children while their parents were in Italy? For three months at most-Grace could promise it shouldn't be longer. They couldn't pay her much, of course, but at least she would ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... following the wide road, but I feel more kinship with him who walks scrupulously in the narrow path of strict amateurism. Let me hasten to add that there are times when everybody must sell. Collections must periodically be weeded out; one may be hard up and sell his pictures as another in similar case his horses; artists will naturally draw into their studios beautiful objects which, occasion offering, they properly sell. With these obvious exceptions the line is absolutely sharp. Did you buy a thing to keep? Then ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... hard up for cash, I go into the Champs Elysees, and take a seat on one of the benches. From there I keep an eye on the cabs and see who gets out of them. If a respectable woman does so, I am sure ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... lad. Its hard up I've been myself before the now, but its a cold day when Barney O'Hara will let a bog-trotter go ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton |
