"Auctioneer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction. He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that can talk like a lawyer, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... organist and the gentleman who led the orchestra that played during the evening at the hotel was chosen in his stead. At the end of the third month a red flag was seen hanging at the door of Mr. Strout's store and Mr. Beers the auctioneer whose once rotund voice had now become thin and quavering, sold off the remaining stock and the fixtures. Then the curtains were pulled down and the door locked. The next day Mr. and Mrs. Strout ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... of Hungary, and Italians of Whitechapel mingled in the throng. Near East and Far East rubbed shoulders. Pidgin English contested with Yiddish for the ownership of some tawdry article offered by an auctioneer whose nationality defied conjecture, save that always some branch of his ancestry had drawn nourishment from the ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... tell of a lady who was letting her house, and, after instructing the auctioneer as to the value of her chairs, furniture and china, had left him in the dining room where the side-board had several bottles of wine and whiskey on it. She waited for a long time hoping he would return to show her the ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... temper with it almost every time she dressed. It had been considered a handsome glass in its day, and had probably been bought into the Poyser family a quarter of a century before, at a sale of genteel household furniture. Even now an auctioneer could say something for it: it had a great deal of tarnished gilding about it; it had a firm mahogany base, well supplied with drawers, which opened with a decided jerk and sent the contents leaping out from the farthest corners, without giving you the trouble of reaching them; ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... father's death, he was favoured with quite the usual crowd of would-be buyers. Almost everyone with either money or credit within a radius of twenty miles came into Carrowkeel for the occasion. The presiding auctioneer had done his duty beforehand by advertising old Mr. Conneally's mouldy furniture as 'magnificently upholstered suites,' and his battered editions of the classics as 'a valuable library of handsomely bound books.' It is not likely that anyone was really deceived by these announcements, or expected ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... hundred, and looked as though he was ready to go on. That was the knock-down blow. Shott put his hands in his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and dolefully shook his head in response to all the coaxings and blandishments of the auctioneer. The hammer fell. "Name, please," was called; the lawyer's clerk passed up a slip of paper, and a thunderbolt fell on the company when the auctioneer read out, "Mr. Thomas Hankin." Hankin had bought the farms for L4700. "Cheque for deposit," said the auctioneer. A cheque for L470, previously ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... Stafford, mildly but firmly, "if you are going to tell the story about your mother and the auctioneer I shall leave the room. It will be the twenty-fifth time I have heard it already, and human patience has a limit. One must draw the ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... use of it that enough was not now left to pay for his prosecution as a thief and forger. In fact, had Balder delayed his return another year, he would have found the enchanted castle in possession of the auctioneer; and as to the fate of its inhabitants, one does not like ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... need hardly say, was a Scotsman—a big, broad-shouldered Sawney—formidable in 'slacks,' as he called his trousers, and terrific in kilts; while Grimes was a native of Swillingford, an ex-schoolmaster and parish clerk, and now an auctioneer, a hatter, a dyer and bleacher, a paper-hanger, to which the wits said when he set up his paper, he added the trade ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Tom to be a bit of a scholard. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad—I should be sorry for him to be a raskill—but a sort of engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool. They're pretty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... that only an auctioneer admires all schools of literature. I think it is certain that the way to get most enjoyment from books is to specialise a little. Mr. Pepys, it will be remembered, collected Black Letter Ballads, Penny Merriments, Penny Witticisms, Penny Compliments, and Penny Godlinesses, ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... began to speculate immediately upon the identity of this bachelor friend of Mr. Fairfax's. It was not a garrison town. The young men of the place were for the most part small professional men—half-a-dozen lawyers and doctors, two or three curates, a couple of bankers' sons, an auctioneer or two, ranking vaguely between the trading and professional classes, and the sons of tradesmen. Among them all Mr. Granger could remember no one likely to be a friend of George Fairfax. It might possibly be one of the curates; but it seemed scarcely probable that Mr. Fairfax would ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... public spectacles; and exacted such biddings, and raised the prices so high, that some of the purchasers were ruined, and bled themselves to death. There is a well-known story told of Aponius Saturninus, who happening to fall asleep as he sat on a bench at the sale, Caius called out to the auctioneer, not to overlook the praetorian personage who nodded to him so often; and accordingly the salesman went on, pretending to take the nods for tokens of assent, until thirteen gladiators were knocked down to him at the sum of nine millions of sesterces ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... gentlemen," cried the auctioneer, "here we have a beautiful thoroughbred mare, the favorite mount of Her Royal Highness the Princess, and not a bid do I hear. She's a beauty, gentlemen, sired by the famous Potiphar who won the Epsom Handicap and no end of minor stakes. Take a look at her, gentlemen! ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... brutes, the milkman with his tin aquaria, the land agent with his nice new maps and beautiful descriptions of distant scenery, the newspaper man with his "immense circulation," the publisher with his "Great American Novel," the city auctioneer with his "Pictures by the Old Masters"—all and every one protest each his own innocence, and warn you against the deceits of the rest. My inexperienced friend, take it for granted that they all tell the truth—about each other! and then transact your business to the best of your ability on ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... read the opening paragraph of "The Return," perhaps the most dazzling feat of impressionism in modern English? The Athenaeum says also: "Upon the whole, we do not think the short story represents Mr. Conrad's true metier" It may be that Mr. Conrad's true metier was, after all, that of an auctioneer; but, after "Youth," "To-morrow," "Typhoon," "Karain," "The End of the Tether," and half a dozen other mere masterpieces, he may congratulate himself on having made a fairly successful hobby of the short story. The most extraordinary of all the Athenaeum's remarks is this: "The one ship story here, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... middle life. It was the young horse that caught Hartigan's eye. It was rising three, a well-built skeleton, but with a readiness to look alert, a full mane and tail, and a glint of gold on the coat that had a meaning and a message for the horse-wise. The auctioneer was ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... with a view, no doubt, to increase the animation and excitement of the scene. Whether the bidders became extravagant in consequence, I do not know, but I think it very likely; at all events I suspect that the auctioneer was trying an experiment on the animal spirits of the company. This custom, although by no means familiar to Englishmen, is very generally practised in the north of England. It is probably a relique of ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... W. Corcoran, was born in 1798. He began his business career in Georgetown, but for many years he has been a resident of Washington. At twenty he went into business for himself, beginning as an auctioneer. After several years of successful business he was obliged to suspend, during ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... see the dusty buggies, the switching tails of the horses, bothered by flies, and the group of real estate men, lounging, while they spat tobacco juice, by the red flag at the gate. In the warm air, which was heavy with the scent of a purple catalpa tree on the corner, the drawling voice of the auctioneer could be heard like the loud droning of innumerable bees. A carriage passed down the street in a cloud of dust, and the very dust, as it drifted toward us, was drenched with the heady perfume of ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... By the time the pony his father had selected was reached, he was fairly trembling with excitement. He was full of apprehension lest somebody else should take him away from them, and when the bidding began, he watched every movement and word of the auctioneer with breathless anxiety, raising quite a laugh at one time, by answering his oft-repeated question "Will anybody give me five? I have thirty—will anybody give me five?" with an eager "I will!" that was easily heard by everybody in the crowd. It was an immense relief to him, when, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... the tea-pot, nor even the battered old pewter spoon with which she tapped the bottom of the tin to dislodge the last flicker of tea-leaf dust. The three had been sold at auction that day in response to the auctioneer's inquiry, "What am ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... things had been known in some parishes as tradesmen going about canvassing for custom with cards in their pockets: when people came from nobody knew where, there was no knowing what they might do. It was a thousand pities that Mr. Moffat, the auctioneer and broker, had died without leaving anybody to follow him in the business, and Mrs. Cleve's trustee ought to have known better than to let a shop to a stranger. Even the discovery that ovens were being ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... scourged; they came in their rambles upon a slave auction where a fine mulatto girl was being pinched and prodded and trotted up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, that "bidders might satisfy themselves," as the auctioneer said, of the soundness of the article to be sold. John Johnston and John Hanks and Abraham Lincoln saw these sights with the unsophisticated eyes of honest country lads from a free State. In their home circle it seems that slavery was always spoken of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... thou hast patient been of late, While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear, Have built and laid out ground at such a rate, Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer. That poets were so from their earliest date, By Homer's 'Catalogue of ships' is clear; But a mere modern must be moderate— I spare you then the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... mixed Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles were offered for sale by auction on the centre landing yesterday. There was only a small attendance. The auctioneer said he couldn't honestly recommend the lot, but they must be got rid of at any cost. He had scrubbed their faces and combed their hair for the occasion, but couldn't guarantee that state of things to last. But they might turn out to be of use as substitutes in case worms should ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... next few days, with no one but himself to do them. There had been, in the voices of his friends, a note that was new. In the manner of the men who had come to talk with him on matters of business, he had felt a something that he had never felt before. And he had seen the auctioneer—a lifelong friend of his father—standing on the front porch of his boyhood home and had heard him cry the low spoken bids and answer the nodding heads of the buyers in a voice that was hoarse with something more than long speaking in the open air. And then—and then—at last had come the sharp ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... were now turned on Isabella, as she was led forward by the auctioneer. The appearance of the handsome quadroon caused a deep sensation among the crowd. There she stood, with a skin as fair as most white women, her features as beautifully regular as any of her sex of pure Anglo-Saxon blood, her long black hair done ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... procurable, if any one wanted them, at a far lower rate. There is not a lot throughout which would recommend itself to modern taste, save the Cuisinier Francois, and perhaps that was not in the old morocco livery considered by judges as de rigueur. We append the auctioneer's account entire, because it exhibits a fair example of the class of book which not only Frenchmen, but ourselves, sought at that time more than those for which we have long learned to compete, and which were then offered under the hammer by the bundle, if not by the basketful. ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... Parliament should be passed for their benefit—something similar to that he has been the means of carrying for the canal and brick-field children. In a paper read before the Social Science Congress at Manchester, Mr. Smith argued that all tents, shows, caravans, auctioneer vans, and like places used as dwellings should be registered and numbered, and under proper sanitary arrangements, with sanitary inspectors and School Board officers, in every town and village. Thus in every district the children would have their names and attendance registered in a book, which ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... An auctioneer must have a compelling manner. He must be gabby and stentorian, witheringly sarcastic and plaintively cajoling. He must be able to detect the faintest symptoms of avarice and desire in the blink of an eyelid, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... collect on the highroad. They stood in groups and did not go down to the Crow's Nest, until the auctioneer and his clerk arrived. Ditte was on the point of screaming when she saw who the two men were; they were the same who had come to fetch her mother. But now they came on quite a different errand, and ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and—" Pell began; when Lopez, to their amazement, rapped on the table with his gun, as though he were an auctioneer and this his gavel, "Senors!" he shouted. ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... squatting on mats of twisted straw, making notes of the sales and entries of the proceeds on rolls of parchment which they had for the purpose, whilst a swarthy slave, belonging to the treasury, acted as auctioneer under direct orders from the praefect of Rome. He was perched high up aloft, immediately beneath the shadow of the yawning bronze wolf; he stood bare-headed under the glare of the sun, but a linen tunic covered his shoulders, and ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... gave the student a glance, one of those glances in which a great soul can mingle dignity and gratitude. It was like balm to the law student, who was still smarting under the Duchess' insolent scrutiny; she had looked at him as an auctioneer might look at some article to ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... habited in silk and gauze dresses, with their hair prettily ornamented to increase their personal attractions, which were far superior to those of the negroes. Close to the group stood a man who acted as auctioneer, ready to hand his goods over to the highest bidder. The purchasers were chiefly Arabs, who walked about surveying the hapless slaves, and ordering those to whom they took a fancy to be paraded out before them, after ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... AN auctioneer having turned publican, was soon after thrown into the King's Bench; on which the following paragraph appeared in the Morning Post: "Mr. A., who lately quitted the pulpit for the bar, has been promoted to ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... "Gaspard," cried the auctioneer, addressing the young man of the tumbrel, "Suzanne would no longer hesitate if she saw you in such a hat. And with the trunk, too. Ah, mon Dieu, can you afford to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the auctioneer, "once. Two-pence, twice. Will no one bid higher? It is going for nothing, the key is worth more. Have you ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... accordingly where they devotedly but desperately were—he and she, penniless Nan Drury. Her father, of Drury & Dean, was, like so far too many other of the anxious characters who peered through the dull window-glass of dusty offices at Properley, an Estate and House Agent, Surveyor, Valuer and Auctioneer; she was the prettiest of six, with two brothers, neither of the least use, but, thanks to the manner in which their main natural protector appeared to languish under the accumulation of his attributes, they couldn't be said very particularly or ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... in which the charter of a corporation may be regarded. In the first place, it may be thought of simply as a license terminable at will by the State, like a liquor-seller's license or an auctioneer's license, but affording the incorporators, so long as it remains in force, the privileges and advantages of doing business in the form of a corporation. Nowadays, indeed, when corporate charters ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... in the auction-room. He seems to have been the victim of a frenzy for books. He impressed them by crowds, and marshalled them in regiments and myriads. They all fell in 1789 before the hammer of the auctioneer. Dibdin has described the catalogue. It was unostentatious and printed on indifferent material. He hoped, with his curious insistance on the point, that there were 'some few copies on large paper.' It is a mark of the changes in book-collecting ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... she was interrupted by the auctioneer, and the sound of his hammer. The auction went on, and nothing but "Who bids more? going!— going!—who bids more?" was heard for a considerable time. Not being able to get near Mr. Montenero, and having failed ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... under his cuff. But the Master was too much interested in examining the young hound then being offered for sale to pay any attention to any other animal. In due course, however, the young Wolfhound was sold and led away, and the auctioneer was heard to say— ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... L5000 per annum from the profits of them. It is not difficult to account for these enormous gains. Every thing here is sold by auction, and the advertisements are in consequence more numerous than they would otherwise be. An auctioneer alone, in good business, will pay each of the papers about L1000 per annum for printing and advertising his numerous sales. We have a supreme court with a suitable establishment of officers. John Walpole ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... the game of playing at living. The sky shone brightly overhead; around the town stood hills which no romantic scene-painter could have bettered; the air of the man with water-cart, of the auctioneer's man with bell, and of the people popping in and out of the shops, was the air of those who did these things for love of play-acting on ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Newtimber, near Hurstpierpoint, and managed to serve both to a great age. He lived to be eighty-four and died full of vigour in 1831. In 1817, following upon a quarrel with the squire, the Newtimber living was put up for auction in London. Mr. Whistler decided to be present, but anonymous. The auctioneer mentioned in his introduction the various charms of the benefice, ending with the superlative advantage that it was held by an aged and infirm clergyman with one foot in the grave. At this point the proceedings were interrupted by a large and ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... bidding them an affecting farewell? Good gracious! We can hardly believe such insensibility does exist. Hasten then, dear readers, as you would fly to catch the expiring sigh of a fine old boon companion—hasten to take your parting slice of ham, your last bowl of arrack, even now while the great auctioneer says "Going." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... for the musicians to pass. Next to the firing of rockets nothing can be more heart-stirring than the martial sound of the pipes and drums. The big drum was, on this occasion, played most masterly by the auctioneer and clown of the parish church, called Jose Carcunda, or ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... the beauty, and the felicity, and the glory of a dream. The Homeric catalogue of ships is exactly on a level with the muster-roll of a regiment, the register of a tax-gatherer, the catalogue of an auctioneer. Nay, some catalogues are far more interesting, and more alive with meaning. 'But him followed fifty black ships!'—'But him follow seventy black ships!' Faugh! We could make a more readable poem out of an Insolvent's ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... my father, "it will be my duty, by and by, to christen the boy,—a duty not done in a day. At present, I have no doubt that the bishop will do very well without me. Let the day stand, or if you put it off, upon my word and honor I believe that the wicked auctioneer will put off the book-sale also. Of one thing I am quite sure, that the sale and the christening will take place at the same time." There was no getting over this; but I am certain my dear mother had much less heart than before in uncovering the chintz ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Pompeius Magnus—(miserable that I am, for even now that my tears have ceased to flow, my grief remains deeply implanted in my heart,)—the property, I say, of Cnaeus Pompeius the Great was submitted to the pitiless, voice of the auctioneer. On that one occasion the state forgot its slavery, and groaned aloud, and though men's minds were enslaved, as everything was kept under by fear, still the groans of the Roman people were free. While all men were waiting to see who would be so impious, who would be so mad, who would be so ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... stronger than the interest for a German fleet, and it seemed to me that the Progressive party at that time preferred to see the newly-acquired rights of Prussia to Kiel, and the prospect of a maritime future founded on its possession, rather in the hands of the auctioneer, Hannibal Fischer, than in those ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... educated to inherit millions; he had not been educated to support himself by work in a world that specialized. He had in these seven years been a jeweller's clerk, an auctioneer in a salesroom; he had travelled from Baluchistan to Damascus with carpet caravans, but he had never forged ahead financially. Generally the end of a job had been the end of his resources. One fact the thought of which never failed to buck ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... who was auctioneer by common consent; "here you are! number 24! a fine large statuette by one of the old masters. What am ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... chairs that stood near the edge of the bank. To the fore were many white men and several chiefs. And most prominently to the fore, rifle in hand, stood Akoon. Tommy, at El-Soo's request, served as auctioneer, but she made the opening speech and described the goods about to be sold. She was in native costume, in the dress of a chief's daughter, splendid and barbaric, and she stood on a chair, that she might be ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... with rage and disappointment; the hag vented her spite on her brother. ''Tis your fault,' said she; 'fool! you have no tongue; you a Chabo, you can't speak'; whereas, within a few hours, he had perhaps talked more than an auctioneer during a three days' sale: but he reserved his words for fitting occasions, and now sat as usual, sullen ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... comfortable cushion must feel after days and nights of prowling for food and shelter. The other two men, occupied with their own thoughts, closed their eyes; but not so Smith. Nothing, to the smallest detail, escaped him. He appraised everything with as perfect an appreciation of its value as an auctioneer. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... later there was a fire sale by one of the merchants, and I got the job of ringing the auction bell. Late in the afternoon the auctioneer held up a brown overcoat. "Here is a fine piece of goods, only slightly damaged," he said. He showed the back of the coat where a hole was burned in it. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... slaves were brought in from Virginia and sold on de block. De auctioneer was Cap'n Dorsey. E. M. Cobb was de slave bringer. They would stand de slaves up on de block and talk about what a fine looking specimen of black manhood or womanhood dey was, tell how healthy dey was, look in their mouth ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... in a slave state, and here I saw the first negro auction. One side of the street had a platform such as we build for a political speaker. The auctioneer mounted this with a black boy about 18 years old, and after he had told all his good qualities and had the boy stand up bold and straight, he called for bids, and they started him at $500. He rattled away as if he were selling a steer, and when Mr. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... very fine road for the South, known as the state-line road. We drove to the cotton-yard, unloaded, and received the receipts for the cotton, and put up for the night at a wagon-yard. I spent this night in prayer and supplication that God would save me from the slave-pen and the auctioneer's block; and my prayers were responded to in my protection. The next morning we started for home by what was known as the pigeon-roost route, in order to save toll and ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... patient been of late, While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear, Have built and laid out ground at such a rate, Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer. That Poets were so from their earliest date, By Homer's "Catalogue of ships" is clear; But a mere modern must be moderate— I spare you ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... to Sir Charles Fludyer on the devastation effected on his marine villa at Felixstowe by the encroachments of the sea. The answer to the enigma, Mrs. FitzGerald (Lucy Barton) told Canon Ainger, was not money but an auctioneer's hammer. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... begin," Asher said, and Harding sat down angry with Asher and interested in the auctioneer's face, created, Harding thought, for the job... "looking exactly like a Roman bust. Lofty brow, tight lips, vigilant eyes, voice like a bell.... That damned fellow Asher! What the hell did ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... don't care how we do it. If they look easy we tell them of the fine clothes, the diamonds and all the money that they can have. If they are hard to get we use knock-out drops." His words express the whole idea of the girl auctioneer, "any way to ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... can be depended upon. The poor old woman was in tears, so sorry was she to see all your pretty things sold up. You left owing her a hundred francs, but I have paid her; and talking of you we waited till the auctioneer arrived. Everything had been pulled down; the tapestry from the walls, the picture, the two vases I gave you were on the table waiting the stroke of the hammer. And then the men, all the marchands de meubles in the ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... residences as they would be termed by an auctioneer in England—are excellent. Many of them are, in fact, large mansions, and are surrounded with grounds which, as the shrubs grow up, will be very beautiful. Some have large, well-kept lawns, stretching down to the rocks, and these, to my taste, give the charm to Newport. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... like most of his brother artists in all but his art. He hated school and at twelve years of age was taken from it. His father wanted him to become a warehouse merchant like himself, and he began life as clerk or apprentice to an auctioneer. He next went into the employment of some calico-printers of Manchester. The designing of calicoes can hardly be called art, even if the department of design had fallen to Holman Hunt's lot and we have no evidence that it did, but he started to be an ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... a man who had tried dugong fishing on the Great Barrier Reef; a broken-down advance agent from a stranded theatrical company; a local auctioneer with defective vision, but who had once written a 'poem' for a ladies' journal; a baker's carter who was secretary to the local debating society; and a man named Joss, who had a terrific black eye and who told Denison, sotto voce, that if the editor gave him ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... "what are we now but three footpads?" This, and the insult his sister had received made the place poison to him; and hastened their departure by a day or two. The very next day (Thursday) an affiche on the walls of Albion Villa announced that Mr. Chippenham, auctioneer, would sell, next Wednesday, on the premises, the greater part of the furniture, plate, china, glass, Oriental inlaid boxes and screens, with several superb India shawls, scarfs, and dresses; also a twenty-one years' lease of the villa, seventeen ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of the figure of a man crouching, leaning against the staircase, with his hat pressed down over his brow, and the collar of his cloak drawn up high over his face. No one perceived how he shuddered when the auctioneer handled the beautiful articles and called on the public to bid. It was to him a terrible grief to assist at these obsequies of his past life, and yet he could not tear himself away. He felt fascinated, as it were, by some supernatural power, and forced ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... enthusiasms appeared in the eyes of the poet's granddaughter. Katharine never made any attempt to spare people's feelings, he reflected; and, being himself very sensitive to all shades of comfort and discomfort, he cut short the auctioneer's catalog, which Katharine was reeling off more and more absent-mindedly, and took Mrs. Vermont Bankes, with a queer sense of fellowship in suffering, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... The auctioneer, offering the pasture lot for sale, waved his hand enthusiastically, pointed toward the rich expanse of ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... into a tacit conspiracy against the rich, held together by closer bonds than those of a Fenian lodge. Balzac resolves that we shall have the whole scene and all the actors distinctly before us. We have a description of a country-house more poetical, but far more detailed, than one in an auctioneer's circular; then we have a photograph of the neighbouring cabaret; then a minute description of its inhabitants, and a detailed statement of their ways and means. The story here makes a feeble start; but Balzac recollects that we don't quite know the origin ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... surrender. Wait until you see Sue Tomlinson get hold of him down on the street some day. He shuts his eyes and just fires away at her while she purrs at him, and it is a sight for the gods. Sue's father died and left her with her invalid mother and not enough money to invite in the auctioneer, but the General took some old accounts of the Doctor's, collected and invested them and made up plenty of money for Sue's grubstake, though he goes around three blocks to get past her. Sue adores him and approaches him from all sides, but has never made a landing yet. Say, you'll like ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... time the bids rose slowly. Obed showed himself an excellent auctioneer—indeed he had had some experience at home—and by his dry and droll remarks stimulated the bidding when it became dull, and did not declare the claim sold till it was clear no higher bid could ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... other, and were almost impassable for vehicles, and at times not a little dangerous for foot-passengers. Now the practice of selling by auction has become very general, and the cattle are either put into the auctioneer's private yard, or in an enclosure provided by the town authorities. The corn-dealers are a most energetic class of men, well educated, and often employing large capital in their business. They are perpetually travelling, and often attend two markets a day. Having struck a bargain, the farmer ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... right down. It seems it was a policeman who was sent to watch them, that spoke. So I paid the money, but as I went out I heard the auctioneer say that the sale was closed for the day. I afterwards learned that if I had allowed them to put the watch in a box, they would have exchanged it for another ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... be discharged, as we can no longer afford a governess. We must retain only the cook, housemaid, one footman, and a groom to look after the horses until they are sold. Send a letter to Mr Bates, the auctioneer, to give notice of an early sale of the furniture. You must write to Henry; of course, he can no longer remain at college. We have plenty of time to consider what shall be our future plans, which must depend much upon what may prove ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... cheap,—a prayer for a ticket to heaven, a diploma for an honourable citizenship. Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. Why do men and women like to advertise themselves so much? Is it not but an instinct derived from the ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... As the auctioneer—a spruce importation from Newbern—mounted the bench, a splendid carriage, drawn by two magnificent grays, and driven by a darky in livery, made its way through the crowd, and drew up opposite the stand. In it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... down to the year 1832, contained the habitations of a great number of persons in easy circumstances; many of our families of note had their residences there: John Wm. Woolsey, Esq., in 1808, and later on first President of the Quebec Bank; the millionaire auctioneer, Wm. Burns, the god-father to the late George Burns Symes, Esq.; Archbishop Signai—this worthy prelate was born in this street, in a house opposite to La Banque Nationale. Evidences of the luxuriousness of their dwelling rooms are visible to this day, in the panelling of ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... time he was seen alive. Close to the place was a horse bazaar, which the artist appears to have entered by way of passing the time. The horse and trap were there, but no trace of poor Lane; and on search being made, his body was found lying lifeless at the foot of the auctioneer's stand. He appears to have wandered into the betting-room, and by some unexplained means or other fallen backwards through an insufficiently protected skylight. The clever head was battered so completely out of recognition that he was only identified by his card-case. ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... "Omar, the Tentmaker." And that same ability Belasco possesses to dissect the heart of a romantic piece was carried by him into war drama, and into parlour comedies, and plays of business condition. I doubt whether "The Auctioneer" would read well, or, for the matter of that, "The Music Master;" Charles Klein has written more coherent dialogue than is to be found in these early pieces. But they are vivid in mind because of Belasco's management, and because he saw them fitted to the unique ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... conoscenti myself; but I'm told the style is undeniably modern. And was not I lucky, Juliana, not to let that Medona be knocked down to me? I was just going to bid, when I heard such smart bidding; but, fortunately, the auctioneer let out that it was done by a very old master—a hundred years old. Oh! your most obedient, thinks I!—if that's the case, it's not for my money: so I bought this, in lieu of the smoke-dried thing, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... Danny has a fine home of his own. Yes, with a piano that plays itself, and gilt chairs in the parlor, and a sedan top on the flivver, and beveled glass in the front door. Also he has a stylish wife who has "an evenin' wrap trimmed with vermin and is learnin' to play that auctioneer's bridge game." So why should his sister Stella be cookin' for other folks when she might be livin' swell and independent with them? Ain't there the four nieces and three nephews that hardly knows their aunt by sight? It's Danny's wife ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... The auctioneer just then raised a picture to view, and cried: "A landscape, in a handsome gold frame, by the artist Laurier—ten dollars ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... doesn't want to be thowt a fooil he should niver start o' showin' off befoor fowk till he knows what he's abaat, an' ther's noan on us knows iverything. Aw remember once go in' to th' sale ov a horse, an' th' auctioneer knew varry little abaat cattle, an' he began praisin' it up as he thowt. "Gentlemen," he said, "will you be kind enough to look at this splendid animal! examine him, gentlemen; look at his head; ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... auctioneer, laughing (and the master of the slave re-echoed his laugh and his answer); "let us see whether we cannot light ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... I was walking through a side street in one of our large cities, I heard these words ringing out from a room so crowded with people that I could but just see the auctioneer's face and uplifted hammer above the heads of ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... a surprised voice, "it's Mr. Jolyon Forsyte! So it is! Haven't seen you, sir, for years. Dear me! Times aren't what they were. Why! you and your brother, and that auctioneer—Mr. Traquair, and Mr. Nicholas Treffry—you used to have six or seven stalls here regular every season. And how are you, sir? We don't ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she? He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he heard the hammer of the auctioneer, and ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... "She'll be discussing with him the future of the Greek drama. Too bad it doesn't happen to be Warfield, or mother could give him tips on the 'Auctioneer.'" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Latinis, &c., propria manu Doct. Patricii Junii aliorumq. conscriptis: quorum auctio habebitur Londini apud domum auctionariam, adverso Nigri Cygni in vico vulgo dicto Ave Mary Lane, prope Ludgate Street, vicesimo sexto die Maii, 1684. Per Eduardum Millington, Bibliopolam." In the Preface, the auctioneer speaks of Dr. Owen as "a person so generally known as a generous buyer and great collector of the best books;" and after adverting to his copies of Fathers, Councils, Church Histories, and Rabbinical Authors, he adds, "all which considered ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Mildred, on the contrary, the beautiful was as essential as her daily food, and she excelled in all the dainty handicrafts by which women can make a home attractive. Therefore her own little sanctum had developed like an exquisite flower, and had become, as we have said, an expression of herself. An auctioneer, in dismantling her apartment, would not have found much more to sell than if he had pulled a rose to pieces, but left intact it was as full of beauty and fragrance as the flower itself. And yet her own hands must destroy it, and in a brief time she must ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... readiness with which, in these railroad days, a manufacture can be transplanted, was exhibited at Tewkesbury four years ago. The once- fashionable theatre of that decayed town was being sold by auction; it hung on the auctioneer's hammer at so trifling a sum that one of the new made M.P.'s of the borough bought it. Having bought it, for want of some other use he determined to turn it into a silk mill. In a very short space ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... this is a fairly long book for this author. It starts with two young men working as clerks in the offices of a tyrannical auctioneer. Fed up with his unpleasant behaviour they give up their jobs and determine to set out for British Columbia. To get there they must take passage in a ship going round the Horn, and up to San Francisco. Then they have ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... resembling an auctioneer's box, erected on the hearth-rug, presided, with extraordinary gravity, hammer in hand, robed in a bachelor's gown and hood. Beneath him the room seethed with the company, male and female, all in an excellent humor, and quite tolerable prices were obtained. No public ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... was all life and all colour, All confusion and clamour, As dealers showed the paces Of colts, untamed in the traces, To the rap of the auctioneer's hammer. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... Trinity connected with the church. All these documents have now, however, entirely disappeared,—how, or at what period since the publication of the work, is unknown; but I find by a newspaper-cutting in my possession (unfortunately without date or auctioneer's name), that a very large collection of ancient documents, filling several boxes, and relating to this church and others in the county, was sold by auction in London some years ago, probably between the years 1825 and 1830. I shall feel obliged if any of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851 • Various
... bought the first Jenny Lind ticket at auction for two hundred and twenty-five dollars, because he knew it would be a good advertisement for him. "Who is the bidder?" said the auctioneer, as he knocked down that ticket at Castle Garden. "Genin, the hatter," was the response. Here were thousands of people from the Fifth avenue, and from distant cities in the highest stations in life. "Who is 'Genin,' the hatter?" they exclaimed. They had never heard of him before. ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum
... 1747, and stood on the site of Grove Hall, built by, and for many years the mansion of, Thomas Kilby Jones, a famous auctioneer of Boston, and now known as the "Consumptives' Home," on the south-east corner of Washington street and Blue Hill avenue. It was originally the home-stead of Samuel Payson, and was owned by John Goddard in the early ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... Conversing one evening about the notable orations to which he had listened, the great lawyer said that the most eloquent words he had ever heard were "spoken on the auction block by a slave mother." It seemed that she pleaded with the auctioneer and the spectators not to separate her from her children and her husband, and she made these men, who were trafficking in human life, realize the meaning of Christ's words, "Woe unto him that doth offend one ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Mr. Spry, an auctioneer, who had long lived in great respectability at Dock, with his son and god-son, had gone on board to visit a friend, and were ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... may do that afterwards, if he pleases. Stay, Careless, we want you: egad, you shall be auctioneer—so come ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... again to the clergyman. "This way." And she collected her silken skirt, and swished up two flights of stairs and into a bedroom at the back, where she turned on the light. "A very comfortable room," she went on in the voice of a tired and very superior auctioneer. "Just vacated by a Wall Street broker and his wife; very well-connected people. Bed and couch; easy-chairs; running hot and cold water. And for it I'm making a special summer rate, with board, of only twenty-five ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... "Now, ladies, as I should begin if I were a politician, or an auctioneer; now, ladies, the time for confession has arrived; I can no longer conceal from you my burglarious scheme. In the next turn that we shall make to the right, the park of the P—— manoir will disclose itself. But, between us and that Park, there is a gate. That gate is locked. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... prime fellow,' interposed Tom, who always managed to put his foot in it—'he talks just like an auctioneer.' ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... set up in the middle of the big room where the auction was being held. Furniture and stuff was jammed all around, even at the back of the platform where the auctioneer stood. He was a thick-set, big-mouthed man wearing a blue ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... week her home was to wear its accustomed face, she did not say so, even to herself. It seemed to her a poor habit to wish for what was obviously not to be, and all by herself she set upon the day for the sale of her goods and sent for the auctioneer to come. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... dry-goods store, struck with his good looks and manners, had offered him a situation, if he could make himself more presentable to their fair clients. Harry Flint was gazing half abstractedly, half hopelessly, at the portmanteau without noticing the auctioneer's persuasive challenge. In his abstraction he was not aware that the auctioneer's assistant was also looking at him curiously, and that possibly his dejected and half-clad appearance had excited the attention of one of ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... been in the family of the owner, who sent it for sale, for some 200 years. The pipe was of wood constructed in four pieces of strange shape, rudely carved with dogs' heads and faces of Red Indians. According to legend it had been presented to Raleigh by the Indians. The auctioneer, Mr. Stevens, remarked that unfortunately a parchment document about the pipe was lost some years ago, and declared, "If we could only produce the parchment the pipe would fetch L500." In the end, however, it was knocked down ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... book of that time and description any great value. Enderby at Barclay auction in March and made row over some book which he missed because it was put up out of turn in catalogue. Barclay auctioneer thinks it was one of Percival privately bound books 1680-1703. Am anonymous book of Percival library, De Meritis Librorum Britannorum, was sold to Colonel Graeme for $47, a good price. When do I ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the log platform raised to the height of a man's shoulders at the far end of the clearing. It was Henri Paquette, master of the day's ceremonies, and appointed auctioneer of the great wakao. A man of many tongues was Paquette. To his lips he raised a great megaphone of birchbark, and sonorously his call rang out—in French, in Cree, in Chippewan, and the packed throng about the caribou-fires heaved like a living billow, and to a man and a woman and a child ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... of it!' said the auctioneer. A terrible word that fell like a blight on the sacred memories of my childhood, and dispelled my earliest illusions, the dearest of all. My entire fortune was comprised in this 'account rendered,' my future ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... pound,' said the auctioneer, 'Only a pound; and I'm standing here Selling this animal, gain or loss. Only a pound for the drover's horse; One of the sort that was never afraid, One of the boys of the Old Brigade; Thoroughly honest and game, I'll swear, Only a little ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... sticking on edge in the pipeclay bottom. I found some gold also in Sheep's Head, and then we heard of a rush on the Goulburn River. Next day we offered our spare mining plant for sale on the roadside opposite Specimen Hill, placing the tubs, cradles, picks and spades all in a row. Bez was the auctioneer. He called out aloud, and soon gathered a crowd, which he fascinated by his eloquence. The bidding was spirited, and every article was sold, even Bez's own two-man pick, which would break the heart of a ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... are other things to be said of buying. The dry-goods jobber frequents the auction-room. If you have never seen a large sale of dry-goods at auction, you have missed one of the remarkable incidents of our day. You are not yet aware of how much an auctioneer and two or three hundred jobbers can do and endure in the short space of three hours. You must know that fifty or a hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods may easily change owners in that time. You are not to dream of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... advertisers may, in time, emulate the fame of Christie, the prince of auctioneers, whose fine descriptive powers can make more of an estate on paper than ever was made of it in any other shape, except in the form of an ejectment. The fictions of law, indeed, surpass even the auctioneer's imagination; and a man may be said never to know the extent of his own possessions until he is served with a process of ejectment. He then finds himself required to give up the possession of a multitude of barns, orchards, fish-ponds, horse-ponds, dwelling-houses, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... James, my son, call in the auctioneer, stick up a bill 'TO LET.' Let us return at once to the land of our birth. No such attractions exist in this turkey-trodden, maccaroni-eating, picture-peddling, stone-cutting, mass-singing land of donkeys. Let us ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... you all here again," said Grace, after the first greetings had been exchanged, as she beamed on the young men. "You're just in time to go to work, too. We've oodles of things to wrap for the 'Mystery Auction,' and Hippy you must be auctioneer. You can ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... an auctioneer, And made three hundred pounds a year; And HARRIET HALE, most strange to say, Gave pianoforte lessons at ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... paper, flowers, pictures, paste, scissors and watercolors and ask each to make an original valentine. The game of hearts, the auction of hearts and the auction of valentines are old but excellent ways of amusing a company. For the auction of hearts the girls are in a separate room and a clever auctioneer calls off their charms and merits and knocks them down to the highest bidder, who does not know who he has bought until all are sold. A fancy dress party, each girl representing a valentine, is a delightful entertainment for the evening. A small boy may be used ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... ladies, the teeming children,—broomsticks they were in comparison to freedom, but,—that was what she had asked, what she had prayed for. God, she said, had let her drop, just as her mother had done. More than ever she grieved, as she crept down the street, that she had never mounted the auctioneer's block. An ownerless free negro! She knew no one whose duty it was to help her; no one knew her to help her. In the whole world (it was all she had asked) there was no white child to call her mammy, no ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... companions with all the equanimity and philosophy of a man who has been drinking long and slowly, and made friends with several: to wit, Tinker Taylor, a decayed church-ironmonger who appeared to have been of a religious turn in earlier years, but was somewhat blasphemous now; also a red-nosed auctioneer; also two Gothic masons like himself, called Uncle Jim and Uncle Joe. There were present, too, some clerks, and a gown- and surplice-maker's assistant; two ladies who sported moral characters of various depths of shade, according to their company, nicknamed "Bower ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... and patent park paling, was not, to Mr. Toad, a very expensive purchase; for he "took it off the hands" of a distressed client who wanted an immediate supply, "merely to convenience him," and, consequently, became the purchaser at about half its real value. "Attorneys," as Bustle the auctioneer says, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... me pie. Pa wouldn't get up at four o'clock in the morning to go to early mass, unless he could take a fish pole along and some angel worms. The hired girl prays when no one sees her but God, but Pa wants to get a church full of sisterin', and pray loud, as though he was an auctioneer selling tin razors. Say, it beats all what a difference liver medicine has on two people, too. Now that hickory nut day, when me and my chum got full of Pa's liver medicine, I felt so good natured I gave my hickory nuts away to the children, and wanted to give my coat ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... I says, reading the address. "'Auctioneer and House Agent, Broadway, Hammersmith.' Is that the ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... that I had a claim to some money; but I have not thought much about it, except that I should give you Grote and Macaulay in dark-brown calf, with bevelled boards and red edges, like that edition you saw at the auctioneer's in Bond Street, and have talked about ever since; and a horse, perhaps; and a ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... tax collector, was there, and two of the selectmen of the town, besides Cole, the auctioneer. At four o'clock Hilburn stood on the house steps, read the published notice of the sale and the court warrant for it. The town, he said, would deduct $114—the amount of unpaid taxes—from the sum received for the ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... in the Curse of Kehama and in the Christian Year there are poetic qualities of a certain kind, but absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... there was abundance of sound, but generally an equal lack of sense. Too full of himself to be willing to keep patiently plodding on like ordinary people, he had run through a good many trades without being master of any. Once he was a pastry-cook; at another time a painter; and then an auctioneer—which last business he held to the longest of any, as giving him full scope for exhibiting his graces of language. He had abandoned it, however, in consequence of some rather biting remarks which had come to his ears ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... "They sell the inmates of the poor-house, every year, to the highest bidder,—sell their labor by the year. They have 'em get up on a auction block, and hire a auctioneer, and sell 'em at so much a head, to the crowd. Why, some of 'em bring as high as twenty dollars a year, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... for an invoice, "Stanzas by Mrs. Hemans," or a garbled extract from Moore's Life of Byron; the lawyer may study his brief faithfully, and yet contrive to pick up the valuable dictum of some American critic, that "Bulwer's novels are decidedly superior to Sir Walter Scott's;" nay, even the auctioneer may find time, as he bustles to his tub, or his tribune, to support his pretensions to polite learning, by glancing his quick eye over the columns, and reading that "Miss Mitford's descriptions are indescribable." If you buy a yard of ribbon, the shopkeeper lays down his newspaper, perhaps ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... aid their sister. Mr. Montgomery wished them sent to the vicarage, but Helen would not hear of it till the day of, or after the sale. Well has it been said, that God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb; and so did she find it; for on applying, through Mr. Montgomery, to a neighbouring auctioneer, he, gratuitously, attended, and did all in his power to dispose of the things to advantage. Mr. Willoughby had taken the house on coming into possession of the property and furnished it throughout, so that being in good order, most of the furniture fetched a fair price. The day after ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... praises, Kitely[30] scarce had more. By turns transform'd into all kind of shapes, Constant to none, Foote laughs, cries, struts, and scrapes: Now in the centre, now in van or rear, The Proteus shifts, bawd, parson, auctioneer. His strokes of humour, and his bursts of sport, Are all contain'd in this one word—distort. 400 Doth a man stutter, look a-squint, or halt? Mimics draw humour out of Nature's fault, With personal ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... - Potter and Morris, a little acrobat out of a travelling circus, a METIF or half- breed Indian named Jim, two French Canadians - Nelson and Louis (the latter spoke French only); Jacob, a Pennsylvanian auctioneer whose language was a mixture of Dutch, Yankee, and German; and (after we reached Fort Laramie) another Nelson - 'William' as I shall call him - who offered his services gratis if we would allow him to ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... out.) "Five hundred pounds!" rapped out a voice near by; "Six hundred!" "Seven!" "Eight!" And then a shout: "A thousand pounds!" Oh, how I thrilled to hear! Oh, how the bids went up by leaps, by bounds! And then a silence; then the auctioneer: "It's going! Going! Gone! Three thousand pounds!" Three thousand pounds! A frenzy leapt in me. "That picture's mine," I cried; "I'm David Strong. I painted it, this famished wretch you see; I did it, I, and sold it for a song. And ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... which told of the interest of the crowd, the auctioneer read out a description of the bounds and acreage of Greenwood, and asked ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... clos't 'Fore you knowed "what he wuz givin' You; and yet, without no boast, Joney he wuz jest the most Entertainin' talker livin'! Take the Scriptur's and run through 'em, Might say, like a' auctioneer, And 'ud argy and review 'em ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley |
