"Small change" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with foam and staggering with exhaustion, yet spurred on by their riders with furious ardour; while twice as many footmen were beheld rushing after, in mad rivalry, cheering and shouting, in reply to their leader, whose voice was heard in front of the horsemen thundering out,—"Small change for the Blue Licks! Charge 'em, the brutes! give it to ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... was saying this, was taking out some small change from his pockets to give to the children. He gave a small ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... us be off!" Ledantec repeated, leaving go of me, and at that time I paid attention to what he said, and, after throwing some small change onto the floor, I followed him, to make him understand, when he should be quite sober, that he saw before him a poor Albino prostitute, who had ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... eventually just "bumming". 2. To squeeze out excess; to remove something in order to improve whatever it was removed from (without changing function; this distinguishes the process from a {featurectomy}). 3. /n./ A small change to an algorithm, program, or hardware device to make it more efficient. "This hardware bum makes the jump instruction faster." Usage: now uncommon, largely superseded by /v./ {tune} (and /n./ {tweak}, {hack}), though none of these exactly capture sense 2. All these uses are rare in Commonwealth ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... information on the subject. The shades of ignorance, sloth, and stupidity, are impenetrable. Almost every word of the Patois may still be found in the Italian, Spanish, and French languages, with a small change in the pronunciation. Cavallo, signifying a horse in Italian and Spanish is called cavao; maison, the French word for a house, is changed into maion; aqua, which means water in Spanish, the Nissards call daigua. To express, what a slop is here! they say acco fa ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... currency, and especially the scarcity of small change, a scarcity so peculiarly distressing to the poorer classes, strongly recommend the carrying into immediate effect the resolution already entered into concerning the establishment of a mint. Measures have been taken pursuant to that resolution ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... order to teach me to be careful my father placed a little small change in my charge and required me to keep an account of it. He also entrusted me with the duty of winding his valuable gold watch for him. He overlooked the risk of damage in his desire to train me to a sense of responsibility. When we went out together for our morning walk he ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... handful of small change, she selected some pennies which she slipped inside of her glove, and dropping the remainder into her pocket, left the building, and walked on toward Union Square. Absorbed in grave reflections, and oppressed ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... servant—a colored man—told the judge that there was no occasion for cutting down the tree, but just to back the buggy. Pleased at the good sense of the fellow, Judge Marshall told him that he would leave him something at the inn hard by, where he intended to stop, having then no small change. In due time the man applied, and a dollar was handed him. Being asked if he knew who it was that gave him the dollar, he replied: "No, sir: I concluded he was a gentleman by his leaving the money, but I think he is the biggest fool ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... cover of darkness. Someone would discover the loss of the tell-tale compass, which would naturally confirm that suspicion. Convinced of this I steered more to the eastward, feeling of the face of the compass again to assure myself of the direction. I found even this small change an advantage in more ways than one, as the boat moved steadier, and I was able to spread a larger amount of canvas. Lashing the tiller, I crept forward and shook out an additional reef, hauling the ropes taut. By this time the wind ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... slowly that the motion of her feet seemed not circular at all.... Then the bell was answered, and he delivered into Withers' hands one, two tins of corned beef and a round ox-tongue. He put the basket on his head and came down the street again, shrilly whistling. If Diva had had any reasonably small change in her pocket, she would assuredly have given him some small share in it. Lacking this, she trundled home with all speed, and began cutting out roses with swift and certain strokes of ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... Tonsard," said the abbe, "are the strength and the intelligence of the lower classes of this valley, who consult them on all occasions. The Machiavelism of these people is beyond belief. Ten peasants meeting in a tavern are the small change of great ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Mother, so we kin"; he nodded his head, surprised. He plunged his hands into his pockets, as if expecting to find them filled with gold. "Wonder ef Sam'l wouldn't lend me a dollar or so in small change. Ef I only had somethin' ter jingle, mebbe I could git closer to this fac'." He drew her to him, and gave her waist a jovial squeeze. "Hy-guy, Mother, we're rich! Hain't ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... what profit of it all? The old order changeth yielding place to new, To me small change, and this the Counter-change Of custom beating on the self-same bar— Change out of chop. Ah me! the talk, the tip, The would-be-evening should-be-mourning suit, The forged solicitude for petty wants More petty still than they,—all these I loathe, Learning they lie who feign that ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... profession never left him. He was continually paying out something. If you presented a conversational check to him in the way of a remark, he would, figuratively speaking, immediately jump to his little window and proceed to cash it, sometimes astonishing you by the amount of small change he would spread ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... persons in fact went so far as to say that he was hopelessly dull, that he had no subtlety of thought, no brightness, no conversation. These persons were no doubt ladies upon whom he had failed to lavish the exceedingly small change of compliment. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... towards Buckland—his nearest chance of a cart—when he came full tilt upon a light wagon and three more soldiers, with a fourth riding behind, and all conveying the prisoners' weekly pocket-money up to Princetown, in sacks filled with small change. Here was a chance to save breath as well as carriage hire, and the little Jew charged down on them so fiercely, as they crawled up the hill, that the corporal who sat on the money with a musket ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... you what it is—if people can't talk they had better sell their tongue to the surgeons and live only through their eyes. What's the use of existing without talk—ay, and small talk too. Small talk is (as somebody I believe says, although I am not certain, but no matter) the small change of society, and who hasn't the small change, ten chances to one hasn't the large. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... excitement of the moment to invade my pockets and make away with such minor belongings as a silver watch, a fountain pen, a spectacle case, a slightly used handkerchief, an unused one carried for emergencies, and the neat patent-clasp purse in which I customarily kept an amount of small change for casual purchases. I lost no time in getting my charges indoors, for it was quite plain that there must be ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... %289. No Small Change.%—The consequences of the suspension were very serious. In the first place, all the small silver coins, the dimes, half dollars, and quarter dollars, disappeared at once, and the people were again forced to do as they had done in 1789, and use "ticket money." All the cities and towns, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... response. I am a little horror-struck, when we leave, to see Halicarnassus hold out his hand as if about to give money to this brave and British soldier, and scarcely less so to see our soldier receive it quietly. But I need not be, for my observation should have taught me that small change—fees I believe it is called—circulates universally in Canada. Out doors and in, it is all one. Everybody takes a fee, and is not ashamed. You fee at the falls, and you fee at the steps. You fee the church, and here we have feed ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... me, which perhaps would otherwise not have occurred. I considered how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command any thing. What well laid, and what better executed scheme of his is there, but what a small change of nature is entirely able to defeat and abolish. If but one element happens to encroach a little upon another, what confusion may it not create in his affairs, what havoc, what destruction: the servant destined to his use, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... abeyance of judgment. When an ancient treasure of precious vessels, overscored with glowing gems and wrought artistically into wondrous shapes, has, by a prodigious process, been converted through a vast community into the small change, the simple circulating medium of dollars and 'nickels,' we can only say that the consequent permeation will be of values of a new order. Of what order ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... politician, who astonished me by the fact that however starved we might be, he had always a flask of whisky wherewith to treat his friends! Where or how he always got it I never could divine. But in America every politician always has whisky or small change wherewith to treat. Always. Money was generally of little use, for there was rarely anything to buy anywhere. I soon developed here and there an Indian-like instinct in many things, and this is indeed deep in my nature. I cannot explain it, but it is there. I became expert when ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... him prominent at that time. "Yes," said Jerrold, drawing his finger round the edge of his wineglass, "that's the range of his intellect,—only it had never any thing half so good in it." I quote this merely as one of the average bons-mots which made the small change of his ordinary conversation. He would pun, too, in talk, which he scarcely ever did in writing. Thus he extemporized as an epitaph for his friend Charles Knight, "GOOD NIGHT!"—When Mrs. Glover complained that her hair was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... "but they invariably want it back in such very small change. That is the worry. Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces, and always prevent us from carrying ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... at the appointed time, because there were not sufficient coining machines; and as the few new cents that did circulate, were said not to contain their real value, the distress became greater than ever. The merchants refused to receive copper, and there was no silver or small change. In the mean time, in many of the large haciendas, the proprietors have given checks to the workmen, with which they have been able to buy what they required at the shops, which ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the Cosmopolis. No misgivings came to mar his perfect contentment. He felt no qualms about separating Reggie from another thousand dollars. Except for a little small change in the possession of the Messrs. Rockefeller and Vincent Astor, Reggie had all the money in the world and could afford to lose. He hummed a gay air as he entered the lobby and crossed to the cigar-stand to buy a few cigarettes to see him through ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... my heart again no man shall possess me. I play, I kiss, I philander—as you call it—but what are these trifles? Des bagatelles, rien de tout!" He did not realise her serene indifference to the small change of love and her respect for its true gold. But I do not think that Rust, when Madame consented to be his companion at Brighton, seriously misjudged her motives. He did not know, of course, or in the last degree ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... the top of the steps and sat down beside him, watching in deep and silent interest. When the string finally gave way she offered her lap to receive the contents of the pouch. Two five-dollar gold pieces rolled out first, then a handful of small change, a black ring evidently whittled out of a rubber button and lastly a watch-fob ornament. It was a little compass, set in something which looked like ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the dollar-piece (371-1/4 grains); therefore, when it became profitable to withdraw the dollar-pieces and substitute gold, it gave exactly the same profit to withdraw two halves or four quarters in silver. For this reason all the subsidiary silver had gone out of circulation, and there was no "small change" in the country. The legislation of 1853 rectified this error: (1) by reducing the quantity of pure silver in a dollar's worth of subsidiary coin to 345.6 grains. By making so much less an amount of silver equal to a dollar of small coins, it was more valuable in that shape than as ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... a dynamo the rate of speed when a small change in the speed of rotation produces a comparatively great change in the electro-motive force. It corresponds to the same current (the critical current) in any ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... Coppers, a sixpence, a shilling, no other small change, and he durst not offer so little as eighteenpence. (However, Heaven be thanked! the people had gone in and the brougham was moving away.) In his purse ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... 'What amount of small change, Missis,' he said, with an abstracted air, after a little meditation, 'might you call ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... end of an hour his face was red, and wet with perspiration; his outer garments lay scattered here and there over the place; he was the angriest man in the State, and there wasn't a rag or remnant of an injurious adjective left in him anywhere—and I had all his small change. ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... acquire the mortgage you had to acquire a controlling interest in the capital stock of the First National Bank of El Toro. You didn't seem to fit into the small town banking business; a bank with a million dollars capital is small change to you." ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... I'd love it." At once, she bent over her needle again, so that if there were any awkwardness attending this small change in their lives it did not reveal itself in her pretty countenance. "What shall we read?" she ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... addition to the glories of the place. A few of the worshippers belonged to families hard by, who had got permission to attend, and who brought in various choice scraps of information, about the sayings and doings at the house and on the place, which circulated as freely as the same sort of small change does in ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... careful with me, when I suddenly felt myself seized by Chota Begum's trunk, lifted into the air, and held upside down at the extreme length of that member, for, it seemed to me, at least five minutes. Rupees and small change rained from my pockets to the ground, cigar case, cigarette case, matches and cartridge extractor streamed down to earth in clattering showers from their abiding places; the blood rushed to my head till I was on the very ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... vision—the achieving of justice; we shall not grow weary till that vision has become a reality. When one has faced up to an ultimate self-denial, giving becomes a habit. One becomes eager to be allowed to give all—to keep none of life's small change. The fury of an ideal enfevers us. We become fanatical to outdo our own best record in self-surrender. Many of us, if we are alive when peace is declared, will feel an uneasy reproach that perhaps we ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... these signs. The stranger ordered a second glass of grog, and drank it in gulps, and fell into such deep thought that he let his cigar go out. Evidently, a man in search of an idea. And, to all appearance, he found what he wanted on a sudden. In a hurry he paid his reckoning, and left his small change and his unfinished cigar on the table, and was off before the waiter could say, ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... too much japanned by preferment in the church and the tuition of youth, as well as inoculated with the disease of domestic felicity, besides being over-run with fine feelings about woman and constancy (that small change of Love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal); but, otherwise, a very worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (I suppose) a child by this time. Pray remember me ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... grace, pronounced by the poet at a dinner-table, in Dumfries: he was ever ready to contribute the small change of rhyme, for either the use ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... and promptly gave the youth a fifty-cent piece and a lot of small change. With his bananas in one hand and his money in another Sammy retired to a distance, to count his change and make ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... similar abstractions by mental process requires the closest kind of reasoning; and if we attempt to delineate all the complications which follow even such a small change, we will find the job a lengthy one. But with a large model having adjustable parts we provide ourselves with the means for the very best practical solution, and the workman who makes and manipulates such a model will soon master the ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... noon declares, Warning the cook-maid not to burn That roast meat which it cannot turn; The groaning chair began to crawl, Like a huge snail, along the wall; There stuck aloft in public view, And with small change, a pulpit grew. A bedstead of the antique mode, Compact of timber many a load, Such as our ancestors did use, Was metamorphosed into pews, Which still their ancient nature keep By lodging folks disposed ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... quarter, two bits, half dollar, dollar, silver dollar, Eisenhower dollar, Susan B. Anthony dollar[obs3]. precious metals, gold, silver, copper, bullion, ingot, nugget. petty cash, pocket money, change, small change, small coin, doit[obs3], stiver[obs3], rap, mite, farthing, sou, penny, shilling, tester, groat, guinea; rouleau[obs3]; wampum; good sum, round sum, lump sum; power of money, plum, lac of rupees. major coin, crown; minor coin. monetarist, monetary theory. [Science of coins] numismatics, chrysology[obs3]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... final settlement of more than eighty separate accounts. Without the adjutant, Fenton, I should never have got through it. He was a methodical man, who understood the business. He got a quantity of small change, piled it in separate heaps upon a table, had each man brought up before him, and said authoritatively, "So much is owing to you—there it is!" In this way we got through the payments, and the drunken men were lodged in ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... divisions of a whole, to suit our own convenience, like the days of the week, or the seasons of the year. Out of unity we make diversity for purposes of our practical needs. Thought tends to the one, action to the many. We must have small change for everything in the universe, because our lives are made up of small things. We must break wholes up into fractions, and then seek their common multiple. Only thus can we deal with them. We deal with God by limiting Him and breaking Him up into his ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... he murmured as he finally sat down on the edge of the bed and jingled the small change he had collected, "I'll have to ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... riches, with long inscriptions in Chinese characters, seals in black and red, and an indication of value in ancient Japanese characters. I do not learn whether notes of considerable amount are still used in Japan; but Sir R. Alcock speaks of banknotes for small change from 30 to 500 cash and more, as in general use ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... here was another offer to cash a check—the second this morning. Good address and an expensive tailor certainly did count: with them as capital, a man could take a profit at any time. Gray's fingers strayed to the small change in his trousers pocket and he turned longing eyes back toward the bank interior. Without doubt it was a temptation, especially inasmuch as at that moment his well-manicured right hand held in its grasp every cent that ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... am very sorry, but I have no small change—nothing but sovereigns and half crowns. Could ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... are, and how hard it is for them to get their living, are very willing to pay, especially as it is generally only a few cents in each case that is required. Still, unless the traveller understands the system, and prepares himself beforehand with a stock of small change, the buono mano business gives him a good deal of trouble. If he does so provide himself, and if he falls into the custom good naturedly, as one of the established usages of the country, which is moreover not without its advantages, it becomes ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... body pursues but imperfectly the processes of the soul. These three days had made small change in Helwyse's face. His expression was less serene than of yore, but pithier as well as more joyful. The humorous indifference had given place to a kindlier humanity. Gone was the glance half satiric, half sympathetic; but ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... value of this constant is unknown; but the mean value as determined by Joule and Thomson, in their celebrated experiments with porous plugs, was 492.66 deg. F. This value would slightly change his result. It will be seen from the above that a small change in the constants used may affect by several units the computed value of the mechanical equivalent. I have computed it, using 1.406 for the ratio of the specific heat of air at constant pressure to that at constant volume, 491.13 deg. F. as the temperature of melting ice above the zero of the air ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... Debrell's division of cavalry, in which was Williams' Kentucky brigade, commanded then by Colonel Breckinridge. In a day or two the town was filled with unattached officers, disbanded and straggling soldiers, the relics of the naval forces, fleeing officials and the small change of the ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... Agashka a ruble!" When he reached the ground, the boy joined the crowd which was following me. I went out into the street: various descriptions of people followed me, and asked for money. I distributed all my small change, and entered an open shop with the request that the shopkeeper would change a ten-ruble bill for me. And then the same thing happened as at the Lyapinsky house. A terrible confusion ensued. Old women, noblemen, peasants, and ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... few shillings out of the second broken sovereign. Let the two pounds—he said to himself—be regarded as gone; eight remained untouched. For the odd shillings, let them serve odd expenses. So when he had purchased Cheeseman's ticket to King's Gross, he was free with small change at the station bar. At the last moment it occurred to him that he might save himself a walk by going in the train as far as Pendal. So it was here that the final parting ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... all that the match-box and the bag refused to fill up; after three weeks of the most rigid economy they contained but eighteen dollars and some small change. What was that compared with four hundred? Trina told herself that she must have her money in hand. She longed to see again the heap of it upon her work-table, where she could plunge her hands into it, her face into it, feeling the cool, smooth metal upon her cheeks. At such ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... Naples," she said philosophically, as she thankfully bundled her flock into the funicular. "You can't get along anywhere without tipping. The government may try its best to arrange fixed prices, but every one who goes sightseeing must be prepared to part with a good deal in the way of small change. The guides are not such brigands as they used to be, thank goodness. Thirty or forty years ago I suppose it was hopeless to come unless you brought a courier with you from Naples to keep the others off. Well, you have your little souvenirs of Vesuvius at any rate, even if they've turned out ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... the Parisians and I like the French. They have much of the old Latin urbanitas, many kindly qualities, and most of the minor virtues which do duty as the small change of social intercourse. But for the sake of France, I am glad that Paris has lost its prestige, for its rule has been a blight and a curse to the entire country; and for the sake of Europe, I am glad that France has lost her military prestige, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... said Raskolnikoff, fumbling in his pocket and drawing out a handful of small change (for he had again lain down in his clothes), "and fetch me a white roll. Go to the pork shop as well, and buy me a ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... to carry some small change in our pockets to be given as tips to gate-openers and any poor persons whose ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... are!" said Rodolphe. "One would take them for fragments of sunshine. If I were a king I would have no other small change, and would have them ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... him. On the dressing table, together with a bunch of keys and some small change, lay a brown leather pocketbook. Evidently Sir Thomas did not share Lady Blunt's impression that the world was waiting for a chance to rob him as soon ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... commodity or service is such that an appreciable alteration in its price has only a slight effect upon the quantity demanded, the demand is said to be inelastic. Conversely, when a small change in price greatly alters the quantity demanded, we call the demand elastic. In the former case, it is worth nothing, a larger aggregate sum of money will be spent upon the thing when its price is high than when it is low, while the opposite is true in the latter case. This ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... never come out so strong in his life before, slipped through the back window, while the crowd, led on by Kitty McQueen, seethed in front, and making a bolt for it to the "'Sosh," was back in a moment with a handful of small change. "Dinna toss ower lavishly at first," the smith whispered me nervously, as we followed Jess and Willie ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... Then at last Monsieur Manoury arrived in a cab. Where he had come from I don't know, and don't care, but I'm quite sure it wasn't any respectable place. Those salesmen are all a parcel of thieves and libertines! And then, too, the hog actually gave me all my money in small change!" ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... taken to the town and put in prison. It soon became known, from what Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch had been present at the murder. A search was made in his room, and money was found in an unusual place, in his snowboots under the stove, and the money was all in small change, three hundred one-rouble notes. He swore he had made this money himself, and that he hadn't been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified that he was poor and had been in great want of money of late, ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... applications to the soil, for almost all plants. Leeched ashes are a valuable manure, but not equal to unleached. Few articles about a house or farm should be saved with greater care. Be as choice of them as of your small change. They are worth three times as much on the land as they can be sold for other purposes. On corn, at first hoeing, they are nearly equal to plaster. On onions and vines, they promote the growth and keep off the insects. Sprinkle on dry, when plants are damp, but not too wet. Do not put wet ashes ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... of most superb structure, composed of slabs of marble and plate-glass, sat a lady dressed in the richest manner, Diamonds on head and hand, Lace, Muslin, &c. This is the Landlady; by her a little boy, about 4 years old, stood in charge of a drawer from whence the small change was issued; this, if it happened to be copper, was delicately touched by the fair hand, which was immediately washed in a glass of water as if contaminated by the vulgar metal. She never spoke to the waiters, but rung a golden bell; her inkstands, flower jars—in short, every article on the ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... hearts and purses." If we would only let nature act kindly, free from affectation and artifice, the results on social good humour and happiness would be incalculable. The little courtesies which form the small change of life, may separately appear of little intrinsic value, but they acquire their importance from repetition and accumulation. They are like the spare minutes, or the groat a day, which proverbially produce such momentous results in the course of a ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... being entertaining were not trustworthy, or being trustworthy were insufferably dull. She could trust Dolly with the most onerous of her domestic or social charges, she found, and there was no fear of her small change disappearing or her visitors being bored. So the position of that "young person" became an ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... them out. "Well, if you want to read, you can go and turn in and take a book, and solitudinise to it, and there is no one to disturb you. I actilly learned French in a voyage to Calcutta, and German on my way home. I got enough for common use. It warn't all pure gold; but it was kind of small change, and answered every purpose of trade or travel. Oh, it's no use a talkin'; where time ain't the main object, there's nothin' like a sailin' vessel to a man who ain't sea-sick, and such fellows ought ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... it is the only small change I have." He rode up to the door of the shed, threw the small gold coin toward the blacksmith, and was riding rapidly away, when Edna darted after him, exclaiming, "Stop, sir! you have left ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... inflections in our language the construction here is obscure. Would it not be a little [better] thus? I was going to write a small change in the order of the words, but I find it would not remove the objection. The verse, as I take it, would be somewhat clearer thus, if you would tolerate ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... his book. "Why, Bertha, I was with him, actually with him, when he went into the country post office and asked the woman if she would let him have small change for ten shillings, and he found he hadn't the half-sovereign then, but would pay her when he didn't see her again! And then he said if she wouldn't do that, he'd like to buy some stamps, and asked if she'd show him some ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... I've got ain't quite divided up enough to be handy; I don't mind gettin' a fifty into new Gover'ment greenbacks myself. My wife 'n' me are countin' on stayin' on here a consid'able of a spell, maybe, an' small change ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... and never gave it. Though this may not be so mortifying, it shows a kind of semi-concession which is almost as unsatisfactory to the hearer and leaves him dissatisfied. Nothing brings more profit in the commerce of society than the small change of attention. He that heareth let him hear, is not only a gospel precept, it is an excellent speculation; follow it, and all will be forgiven you, even vice. Canalis took a great deal of trouble in his anxiety to please Modeste; ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... found her and told a needless lie by declaring he had been commissioned by a certain nameless publisher to get her to write certain articles about this and that. Then he emptied his pockets of all the small change he had, as an advance payment, and he hadn't very much, and started out to find the publisher who would buy the prospective "hot ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... Mademoiselle La Neige. These ladies had the tranquil manners of the highest gentility. In my cabin is a great Buddha on his throne, and before him is a lacquer tray, on which my faithful sailor servant places any small change he may find in the pockets of my clothes. Madame Prune, whose mind is much swayed by mysticism, at once supposed herself before a regular altar; in the gravest manner possible she addressed a brief prayer to the god; then drawing out her purse (which, according to custom, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to take it out of the sack as I have no coin." He said, "Are you going to sell it?" "Yes," I said. "Well," said he, "You can sell it at the counter on the other side, and pay that clerk." "All right," said I, and sold my dust. It amounted to $425. He counted out the $25 in small change, and slipped it out onto the counter. I let it lay there until he had counted out ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... all a bad young man—that is, he did not expect his people to support him—and he worked occasionally, especially about election time, and what he made in bets and in backing himself to swim supplied him with small change. Then he fell in love with Miss Casey, and the trouble and happiness of his life came to him hand and hand together; and as this human feeling does away with class distinctions, I need not feel I must apologize for him any longer, but just ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... most precious that he might drink his fill. And all for what? Again she burned from head to foot, and, groaning, hid her face. All for the making of a picture that should bring him world-wide fame! His love for her had been naught but small change flung liberally enough that he might purchase therewith the desire of his artist's soul. It had been just a means to an end. No more than ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... as to the availability of one or two of the stamps that had been handed over. My father explained to me that immediately after the outbreak of the War, specie, including even the nickels and copper pennies, had disappeared from circulation, and the people had been utilising for the small change necessary for current operations the postage stamps, a use which, in connection with the large percentage of destruction, was profitable to the government, but extravagant for the community. A little later, the postal department was considerate enough to bring into print a series of postage ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... simplicity. One would think that all this care and thought for expense would have taught him the value of money. Not at all. He never could seem to learn its value, never cared for it, and never could keep it. He liked to toss his small change among groups of street boys, and it is said he once spent his last roubles in sending a cablegram to von Buelow in America, to thank him for his admirable performance of his first Piano Concerto. Often his friends protested against this ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... was only a post-office order for five bob, enough to prove that he was kept in mind, enough to keep him in hope, beer, and tobacco. "But what would you have?" thought Morris; and ruefully poured into his hand a half-crown, a florin, and eightpence in small change. For a man in Morris's position, at war with all society, and conducting, with the hand of inexperience, a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was already a derision. John would have to be doing; no mistake of that. "But then," asked the hell-like voice, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... York would be nothing more than a whisper. Oh, very well! Pass up this sotto voce autobiography of an X if you like. If you are one of the kind that prefers to listen to John D's checkbook roar at you through a megaphone as it passes by, all right. But don't forget that small change can say a word to the point now and then. The next time you tip your grocer's clerk a silver quarter to give you extra weight of his boss's goods read the four words above the lady's head. How are they ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... striking. The average poor Athenian seems to have no purse. Or rather he uses the purse provided by nature. At every booth one can see unkempt buyers solemnly taking their small change from their mouths.[*] Happy the people that has not learned the twentieth century wisdom concerning microbes! For most Athenians ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... particular house on a very sultry noon in early August, hesitated before he rang the bell. He glanced over his shoulder at the hot, dusty street where a swarm of hot, dusty children were shrilling and shrieking, or staring at him round-eyed, dived into his pockets, fished up a handful of small change, whistled to insure their greater attention, and flung the coin among them. While they were snatching at the money like a flock of pigeons over a handful of grain, the elderly gentleman rang the bell. He ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... stunned, overwhelmed, by this declaration. No representation that he made was believed. His pockets were searched, and all the money he had, except some small change, was found to be counterfeit. A commitment was at once made out against him, and he was sent to jail, to await his trial on the charge of passing ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... series of coins are current, one being double the value of the other; and, since the corresponding coins of the two series are of about the same size, newcomers are harassed by constant suspicions of their small change. The "silver employees" number about twenty-six thousand. Some of them are immigrants from Europe—mostly from Italy and the north of Spain—but the great majority are negroes, British subjects from Jamaica and Trinidad. It was foreseen ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... went through their clothes as an ape for fleas, I watching. And when he had all their valuables he laid them on the footboard, and then, as we passed some Bedouin tents, he kicked them off. But he seems an honest fellow, for he gave them back some small change to buy food with, ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... not. I was holding the purse over the table when I opened it, and I perceived at once that it was empty, even to my small change." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... it was generally acknowledged in Ireland that there was a want there of the small change, necessary in the transaction of petty dealings with shopkeepers and tradesmen. It has been indignantly denied by contemporary writers that this small change meant copper coins. They asserted that there was no lack of copper money, but that there was a great want of small silver. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... horn of brandy," said the first, "that the chap has either a pocket-book or a snug little hoard of small change, stowed away amongst his shirts. And if not there, we shall find it in ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... of silver advisedly, for the Malagasy take the simplest and most literal way of making small change; they clip their dollars into little pieces of various sizes, and therewith transact the business that in other lands is settled with pence. As these clippings are not very accurate, however, they weigh the pieces, and for this purpose every one carries about with him a tiny pair of scales in ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... and thin. His mouth—there was nothing impressive there. He was quite tall, nearly six feet, with moderately broad shoulders, but his figure was anything but shapely. He seemed to stoop a little, his stomach was the least bit protuberant, and he talked commonplaces—the small change of newspaper and street and business gossip. People liked him in his own neighborhood. He was thought to be honest and kindly; and he was, as far as he knew. His wife and four children were as average ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... sto'es!" murmured the girl. Negroes—the men in dirty dusters, the women in smart calicoes, girls in dowdy muslins and boy's hats—and mountain whites, coatless men, shoeless women—hung about the counters dawdling away their small change. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... connections, was in the habit of patronizing a fashionable restaurant, partaking of sumptuous lunches and dinners, and evading full payment, under pretence that he had forgotten his pocket-book, or had omitted, in the hurry of business, to provide himself with small change, etc. Thus, if his check called for one dollar he would pay sixty cents, but invariably forgot upon the next, or any succeeding day, to 'settle' the balance due of forty cents. This 'little game,' so profitable to himself, was carried on for some time triumphantly, but retribution came at last, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... more staggering One-to-Ten. That meant that anybody holding less than a ten-dollar bet on such a winner would only get his own money back because the track does not insult its clients by weighing them down with coins in the form of small change. They keep the change and call it "Breakage" for any amount over ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... the longitude, 166 deg. 58' east. It will shortly be mentioned that when that correction was made the navigation section say it was thought to involve a minor movement of only 2.1 miles or 10 minutes of longitude. Despite the very small change that this could make to the track and distance between the two points a re-calculation was made and entered into the computer programme as 188.5 deg. (grid) and the distance 336 miles. Compared with the other figures the difference seems minimal but ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... marry him on four hundred pounds a year. She scoffed at four hundred pounds a year. To hear her talk, you would have supposed that she had been brought up from the cradle to look on four hundred pounds a year as small change to be disposed of in tips and cab fares. That in itself would have been enough to sow doubts in Bill's mind as to whether he had really got all the money that a reasonable man needed; and Claire saw to it that these doubts ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... articles for payment, as of money, it is essential to have a great quantity and variety of small change, wherewith the traveller can pay for small services, for carrying messages, for draughts of milk, pieces of meat, etc. Beads, shells, tobacco, needles, awls, cotton caps, handkerchiefs, clasp-knives, small axes, spear and arrow ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... must; very proper indeed!' rejoined Miss Knag with that sort of half-sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society; 'and that's what I very often tell my brother, when our servants go away ill, one after another, and he thinks the back-kitchen's rather too damp for 'em to sleep in. These sort of people, I tell him, are glad to sleep anywhere! Heaven suits the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... perhaps, too much japanned by preferment in the church and the tuition of youth, as well as inoculated with the disease of domestic felicity, besides being overrun with fine feelings about women and constancy (that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal;) but, otherwise, a very worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (I suppose) a child by this time. Pray remember ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... chuckled angrily, and the small change in his pocket tinkled fiercely, as his eye glanced on the graceful captain, who was entertaining the ladies, no doubt, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... his hat, looks at it as though remembering WILLIAM'S words, then puts it back on the peg. He shows no sign of taking DR. MACPHERSON'S verdict to heart—in fact, he doesn't believe it.] Frederik, get me some small change for the circus—enough ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... how much his parents wished him to make a figure in the world, and only blamed himself for his failure, magnanimously forgetting that they had crushed out the faculties which enable a man to mint the small change of everyday society in the exclusive cultivation of such as fit him for smelting its ponderous ingots. With that merciful blindness which alone prevents all our lives from becoming a horror of nerveless reproach, his parents ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... our own dignity or toward theirs. We feel, on the other hand, that it is a farce to go to the every-day markets of life, whether for daily food or for daily social intercourse, with the bullion and certified checks of our official dignity; we go rather with the small change that jingles in all pockets alike, and is ready to be handed out for the frequent and unimportant buying and selling of the day and hour. We look upon this grallatory attitude toward life as artificial and hampering, and prefer ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... such readiness of resource, such familiarity with divers nooks and crannies in the practical experience of life, in a man now so hard put to it for a livelihood. There are persons, however, who might have a good stock of talent, if they did not turn it all into small change. And you, reader, know as well as I do, that when a sovereign or a shilling is once broken into, the change scatters and dispends itself in a way quite unaccountable. Still coppers are useful in household ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a fearful scene of cannibalism. The bodies of slaves are not protected by taboo like those of their masters. They belong to the tribe; they were a sort of small change thrown among the mourners, and the moment the sacrifice was over, the whole crowd, chiefs, warriors, old men, women, children, without distinction of age, or sex, fell upon the senseless remains with brutal appetite. Faster than a rapid pen could describe it, the bodies, still ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... the aureole which once encircled their wigs was gone, and they were often snubbed and silenced by ignorant justices. The punishment for being found out is life-long and terrible. Their clients paid the fees partly in small change and partly in rum. ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... suggested to adult contributors, and the Mosquito Man did much to induce the well-to-do citizens to subscribe according to their means. He still tells with relish of the club of women which took up a collection, after his talk, and presented him with two dollars, in small change. ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... our hotel on a run, and the whole population of Rome seemed to follow me, and I might as well have been a negro accused of crime in the states. I thought they would burn me at the stake, but dad came out of the hotel and threw a handful of small change into the crowd, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... the simple reason that she couldn't think of one to make. Brett always appeared t cut the ground from under one's feet, so to speak—certainly as regards the small change of social intercourse. Even behind his lightest remarks one seemed able to hear the threatening ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... he felt as weak as a child. He went quietly to the bench, took up his overcoat, put it on without a word, and went out of the hut. He did not find the forester in the next room; there was no one there. He took fifty kopecks in small change out of his pocket and put them on the table for his night's lodging, the candle, and the trouble he had given. Coming out of the hut he saw nothing but forest all round. He walked at hazard, not knowing which way to turn out of ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... getting angry when taken at their word; whose restless activity is carried into the kitchen and into the counting-room, into the gravest matters of business, and into the invisible darns of the household linen; who love while scolding, who conceive no ideas but the simplest (the small change of the mind); who argue about everything, fear everything, calculate everything, and fret perpetually over the future. Her cold but ingenuous beauty, her touching expression, her freshness and purity, prevented Birotteau from thinking of her defects, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... Bacchanalian proceeding we went out into the orchard, which was reserved for family use, and sat on a bench under an apple-tree. Armstrong called his little boy who had been at supper with us and gave him a whispered message, together with some small change. The messenger disappeared, and after a short absence returned with two very domestic cigars, transparently bought for the nonce from some neighboring grocer. "Have a smoke," commanded my host, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... other, and saw the young mariner, to whom he had alluded, standing at the foot of a ruined tower, which was crumbling under the slow operations of time, at no great distance from the place where he stood. Throwing a handful of small change to the seamen, he wished them a better meal, and crossed the fence, with an apparent intention of examining the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... square, the proprietors and attaches of two peregrinating theatres, several peep-shows, and a dozen various games of chance, are vying with each other in the noisiness of their demonstrations to attract the attention and small change of the crowd to their respective enterprises. Like every other highway in this part of France the Marne and Bhine Canal is fringed with an avenue of poplars, that from neighboring elevations can be seen winding along the beautiful valley for miles, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... give our love to whoever loves us? A fine parcel of paupers we should all be, wasting our inheritance in pitiful small change! Shall I give a thousand beggars a half hour's happiness, or shall I make one soul rich his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... straightened herself at the noise; it was very hot, her jacket had come unbuttoned, and showed a bare white very well furnished bust. She smiled to M. Thiers, who pulled his horse up short, turned back to thrust a handful of small change into the young woman's palm, and started off again full tear, as if he had had an electric shock, jumping the fallen trees with a resolution and energy which I had ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... of the great word "love;" they are but the small change of passion, meteorites, star-dust of the great ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... his talents could be most effectually applied; and that a very slight alteration in the subject-matter might change the merit of his work to a disproportionate extent. The more special the idiosyncrasy upon which a man's literary success is founded, the greater, of course, the probability that a small change will disconcert him. A man who can only perform upon the drum will have to wait for certain combinations of other instruments before his special talent can be turned to account. Now, the talent in which De Foe surpasses all other writers is just one of those peculiar gifts which ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... in favour of its adoption. They suggest "that some need may become felt which can only be satisfied by proportional representation in some form or another," and I do not think I misrepresent their attitude in believing that a very small change of circumstances might suffice to precipitate a reversal of their present conclusion. All who are familiar with the conduct of political controversies must recognize the situation thus revealed. Again and again have proposals of reform been made which the ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... next her, and consequently had not the smallest clue as to the time or the place where the purse was stolen. She had, indeed, never opened it since she had put the money given to her at the Bank of England into it, having enough small change for her immediate needs in the bag which she usually carried about with her. The purse had been stolen; but how, when, and where, were mysteries which no one seemed able to ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... number of these trade coins were put out by coffee-house keepers and other tradesmen in the seventeenth century as evidence of an amount due, as stated thereon, by the issuer to the holder. Tokens originated because of the scarcity of small change. They were of brass, copper, pewter, and even leather, gilded. They bore the name, address, and calling of the issuer, the nominal value of the piece, and some reference to his trade. They were readily redeemed, on presentation, at their face value. They were passable in the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... just paying the bill," answered Cutter from within; and Madame Patoff could hear the landlord counting out the small change upon a plate, the ringing silver marks and the dull little clatter ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... of tobacco. Failing any or all of these, it was in vain that the Factor displayed before them the wares of John Bull, Uncle Sam, or Johnny Canuck, or any seductive lure made in Germany. Ig-ly-o-bok and Nan-a-sook-tok bought what they found to their liking, took small change out of two silver-fox skins, and put the remaining six pelts back into the wooden box which formed at once their savings bank and letter of credit for the season to come. The hungry-eyed H.B. man confided to us that two of these coveted ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... for a moment in front of my diggings, taking my hand to say goodnight and taking his own time in dropping it. Enough is enough. 'You have the small change needed for paying your way through society,' he said, with a sort of smile. 'I must cultivate a few little arts myself,' he went on; 'they seem necessary in some houses. But I'm glad, after all, that I didn't remember to-night ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... "Some won, but most lost, an' just as good men lost. It was almost like a lot of boys scramblin' on the sidewalk for a handful of small change. Not that some didn't have far-seein'. But just take your pa, for example. He come of good Down East stock that's got business instinct an' can add to what it's got. Now suppose your pa had developed a weak heart, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... parents wished him to make a figure in the world, and only blamed himself for his failure, magnanimously forgetting that they had crushed out the faculties which enable a man to mint the small change of every-day society, in the exclusive cultivation of such as fit him for smelting its ponderous ingots. With that merciful blindness which alone prevents all our lives from becoming a horror of nerveless self-reproach, his parents were equally unaware ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... cigar, sighed gratefully, and, dragon-like, emitted twin columns of smoke from his nostrils. "Hannibal Wharton is worth twenty millions easy," he went on, complacently; "maybe forty. We didn't do so badly—for country yaps—did we? It feels mighty good to be in the kale-patch. No more small change for yours truly. But, say—it was ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... moreover, all our native mistrust for intellectual discretion, and our native relish for sonorous superlatives. As a critic he was very much more generous than just, and his mildest terms of approbation were "stupendous," "transcendent," and "incomparable." The small change of admiration seemed to him no coin for a gentleman to handle; and yet, frank as he was intellectually, he was personally altogether a mystery. His professions, somehow, were all half- professions, and his allusions to his work and circumstances left something dimly ambiguous in the background. ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... all these ingenious allegories, examined them without vanity, with no enthusiasm, and seemed to regard them as accessories inherent to the composition, as conventional ornaments, the good and current small change of art. The adulations of Racine, in his "Berenice," having all a foundation of truth, please him, but chiefly for the grace of the poetry; and he sometimes recited them, when he wished to recall ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... drew out his purse. "Here are nine gold pieces," he said. "They are all I have, save some small change." ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... his hand into his pocket and pulled out all his money, a handful of small change. His face grew bitter, his last dollar was broken ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... arrived first, and Jurgis found him examining the "swag." There was a gold watch, for one thing, with a chain and locket; there was a silver pencil, and a matchbox, and a handful of small change, and finally a cardcase. This last Duane opened feverishly—there were letters and checks, and two theater-tickets, and at last, in the back part, a wad of bills. He counted them—there was a twenty, five tens, four fives, and three ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... cart, hands deep down his pockets, when she descended. She could have laughed at the spectacle of a champion prize-fighter out of employ, hulking idle, because he was dog to a paytron; but her contempt of him declined passing in small change. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Burgomaster; I am sure that the evening before last, at bed-time, I took a little money out of the purse, and saw the portfolio in its place; yesterday I had small change sufficient, and did ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... lost to view, and business houses resorted to the use of their own notes as a convenience. The government stamps were not well adapted to circulate as currency, and they soon gave way to notes of handsome design which came into universal use as the "small change" of the country. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... candidacy was mortal, but Minard did not profit by it. While the pair were contending for votes, a government man, an aide-de-camp to the king, arrived with his hands full of tobacco licenses and other electoral small change, and, like the third thief, he slipped between the two who were thumping each other, and ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... young men dressed in rich cloaks, who, if he met any elderly citizen poorly clothed, would exchange cloaks with the old man; and this was thought to be a very noble act. The same young men carried pockets full of small change and would silently put money into the hands of the better class of poor in the market-place. All this is alluded to by Kratinus, the comic poet, in the following passage from ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... the laconic answer. Another train was due in ten minutes and there was no time to waste. She opened a dainty leather purse, while the lawyer paid his debt from a pocketful of small change. Twenty cents at once. That was luck. A moment later John was sprinting ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... tolerance of a philosopher regarding a child with toys. So strongly acquisitive a nature must win the particular little battles which it is fitted to wage. When a conscienceless mind is buttressed by a pugnacious temperament then houses and land, and cattle and maidservants, and such-like, the small change ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... himself on the sidewalk with his wife, rejoicing in the knowledge that he had at least justified his existence and joined the ranks o' canny married men—the while he strove to appear as scornful of the future as he had been fearful of it five minutes before. He jingled less than three dollars in small change in his vest pocket, and while he strove to appear jaunty, away inside of him he was a worried man. He could not ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... welcome was the beggar who told him for one hour the story of his poverty and who was not half as poor as any given Samana. He did not treat the rich foreign merchant any different than the servant who shaved him and the street-vendor whom he let cheat him out of some small change when buying bananas. When Kamaswami came to him, to complain about his worries or to reproach him concerning his business, he listened curiously and happily, was puzzled by him, tried to understand him, consented that he was a little bit right, only as much as ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... of smaller denominations than the standard unit of money, as shillings and pence in England, and half dollars, quarter dollars, dimes, nickels, and cents in America. Money to serve well a variety of uses must be of different denominations, and "small change" is necessary to make small purchases and for exact settlement in larger payments that are not multiples of the standard unit. The amount required (or most convenient to use) in each denomination of fractional coins is thus a more or less certain ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... waltzes to the measure of the wheels. He believed that he had a star. He pitched his half-crowns to the turnpike-men, and sought to propitiate Fortune by displaying a signal indifference to small change; in which method of courting her he was perfectly serious. He absolutely rejected coppers. They "crossed his luck." Nor can we say that he is not an authority on this point: the Goddess certainly does ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... day being in need of some small change called down-stairs to the cook and enquired: "Mary, have you any 'coppers' down there?" "Yes, mum, I've two; but if you please, mum, they're both me cousins," ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... in such a bag. Handkerchief, some small change, perhaps a vanity-box, gloves, tickets—whatever would be needed on an afternoon's calling or ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... of the tuition due you. Sorry, but unfortunately I have the habit of going out with only some small change in my waistcoat pocket. So I must ask you to have patience until I am ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... artificiality of several London seasons; he the man of definite conquering tasks, the familiar of wide horizons, and in his very repose holding aloof from these agglomerations of units in which one loses one's importance even to oneself. They had no common conversational small change. They had to use the great pieces of general ideas, but they exchanged them trivially. It was no serious commerce. Perhaps she had not much of that coin. Nothing significant came from her. It could not be said that she had received from the contacts ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... holiday from the inspection of the ship. I was always in evidence in my best uniform to give information as though I had been a Cook's tourists' interpreter, while our quartermasters reaped a harvest of small change from personally conducted parties. But when the move was made—that move which carried us some mile and a half down the stream to be tied up to an altogether muddier and shabbier quay—then indeed the desolation of solitude became ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... reseating himself on the tonsorial throne, at sight of which proceeding the barber mechanically filled a cup with hot water from a copper vessel over a spirit-lamp, "for instance, now, suppose I say to you, 'Barber, my dear barber, unhappily I have no small change by me to-night, but shave me, and depend upon your money to-morrow'—suppose I should say that now, you would put trust in me, wouldn't you? You would ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... value. But travelers themselves destroy one of their chief pleasures. No doubt we planted the notion in the McGregor mind that the small kindnesses of life may be made profitable, by offering to pay for the milk; and probably the next travelers in that Eden will succeed in leaving some small change there, if they use a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... not the heirs of some rich and mighty man, but heirs of God, the almighty Creator of all things. If a person could fully appreciate what it means to be a son and heir of God, he would rate the might and wealth of nations small change in comparison with his heavenly inheritance. What is the world to him who has heaven? No wonder Paul greatly desired to depart and to be with Christ. Nothing would be more welcome to us than early death, knowing ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... of finances bothered me. With the banks closed, we have little money available. Even if we had a considerable sum, I wouldn't know where to keep it. A cupboard or desk seemed an insecure place and my financial experience has been limited to a little money purse with small change and probably only one bill. Just now, Grandfather's keyster is the Rock of Gibraltar, the financial prop that is sustaining the whole structure. But what about this prop? How strong is it? Will it outlast the depression? I don't know. ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... interesting and conclusive. "Having three small, round glass bubbles, blown at the flame of a lamp, about the size of hazel-nuts," he says, "each of them with a short, slender stem, by means whereof they were so exactly poised in water that a very small change of weight would make them either emerge or sink; at a time when the atmosphere was of convenient weight, I put them into a wide-mouthed glass of common water, and leaving them in a quiet place, where they were frequently in my eye, I observed that sometimes they would be at the top of the water, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... of his features and the varied animation of his countenance made him appear even younger than his years—an illusion which the total absence of everything studied in his manners seemed to confirm. Time had wrought no small change in me, alike in mind and spirits; but in the case of O'Connor it seemed to have lost its power to alter. His gaiety was undamped, his generosity unchilled; and though the space which had intervened between our parting and reunion was but brief, yet at the period of life at which we ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... better; the last fellow I had come to me recommended as one of the best bar-keepers in New Orleans; he was posted up in all the fancy drinks and fancy names, he wore fancy clothes and had a fancy dog, and I fancied pretty soon that the rascal had taken a fancy to my small change, so I discharged him in ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... MacTaggart was for once not in the mood for the small change of conversation. Some weighty thought possessed him that gave his eye a remote quality even when he seemed to be sharing the general attention in the conversation, and it was as much resentment at the summons from his abstraction and his mood as a general disinclination to laugh ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... left him on the Clyde, and went on about my work. But I went back to Dunoon as often as I could, as I got a day or a night to make the journey. At first there was small change of progress. John would come downstairs about the middle of the day, moving slowly and painfully. And he was listless; there was no life in ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder |
