Purse

“ May I ask if I am indebted for the pleasure of your presence here to the fact of your having lost a purse?"
"A purse? On my soul and honour, sir, in my time I've lost hundreds--hundreds! Positively hundreds!"
I believe I gasped--he spoke with an airy indifference as if that kind of thing were commonplace.
"As I was saying to some of those fellows downstairs, if there's a man in England who has lost more things than I have, I should like to meet him. It's a genius I have; as sure as I get a thing I lose it. And the more it costs, the more it's lost. As for purses, they're my strongest point. ”

“ I have the most beautiful little purse in the world, but it is only kept for show; I even find myself under the necessity of counterfeiting—that is, filling the void with tissue paper in lieu of bank-notes, preparatory to a shopping expedition. ”

“ I always take the precaution of having a delicate little purse in my pocket; and when the man says, as he always does, ‘I don’t know,’ I pull out the purse, and say, ‘I am sorry for that, for she dropped this as she came in, and I wanted to return it to her.’ The porter at once becomes awfully civil ”

“ That gentlemen and ladies, when called upon to give alms, or to defray some trifling incidental expense, are in the invariable habit of giving the whole contents of their purses without examination, and, moreover, of “throwing” the purse into the bargain, is an idea most erroneously entertained. ”

“ Talk not you of satisfaction, this is some recompense, that I have you. ’Tis not the purse I regard: put it off, and I’ll mince it as small as pie meat. The purse? hang the purse: were that gone, I can make another, [Pg 355] and another, and another, ay, and another: ’tis not the purse I care for, but the purser, you, ay you. Is’t not a shame that a king’s daughter, a fair lady, a lady not for lords, but for monarchs, should for gold sell her love, and when she has her own asking, and that there stands nothing between, then to cheat your sweetheart? O fie, fie, a she cony-catcher? ”

“ You take this purse; you go to the nearest place where they keep everything of the very very best, ready made; you buy and put on, the most beautiful suit of clothes, the most beautiful hat, and the most beautiful pair of bright boots (patent leather, Pa, mind!) that are to be got for money; and you come back to me.’
‘But, my dear Bella—’
‘Take care, Pa!’ pointing her forefinger at him, merrily. ”

“ To reveal and publish the fact that your purse had been snatched from you by force would be to make yourself a mark of scorn and for hissing, to bring upon yourself an obloquy far greater than that accorded to the active partner in the transaction, whose doings would be greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and the explanation that pickpockets are pickpockets, and will never be anything but what nature has made them ”

“ On recovering my senses, I hastened to quit a place where I hoped there was nothing further to detain me. I first filled my pockets with gold, then fastened the strings of the purse round my neck, and concealed it in my bosom. ”

“ It is most imprudent to ride in an omnibus with much money in your purse. Pickpockets of genteel appearance are too frequently among the passengers. We know a gentleman who in this way lost a pocket-book containing eighty dollars; and various ladies have had their purses taken from them, by well-dressed passengers. If you are obliged to have money of any consequence about you, keep your hand all the time in that pocket. ”

“ Now the bottom of a golf bag is about the last spot on earth where anyone would expect to find a missing purse; yet, as devotees of this sport will agree, a more admirable place of concealment could scarcely be imagined. Far down in a jumble of heavy clubs the purse lies unseen by the keenest eye and beyond reach of the longest arm. To search the bottom of a golf bag would involve taking out all the clubs and turning the bag upside down, but who would do that? ”

“ I then took the purse, and opening it, poured all the gold into his palm. There were six Spanish pieces, of four pistoles [45] each, besides twenty or thirty smaller coins. I saw him wet the tip of his little finger upon his tongue, and take up one of my largest pieces, and then another, but he seemed to be wholly ignorant what they were. He made me a sign to put them again into my purse, and the purse again into my pocket, which, after offering it to him several times, I thought it best to do.
The farmer by this time was convinced I must be a rational creature. ”

“ I continued to visit the lady every day, and to leave her every time a purse with fifty pieces of gold, till the merchants whom I employed to sell my goods, and whom I visited regularly twice a week, had paid me the whole amount of my goods and, in short, I came at last to be moneyless, and hopeless of having any more. ”

“ But next moment he loosened his greedy clutch at the purse. "No matter how bravely it shines! it is not my gold; and it is too heavy for me to carry. Stolen money is worse than a mill-stone about one's neck, so my mother says." ”

“ If you can go to any store in your city and get one for less than a three-dollar bill I’ll make you a present of one hundred dollars. I’ll just drop the chain into the little purse here and call the outfit six dollars, altogether.
“Now, gentlemen, don’t get scared or faint away, but the first man who passes me up a quarter gets the entire outfit, purse, magnetic agate, studs, ring, collar buttons and chain. Only twenty-five cents for the entire lot. Ah! There is the man who takes it. ”

“ A kindred feeling might suggest to our “party of pleasure,” that people can’t travel now-a-days without a considerable sum of money with them, and therefore wherever there was a pocket there would also be money. And then the habit of purse-carrying, which brings all the money together—the notes in the one end, and the silver or gold in the other—is a preparation just made for thieves, a convenience for which, with little time to spare, they cannot be too grateful. ”

“ The man that is satisfied with a leathern purse is not easily a spendthrift, but one that, as the saying goes, knows how to keep his purse-strings tight;—now your transparent purses of silk or gold twist are never out of the fingers of your prodigals ”

“ I haven't opened my purse since those bills were brought into the house until just now in my office. You must have put the bills somewhere else. Look in your purse."
"I tell you I put the money in your purse," replied Mrs. Lively with asperity, at the same time opening her purse with an impatient movement. "It isn't here: I knew it wasn't. I tell you again I put it in your purse, and you've dropped it out somewhere."
"But I haven't opened the purse till a moment since in my office," the doctor reiterated. ”

“ But the funniest thing of all was when we arrived, I found my purse in my pocket; I paid the respectable old gentleman for the ticket, made a pretty curtsey to the other gentlemen, and then I ran off. ”

“ I always keep a purse ready to give them, it makes them so good-humoured. Oh dear, what a noise they make, and they will be quite savage if they are kept waiting," she said, as another violent ringing was heard. ”

“ Though I lived with the strictest economy, my purse insensibly grew lighter. This economy was, however, less the effect of prudence than that love of simplicity, which, even to this day, the use of the most expensive tables has not been able to vitiate. ”

“ German gold, English bank-notes, letters of credit, foreign bills of exchange, bankers' cheques—untold wealth in every form and variety of currency. The man must have carried some seven or eight hundred pounds about his person. And that wasn't all either. There were letters in the purse, too—letters which, of course, Guy couldn't dream of looking at ”

“ All shopkeepers in good business can afford to buy proper wrapping-paper, and they generally do so. It is very cheap. See also that they do not wrap your purchase in so small a bit of paper as to squeeze and crush it.
If you go out with much money, (which is never advisable,) divide it into two portions, putting part in your pocket-book or porte-monnaie, and the remainder into your purse, so that if you lose it, or have your pocket picked, the loss may be less. Do not carry notes in your purse, but keep them in your pocket-book. Little gold dollars had best go into your porte-monnaie. ”

“ Every man had his buckskin purse tied with a string, to carry his "dust" in, and every store and house had its small scales, with weights from a few grains to an ounce, to weigh out the price when any article from a newspaper to a wagon was purchased. ”

“ Will you 'old this purse for me? Yer will? Well. I like the manly way yer speak up! (Here the Gent. Onl., observing a seedy man slinking about outside, warns the company to "mind their pockets"—which excites the Purse-seller's just indignation.) "Ere!— (to the G.O.) you take your 'ook! I've 'ad enough o' you. I 'ave. You're a bloomin' sight too officious, you are! Not much in your pockets to mind—'cept the key o' the street, and a ticket o' leave, I'll lay! If you carn't beyave as a Gentleman among Gentlemen, go 'ome to where you 'ad your 'air cut last—to Pentonville! ”

“ The great seal of England is borne by the purse-bearer in a purse, usually styled “ burse,” decorated with the arms of the kingdom, the “ burse " being thus one of the insignia of office of the lord chancellor of England. The “ privy purse ” is the amount of public money set apart in the civil list for the private and personal use of the sovereign (see Privy Purse) . ”

“ The things of the pocket constitute a pocket dictionary in more than two languages, a book of synonyms, a lexicon filled with cross references, all based upon the Word. The silly silver of men's purses is blessed, and every mortal thing assists in immortal liturgy. ”

“ For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. ”

“ It takes two noble Earls and a Viscount, combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in an equally flattering manner, that an estimable lady in the West of England has offered to present a purse containing twenty pounds, to the Society for Granting Annuities to Unassuming Members of the Middle Classes, if twenty individuals will previously present purses of one hundred pounds each. ”

“ At Earth's great market where Joy is trafficked in
Buy while thy purse yet swells with golden Youth! ”

“ To feel for some money in his pocket the painter took his hands off the table, and he then saw before him a purse which Adelaide had slipped in front of him without his noticing it; the poor child had the old one in her hand, and, to keep her countenance, was looking into it for the money to pay her mother. The blood rushed to Hippolyte’s heart with such force that he was near fainting. ”

“ Is there a man here who expects that he, or his children, or his children's children, shall see the day when only gold coin, glittering through silk purses, will be the currency of the country, to the entire exclusion of bank notes? ”

“ Now, gentlemen, the stocking that contained the gold coins, was kept in a bureau, which bureau was saved from the fire, with all its contents: but the stocking and the gold were missing! These facts will be shown to you by proof that puts them beyond a peradventure. We shall next show to you, gentlemen, that on a public examination of the prisoner at the bar, the contents of her purse were laid open, and the Dutch or Italian coin I have mentioned was found, along with more than a hundred dollars of other pieces, which being in American coin, cannot so readily be identified. ”

“ To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather.” ”

“ Nor will your purse, however readily opened, suffice, you must give to me also your time and your thoughts; for money sent by others, to others only will afford relief; to enlighten your own cares, you must distribute it yourself. ”

“ The advice given by an Irishman to his English friend, on introducing him to a regular Tipperary row, was, "Wherever you see a head, hit it."
CXXXI.—THE PURSER.
Lady Hardwicke, the lady of the Chancellor, loved money as well as he did, and what he got she saved. The purse in which the Great Seal is carried is of very expensive embroidery, and was provided, during his time, every year. ”

“ For their purse, being so oft visited, cannot stay always swelled out and at its full capacity, like the purse in front, which is ever in the same condition, and ever ready for whosoever wills to fish therein, without the captives that have entered and come forth again of the same finding a word to say against it. ”

“ At that moment he turned his head, took in the traveller's appearance with a single glance, and added, "By paying for it."
The man drew a large leather purse from the pocket of his blouse, and answered, "I have money."
"In that case, we are at your service," said the host.
The man put his purse back in his pocket, removed his knapsack from his back, put it on the ground near the door, retained his stick in his hand, and seated himself on a low stool close to the fire. D---- is in the mountains. The evenings are cold there in October. ”

“ Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing I should be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angeles for, and not wanting to.
So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhaps that sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody ever complained.
It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explore the insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawers and—well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble. It's like swimming through spaghetti. ”