"Coster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... full-chested song to the indiscriminate cat-call. In front of each section of seats stood a separate youth, who at very short intervals, and at the slightest provocation, invoked cheers upon cheers for everything and everybody, from the captain of the team to the college coster-monger. An hour before the game began the benches were crowded, and I seemed to have recognized in the passing throng every person of consideration among my acquaintance. Mrs. Willoughby Walton and her party were among the last to ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... now set to work to carry out the plan he had cherished ever since. He owned the entire block on Broadway, between Vesey and Barclay streets, with the exception of one house, which was the property of a Mr. Coster, a merchant who had amassed a large fortune and retired from business. Mr. Astor made him many offers for his house, but the old gentleman was unwilling to remove. Mr. Astor offered him the full value of his house, which was thirty thousand dollars, and increased the bid to forty thousand, but ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... "Advocate Coster was State Attorney at the time of the Reform trials, but resigned owing to President Kruger having insulted him at a meeting of the Executive. He was an accomplished man, a member of the Inner Temple, and was very popular ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... there was appointed as State Attorney Dr. Coster, a Hollander, who however declined to have anything to do with the organization of the police; and in Mr. Trimble's stead reappeared the individual whom he had superseded and whose services had been dispensed with.{15} The triumph of the back-door influences was again complete ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... honour of inventing printing lies between two claimants, Laurens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem (the original of this statue) and Gutenburg of Mayence. The Dutch like to think that Coster was the man, and that his secret was sold to Gutenburg by his servant Faust. Be that as it may—and ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... grinned Anthony, as I came perilously near upsetting a coster's barrow, to its owner's vociferous indignation. "Egad, a four-footed devil warranted to banish ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Square, London, the Rev. Canon Mecklin, sub-dean of the Chapel Royal, officiating. The honeymoon will be spent at the town-house of the groom, in York Terrace. Lord Casselthorpe has long been known as the blackest sheep of the British Peerage, being called the 'Coster Peer' on account of his unconventional language, his coarse manner, and slovenly attire. Two years ago he was warned off Newmarket Heath and the British turf by the Jockey Club. He is eighty-eight years old. The bride, like some other lights of the music-hall ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... this is true, and it strongly supports the view under consideration. Nothing is more startling than the contrast between the heavy, formal, lifeless slang of the man-about-town and the light, living, and flexible slang of the coster. The talk of the upper strata of the educated classes is about the most shapeless, aimless, and hopeless literary product that the world has ever seen. Clearly in this, again, the upper classes have degenerated. We have ample evidence that the old ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... King made a friendly call without basket or band. His cocked hat was exchanged for a chimney-pot so 'shocking bad' that no coster would dare to don it. Such is the custom of the chiefs, and if you give them a good tile it goes at once into store. He made us promise a return-visit and set ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... see what the letters have done!" exclaimed a delighted boy, as he picked up the piece of parchment in which Grandfather Coster had carried the bark letters cut from the trees in the grove, for the instruction and ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... was large outside in proportion to her size. She had a soft, kind face, beautiful grey eyes, nearly black hair which draped naturally, and was altogether as nice a little woman as one could have wanted. I have wondered often how she could have settled down in a neighbourhood of coster-mongers, and taken five shillings for her person, when she might as well have been a two-sovereign woman, had she tried elsewhere. I put her up to trying at a future day, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... is a verb conjugated daily by the street seller of any pretensions. The coster needs less of it than most vendors, his wares speaking for themselves; but the general seller of small-wares, bootlaces, toys, children's books, and what not, must have a natural gift, or acquire it as fast as possible. To patter is to rattle off with incredible swiftness and fluency, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... of bazaars in India All glitter and spices and smells, But they don't compare With the naphtha flare And the herrings the coster sells; And the oranges piled like gold, The cucumbers lean and cold, And the red and white block-trimmings And the strawberries fresh and ripe, And the peas and beans, And the sprouts and greens, And the 'taters and ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... of which I certainly cannot see the advantage, in the substitution of "yep," or "yup" for "yes," and of "nope" for "no." No doubt we have in England the coster's "yuss;" but one hears even educated Americans now and then using "yep," or some other corruption of "yes," scarcely to be indicated by the ordinary alphabetical symbols. It ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... bobbing mysteriously about in it with his four-fingered hands spread out before him. This seems to me to be nothing but a vulgar manifestation of the Smooth-clawed Frog's self-appreciation. He is like a coster conducting a Dutch auction, except that it is himself that he puts up for the bids of admiring visitors. With his double bunch of four fingers held eagerly before him he says—or means to say—"'Ere—eight! Ain't ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... is called by Strype "Lither" Lane. Even in his day he reviles it as of no reputation, and this character it retains. It is one of the open street markets of London, lined with barrows and coster stalls, and abounding in low public-houses. The White Hart, the King's Head, and the Nag's Head, are mentioned by Strype, and these names survive amid innumerable others. At the south end a house with overhanging stories remains; ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... spots there be, unhallowed or hallowed, it seemed to those two men then that the city they saw was of all places the most to be desired by far. They say a barrel organ played quite near them, they say a coster was singing, they admit that he was singing out of tune, they admit a cockney accent, and yet they say that that song had in it something that no earthly song had ever had before, and both men say that they would have wept but that there was a feeling about their heartstrings that was far too ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... to say; the motion was then put before the House and the debate developed into a farce. Idiot after idiot got up and made some infantile qualification of an earlier statement—all of them talked off the point. So much so, in fact, that Turner was beginning a tale of a fight he had had with a coster down Cheap Street when Christy ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh |
