a case ???
George Thompson
george.thompson at NYU.EDU
Sat Mar 15 01:42:48 UTC 2008
I don't see a meaning for the word "case" in HDAS or Cassell's that fits this without some heavy wrenching and squeezing. Here it is used to mean "a loss".
This is from a novel published in 1836. (The author was a prominent newspaper editor -- you've met him before.) The scene is a pawnshop. A young man enters: he's a regular, coming in to pawn the same gold watch and chain, redeeming it when he's flush. This time he's in a hurry, says to the pawnbroker, give me the usual for this. The pawnbroker hands him money, he rushes out. The pawnbroker looks at the watch, sees that instead of a gold chain, this time the chain is gilded brass, rushes out after him. He returns, saying:
"Ah it's no use,: he said, "he's got off clear by this time, and my thirty dollars is a case."
William Leete Stone, Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman, 1836, p. 191
GAT
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
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