shoe-blacking

There were -- infamously -- his own family's time sentenced to debtors' prison, and the year he himself spent as a boy working long days in a shoe-blacking factory.

David Tereshchuk: The Reporting Behind Two Centuries of Dickens' Impact David Tereshchuk 2012

There were -- infamously -- his own family's time sentenced to debtors' prison, and the year he himself spent as a boy working long days in a shoe-blacking factory.

David Tereshchuk: The Reporting Behind Two Centuries of Dickens' Impact David Tereshchuk 2012

There were -- infamously -- his own family's time sentenced to debtors' prison, and the year he himself spent as a boy working long days in a shoe-blacking factory.

David Tereshchuk: The Reporting Behind Two Centuries of Dickens' Impact David Tereshchuk 2012

In "Oliver Twist," he used the betrayals and poverty of his own young life—at 12, he was forced to work in a shoe-blacking factory, and his father was thrown into the Marshalsea Prison for debt.

The Hazards of Fairyland Frank Cottrell Boyce 2011

When he was ten years old his father was imprisoned for debt (like Micawber, in the Marshalsea prison), and he was put to work in the cellar of a London shoe-blacking factory.

A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher

But Madeline telegraphed Roberta laconically: "Gray carpet paper shell, mark scales shoe-blacking, lace together sides," and continued to sojourn in Washington Square.

Betty Wales Senior Margaret Warde

England, or instructed as to how much I should let my man charge me for shoe-blacking, or advised as to the most effectual way of preventing the butler from stealing my cheroots, while Dora Harris, remote as a star, talked to a cavalry subaltern about wind-galls and splints!

The Pool in the Desert Sara Jeannette Duncan

A volume of Shakespeare lies on top of a heaping full waste basket that was once used to bring peaches to market, and an ancient copy of Worcester's Dictionary shares places in an adjacent chair with the poet's old and familiar soft gray hat, a newly darned blue woolen sock and a shoe-blacking brush.

Mince Pie Christopher Morley 1923

This and other magnified photographs were obtained by fastening the lens of a discarded bicycle lantern in a cone of paper blackened on the inside with shoe-blacking.

The Log of the Sun A Chronicle of Nature's Year William Beebe 1919

In order to make the scoring of points more vivid and visible to the audience, it was decided, after some hesitation, that the gloves should be coated with shoe-blacking.

The Dozen from Lakerim Rupert Hughes 1914