No Quarter Given: Discuss!

Lots of people, for some reason, have recently been discussing the meaning of the expression "no quarter given." I added an anecdote to one of those discussions about my experience that I thought might be relevant to the topic. I was the Grit newsboy in my hometown as a kid. I sold copies all over town, to every household that would buy one. My goal was to sell 200 copies per week, but I think I reached only 185 in my three years of selling. I had no bicycle. That was beyond my means. I therefore walked all over town every Saturday, and that took all day. The pay wasn't great. At that time, a copy cost 15 cents, and I got to keep a nickel. The Saturday saleswalk exhausted me, so I stayed home to rest when deliveries were finished. Sundays, everything shut down, so I couldn't entertain myself spending my hard-earned nickels. I used to imagine wealth in coins. If only a copy were 75 cents instead of 15. Since I received a third of the price, I'd have gotten 25 cents per sale, but the price was not 75 cents, so no quarter was given . . .