“I beg your pardon,” answered the Hebrew, “I concluded that your circumstances were bad, because you objected to the poverty of the young man after you had owned he was possessed of every other qualification to make your daughter happy; for it is not to be imagined that you would thwart her inclinations, or seek to render an only child miserable on account of an obstacle which you yourself could easily remove.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

I beg your pardon, as that honour belongs to my friend Pierre Jacques Martelli.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

May the benedictions which honor the memory of a good physician be your portion, as they have been in the highest degree that of your grandfather.
— from Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence by Louis Agassiz

You most certainly never fell from aloft, but your passage around the Horn in the Antarctic winter must have prepared you for any fate.
— from Under Sail by Felix Riesenberg

But back in my prison, I shall resume my male attire out of fear of being outraged by your people, as they have tried before now."
— from The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc by Eugène Sue

All told, I was in and about this place for ten days, seeing Tolstoy and his family practically every day; even when I did not stop in the house overnight I divided my time between Yasnaya Polyana and the home of a neighbor of the Tolstoys.
— from My Life by Josiah Flynt

‘Miss Plowden,’ he said, ‘I beg your pardon,’ and then he added, breathlessly, ‘I am running after a lady—don’t laugh—an old friend of whom I had a sudden glimpse.
— from Lady William by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

‘Why has there never been a right understanding between your people and the House of Shehaab?
— from Tancred; Or, The New Crusade by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

Let this ever be your preservative against temptation, “How would Jesus have acted here?
— from The Mind of Jesus by John R. (John Ross) Macduff

Do you think it likely I would betray your people after that?" "How do I know what a spy would do?
— from The Sheriff's Son by William MacLeod Raine

If Mr. Fauntleroy could come to life with a million of money, you and I would dine with him: you know we would; for why should we be better than our neighbors? Put, then, out of your head the idea that this or that profession is unworthy of you: take any that may bring you profit, and thank him that puts you in the way of being rich.
— from The Fitz-Boodle Papers by William Makepeace Thackeray

The luckiest whist-player I ever came across was a man who was never quite certain what were trumps, and whose most frequent observation during the game was “I really beg your pardon,” addressed to his partner; a remark which generally elicited the reply, “Oh, don’t apologize.
— from The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome