nothing doing

"[P]erhaps you might sell them a submarine or some of your diving apparatus." "Nothing doing, Ned. We've got other plans."

1920, Victor Appleton, chapter 1, in Tom Swift And His Undersea Search

[T]he employes of Detroit's Bundy Tubing Co. wanted a raise of 18 1/2 cents an hour. Said Bundy flatly: nothing doing.

1946 November 4, “MANAGEMENT: Bundy Saves & Shares”, in Time

[S]he'd consoled herself with a fresh plan: she'd refuse to go to her father when he came back. Nothing doing, she'd say.

2008, Preeta Samarasan, Evening is the Whole Day, →ISBN, page 255

"You see, Walter," he said, "in truth this business is merely a habit with me . . . but there's nothing doing, nothing doing. . . . I hardly know where I am myself; much less where my customers are."

1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, chapter 4, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC

There was nothing doing in the district—no mining—no milling—no productive effort—no income—[…]

1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXIX, in Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et al.], published 1872, →OCLC, page 214

I began to think that there was nothing doing, that he'd just come on the trip for his health.

1922, Agatha Christie, chapter 11, in The Secret Adversary