"Fourpence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the coast that they may not run unawares into the hands of an enemy. I found everything much dearer than when I was here in 1780. Sheep cost four Spanish dollars each and were so small that it answered better to purchase the mutton for the ship's daily use at fourpence ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... filled with houses it will be a fine place; but what spoils the appearance now is, the number of wooden buildings they are throwing up, as they cannot get workmen for others. When we were there, butter was from two shillings and fourpence to three shillings per pound, bread fourpence, milk eightpence per pint, vegetables enormous, butcher's meat and sugar, as at home. Fruit very dear; a shilling would not purchase as much as a penny in England. Beer and porter, one shilling per pint ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... of a horse, within the borough, pays one penny to the mayor (sheriff?) and the purchaser another; of an ox, a half-penny; of a man, fourpence, in whatsoever place he may be ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... permitted to buy what we could, but I may say that it was very little because the buffet attempted to rob us unmercifully. A tiny sandwich cost fourpence, while a small basin of thin and unappetising soup, evidently prepared in anticipation of our arrival, was just as expensive. Still the fact remains that throughout the whole railway journey the German authorities never supplied us with ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... time-table showed that the price of Pauline Roper's ticket would be two pounds nine shillings and fourpence halfpenny. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... "working-men's Metropole" almost opposite Baruch Emanuel's shop, and papered its outside walls with moral pictorial posters, headed, "Where have you been to, Thomas Brown?" "Mike and his moke," and so on. Here, single-bedded cabins could be had as low as fourpence a night. From the journals in a tobacconist's window Esther gathered that the reading-public had increased, for there were importations from New York, both in jargon and in pure Hebrew, and from a large poster in Yiddish ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... don't know you too well, either. I respect you, Mr Scruby, because you're a man as understands your business. But as I was saying, what's three hundred pounds when a man's bill is three hundred and ninety-two thirteen and fourpence?" ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... "Seymour Michael is one of the biggest rascals on God's earth. I would not trust him with fourpence round ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... It's too ridiculous. I had just scraped up four shillings for this little outing; and it cost me one-and-fourpence to get here. Well, Dubedat asked me to lend him half-a-crown to tip the chambermaid of the room his wife left her wraps in, and for the cloakroom. He said he only wanted it for five minutes, as she had his purse. So of course ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... causes the salt to precipitate to the bottom, by setting the scummings in a warm oven. Where hogs are not much in use, and especially by the seaside, the coarser animal-oils will come very cheap. A pound of common grease may be procured for fourpence, and about six pounds of grease will dip a pound of rushes, and one pound of rushes may be bought for one shilling; so that a pound of rushes medicated and ready for use, will cost three shillings. If men that keep bees will mix a little wax with the grease, it will give it a consistency, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... boil it for mysel, wi a sup o' milk, perhaps, an soom salt or treacle to gi it a taste. An I'll buy apples an pears an oranges cheap soomwhere, an store 'em. Yo mun ha a deal o' fruit when yo doan't ha meat. Fourpence!' cried Davy, his enthusiasm rising, 'I'll live on thruppence a day, as sure as yo're sittin theer! Seven thruppences is one an nine; lodgin, two shillin—three an nine. Two an three left over, for cloos, firin, an pocket money. Why, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... against M'Culla's proposals; because, if the charge of coinage will honestly amount to so much, and we suppose his copper notes may be returned upon him, he will be the greater sufferer of the two; because the buyer can lose but fourpence in the pound, and M'Culla must lose sixpence, which was the charge ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... railway fares much less even than this; we shall arrange to travel at the rate of one hundred miles for every penny. That, surely, is moderate enough. If the charges were so low that the journey from London to Edinburgh only cost fourpence, then even the most unreasonable passenger would be surely contented. On these terms how much do you think the fare from London to this star ought to be? I know of one way in which to make our answer intelligible. There is a National Debt with which your ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... benevolence in small things. Johnson was impolite, not because he wanted benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller to him than to people who had never known what it was to live for fourpence halfpenny a day. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... saltee, a penny Uno soldo. Dooey saltee, twopence Dui soldi. Tray saltee, threepence Tre soldi. Quarterer saltee, fourpence Quattro soldi. Chinker saltee, fivepence Cinque soldi. Say saltee, sixpence Sei soldi. Say oney saltee, or setter Sette soldi. saltee, sevenpence Say dooee saltee, or otter Otto soldi. saltee, eightpence Say tray saltee, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... odd times. Dunstable's got just as much over at Day's. So you see the Trust is a jolly big show. Here are your two pages. That looks just like your scrawl, doesn't it? These would be fourpence in the ordinary way, but you can have 'em ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... of leg beef," said she, "and then we'll have fourpence left for bread and tea; no, take the other penny, too, and get half a pound of pieces at the butcher's for twopence and a twopenny tin of condensed milk, that's fourpence, and a three ha'penny loaf and one penny for tea, that's sixpence ha'penny, and get onions with ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... tram to Greenwich Station, and then we took a cab home (and well worth the money, which was all we now had got, except fourpence-halfpenny), for we were ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... saw them all five in china in Mrs. Watkins's left hand corner-cupboard, china images she called them, and I thought them so pretty. Give me the fourpence half-penny for buns, Fern—one Bath, two plain, and a half-penny to the sweeper that takes me best ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Fitz-Roy, we beg to inform you that, under the administration of a paternal aunt who died intestate, your client is entitled to two thousand five hundred pounds eight shillings and sixpence, Three per Cents.; one thousand five hundred pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence, Three per Cents., Reduced; one thousand pounds, Long Annuities; five hundred pounds, Bank Stock; three thousand five hundred pounds, India Stock, besides other securities, making up about ten thousand pounds, which we are prepared to transfer ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... their money. Who are the people who lose shillings and sixpences by sheer thoughtlessness? Servants and small clerks, to whom shillings and sixpences are of consequence. Did you ever hear of Rothschild or Baring dropping a fourpenny-piece down a gutter-hole? Fourpence in Rothschild's pocket is safer than fourpence in the pocket of that woman who is crying stale shrimps in Skeldergate at this moment. Fortified by these sound principles, enlightened by the stores of written information in my commercial ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... trip of the boat. Just before the termination of the voyage a man goes round with a bugle turned upwards to receive the eleemosynary pence and half-pence of the passengers. I gave one of them, the other day, a silver fourpence, which fell into the vitals of the instrument, and compelled the man ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... morning early the scribe was at me before I was dressed. It was the small debt again. The Chinaman knew better than to seize the man; that would not have paid; he seized his coat, and actually was detaining that as ransom for a sum equal to fourpence English! He made a direct appeal to me to pay it, and of course I did it; though I was a little disgusted with the man's meanness, as I had given him a present of money amounting to about 1l. a few days before. This son of his is a great eyesore to me. He is a young lama, about ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... strange things he heard, and saw some that were abominable. It was to one of these last that he owed his deliverance from the Domain. For some time the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to the remaining eightpence: and he sat one morning near the Macquarrie Street entrance, hungry, for he had gone without breakfast, and wet, as he had already been for several days, when the cries of an animal in distress attracted his attention. Some fifty yards ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... town, his lord could have him brought back to his old home. Any tax, too, fell more heavily on the poor than the rich. One tax, especially, called the poll tax, which was made when Richard was sixteen, vexed them greatly. Everyone above fifteen years old had to pay fourpence, and the collectors were often very rude and insolent. A man named Wat Tyler, in Kent, was so angry with a rude collector as to strike him dead. All the villagers came together with sticks, scythes, and flails; and Wat Tyler told them they would go to London, and tell the king how his ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... guest, he eats little, and drinks in great moderation; then hurries on, never remaining long in one place. When at Hamburg, Dantzig, and elsewhere, money has been offered him, he never took more than two shillings (fourpence, one farthing), and at once distributed it to the poor, as token that he needed no money, for God would provide for him, as he rued the sins ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... ready money, they turn factors, and take threepence or fourpence in the shilling brokerage. And here let me take notice of one very heinous abuse, not to say petty felony, which is practised in most of the great families about town, which is, when the tradesman gives the house-keeper or other commanding servant a penny ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... the country of Hector," the boy said. "Would you have currants, lady? These once bloomed in the island gardens of the blue Aegean. They are uncommon fine ones, and the figure is low; they're fourpence-halfpenny a pound. Would ye mayhap make trial of our teas? We do not advertise, as some folks do: but sell as ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mr. Merton told me that it was a bad habit and horrible to decent people. I said I could never break myself o't. He said if I fined myself a penny every time I did it, and put it in the poor box o' Sunday, I should soon get out o' t'way. Well, the first day cost me thirteen pence, the next fourpence, and afterwards it was only a penny now and then. First and last it didn't cost me half a crown, and you never hear me swear or use bad language now. Come, Bull-dogs, this will be the first step toward improving yourselves, and when you find how easy it be to do wi'out it ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... or cellar, with its two or three shake-down-beds upon the floor, to the more substantial landlord with his ten or twenty houses, and two or three hundred beds. Among these the houseless wanderer may find shelter, from a penny to three halfpence, twopence, threepence, fourpence, and sixpence a night, on beds of iron, wood, and straw, or on that more lofty couch a hammock; and some (that is, the penny-a-night lodger) have often no softer resting place than the hard floor. This common lodging-house business is a thriving trade; only small capital is required, for an old ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... penitential psalms, the poet, raising his head from his miserable pallet, and pointing to his faithful slave, exclaimed: "Alas! when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and blest with the love of ladies; but now, I am a forlorn deserted wretch! See—there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating FOURPENCE to purchase a little coals. I have not them to give him!" The cavalier, Sousa quaintly relates, in his 'Life of Camoens,' closed his heart and his purse, and quitted the room. Such were the grandees of Portugal!—Lord Strangford's REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... were unrequited by any pecuniary remuneration, but in the cathedral libraries a certain salary was sometimes allowed them. Thus we learn that the amanuensis of the conventual church of Ely received in the year 1372 forty-three shillings and fourpence for his annual duties;[35] and Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, in the tenth century, gave considerable landed possessions to a monk of that church as a recompense for his services as librarian.[36] In some monasteries, ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... vas acquainted vith at the time. I artervards discovered she was French. She was werry thin, and as pale as a soft-shelled clam; there was a dark blue color under her eyes, like these here muscle shells. At first, she used to buy ninepence worth of oysters. Arter a while it came down to fourpence; and one day she only vanted two cents vorth. I asked her who they vas ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... verse, had grown worth ten times their weight in sovereigns. Sir William Tite, J. O. Halliwell, and Henry Huth were to the front. It was in 1864. What a wonderful sight it was! No living man had ever witnessed the like. Copies of Shakespeare, printed from the prompters' MSS. and published at fourpence, fetched L300 or L400. I remember old Joseph Lilly, when he had secured the famous Ballads, which came from the Tollemaches of Helmingham Hall, holding up the folio volume in which they were contained in triumph as someone ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... surprise. 'Why, there's seventeen and fourpence farthing here,' he said. 'Do you mean to say you two have been out for a week, and only spent two and sevenpence ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... prudently availed himself of the Meteorological Office forecast before going. Listen: 'Immediate prospect for London warm and settled. Further outlook cooler but fine.' Well, well; I did get a pound of tomatoes for my fourpence." ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... as a leisurely people rather than a nation of "hustlers" is the patience with which they submit to the long-drawn tyranny of the barber. In England, one grudges five minutes for a shave, and one pays from fourpence to sixpence; in America one can hardly escape in twenty-five minutes, and one pays (with the executioner's tip)[G] from a shilling to eighteenpence. The charge would be by no means excessive if one wanted or enjoyed all the endless processes to which ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... coffee that Robina brewed over a lamp on the table while Dick and Veronica cleared away. It was one of the jolliest little dinners I have ever eaten; and, if Robina's figures are to be trusted, cost exactly six- and-fourpence for the five of us. There being no servants about, we talked freely and enjoyed ourselves. I began once at a dinner to tell a good story about a Scotchman, when my host silenced me with a look. He ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... voluntary exertions. Well, but any one who has read over this report of Mr Farnall, just laid before us, must see how inadequate this relief must be. It runs up from one shilling and a half-penny in the pound to one shilling and fourpence or one shilling and fivepence; there is hardly one case in which the allowance is as much as two shillings per week for each individual—I won't call them paupers— each ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... which involves want of necessaries. The offered consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in denying it. This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the papers which he meant ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... in moody sorrow over the fire. I stole my hand into hers; she clasped it, but did not speak a word. At last she said, with forced composure in her voice, "If that bank goes wrong, I shall lose one hundred and forty-nine pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence a year; I shall only have thirteen pounds a year left." I squeezed her hand hard and tight. I did not know what to say. Presently (it was too dark to see her face) I felt her fingers work convulsively ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and fourpence-halfpenny," she said at last, "and to-morrow is rent day. Rent will be eight shillings; that leaves me one-and-fourpence-half penny for food. Ef I give you all my money, Miss, how am I to pay rent? And how are the ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... himself. Nevertheless, he descended three steps from the court into which he had been directed, and pushed open the swing door, behind which Emil Sachs announced his desire to supply the world with dinners at eightpence and vin ordinaire at fourpence the small bottle. ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Caxtons to a provincial binder, and received them back MINUS 500 pounds worth of margin. Margins make a book worth perhaps 400 pounds, while their absence reduces the same volume to the box marked "all these at fourpence." Intonsis capillis, with locks unshorn, as Motteley the old dealer used to say, an Elzevir in its paper wrapper may be worth more than the same tome in morocco, stamped with Longepierre's fleece of gold. But these things are indifferent to bookbinders, ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... no more, consuming my rasher of bacon and pint of sickly tea in silence. Nor did she take further interest in me till I came to pay my reckoning (fourpence), when I pulled all of ten shillings out of my pocket. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... is extraordinary to the eyes of the thriftless English, who are never so happy as when they are overpaying Italian and other caterers in their own country, to notice how long these wiser folk will occupy a table on an expenditure of fourpence. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... experienced person to superintend the work. This person must be paid a salary, and lodge and board in the house, representing therefore a considerable outlay. The cheese, when made and sent to market, fluctuates of course in price: it may be as low as fourpence a pound wholesale; it may go as high as sixpence. Fourpence a pound wholesale will not pay for the making; sixpence will leave a profit; but of late the price has gone rather to the lower than the higher figure. A few years since, when the iron industries flourished, this kind of cheese had a good ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... and sentimentally gazing at the star-jewelled skies. "Twice three pound is six, an' twice seventeen bob is one-fourteen. Seven pounds fourteen is wot that pore boy's crool end 'as dropped into my pocket, and I'd 'ad those best clothes ever since I got married; an' there was only eight an' fourpence in the piller o' ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... walked round all the cans, pans, colanders, and graters, and took a fancy to a tin mug. It was neither so valuable nor so handsome as the silver mug with dragon handles given me by my Indian godfather, but it was a novelty. When I looked closer, however, I found that it was marked, in plain figures, fourpence, which at that time was beyond my means; so I walked to the door, that I might solace the third period by looking out into the street. As I looked, there came down the hill a fine, large, sleek donkey, led by an old man-servant, ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the second sixpence. Four sixpences it were in all, besides six-and-eightpence as we bargained at first, and three-and-fourpence parchment. There! that's what I call a will; witnessed according to law, and all. Master Thurstan will be prettily taken in when I die, and he finds all his extra wage left back to him. But it will teach him it's not so easy as he thinks for, to make ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Frau will keep us better and at less expense than ever Wilmet conceived. You wrap yourself in your virtue, and refuse to spend a couple of shillings, as deeming it robbery of the fry at home. You wear out at least a shilling's worth of boot leather, pay twopence for a roll and fourpence for a more villainous compound called coffee; come home in a state of inanition, cram down a quartern loaf and a quarter of a pound of rancid butter, washed down with weak tea; and if self-satisfaction and exhaustion combined are soporific, it is only to leave you a prey to nightmare. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which to brace up my saw in the frame, I asked for a "fip's" worth of cord. The man behind the counter looked rather sharply at me, and said with equal sharpness, "You don't belong about here." I was alarmed, and thought I had betrayed myself. A fip in Maryland was six and a quarter cents, called fourpence in Massachusetts. But no harm came from the "fi'penny-bit" blunder, and I confidently and cheerfully went to work with my saw and buck. It was new business to me, but I never did better work, or more of it, in the same ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass
... regard them only as strange dogs to be repelled or as sheep to be sheared. But the first practical point to be struggled for is that of steady employment and just reward for labor. So long as men's wages (without board) range from fourpence to one and six-pence per day, and women's from a penny to six-pence (which, so far as I can learn, are the current rates at present, and nothing to do for half the year at any price), no radical improvement ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... hour. And what Willie and Sandy can do by themselves—he's a clever boy Sandy; but he's a genius Willie—what they can do by themselves, and that's not a little, is nothing to me. And if you'll have the goodness, when I give you the honest time, at fourpence ha'penny an hour, just to strike that much off my bill, I'll be more obliged to you than I am now. Only I fear I must make you pay for the material—not a farthing more than it costs me at the saw-mills, up at the Grange, for the carriage ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... was in all England; and provision made for it of 'fourpence halfpenny a day.' Yet a giant, invincible soul; a true man's. One remembers always that story of the shoes at Oxford; the rough, seamy-faced, raw-boned College Servitor stalking about, in winter season, with his shoes worn out; ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... his attention was immediately attracted by a number of stout, florid, elderly ladies who were selling some most lovely bouquets for the buttonhole. This was a temptation impossible to resist, and he lost no time in choosing one. It cost fourpence, and Austin was so charmed at the skilful way in which the florid lady he had patronised pinned it into the lapel of his jacket that he raised his hat to her on parting with as much ceremony as though she had been a duchess ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... frowned Morton. "Tell you what you do, Bill. You go to a hotel, and I'll beat it down to a lodging-house on Duke Street.... Juke Street!... Remember how I ran onto Pete on the street? He told me you could get a cot down there for fourpence." ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... help," answered Hans. "Indeed, that is the only comfort of her—that she asks questions so fast you can scarce slide in an answer. She was free enough with her information as well— told me her name, and how many children she had, and that she paid three-and-fourpence the yard for her ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... speaking more quickly, "he can go to a music-hall twice on the one night an' hear all the latest songs for tuppence. That's all it costs him. He goes to the gallery an' he hears gran', an' he can go to two music-halls in the one night ... in the one night, mind you ... for fourpence! Where would you bate that? You never get no diversion of that sort in this place ... only an oul' magic-lantern an odd time, or the Band of Hope singin' ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... horses, and so got the pick of the market. A dog-drawn cart used to bring fish from Littlehampton to Godalming, where oysters were often to be bought for three a penny." Three a penny, fresh oysters! Fourpence a dozen all alive! The street cries ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... statistics relating to Free Trade and Protection. Bert, his eyes starting out of his head and his mouth wide open, was devouring the contents of a paper called The Chronicles of Crime. Ned Dawson, a poor devil who was paid fourpence an hour for acting as mate or labourer to Bundy, or the bricklayers, or anyone else who wanted him, lay down on the dirty floor in a corner of the room and with his coat rolled up as a pillow, went to sleep. Sawkins, with the same intention, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the barge, and buy from the Arab women and children running along the banks selling eggs and fowls; as the demand has risen the prices have also advanced, and whereas at the opening of the campaign one could buy a dozen eggs for fourpence, by January 1917, I have seen officers pay twopence each or more. It is scarcely safe to jump ashore, as any moment the boat may launch out again into the middle of the stream, but when tied up by the bank waiting ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... to offer up the Holy Sacrifice. He desired that on the day of his burial, "to every poor person coming to Winchester, and asking alms, for the love of God, and for the health of his soul, there should be given fourpence." Alms were likewise to be distributed in every place through which his body was to pass, and large provision was made for Masses and prayers for the repose of his soul. He had, besides, made an agreement with the monks of St. Swithin's, by which they were to ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... come easily; double handfuls of money that he had tossed in the air like a child, to see it glitter. Sixteen hundred dollars from a lucky whaling cruise; seven hundred dollars, his share for salvaging the derelict steamer Shore Ditch; sixty-six pounds eight and fourpence that the passengers had raised for him when he saved the girl at Durban—that, and a gold medal, and a fancy certificate with the British and American flags intertwined. That medal! It had gone for a round of drinks and five dollars for a wench. And ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... clothes, and pointed out with a grin that it was not worth while to crack their skulls over a poor wretch's old coat. The gown was torn and bloody; it was not worth a penny; but in order to end a dispute between his brave countrymen he would offer fourpence, which they could divide in peace among them. The coat was delivered over to Schobal. He went up and down in the crowd with the garment. It was the coat of the Prophet who was being executed! Who wanted a souvenir of that day? He would sell the coat for the half ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... demands of the Stamp Office. The newspaper stamp in those days was threepence-halfpenny, raised in 1815 to fourpence. In 1836 it was reduced to a penny, and in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... sooner looked at it than I perceived myself to be lost. I had been short of money and had allowed my debt to mount; and it had now reached the sum, which I shall never forget, of twelve pounds thirteen and fourpence halfpenny. All evening I sat by the fire considering my situation. I could not pay the bill; my landlady would not suffer me to remove my boxes; and without either baggage or money, how was I to find another lodging? For three months, unless I could invent ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... twopence! Such delectable cakes, two for a penny! Such seductive scraps of meat, which would make a breakfast nourishing as well as relishing, possibly even what called itself a dinner, blushing to see themselves labelled threepence or fourpence! We did not know whether to smile or to drop a tear, as we contemplated these baits hung out to tempt the coins from the exiguous purses of ancient maidens, forlorn widows, withered annuitants, stranded humanity in every stage of shipwrecked ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... array of fine homes, bungalows and stucco villas, put up when the rupee was worth two shillings and a penny, wherein unhappiness may now dwell, because the rupee has depreciated to a shilling and fourpence. The parade of fashion on the Maidan late in the afternoon presents every variety of equipage and livery known to the East, The horse-flesh of Calcutta is uniformly fine. Better animals than are daily grouped around the band stand, or along the rail of the race-course, ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... halting. Well, it's seven mornings a pint at twopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling. That's a shilling and one and two ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... months he and the baby lived there. He left the child at a nursery every morning, fetching it away each evening on his return from work, and for that he paid fourpence a day, which included a limited supply of milk. How he managed to keep himself and more than half keep the child on the remaining two shillings I cannot say. I only know that he did it, and that not a soul ever helped ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, 'If I go into a cheesemonger's shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment'—at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... way, you haven't seen any Indian money yet. This is a rupee, a large and substantial coin you see, about as big as a two-shilling piece, but it is only worth one and fourpence; fifteen of them go to the pound. An anna is a penny, and that little coin like a threepenny bit is a ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... which we may reasonably conclude would find its way to its tables. Good wine, it may be incidentally remarked, was cheap enough when the Three Cranes was first opened, the delicate juice of the Gascoign grape being then vended, at fourpence the gallon, and Rhenish at sixpence! Prices, however, had risen considerably at the period of which we propose to treat; but the tavern was as well-reputed and well-frequented as ever: even more so, for it ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... pastime, the clearest gain. This man cries out above others of the prodigality of our times, and tells of the thrift of our forefathers: how that great prince thought himself royally attired, when he bestowed thirteen shillings and fourpence on half a suit. How one wedding gown served our grandmothers till they exchanged it for a winding-sheet; and praises plainness, not for less sin, but for less cost. For himself, he is still known by his forefather's ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... ist of March, 1796, will be published No. 1. price fourpence, of a Miscellany, to be continued every eighth day, under the name of "The Watchman", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This Miscellany will be comprised in two sheets, or thirty-two pages, closely printed in 8vo; the type, long primer. Its contents, 1:—A history of the domestic and foreign policy ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... society known only to lady novelists. I never hear of one of these creatures discussing a menu card but I feel a mad desire to drag him off to the bar of some common east-end public-house and cram a sixpenny dinner down his throat—beefsteak pudding, fourpence; potatoes, a penny; half a pint of porter, a penny. The recollection of it (and the mingled fragrance of beer, tobacco, and roast pork generally leaves a vivid impression) might induce him to turn up his nose a little less frequently ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... any alteration, change, mutation, or so much as a calefaction of the sacred Pantagruelion. For less than a million of pounds sterling, modified, taken down, and amoderated to the twelfth part of one fourpence halfpenny farthing, you are able to put it to a trial ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... sixpence, pretty little sixpence, I love sixpence better than my life; I spent a penny of it, I spent another, And took fourpence home to ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... gentlemen were satisfied. So the bargain was struck, and I ordered tea to be ready in an hour, while I went back to the station to fetch up my luggage. A porter brought it up for eightpence (saving fourpence on a cab, my boy!) and so I found myself in the heart of Birchespool with a base of operations secured. I looked out of the little window of my lodgings at the reeking pots and grey sloping roofs, with a spire or two spurting up among them, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... of food. It is quite easy; breakfast, consisting of an egg, which the grocer, with pleasing optimism, insists upon calling "fresh," one penny; bread and butter, per week, one shilling and sixpence; tea, milk, and sugar, per week, one and fourpence. Lunch, a really good, substantial meal, of savoury sausage or succulent fish and mashed potato, and a bun. If you are a lady the bun is indispensable; for if there is one faith implanted firmly in the feminine breast, it ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... being that he who would not take his shield and do battle for the King should pay enough to hire one who would. The scutage was assessed at two marks. Later, the assessment varied. The mark was two thirds of a pound of silver by weight, or thirteen shillings and fourpence ($3.20). Reckoned in modern money, the tax was probably at least twenty times two marks, or ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... for a moment at the door, surveying the court, then walked up to a party of boys, and laid his hand on the shoulder of one, holding a silver fourpence to him. "Anderson Junior," said he, "there's your money. I am not going to let Stoneborough School be turned into a gin palace. I give you notice, it is not to be. Now you are not to bully May junior for telling me. He did ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... a slow sale, and conferred no benefit on the unfortunate author. What the booksellers would not do for him, Hogg resolved to do for himself; he originated a periodical, which he designated "The Spy," acting as his own publisher. The first number of this publication—a quarto weekly sheet, price fourpence—was issued on the first of September 1810. With varied popularity, this paper existed during the space of a year; and owing to the perseverance of the conductor might have subsisted a longer period, but for a certain ruggedness which occasionally disfigured it. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... of which he was master, it was no wonder he enjoyed the display of it; and, to say the truth, he did, and that on a first-rate horse too. Having appointed Murtough Murphy his law-agent, he often rode over to the town to talk with him, and as Murtough could have some fun and thirteen and fourpence also per visit, he was always glad to see his "noble friend." The high road did not suit Andy's notion of things; he preferred the variety, shortness, and diversion of going across the country on these occasions; and in one of these excursions, in ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... ordinances, as also a code of regulations expressly to be acted on; he appointed a master in priest's orders, under whose guidance a secular chaplain officiated; it was also observed that every pilgrim in health should have but one night's lodging to the cost of fourpence; that applicants weak and infirm were to be preferred to those of sounder constitutions, and that women "upwards of forty" should attend to the bedding, and administer medicines ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... done my six years' service. 'Er Majesty sez: "Good day— You'll please to come when you're rung for, an' 'ere's your 'ole back pay; An' fourpence a day for baccy—an' bloomin' gen'rous, too; An' now you can make your fortune—the same ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... for his supper a penny roll, a small cup of mild cider, two or three pennyworths of meat, and a pennyworth of cheese or butter. He might ask not more than six of his friends to dine with him at the Canon's room, and their dinner was to cost not more than fourpence a head. He was not to run about the streets in his episcopal gloves, and he was obliged to attend choir and school the next day like the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... read, in the works of the historians, that, in that reign, a common labourer earned threepence-halfpenny a day; and that a fat sheep was sold, at the same time, for one shilling and twopence, and a fat hog, two years old, for three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose for twopence-halfpenny. You never read that women received a penny a day for hay-making or weeding in the corn, and that a gallon of red wine was sold for fourpence. These are matters which historians have deemed to be beneath their notice; but they ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... after supper. We played for about an hour and a half, by the end of which time George had won fourpence - George always is lucky at cards - and Harris and I had ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... he is a minor poet, and sends you his tragedy on John Huss; or he is a writer on mythological subjects, and is anxious to weary you with a theory that Jack the Giant Killer was Julius Caesar. At the worst, you can toss his gift into the waste-paper basket, or sell it for fourpence three-farthings, or set it on your bookshelf so as to keep the damp away from books of which you are not the Involuntary Bailee, but the unhappy purchaser. The case becomes truly black, as we have said, when the uncalled-for tribute has to be returned. Then it is sure ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... that stew looked satisfying; that's where it is, you see—a man can come here and get a thoroughly nutritious and filling meal for the trifling sum of fourpence—and yet you meet people who tell you Vegetarianism is a mere passing fad! It's a force that's making itself increasingly felt—you must be conscious of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... "have you lost fourpence—a silver fourpence?" And she held the forlorn little piece ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is of industrious and husbandly inhabitants, to till and improve the ground; for the common sort, if they can only provide sufficient to serve them from hand to mouth, take no farther care. Good land was to be had here for fourpence an acre of yearly rent. They had very small store of money among them, for which reason, perhaps, they doubled and trebled the prices of every thing we bought, in proportion to what they had been before our arrival. They have mines of alum, tin, brass, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... men or women or citizens of the City of London," the attendance of the clerks was limited to the number asked for by the friends of the deceased. No person was to receive more than eight-pence. The beadle might charge fourpence for the use of the hearse cloth. An extra charge of fourpence could be made if the clerks were wanted both in the afternoon and in the forenoon for the sermon or other service. The bearers might have twopence more than ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... the excessive rates of wages, they made an order, that carpenters, masons, &c., should take but two shillings the day, and labourers but eighteen pence, and that no commodity should be sold at above fourpence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England; oil, wine, &c., and cheese, in regard of the hazard of bringing, &c., excepted. The evils which were springing, &c., were: 1. Many spent much time idly, &c., because they could get as much ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... and fourpence, That is paid for certain fees; Fifty pence are four and twopence, That will buy five ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... Susan is busy in what, though I do not know much of such feminine matters, the whole house declares to be a most beautiful and fanciful toilet-cover, with roses and forget-me-nots cut out of muslin, and two large silk tassels, which cost her three shillings and fourpence. I cannot conclude without thanking you from my heart for your noble kindness to young Ardworth. He is so full of ardour and spirit that I remember, poor lad, when I left him, as I thought, hard at work on that ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... account of the Great Chamberlain for 1366 as being in arrear of the contribution for payment of the King's ransom, being due the sum of thirty-one shillings.[8] In 1374, the Chamberlain debits himself with thirty-three shillings and fourpence received from the bailies of Auchterarder for contribution; and there are two different entries in the rolls of 1390, both relating to a debt owing by the Crown to the community of Auchterarder on account of certain services to the late King Robert II. There is ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... Guild had been allotted its scene it appointed a manager to carry the matter through. The individual expense was not great, somewhere between a penny and fourpence for each member. Out of the sum thus raised had to be paid the cost of dresses and stage-scenery, and the actors' remunerations (which included food during the period of rehearsals as well as on the actual ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... that is to say, before the arrival of winter visitors, flowers are to be had for the asking; on the market-place an enormous bouquet of tuberoses, violets, carnations, myrtle, priced at two or three francs, the price in Paris being twenty. Fruit also I found cheap, figs fourpence a dozen, and other kinds in proportion. This market is the great sight of Nice, and seen on a cloudless day—indeed it would be difficult to see it on any other—is a glory of colour of which it is impossible to give the remotest notion. I was somewhat ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Peggy and with health, I'd never wish for state or wealth; Talking of having health and more pence, I'd drink her health if I had fourpence! ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... and the bed fourpence," she said. "Breakfast in the morning, threepence,—and twopence for the washing towel. That makes a shilling all told. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... "Fourpence-halfpenny!" he repeated, and fell into profound meditation, from which he broke with a sudden return of anger. "What a double-dyed villain and robber that infernal woman has been! She told me that prices had risen to such a height that the commonest salt butter ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... a ha'penny there, Fourpence-ha'penny and a ha'penny mair; A ha'penny weet, an' a ha'penny dry, Fourpence-ha'penny an' a ha'penny forby— How much ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... honored friend The Dictator will tell you that the brother of one of his Andover schoolmates was taken to one of these gifted persons, who touched him, and hung a small bright silver coin, either a "fourpence ha'penny" or a "ninepence," about his neck, which, strange to say, after being worn a certain time, became tarnished, and finally black,—a proof of the poisonous matters which had become eliminated from the system and gathered upon the coin. I remember ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 8,000 pounds towards the liquidation of their debt, and for the same purpose a duty of 2,000 pounds a year on the personal property of the citizens was paid till 1795. To meet these heavy charges a duty of fourpence per chaldron was levied on coals and culm imported into London, and also an additional duty of sixpence per chaldron for fifty years. By this means the debt of 750,000 pounds was finally discharged in 1782, but another debt had been contracted by the Corporation ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... the household of which he was the head, save to collect the money his better half in every respect earned—seemed very much aggrieved at some damage Mick did to a bunch of ripe bananas, claiming a 'bit' or fourpence as compensation. ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... paid the weekly books, and asked no questions, until the winding up of the executor's business; and the quarterly settlement of accounts made startling revelations that the balance at her bankers was just eleven shillings and fourpence halfpenny, and what was nearly as bad, the discovery was made in the presence of her fellow executor, who could not help giving a low whistle. She turned pale, and gasped for breath, in absolute amazement, for she was quite sure they were living at much less expense than in London, and ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mackenzie says: "The newspaper is the natural enemy of despotic government, and was treated as such in England. Down to 1765 the duty imposed was only one penny, but as newspapers grew in influence the restraining tax was increased from time to time, until in 1815 it reached the maximum of fourpence." At this figure the tax seems to have continued many years, for under the year 1836 Mackenzie refers to it as such, and remarks, "that this rendered the newspaper a very occasional luxury to the working man; that the annual circulation of newspapers in the United Kingdom was no more than thirty-six ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... of which the sailor drank, and the other half threw into the waiter's face, telling him that was his "allowance: and now," said he, "what's to pay?" The waiter, who looked very angry, but appeared too much afraid of the sailor to say anything, answered fourpence; and the sailor pulled out a handful of banknotes, mixed up with gold, silver, and coppers, and was picking out the money to pay for his beer, when the coachman, who was impatient, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... "They are moraly responsible for their individual conduct."—Cardell's El. Gram., p. 21. "An engine of sixty horse power, is deemed of equal force with a team of sixty horses."—Red Book, p. 113. "This, at fourpence per ounce, is two shillings and fourpence a week, or six pounds, one shining and four pence a year."—Ib., p. 122. "The tru meening of parliament iz a meeting of barons or peers."—Webster's Essays, p. 276. "Several authorities seem at leest to favor this opinion."—Ib., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... I had a fourpence, Den I mought use a dime. I wish I had a Sweetheart, To kiss me ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... who were worth, in goods, twenty shillings and upwards to five pounds, paid fourpence of every pound; from five pounds to ten pounds, eightpence; from ten pounds to twenty pounds, sixteen pence; from twenty and upwards, two shillings. Lands, fees, and annuities, from twenty shillings to five pounds, paid eightpence in the pound; from five pounds to ten pounds, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... disgrace beside that of Washington and the cherry-tree, and may be better entitled to credit. It is said that, while he was "keeping shop" for Offut, a woman one day accidentally overpaid him by the sum of fourpence, and that he walked several miles that night to restore the sum to her before he slept. On another occasion, discovering that in selling half a pound of tea he had used too small a weight, he started instantly forth to make ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... and by the quality of his voice, that George Cannon was in a state of extreme emotion. She had never known him half so moved. His emotion excited her and flattered her. She thought how wonderful it was that she, the shaking little girl who yesterday had run off with fourpence to buy a meal at a tripe-shop, should be the cause of this emotion in such a man. She thought: "My life is marvellous." She was dizzied by the conception of the capacity of her own body and soul for ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... and finally, for dessert, they got a pound of raisins and almonds mixed together, which they chanced to see in a fruiterer's window. The cost of the whole, the boys found, when they came to foot up the account, was only two shillings and fourpence. ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... I was assured that even carpenters, masons, smiths, etc., might be hired for fourpence a day, and agriculturists would gladly work ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... and Sterling failed to win public favor. The crisis came about the middle of 1830 when Charles Wentworth Dilke became "supreme editor," enlisted Lamb, George Darley, Barry Cornwall and others on his staff, and reduced the price of the Athenaeum from eightpence to fourpence. The apparent folly of reducing the price and increasing the expenses did not lead to the generally prophesied collapse; this first experiment in modern methods resulted in the rapid growth of the Athenaeum's ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... much grown as to have their hair on them, within y'e town of Dochester, y'e year ensuing, until our meeting in May next, and bring in their scalps with y'e ears on unto y'e town treasurer, shall be paid by y'e town treasurer Fourpence ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various |
