"Half-penny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Killaloe informed me, that at another time, when Johnson and Garrick were dining together in a pretty large company, Johnson humorously ascertaining the chronology of something, expressed himself thus: 'that was the year when I came to London with two-pence half-penny in my pocket.' Garrick overhearing him, exclaimed, 'eh? what do you say? with two-pence half-penny in your pocket?'— JOHNSON, 'Why yes; when I came with two-pence half-penny in MY pocket, and thou, Davy, with three half-pence in ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Surrey bank has explained a shortage of a half-penny in her postage-stamps by admitting that she swallowed one. It is thought that the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... will answer with another as extraordinary: you desire I would burn your letters; I desire you would keep mine. I know but of one way of making what I send you useful, which is, by sending you a blank sheet: sure you would not grudge three-pence for a half-penny sheet, when you give as much for one not worth a farthing. You drew this last paragraph on you by your exordium, as you call it, and conclusion. I hope, for the future, our correspondence will run a little more glibly, with dear George, and dear Harry; not as formally as if we were playing a game ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... First, called the statute concerning the passing of pence, which I give you here as I got it translated into English; for some of our laws at that time were, as I am told, writ in Latin: Whoever in buying or selling presumeth to refuse an half-penny or farthing of lawful money, bearing the stamp which it ought to have, let him be seized on as a contemner of the king's majesty, and ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... which he stared at me and told me his hands were full. I attempted others without finding employment, and was actually reduced to a very uncomfortable prospect, when I bethought myself of offering my talents to the printers of half-penny ballads and other such occasional essays, as are hawked about the streets. With this in view I applied to one of the most noted and vociferous of this tribe, who directed me to a person whom I found entertaining a whole crowd of them with gin, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... sorts of little mean, dirty things. Economy is not meanness. The misfortune is, also, that this class of persons let their economy apply in only one direction. They fancy they are so wonderfully economical in saving a half-penny where they ought to spend twopence, that they think they can afford to squander in other directions. A few years ago, before kerosene oil was discovered or thought of, one might stop over night at almost any farmer's ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... a thing that I attempt at intervals. Every time I am given an old half-penny or a Mexican quarter, I get an idea that if a fellow made a point of holding on to rarities of that sort, he'd soon have quite a valuable collection. The first time that I tried it I was full of enthusiasm, and before long my collection numbered ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... a custom to pay a half-penny each for all queen wasps in the spring, but Mr. C.S. Martin, who had many years' experience on the fruit plantations of the Toddington Orchard Company, extending to about 700 acres, as well as on his own plantations at Dunnington, writes to me as follows ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... stones. Mifflin was writing busily in his notebook on the other side of the bridge. I thought to myself, "Bless the lad, he's jotting down some picturesque notes of something that has struck his romantic eye." And just then he spoke—"Four and eleven pence half-penny so far to-day!" ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... he said, "was the lucky sentence. It stuck in the English memory and it will never go out of it. One wouldn't give a half-penny for a monument if one could get a phrase fastened in a ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... human sympathies, are inconsistent with that supreme homage of the heart to the Unseen, which really does but sanctify and exalt what is of earth. At a later date Dr. Russell sent me a large bundle of penny or half-penny books of devotion, of all sorts, as they are found in the booksellers' shops at Rome; and, on looking them over, I was quite astonished to find how different they were from what I had fancied, how little there was in them to which I could really object. I have given an account ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... my affairs, when I awoke a little earlier than usual, and caught her in my bedroom with my pocketbook in her hand. Do you believe she was going to lock it up for safety's sake? She knows how much money we have got as well as we know it ourselves. Every half-penny we have will be in her pocket tomorrow. And a good thing, too—we shall be obliged to ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... three years that had swallowed a half-penny, Atkins reports rupture of the innominate artery. No symptoms developed, but six weeks later, the child had an attack of ulcerative stomatitis, from which it seemed to be recovering nicely, when suddenly ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... 187 pounds, ten shillings." This would be in American money over nine and a quarter millions of dollars as the sum of the ten thousand talents. The same authority gives as the value of the penny (Roman) sevenpence half-penny, or fifteen cents, making the second debt equivalent to about fifteen dollars. Comparison with talents mentioned elsewhere may be allowable. Trench says: "How vast a sum it was we can most vividly realize to ourselves ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... a friend above a week when I was able to joke. Thus I was forced to beg my bread, and a sorry trade I have found it, Mr. Harley. I told all my misfortunes truly, but they were seldom believed; and the few who gave me a half-penny as they passed, did it with a shake of the head, and an injunction not to trouble them with a long story. In short, I found that people do n't care to give alms without some security for their money,—such as a wooden leg, or a withered arm, for example. So I changed my plan, and instead ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... it is a penny; and if three half-pence might be taken as the average rate in the United States, the number of letters would be reduced from 300,000,000 to 200,000,000 a year. There is, however, a class of letters which in the States are passed through the post-office at the rate of one half-penny a letter, whereas there is no rate of postage with us less than a penny. Taking these half-penny letters into consideration, I am disposed to regard the average rate of American postage at about five farthings, which would give the number of letters ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... failed," I told him, "for a quarter of a million. Mr. Heathcote shot himself. I am told that there is a probable dividend of sixpence-half-penny in the pound to come ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 20,000 of the working-classes. To their honour be it recorded! But the inhabitants have done yet more; they have made over the library to the town-council, that it may become one of their public institutions, and have agreed to pay a half-penny rate to provide the necessary funds for its perpetual maintenance. May they have ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... raw lads, lazy vagabonds, that shirk every kind of work, and lead a life of low dissipation, hanging about the public-houses until they've sent their last half-penny down their throats. But I'm determined to put a stop to the trade of these professional blackguards once and for all. It's in the public interest to do so, not ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... down at the beach. Indeed, I was now what is termed a regular Mud-larker, picking up halfpence by running into the water, offering my ragged arm to people getting out of the wherries, always saluting them with, "You haven't got never a halfpenny for poor Jack, your honor?" and sometimes I did get a halfpenny, sometimes a shove, according to the temper of those whom I addressed. When I was not on the beach, I was usually in company with Ben the Whaler, who, after my ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... postal authorities, with the result that an official called at the chemist's shop. The interview was unpleasant. It happened that Mr. Farmiloe (not for the first time) had just then allowed himself to run out of certain things always in demand by the public—halfpenny stamps, for instance. Moreover, his accounts were not in perfect order. This, he had to hear, was emphatically unbusinesslike, and, in brief, would ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Brangwens came and went without fear of necessity, working hard because of the life that was in them, not for want of the money. Neither were they thriftless. They were aware of the last halfpenny, and instinct made them not waste the peeling of their apple, for it would help to feed the cattle. But heaven and earth was teeming around them, and how should this cease? They felt the rush of the sap in spring, they knew the wave which cannot ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... dwelt modestly in the first floor of a low gabled house, on the door of which was the brass plate of 'Creed, Tailor and Robe-maker.' Creed was dead, however. His widow was a pew-opener in the cathedral hard by; his eldest son was a little scamp of a choir-boy, who played toss-halfpenny, led his little brothers into mischief, and had a voice as sweet as an angel. A couple of the latter were sitting on the door-step, down which you went into the passage of the house; and they jumped up with great alacrity to meet their lodger, and plunged wildly, and rather to Pen's surprise, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... spent about 4s. or more buying his good-for-nothing son an elegant snuff-bottle. In short, the man's folly makes it utterly useless to help him. I once before relieved him from threatened detention for debt for the amount of twopence-halfpenny, just after I had made him a present, and I expect perhaps to have to do so again. What astonishes me is that the Mongols can get into debt so far. I don't believe my Mongol can pass a single man he knows without being in danger ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... candlelight, what she could not but regard as a perfect mine of treasures. For besides calico and sugar, and all the multifarious stock in the combined trades of draper and grocer, Robert Bruce sold penny toys, and halfpenny picture-books, and all kinds of confectionery which had been as yet revealed to the ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... to the Government. The general opinion appears to be, that they will be re-let, at a greatly advanced rent, to the present occupiers. The present rent of land is a farthing per acre for the first and second years, a halfpenny for the third, and three farthings for the fourth and every succeeding year. Most of the waste lands in the province are now paying three farthings per acre. There is the danger also of scab. This appears to depend a good deal upon the position of the run and its ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... means of the costumes, and asked for considerable funds for that purpose, only to learn, after I had been wearied by one subterfuge after another, that the management was determined not to expend a halfpenny on my ballet, which they regarded as completely wasted. Such was the substance of what my trusty friend Truinet conveyed to me. This was the first sign out of many which soon revealed to me the fact, that even in the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... the Dutch urban working classes is by no means an enviable one. Granting that wages are much higher than half a century ago, when bread cost fivepence-halfpenny the loaf as against three halfpence to-day, and when clothes and furniture cost fifty per cent. more than now, the average working-man cannot be otherwise described than as distinctly poor when compared with his English colleague. Yet it would be misleading to judge exclusively ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... at the man's enthusiastic admiration of my little twopenny-halfpenny feat of navigation, and—secretly—very proud of it myself; but, of course, in reality it was an exceedingly commonplace exploit, which any other navigator worthy of being so-called could have accomplished without the slightest difficulty, the only essentials to success being good instruments, ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... put me out, little boy," said the old lady fussily. "I shall have to begin all over again. Young man, will you take and count the other end and see if it adds up right? There's a halfpenny wrong somewhere; I know ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... inches, for that one fault. Nobleman Schlubhut was 'to make restitution,' they decreed: that was their decree on Schlubhut, one of their own set; and this poor soldier, six feet three, your Majesty, is to dance on the top of nothing for a three-halfpenny matter!"—So would Donhof represent the thing,—"fact being," says my Dryasdust, "it was a case of house-breaking with theft to the value of 6,000 thalers and this musketeer the ringleader!"—Well; but was Schlubhut sentenced to hanging? Do you keep ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and both writers help us to compare the past with the present by their accounts of England as it was in the days of George the First, more than a hundred and sixty years ago. The days certainly are gone when, after a good haul of pilchards, seventeen can be bought for a halfpenny, and two gentlemen and their servant can have them broiled at a tavern and dine on them for three farthings, dressing and all. In another of his journeys Defoe gives a seaside tavern bill, in which the charges were ridiculously ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... shillings a week; gas, purchased on the beautiful and simple penny-in-the-slot system, say, one shilling and threepence, and firing one shilling and sixpence—at Brown's you only have a fire when it is really cold, and it is wonderful how far you can make a halfpenny bundle of wood go when you know the trick of it. Now we come to the not unimportant item 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; ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... Englishman may do very well also; it will be something new." Here was a dark saying, over which the Arethusa pondered as he drank his grenadine; but when he rose and asked what was to pay, the light came upon him in a flash. "O, POUR VOUS," replied the landlady, "a halfpenny!" POUR VOUS? By heaven, she took him for a beggar! He paid his halfpenny, feeling that it were ungracious to correct her. But when he was forth again upon the road, he became vexed in spirit. The conscience is no gentleman, he is a rabbinical fellow; and his conscience ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... till the Monday, and fee a porter for seeing to the pig until I could send a cart for him on that day. Of course the pig was sent after me by the next train; and as the charge for him was less than a halfpenny a mile, I presume he was not considered to be a horse. Yet this fact remains—and it is worth the attention of the Zoological Society, if not of railway officials—that this small porker was never recognised as a pig, but began ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... Economist. Sheer nonsense. How does the quantity of money you possess affect the price you pay for a commodity? The fact of your having twenty sovereigns in your purse won't make your butcher charge you an extra halfpenny a pound for a leg of mutton! That must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... had discovered there were hills to which he could lift his eyes after those humiliating interviews with Mr. Monk concerning the wrong delivery of cheese and bacon. I was aware of the means by which news of the outer world got to Clayton. It came in a popular halfpenny paper, and that outer world must therefore have seemed to Clayton to be all aeroplanes, musical-comedy girls, dog shows, and Mr. Lloyd George. The grocer's boy got his tongue free at last, and talked. ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... shillings; eggs are generally about one penny each; small loaves of bread that are boiled in steam, without yeast or leaven, are about four-pence a pound; rice sells usually at three-halfpence or two-pence the pound; wheat flour at two-pence halfpenny or three-pence; fine tea from twelve to thirty shillings a pound; that of the former price, at least such as was procured clandestinely for us, not drinkable, and the latter not near so good as that of about six shillings ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... useless now. Not only does the devil's advocate lack his own halfpenny; but with a swirl of the hand and a cunning jerk at the side, a stone whizzes after this regardless railer upon honest giants. Wails and agony follow. It is a dangerous thing to sit in the scorner's chair, specially when the divinity has the popular acclaim, with store of sweetmeats ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... two days before she saw him again, and he still wore his "civvy" suit. Janie smiled as he approached the bed, and fumbled with the halfpenny daily paper that somebody had given ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the witch, opening the shop door. "But do step in. We met yesterday, you may remember. I'll ask the ferryman to get half-a-dozen halfpenny buns for tea, if you will be so kind as to lend me threepence. We ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... beg: these scenes are of daily occurrence now that we have compulsory service under the command of the halfpenny papers. ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... is very unpopular. It does not exist in schools; but every adult who derives his knowledge of public affairs from the newspapers can take in, at the cost of an extra halfpenny, two papers of opposite politics. Yet the ordinary man so dislikes having his mind unsettled, as he calls it, that he angrily refuses to allow a paper which dissents from his views to be brought into ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... campaign in favour of a nickel three-halfpenny coin has not succeeded. In Mr. CHAMBERLAIN'S opinion it would not be a coin of vantage. Among his objections to it may be the extreme probability that the present Administration would promptly be nicknamed (I will not say nickel-named) "the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... the highly unexpected discovery that he had been insulted by Lightwood, and stated his desire to 'have it out with him' on the spot, and defied him to come on, upon the liberal terms of a sovereign to a halfpenny. Mr Dolls then fell a crying, and then exhibited a tendency to fall asleep. This last manifestation as by far the most alarming, by reason of its threatening his prolonged stay on the premises, necessitated vigorous measures. Eugene picked up his worn-out hat with the tongs, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... magnanimous patrons of the Row. Pen looked at all the wonders of all the shops, and the strange variety of literature which they exhibit. In this were displayed black-letter volumes and books in the clear pale types of Aldus and Elzevir: in the next, you might see the Penny Horrific Register; the Halfpenny Annals of Crime and History of the most celebrated murderers of all countries, The Raff's Magazine, The Larky Swell, and other publications of the penny press; whilst at the next window, portraits of ill-favoured individuals, with fac-similes of the venerated signatures of the Reverend Grimes ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would be nice enough, but what should we do with that Halfpenny woman? If we had the other girls, I suppose they would be at school all day; but surely some might go to Beechcroft. And mind, Jane, I will not have you overtasking yourself! Do not take any of them without having Gillian to help you. That ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... postmen started to scour the town, collecting on their way letters and newspapers. Each man carried a locked leather wallet, into which, through an opening, letters and other articles were placed, the postmen receiving a fee of a penny on every letter, and a halfpenny on every newspaper. This was a personal fee to the men over and above the ordinary postage. To warn the public of the postman's approach each man carried a large bell, which he rang vigorously as he went his rounds. These men, besides taking up letters for the public, called ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... being sold for two-pence-halfpenny each in Kentish Town, says a news item. One bricklayer declared that he wouldn't know what to do for exercise ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... an inch. Similarly if the peep-hole is at nine and a half feet or 114 inches from the framed glass (which stands for us as the equivalent of an artist's picture) the moon will occupy almost exactly one inch in diameter—the size of a halfpenny. With such a simple apparatus of peep-hole and smeared glass in an upright frame, it is easy to mark off the size covered by the moon (or sun), whether low or high, on the smeared glass, and it is found never ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... than a lustre (five years and six months and some days, more or less) since we met; and, like the man from Tadcaster in the farce ('Love laughs at Locksmiths'), whose acquaintances, including the cat and the terrier, who 'caught a halfpenny in his mouth,' were all 'gone dead,' but too many of our acquaintances have taken the same path. Lady Melbourne, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, &c. &c. almost every body of much name of the old school. But 'so am not I, said the foolish fat scullion,' ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... the whole story all over the town at any rate, and in the lane, and all about the courts; and they declare it don't matter a toss of a halfpenny which way the matter goes, as you're to become Lady Ball the very ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... "who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably?" Politeness has been well defined as 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 ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... like the woods where pine-trees grow, and the old newspapers and the bees-wax and turpentine, and the horrid an stiff dark rags that are used for cleaning brass and furniture, and the paraffin for the lamps. She came back with a little pot that had once cost sevenpence-halfpenny when it was full of red-currant jelly; but the jelly had been all eaten long ago, and now Anthea had filled the jar with paraffin. She came in, and she threw the paraffin over the tray just at the moment when Cyril was trying with the twenty-third match to light ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... of a halfpenny or less apiece one may buy the cigar boxes made to hold twenty-five cigars. These boxes, being fashioned by machinery, are all—at any rate all those devoted to a particular "brand"—of the same dimensions; they are neatly ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... as follows. The Montenegrin had bought some tobacco from the Turk, and claimed to have been given two kreutzers (under a halfpenny) short in change, whereupon the Turk accused the ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... sacrifice to family tradition made inevitable by the General's unfortunate investments. Bellona's bridegroom was not a role he fancied, though he would make a kind of compromise as best man; he would agree, she said, to be a war correspondent and write picturesque specials for the London halfpenny press. There was the humour of the poor boy's despair in it, but she conveyed it, I remember, in exactly the same tone with which she had said to me years before that he wanted to drive a milk-cart. She carried quite her half of the family tradition, though ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... at the little constellation of gold and silver coins. "Wants a little more spending," he said. "Two-pence halfpenny is the mystic sum which turns to millions. So Lisle has swindled you, has he? I thought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Babs in a whisper. "I buyed it last week with twopence-halfpenny; you remember the day I went with Mrs. Sutton to town. She said it was a very useful thing, for Hilda will want to mend Jasper's socks, and if she hasn't darning-cotton handy maybe he'll ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... in spite of all remonstrances and threats, a proclamation went forth that after the 17th August the shilling should be current for six pence sterling and no more, the groat for two pence, the penny for a halfpenny, and the halfpenny for a farthing.(1341) The price of every commodity rose 50 per cent. as a matter of course, and nothing that Warwick could do could prevent it. Seeing at last the hopelessness ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... cottagers, thirteen of the former and eight of the latter. Each of the villeins had a messuage and half a virgate, 12 to 15 acres of arable land at least, for which his rent was chiefly corn and labour, though there were two money payments, a halfpenny on November 12 and a penny whenever he brewed. He had to pay a quarter of seed wheat at Michaelmas, a peck of wheat, 4 bushels of oats, and 3 hens on November 12, and at Christmas a cock, two hens, and two pennyworth of bread. ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... those woods referred to as being tried by Mr. Worthington Smith, he remarks in his report that any of them would be useful for some classes of work, if they could be imported, prepared, and sold for a farthing, or less than a halfpenny, per ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... and do not even dislike these straits, though the flesh will rebel on occasion. It is to-day bitter cold, after weeks of lovely warm weather, and I am all in a chitter. I am about to issue for my little shilling and halfpenny meal, taken in the middle of the day, the poor man's hour; and I shall eat and drink to your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... up money is a deeply rooted human instinct. Barney Bill lit his lamp, and, uttering juicy though innocuous flowers of anathema, searched for the scattered treasure. When he had retrieved three shillings and sevenpence-halfpenny he peered out. Paul was far away. Barney Bill put the money on the shelf and looked at it in a puzzled way. Was it an earnest of the boy's return, or was it a bribe to let him go? The former hypothesis ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... of confidence displayed by Selina, he sat on the side of her bed one afternoon glancing thoughtfully round the room. He was alone in the house, and now, or never, was his opportunity. After an hour's arduous toil he had earned tenpence-halfpenny, and, rightly considering that the sum was unworthy of the risk, put it back where he had found it, and sat down gloomily to peruse a paper which he had found secreted at the bottom of ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the person, or the persons, on whom the suspicion really rests. And if you employ me after that, I guarantee (before you pay me a halfpenny more) to prove that I am right by laying my hand ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... of economy we get all our household requisites from Moggridge's Stores in the Tottenham Court Road, where we have a deposit account. Joan once worked out that by shopping in this manner we saved ninepence-halfpenny every time we spent one pound four and fivepence (her arithmetic cannot cope with percentages), besides having our goods delivered at the door by a motor van. This is a distinct score off our neighbours, who have to be content with theirs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... cricket), by Thomas and George Gunter of Racton, with a leash of greyhounds as if for coursing. The King slept at the house of Thomas Symonds, Gunter's brother-in-law, in the character of a Roundhead. The next morning at daybreak, the King, Lord Wilmot and the two Gunters crossed Broad Halfpenny Down (celebrated by Nyren), and proceeding by way of Catherington Down, Charlton Down, and Ibsworth Down, reached Compting Down in Sussex. At Stanstead House Thomas Gunter left the King, and hurried on to Brighton to arrange for the crossing to France. The others rode on by way of the ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... place,' said the farmer. 'Your hand in your pocket every minute of the day. 'Tis a shilling for this, half-a-crown for that; if you only eat one egg, or even a poor windfall of an apple, you've got to pay; and a bunch o' radishes is a halfpenny, and a quart o' cider a good tuppence three-farthings at lowest reckoning. Nothing without paying! I couldn't even get a ride homeward upon that screw without the man wanting a shilling for it, when my weight didn't ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... educate me. I had a natural faculty for this useful department of art. I improved it greatly by practice in secret after I left school, and I ended by making it a source of profit and pocket money to me when I entered the medical profession. What was I to do? I could not expect for years to make a halfpenny, as a physician. My genteel walk in life led me away from all immediate sources of emolument, and my father could only afford to give me an allowance which was too preposterously small to be mentioned. I had helped myself ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... something the matter with all of them. "Reuben Hallard" he had written because he had to write it, these four things he had written because he ought to write them ... difference sufficient. Nevertheless, he put them into halfpenny ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... and reckoning, and changing; and the purse was crammed so extraordinarily full that it would shower three-skilling pieces, [Footnote: Skilling, a halfpenny.] or a shining half-dollar would swing itself over the side, make a graceful curve, like a skater, round the floor, and disappear behind the stove. It had to be got out before it could be changed, and that ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... owed the butcher sixteen shillings and three pence halfpenny and took a pound note to pay him with, how much change ought he to ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... with silver or gold, and, as they expected a run, they ordered all persons to be paid in copper coin, as long as any money of this metal remained. It required a long time to count those halfpennies and centimes (five of which make a sou, or halfpenny), but the people were not tired with waiting until towards three o'clock in the afternoon, when the bank is shut up. They then became so clamorous that a company of gendarmes was placed for protection at the entrance of the bank; but, as the tumult increased, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... Carroll, waving his pipe through the smoke. "Gatti's? Yes, on special occasions; but for necessity, the Chancellor's, where one gets a piece of the prime roast beef of Old England, from Chicago, and potatoes for ninepence—a pot of bitter twopence-halfpenny, and a penny for the waiter. It's most amusing on the whole. I am learning a little about London, and some things about myself. They are ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... fellow, adroitly poising the halfpenny that he was about to throw, on the tip of his finger. "If I win by this toss I will show you the way to ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... countrymen?—I wish for my part they would allow the people to go about their business as on the other 362 days of the year, and leave the Champs Elysees free for the omnibuses to run, and the Tuileries' in quiet, so that the nurse-maids might come as usual, and the newspapers be read for a halfpenny apiece. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the fleet staying on at Malta? We are prepared to do nothing which costs us a halfpenny for a less gain than three farthings—always excepting the glorious national defences, which have their end too, though not the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... land but once. It is true that during a voyage of eight or ten months he has drunk brackish water, and lived upon salt meat; that he has been in a continual contest with the sea, with disease, and with the tedium of monotony; but, upon his return, he can sell a pound of his tea for a halfpenny less than the English merchant, and ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the way. The difference in quantity between the water which was making its way in and that which they returned to the sea was ludicrous—for a ton that entered a glassful was baled out; they did not improve their condition. It was like the expenditure of a miser, trying to exhaust a million, halfpenny by halfpenny. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... twenty-eight pounds nineteen shillings and eleven pence halfpenny," he replied with composure. "That's leaving out what little he won at Van John. It's something for ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a tax of a halfpenny was placed upon newspapers, and led to several leading journals being discontinued, a failure facetiously termed "the fall of the leaf." "The Spectator" survived the loss, but not unshaken, and the price was raised to twopence. It seems strange that such an addition ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hussy," Mrs. Forest continued, seeing the direction Nancy's eyes were taking. "There's nothing on the chimney-piece—the money's gone, and you've took it, because your father said you were to—it wasn't his to give—did he mend the sacks? tell me that! I'll have my money back—every halfpenny, so you'd better give it ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... recipient or the witness. Mary supplemented the recital by incidents from her own observation. She had often seen a man in the street give a penny to an old woman. She had often seen old women give things to other old women. She knew many people who never looked for the halfpenny change from a newsboy. Mrs. Makebelieve applauded the justice of such transactions; they were, she admitted, the things she would do herself if she were in a position to be careless; but a person to whom the discovery of her daily bread is a daily problem, and who can scarcely ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... play the most honourable part: 'Landlord, here's the money for this glass of brandy and water—do me the favour to take it; all right, remember I have paid you.' 'Landlord, here's the money for the pint of half-and-half—four-pence halfpenny, a'nt it?—here's sixpence, keep the change—confound the change!' The landlord, assisted by his niece, bustled about; his brow erect, his cheeks plumped out, and all his features exhibiting a kind of surly satisfaction. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... year foreign butchers sold flesh at Leadenhall, for the butchers of the city of London denied to sell beef for a halfpenny the pound according to the ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Florence, "can you bear her? When you tell me those sort of things I just long to throw her gifts in her face and to say boldly, 'We won't take another halfpenny from you, we will go to the workhouse to spite you, we'll tell every one we can that we are connected with you. Yes, we'll go to the ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... been recently struck (I think, in 1819) a medal with the same obverse and reverse, of about the size between an English farthing and halfpenny. The statue of Henry is perhaps the MIRACLE OF ART: but it requires a microscopic glass to appreciate its wonders. Correctly speaking, probably, such efforts are not in the purest good taste. Simplicity is the soul ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... cost fourpence-halfpenny," she said, gravely, "and the little you eat you had better ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... comfort, noting the sad wistful eyes that watched her coming in and going out, she had resigned herself to spend long melancholy hours within doors, reading aloud till Sir John fell asleep, playing backgammon—a game she detested worse even than shove-halfpenny, which latter primitive game they played sometimes on the shovel-board in the hall. Life could scarcely be sadder than Angela's life in those grey winter days; and had it not been for an occasional ride across country with her father, health and spirits must ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... they were gazing greedily into the window of the sixpenny-halfpenny shop, which is one of the most deliciously dramatic spots in London. Mary was taking notes feverishly on a slip of paper while he did the adding up, and in the end they went away gloomily without buying anything. I was in high feather. "Match ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... of it produce so fragrant an idea? Think of a mountain of lavender lifting itself in purple poignancy into the silver skies and filling men's nostrils with a new breath of life—a purple hill of incense. It is true that upon my few excursions of discovery on a halfpenny tram I have failed to hit the precise spot. But it must be there; some poet called it by its name. There is at least warrant enough for the solemn purple plumes (following the botanical formation of lavender) which I have required people to wear in the neighbourhood ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... it and the two black seals securing the lapels. He paused again in his walk. His reflections had led him to a second definite point and he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for a time, seeking a certain brass coin about the size of a halfpenny, having a square hole in the middle and peculiar characters engraved around the square, one on ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... day, when the trio were in very low water, Schubert and one of the others met at a small coffee-house and surprised each other in the act of ordering coffee and biscuits, because neither could summon from his pockets the requisite amount—namely, eightpence halfpenny—wherewith to ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... "But if ye warn't needed at yer mill cos the iron beast was a weavin' and a reelin' and a dewin' of it all, how'd yer feel? Wi' six children, mebbe, biggest ony seven or eight, a crazin' ye for bread. And ye mayn't send 'em out, cos o' labour-laws, to pick up a halfpenny for theerselves; and tha passon be all agin yer, cos ye warn't thrifty and didn't gev a penny for the forrin blacks out o' the six shillin' a week? Would yer think iron beast wor o' use thin? or would yer ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... pillow-slips 5 to 15 cents, night-dresses 15 cents to 1 dollar, petticoats 30 cents to 1 dollar, etc., everything in proportion. We thought one dollar per dozen all round was exorbitant, but when hardly anything is less than eightpence (as a cent, according to the exchange, is more than a halfpenny) ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... snort; "economy's dead. No one cares about saving money any more. No one cares about the value of money. We are asked excessive prices and we pay them. We eat, drink and are merry—or approximately so—and be hanged to you! With the exception of the halfpenny stamp we put on circulars I can think of nothing that has not gone up or, in other words, lost buying power. I defy anyone to name ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... out to play, The moon does shine as bright as day; Leave your supper, and leave your sleep, And meet your playfellows in the street, Come with a whoop and come with a call, Come with a good will or not at all. Up the ladder and down the wall, A halfpenny roll will serve us all. You find milk and I'll find flour, And we'll have pudding in half ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... in Great Britain. It further appeared that the agricultural progress of Great Britain was more than four times that of Ireland; in which agricultural wages varied from sixpence to one shilling a day; the average of the country being about eightpence-halfpenny; and that the earnings of the labourers came, on an average of the whole class, to from two shillings to two and sixpence a week or thereabouts for the year round. Thus circumstanced, the commissioners ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... fears, possibilities of virtue and of crime, a life to be made or marred. We shower money on generals and on nobles, we keep high-born paupers living on the national charity, we squander wealth with both hands on army and navy, on churches and palaces; but we grudge every halfpenny that increases the education rate and howl down every proposal to build decent houses for the poor. We cover our heartlessness and indifference with fine phrases about sapping the independence of the poor and destroying their ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... suppress it by law, would be very injurious to the trade of the place. The only way to supersede it is to reduce the postage to 1d. Were this done, the post-office would be preferred, for its greater certainty, even though the carriers would go for a halfpenny. The post-office would unquestionably receive ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... acres. I put the rental at 30s. an acre. You know what you get, Mr. Morton, for the land that lies next to it. And I think twenty-eight years' purchase isn't more than it's worth. Those are my ideas as to price, Mr. Morton. There isn't a halfpenny owing on it—not in the ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... And I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst haue it to buy Ginger bread: Hold, there is the very Remuneration I had of thy Maister, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou Pidgeon-egge of discretion. O & the heauens were so pleased, that thou wert but my Bastard; What a ioyfull father wouldst thou make mee? Goe to, thou hast it ad dungil, at the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... politicians, idlers upon town, shop-men, and drunkards. Thither also Horne Tooke and Dunning used to adjourn after dining with Taffy Kenyon at the Chancery Lane eating-house, where the three friends were wont to stay their hunger for sevenpence halfpenny each. "Dunning and myself," Horne Tooke said boastfully, when he recalled these economical repasts, "were generous, for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny apiece; but Kenyon, who always knew the value of money, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... supplied it, they were taken by the hands at pleasure, and swine caught them without difficulty. A single sweep of a small scoopnet would bring up half a bushel, carts were filled with them as fast as if picked up on dry land, and in the fishing season they were commonly sold at a shilling (eightpence halfpenny, or about seventeen cents) a bushel. The increase in the size of the trout was as remarkable as the multiplication ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... in the streets; and next morning, being very hungry, he got up and walked about and asked everybody he met to give him a halfpenny to keep him from starving. But nobody stayed to answer him, and only two or three gave him a halfpenny; so that the poor boy was soon quite weak and faint for the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Dolly's dinner would be ready for her before they could reach home, if old Oliver had not forgotten it. It seemed a great pity to leave his new post so early. Most passers-by, certainly, had appeared not to see him at all; but he had already received fivepence halfpenny, chiefly in halfpence, from ladies who were out for their morning's walk; and Dolly was enjoying herself very much in the sunshine, receiving all the attention which he could spare from his crossing. However a beginning was made. The broom and the crossing ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... said that you enter this place of amusement gratis, for, though a slight tribute of seventy-five centimes (circa seven-pence halfpenny sterling) is required for the admission of every person, yet you may take refreshment to the amount of that sum, without again putting your hand into your pocket; because the counter mark, given at the door, is received at the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... "you've got a thundering lot to be thankful for too. To begin with, she'll wait for you, and then, if necessary, marry on twopence-halfpenny a year, and make you comfortable on it too. As far as her father is concerned, she's very devoted to him, and would never do anything to annoy him if she could possibly help it, as I easily spotted the night we dined with them at ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... aunty! Complexions don't matter tuppence-halfpenny in Rhodesia. You surely didn't imagine I was going to carry ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... father," replied Newton, "for I have not a halfpenny. Do you know what became of my chest, that I left on board ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... her at school on the Sunday morning, her mother has sent her to the shop, and perhaps told her to tell a falsehood about it; if her hand is clammy with lollipops, or there is a perfume of peppermint all round her, or down clatters a halfpenny in the middle of church, it is ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... land in Kent, And if you'll love me, love me now; Twopence-halfpenny is my rent, I cannot come every day to woo. Chorus. Twopence-halfpenny is his rent, And he cannot ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... had no peace after that. The jokes were frightful, and merciless against him. "Hullo, Dobbin," one wag would say, "here's good news in the paper. Sugars is ris', my boy." Another would set a sum—"If a pound of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much must Dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow from all the circle of young knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered that the selling of goods by retail is a shameful and infamous practice, meriting the contempt and scorn of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "I'd like yer to come to-morrer," and then as she passed she dropped a halfpenny ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... I am a gentleman, and have been doing nothing. That a man can do so and not starve is nowadays not even a paradox. Every halfpenny I possess is stolen money; but it has been stolen legally, and, what is of some practical importance to you, I have no means of restoring it to the rightful owners even if I felt inclined to. Do you know what ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... "Tea at elevenpence halfpenny," cried Tinkler Tam, who jogged round the country with petty wares, which he sold in exchange for rabbit-skins, old clothes, and other debris of a house, "and a glass of whisky free! Ma certes? let me get a sight o' that," and London John was brought to a standstill while Tam read ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... candidly, though I am afraid it is a dreadful confession, I have'nt felt wretched by any means since I left home. Poor old Daddy! I'm sorry he was bothered about such a trivial thing as a marriage settlement; perhaps it is that he wants twopence-halfpenny to square his accounts. Pump him, will you, and if it should be this that's preying on his mind, you may tell him he can draw on me for the amount, and I'll toss him double or quits when I come home. I suppose he's pretty nearly spliced by ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... about it; and if you want a horse to ride, we'll see if we can't find you a horse to ride. I dare say you think your old father a terrible martinet, but it's all for your good, you know. You must say to yourself when you feel dissatisfied about some little twopenny-halfpenny ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... Mrs. Harper, this is very amusing. You surely must be aware that your husband has not the slightest occasion for anybody's services in the management of his affairs. One can't make something out of nothing, and when there is not a halfpenny left"— ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... sterling money; only of latter time, in relation to the necessity of the poor, and exchange of great money, a small piece of copper, called a farthing, or fourth part of a penny, hath been permitted to be coined; and so likewise an halfpenny ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... Rosanna came in this evening, she bought the fellow to that. 'It will just do,' she says, 'to put my cuffs and collars in, and keep them from being crumpled in my box.' One and ninepence, Mr. Cuff. As I live by bread, not a halfpenny more!" ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins |
