"Pence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... class ticket, as the distance was short, to see what first-class passengers enjoyed. There is a great difference indeed between first and third. Third-class is a penny a mile, first is two pence half-penny; third is simply horrible with filth, first is as luxurious as carpets, curtains, cushions, spring seats and easy chairs can make it. There is not nearly so much difference in price, as difference in style. As a first-class passenger I was assisted in and ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... was delicate and quick, her intelligence swift and strong; she bought old books at bookstalls with pence that she saved by going without her dinner. The keeper of the stall, a shrewd old soul, explained some hard points to her, and chose good volumes for her, and lent others to this solitary little student in her wooden shoes and with her pale ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... duty for a long time; the carpet was threadbare; there was an absence of those little touches of comfort with which refined women of even modest means love to surround themselves; a sure instinct told him that here were two women who had to carefully count their pence, and lay out their shillings with caution. Genteel, quiet poverty, without doubt—and yet, on the other side of the little bay, a near kinsman whose rent-roll must run to ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... crimson!" cried McNab, diving his beef-steakish hands into his tunic pockets. "Why, so I did! I'm the biggest giddy fool at that kind of wheeze that ever lived. It's a knock-out, ain't it? Never mind—'honi soit qui mal y eighteen pence,' as ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... City) This unique, noncommercial economy is supported financially by an annual contribution (known as Peter's Pence) from Roman Catholic dioceses throughout the world; by the sale of postage stamps, coins, medals, and tourist mementos; by fees for admission to museums; and by the sale of publications. Investments and real estate income also account for a sizable portion ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was well entertained by an Englishman and presented to the Pope, who rewarded him liberally and gave him letters to the King of Spain. And by the King of Spain also he was well entertained, and granted twenty pence a day. Thence, desiring to return into his own country, he departed in 1579, and being come into England, he went into the Court, and told all his travel to the Council, who, considering that he had spent a great part of his youth ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... City): This unique, noncommercial economy is supported financially by contributions (known as Peter's Pence) from Roman Catholics throughout the world, the sale of postage stamps and tourist mementos, fees for admission to museums, and the sale of publications. The incomes and living standards of lay workers are comparable to, or somewhat better than, ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the money of the poor infatuated creatures who will ruin both soul and body in gin-drinking; but the master of the gin-shop may be heard to say, "I don't force the people to drink; they will have gin, and if I do not sell to them somebody else will." The story of "The Fools' Pence," which follows, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... hundred and ninety thousand pounds a year, less then a tenth part of what the military establishment of France then cost in time of peace. The daily pay of a private in the Life Guards was four shillings, in the Blues two shillings and sixpence, in the Dragoons eighteen pence, in the Foot Guards tenpence, and in the line eightpence. The discipline was lax, and indeed could not be otherwise. The common law of England knew nothing of courts martial, and made no distinction, in time of peace, between a soldier and any other subject; nor could the government ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... walked towards the Spiaggia del Sepulcro, where M. de Bragadin's gondola was waiting for me. As I was getting near the Ponte del Paglia I saw the same masked woman attentively looking at some wonderful monster shewn for a few pence. I went up to her; and asked her why she had struck me with ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... knelt down and shot him in the stomach when he was only a few yards off. The round, sharp stone on the club being an extra fine one, I soon exchanged it with Kimi for two sticks of tobacco (the chief article of trade in New Guinea, and worth about three half-pence ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... the beauties of Art and Music is to add those beauties, by expression and the power of memory, to the self. Thus we may grow more beautiful, just as surely as by thinking ever in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence, we grow more sordid and mercenary. It is a perfectly commonsense process. Furthermore, the appreciation of beauty and of artistic expression develops our power of keener appreciation. Evolution in music cannot stop, for spirit is behind it: and the spirit within ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... either side was stirred; and the good housewife commanded the little printer's respect as he looked round on a kitchen as tidy as if it were in his own country. And the bargain was struck that Ambrose Birkenholt should serve Master Hansen for his meals and two pence a week, while he was to sleep at the little house of Mistress Randall, who would keep his clothes and linen ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the scruff of our necks. Wouldn't give up. Wouldn't quit. The yellow in West came out half a dozen times. When the ten-day blizzard caught us, he lay down and yelped like a cur. I wouldn't have given a plugged six-pence for our chances. But Tom went out into it, during a little lull, and brought back with him a timber wolf. How he found it, how he killed it, Heaven alone knows. He was coated with ice from head to foot. That wolf kept us and the dogs alive for a week. Each day, when ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... went to a cupboard in the corner. From some hidden receptacle he extracted a coil of ship's tobacco and a wooden pipe shaped into a negro's head, with little beads for eyes, such as may be bought for a few pence in shops near the London docks. He returned to his seat, filled the pipe, lit it with a burning bough, and fell to smoking with lingering whiffs, gazing into the fire with dark gleaming eyes as motionless as the glinting beads in ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... askest Him.' Oh, my friends, if you had felt but for a single day, that terrible temptation, the temptation of poverty, and debt, and care, which leads so many a one to sell their souls for a few paltry pence, to them of as much value as pounds would be to you;—if, I say, you had once felt that temptation in all its weight, you would not merely sacrifice, as I ask you now to do, some superfluity, which you ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... two solid golden sufferins. And that," said Mrs Bowldler, "was for some time the most astonishin' part of the business. Two solid golden sufferins: and low!—as the sayin' is—low and behold, eighteen pence in small silver!" ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... genuine cigars, it is a mystery where they all come from. Yet they say smuggling is a thing of the past! Or do the gentle tradesmen, to discourage smuggling, manufacture their own Havannas? Good tobacco, shag and bird's-eye, may be had at eighteen pence per pound. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... cleared Mrs. Brock as to the three-and-fourpence, but she 'snuffed the battle from afar,' and rushed into a scheme of taking the clothing-club into her own hands, collecting the pence, having the goods from London, and selling them herself—she would propose it on the very first opportunity to the Dusautoys. Winifred asked if she had not a good deal ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The Pope sent to Normandy a consecrated banner, and a ring containing a hair which he warranted to have grown on the head of Saint Peter. He blessed the enterprise; and cursed Harold; and requested that the Normans would pay 'Peter's Pence'—or a tax to himself of a penny a year on every house—a little more regularly in future, if they could make ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... child wille it not grefe, that lytylle day starne[33]? Mak, with youre leyfe, let me gyf youre barne Bot vj pence. ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... bread, for instance, is, at Paris, one penny the pound, and in London at eight-pence the quartern loaf, which weighs just four French pounds, the price is exactly double. If every thing was conducted in a fair way, corn, from all countries, where it is equally as cheap as in France, might be brought and ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... an' shoved her big face intil mines, an' said she wud like a sooveneer best. To blazes wi' sooveneers! An' she dragged me awa' to a shop, an' I had to buy her a silly-like wee tie that cost me eichteen-pence-ha'penny; an' then she wanted a lang ride on the caur, an' that burst fivepence; an' she nabbed the remainin' bawbee for a keepsake.' The reciter paused as if ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... cattle and pigs for killing has afforded an opportunity to convert a section of the slaughter-houses into one of the great People's Kitchens. Few eat there, however. Just before noon and at noon the people come in thousands for the stew, which costs forty pfennigs (about 5 pence) a quart, and a quart is supposed to be enough for a ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... Jonathan Swift) To the Tradesmen, Shop-Keepers, Farmers, and Common-People in general, of the Kingdom of Ireland; concerning the Brass half-pence ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... supposed to exist, "Sir, there are rascals in all countries"; or the answer Garrick got when he asked him "Why did not you make me a Tory, when we lived so much together?" "Why," said Johnson, pulling a heap of half-pence from his pocket, "did not the King make these guineas?" Or the true story he liked to tell of Boswell who, he said, "in the year 1745 was a fine boy, wore a white cockade, and prayed for King James, till one of his uncles ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... noon that strangely-assorted pair, the sordid old man and the gentle child, set out in a peasant's waggon, which he had hired for a few pence, to ride across the meadows to Boston. The morning was very fair. In the night the mist had flown, and now the sun shone out warm and cheerful, giving the necessary brightness to the scene. It lay tenderly on the quaint fen village, and the little gilt vane on the church steeple glittered ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... interesting cotemporaneous view of the progress of the European discoveries and settlements in America. A chapter on Medals and Coins contains attractive matter, particularly that portion which relates to the "Rosa Americana coins," connected as they are with the "Wood's half-pence," immortalized by Dean Swift. The notes and biographical sketches by the editor, scattered through the volume, add materially to its value—as also the numerous maps and engravings. We have heard hints that some small suggestions of disinterested ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... woman in the neighborhood, who had from me a list of forty dishes, which she prepared for us at different times, in which there entered neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. This whim suited me the better at this time from the cheapness of it,—not costing us above eighteen pence sterling each per week. I have since kept several lents most strictly, leaving the common diet for that, and that for the common, abruptly, without the least inconvenience. So that, I think, there is little in the advice of making those changes by easy gradations. I went ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... of Russia, it was reported to me in Muscovy that the Turks and Armenians pay the tenth penny custom of all the wares they bring into the Emperor's land, and above that they pay for all such goods as they weigh at the Emperor's beam two pence of the rouble, which the buyer or seller must make report of to the master of the beam. They also pay a certain horse toll, which is in divers places of his realm four pence of ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... tax on all estates, real and personal, to eighteen-pence in the pound, fully rated; and the tax on the profits of trades and professions, with other taxes, do, I suppose, make full ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... laws duly published in the press was that hogs should not be "suffered to goe or range in any of the streets or lands." In 1684 eight watchmen were appointed at twelve-pence a night. But read them for yourselves,—they are worth the trouble you will have ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... turn. If the object of Charles Lloyd had been to accumulate wealth, his disposition might have been gratified to the utmost, but the tedious and unintellectual occupation of adjusting pounds, shillings, and pence, suited, he thought, those alone who had never, eagle-like, gazed at the sun, or bathed their temples in the dews of Parnassus. The feelings of this young man were ardent; his reading and information extensive; ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... I would follow her, To see her in her grave; And buy a wreath with borrowed pence, If nothing I ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... gained the last low level. Fever lent him a brief strength, and the cold damp was grateful to his hot skin. None were abroad in the Cowgate; and that was lucky for, in this black hole of Edinburgh, even so old and poor a man was liable to be set upon by thieves, on the chance of a few shillings or pence. ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... and the country baith, St. Ronan's—it's the jinketing and the jirbling wi' tea and wi' trumpery that brings our nobles to nine-pence, and mony a het ha'-house to a hired ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... stands so infinitely nearer to the Priestly Code; the relationship is not an arbitrary one, but arises from their place in time. Ezekiel is the forerunner of the priestly legislator in the Pentateuch; his pence and people, to some extent invested with the colouring of the bygone period of the monarchy, are the antecedents of the congregation of the tabernacle and the second temple. Against this supposition there ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... and glances through it, smiling at the old, graceless turns of speech, and perhaps for the love of Alma Mater (which may be still extant and flourishing) buys it, not without haggling, for some pence—this book may alone preserve a memory of James Walter Ferrier and Robert ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... point of artificial accomplishments very little his superior. She had been good-humouredly working and drudging for her life all her life, and was a sober steady-going person, with matter-of-fact ideas about the butcher and baker, and the division of pence into farthings. But she was a good plain sample of a nature that is ever, in the mass, better, truer, higher, nobler, quicker to feel, and much more constant to retain, all tenderness and pity, self-denial ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... betts shall not instruct, or speak in the Game without Consent, or being first asked; If after he is Advertised hereof he Offend in this nature, for every fault he shall instantly forfeit Two-pence for the good of the Company, or not be suffered to ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... When I awoke the sun was up and bright, while all trace of the night-storm had disappeared. I wondered at first where I was. Seeing the fresh straw lying about, an idea struck me that I could earn a few pence by a little handiwork. I thereupon commenced making some straw baskets, the like of which you have often seen myself and fellow-prisoners manufacture. By the time I had completed two or three the men came again into the barn and began to work with their flails. ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... been the motive, the effect was deplorable. The articles, at once collected into a pamphlet (price two pence), as the "Report of the Pall Mall Gazette's Secret Commission," and headed by a laudatory quotation from one of the late Lord Shaftesbury's indiscreetly philanthropic speeches, were spread broadcast about every street and lane in London. The brochure of sixteen pages divided ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... preserved an out-of-doors dress into the third summer; it did not look shabby. Her mantle was in its second year only; the original fawn colour had gone to an indeterminate grey. Her hat of brown straw was a possession for ever; it underwent new trimming, at an outlay of a few pence, when that became unavoidable. Yet Virginia could not have been judged anything but a lady. She wore her garments as only a lady can (the position and movement of the arms has much to do with this), and had the step never to be acquired by ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... space. He was one of the flotsam and jetsam of life. No one would have the work of his brains, and his unskilled hands failed to earn anything for him save a few dry crusts. He had made desperate efforts to win a hearing. Whilst his few pence lasted, and his inkpot was full, he wrote several short stories, and left them here and there at the offices of various magazines. He had no permanent address, he would call for the reply, he said; and so he did, till his coat burst at the seams ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... distinctly reached the attent organs of our fair listeners—"yonder, my brave men, stand the red-coats, your own and your country's foe—their army a mongrel crew of Hessian hirelings, fighting for eight-pence a day, or thereabouts; of tories, who come to ravage and enslave the land that gave them birth; and lastly, of Indians, dreaming of scalps and plunder! Are you not better men? Have you not nobler objects? Call you not ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... must go the way, too, of all flesh, Or sometimes only wear a week or two;— Love's the first net which spreads its deadly mesh; Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days, Where still we flutter on for pence or praise." ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... this subject; who tells us, however, that as early as 1252, Henry III. sent to the Tower a white bear, which had been brought to him as a present from Norway, when the Sheriffs of London were commanded to pay four pence every ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... may possibly explain the lavish attention that is often tendered them. At any rate, various members of the delegation wished "long life to the iligant 'merican gintleman," and hinted in terms unmistakable that pence would be acceptable. The holy father applied his cane vigorously to the ragged rears of the more presumptuous, and bade them begone, but still they ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... October evening, when the fierce gusts of wind from the sea shook the old house to its very foundation and set the ragged tapestries swaying on the walls, Isabella's father died, leaving her only the ruinous house, a handful of copper pence, and a single golden florin. The sum of money was enough to keep body and soul together for a few weeks, but what was Isabella to do when the little pittance was gone? Her father had once counseled her to go to the King and ask for his protection; but the King's castle was ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... we give to the offerings made yearly by the faithful for the support of the Pope and the government of the Church? A. We call the offerings made yearly by the faithful for the support of the Pope and government of the Church "Peter's pence." It derives its name from the early custom of sending yearly a penny from every house to the successor of St. Peter, as a mark of respect or as an alms ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... helpless and forlorn, he went forth to battle with the world. A neighbour had told him that big ships sailed from Portsmouth, so towards Portsmouth he bent his steps, inquiring his way as he went. A few of those who knew him, and had bought his mother's oranges and bobbins, gave him a few pence, and filled his wallet with crusts of bread, and scraps of cheese and bacon, so that he had not to ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... twenty guineas, but he overlooks the fact that that was then its market value. Had he asked a thousand pounds for it, his sanity would certainly have been open to question. 'Why, when I was a boy,' he says, 'you could buy first editions of Shelley, Keats, or Scott for pence.' Precisely: which was their current value; by no stretch of the imagination can they be considered bargains. His business is, and has always been, to buy and sell; not to hoard books on the chance that they will become valuable 'some day.' Neither ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... Several of us had fortunately some money about us, and as long as that lasted we purchased provisions from our keeper. For a Spanish dollar, which was worth five shillings and a penny, he would only give us five Dutch skellings, or the value of about two and six-pence; and even for this he gave us no more victuals than we could have bought for five-pence, if we had been at liberty to go into the town; so that, instead of five shillings for the Spanish dollar, we in reality had only five-pence. During my ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... would have had to take, had he been an honest working man—people refused to give it to him, but freely gave him a good deal of gratuitous advice instead, and sometimes threatened the donation of other favours which, in many instances, are said to be more numerous than ha'pence. ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... some incoherent expressions which are supposed to have been either a foreboding of his approaching dissolution or some wishes relative to the disposal of his little property, consisting chiefly of half-pence which he had buried in different parts of the garden. On the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach house, stopped to bark, staggered, ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have walked eight miles a-night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes in which they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington, who begin life as piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence a-week, and the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at which he worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in which this son has since come to be taught. These two poor boys will appear before you to-night, to take the second-class prize in chemistry. There ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... City of New York, Merchants, appeared in this Court and freely and voluntarily submitted to the jurisdiction thereof And severally stipulated to the Register of this Court in the Sum of Two Thousand four Hundred and nine Pounds, four Shillings and eleven Pence three Farthings, said to be the Amount of the said Gold, Silver etc. on Condition to bring the said Money into this Court when this Court should order the same at any Time within a year and a Day from the said thirty first Day of March then last past, as by the said Orders and Proceedings of ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... me now to speak of forgiveness. You have read the story, told by our Lord, of the debtor who owed the ten thousand talents, and was forgiven the debt; and how he afterward treated a fellow-debtor who owed him a hundred pence; and how the first debtor was delivered to the tormentors because he would not forgive his fellow-servant. "So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you,"—says our Lord—"if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts." ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... England, had so lessened the demand for that article, that a considerable quantity had accumulated in the magazines of the East India company. They urged the minister to take off the import American duty of three pence per pound, and offered, in lieu of it, to pay double that sum on exportation. Instead of acceding to this proposition, drawbacks were allowed on tea exported to the colonies; and the export duty on that article was taken off. These encouragements induced the company to make shipments on their own ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." The alchemist Khunrath says somewhere, the cost of making gold amounts to thirty dollars; we understand this when we remember that Jesus was sold for thirty pence. ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... he would not wrong any Body of a Quarter of an Hour's Labour for all the World. Th'art a very honest Fellow, I believe, said his Friend; but prithee what does thy whole Day's Work come to? Eighteen-pence, reply'd Lostall: Look, there 'tis for thee, said the Gentleman. Ay; but an't like your Worship, who must make an End of my Day's Business? (the Soldier ask'd.) Get any Body else to do it for thee, and I'll pay him. Can'st prevail with one of thy Fellow-Soldiers ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... came off. One horse was scratched, another bolted, the rider of a third turned out to have lost a buckle and three half-pence and so was an ounce and a half under weight, a fourth knocked down the post near Rinderness churchyard, and was held to have done it with his left instead of his right knee, and so had run at the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... risen; twenty Louis an acre is now the average price in the purchase of a large farm. There are no tithes, but a small rate for the officiating minister. Labourers earn thirty sous per day (about fifteen-pence English), and women, in picking stones, &c. half that sum. Rents, since the Revolution, are all in money; but there are some instances of personal service, and which are held to be legal even under the present state of things, provided ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... that halo of early sanctity, she was held to be seriously tainted with heresy. She allowed bishops to be irregularly multiplied, and consecrated contrary to the Roman rule by one bishop only; tithes and firstfruits were not collected with any regularity; above all, the collection of Peter's pence, being the sum of one penny due from every household, was always scandalously in arrears, nay, often no attempt was made to collect it at all. She did many wrong things, but it may shrewdly be suspected that this was one of the very worst ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... Tigg,—You always WERE full of your chaff, but you must have been drinking when you wrote all that cock-and-a-bull gammon. Thirty pounds! No; nor fifteen; nor as many pence. I never heard of the party you mention by the name of the Count of Monte Cristo; and as for the Prince, he's as likely to be setting out for Boulogne with an eagle as you are to start a monkey and a barrel- organ in Jericho; ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... from other villages and disinter them, unless frightened off with dogs, is strictly true. Country workmen are so well acquainted with these facts that they frequently undertake to destroy all the vizcacheras on an estate for so paltry a sum as ten-pence in English money for each one, and yet will make double the money at this work than they can at any other. By day they partly open up, then cover up the burrows with a great quantity of earth, and by night go round with dogs to drive away the vizcachas ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... there. Good of some kind has been somewhere at work. Either knowingly or unwittingly some one has been "overcoming evil with good," for Mrs White's husband is down at the docks toiling hard to earn a few pence wherewith to increase the family funds. And who can tell what a terrible yet hopeful war is going on within that care-worn, sin-worn man? To toil hard with shattered health is burden enough. What must it be when, along with the outward toil, there is a constant ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... supplies—rum, chiefly, I believe. Gentlemen like you come into this country to deal, replevin, or what not, and we say to you all, 'Don't tread on us—that is all.' We shall not look into your parcels, nor lie awake of nights to hear alarms; but harm Isaac and Jacob Cannon one ha'pence and levari ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... it, for we—despite the greyness of our lives—have something within ourselves to which we can turn, but they have weighed even hopes and dreams with the weights of shame, and found their poor value in pounds, shillings and pence. That is why their eyes as they pass you in the streets are so blank and expressionless. Each new day brings them nothing, they have learnt all things, and the groundwork ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... future novelist had fondly cherished in his precocious little brain, had to be abandoned. At the age of eleven the delicate child was called upon to do his part toward maintaining the family. He was engaged, at six-pence a week, to paste labels on blacking bottles. He was poorly clothed, ill fed, forced to live in the cheapest place to be found, and to associate with the roughest kind of companions. This experience was so bitter and galling to the sensitive ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... me of an amusing experience which occurred to my housekeeper last Friday. She was ordering a little fish for my lunch, and the fishmonger, when asked the price of herrings, replied, 'Three ha'pence for one and a-half,' to which my housekeeper said, 'Then I will have twelve.' How much did she pay?" He smiled happily ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... Mother Bunch prepared soup only two or three times a week at most, on a stove that stood on the landing of the fourth story. On other days she ate it cold. There remained nine or ten pence a week for clothes and lodging. By rare good fortune, her situation was in one respect an exception to the lot of many others. Agricola, that he might not wound her delicacy, had come to a secret arrangement with the housekeeper, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... if needs be Purchase—that animal for me! By vivisection, at expense Of half an hour and eighteen pence How brain secretes ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... that the thief, being a strong man, had bound the steer's legs with thongs and thrown the animal over his shoulder, and so made off with it. And being proved guilty, he was made to pay a fine of twenty pence. ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... edifying than amusing; for much of the author's learning is thrown away upon the mass of audiences, who are only waiters between the acts. They cannot appreciate the nice distinctions between "buttocks and rounds," neither does everybody perceive the wit of Joey's elegant toast, "Cheap beef and two-pence for the waiter!" This kind of erudition—like that expended upon Chinese literature and the arrow-headed hieroglyphics of Asia Minor—is confined to too small a class of the public for extensive popularity, though it may be highly amusing to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... leading into Cannon Row, and said to the landlord behind the bar, 'What is your very best—the VERY best—ale, a glass?' For the occasion was a festive one, for some reason: I forget why. It may have been my birthday, or somebody else's. 'Two-pence,' says he. 'Then,' says I, 'just draw me a glass of that, if you please, with a good head to it.' The landlord looked at me, in return, over the bar, from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face, and, instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... isn't anything they wouldn't thry, if they thought there was a chance of making a ha'pence at it. They've murdered men afore to-night, and they would just as lief slip up here and cut your wizen as they would ate a piece of macaroni. Whisht now, and I'll give ye the partic'lars and inshtruct ye what to do. It wouldn't be safe for ye to git up and ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... rising; but that is a facon de parler, nothing more. We are apt to sigh over the times when unique Caxtons could be had—ay, in our grandsires' time—for less than L20. In the sixteenth century twenty pence paid for them. But let us recollect that our estimation of an article depends on its cost so largely. What we acquire cheaply we hold cheaply. Should we have heard of many of our great modern collectors had old quotations survived? ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... getting the musician sent back to his own country, Arrived at Charing Cross, he looked longingly towards the club, and ruefully at the contents of his pocket. Then with a sigh he turned into a little restaurant and dined for eighteen-pence. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... loss of time, Although it grieved him sore, Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, Would ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... of his resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman, stonecutter; he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells, mixed mortar, tied up fagots, tended goats on a mountain, and all for a few pence, for he only obtained two or three days' work occasionally by offering himself at a shamefully low price, in order to tempt the avarice of employers ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... cannon, but if he succeed in so doing, he receives a sou; the reader may suppose that a miss takes place at the rate of about seven times to a hit; and after several young countrymen had been trying in vain, and had lost a good many pence, they began to grumble and declare that it was next to impossible to hit the cannon more than once in a hundred times, upon which the proprietor himself took the cross-bow and at the same distance as the others stood, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... dear, I must go down. The Duchess of St Bungay is here, and Mr Palliser will be angry if I don't do pretty to her. The Duke is to be the new President of the Council, or rather, I believe he is President now. I try to remember it all, but it is so hard when one doesn't really care two pence how it goes. Not but what I'm very anxious that Mr Palliser should be Chancellor of the Exchequer. And now, will you remain here, or will you come down with me, or will you go to your own room, and I'll call for you when I go down to dinner? ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... large mace, white sander slic't in thin slices the weight of six pence, made with a chicken and a crust of manchet, take it morning ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... that discovered Stratford; and it is the Peter's pence of American tourists that now largely support the town. At Stratford, Washington Irving jostles the Master for the first place, and when we drink at the George W. Childs fountain we piously pour a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... three in the morning. But the money I had received was just double of what I esteemed it when the woman paid me, of which at this instant I have several pieces to show, consisting of ninepennies, thirteen pence-halfpennies," &c.[31] ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... my heart: it ran thus, "A subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford, and for enabling him to improve himself in Writing and English Grammar." Few contributed more than five shillings, and none went beyond ten-and-six-pence: enough, however, was collected to free me from my apprenticeship (the sum my master received was six pounds) and to maintain me for a few months, during which I assiduously attended ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... Lauder's groat is the English groat of four pence, sterling. The groat Scots of less value had not been coined for ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... country-village is not easily stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great cities, but it holds every straw and entangles every insect that lights upon it. It soon became rumored in the town that the young master was a wonderful shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single ball; some, that he snuffed a candle five times out of six at ten paces, and that he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "Fifteen-pence halfpenny. Rascally dear, isn't it? but the old rogue makes one pay double for the risk! You are making his fortune, you ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... would save you, if Friend * * * * * had been immediately hangd, without benefit of clergy, which (being a Quaker I presume) he could not reasonably insist upon. Why, after slaving twelve months in your assign-business, you will be enabled to declare seven pence in the Pound in all human probabilty. B.B., he should be hanged. Trade will never re-flourish in this land till such a Law is establish'd. I write big not to save ink but eyes, mine having been troubled with reading thro' ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... First, the agitating labourer is strongly of opinion that, besides giving the land and subscribing, and paying a large voluntary rate, the landlord ought to defray the annual expenses and save him the weekly pence. The sectarian bodies, though neutralised by their own divisions, are ill-affected behind their mask, and would throw it off if they got the opportunity. The one thing, and the one thing only, that keeps them quiet is the question of expense. Suppose by a ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... on you heretofore is that your vapid talk has operated as a wire to conduct my electricity to the receptive and kindly earth; but if you intrude upon my magnetisms without any such life-preserver, your future in this world is not worth a crossed six-pence. Your silence would break the reed that your talk but bruised. The only people with whom it is a joy to sit silent are the people with whom it is a joy to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... had credit, I might go to a shop and take out more goods than perhaps I ought to do, without regard to whether I would be able to pay them or not; whereas if a man did not have that liberty, but went into a shop with only a few pence in his pocket, he might make it spin out better, or more to his own advantage. '7934. Do you think he might get his meal cheaper by going to another shop and paying for it in cash?-He might, or he might take better care ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... wife spread out her little cloth again, and laid upon it her golden apple. The Empress again came that way, went up to her, and said, "Sell me that apple of thine, and I'll give thee for it as many pence as thou canst hold in thy lap!"—But she replied, "Nay, my sovereign lady! money for it I will not take, but let me pass one more night in my own husband's room!"—And the Empress took the apple, and let her go there. But first the Empress caressed and kissed her ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges, and make away themselves, if their corn and cattle miscarry; though they have abundance left, as [1858]Agellius notes. [1859]Valerius makes mention of one that in a famine sold a mouse for 200 pence, and famished himself: such are their cares, [1860]griefs and perpetual fears. These symptoms are elegantly expressed by Theophrastus in his character of a covetous man; [1861]"lying in bed, he asked his wife whether she shut the trunks and chests fast, the cap-case be sealed, and whether ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... richness which the cacao employed may not possess of itself. In the West Indies they rarely add anything to cacoa but arnatto (sometimes a little fresh butter), though it is often scented and sweetened, and sold in little rolls at five-pence and ten-pence each, currency. It is always boiled with milk, which, though very indigestible when boiled and taken alone, seems to lose this quality when taken with chocolate. Chocolate thus made is much drank, when cold, in the middle of the day, and is considered, both ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... absolution from a priest, bequeathing his horse to a certain kinsman, in trust, to dispose of for the benefit of the priest and the poor. But when he was dead his kinsman sold it for a hundred pence, and spent the money in debauchery. But how soon does punishment follow guilt! Thirty days had scarcely elapsed when the apparition of the deceased appeared to him in his sleep, uttering these words: "How is it you have so unjustly misapplied the alms entrusted ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... shillings, and a subscriber of six shillings, two objects, who may each of them receive five shillings, or one woman when she lies in may receive ten shillings, or one poor widow or sick person may receive nine-pence per week during the quarter. In the first nine years of this establishment, the sum of L417. 16s. was distributed among sick and indigent females, and since that time the society has been upon the increase, but no report has been printed. Subscriptions and donations for this charity ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... being tried for my life, as Dyck Calhoun is going to be, and if I knew that friends of mine were standing off because of a few pounds, shillings, and pence, I think I'd be ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... whom one may include some few novelists, is really a very independent person. I am not now speaking of those who write basely and crudely, to please a popular taste. They have their reward; and after all they are little more than mountebanks, the end of whose show is to gather up pence in the ring. ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a preventive against the 'pokkes' of sheep and cattle); but especially from the farm of indulgences. When much building was in progress the Canons' incomes were afterwards specially taxed, and once or twice Peter's-pence were actually withheld from the Pope and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... New Haven were framing their first codes, larceny above the value of twelve pence was a capital crime in England—as it had been since the time of Henry I.—Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... much a matter of pounds, shillings and pence that the bare idea of his finding himself a day further away from office frightens him to death," he said. "We are all like the pawns, to be moved about ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... itself is golden ore, And health the best gold-beater: Without a sigh for two pence more, We passed ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... the lady, in your place I should simplify it. I should say she belonged to the parish too. Give an address, and have some one there to answer questions. How is the clerk to know? He isn't likely to be over-anxious about it—his fee is eighteen-pence. The clerk makes his profit out of you, after you are married. The same rule applies to the parson. He will have your names supplied to him on a strip of paper, with dozens of other names; and he will read them out all together in one inarticulate jumble in church. You will stand ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... In pence and honour rest you here my sons: (The) readiest champions, repose you here, Secure from worldly chances and mishaps: Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, Here grow no damned grudges: here are no storms, No noise, but silence and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... Leczinska, going to mass, met old Marechal Villars, leaning on a wooden crutch not worth fifteen pence. She rallied him about it, and the Marshal told her that he had used it ever since he had received a wound which obliged him to add this article to the equipments of the army. Her Majesty, smiling, said she thought this crutch so unworthy of him that she ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-six-pence[311-15] weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... or two, were purchased; but we were informed that their flavour then, and when in perfection, was not to be compared. Vegetables (which were brought from the opposite shore) were in great plenty. The beef was small and lean, and sold at about two-pence halfpenny per pound: mutton was in proportion still smaller, and poultry dear, but not ill-tasted. The marketplace was contiguous ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins |
