"Threepence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... right enough," he said. "No great things—cost you thrippence, I s'pose. Tea tuppence-ha'penny, and that's fivepence- ha'penny, and a ha'penny for wood, and tuppence-ha'penny for a loaf makes eightpence-ha'penny. There's more'n ninepence over, Margy, and all I want is a pint of beer and a screw. Threepence—come now." ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... gave me a little satisfaction by saying that if a man was ass enough to write about "exponents of the game," he was probably paid a penny a line for what he wrote, and had sacrificed me for the sake of threepence. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... socialism profitable, more profitable perhaps than socialism, and he actually gave five-and-sixpence for the volume. With the ninepence already in their pockets, you will see that they were now possessors of quite a small fortune. Six-and-threepence! It wouldn't pay for one's lunch nowadays. Ah! but that is because the poor alone know ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... letting live, as they say; and since I hae been sic a fule as to show you the post-office orderou, nae doubt, it maun be obeyed. But I'll no need your callant, mony thanks to yeI'll send little Davie on your powny, and that will be just five-and- threepence to ilka ane o' ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... family, with a red circular spot in the forehead, directly over the left eyebrow, which was an infallible mark that it should never die." The spot, as he described it, "was about the compass of a silver threepence, but in the course of time grew larger, and changed its colour; for at twelve years old it became green, so continued till five and twenty, then turned to a deep blue: at five and forty it grew coal black, and as large as an English shilling; but never admitted any further alteration." He ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... energetic struggle to eradicate the type. If she thought at all it was in the dumb, incoherent manner of her class: at the actual moment a vision of a hat with red flowers she had seen in a shop window flickered across her mind, chased away by a hazy wonder as to how much supper threepence halfpenny would provide. That thought, too, fell away before a sudden, shrewd calculation as to the possible harvest to be gleaned from the two people just coming over the ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... doctor, "I'm going to ask Mr Hippetts to give you all a holiday, and I am leaving threepence a piece to be distributed among you, so that you may have a ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... is now prepared to wake up subscribers at any hour for threepence a call, and it is forming an "Early Risers' List." So many persons are anxious to take a rise out of the Telephone Service that the success of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... he could always agree with Henry VIII. The desperate man to-day can do nothing. For you cannot agree with a maniac who sits on the bench with the straws sticking out of his hair and says, "Procure threepence from nowhere and I will give you ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... could they do, poor fellows for the first lieutenant looked sharp after their kits to see that they did not sell any of their rigging; and as for money, we had been five years without touching a farthing of pay, and I don't suppose there was a matter of threepence among the men before the mast. However, liberty's liberty after all; and if they couldn't go ashore and get glorious, rather than not go on shore at all, they went ashore and kept sober perforce. I do think, myself, it's a very bad thing to keep the seamen without ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... probably cost threepence this year. An economical plan is for the householder to make his own hot cross and then get the local confectioner to fit a bun ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... probably never had a whole threepence to herself in her young life. She caught at the tempting suggestion, and Bywater drilled into her his instructions, finding her excessively stupid in the process. Perhaps that was all the better. "Now you mind, you are not to say who ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... do anything of the kind. Use your pillows, and Ruth and I will make frilled covers out of art-muslin, at threepence a yard. They will look charming, and lighten up the dark corners. We are used to that sort of work at home. We made a cosy corner for the drawing-room out of old packing-cases and a Liberty curtain, and it is easier and more comfortable than any professional one I ever saw. The silly ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... on the common. There was a great fireplace at one end of it; and the teacher sat in a great chair on a platform, with a table in front of him. We paid twopence a week for being taught reading, and threepence a week for "righting and siphering," as the town clerk ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... aspirations for higher things came across his heart; 'it is too late now to go back. Those who once cared for me have thrown me over.' And then he would again think of Waterloo Bridge, and the Monument, and of what might be done for threepence or ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... to him and gave him three shillings, saying, 'Tak' that, gudeman, and gang awa' hame to your wife and weans, 'Ay,' said mother, 'mony a prayer went up for that sergeant, for my grandfather was an unco godly man. He had never had so much money in his life before, for his wages were only threepence a day." ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... You understand, therefore, why my thoughts turned to Toole. But I could not find Toole. Instead, I found on the sands a page of a paper called Society. It is still running merrily at a penny, but at that time it had also a Saturday edition at threepence. On this page was a great prize-competition scheme, as well as details of a regular weekly competition. The competitions in those days were always literary and intellectual, but then popular education had not ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the identity of Sir Launcelot Greaves and Captain Crowe, declared, that the said Crowe had stopped him on the king's highway, and put him in bodily fear; that he afterwards saw the said Crowe with a pole or weapon, value threepence, breaking the king's peace, by committing assault and battery against the heads and shoulders of his majesty's liege subjects, Geoffrey Prickle, Hodge Dolt, Richard Bumpkin, Mary Fang, Catherine Rubble, and Margery Litter; and that he saw Sir Launcelot Greaves, Baronet, aiding, assisting, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... bill of fare to the book. For I have always looked upon it as a high point of indiscretion in monster-mongers and other retailers of strange sights to hang out a fair picture over the door, drawn after the life, with a most eloquent description underneath; this has saved me many a threepence.... Such is exactly the fate at this time of prefaces.... This expedient was admirable at first; our great Dryden has long carried it as far as it would go, and with incredible success. He has often said to me in confidence, 'that the world would never have suspected him to be ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... James Hayley, had rung her up on the telephone from London. She had been very much surprised, for a telephone message from London to Witanbury costs one-and-threepence, and James was careful about such things. When he did telephone, which was very seldom, he always waited to do so till the evening, when the fee was halved. But to-day James had rung up just before luncheon, and she ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Chaotong, 290 miles, in thirteen days, special inducement being held out to them in the shape of a reward of one shilling each to do the journey in eleven days. Their pay was to be seven shillings and threepence each, apart from the bonus, and of course they had to find themselves. They brought me from the coolie-hong, where they were engaged, an agreement signed by the hong-master, which was to be returned to them ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Meanwhile the threepence, base as it was, became the humble instrument of brighter fortunes to BRUSTLES; it showed a marvellous aptitude for turning up tails, which BEN no sooner perceived than he availed himself of a blessing that had, indeed, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... would have you sigh For the Aveiro bakeress, 380 For the inn you'll come to by and by And then we'll off with the packsaddle And the innkeeper we'll straddle If he have not, to slake our thirstiness, Good wine at threepence and kid at less, And for hard bread soft buttermilk, A fair wench to serve and sheets of silk, If the floor's strewn with rushes the night be long, If it hails, be the roof both new and strong, When the lamp burns dim welcome fiddler's strain. 390 Hold up, there! At your tricks again? Bandy-legged ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... of his scanty resources, her railway fare to a tearful and despairing girl who played the low-comedy part. But he had not yet come across any position quite so untenable as that of Wilmer. Forty odd years old, a wife, five children, all his life given honestly to his calling—and threepence half-penny to ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... "carridge" from London 11s. 10d. Whitewashing the church came to 1 pound: 1s., and work in the gallery to 10s. 4d. Besides, there was a continual payment for dozens of sprow heads, also for fox heads at threepence apiece, for a badger's head, a "poul cat," marten cats, and hedgehogs. These last, together with sparrows, continue to appear till 1832, when the Rev. Robert Shuckburgh, in the vestry, protested against such use of the church rate, and it was discontinued. Mr. Shuckburgh was the first resident ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... the meadows, with their "winking Mary-buds," will be all cut up into building lots in the good times coming, and Philomel caught and put in a cage to sing to tourists at threepence a head. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... paved; the floor was one mass of bad smelling mud. It had never been used, for there was not an article of furniture in it; nor could a human being, much less a pig, have lived there many days. Yet the "back apartment" made a difference in the rent. The Davenports paid threepence more for having two rooms. When he turned round again, he saw the woman suckling the child from her ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... acquaintance which the Widow made the most of, and on the strength of which she determined to give a tea-party and invite a number of persons of whom we know something already. She took a half-sheet of note-paper and made out her list as carefully as a country "merchant's clerk" adds up two and threepence (New-England nomenclature) and twelve and a half cents, figure by figure, and fraction by fraction, before he can be sure they will make half a dollar, without cheating somebody. After much consideration the list reduced itself ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... feigned issue, a pro forma report of progress. Do the Members of the House think they have all the forms to themselves? "What would be the present We should hardly believe all expression for four-pence? this to be uttered in earnest, Why, 0.166 (a laugh); for if we had not known {177} that threepence? .0125; for a several persons who have not penny? .004166, and so on ad Mr. Lowe's humor, nevertheless infinitum (a laugh); for a have his impressions on this half-penny? .002083 ad point. It must therefore be infinitum. (A laugh). ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... see how that can be," said Willie. "—Cost money, and yet be nothing out of my father's pocket! I've only got threepence ha'-penny." ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... houses, stretching northward, and westward, and eastward now fills up the ancient hiatus. Trinity Church cost 9,080 pounds 9s. 3d., and that sum was raised partly by subscriptions and donations and partly by the sale of pews. Who gave the ultimate threepence we cannot tell, neither are we told in ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... tiny saucers of the thinnest ivory, the largest not bigger than a silver threepence, which contain in their centres a milk-white crust of stone, pierced, as you see under the magnifier, into a thousand cells, each with its living architect within. Here are two kinds: in one the tubular cells ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... too viciously at Mr. Crowl to reply. He understood the message as if it were printed. It ran: "You have broken one of my best glasses. You have annihilated threepence, or a week's school fees for half the family." Peter wished she would turn the lightning upon Denzil, a conductor down whom it would run innocuously. He stooped down and picked up the pieces as carefully as if they were cuttings from the Koh-i-noor. Thus the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... one who was charged with stealing breeches; both jokes of Andrew's. Borde's house, whither, it is said, Edward VI. once came on a visit to the jester, still stands. The oak room in which Andrew welcomed the youthful king is shown at a cost of threepence per head, and you may buy pictorial postcards and German wooden toys in the wit's ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... also occasionally a short notice of the plays of the night before, and a few items of what we now call society gossip. The advertisements, after the paper had been in existence three years, averaged about fifty a day, most of them very short. Its price was threepence, English, equal to about twelve cents of our present currency. The paper upon which it was printed was coarse and cheap. In the third year of its existence, on the first of January, 1788, the name was changed to "The Times." The editor humorously explained the ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... southern counties give the boys in spring threepence a dozen for the heads of young birds killed in the nest. The heads are torn off, to be produced, like the wolves' of old times, as evidence of extinction. This—apart from the cruelty of the practice—is, I think, a mistake, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... offer a very large selection of goods for an expenditure of threepence. Gwen was almost at her wits' end what to choose, and finally came away with a cake of oatmeal soap and a large red chalk pencil. Walking back up the ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... Aunty, threepence. Trumpet for myself, twopence, that's fivepence. Ginger-nuts for Tony, twopence, and a mug with a Grenadier on for the Postman, fourpence, that's elevenpence. Shooting-gallery a penny, that's a shilling. Giddy-go-round, a penny, that's one and ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... enthusiastically; "we'll stick together, and you see how we'll get on; and look here, I vote we each pay threepence a week, that will get us a room at two bob, and candles. Then we can work a' night wi'out ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... KING EDWARD the THIRD; and it is very proper that those glories should be recorded and remembered; but you never read, in the works of the historians, that, in that reign, a common labourer earned threepence-halfpenny a day; and that a fat sheep was sold, at the same time, for one shilling and twopence, and a fat hog, two years old, for three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose for twopence-halfpenny. You never read that women received ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... Aspinall. Two coppers and two half-pence in her purse were threepence to her now, and the absence of one of the half-pence made a difference to her, especially in Paddy's market—that eloquent advertisement of a young city's sin and poverty and rotten wealth—on Saturday night. She counted the coppers ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... books from the publishers in London, you might send them to me in a letter; or if they are too bulky, you have only to put a strip of paper round, and send it as a book, without letter or writing. The postage is sixpence for four ounces, and threepence for every two ounces more, up to three pounds, which is the greatest weight that may be sent in one parcel; its dimensions must not exceed two ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... me the happier—relief, or the glory of being addressed as "sir." I paid, pocketed my threepence change, and in the elation of it offered Miss Plinlimmon my arm. We walked down George Street, past the work-box in the window. I managed to pass without wincing, though desperately afraid that the shopman might pop out—it seemed but natural he should be lying in wait—and hold ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... bit dull at fust, but arter he had 'ad two or three 'arf-pints 'e began to take a brighter view of things. He found a very nice, cosey little public-'ouse he hadn't been in before, and, arter getting two and threepence and a pint for the 'arf-dollar with Ginger's tooth-marks on, he began to think that the world wasn't 'arf as bad a place as people ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... infra) the fare for a journey wholly within or partly without and partly within the four-mile radius, and not exceeding one mile or a period of ten minutes, is sixpence. For each half mile or six minutes an additional threepence is paid. If the journey is wholly without the four-mile radius the fare for the first mile is one shilling, and for each additional quarter of a mile or period of three minutes, threepence is paid. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... sixpence per quart, was supposed to have won the hearts of all householders. They had no fear of Mr. Coddem, the representative of the great BOTTOMLEY party. It was true that Mr. Coddem had taken over a local brewery and was supplying beer at threepence per pint. But the Labour stalwarts argued that, in the first place, this would lose him the women's and temperance vote, and, in the second place, the electors would drink the brewery dry in double-quick time. All those who failed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... suicide, and the theory of suicide to the theory of flight; how a porter on the pier at Blackwater said he had carried my trunk to the steamer that sailed on Thursday midnight, thinking I was a maid from the great house until I had given him half-a-crown (his proper fee being threepence); how two female passengers had declared that a person answering to my description had sailed with them to Liverpool; how these clues had been followed up and had led to nothing; and how, finally, the correspondents ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the commodity of tea could bear an imposition of threepence. But no commodity will bear threepence, or will bear a penny, when the general feelings of men are irritated, and two millions of people are resolved not to pay. The feelings of the colonies were formerly the feelings of Great Britain. Theirs were ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... paid, as much as fourpence being given for a good cock-crower (in 'The Trial of Christ'), while the part of God was worth three and fourpence: no contemptible sums at a time when a quart of wine cost twopence and a goose threepence. A little uncertainty exists as to the professional character of the actors, but the generally approved opinion seems to be that they were merely members of the Guilds, probably selected afresh each year and carefully trained for their parts. The more professional class, the so-called ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... incredible to those of the present time. There was an unnecessary twopence for the ferry—admitting the whole business to have been unnecessary. There was sixpence for a meal, consisting of tea and a portentous allowance of scones with butter. There was threepence for a packet of cigarettes ('colonial' tobacco), the first I had ever smoked, and a purchase which had actually been decided upon some days previously. Finally, there was fourpence for a glass of colonial wine in a George Street wine-shop; and this also, like the rest ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... warm him. But after what he heard at the school he promised he would never do as his brothers had done; and he had some very hard times in keeping his promise. At last he came to his teacher and asked him for a loan of threepence; if he had a loan of threepence he thought he ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... here)." Said the Gipsy, "Show me your money!" And he showed him a guinea, a sovereign, a half-sovereign, a half-guinea, a five-shilling piece, a half-crown, a two-shilling piece, a shilling, a sixpence, a fourpenny piece, a threepence, a twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a farthing, a half-farthing. Said the Gipsy, "This is all bad money." "No," said the other man; "it is all good and sound. Toss it in your hand and hear it ring!" "Yes," replied the Gipsy. "You told me that only ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... speech, the words are well understood. From the boy who, by holding a horse, or running errands, earns threepence, and puts it into a pocket with a hole at the bottom, to the man or woman who puts the savings of years into a rotten speculation, all know the literal meaning of Haggai's text, 'He that earneth wages earneth wages to put it ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... poor creatures were cheated. An emigrant came to a boarding-house keeper to pay his bill: "It is eighteen dollars," said the landlord. "Why," said the emigrant, "did you not agree to board me for sixpence a meal and threepence for a bed?" "Yes," was the answer, "and that is just seventy-five cents a day; you have been here eight days, and that makes ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... to be some difficulty as to money. If, as Miss Todd assured her, Sir Lionel were really in difficulties, her own present annuity—all that she could absolutely call her own—her one hundred and eighty-nine pounds, seventeen shillings and threepence per annum—would not help them much. Sir Lionel was at any rate disinterested in his offer; that at least was ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... magpie, called in some places a Pie-Annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree-goose; which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjacent, do so much abound therewith, that one of the best may be bought for threepence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repair unto me, and I shall satisfy them by the testimony of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... certain Italian words, chiefly for the smaller pieces of money. What a strident invasion of organ-grinders does this seem to indicate! The author gives them thus: "Oney saltec, a penny; Dooe saltee, twopence; Tray saltee, threepence," etc., and adds, "These numerals, as will be seen, are of mongrel origin,—the French, perhaps, predominating."! He must be the gentleman who, during the Exhibition of 1851, wrote on his door, "No French spoken here." Dooe saltee and tray saltee differ little but in spelling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... price of rye about five shillings, wheat about eight shillings, per bushel; mutton threepence to fivepence per pound; bacon from sevenpence to ninepence; cheese from fourpence to sixpence; butter from eightpence to tenpence; house-rent, for a poor man, from twenty-five shillings to forty shillings per year, to be paid weekly; wood for fire very scarce and dear; coal in some places two shillings ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... ready money, they turn factors, and take threepence or fourpence in the shilling brokerage. And here let me take notice of one very heinous abuse, not to say petty felony, which is practised in most of the great families about town, which is, when the tradesman gives the house-keeper or other commanding servant a penny or ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... arched lobby, lighted from the kitchen by a small round window, did duty as an ante-chamber, and filled the space between the bedroom, the kitchen, and house doors—three doors in all. The rooms were paved with bricks, and hung with a hideous wall-paper at threepence apiece; the chimneypieces that adorned them were of the kind called capucines—a shelf set on a couple of brackets painted to resemble wood. Here in these three rooms dwelt five human beings, three of them children. Any one, therefore, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... time in his pocket, and at length could produce only threepence farthing, a tobacco-stopper, and an unpaid tavern-bill. He was forced to confess he had ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... beginning to dawn upon me, Pinchas," he went on. "Our rich people give plenty away in charity; they have good hearts but not Jewish hearts. As the verse says,—A bundle of rhubarb and two pounds of Brussels sprouts and threepence halfpenny change. Thank you. Much obliged.—Now I have bethought myself why should we not work out our own salvation? It is the poor, the oppressed, the persecuted, whose souls pant after the Land of Israel as the hart after the water-brooks. Let us help ourselves. Let us put our hands in our ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Messrs. CASSELL & Co. have just brought out a one-and-threepenny edition ("the threepence be demmed!") of the Yellowplush Papers, with a dainty canary-coloured Jeames on the cover. At the same time the same firm produce, in the same form, The Last Days of Pompeii, The Last Days of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... before seen, the people have once more, and in terms too emphatic to be misunderstood, proclaimed their undying purpose. With a unanimity rarely equalled, a people that had fought eight years against a tax of threepence on the pound, and that was rapidly advancing to the front rank of nations through the victories of peace,—a people jealous of its liberties and proud of its prosperity, has reelected to the chief magistracy a man under whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... with a well-ventilated chamber at Madame Tussaud's. Special charge of sixpence for adults, threepence for children, made ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... you say that Physician Vilbert is the only proprietor of those celebrated pills that infallibly cure all disorders of the alimentary system, as well as asthma and shortness of breath. Two and threepence a box—specially licensed by ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... splendid to be a horse-trainer," said Jeremy. "It was a lovely horse to-night... And I only spent a shilling. I had three and threepence halfpenny." ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... Bishop Newton's life. I will not give three guineas for what I would not give threepence, his Works; his Life,(479) I Conclude, will be borrowed by all the magazines, and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... sixpence to Jock before set of sun each Monday. Jock made no demands, and gave no receipts; he engaged in no conversation whatever, but simply waited and took. If any one tried to compound with Jock for threepence, one look at the miserable produced the sixpence; and when little Cosh following in the devious steps of his elder brother insinuated that he had paid already, Jock dropped him into the lade to refresh his memory. No one directly inquired what was to be done with the money, for ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... oranges and raisins, and a bottle of nice claret,—for he was told by the consul that they didn't give 'em nothing to eat at the jail. And I had a tug with 'em, I tell you. I got lost once, and got a good-natured black boy to pilot me for a Victoria threepence,—but he did not like to carry the bundle to the jail, for fear of his master. Captain 'll be up first thing in the morning, if he can get away from business," said the little tar, opening the haversack and pulling out its contents to tempt the hungry appetites ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... compassion for them, that they look upon them as blessings showered down from above, and which the more they improve to their own use, the greater is their gratitude and piety. Thus at Gravesend a sculler requires a shilling for going less way than he would row in London for threepence; and at Deal a boat often brings more profit in a day than it can produce in London in a week, or perhaps in a month; in both places the owner of the boat founds his demand on the necessity and distress of ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... from the Literary Gazette in 1850. The hopeless struggle with the Athenaeum, involving a third reduction in price to threepence, lasted until 1862, when the Gazette was incorporated with the Parthenon and came to an end during the following year. Hervey edited the Athenaeum until 1853 when ill-health necessitated his resignation. The later editors include William ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... very true: and I wondered how I could forbear when I saw his dishes of the size of a silver threepence, a leg of pork hardly a mouthful, a cup not so big as a nutshell; and so I went on, describing the rest of his household stuff and provisions, after the same manner. For, although the queen had ordered a little equipage of all things necessary for me, while I was ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... all debts on payment of the principal. No Jew might distress beyond the moiety of a Christian's land and goods; they were to wear their badge, a badge now of yellow, not white, and pay an Easter offering of threepence, men and women, to the King. They were permitted to practise merchandise or labor with their hands, and—some of them, it seems, were still addicted to husbandry—to hire farms for cultivation for fifteen years. On these terms they were assured of the royal protection. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... but there are people who have to consider the threepences; if Julia was one, she knew that Mr. Gillat was another, and she had allowed for this threepence, and he probably had not. He demurred, but she insisted. "Then I won't let you come with me;" ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... were the shilling, sixpence, threepence, and twopence. On one side of each coin was stamped a rude representation of ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... said when I had examined the rails. "I shall want about a mile of them. Threepence ha'penny a foot? Then I shan't want nearly ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... would run less risk of being noticed there. The train was shunted up; she took her seat in it. Just as it was starting, an early newspaper boy came along, yawning. Beatrice bought a copy of the Standard, out of the one and threepence that was left of her money, and opened it at the sheet containing the leading articles. The first one began, "The most powerful, closely reasoned, and eloquent speech made last night by Mr. Bingham, the Member for Pillham, will, ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... gentleman who is fond of science, and spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after keeping his servant waiting several months, "Well! I'll give you fourpence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra threepence yourself, till ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... are extremely reasonable: we here buy as much good white bread for three- halfpence or twopence, as will serve an Englishman a whole day, and flour in proportion. Good strong beer also may be had of the brewer, for about twopence a quart, and of the alehouses that retail it for threepence a quart. Bear Quay, below bridge, is a great market for malt, wheat, and horse-corn; and Queenhithe, above the bridge, for malt, ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... was the first card of the firm drawn out, and in the space of a fortnight, nineteen thousand of them were disseminated through the metropolis. When it is declared that each of those cards cost B. J. and R. threepence three farthings, some idea may be formed of the style in which they commenced ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... don't even know where I shall sleep tonight. I have only threepence, and not a friend ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... suddennesse of their conceits (which even their enemies must allow unto them!) might by education be improved into a judicious solidity." In some of these schools the curriculum included "Reading and sewing, threepence a week: a penny extra for manners." An old thirteenth century work, called the "Kleine Heldenbuch," contains a verse which may ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... the right up Churchyard Lane)—which she gave me, I say, wrapped up in a bit of silver paper. There was something in the purse, too, if the truth must be known. First there was a thick curl of the glossiest blackest hair you ever saw in your life, and next there was threepence: that is to say, the half of a silver sixpence hanging by a little necklace of blue riband. Ah, but I knew where the other half of the sixpence was, and envied that happy ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... been seen by her to pass within the swing-doors of the "Queen's Arms" for his usual morning refreshment. Then she had occupied herself chiefly by collecting her various things at their respective shops, purchased by Frank's two-pound-ten, and putting them on. She had had a clear threepence to spare beyond the few shillings she had determined to put by out of the total, and had expended it by a visit to the cinematograph show in Victoria Street. There had been a very touching series of pictures of the "Old Home in the Country," and the milking of the cows, with ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... lotteries naturally, and bequeaths the best prize in his will aforehand; when his hopes fall he's blank. They swarm in great tenements like flies; six households will live in a garret. He was wont, only to make us fools, to buy the fox skin for threepence, and sell the tail for a shilling. Now his new trade of brewing strong waters makes a number of madmen. He loves a Welshman extremely for his diet and orthography; that is, for plurality of consonants, and ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... amounts in the "Ledger," and then returned to his seat. "You already owe six and threepence," he said, as he sat down, "and this evening's fines bring it up to six and elevenpence. You ought to ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... charge. One of his acquaintance had told him that a man might live in London for thirty pounds a year. Ten pounds would pay for clothes; a garret might be hired for eighteen-pence a week; if any one asked for an address, it was easy to reply, "I am to be found at such a place." Threepence laid out at a coffee-house would enable him to pass some hours a day in good company; dinner might be had for sixpence, a bread-and-milk breakfast for a penny, and supper was superfluous. On clean shirt day you might go abroad and pay visits. This leaves a surplus of nearly one pound ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... everything gets worse, I do believe! Even a glass of filtered water costs one shilling and threepence! I have just left an hotel for which my bill was L3 for one night, and I was sick ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... higher in price than now they are, it shall be an hard matter to live. This very morrow was I asked a shilling for a calf's head of the butcher, and eightpence for a lemon of the costard-monger, whereat I promise you I fumed a bit; but when it came to threepence apiece for chickens,—Lancaster and Derby! It shall cost us here ever so much more ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... had a fire, although it was not yet the thirty-first of October, for it was very damp and raw. She had with much difficulty induced Mrs Cork to concede this favour (which probably would not have been granted if the coals had not yielded a profit of threepence a scuttleful), and Clara, therefore, asked if she could not have the kettle upstairs. Again ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... Kaffers. We keep quiet when they throw sand at us (feeling, oh, so happy). We conscientiously put the cracked teacup for ourselves at breakfast, and take the burnt roaster-cake. We save our money, and buy threepence of tobacco for the Hottentot maid who calls us names. We are exotically virtuous. At night we are profoundly religious; even the ticking watch says, "Eternity, eternity! hell, hell, hell!" and the silence talks of God, and the things ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... had to pass some stiff grind in seamanship and other naval acquirements, similar to the examinations we used to undergo on board the old Saint Vincent; and as we now were rated really as seamen, with the pay of one shilling and threepence a day, instead of sevenpence, besides having all the dirty work of the ship taken off our hands, Mick and I considered ourselves in clover, as ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... three, four, five, six, seven, All good children go to heaven: A penny by the water, Tuppence by the sea, Threepence by the railway, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... of the old school. Had Hugh taken to writing for a newspaper that had cost sixpence, or even threepence, for its copies, she might perhaps have forgiven him. At any rate the offence would not have been so flagrant. And had the paper been conservative instead of liberal, she would have had some qualms of conscience ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... 'Red Horse,' but the blazing fire and sedulous kindness of the landlady of the 'Dun Cow' shake him, and his soul labours! Heavy is the ploughed land, dark, dreary, and wet the day. His purpose is at last fixed for beer! Threepence is put down for the vigour of the ale, and one penny for the stupefaction of tobacco, and these are the joys and holidays of millions, the greatest pleasure and relaxation which it is in the power ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... where very little was expected by society. We must also take into account the very low prices which then ruled at Dessau with regard to almost all the necessaries of life. I see from the old newspapers that beef sold at about threepence a pound (two groschen), mutton at about twopence. Wine was sold at seven to eight groschen a bottle, a better sort for twelve to fourteen groschen—a groschen being about a penny. People drank mostly beer, and this was sold under ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... some of the men received from sixty to eighty, and one a hundred pounds, mine was the modest sum of three shillings and sixpence, despite the fact that I had been receiving eightpence a day in addition to most of them—five pence as the organist, and threepence for ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... our rowing experiences this morning, and to recounting stories of our first efforts in the art of oarsmanship. My own earliest boating recollection is of five of us contributing threepence each and taking out a curiously constructed craft on the Regent's Park lake, drying ourselves subsequently, in ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... records "at home all day, over cards." How much time must have been spent in this way is shown by the innumerable purchases of "1 dozen packs playing cards" noted in his ledger. In 1748, when he was sixteen years old, he won two shillings and threepence from his sister-in-law at whist and five shillings at "Loo" (or, as he sometimes spells it, "Lue") from his brother, and he seems always to have played for small stakes, which sometimes mounted ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... no more, I was once myself, for example, at one of our Dalkeith fairs, present in a hay-loft—I think they charged threepence at the door, but let me in with a grudge for twopence, but no matter—to see a punch and puppie-show business, and other slight-of-hand work. Well, the very moment I put my neb within the door, I was visibly convinced of the smell of burnt roset, with which I understand they make lightning, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... Macedon, most prudent of men, learn further that a thruppenny bit, which to the foolish will often seem a mere expenditure of threepence, to the wise may represent a saving of that sum. For how many occasions are there not in which the inconsequent and lavish fool, the spendthrift, the young heir, the commander of cavalry, the empty, gilded boy, will give a sixpence to a messenger where a thruppenny bit would have done as ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... students—unless they have lived in India, after which a physical change occurs in the sensibility of the nostrils—are finical enough to burn wax-lights. This will amount to two pounds, five shillings. Coals, say sixpence a day; for threepence a day will amply feed one grate in Edinburgh; and there are many weeks in the thirty which will demand no fire at all. Groceries and wine, which are all that remain, I cannot calculate. But suppose we allow for the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... "Two and threepence." The barber paused. "Well, look here," he continued, with the remains of a calculation in his tone, which calculation had been the reduction to figures of the probable monetary magnetism necessary to overpower the resistant force of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... which alone of the taxes lately imposed upon the colonies, the home Government was determined to retain, was met with defiance throughout America. 'Tis true we paid a shilling in the pound at home, and asked only threepence from Boston or Charleston; but as a question of principle, the impost was refused by the provinces, which indeed ever showed a most spirited determination to pay as little as they could help. In Charleston the tea-ships ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... October, a negro was arrested for picking two cocoanuts, value threepence. This arrest had every exasperating condition. The fruit was taken from a plantation whose title was disputed, and upon which the negroes had squatted. The law which made the plucking of fruit a crime was itself peculiarly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... a happy light shone on her face. She went through the house with a brisk step; she sang to herself as she went; she was kinder than ever to the small children who came into the square every forenoon, and whose acquaintance she had very speedily made; she gave each of her crossing-sweepers threepence instead of twopence in passing. The servants had never seen her in such good spirits; she was exceptionally generous in presenting them with articles of attire; they might have had half the week in holidays if Mr. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... frostily, and tripped away over the oozing field with Smilash, who held the umbrella over her with ostentatious solicitude. In the same manner he led the rest to the vehicles, in which they packed themselves with some difficulty. Agatha, who came last but one, gave him threepence. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... stars that he had some cash in hand! But what a price! All that for a scrap of ribbon! It seemed sinful; but he laid two shillings and threepence on the counter. Greatly to his alarm, the young woman behind it, who up to this point had kept her feelings under commendable control, suddenly collapsed like a punctured balloon on to the shoulder of her nearest neighbour—there ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... 200 exemplaires at the witching hour; and they were almost all destroyed by eight in the morning. But I think the nickname will stick. Dos Reales; deux reaux; two bits; twenty-five cents; about a shilling; but in practice it is worth from ninepence to threepence: thus two glasses of beer would cost two bits. The Italian fisherman, an old Garibaldian, is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my way about London, if you would go with me to buy some things for my brothers, which I promised to carry back when I return. I have got some money to pay for them, for Charles gave me a sixpence, and three halfpence, and a farthing; and William gave me threepence; and I have got a silver penny and a twopence of my own, all screwed safely in ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... judge always? I came to tell you that it is understood in London, although not public, that it is meant to tax our tea. Now we do not buy; we smuggle it from Holland; but if the India Company should get a drawback on tea, we shall be forced to take it for its cheapness, even with the duty on it of threepence ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... was threepence,' answered Vandeloup, quietly; 'however, that does not make any difference to me. Your commission at that rate will be twelve pounds ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... a newspaper cost threepence or thereabouts, and schools were so far from being free that only the sons of gentlemen (and seldom the daughters of even gentlemen, remember) attended them, the art of reading was not so common as it now is. Writing was still more uncommon. And it has not ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... Opinions differed widely as to the future of the little town of five hundred inhabitants. The important product of the region at first was Monongahela flour which long held a high place in the New Orleans market. Coal was being mined as early as 1796 and was worth locally threepence halfpenny a bushel, though within seven years it was being sold at Philadelphia at thirty-seven and a half cents a bushel. The fur trade with the Illinois country grew less important as the century came to its close, but Maynard and Morrison, cooperating with Guy Bryan at Philadelphia, ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... so eleven and threepence represented the predominance of Eliphaz Green's stinginess ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... and after a moment's pause, he asked the fair president for a couple of tickets for each of which he paid threepence; a sum however, according to the printed declaration of the voucher, convertible into potential liquid refreshments, no great compensation to a very strict member of the Temperance Society ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... where the men were welcome to sing and play, read, and write letters to their hearts' content. Here also every afternoon from 200 to 700 soldiers were supplied with an excellent cup of tea and some bread and butter for threepence each. A threepenny piece is there called "a tickey," and till the troops arrived that was the lowest coin in use. An Orange Free Stater scorned to look at a penny; but a British soldier's pay is constructed on other lines; and what he thought of our "tickey" ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... and I had sold a horse, and was with my boy in a moramengro's buddika [barber's shop], and my boy says to me, in Romanes, 'Father, I'd like to have my hair cut.' 'It's too dear here, my son,' said I, Romaneskes; 'for the bill says threepence.' And then the barber, he ups and says, in Romany, 'Since you're Romanys, I'll cut it for twopence, though it's clear out of all my rules.' And he did it; but why that man rakkered Romanes I don't ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... to our posterity. Hereto some other man would add also the desire that we have to benefit other countries and to impeach our own. And it is, so sure as God liveth, that every trifle which cometh from beyond the sea, though it be not worth threepence, is more esteemed than a continual commodity at home with us, which far exceedeth that value. In time past the use of this commodity consisteth (for the most part) in cloth and woolsteds; but now, by means of strangers succoured here from ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... a more thriving trade than in Melbourne, and they deserve it, for they are fast, clean, roomy, and well managed. The price of labour makes conductors too expensive a luxury, and passengers have to put their fare—in most cases threepence—into a little glass box close to the driver's seat. This unfortunate man, in addition to looking after the horses, and opening and shutting the door by means of a strap tied to his foot, which you pull when you want to get out, has to give change whenever a little bell is rung, and to see that ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... admitted the claim and, upon my calling the other day personally to receive satisfaction, handed me the 14s. 3d. with a deferential bow. If you doubt the truth of this statement you have only to come round to my place, where you can see for yourself the threepence, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... small duties on lead, paints, glass, and paper. Besides this, he withdrew the previous export duty, one shilling per pound, on tea taken from England to America, and instead of this he laid an import duty of threepence per pound. This was ingeniously new, being internal taxation in a form different from that of the Stamp Act. At the same time was abandoned the ancient contention that customs duties were but trade regulations. The new taxes were ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... being able to turn the joviality of the factory hands at the fair to any account. Matters now seemed to be looking up, and a very neat little arrangement was entered into with the proprietor of the pub. Four entertainments of ten minutes each were to be given every hour, for each of which the sum of threepence a head was to be charged, twopence to go to the artists, a penny to the landlord, who would, of course, make his 'bit' also out of the drink supplied. And what a success they had that day! Not only did the factory hands come in, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... the parents concurred; and his severity did not cost the old man a penny when he made his Easter rounds to collect the "sweepings." It may, perhaps, be well to explain that the "sweepings" consisted of an annual sum of threepence which every householder contributed towards the cleaning of the church, and which represented a large part of ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... It is with gratitude and wonder that I consider "the way in which I have been led." Could a more preposterous idea have occurred to us in those days when we used to search our pockets for coppers, too often in vain, and combine forces to produce the threepence necessary for two glasses of beer, or wander down the Lothian Road without any, than that I should be strong and well at the age of forty-three in the island of Upolu, and that you should be at home bringing out the Edinburgh Edition? If it had been possible, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Tantzen,(Ger.) - To dance. Tarnal - Eternal. Taub, Taube,(Ger.) - Dove. Taugenix, Taugenichts - Good-for-nothing fellow. Teufelsjagersmann - Devil's huntsman. Theil,(Ger.) - Part. Thoom - Thumb. Thrip,(Southern Amer.) - Threepence. Thusnelda - The wife of Arminius,(Hermann,) the Duke of the Cheruskans and conqueror of Varus. Tie a dog loose. Losbinden Tiger - An American term for a gambling table. Tixey - "I wish I was in Dixie." The origin of this song is rather curious. Although now thoroughly ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... taste. Some people would hardly think it worth while to mention a little thing like taste; but I do. I am not rich, but what I have I like to have ornamental, though not loud. Only the other day the question of glass-cloths for the kitchen turned up, and though those with the red border were threepence a dozen dearer than the plain, I ordered them without hesitation. Eliza changed them next day, contrary to my wishes, and we had a few words about it, but that is not the point. The real point is that if ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain |
