"Twopence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Westminster, exposed for sale. After refreshing himself with a pint of wine, for which he paid the taverner one penny, he hastened to Billingsgate, where the watermen hailed him with their cry, "Hoo! go we hence!" and charged him twopence for pulling him across the river. Bewildered and oppressed, Master Lickpenny was delighted to pay the heavy charge, and to make his escape from the din and confusion of the great city, resolving never again to enter its ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... house!" said Mrs. Shiffney, looking quickly round her with searching eyes, while they waited for their hostess. "Nothing worth twopence-halfpenny, but nothing wrong. I declare I ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... would smile in that graceful way of hers—I hate fine people!—and say nothing if you told her that her house was on fire! The curate is always gadding about, and Minnie is a pretty girl; so, of course, he likes to go there and see her; but, I know, that she does not care twopence for him." ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... about shirtmaking; but here perhaps is the saddest thing of all, not written anywhere till now, that I know of. Shirts by the thirty thousand are made at twopence-halfpenny each; and in the mean while no needlewoman, distressed or other, can be procured in London by any housewife to give, for fair wages, fair help in sewing. Ask any thrifty house-mother, high ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... skulk in still water with their emblematic daces. But the times now, my dear father, are so cold-blooded that you can't be too cold-blooded to prosper. What could Chillingly Mivers have been in an age when people cared twopence-halfpenny about their religious creeds, and their political parties deemed their cause was sacred and their leaders were heroes? Chillingly Mivers would not have found five subscribers to "The Londoner." But ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... think. I had a couple of cabs, and the postage was a tanner, with another twopence for registration. Yes, it ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... congregated; where only divines, only lawyers, only physicians, only wits and those who came to hear them were found. In all alike the visitor put down his penny and went in, taking his own seat if he was an habitue; he called for a cup of tea or coffee and paid his twopence for it; he could call also, if he pleased, for a cordial; he was expected to talk with his neighbour whether he knew him or not. Men went to certain coffee houses in order to meet the well-known poets and writers who were to be found ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... issue a statistical diagram showing the proportion of married women to spinsters in New Zealand; or that the net profits of Mrs. Hipsley's Bazaar had reached a total of five pounds eight shillings and twopence half-penny? ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... was under you, sir, and knew you was getting no more than I was, why, my stomach would fly every time that you gave me an order without a 'Please, Zebedee!' But as soon as I feels that you pocket a shilling, in the time I take pocketing twopence, the value of your brain ariseth plain before me; and instead of thinking what you says, I ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... from island to island; their hunting and fishing stations were unscrupulously seized by the invading English. They were shot down without the least provocation, or captured to be exposed as curiosities to the rabble at the fairs of the western towns of Christian England at twopence a piece."[16] ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... strange whitey fire-crackers the size of cigars and a peculiar red package that the shopkeeper called a "Haetna Volcano." He said that for four and eightpence one couldn't find its match in Lunnon itself, and obligingly took off twopence when I pointed out Vesuvius hadn't a fuse. With the crackers in my pocket and the volcano under my arm I set forth in the pleasant summer morning to walk to Castle Fyles, having an idea to rest by the way and celebrate the Fourth ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... am much obliged to you for going to Jones's. I send stamps for two shillings and fourpence, which is what I owe to you. It used only to be two shillings and twopence, but they say everything has got to be dearer now, and I suppose pills as well as other things. Only think of Pritchard coming to me, and saying she wanted her wages raised, after living with me for twenty years! I was very angry, and scolded her roundly; but as she acknowledged ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Naturally, his first purchase was of the materials of his craft; he had been without them too long. Half a day's investigations and comparison brought him to the conclusion that sausages and mashed potatoes, twopence a plate, were the best food. Now, sausages once or twice a week for breakfast are not unpleasant. As lunch, even, with mashed potatoes, they become monotonous. At dinner they are impertinent. At the end of three days Dick loathed sausages, and, going, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the rock struck, and Meribah's waters gushing out. I never had felt so strange and contradictory an inward tumult as I felt for an hour that evening: soreness and laughter, and fire, and grief, shared my heart between them. I cried hot tears: not because Madame mistrusted me—I did not care twopence for her mistrust—but for other reasons. Complicated, disquieting thoughts broke up the whole repose of my nature. However, that turmoil subsided: next day I ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... day, when Mansell was bungling most abominably with his Euripides, he flung his Bohn along the desk, Mansell picked it up, propped it in front of him and read it off. Claremont never noticed. This was the start of a great system of combination. Everyone at the beginning of the term paid twopence to the general account with which Ruddock bought some Short Steps to Accurate Translations. As each person went on to translate, the book was passed to him and he read straight out of it. The translating was, in consequence, always of a remarkably ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... been taken; Philip had it at his fingers' ends. 'One thousand nine hundred and forty-one pounds, thirteen shillings and twopence.' ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... me to coffee and a pipe from a neighbouring shop while Omar eloquently depreciates the goods and offers half the value. A water-seller offers a brass cup of water; I drink, and give the huge sum of twopence, and he distributes the contents of his skin to the crowd (there always is a crowd) in my honour. It seems I have done a pious action. Finally a boy is called to carry the batterie de cuisine, while Omar brandishes a gigantic kettle which ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... plays away for eight or nine hours with wonderful spirit and perseverance. She has with her a suite of eight domestics; and when she wins (which is not often), on returning to her hotel at night, she presents each member of her retinue with—twopence! "not," as she naively avows, "from a feeling of generosity, but to propitiate Fortune." When she loses, none of them, save the man who wheels her home, get anything but hard words from her; and he, happy fellow, receives a donation of six kreutzers. She does not curse the croupiers loudly for her ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... an Irishman on hearing it, "of twopence-halfpenny looking down on twopence," or by another comparison, it is a case of one English grandee clapping his hands over another grandee's head. Still, though educational influences and nine-tenths of the coterie of society wage war against sign-language, ill-mannered ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... Certificate or offering Certificates as bonuses for good conduct or extra work. When one small employer that I heard of pays his men their War Bonus, he gets them, if they are willing, to place two sixpenny stamps on a stamp card, for which he deducts tenpence. The employees are thus given twopence for every shilling they save. When these cards bear stamps up to the value of 15/6 they are exchanged for ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... England and Scotland, and will soon be enabled to do so to Ireland.[see Note 66] He can send the soldiers, horse and foot, as well as the artillery of Great Britain, flying through the land at almost any rate he wishes. And all heavy stores and goods of the merchants can be easily forwarded at about twopence, and even, I believe, a penny a mile per ton, and at about twenty miles an hour; and a penny a letter now enables every individual in England to communicate, at almost every hour, with his distant friends and relations; the post office itself travelling ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... go on like that you'll make me distracted with hunger,' said Blanche, a young person who at the seaside wanted twopence to buy buns directly after she ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... that—I began to like going down to see Lady Maxwell—why did I like talking to her at Castle Luton? Well! of course it's pleasant to be with a beautiful person—I don't deny that in the least. But she might have been as beautiful as an angel, and I mightn't have cared twopence about her. She has something much less common than beauty. It's very simple, too—I suppose it's only sympathy—just that. Everybody feels the same. When you talk to her she seems to care about it; she throws her mind into yours. And there's ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a walking-stick? whew! why, you are know no better than an impostor, to ask eighteen pence for what cost you twopence." ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... of letters by the penny-post 'was originally confined to the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark and the respective suburbs thereof.' In 1801 the postage was raised to twopence. The term 'suburbs' must have had a very limited signification, for it was not till 1831 that the limits of this delivery were extended to all places within three miles of the General Post Office. Ninth Report of the Commissioners of the Post ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... fourpence, pretty little fourpence, I love fourpence better than my life; I spent a penny of it, I spent another, And I took twopence home to my wife. ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... flowed in upon us in a perfect torrent. First one came in for his measure, and then another. A wife came in for a pair of red worsted boots for her bairn, but would not take them for they had not blue fringes. A bareheaded lassie, hoping to be handsel, threw down twopence, and asked tape at three yards for a halfpenny. The minister sent an old black coat beneath his maid's arm, pinned up in a towel, to get docked in the tails down into a jacket; which I trust I did to his entire satisfaction, making it fit to a hair. The Duke's butler ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... of all black pigments. By far the most common of these, as used in structural plants, is graphite. Other black pigments are lamp-black (including carbon black) and bone-black, the former being produced in many grades, varying in price from twopence to half a crown per pound. Bone-black, which is refuse from the sugar-house black, varies in the percentage of carbon contained, which is usually about 10 or 12 per cent, the remainder being the mineral matter originally present in the bone, and containing 3 ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... Romance,—though it was hard to conceive of the Apostle figuring as the hero of such a theme. It was the old tale retold, that to the life of every man there is a background,—that it is precisely in the unlikeliest cases that the background's darkest. What would that penny-plain- and-twopence-coloured bogey, the Nonconformist Conscience, make of such a story if it were blazoned through the land. Would Paul not ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... contempt for appearance. It looks like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls;—now a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are "neat as imported." The very perusal of the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... place the South Australian Register, published in Adelaide, as the best daily paper in Australia. In style and get-up it is almost an exact copy of its Melbourne contemporary, and its published price is twopence. In reports and correspondence it is quite as enterprising, but its leading columns and critiques being almost all written in the office, are necessarily weaker. The whole paper is less carefully edited, but its opinions ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... resign. This application was immediately granted, and his appointment is dated on the same day as his application. The salary was 200 pounds per year, with a residence and certain small allowances such as fire and light, and one shilling and twopence per day table money. It is apparent from his letters that though he may have taken over some of the duties (but that is improbable, owing to his time being fully occupied preparing his Journal for the press and then making arrangements ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... mentioned, but dear little rough red pitchers which would hold just half a pint, and a larger size which would hold a pint; packets of flower-seeds with gay pictures on the outside, and only a penny each; the pitchers were only a penny and twopence; there were the dearest little watering-cans too, and fancy handkerchiefs with a nursery rhyme round the border, and funny little books, with roughly done pictures in the brightest of colours, and money-boxes, ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... parlours. Peter Baron's window had always, to his sense, looked out on a good deal of life, and one of the things it had most shown him was that there is nobody so bereft of joy as not to be able to command for twopence the services of somebody less joyous. Mrs. Ryves was a struggler (Baron scarcely liked to think of it), but she occupied a pinnacle for Miss Teagle, who had lived on—and from a noble nursery—into a period of diplomas ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... all this, Radie—this particular version, I mean, of marriage, a-la-mode, they are preparing up there?' and he made a little dip of his cane towards Brandon Hall, over his shoulder. 'I really don't think Wylder cares twopence about her, or she about him,' and Stanley Lake laughed ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... CHANCELLOR'S not very tremendous Preference proposals were denounced by Sir DONALD MACLEAN as inevitably leading to the taxation of food and to quarrels with foreign countries. Colonel AMERY, on the other hand, waxed dithyrambic in their praise, and declared that by taking twopence off Colonial tea the Government were not only consecrating the policy of Imperial Preference, but were "putting the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... system was devised in order to make the lazy and idle seek ordinary employment which could be got. The situation in Ireland was, on the contrary, one in which the able-bodied and healthy were willing and anxious to work for any wages, even for twopence a day, but were unable to obtain such or ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... and which happily has perished,[6] and that was throwing at cocks or hens with sticks. The poor bird was tied by the leg, and its tormentors stood twenty-two yards distant and had three throws each for twopence, winning the bird if they could knock it down. The cock was trained beforehand to avoid the sticks, so as to win more money for its brutal master. Well might a learned foreigner remark, "The English eat a certain ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Christmas cards this year? Yes," said Blathers, "but not next year, or the year after that, as we shall be retrenching. They are quite modest trifles, yet at the mere sight of the envelope each recipient will, cheerfully, I hope, pay twopence towards the sinews of war. One hundred of these contributions will amount, I am told, to sixteen shillings and eightpence; not much, but it is my little offering to the country in her hour of need. This is the card I propose to send out in ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... good' in what does not rest (literally, stop 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 ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... there, and after that, the regular postage of the country, if the Letter has to go farther. I put this, for example, into a place called North and South American Coffee-house in the City here, and pay twopence for it, and it flies. Doubtless there is some similar receiving-house with its "leather bag" somewhere in New York, and fixed days (probably the same as our days) for emptying, or rather for tying and despatching, said leather bag: if you deal with the London Packets (so long as I am here) ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 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 a penny. Treating Tony, ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... themselves before their owne doores in their owne boates, upon the Sea, where man, woman, and childe, with a small hooke and line by angling, may take diverse sorts of excellent fish, at their pleasure? And is it not pretty sport to pull up twopence, sixpence, or twelvepence, as fast as you can hale and veare a line? If a man worke but three days in seaven hee may get more than hee can spend ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... with four wheels!" I exclaimed vaingloriously. "It's kismet, Miss Falconer; it's the hand of Providence, no less. Now, we'll leave these notes in the salle a manger to pay for our lodging, which would have been dear at twopence, and be off, if you ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... mile and a quarter from the post office to the Dower House, and it was always his custom to give telegraph messengers who came to his house twopence, and he wanted very much to get rid of the telegraph girl, who stood expectantly before him holding her red bicycle. He felt now very sick and strained; he had a conviction that if he did not by an effort maintain his ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... minor lent me a penny last Saturday, because I was fined for breaking the window; and I spent it at Keyte's. I didn't know there was any harm in it. And Wray major borrowed twopence from me when my uncle sent me a post-office order—I cashed it at Keyte's—for five bob; but he'll pay me back before the holidays. We didn't know there ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... things he had collected in his travels; but he looked well after the people in the village, and insisted that the children should be sent to a little school, where they learned how to read and write and count for twopence a week. If the poor villagers were ill or unhappy, his wife used to visit them, and help them with advice as well as with money, and we may be quite sure that her little daughters often went with ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... Mr. Bradlaugh for the first time. It was a very wet Sunday evening, but as 'bus-riding was dearer then than it is now, and my resources were slender, I walked about three miles through the heavy rain, and sat on a backless bench in Cleveland Hall, for which I think I paid twopence. I was wet through, but I was young, and my health was flawless. Nor did I mind the discomfort a bit when Mr. Bradlaugh began his lecture. Fiery natural eloquence of that sort was a novelty in my ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... thirsted, rose in Schnapps-Wasser territory; and being the property of the reigning house brought to it a huge revenue. Every red-stamped label broken so carelessly in the restaurants and sanatoria of Europe meant twopence halfpenny to the princely pocket of its highly descended ruler. And it was upon these proceeds that the young heir had absented himself for three years and fitted out an expensive expedition of a semi-military character to the unexplored ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... all over the country ready to back you, if you'd only back yourselves. But you won't. You won't fight—that's the worst of you; that's what makes all of us sick when we come down to talk to you. You won't spare twopence halfpenny a week from boozing—not you!—to subscribe to a union, and take the first little step towards filling your stomachs and holding your heads up as free men. What's the good of your grumbling? I suppose you'll go on like that—grumbling and starving ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of mere diversion and child's play that Mr. Stevenson began "Treasure Island." He is an amateur of boyish pleasures of masterpieces at a penny plain and twopence coloured. Probably he had looked at the stories of adventure in penny papers which only boys read, and he determined sportively to compete with their unknown authors. "Treasure Island" came out in such a periodical, with the emphatic woodcuts which adorn ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... a weak one views them through a magnifying medium, which, like the microscope, makes an elephant of a flea: magnifies all little objects, but cannot receive great ones. I have known many a man pass for a miser, by saving a penny and wrangling for twopence, who was undoing himself at the same time by living above his income, and not attending to essential articles which were above his 'portee'. The sure characteristic of a sound and strong mind, is to find in everything those certain bounds, 'quos ultra citrave ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... it would be better, at first," said I, "to call upon them in the name of about twopence a head. Then, when we get a nice little body of adherents to begin with, the other subjects will fall in, of their own accord, if we manage the ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... Venetian gallies left Suez, and arrived at Cairo on the 1st of December, where they were lodged in the same house that they had formerly occupied. Each of them was allowed half a maidan daily for subsistence, which is equal to about twopence of Venice. They here suffered great affliction and fatigue, as whatever laborious work was to be performed was devolved upon them. Clearing out the water-cisterns, levelling hills, putting gardens in order, new buildings, and such like, all fell to their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... long tail-coat that came nearly to his heels, an awfully ragged pair of trowsers, and a liver charred with whisky. He had kept a whisky-shop till he had drunk all his own whisky; and as no distiller would let him have any on trust, he now hung about the inn-yard, and got a penny from one, and twopence from another, for running errands.—Had they been sovereigns they would all have gone the same way—namely, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... that Russians knew what passports were. Also that I always supposed that foreigners conferred a great benefit on a country by spending their money in it; but that if I could not be admitted, that was an end of it; it was a matter of very trifling consequence, indeed, for we really did not care twopence whether we saw Russia or not; a country more or less made very little difference to such travellers ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... through whom all news filtered from the cabin, and from him we had the particulars even down to the amount of the freight. We felt galled that a German barque, which had gone up a week before, was getting two and twopence-ha'penny more; but we took consolation in the thought of what a fine crow we would have over the 'Torreador's,' who were only loading at forty-five and sixpence, direct ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... him still, and it had often discovered beautiful things away where it went, southeast at the edge of the twilight. And he had a matter-of-fact and logical mind, so that he often said, "Why should I pay my twopence at the electric theatre when I can see all sorts of things quite easily without?" Whatever he did was logical before anything else, and those that knew him always spoke of Shap as "a sound, ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... officer was only gazetted on the very day he travelled down with us. He started badly with a heavy reverse and casualty list, for we played bridge on the way and he lost his first day's pay, messing allowance and field allowance, all except twopence, which goes (I believe) to income-tax. When we arrived at our billet we found Pay in process. A private, who has a moment or so ago saluted and withdrawn with his pay, seeks re-admission. "Colour-Sergeant!" he says. "What is it?" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... them were visible, except the cheerful old soul bent almost double, but with a chirruppy little voice like a superannuated sparrow, who acted as porter, and closed the big gates every night, and fined the old men twopence if they were too late. He trotted along the echoing passages, with his keys jingling, to show ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... breakfast very much, but we haven't much money." And, remembering the cost of our supper, I added, "Could we get anything here for about twopence-half-penny or threepence apiece?" ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... don't care twopence what Alice says. This is my tea, and Maria fetched it. Now then, dear ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... was founded on the Cheshire side of the Mersey. The monks used to ferry passengers across to Liverpool until 1282, when Woodside Ferry was established,—twopence for a horseman, and a farthing for a foot-passenger. Steam ferry-boats now cross to Birkenhead, Monk's Ferry, and Woodside every ten minutes; and I believe there are large hotels at all these places, and many of the business men of ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... combination gave him the look of the early villains in Dickens and Bulwer Lytton. Also his yellow beard and hair were more unkempt and leonine than when they appeared long afterwards, cut and pointed, on the lawns of Saffron Park. A long, lean, black cigar, bought in Soho for twopence, stood out from between his tightened teeth, and altogether he looked a very satisfactory specimen of the anarchists upon whom he had vowed a holy war. Perhaps this was why a policeman on the Embankment spoke to him, and ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... thinks he has reason to complain, speaks out his mind and has things cleared up at once. A disagreeable person is he who frequently sends letters to you without paying the postage,—leaving you to pay twopence for each penny which he has thus saved. The loss of twopence is no great matter; but there is something irritating in the feeling that your correspondent has deliberately resolved that he would save his penny at the cost of your twopence. There ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... a letter for herself on the table in the now familiar hand-writing, and was more relieved than perhaps she would have confessed even to her closest friend, when she saw the twopence-halfpenny English stamp on the envelope. Yet its contents were startling enough, and this letter she did not read to Katherine Kempt, but bore its ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... can get for it, and no more. Rarity is not synonymous with high commercial value. There may be only four copies of a particular book in existence, but if the only three people in the world who want it have provided themselves with a copy each, the fourth example is not worth twopence. We have seen this kind of thing illustrated within the past few years. Very small poets are published in very small editions, but nobody buys them, and the books therefore have no market value—in ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... she asked me innocently whether I was not Ned Wooding, and I said that I was, so she kneeled down and very simply called, "Pray, godfather, pray to God to bless me," which made us very merry, and I gave her twopence. In several places, I asked women whether they would sell me their children, but they denied me all, but said they would give me one to keep for them, if I would. Mrs. Anne and I rode under the man that hangs upon ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... sense he thought of his wages. Would it be a penny a week or twopence? He thought it would be twopence. Men didn't work for nothing nowadays. He had ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... definite form in what my eyes are to rest upon; and if landscapes were sold, like the sheets of characters of my boyhood, one penny plain and twopence coloured, I should go the length of twopence every day of ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... what is the essential difference between the call for "twopence to make up a shilling," and the colossal call made in the name of some royal personage for "an additional ten thousand pounds" to make up the L25,000 needed for a new hospital wing? Surely, a hospital, whose value and ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... curious fact we glean from his volume, namely, the currency among the London populace of 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Blackshaw went. He had to go. He went out into the unelectric night. He headed for the Works, not because he cared twopence, at that moment, about the accident at the Works, whatever it was; but simply because the Works was the only place to go to. And even outside in the dark street he could hear the rousing accents of ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... enemy to ink and paper. I'll make it good upon the accidence, body [of me,] that in speech is the devil's paternoster. Nouns and pronouns, I pronounce you as traitors to boys' buttocks; syntaxis and prosodia, you are tormentors of wit, and good for nothing, but to get a schoolmaster twopence a-week. Hang, copies! Fly out, phrase-books! let pens be turn'd to pick-tooths! Bowls, cards, and dice, you are the true liberal sciences! I'll ne'er be a goosequill, gentlemen, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... money, and called you 'Fool' and 'Fatface,' and so it ended," said I. With which I pushed my way from the circle, and, finding a quiet corner beside the chimney, sat down, and with my last twopence paid for a ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... afraid I was rude enough to decline to go into the scheme on the ground that I did not care twopence whether the Rothschilds and Oppenheims went back to Palestine or not. This was felt to be an obstacle; but then he began to try and make me care, whereupon, of course, I had to ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... conversation. "And I wanted to talk over old times with him so badly. His poor wife was my greatest friend. Mira Montanaro, daughter of the great banker, you know. It's not possible that that miserable little prig is my poor Mira's girl. The heiress of all the Montanaros in a black-lace gown worth twopence! When I think of her mother's beauty and her toilets! Does she ever wear the sapphires? Has anyone ever seen her in them? Eleven large stones in a lovely antique setting, and the great Valdez sapphire—worth thousands and thousands—for the pendant." No one replied. "I wanted to get ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... assign large revenues to minors incompetent to manage them. Epitaphs run upon this topic of consolation till the very frequency induces a cheapness. Tickets for admission into paradise are sculptured out a penny a letter, twopence a syllable, etc. It is all a mystery; and the more I try to express my meaning (having none that is clear), the more I flounder. Finally, write what your own conscience, which to you is the unerring judge, deems best, and be careless about the whimsies of such a half-baked notionist as I ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... it was cheap, and 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 Government inspection at two to three groschen per quart. ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... more talk and a little more persuasion, William said he would take two pennyworth of buns, and gave Kate twopence ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie
... before he had been the head of a grammar-school, with a comfortable income; but a habit of drinking had been his ruin, and he was now the preceptor of the village of Grassford, and gained his livelihood by instructing the children of the cottagers for the small modicum of twopence a head per week. This unfortunate propensity to liquor remained with him and he no sooner received his weekly stipend than he hastened to drown his cares, and the recollection of his former position, at the ale-house which they had just quitted. The second personage ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... answer with entire certainty that they do say them. A little while ago two tramps were summoned before a magistrate, charged with sleeping in the open air when they had nowhere else to sleep. But this is not the full fun of the incident. The real fun is that each of them eagerly produced about twopence, to prove that they could have got a bed, but deliberately didn't. To which the policeman replied that twopence would not have got them a bed: that they could not possibly have got a bed: and therefore (argued that thoughtful officer) they ought to be punished for not getting ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... almost any street where they want to go to visit their friends or to shop. In these, the fares are on the same system as on other railways: you pay for your ticket according to the distance you wish to go; but in the first one you paid twopence for all distances alike—twopence if you wanted to go right from the West End to the City, and twopence all the same if you were going to get out at the next station. Therefore some people nicknamed this railway ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... worthies to discuss their port and sherry together. Jack, according to Woodmansterne fashion, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and stuck his legs out before him—an example that Mr. Sponge quickly followed, and each assumed an attitude that as good as said 'I don't care twopence for you.' A dead silence then prevailed, interrupted only by the snap, snap, snapping of Jack's toothpick against his chair-edge, when he was not busy exploring his mouth with it. It seemed to be a match which should keep silence longest. Jack sat Squinting his ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way back to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg, and a diurnal pension of twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of 'leathers,' 'charity,' and the like; and Noah had bourne them without reply. But, now that fortune had cast in his way ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... more diligence: thenceforward posted day and night; did not halt beyond what was necessary for meals; and the postillions were excited by gratuities, after the habit of my cousin Alain. For twopence I could have gone farther and taken four horses; so extreme was my haste, running as I was before the terrors of an awakened conscience. But I feared to be conspicuous. Even as it was, we attracted only too much attention, with our pair and ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the relic of a barbarous age; and, in at least one of its provisions, there seemed evidence that it was that of an intolerant age also: every pupil at school, without exemption, had his name entered on the subscription-list, as a cock-fighter, and was obliged to pay the master at the rate of twopence per head, ostensibly for leave to bring his birds to the pit; but, amid the growing humanities of a better time, though the twopences continued to be exacted, it was no longer imperative to bring the birds; and availing myself of the liberty I never brought ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Indian wampum had been a legal tender, and far into the eighteenth century it remained current in small transactions. "In 1693 the ferriage from New York to Brooklyn was eight stivers in wampum or a silver twopence." [35] As early as 1652 Massachusetts had sought to supply the deficiency by the issue of shillings and sixpences. It was an affair of convenience and probably had no political purpose. The infraction of the navigation ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... "all his generous impulses under perfect control." The sixpences do not "bang" in this country: they crepitate, they crackle, as though shot from a Maxim quick-firer. For instance, the lowest electric-trolley fare is twopence-halfpenny. It is true that for five cents you can, if you wish it, ride fifteen or twenty miles; but that advantage becomes inappreciable when you don't want to ride more than half a mile. Take, again, the harmless, necessary operation ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... don't think so; but it has nothing to do with me ... No, no, she is not dead! And no one shall touch a hair of her head! She is a good, honest girl, and she saved your life, daroga, at a moment when I would not have given twopence for your Persian skin. As a matter of fact, nobody bothered about you. Why were you there with that little chap? You would have died as well as he! My word, how she entreated me for her little chap! ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... prices of labor and of food, which Mr. Froude considers so fully in the first chapter of his history, I shall not enter any further than to remark that the hardness of the laborer's lot, who got, mayhap, only twopence a day, is mitigated by the fact that for a penny he could buy a pound of meat which now costs a shilling. In two respects England has greatly changed for the traveler, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century—in its inns ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... there were a great many, ran to and from the suburbs: they were like the omnibuses, but not so frequent, and they cost a great deal more. Threepence a mile was the usual charge. There was a penny post in London, first set up by a private person. A letter sent from London cost twopence the first stage: threepence for two stages: above 150 miles, sixpence: Ireland and Scotland, sixpence: any foreign country a shilling. There were no bank notes under the value of 20l.: there were no postal orders or any conveniences of that kind. ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... fourpence, a jolly, jolly fourpence, I love fourpence as my life; I spent twopence of it, I spent twopence of it, And I took ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... vast domains can be conceived only by the means of positive instances. The heir of Col, an island not far distant, has lately told me how wealthy he should be if he could let Rum, another of his islands, for twopence halfpenny an acre; and Macleod has an estate which the surveyor reports to contain 80,000 acres, rented at L600 a year.' Piozzi ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... himself in the Sunday-school. "Nay, in common justice, Lenny Fairfield should have the preference," muttered the Parson. The ass pricked up one of his ears, and advanced its head timidly. "But Lenny Fairfield would be as much pleased with twopence: and what could twopence do to thee?" The ass's nose now touched the apple. "Take it in the flame of charity," quoth the Parson, "Justice is accustomed to be served last:" And the ass took the apple. "How had you the heart?" ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... theory, Aunt Charlotte,' he said, still stooping, 'but Miss Leyburn doesn't care twopence about my advantages.' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a suitable match," said Lady Caroline vehemently. "I don't care whether this Mr. Bevan makes thousands of pounds a year or twopence-ha'penny. The match is not suitable. ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... releasing Paul with a clumsy gesture of simulated affection, had sent him with twopence for a pint of beer to the public-house at the end of the street. He recalled how the man had winked his little bright eye at his mother before putting ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... who bear all the brunt. But we'll soon put an end to that. I want to come up and have a good wash in the rain and let the sun shine on me, so that people can see that I am quite as good as the rest. Hullo, you dandy branches, who are not twopence-worth of use! I'm sick and tired of working for a pack of idlers like you. I'm coming up to take a holiday. Hold ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... china and glass, from whom, Doris's mother explained, she would be able to buy her presents fifty per cent, cheaper than elsewhere. She was one of those women who would spend three shillings on a cab in order to save twopence on a vase. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... principal Cities of Europe, by a series of picturesque views—one of which is represented in the above engraving. Our miscellaneous duties in identifying the pages of the MIRROR with subjects of contemporary interest, and anxiety to bring them on our little tapis—(qy. Twopence?)—will best account for the interval which has elapsed since the commencement of our design—with a View of London; but were all travellers as tardy, the Grand Tour of Europe would occupy many years, and leave fashion-mongers but little ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... my ark and never saw again. Unlike the proverbial curse, it did not come home to roost; it stayed where I had sent it. The only thing I ever heard of it again was a polite letter from the editor in whose office it lay, telling me I could have it back if I enclosed stamps to the amount of twopence halfpenny, otherwise he should feel it his unpleasant duty to 'consign it to the waste-paper basket'. I was only sixteen then, and it is a very long time ago; but I have always hated the words 'waste paper' ever since. I don't remember that I was either ...
— How I write my novels • Mrs. Hungerford
... the venerable source of our story, was then in the act of emerging from the Eastward into the Southward of the line of Canterbury's pilgrims when they set forth to worship, on his homeward course, after a walk of two days out of Dover. He descended London's borough, having exactly twopence halfpenny for refreshment; following a term of prudent starvation, at the end of the walk. It is not a district seductive to the wayfarer's appetite; as, for example, one may find the Jew's fry of fish in oil, inspiriting the Shoreditch region, to be. Nourishment is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the rate of wages. I offer the privates sixty piastres (the piastre equals twopence-halfpenny) per month, i.e., thirty piastres as equal pay to that of the regulars, and thirty piastres in lieu of clothes. Formerly these brigands nominally received fifty and fifty-five piastres, in addition to one third of all cattle that might ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... gaffers had certain powers of advancement, and could increase wages to those who found favor in their eyes, to the extent of a penny or twopence per day, and justified it by representing that these girls were value for it, because they were better workers. Again, matters were always easier to these girls of easy virtue, for they got better jobs, and could even flout the authority of lesser ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... economy. Suppose a pound of salmon is worth a shilling; and a pound of beef is worth a shilling likewise. Before we can eat the beef, it has cost perhaps tenpence to make that pound of beef out of turnips and grass and oil-cake; and so the country is only twopence a pound richer for it. But Mr. Salmon has made himself out of what he eats in the sea, and so has cost nothing; and the shilling a pound is all clear gain. There—you don't quite understand that piece of political economy. Indeed, it is only in the last two or three years that older heads ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... see him, Kuno,' said the first huntsman, 'nowhere - not a trace, not a hair of the mare's tail! No, sir, he's off; broke cover and got away. Why, for twopence I would hunt ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it is for the most part brought to London after it is converted into flour, and both bread and flour 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. ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... pay twopence on the letter, the postman insisting that George's neat signature in the bottom left-hand corner of the envelope was an insufficient substitute for a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... lasso, but could not free himself from the fatal noose. He must pay whatever the cold-eyed creditor demanded. Two thousand dollars was the sum asked for the acknowledgment of having appropriated five hundred. Twopence for halfpenny has been accounted fair usury among the Jews; but in Christian communities it is only crime ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... peculiar note with the uniformity of their brown holland suits; and occasionally a couple of British sailors come sauntering in with fine self-assurance, their fair hair and red cheeks contrasting with the general swartness. You pay no entrance money, but your refreshment costs a real—which is twopence ha'penny; and for that you may enjoy not only a cup of coffee or a glass of manzanilla, but an evening's entertainment. As the night wears on the heat is oven-like, and the air is thick and grey with the smoke of ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... Kemp! Mister Kemp!" in a shrill treble. It gave me such an odd feeling to hear your name echoing in the distance. I felt so ashamed for giving them all that trouble; and when the boy came back I slipped twopence into his palm, which I suppose was against all the rules, though he seemed ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... more desire my reader to consider that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Will's under twopence each day, merely for his charges; to White's under sixpence; nor to The Grecian, without allowing him some plain Spanish, to be as able as others at the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... in the street and interrupting people who are talking, he said: 'If they are tradesmen, their conversation will soon end, and may be well paid for by a halfpenny; if an inferior clings to the skirt of a superior, he will give twopence rather than be pulled off; and when you are happy enough to meet a lover and his mistress, never part with them under sixpence, for you may be sure they will ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... in the coffee-room. I pace the street, as sadly almost as if I had been coming to school, not going thence. I turn into a court by mere chance—I vow it was by mere chance—and there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window, Coffee, Twopence. Round of buttered toast, Twopence. And here am I, hungry, penniless, with five-and-twenty shillings of my ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... will starve first. Good-bye to gold and high living. Preserve me from my own servants, and I will call myself rich on twopence-halfpenny. ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... fortnight ago in lodgings, having two rooms, one a very good one; and paying for everything fifty-six dollars a month, the dollar being four shillings and twopence. This you will see is dear; but I could make no better arrangement, for there is an unusual affluence of strangers this year. I have now come to live with a friend, a Dr. Calvert, in a small house of our own, where I am much more comfortable, and live greatly cheaper. He ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... It could be applied to any other pleasure or ornament of life; it will be applied to every other pleasure and ornament of life if the Capitalist campaign can succeed. The argument we know; but it cannot be too often made clear. An employer, let us say, pays a seamstress twopence a day, and she does not seem to thrive on it. So little, perhaps, does she thrive on it that the employer has even some difficulty in thriving upon her. There are only two things that he can do, and the distinction between them cuts the whole social and ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... coffee-house, would cost him at least fourpence. He thought he would be able to obtain a fairly good dinner in one of the little Italian restaurants for ninepence. His tea would cost the same as his breakfast. To these sums he must add twopence for tobacco and a penny for an evening paper—impossible to do without tobacco, and he must know what was going on in the world. He could therefore live for one shilling and eightpence a day—eleven shillings a week—to which he would have to add six shillings a week for rent, altogether ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... former deficiencies and services for which no provision had been made in the course of the last year, did not exceed two millions one hundred and thirty-two thousand seven hundred and seven pounds, seventeen shillings and twopence halfpenny. In order to defray which expense, they assigned the duty on malt, &c, the land-tax at two shillings in the pound, the surplus of certain funds in the exchequer, and the sum of four hundred and twenty thousand pounds out of the sinking fund; so that the exceedings amounted to near ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... called by the people of Zinder, ferri, four draas are sold in Zinder for one hundred wadas, about twopence. This native cotton cloth, when doubled, makes tents impervious to ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... you get rents from your lands and I don't know what, while I don't and so I prize what's come to me from my ancestors or been won by hard work.... We are aristocrats, and not those who can only exist by favor of the powerful of this world, and who can be bought for twopence halfpenny." ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... of providing employment for poor street boys, by furnishing them with brushes and blacking, and forming them into regular companies of shoeblacks. Each boy has his' particular stand, where he blacks the shoes of every passer by who chooses to take the trouble of putting up his foot and paying his twopence. Lord Shaftesbury also presented me to a lady who had been a very successful teacher in the ragged schools; also to a gentleman who, he said, had been very active in the London city missions. Some very ingenious work done in the ragged ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sure he's not. He's a nasty, mean beggar, who makes me pay ever so much for everything he does for me. You ask him," continued Mercer, giving his head a side wag at me, "if only this morning he didn't make me give him twopence for ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... true, to be sure; I never can save my money, and so I will tell you what I mean to do. Mamma gives us threepence a week, to spend as we please, you know; but I will only take twopence for the time to come, and I shall ask her to give the other pennies to the Tract Society at the end of the year. Four shillings and fourpence is not much, indeed, yet it will buy some nice little books for the Hindoo children ...
— Aunt Harding's Keepsakes - The Two Bibles • Anonymous
... for A——, and led her down one side its whole length and up the other. In these shops the precious old dears could buy everything they wanted in the most minute quantities. Such tempting heaps of lumps of white sugar, only twopence! Such delectable cakes, two for a penny! Such seductive scraps of meat, which would make a breakfast nourishing as well as relishing, possibly even what called itself a dinner, blushing to see themselves labelled threepence or fourpence! We did not know whether to smile or to drop a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... heard so much of Finnish baths that he determined to try one; having arrived at some small town, he told the Isvoschtschik to go to the bastu. Away they drove, and finally drew up at a very nice house, where he paid the twopence halfpenny fare for his cab, rang the bell, and was admitted by a woman servant. He only knew half a dozen words in Swedish, but repeated bastu to the smiling lass, being surprised at the elegance of the furniture in the room into which he ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... yourself, and the man—together!" said Winnington, flushing with anger. "I know nothing about him, when you first arrived here. Mr. Lathrop didn't matter twopence to me ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... denial. But men may be sorely touched and deeply grieved in their privileges, as well as in their purses. Men may lose little in property by the act which takes away all their freedom. When a man is robbed of a trifle on the highway, it is not the twopence lost that constitutes the capital outrage. This is not confined to privileges. Even ancient indulgences withdrawn, without offence on the part of those who enjoyed such favors, operate as grievances. But were the Americans, then, not ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... forms of diversion held out the slightest possible attractiveness. The theatrical show struck him as third-rate, and as for circuses and menageries, he supposed they had been good fun when he was a child. He did not care twopence about the pleasures of the bar unless he wanted a drink, and for barmaids and their allurements less than nothing. So having already, with Rainsford or Wheeler, and seven other spirits more wicked ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... to land and embark by the aid of a ferry-boat. We touch the pier at last: a gangway is hastily thrown from the pier to the steamer, and in company with many others we go ashore. At the landward end of the jetty, detained there by a barrier of twopence each of toll, in round hats and alpaca dresses, are waiting our friend's wife and children, from whom we receive a welcome distinguished by that frankness which is characteristic of Glasgow people. But we do not intend so far ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... chest of drawers, from which the handles had long been pulled off, so that its contents could only be got at either by tilting the whole structure until all the drawers fell out together, or by opening each of them singly with knives like oysters—the miscellaneous salad bought for twopence by Betsey Prig on condition that the vendor could get it all into her pocket (including among other items a green vegetable of an expansive nature, of such magnificent proportions that before it could be got either in or out it had to be shut up like an umbrella), which ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... 'twould ha' look'd busy like, in me, to say a word; so I took up a warming pan, and I bang'd bum bailey, wi' the broad end on't, 'till he fell o' the floor as fat as twopence. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... you're about it, Tanner," cried Smith. "Why, it isn't worth twopence—I mean I wouldn't give you a dollar for it. But I say, my lads, look here, what are we going to do first?" continued Smith, who was in a high state of excitement, though I was as bad. "Start off at once for ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... careful, and arter marking it "Private," twice in front and once on the back, I stuck it down so that it could be blown open a'most, and waited for the schooner to come back. Then I gave a van-boy twopence to 'and it to Mrs. Smithers, wot was sitting on the deck alone, and tell 'er it was ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... HERB TWOPENCE. The Leaves.— Their taste is subastringent, and very slightly acid: hence they stand recommended by Boerhaave in the hot scurvy, and in uterine and other haemorrhagies. But their effects are so inconsiderable, that common practice takes ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... to spend a penny or twopence upon vanity and worldliness went to see the performance. It was quite a fashionable gathering. The best society were by common consent allowed to take the best seats—very hard benches—the less ambitious ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... July 31st, 1638. No messengers were thenceforth to run to and from Bristol except those appointed by Thomas Withering, but letters were allowed to be sent by common carriers, or by private messengers passing between friends. The postage was fixed at twopence for under 80 miles, and at fourpence for ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... with the tambourine, the golden youth of Castel-le-Gachis turned from her coldly. Here and there a single halfpenny was forthcoming; the net result of a collection never exceeded half a franc; and the Maire himself, after seven different applications, had contributed exactly twopence. A certain chill began to settle upon the artists themselves; it seemed as if they were singing to slugs; Apollo himself might have lost heart with such an audience. The Berthelinis struggled against the ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 1602), but set to work with the quiet initiative which has distinguished New Englanders ever since, first to catch, then to barter, and finally to sell his wares to all the world. For cheap as all fish was—twopence for a twelve-pound cod, salmon less than a penny a pound, and shad, when it was finally considered fit to eat at all, at two fish for a penny—yet, when all the world is ready to buy and the supply is inexhaustible, tremendous profits are possible. The many fast days of the Roman ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... riders, the boys were soon on the Islington road. The New Gate was shut by the time they reached it, and their explanation that they were belated after a nutting expedition would not have served them, had not Stephen produced the sum of twopence which softened the surliness ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge |
