"Twopence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was. She didn't care twopence for us. We ought to be prepared for the worst," he ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... get a partner!" . . . The fellow had presumed to stamp with rage on the floor of the private office. Where was he going to get a partner? Was he being taken for a fool? Not a single one of that contemptible lot ashore at the "Home" had twopence in his pocket to bless himself with. The very native curs in the bazaar knew that much. . . . "And it's true enough, Harry," rumbled Captain Eliott judicially. "They are much more likely one and all to owe money to the Chinamen in Denham Road for the clothes on their backs. ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... found smashed to matchwood, and the vehicle lies helpless and useless on its side. But still steady as rocks sit the drivers facing the music. This is courage—the real article—and the market price of this kind of British pluck is one and twopence ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... acrimonious impartiality, but Selina, after a long argument with a lady subaltern of the Salvation Army, during which the methods and bonnets of that organization were hotly assailed, so far relented as to present her with twopence on account. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... morning, and the bells waken Stoke, who is sleeping on a flock bed, in his little camera. His room, though he is not one of the luxurious clerks whom the University scolds in various statutes, is pretty well furnished. His bed alone is worth not less than fifteenpence; he has a "cofer" valued at twopence (we have plenty of those old valuations), and in his cofer are his black coat, which no one would think dear at fourpence, his tunic, cheap at tenpence, "a roll of the seven Psalms," and twelve books only "at his beddes heed." ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... got a thundering lot to be thankful for too. To begin with, she'll wait for you, and then, if necessary, marry on twopence-halfpenny a year, and make you comfortable on it too. As far as her father is concerned, she's very devoted to him, and would never do anything to annoy him if she could possibly help it, as I easily spotted the night we dined with them at the Carlton. But ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... a good deal of searching I managed to procure several handfuls of 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 in the very ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... I could get the same thing in London, but of course a suburban street must be nicer than a London one. We are just outside the Metropolitan main drainage system, and our death-rate is rather heavy, but then our rates are light. My butcher only charges me one-and-twopence a pound for best joints, and though this is a little dearer than London, the meat is probably more wholesome from being in such good air as we enjoy. In wintertime the journey to town, half-an-hour by train, has a most bracing effect on those capable of bearing severe cold. For the rest, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... 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 portals or to have anything ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... house in Melbourne, and their "cuteness" was more than the "cuteness" of Meeson. Did Meeson's publish an edition of the works of any standard author at threepence per volume the opposition company brought out the same work at twopence-halfpenny; did Meeson's subsidise a newspaper to puff their undertakings, the opposition firm subsidised two to cry them down, and so on. And now the results of all this were becoming apparent: for the financial year just ended the Australian branch had barely earned a beggarly net dividend ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... demand. How the paying of the ransom was carried on, and how the maintenance of the King's state we need not inquire. The Crown lands were no doubt extensive still. Some years later another experiment of the same kind was made; the new tax, however, being only twopence in the pound, and its object the payment of expenses of a mission sent to France to negotiate a marriage between the baby-princess Margaret and the equally juvenile dauphin—an object which does not appear to have appealed to the sympathies of the people, since we are told that ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... think, is because—at least to foreign eyes—the sum of Italian misery is, on the whole, less than the sum of the Italian knowledge of life. That people should thank you, with a smile of striking sweetness, for the gift of twopence, is a proof, certainly, of extreme and constant destitution; but (keeping in mind the sweetness) it also attests an enviable ability not to be depressed by circumstances. I know that this may possibly be great nonsense; that ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... dreaming along a park road at four miles an hour; and Miles's reckless sport has been the delight of his life, as my marriage has been the blessing of mine; and I never think of it but to thank Heaven. Mind, I don't set up my worship as an example. I don't say to all young folks, "Go and marry upon twopence a year;" or people would look very black at me at our vestry-meetings; but my wife is known to be a desperate match-maker; and when Hodge and Susan appear in my justice-room with a talk of allowance, we urge them to spend their half-crown a week at ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... atmosphere of quackery and delusion the report of the Committee on Currency and Foreign Exchanges breathes a refreshing blast of sound common sense. Everybody ought to read it. It costs but twopence; it is only a dozen pages long, and it is described (if you want to order it) as Cd. 9182. In view of the many attacks that have been made on our banking system—especially the Bank Act of 1844—by Chambers of ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... the attention of the N.S.P.C.C. should be drawn to the fact that several stall-holders on the beach of a popular seaside town are offering ices at twopence each, or twelve ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... Nights. The shopkeeper compares notes with me about numerals, and is as much amused as I. He treats 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 he has picked up a little bruised for four shillings. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Dillon, I'll bet twopence," said Greg, jumping up to rush into the other room: "he's come about the ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... coffee-house was opened in Oxford in 1650, and by the beginning of the eighteenth century the coffee-house had become the regular resort of every Londoner who could afford to pay the twopence for the dish of the beverage which admitted him to its society. Men of similar tastes assembled at the same house, so that gradually each of the principal coffee-houses became a centre for a particular kind of society. Thus Will's (p. 3, 1. 17), at the corner ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... nearly 50 per cent, wholesale dealers often kept provisions of all sorts rotting in their stores rather than break the artificial scarcity they had created; farmers would not sell fresh eggs when the price was twopence-halfpenny, because they knew that in a week or two the price for the same eggs would have risen to threepence. Here is a cartoon from a Hungarian paper[20] showing the bloated profiteer of The Sugar Trust laughing at the women who ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... turned out his pockets and spread their contents on the table before him. There were seven postage stamps perforated with the initials of his late employers, one three-penny-bit in silver, twopence in copper, and a Bank of England note for 10s. "Irretrievably ruined!" he muttered with closed lips. "I will offer my services to my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... range of his learning) also contain, between ourselves, a great deal that the critic could not write if he would ever so; and this is a truth which critics are sometimes apt to forget in their judgments of works of fiction. As a rustical boy, hired at twopence a week, may fling stones at the blackbirds and drive them off and possibly hit one or two, yet if he get into the hedge and begin to sing, he will make a wretched business of the music, and Labin and Colin and the dullest swains of the village will laugh ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... at 11.35 P.M. to drive an elderly gentleman, wearing a fur-coat, to Golder's Green, you are tendered the legal fare plus twopence. Express, within ladylike limits, your appreciation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... among the leaves of a law-paper, and find an editio princeps under the mask of a school Corderius. Snuffy Davy bought the Game of Chess, 1474, the first book ever printed in England, from a stall in Holland, for about two groschen, or twopence of our money. He sold it to Osborne for twenty pounds, and as many books as came to twenty pounds more. Osborne resold this inimitable windfall to Dr. Askew for sixty guineas. At Dr. Askew's sale," continued the old gentleman, kindling as he spoke, "this inestimable treasure blazed ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... your theory, Aunt Charlotte,' he said, still stooping, 'but Miss Leyburn doesn't care twopence about my advantages.' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver, whose feeling for gradients was unnaturally exalted), and it brought his heart into his mouth to see a cyclist ride down it, like a fly crawling down a window pane. The man hadn't even a brake. He visited the castle early in the evening and paid his twopence ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... Riches-court; From the Haymarket canting rogues in grain, Gulls from the Poultry, sots from Water-lane; The lottery cormorant, the auction shark, The full-price master, and the half-price clerk; Boys, who long linger at the gallery-door, With pence twice live, they want but twopence more, Till some Samaritan the twopence spares, And sends them jumping up the gallery-stairs. Critics we boast, who ne'er their malice baulk, But talk their minds—we wish they'd mind their talk; Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live, Who give the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... 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 ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... magnificent old man, with a genuine apostolic inspiration. I don't care twopence whether he is right or wrong, but he's a perfectly splendid old fellow, as honest and transparent as the day's long. He believes in it all, and would give his life for it freely, if he thought he could forward the cause a single inch ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... seem to care twopence about the domestic trouble of Mavis and Will. Her thoughts were engrossed ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... you must lisp," concluded Anne. "You must write a poem for the occasion—an 'Ode on Bank Holiday.' We'll print it on Uncle Henry's press and sell it at twopence ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... 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 impression; they put their back into their work, they sang loud and louder, the ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nowadays—of delight in piety and delight in twopence-coloured mischiefs came as a glorious novelty and respite to the oppressed race of Victorians. Hitherto they had been building up an Empire decently and in order; no doubt, many reprehensible things were being done, but they were ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... to a country where their labor would be useful and their prosperity sure. It may be presumed, that in this spirit a girl and two boys were committed to take their trial for stealing some wood, valued at twopence, the property of the crown.[207] These acts of severity forcibly contrast with the happier fortunes of other classes. It is said of George III, that he arrested two Eton boys in the act of poaching: they took ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... had established the facts that a shilling was something like twenty-five cents, a dollar was four and twopence, and twenty-five dollars was something over five pounds, ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... list of all his personal expenses—even to the gratuities he expended in traveling and entertainment. We find, for instance, that "John Cramer is to go into the service of Mr. Jefferson at twelve dollars a month and twopence for drink, two suits of clothes and a pair of boots." It seems that he bought a bootjack for three shillings; and the cost of countless other household items is as ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... than fifty or a hundred years later. Into the question of the 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
... 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 unless hee ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... devastated by a French fleet, whilst at the same time his hands were full with fresh difficulties from Scotland and Wales. In the summer of 1295, the city furnished the king with three ships, the cost being defrayed by a tax of twopence in the pound charged on chattels and merchandise. John le Breton, then warden, advanced the sum of L40, which the aldermen and six men of each ward undertook to repay.(323) In the following year (1296) ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... for the freedom of the whole people. His Lordship, in alluding to cheap seditious publications, such as Cobbett's and Sherwin's Registers, and Wooler's Dwarf, which at this time were published at twopence each, in great numbers, lamented that the law officers of the Crown could find nothing in them that they could prosecute with any chance of success. Cobbett's Register alone, at this period, attained a sale of fifty thousand copies a week. The Bill was ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... by being reckoned in Halifax currency of four dollars to the pound instead of five. The British Tommy Atkins of that and many a later day thought Canada a wonderful country for making money go a long way when he could buy a pot of beer for twopence and get back thirteen pence Halifax currency as change for his English shilling. Beef and ham ran from ninepence to a shilling a pound. Mutton was a little dearer. Salt butter was eightpence to one-and-threepence. ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... what are called in the trade "prime joints;" and so far has this been effected, that the comparative weight of the hind quarters over the fore has become a test of quality in the breed, the butchers in some markets charging twopence a pound more for that portion of the sheep. Indeed, so superior are the hind quarters of mutton now regarded, that very many of the West-end butchers never deal in any other ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... string, and what the works with,—mother wants me to work at them at home, but I won't—I tells her I'd run away first,—she is so little she can't carry the sacks home as other gals do; so a strong young woman who works at sacks carries them home for her, and charges her twopence for it,—they car-ries them home on the top of their heads; but she is too little, she is." (At that time women worked at sack-making, and carried them home on ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... flavoured soda twopence if we bring back the bottles. That will leave fourpence for biscuits ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... 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 ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... "I don't care twopence about the ballot," said Violet, as she put out her hand to Phineas. "Are we going to have a new iron fleet ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... to point out all the notable places as we pass up the Broad Walk, it would be time to turn back before we reach them, and I simply wave my stick at Cecco's Tree, that memorable spot where a boy called Cecco lost his penny, and, looking for it, found twopence. There has been a good deal of excavation going on there ever since. Farther up the walk is the little wooden house in which Marmaduke Perry hid. There is no more awful story of the Gardens by day than this of Marmaduke Perry, who had been Mary-Annish three days in succession, and was sentenced ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... thoroughfares that, after exploring it in its full extent by myself, I went 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)
... true, the Gardens are ruined, but one must not forget the inestimable advantage to the shareholders of the public being able to get from Paddington to Chelsea in a tunnel for twopence. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... the Outrams that I should not care about the sideboard if you had got it for twopence. What an awful smash! Just think of the old place being bought by a Jew! Tom and Leonard are utterly ruined, they say, not a sixpence left. I declare I nearly cried when I saw ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... I like. Pah! In Serbia one can get two maidens for twopence, and three widows for ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... it a little more out of the common way than that? But, Harcourt, without joke, you need not trouble yourself. I did want you to see her; but I don't care twopence as to your liking her. I shall think much more of your wife liking her—if you ever ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... on at the lawyer's if they're buyin' cream, Leeby. Their reg'lar thing's twopence ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... 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 any. Nor, save ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... continued Smiler, "as, when one on 'em gets leave, he goes round among his mates, and they all gi'es him a penny or twopence apiece—hundred on 'em, p'r'aps—and that sets ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... fan —and swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead. The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are .. copied verbatim from my ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... 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 differ little but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... high sweet voice: "A penny, a penny, twopence, a penny and a half, and a half-penny! Now do you go away, all of you, for the wisdom of Helmas is too strong for us. There is no way for you to get into, nor for me to get out of, this place of buttered willow wands, until I have deluded and circumvented ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... one just at present," Harry said unsteadily with quivering lips. "I feel sometimes as if—as we used to say at school—I could cry for twopence. I know, Jeanne, I can trust you, and it isn't because I doubted your courage that I have not told you exactly how things are going on, but because it is entirely upon you now that Louise and Virginie have to depend, and I do not wish to put any more weight on your shoulders; but it will be ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... Miss Beecher cares a twopence who Robert is," said Lady Claire honestly. "When I told her he was going to stand for Roxham she answered that she had a very poor opinion of M.P.s—from reading Mrs. Ward. I can't quite see what she meant—but as for ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... I've bin in good luck on shore, havin' fallen in with a most interestin' man, whose right name I don't know yet, because everybody speaks of him as Conrad of the Mountains, though some calls him Pedro, and others the Rover of the Andes, and a good lot say he's a robber. But I don't care twopence what they say, for I've seen him, and believe him to be a first-rate feller. Anyhow, he's a rich one, and has bin hirin' a few men to help him to work his silver-mine, and as I know somethin' about mining, he has engaged me to ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... demanded Chappy, who seemed, however, touched at my wanting him. "Now, my son, don't you run away with the idea that you're of the slightest importance. All boys are the most useless, burdensome, and expensive animals in the world. It wouldn't matter twopence if they were all wiped out of existence—there'd be a sigh of relief. So don't think it interesting that you're ill. Because it isn't. And you ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... repressing praise of himself, as usual. "But I remember so well when twopence was a sum to be respected that to this day I would rather put it by than spend it. All our ideas—like orange-plants—spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots. Then I had a sister." Vance paused a moment, as if in pain, but went on with seeming carelessness, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Debates (Works, x. 418), makes General Handasyd say:—'The whole pay of a foot soldier is sixpence a day, of which he is to pay fourpence to his landlord for his diet, or, what is very nearly the same, to carry fourpence daily to the market ... Twopence a day is all that a soldier had to lay out upon cleanliness and decency, and with which he is likewise to keep his arms in order, and to supply himself with some part of his clothing. If, Sir, after these deductions he can, from twopence ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... they bought some of the rush shoes worn by the peasants. They are made of rushes which grow on the banks of the Volga. They are more like sandals than shoes, being fastened on with thongs round the ankles. Their cost is about twopence ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... 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
... furnished with a pair of claws, which compress the cork to a size sufficiently small to allow it to enter the neck of the bottle, and a suspended weight, which in falling drives it home. These corks, which are principally obtained from Catalonia and Andalucia, cost more than twopence each, and are delivered in huge sacks resembling hop-pockets. Before they are used they have been either boiled in wine, soaked in a solution of tartar, or else steamed by the cork merchants, both to prevent their imparting a bad flavour to the wine and to hinder ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... 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 ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... first stage was started between Philadelphia and New York by Mr. Butler; three days through in summer time, five and six in winter. In 1765 a second stage was started, to go through positively in three days. This was a covered Jersey wagon,—fare, twopence per mile. In 1766 another stage, called the 'Flying Machine,' was started, to go through in two ...
— The Olden Time Series: Vol. 2: The Days of the Spinning-Wheel in New England • Various
... understand me, Tommy? It isn't that I'm a cad, it's that I am a coward. I couldn't be a cad supposing I tried. These things are a matter chiefly of blood and bone, and I am not made that way. But God help me! I am a coward. I can't fight worth twopence. Look at my performance a fortnight ago. The ordinary gardener's boy can beat me at making love. I am full of generous impulses and sentiments, but what's the use of them? Everything grows cold and I am a dumb icicle when it ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... than his property should descend upon them, they should go to the person—Heaven help the man!—he was pleased to call his greatest enemy, and that my chance of ever succeeding to the property wasn't worth twopence." ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... dismissed your work, made to smart for it somehow. Just you try! There are people 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 ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... them out of the way of the waggons, and prevent their straying or trespassing on the neighbours' "liberties;" the boy's duty was also to bar the gates at night after all the waggons had passed. George petitioned for this post, and, to his great joy, he was appointed at the wage of twopence a day. ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... our calculation with some figures on another slip of paper before her. "Isn't three pounds sixteen and a penny half of seven pounds twelve and twopence?" ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... is 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
... secret that Ramel jealously concealed, and which no more than two or three of his oldest friends knew anything about, and while he hesitated about spending twopence on himself, and went to the Institute and to the Chamber of Deputies outside an omnibus, Pepa led the happy life of a millionaire who is not frightened of the to-morrow, and brought up her son like a little prince, with a tutor and three servants, who had ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... snobbish—to talk of your great acquaintances in public! And as for Lady Risborough's answer—"I don't care twopence about the Duchess, Hugh! and I haven't seen Ewen for six years,"—it had been merely humbug, for she had obediently followed ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... are made by heating canes of glass and pinching them from the end with pliers, which at the same time answer the purpose of a die. They are sold very cheaply, as low as twopence a gross, but it is scarcely possible for any English firm to compete ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... year, and spent half that. I live on half my income; always have done; always shall. Good principle! I'm a man of business, I am, Carl Foster. Give the public what they want, and save half your income—that's the ticket. Look at me. I've got to act the duke; it pays, so I do it. I am a duke. I get twopence apiece royalty on my photographs. That's what you'll never reach up to, not if you're the biggest doctor in the world." He laughed. "By the way, how's Jem getting ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... William as Baroness de Leybourne, 1309; married before 1321. By charter dated at Canterbury, March 5th, 1362, she gave a grant to the Abbey of Saint Augustine in that city, for the following benefits to be received: a mass for herself on Saint Anne's Day, with twopence alms to each of 100 poor; a solemn choral mass on her anniversary, and 1 penny to each of 200 poor; perpetual mass by a secular chaplain at the altar of Saint Anne, for Edward the Third, Lawrence Earl of Pembroke, and John his son; ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... sometimes worth a good deal more than twopence-halfpenny," Owen reminded him quietly, "and I daresay a girl out of a shop would make a jolly decent wife. But I wasn't ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... 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 experience. I kept myself warm with ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... in the MORNING CHRONICLE on the Working Classes, are now being republished in Weekly Numbers, price Twopence; and Monthly Parts, price Ninepence; with Engravings of the Scenes and People from Daguerreotypes by BEARD. To be ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... pounds sterling, or exactly an average receipt of five shillings per week. Against this sum were to be placed: expenses for tools, five shillings and sixpence; trade society and police, five shillings and tenpence; clothing and washing, three pounds, one shilling and twopence; and rent and extra board, one pound seven shillings. Seventeen visits to theatres at prices ranging from two shillings to sevenpence amounted to sixteen shillings and sixpence, making a total of five pounds sixteen shillings. The surplus of six pounds four shillings ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... no; you are wrong. Suppose you have to go into a baker's shop and buy a half-quarter loaf, and lay down fourpence, would you say you had amply rewarded the baker?" Unhesitatingly she replied "Yes." "Why?" "Because the loaf's only twopence-three-farthings," was ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... whoso had carried with him an air-pump, and vial of vitriolic ether, might have worked a miracle. To my Horse, again, who unhappily is still more unscientific, do not I work a miracle, and magical 'Open sesame!' every time I please to pay twopence, and open for him an impassable Schlagbaum, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... Glyco might do what he would with his own; but it will be a brand on him as long as he lives; nor can any thing but Hell blot it out; however, every man's faults are his own. I perceive now what entertainment Mammea is like to give us; he'll be at twopence charges for me and my company; which if he does, he will pull Narbanus clean out of favour; for you must know, he'll live at the full height; yet in truth what good has he done us? He gave us a company of gittiful sword-players, but so old and decrepid, that ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... so many came but for which nobody 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
... great probability of escape afforded to thieves by the narrow streets and the common-lodging houses of the day. Of the latter, crowded with miserable beds from the cellar to the garret, let out, at twopence a night the single beds, and threepence the double ones, Fielding draws a picture as terrible as any of his friend Hogarth's plates. And he concludes "Nay I can add what I myself once saw in the Parish ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... I 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 tight, for ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... ferocious presence of mind, and bristling up and screaming in the front of her brood, and in the face of circumstances, succeeds, by her courage, in putting her enemy to flight; in like manner you will always, I think, find your wife (if that lady be good for twopence) shrill, eager, and ill-humored, before, and during a great family move of this nature. Well, the swindling hackney-coachmen are paid, the mother leading on her regiment of little ones, and supported by her auxiliary nurse-maids, are ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had always a superfluity, and I was enabled to relieve the necessities and fill the bellies of many poor Miserable Hungry creatures who otherwise must have starved; for 'twas the custom of the Crown only to allow their Captives a few Kreutzers, amounting to some twopence-farthing a day English, for their subsistence. The Oldest Prisoner in the Ward, whom they called Father of the Room, would on this Bare Pittance take tithe and toll, often in a most Extortionate manner. Then these Gaol birds would fall to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... mournfully shaking her head. "A dream of the past," said Carroll, waving his pipe through the smoke. "Gatti's? Yes, on special occasions; but for necessity the Chancellor's, where one gets a piece of the prime roast beef of Old England, from Chicago, and potatoes for ninepence—a pot of bitter twopence-halfpenny, and a penny for the waiter. It's most amusing on the whole. I am learning a little about London, and some things about myself. They are both most ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... 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
... a full fair bean-flower cendall, Dame, one shilling the ell; and a good sop-in-wine say at twopence." ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... was received with much favour, and a gentleman who claimed to be acquainted with the family history of the interrupter begged the chairman to excuse that ill-bred person on the ground that his mother used to get drunk with the twopence a week and never sent ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... each traveller in Norway must have a cariole and a pony to himself. These are hired very cheaply, however. You can travel post there at the rate of about twopence a mile! Our friends had three carioles among them, three ponies, and three drivers or "shooscarles," [This word is spelt as it should be pronounced] besides a small native cart ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... "The Red Lion," No. 48, Parliament Street, "at the corner of the very short street leading into Cannon Row," where David Copperfield ordered a glass of the very best ale—"The Genuine Stunning with a good head to it"—at twopence half-penny the glass, but the landlord hesitated to draw it, and gave him a glass of some which he suspected was not the "genuine stunning"; and the landlady coming into the bar returned his money, and gave him a "kiss that was half-admiring and half-compassionate, ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... let baby come, so you had best leave him at home. There's old Mrs. Court can look after him," said Ben, indicating an old woman who sometimes took care of babies for twopence a day. ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... She didn't care twopence ha'penny for the Vale of Evesham—she was just talking for time. Gabrielle listened to her very quietly, and Mrs. Payne took her silence for evidence that she was playing her hand badly. This flustered her. She became conscious of ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... from the party declamations which usually occupy so large a portion of that "critical journal." But this is not singular, for it is now no uncommon thing to see a large letter column of a newspaper, and a similar proportion of a printed sheet published at twopence, alike occupied by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... people, a man and wife who were themselves of the nether world, and knew the ways thereof. The 'stock' which formed the basis of the soup was wholesome and nutritious; the peas were of excellent quality; twopence a quart was the price at which this fluid could be purchased (one penny if a ticket from a member of the committee were presented), and sometimes as much as five hundred quarts would be sold in a day. Satisfactory enough this. When the people came with complaints, saying ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... and her upright figure had vanished under the arch. People began to fidget and reach for their hats and coats. A grubby youth with a hot, red face and a tray slung round his neck pushed his way between the benches shouting: "Signed photographs of the c'lebrities, twopence each!" in a raucous indifferent voice. Robert waved to him, and he took ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... all is!' went on Mike, sitting down again. 'What's the good of it all? You go and sweat all day at a desk, day after day, for about twopence a year. And when you're about eighty-five, you retire. It isn't living at all. It's simply being ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... little while these backbiters told each other that he had not paid his rent, that his furniture was only on loan, and not a single instalment had been met; he owed the butcher half a crown, the baker discovered there was one and twopence on his book, the tavern could show a score, everybody knew the wretch was a drunkard and beat his wife, and many knew his wife was no better than she should be. Nothing was too base to be laid to the charge of the scoundrel who had run away. At the end of a few weeks the wretch ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... any of the above 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 than themselves, gone the round three or ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... temper. She is a spirited gel, full of life and fire and intelligence. I wouldn't give twopence for a woman without a temper—certainly she had a temper! Bah, don't talk to me, sir—you sit there and tell me you were content to let her go, let a beautiful creature like that go merely because she had ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... way little by little, and in the end a bargain is struck. The amounts involved appear to be enormous, as the reis are computed by thousands and hundreds; but, then, the real is only worth about the thousandth part of three shillings and twopence at the present rate of exchange, and the long and exciting transaction, in all its various phases, has resulted in one or other of the parties having scored or missed a small victory. Verily, even to the loser, the pleasure is cheap at ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... him to spend all that time? Not I. Let him leave me alone. He does not care twopence about me, and it's mere humbug and hypocrisy all his pretending ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rickshaw-riding is that no one can call it expensive. While the boy goes, you pay him about sevenpence an hour; while he waits you pay him rather less than twopence-halfpenny an hour, and you can have his services for a whole day for about half a crown. But some of them will try to cheat you in places where foreigners are often met with, and will put a whole twopence an hour ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... got the old woman off at last for twopence, and soon as she'd gone I was coming home, and I met them four again, and they began at me ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... The club gets its beer direct from the brewer, by the barrel. So they get it good; at once much cheaper, and much better, than at the public-house. The members take it in turns to be steward, and serve out the beer: if a man should decline to serve when his turn came, he would pay a fine of twopence. The steward lasts, as long as the barrel lasts. When there is a new barrel, there ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... were more like a scene from a Bacchanal than the residence of a civil society."[138] The sign which hangs over the inn-door in Hogarth's picture of Gin Lane, and announces that the customer can get drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, and have straw for nothing, was a copy, not an invention. Attempts to limit the traffic in gin were met by riots so fierce that the government was obliged to withdraw its measures. The violent natures of the common people appeared in their amusements ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... want of any thing whatever that this country affords. Among other things we had fresh mutton every day, as we had many shepherds along with us taking care of the sheep we had bought at Babylon, each merchant having his own marked with a distinguishing mark. We gave each shepherd a medin, which is twopence of our money, for keeping and feeding our sheep by the way, and for killing them; besides which the shepherds got the heads, skins, and entrails of all the sheep for themselves. We six bought 20 sheep, and 7 of them remained alive when we ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... sir,' replied Mr. Weller, 'is just a cheap lodgin' house, where the beds is twopence ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... "coffay oh lay," as Tommy called it. Every roadside cottage was, in fact, Tommy's tavern. The thrifty French peasant women kept open house for soldiers. They served us with delicious coffee and thick slices of French bread, for the very reasonable sum of twopence. They were always friendly and hospitable, and the men, in turn, treated them with courteous and kindly respect. Tommy was a great favorite with the French children. They climbed on his lap and ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... streets of mighty London Town Nine hundred omnibuses rumble up and down. When you're tired of walking, call "Hi! Conductor, stop!" And he'll give you such a jolly ride, for twopence, ...
— London Town • Felix Leigh
... even to the interior lakes, their scales gleaming in the sun; and again, of the fry which in still greater numbers wend their way downward to the sea. "And is it not pretty sport," wrote Captain John Smith, who was on this coast as early as 1614, "to pull up twopence, sixpence, and twelvepence, as fast as you can haul and veer a line?"—"And what sport doth yield a more pleasing content, and less hurt or charge, than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air from isle to isle, over the silent streams ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... similar price in the country? Something might, perhaps, be learned in this direction from the American practice. Books in America are often sold for a few cents; good-sized books too. Thousands of books are sold in France at a franc—twopence less than the maximum of a shilling. The paper is poor, the printing nothing to boast of, the binding merely paper, but the text is there. All the villager wants is the text. Binding, the face of the printing, the quality of ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... happily with his books and the beautiful 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 her ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... white hairs are seen in a place of honor at church and at market, and they tell their well-dressed sons and daughters seated round the bright hearth on winter evenings, how pleased they were when they first earned their twopence a day. Others there are who die poor, and never put off the workman's coat on week-days; they have not had the art of getting rich; but they are men of trust, and when they die before the work is all out of ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... said Mrs. Shiffney, looking quickly round her with searching eyes, while they waited for their hostess. "Nothing worth twopence-halfpenny, but nothing wrong. I ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... little!" persisted Sophia. "Mr Russell Taylor's father used to give a general invitation to all his friends to come to tea in the summer, because, as he said, they then cost him only twopence-halfpenny a-head." ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... entirely, and shall be so sorry to break off this happy silence into the Austrian drums at poor Florence. And then we want to see the vintage. Some grapes are ripe already, but it is not vintage time. We have every kind of good fruit, great water-melons, which with both arms I can scarcely carry, at twopence halfpenny each, and figs and peaches cheap in proportion. And the place agrees with Baby, and has done good to my husband's spirits, though the only 'amusement' or distraction he has is looking at the mountains and climbing among the woods with me. Yes, we have been ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... prejudice, it seemed quite a good proposition on paper. So on we went. The Turf Tissue was to be sold to the public at twopence a copy, a half-penny of which was to go to the seller. It was a good commission, but by giving it we hoped to attract a very large number of the newsboys who sold the evening paper, in view of the fact that by publishing the Tissue ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon |
