"Fourpence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is no longer gruff. Take care of the step, gentlemen, as you pass here; so, now we will go into this lodging. It is one of the common lodging-houses of London, which are regulated by law and under the supervision of the police. Each man pays fourpence a night here, for which he is entitled to a bed and the use of the kitchen and its fire to warm himself and cook his food. If he goes to the same lodging every night for a week he becomes entitled to ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... place of devotion to perform divine service in every sabbath-day: For this sacred office, our tent was judged the most commodious place. The duty of public prayer had been entirely neglected on board, though every seaman pays fourpence per month towards the support of a minister; yet devotion, in so solemn a manner, is so rarely performed, that I know but one instance of it during the many years I have belonged to the navy. We believe religion to have the least share in this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... Burgh of Auchterarder in the account of the Great Chamberlain for 1366 as being in arrear of the contribution for payment of the King's ransom, being due the sum of thirty-one shillings.[8] In 1374, the Chamberlain debits himself with thirty-three shillings and fourpence received from the bailies of Auchterarder for contribution; and there are two different entries in the rolls of 1390, both relating to a debt owing by the Crown to the community of Auchterarder on account of certain services to the late King Robert ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... and from Africa Proper. The ships employed in the corn trade, especially between Egypt and Rome, were the largest of any in the Mediterranean: this probably arose from the encouragement given to this trade by Tiberius, and afterwards increased by Claudius. The former emperor gave a bounty of about fourpence on every peck of corn imported: and Claudius, during the time of the famine, made the bounty so great as, at all events, and in every instance, to secure the importers a certain rate of profit. He also used all his efforts to persuade the merchants to import ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... about money as a pattern boy should be. He did not say to himself, "Now I have got a sovereign which must last me fifteen weeks, therefore I may spend exactly one shilling and fourpence in each week"—and spend exactly one and fourpence in each week accordingly. He ran through his money at about the same rate as other boys did, being pretty well cleaned out a few days after he had got back to ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... and you don't return it, don't look me in the face again. I always write my name on them, so there's no excuse. And I don't know a greater piece of impudence—and people are wonderfully impudent now-a-days—than to think that because a thing only cost fourpence, you need not be at the trouble of keeping it clean and dry, ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... before, by what light is it lighted? Oh! Is it fourpence, or piebald, or gray? Is it a mayor that a mother has knighted Or is it a horse of the sun and the day? Is it a pony? If so, who will change it? O golfer, be quiet, and mark where it scuds, And think of its ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... "I forgot fourpence on the counter," muttered the chemist, pulling the quilt over him. "Put it away in the till, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Caxtons to a provincial binder, and received them back MINUS 500 pounds worth of margin. Margins make a book worth perhaps 400 pounds, while their absence reduces the same volume to the box marked "all these at fourpence." Intonsis capillis, with locks unshorn, as Motteley the old dealer used to say, an Elzevir in its paper wrapper may be worth more than the same tome in morocco, stamped with Longepierre's fleece of gold. But these things are indifferent to bookbinders, new and old. ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... therefore many a weary soul turns out of the streets where men and women swindle into this place where the thoughts of honest men are piled on shelves, or put out in the open air in boxes, marked twopence, fourpence, sixpence.... A real market this! A fair without vanity. There are pictures to look at in the windows, mementoes of dead artists and writers, and there is a constant stream of people, the oddest mixture to be found anywhere on earth.... Everybody who has nothing very much to do goes to Charing ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... penny Uno soldo. Dooey saltee, twopence Dui soldi. Tray saltee, threepence Tre soldi. Quarterer saltee, fourpence Quattro soldi. Chinker saltee, fivepence Cinque soldi. Say saltee, sixpence Sei soldi. Say oney saltee, or setter Sette soldi. saltee, sevenpence Say dooee saltee, or otter Otto soldi. saltee, eightpence ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... provoking no one to grumble at the amount of subscribed money lost to the village. A free public tea was suggested. I resisted this largesse; and we compromised on 'No Charge for Bona-fide Schoolchildren'—whatever that might mean—and 'Fourpence a ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up regular. [Cheerfully] On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he'd drunk himself cheerful and loving-like. There's lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. [Now quite at her ease] You see, it's like this. If a man has a bit of a conscience, ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... halfpence to Geoff to make up his sixpence for the hospital-cot collection at the children's service last Sunday. He had only fourpence halfpenny. I remember it all now. Oh, how stupid I've been, to be sure!' It was an intense relief to have chased successfully the truant halfpence. 'Now, Queenie,' went on Theo gleefully, 'in five minutes I shall be ready ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... stock being exhausted, finished by purchasing a piece of india-rubber, a stylographic pen, and a penny paper of pins, which she pressed upon him as particularly suited to his needs and charged him fourpence for. ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... which to brace up my saw in the frame, I asked for a "fip's" worth of cord. The man behind the counter looked rather sharply at me, and said with equal sharpness, "You don't belong about here." I was alarmed, and thought I had betrayed myself. A fip in Maryland was six and a quarter cents, called fourpence in Massachusetts. But no harm came from the "fi'penny-bit" blunder, and I confidently and cheerfully went to work with my saw and buck. It was new business to me, but I never did better work, or more of it, in the same space of time on the ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass
... with ready money, they turn factors, and take threepence or fourpence in the shilling brokerage. And here let me take notice of one very heinous abuse, not to say petty felony, which is practised in most of the great families about town, which is, when the tradesman gives the house-keeper or other commanding servant ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... udders, and Tom took his life in his hands whenever he milked them. He got them all right presently—and butter fell to fourpence a pound. He and the aforesaid cocky made arrangements to send their butter to a better market; and then the cows contracted a disease which was known in those parts as "plooro permoanyer," but generally referred to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... flying in, 'Mr. Dusautoy is at the door. There is such a to do. All the women have been getting gin with their penny club tickets, and Mrs. Brock has been stealing the money, and Mr. Dusautoy wants to know if you paid up three-and-fourpence for the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... speak of my affairs like that," I said, as if I were quite stupid; "I mean to pay fourpence for every twopence—both to friends ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the works of the historians, that, in that reign, a common labourer earned threepence-halfpenny a day; and that a fat sheep was sold, at the same time, for one shilling and twopence, and a fat hog, two years old, for three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose for twopence-halfpenny. You never read that women received a penny a day for hay-making or weeding in the corn, and that a gallon of red wine was sold for fourpence. These are matters which historians have deemed to be ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... which the Count had occupied a year previously, and undressed, and laid in it, and affectionately tucked up by her aunt, who marvelled at the fineness of her clothes, as she removed them piece by piece; and when she saw that in Mrs. Catherine's pocket there was only the sum of three and fourpence, said, archly, "There was no need of money, for the Captain took ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... more, consuming my rasher of bacon and pint of sickly tea in silence. Nor did she take further interest in me till I came to pay my reckoning (fourpence), when I pulled all of ten shillings out of my pocket. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... stride across the furrows; and he used afterwards to say that he rode to his work in the mornings at an hour when most other children of his age were asleep in their beds. He was also employed to hoe turnips, and do similar farm-work, for which he was paid the advanced wage of fourpence a day. But his highest ambition was to be taken on at the colliery where his father worked; and he shortly joined his elder brother James there as a "corf-bitter," or "picker," to clear the coal of stones, bats, and dross. His wages were then ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... the Finlanders with machines, we might take a lesson from them in the matter of registration. At the back of every saddle in large figures was engraved the number, bought at the time of registration for four marks (three shillings and fourpence), consequently, in case of accident or theft, the bicycle could immediately be identified; a protection alike for the bicyclist and the person to whom through reckless riding ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... a Turkey merchant, in the year 1652; its flavour was considered so delicate, and it was thought by the statesmen of those days (no very reputable characters) to promote society and political conversation so much, that a duty of fourpence was laid on ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... and fourpence, That is paid for certain fees; Fifty pence are four and twopence, That will buy five pounds ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... moment at the door, surveying the court, then walked up to a party of boys, and laid his hand on the shoulder of one, holding a silver fourpence to him. "Anderson Junior," said he, "there's your money. I am not going to let Stoneborough School be turned into a gin palace. I give you notice, it is not to be. Now you are not to bully May junior for telling me. He did ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... on; he appointed a master in priest's orders, under whose guidance a secular chaplain officiated; it was also observed that every pilgrim in health should have but one night's lodging to the cost of fourpence; that applicants weak and infirm were to be preferred to those of sounder constitutions, and that women "upwards of forty" should attend to the bedding, and administer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... was a bad habit and horrible to decent people. I said I could never break myself o't. He said if I fined myself a penny every time I did it, and put it in the poor box o' Sunday, I should soon get out o' t'way. Well, the first day cost me thirteen pence, the next fourpence, and afterwards it was only a penny now and then. First and last it didn't cost me half a crown, and you never hear me swear or use bad language now. Come, Bull-dogs, this will be the first step toward improving yourselves, ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... bill ses he told im to cum hif hi cant pi by septmbr but hi am trustin God der polly e asn't forgot us. hi 'm glad the poppies grew. ere's a disy hi am sendin yu hi can mike the butonoles yet. hi do sum hevry di mrs purdy gave me fourpence one di for sum i mide for her hi ad a cup of tee that di. hi am appy ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... getting some of his own sheep out here, and a few good horses. And Toffy had schemes for an immense shipping industry, which would carry cattle at so low a rate to England that beef might be sold there at fourpence a pound, which, as he remarked, would benefit all classes. Ross gave his two years' experience with a weight of wisdom. He had a share in the estancia, and having tried to live in London in a Government office on two hundred a year, found Argentine ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... you are very kind," replied Katy; and her nimble fingers had soon made a nice little parcel for the lady, who gave her a fourpence. ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... their fires had been built, as well as with flakes of arrow-head stone, and we found one perfect arrow-head. In one place we noticed where an Indian had sat to manufacture arrow-heads out of quartz, and the sand was sprinkled with a quart of small glass-like chips about as big as a fourpence, which he had broken off in his work. Here, then, the Indians must have fished before the whites arrived. There was another similar sandy tract about half a ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... only two or three feet higher than the barge, and buy from the Arab women and children running along the banks selling eggs and fowls; as the demand has risen the prices have also advanced, and whereas at the opening of the campaign one could buy a dozen eggs for fourpence, by January 1917, I have seen officers pay twopence each or more. It is scarcely safe to jump ashore, as any moment the boat may launch out again into the middle of the stream, but when tied up by the bank waiting ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... thought it a little mean. I would not have served you so. But let that pass. I was a little awkward about counting money in New England fashion when I first landed in New Bedford. I came near betraying myself several times. I caught myself saying phip, for fourpence; and at one time a man actually charged me with being a runaway, whereupon I was silly enough to become one by running away from him, for I was greatly afraid he might adopt measures to get me again into slavery, a condition I then ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... a jackdaw myself," said one of the men. "I got it from a woman that came to the door with a basket for fourpence. My mother stood on its back one day, and she getting out of bed. I split its tongue with a threepenny bit the way it would talk, but devil the word it ever said for me. It used to hop around letting on it had a lame leg, and then it ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... tax, too, fell more heavily on the poor than the rich. One tax, especially, called the poll tax, which was made when Richard was sixteen, vexed them greatly. Everyone above fifteen years old had to pay fourpence, and the collectors were often very rude and insolent. A man named Wat Tyler, in Kent, was so angry with a rude collector as to strike him dead. All the villagers came together with sticks, scythes, ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that we should have hour talk hover a pint of hot coffee? There's a heatin-house where the young man have took down the shutters and is dusting away in a manner as his real appetizing. I has fourpence in my pocket. You wouldn't mind my treating yer, ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... to the full measure of his strength. But to make-out a victory, in those circumstances of our poor Hero as Man of Letters, was perhaps more difficult than in any. Not obstruction, disorganisation, Bookseller Osborne and Fourpence-halfpenny a day; not this alone; but the light of his own soul was taken from him. No landmark on the Earth; and, alas, what is that to having no loadstar in the Heaven! We need not wonder that none of those Three men rose to victory. That they fought truly is the highest praise. With ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... however, promises that every four-pound loaf shall henceforth go as far as eight, so that no alteration of the Corn Laws shall be necessary. He furthermore promises to plant Blackheath and Government waste grounds with sugar-cane, and to raise the penny post stamp to fourpence, in so delicate a manner that nobody shall feel the extra expense. As for the opposition, what will a man care for even the speeches of a Sibthorp—who can catch any number of bullets, any weight of lead, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... thoughtful as he stared at the two broad coppers I left on his itching palm. He was reflecting, I suppose, on the other fourpence he might ha' had o' me had he asked them! But doubtless he soon spent what he ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... a handful of guineas, and the memory of his father. Lord! I could have cried; and he up and blubbered fairly, a trick as he learned from ten Frenchmen he had killed. Ah! he have done his work well, and aimed a good conduck—fourpence-halfpenny a day, so long as ever he ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... sees you suggests that you should go to our Shelter. You cannot, of course, go to the Casual Ward of the Workhouse as long as you have any money in your possession. You come along to one of our Shelters. On entering you pay fourpence, and are free of the establishment for the night. You can come in early or late. The company begins to assemble about five o'clock in the afternoon. In the women's Shelter you find that many come much earlier and sit sewing, reading ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... crammed to the point of illegibility, filled with the news of many and many a week, still witness of the time when "a letter from London to Brighton cost eightpence, to Aberdeen one and threepence-halfpenny, to Belfast one and fourpence"; when, "if the letter were written on more than one sheet, it came under the operation of a higher scale of charges," and when the privilege of franking letters, enjoyed and very largely exercised by members of Parliament and members of the Government, ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... was to be brought to his hotel. Hours passed by, and the boy did not return. Very late in the evening a mere child came to the hotel. 'Are you the gentleman that bought the matches frae Sandy?' 'Yes.' 'Well, then, here's fourpence out o' yer' shillin'; Sandy canna come. He's verra ill. A cart ran over him and knocked him doon, and he lost his bonnet and his matches and yer sevenpence, and baith his legs are broken, and the doctor says he'll dee; and that's a'.' And then, putting down the fourpence ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... because there's only thee and thy missis. Wait till thou hast gotten four childer, like me, and thou'lt be glad enough to take 'em to Dunham, oud-fashioned way, for fourpence apiece." ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... and could do ten pairs a day, if she got up at six and worked till ten or eleven, which was her usual custom. In the next room was a woman who stitched very thick large trousers, for which she received fourpence a pair. She also had them from a woman who took them from a sub-contractor. She could make six and sometimes seven shillings a week, her rent being two shillings and sixpence. On the floor above was a waistcoat maker, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... little maidens who had picture spelling-books not going beyond monosyllables, were the aristocracy, and sat apart, shielded from the claws and teeth of their neighbours in consideration of paying fourpence, instead of twopence, a week. The boy was supposed to write large letters on a slate, and the bigger girls did some needlework, and not badly—indeed, it was the best of their performances. The dame ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and a Title-Page, Preface, and copious Index to Vol XI., is now published. It extends beyond the usual quantity, the Memoir is of original interest, and the price is (in the present instance only) unavoidably advanced to Fourpence. ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... Stokeley to-morrow,' she went on, 'and if you liked I could get some print and make it a few frocks. I saw some very neat at fourpence three-farthings that would wash beautiful, and a good stout flannel at elevenpence. Oh! not like that,' she said as he laid a finger on some soft Saxony flannel with a pink edge which lay on the table. 'Something more serviceable ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... pleasant-looking a woman as one was likely to meet between Littlebourne and London. "Going to town" was rather an event in her life, and one that called for the best gown and bonnet as well as for three-and-fourpence to pay ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... otherwise the state of things is similar. We see lines of vast powder magazines, enormous barracks of recent construction, preparations for defence, on a scale altogether inconceivable and indescribable. Little wonder that meat is a shilling a pound, instead of fourpence as before the annexation, that bread has doubled in price, taxation also, and, to make matters worse, that trade has ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... hauled me into the shop. There, dropping me upon a stool, he bade me eat. Pride of race prompted me politely to decline, but his language became so awful that in fear and trembling I obeyed. So soon as I was finished—it cost him two and fourpence, I remember—we walked down to the docks together, and he told me stories of the sea and land that made my blood run cold. Altogether, in the course of three weeks or a month, we met about half a dozen times, when much the same programme was gone ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... about the cleanliness since these gentlemen were satisfied. So the bargain was struck, and I ordered tea to be ready in an hour, while I went back to the station to fetch up my luggage. A porter brought it up for eightpence (saving fourpence on a cab, my boy!) and so I found myself in the heart of Birchespool with a base of operations secured. I looked out of the little window of my lodgings at the reeking pots and grey sloping roofs, with a spire or two spurting up among ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... Free Trade and Protection. Bert, his eyes starting out of his head and his mouth wide open, was devouring the contents of a paper called The Chronicles of Crime. Ned Dawson, a poor devil who was paid fourpence an hour for acting as mate or labourer to Bundy, or the bricklayers, or anyone else who wanted him, lay down on the dirty floor in a corner of the room and with his coat rolled up as a pillow, went to sleep. Sawkins, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Observations on sale as waste paper. On making inquiry, he ascertained that there were two tons and a half to be disposed of, and that an equal quantity had already been sold, for the purpose of converting it into pasteboard. The vendor said he could get fourpence a pound for the whole, and that it made capital Bristol board. The fact was mentioned by a member of the Council of the Royal Society, and they thought it necessary to inquire ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... Devil, and "her Familiar did commonly suck her right Breast about seven at night in the shape of a little Cat of a dunnish Colour, which is as smooth as a Want [mole], and when she is suckt, she is in a kind of Trance." Poor Christian Green got only fourpence half-penny for her soul, but her bargain was made some years later than that of the others, and quotations, as the stock-brokers would say, ranged lower. Her familiar took the shape of a hedgehog. Julian Cox confessed that "she had been often tempted by the Devil ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... booksellers would not do for him, Hogg resolved to do for himself; he originated a periodical, which he designated "The Spy," acting as his own publisher. The first number of this publication—a quarto weekly sheet, price fourpence—was issued on the first of September 1810. With varied popularity, this paper existed during the space of a year; and owing to the perseverance of the conductor might have subsisted a longer period, but for a certain ruggedness which ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... six years' service. 'Er Majesty sez: "Good day— You'll please to come when you're rung for, an' 'ere's your 'ole back pay; An' fourpence a day for baccy—an' bloomin' gen'rous, too; An' now you can make your fortune—the ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... a music-hall twice on the one night an' hear all the latest songs for tuppence. That's all it costs him. He goes to the gallery an' he hears gran', an' he can go to two music-halls in the one night ... in the one night, mind you ... for fourpence! Where would you bate that? You never get no diversion of that sort in this place ... only an oul' magic-lantern an odd time, or the Band of Hope singin' ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... also of some further evils, which were springing out of the excessive rates of wages, they made an order, that carpenters, masons, &c., should take but two shillings the day, and labourers but eighteen pence, and that no commodity should be sold at above fourpence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England; oil, wine, &c., and cheese, in regard of the hazard of bringing, &c., excepted. The evils which were springing, &c., were: 1. Many ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... chair to mine, where I sat in moody sorrow over the fire. I stole my hand into hers; she clasped it, but did not speak a word. At last she said, with forced composure in her voice, "If that bank goes wrong, I shall lose one hundred and forty-nine pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence a year; I shall only have thirteen pounds a year left." I squeezed her hand hard and tight. I did not know what to say. Presently (it was too dark to see her face) I felt her fingers work convulsively in my grasp; and I knew she was going to speak again. I heard ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... wiser brethren, instead of seeming to regard them only as strange dogs to be repelled or as sheep to be sheared. But the first practical point to be struggled for is that of steady employment and just reward for labor. So long as men's wages (without board) range from fourpence to one and six-pence per day, and women's from a penny to six-pence (which, so far as I can learn, are the current rates at present, and nothing to do for half the year at any price), no radical improvement can be hoped for. A family with nothing ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... Ladies' Clubs in Berlin all flourishing. The subscription to the Berliner Frauenklub is only six marks a year, yet it provides the members with comfortably furnished rooms and well cooked meals at low prices. A member of this club can dine for ninepence, and have a hot dish from fourpence to sevenpence. She has access to a library of 1300 volumes, to the leading papers and reviews, and to magazines in four languages. She can entertain women at the club, but not men; though she can meet men there at certain ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... last week, whose amazing editorial organisations were so freely and disinterestedly engaged in overcoming colossal obstacles in order to give information about the approaching revolution, were worth anything from fourpence to ninepence apiece. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... British Isles. The gaoler in Bedford—and in many other places—had no salary paid him, and therefore screwed all he could out of his prisoners; and no matter if a man were innocent or guilty, if a jury had condemned him or not, he must pay fifteen shillings and fourpence to the gaoler, and two shillings to the warder who brought him his food—when he had any—before he was set free. If, as often happened, the prisoners could not find the money, well, they were locked up till they died, or till ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... laid out on a good scale. The streets are very wide, and I think when filled with houses it will be a fine place; but what spoils the appearance now is, the number of wooden buildings they are throwing up, as they cannot get workmen for others. When we were there, butter was from two shillings and fourpence to three shillings per pound, bread fourpence, milk eightpence per pint, vegetables enormous, butcher's meat and sugar, as at home. Fruit very dear; a shilling would not purchase as much as a penny in England. Beer and porter, one ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... finished which cost 54$605 or L12, at the rate of 6$000, L1, 6s. 8d. for each of four large headings, forty illuminated letters with vignettes at 2s. 2d. each, a hundred and fifteen without vignettes at fivepence-halfpenny, two hundred and three in red, gold, and blue at fourpence-farthing, eighty-four drawn in black at twopence, and 2846 small letters at the beginning of each verse at less than one farthing. Next March this Psalter was brought back to Thomar on a mule whose hire was ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... breakfast, consisting of an egg, which the grocer, with pleasing optimism, insists upon calling "fresh," one penny; bread and butter, per week, one shilling and sixpence; tea, milk, and sugar, per week, one and fourpence. Lunch, a really good, substantial meal, of savoury sausage or succulent fish and mashed potato, and a bun. If you are a lady the bun is indispensable; for if there is one faith implanted firmly in the feminine breast, it is that which accepts the penny bun as a form of nutrition not to ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... removal, that she readily gave her consent. As usual the devil had the best of the bargain, for he, knowing her powers of arithmetic to be but scanty, handed her a number of pieces of money, whose value was fourpence halfpenny, and twopence three-farthings. The dame had barely managed to add the first two coins together, when the devil called upon her to stop, and looking round she saw the stones were all removed, and had been tied with a withe band into a neat ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... before the arrival of winter visitors, flowers are to be had for the asking; on the market-place an enormous bouquet of tuberoses, violets, carnations, myrtle, priced at two or three francs, the price in Paris being twenty. Fruit also I found cheap, figs fourpence a dozen, and other kinds in proportion. This market is the great sight of Nice, and seen on a cloudless day—indeed it would be difficult to see it on any other—is a glory of colour of which it is impossible to give the remotest ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... him: his plea was that he would not be molested in taking orders down the mews, by any bird that wore a tail. Other persons have also been heard to threaten: among others, Charles Knight, who has just started a weekly publication price fourpence: Barnaby being, as you know, threepence. I have directed a post-mortem examination, and the body has been removed to Mr. Herring's school of anatomy ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... "I would have come to you as soon as the fourpence was gone; or at least, if I hadn't got another before I was ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... he was wont to offer up the Holy Sacrifice. He desired that on the day of his burial, "to every poor person coming to Winchester, and asking alms, for the love of God, and for the health of his soul, there should be given fourpence." Alms were likewise to be distributed in every place through which his body was to pass, and large provision was made for Masses and prayers for the repose of his soul. He had, besides, made an agreement with the monks of St. Swithin's, by ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... much less even than this; we shall arrange to travel at the rate of one hundred miles for every penny. That, surely, is moderate enough. If the charges were so low that the journey from London to Edinburgh only cost fourpence, then even the most unreasonable passenger would be surely contented. On these terms how much do you think the fare from London to this star ought to be? I know of one way in which to make our answer intelligible. There ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... tram. Maria, remembering how confused the gentleman with the greyish moustache had made her, coloured with shame and vexation and disappointment. At the thought of the failure of her little surprise and of the two and fourpence she had thrown away for nothing she ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... and costly torture. One of the many reasons which lead me to regard the Americans as a leisurely people rather than a nation of "hustlers" is the patience with which they submit to the long-drawn tyranny of the barber. In England, one grudges five minutes for a shave, and one pays from fourpence to sixpence; in America one can hardly escape in twenty-five minutes, and one pays (with the executioner's tip)[G] from a shilling to eighteenpence. The charge would be by no means excessive if one wanted or enjoyed all the endless ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... what amused them most, though it annoyed my wife a little to see them laugh at what she could not understand, was to hear me and her talk French together. At ten o'clock the party broke up and I called for my bill, which was fourpence for a glass of gin for myself and eightpence for the boiling water for our tea, which was much to my surprise, as we had found our own food, tea, and sugar. I asked the landlady if it was not a mistake, and when ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, 'If I go into a cheesemonger's shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment'—at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... and sees what I say. But he won't, for the milkman is taking it. He always does if you can pay him. But I've put most of my money into the bank. Three of the top boys have a bank, and we all have to deposit, only I kept fourpence in one of my boots. They give us bank-notes for a penny and a halfpenny; they make them themselves. The sweet-shop takes them. They only give you eleven penny notes for a shilling in the bank, or else it would burst. At dinner we have a lot of pudding ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... near the Strand, and you may know it by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are eightpence a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect. Porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. The Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the price of admission is one shilling. Of the streets, I would recommend you to see Regent Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and Cheapside. I think these ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... taste of every one around her,—he said to Butler, "Py the py, minister, I have a letter here either for your canny pody of a wife or you, which I got when I was last at Glasco; the postage comes to fourpence, which you may either pay me forthwith, or give me tooble or quits ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... finding them against me, went as near the answer as I could—which was somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my pence-table from "twelve pence make one shilling," up to "forty pence make three and fourpence," and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had done for me, "Now! How much is forty-three pence?" To which I replied, after a long interval of reflection, "I don't know." And I was so aggravated that I almost ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... would not take his shield and do battle for the King should pay enough to hire one who would. The scutage was assessed at two marks. Later, the assessment varied. The mark was two thirds of a pound of silver by weight, or thirteen shillings and fourpence ($3.20). Reckoned in modern money, the tax was probably at least twenty times two marks, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... will furnish a good dinner of soup and meat for fivepence per head, pease soup (No. 221) will cost only sixpence per quart, ox-tail soup (No. 240) or the same portable soup (No. 252), for fivepence per quart, and (No. 224) an excellent gravy soup for fourpence halfpenny per quart, duck-giblet soup (No. 244) for threepence per quart, and fowls' head soup in the same manner for still less (No. 239), will give you a good and plentiful dinner for six people for two shillings and twopence. See also ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... relief of the Poor to the utmost extent of reasonable endurance. One poor parish in this very Union is rated to the amount of FIVE AND SIXPENCE in the pound, at the very same time when the rich parish of Saint George's, Hanover-square, is rated at about SEVENPENCE in the pound, Paddington at about FOURPENCE, Saint James's, Westminster, at about TENPENCE! It is only through the equalisation of Poor Rates that what is left undone in this wise, can be done. Much more is left undone, or is ill-done, than I have space to suggest in these notes of a single uncommercial journey; but, the wise men of ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... warnings are things I don't believe in, said the night watchman. The only dream I ever 'ad that come anything like true was once when I dreamt I came in for a fortune, and next morning I found half a crown in the street, which I sold to a man for fourpence. And once, two days arter my missis 'ad dreamt she 'ad spilt a cup of tea down the front of 'er Sunday dress, she spoilt a pot o' paint of mine by ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... arrive near the coast that they may not run unawares into the hands of an enemy. I found everything much dearer than when I was here in 1780. Sheep cost four Spanish dollars each and were so small that it answered better to purchase the mutton for the ship's daily use at fourpence ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... have worked together for so many years that Dusty frequently tells his chief not to be such a Censored fool. Jumbo's joints are good, and so are his steak-toad, sprouts, and baked, but his steak-and-kidney puddings at fourpence are better. I had one of these, garnished with "boiled and tops." Georgie had "leg, well done, chips, and batter." I never knew a man who could do the commonplace with so much natural dignity. He gave his order with the air of a viveur planning a ten-course arrangement at Claridge's. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... along, As though he some cripple was mocking, To join in the blackguard throng, That met at Wednesbury cocking. He borrowed a trifle of Doll, To back old Taverner's grey; He laid fourpence-halfpenny to fourpence, He lost and went ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... This man cries out above others of the prodigality of our times, and tells of the thrift of our forefathers: how that great prince thought himself royally attired, when he bestowed thirteen shillings and fourpence on half a suit. How one wedding gown served our grandmothers till they exchanged it for a winding-sheet; and praises plainness, not for less sin, but for less cost. For himself, he is still known by his forefather's coat, which ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... a cold trifle and some excellent coffee that Robina brewed over a lamp on the table while Dick and Veronica cleared away. It was one of the jolliest little dinners I have ever eaten; and, if Robina's figures are to be trusted, cost exactly six- and-fourpence for the five of us. There being no servants about, we talked freely and enjoyed ourselves. I began once at a dinner to tell a good story about a Scotchman, when my host silenced me with a look. He is a kindly man, and had heard the story before. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... miles higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... Wagon, for which we had another good hour to wait, came lumbering up to the Pillars of Hercules; and after the Wagoner had fought with a Grenadier, who wanted to go to Brentford for fourpence, and would have stabbed the man with his bayonet had not his hand been stayed, the Groom took me up, and put me on the straw inside. He paid the Wagoner some money for me, and also gave into his keeping a little bundle, containing, I suppose, some ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... which last is about the weight of a plump grain of rice. Four weights, marked with a government stamp, are used in weighing the money. These weights are equal, respectively, to about a half-a-dollar, a quarter-dollar, sixpence, and fourpence. Other amounts are obtained by varying these in the opposite scales and adding grains of rice. But all this forms no difficulty in Madagascar. Like most Easterns the natives there dearly love to haggle and prolong a bargain—as ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sterling failed to win public favor. The crisis came about the middle of 1830 when Charles Wentworth Dilke became "supreme editor," enlisted Lamb, George Darley, Barry Cornwall and others on his staff, and reduced the price of the Athenaeum from eightpence to fourpence. The apparent folly of reducing the price and increasing the expenses did not lead to the generally prophesied collapse; this first experiment in modern methods resulted in the rapid growth of the Athenaeum's circulation, to the serious detriment ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... will find that he breaks your fall materially. In the event of your contemplating an offer of eightpence, on no account make the tender, or show the money, until you are safely on the pavement. It is very bad policy attempting to save the fourpence. You are very much in the power of a cabman, and he considers it a kind of fee not to do you any wilful damage. Any instruction, however, in the art of getting out of a cab, is wholly unnecessary if you are going any distance, because the probability is, that you will be shot lightly ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... for we shall never be able to earn enough to procure for ourselves any better food. Our bread supply is very scarce—a little in the morning and less at night, for none of us can gain by her handiwork more than fourpence a day for her daily bread. And with this we cannot provide ourselves with sufficient food and clothes. For though there is not one of us who does not earn as much as twenty sous [327] a week, yet we cannot ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... not capable of rapid enunciation, and 'groat' is decidedly objectionable for designating ten farthings, as it is still sacred to fourpence in the English mind. Whatever the names, the full enunciation of them at first would appear stiff and solemn; but abbreviated modes of expression would soon be established. 'Four-two' would be understood as L.4, 2 (florins), while 'four and two' would convey four florins, two cents. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... beyond the expectations of the hard-working promoters. The fishmonger led off by placing a five-pound note in the plate, and the packed audience breathed so hard that the plate-holder's responsibility began to weigh upon his spirits. In all, a financial tribute of thirty-seven pounds three and fourpence was paid to the memory of the late ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... aunty, threepence. Trumpet for myself, twopence; that's fivepence. Gingernuts 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, one and twopence. Flying Boats (Tony paid for himself), a penny, one and threepence. Shooting-gallery again, one and fourpence; Fat Woman a penny, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... after her). Don't thank me, ma'am; thank the act of parleyment! Rum, fourpence; two penny pieces and a Willi'm-and-Mary tizzy makes a shilling; and a spade half-guinea is eleven and six (re-enter MRS. DRAKE with supper, pipe, etc.); and a blessed majesty George the First crown-piece makes sixteen and six; and two shilling bits is eighteen and six; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... considerably less as the two returned to tea in Jesus Lane. There, on the table, he spread out the coins. He had bought some tobacco, and two or three other things that afternoon, and the total amounted now but to twelve pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... must be an experienced person to superintend the work. This person must be paid a salary, and lodge and board in the house, representing therefore a considerable outlay. The cheese, when made and sent to market, fluctuates of course in price: it may be as low as fourpence a pound wholesale; it may go as high as sixpence. Fourpence a pound wholesale will not pay for the making; sixpence will leave a profit; but of late the price has gone rather to the lower than the higher figure. A few years since, when the iron industries flourished, this kind of cheese had a good ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... smiling. He admitted at the same time that Garrick had raised the profession of a player. He defended Garrick, too, against the common charge of avarice. Garrick, as he pointed out, had been brought up in a family whose study it was to make fourpence go as far as fourpence-halfpenny. Johnson remembered in early days drinking tea with Garrick when Peg Woffington made it, and made it, as Garrick grumbled, "as red as blood." But when Garrick became rich he became liberal. ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... remedy is to buy the things which are the most nourishing and which yield the most energy. Quite a good diet can be obtained for fourpence a day, yet the average ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... possible, to be sold as manure for ploughed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead cats are comprised. They are, generally, the perquisites of the women searchers. Dealers come to the wharf, or dust-field, every evening; they give sixpence for a white cat, fourpence for a colored cat, and for a black one according to her quality. The "hard-ware" includes all broken pottery, pans, crockery, earthenware, oyster-shells, &c, which are sold to make ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... was getting ready he went to the custom-house to look after his baggage. He found a red-hot countryman of his own there, roaring about four and fourpence, and fighting the battle of his trunks, in which he was ready to make affidavit there was not, nor never had been, any thing contraband; and when the custom-house officer replied by pulling out of one of them a piece of Irish poplin, the Hibernian fell immediately upon the Union, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... you what you do, Bill. You go to a hotel, and I'll beat it down to a lodging-house on Duke Street.... Juke Street!... Remember how I ran onto Pete on the street? He told me you could get a cot down there for fourpence." ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... to get them one is obliged to go and sell some tommy, and much one gets for it. Bacon at ninepence a-pound at Diggs', which you may get at a huckster's for sixpence, and therefore the huckster can't be expected to give you more than fourpence halfpenny, by which token the tommy in our field just cuts ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... of riches,' and that there is a poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in denying it. This doctrine ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen |
