"Ninepence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... popular medium of communication with the outer world, began to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual comatose on pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, and the change of her clients ninepence short. His son began to supersede Mrs Bangham, and to execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be of the prison prisonous, of the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... pay me one a sixpence a score, where I now gets ninepence. And I'll not have to tramp it into town no more—you'll send a man round. And who is agoin' to pay me, miss, if ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... he said. "No great things—cost you thrippence, I s'pose. Tea tuppence-ha'penny, and that's fivepence- ha'penny, and a ha'penny for wood, and tuppence-ha'penny for a loaf makes eightpence-ha'penny. There's more'n ninepence over, Margy, and all I want is a pint of beer and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... I are having a daily discussion just now touching sundry moneys he expended during my week's absence at D'Urban for the kittens' food. Charlie calls them the "lil' catties," and declares that the two small animals consumed three shillings and ninepence worth of meat in a week. I laughingly say, "But, Charlie, that would be nearly nine pounds of meat in six days, and they couldn't eat that, you know." Charlie grins and shows all his beautiful even white teeth: then he bashfully turns his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... directions of your Committee, and the result must have been equally clear to them,—which is, that, instead of realizing two shillings and twopence the rupee on their subscription, as they proposed, they could never hope to see more than one shilling and ninepence. This calculation probably shook the main pillar of the project of April. But, on the other hand, as the subscribers to the second scheme can have no certain assurance that the Company will accept bills so far exceeding their allowance in this particular, the necessity of remitting their fortunes ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... took the book—Bell's Introduction to the Study of the Classics, for Use of Beginners—and held it between both hands. Its price was ninepence, but Grindley junior appeared to regard it as a volume of ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... says, 'but I got to rouse 'n up about ten o'clock an' git 'n a cup o' tea. He got to be at work again at eleven.' That's how they do's. Begins about ten or eleven o'clock, and don't leave off again afore six or seven, or p'raps nine or ten, next mornin'. Makes days an' quarters for three an' ninepence. I've knowed a many like that come 'ome an' git boozed fust glass, like old Isaac. I did laugh, though, and so did Dame Smith when ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... was afraid I might answer her letter, and she did not like the idea of having to pay the return postage. It shows that she does not consider my friendship worth ninepence." ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... Onny, without noticing her sister, 'that earned as much as I did. Many a girl works there and has no more than one and ninepence to take home at the end of ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... had; but when Dad came to sell it seemed as though every farmer in every farming district on earth had had a heavy crop, for the market was glutted—there was too much corn in Egypt—and he could get no price for it. At last he was offered Ninepence ha'penny per bushel, delivered at the railway station. Ninepence ha'penny per bushel, delivered at the railway station! Oh, my country! and fivepence per bushel out of that to a carrier to take it there! AUSTRALIA, ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... ceased from troubling Dialstone Lane for a week. Even then it was Edward Tredgold who took him there. The latter was in high spirits, and in explanation informed the company, with a cheerful smile, that he had saved five and ninepence, and was forming habits which bade fair to make him a rich ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... one-third florin to thirty-two florins the veertel. Other articles were proportionally increased in market-value; but it is worthy of remark that mutton was quoted in the midst of the famine at nine stuyvers (a little more than ninepence sterling) the pound, and beef at fivepence, while a single cod-fish sold for twenty-two florins. Thus wheat was worth sixpence sterling the pound weight (reckoning the veertel of one hundred and twenty pounds at thirty florins), which was a penny more than ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... though it answered the main purpose of those with whom taxation was a favorite measure, it was doing America an immediate benefit, for I procured the shilling a pound duty to be taken off, and threepence to be laid on in lieu thereof; so that, in fact, it was ninepence a pound saved to America. However, the attempt was received in America as I expected it would be—it immediately caused disturbances and ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... 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. Cheese was tenpence; potatoes from five to ten shillings a bushel. 'A reasonable loaf of good soft ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... Mr. Ash, Prospect Row; Mr. White, 235, Bristol Street; Miss Davis, Sand Pits; and Mrs. Wood, 172, High Street, Deritend. Two deliveries took place daily—one at 8 a.m., the other at 5 p.m. The postage of a "single" letter to London then was ninepence; but a second piece of paper, however small, even the half of a bank note, made it a "double" letter, the postage of ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... some things. Nannie straightened her cap. "Well, then," she said, drawing herself up, "I couldn't do it for sixpence, it cost ninepence halfpenny. I said, 'Come. Been ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... main object of the consultations which stirred the wonder of courtiers. The victualling of the expedition was confided to Ralegh. He contracted to provision 6000 men for three months at the rate of ninepence a head. He complained that he was out of pocket, which was not believed, though it was acknowledged that the work was very well done. It was sure to be. He appreciated fully Coligny's advice, as quoted by himself, that 'who will ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the government not to lay any further taxes on America for the purpose of revenue. In its amount, namely, threepence on the pound, the tea duty was not a grievance, for the duty of one shilling paid in England was returned on re-exportation, so that the Americans could buy their tea ninepence per pound cheaper than in England. The colonial agitators, however, denied the right of taxation and the authority of parliament, and these the king and the English people generally were determined to maintain. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... relate to gaping listeners, in a low voice, as if the corpse of the deceased House were lying unburied in the next room, how Mrs Perch had first come to surmise that things was going wrong by hearing him (Perch) moaning in his sleep, 'twelve and ninepence in the pound, twelve and ninepence in the pound!' Which act of somnambulism he supposed to have originated in the impression made upon him by the change in Mr Dombey's face. Then would he inform them how ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... ses Isaac, "and it's plenty. There's ninepence for your dinner, fourpence for your tea, and twopence for a crust o' bread and cheese for supper. And if you must go and drown yourselves in beer, that leaves threepence each to go and do ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the direct route and entered a post office. There she pondered for some moments, a telegraph form in her hand. The thought of a possible five shillings spent unnecessarily spurred her to action, and she decided to risk the waste of ninepence. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper. Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly's tubbing night. American soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa's daguerreotype atelier he told me ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and Lily's demeanour may be imagined. She gazed through Simon as though he did not exist, and passed magnificently onwards as soon as the throng permitted. She was Mrs. Albert Shawn, as neat as ninepence, as smart and pert as a French maid out for the day. She drove in hansoms, and she had a five-pound note ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... dirty tears, "fur I had to pay five bob, down in Tom-all-Alone's, afore they'd square it fur to give me change, and then a young man he thieved another five while I was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence and the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... formerly, with the glare of derisive comment on their overdone humour, but with that of fairly idiotised surrender—as if they were much mistaken in supposing, for the sake of conversation, that he might take himself for saveable by the difference between sevenpence and ninepence. He watched everything impossible and deplorable happen as in an endless prolongation of his nightmare; watched himself proceed, that is, with the finest, richest incoherence, to the due preparation ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... have a ninepence about him," said the man in cell No. 3, "there's a sufferin' family here as could make use of it. Smallest favors gratefully received, an' ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... best-loved doctor were present to review and address us. We took much pride in the decoration. Wreaths of plaited leaves were twisted around the stovepipe; the top of the stove was banked with pond-lilies gathered from a pond in our woods. Medals were primitive. For a week I wore a pierced ninepence in evidence of my proficiency in mental arithmetic; then it ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... I am" (I mused) "and quad and cloister Are beckoning to me with the old allure; The lovely world of Youth shall be mine oyster Which I for one-and-ninepence can secure, Reaching on Memory's wing Parnassus' ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... the Budget, the treaty was brought before the House of Commons, and ratified by a great majority; at the same time Mr Gladstone abolished a large number of import duties, but increased the income-tax for incomes over L150, from ninepence to tenpence in the pound. His proposal to repeal the paper duties was rejected by the Peers, the majority in its favour in the Commons having sunk to nine. A Commons Committee was appointed to deal with this conflict between ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... successfully anybody or anything. His clothes could scarcely be called shabby, at least they passed muster in the half-light, but one's imagination could not have pictured the wearer embarking on the purchase of a half-crown box of chocolates or laying out ninepence on a carnation buttonhole. He belonged unmistakably to that forlorn orchestra to whose piping no one dances; he was one of the world's lamenters who induce no responsive weeping. As he rose to go Gortsby imagined him returning ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... I had only three-halfpence in the world, and as I trudged on, I pictured to myself how I should be found dead in a day or two, under some hedge. Passing a little pawnshop, I left my waistcoat, and went on, richer by ninepence, and I foresaw that my jacket would go next, in fact that I should be lucky if I got to Dover in a shirt and ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... extravagant fop who spent a year's income on the ceremony of coronation. On the contrary, his successor, "Fat William" (1713-1740), the Sergeant-King, was a miser, who on his coronation only spent 2,227 thalers and ninepence, where his father had squandered over six millions, a maniac who collected tall grenadiers as other Kings have collected pictures, who tortured his children, and who wanted to punish with a death ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... awa', an' the garret an' backshop a' sweepit an' in order, an' Sandy was busy i' the yaird hackin' sticks, an' whistlin' "Hey, Jockie Mickdonal'," juist's as gin naethin' had happened. He's been stickin' in like a hatter ever sin' syne, an' has a'thing as neat's ninepence; so I canna say a single wird. But is't no raley ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... They were trying times those to all save the farmers, who made such profits that they could, as I have heard, afford to let half their land lie fallow, while living like gentlemen upon the rest. Wheat was at a hundred and ten shillings a quarter, and the quartern loaf at one and ninepence. Even in the quiet of the cottage of Friar's Oak we could scarce have lived, were it not that in the blockading squadron in which my father was stationed there was the occasional chance of a little prize-money. The line-of-battle ships themselves, tacking on and off outside ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... series, and which shows a different application of the same rule. Washington, in traveling, was in the habit of paying at inns the same for his servants as for himself. An innkeeper once charged him three shillings and ninepence for himself, and three shillings for his servant. Thereupon Washington sent for his host, said that his servant ate as much as he, and insisted on paying ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... kettle (fivepence), a pound of sugar, a tin of Swiss milk, and a tin of American potted meat. I had often heard my mother groan over the expenses of housekeeping, and now I began to understand what she meant. Two and ninepence went like a flash, but at least I had enough to keep myself going for ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... suspected by Mr. James, not without cause, of keeping in his more prosperous moments a modest farobank,—all of whom were sure enough of their shilling could they catch old Mr. Bowdoin in the office alone. If they waylaid him in the street, it annoyed him a little, and he would give them only ninepence. It was currently believed by Mr. James and Jamie that there was a combination among these gentry not to give away the source whence they derived this modest but assured income. Once there had been Homeric strife and outcry on the dusty wooden stairs; and Mr. James ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... eighteenpence is the fare with threepence for my gratuity, that makes one and ninepence. So I have to give you ninepence back, although I ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... hearing of the transaction, the itinerant bibliopolist had forthwith added them to his stock in trade. He found a merchant sooner than he expected; for Archibald, much applauding his own prudence, purchased the whole lot for two shillings and ninepence; and the pedlar, delighted with the profit of such a wholesale transaction, instantly returned to Carlisle to supply himself ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and vegetables, and a wage of one franc a day, are the ordinary conditions on which men work from sunrise to darkness. Lodging is not always included. I have known men in the full vigour of life earning only the equivalent of ninepence halfpenny a day, paying rent out of it, and presumably ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... have taken place in our finances. The troops are regularly clothed and fed at West Point, and most of the other posts, at the moderate rate of ninepence a ration when issued, so that the innumerable band of purchasing and issuing commissaries is discharged. The hospitals are well supplied in the same way, and small advances of pay are made to the officers and men. Upon the whole, they were never in so comfortable ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... started on Monday and today was Friday: five days, from seven to five, less half an hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner, eight and a half hours a day—forty-two hours and a half. At sevenpence an hour that came to one pound four and ninepence halfpenny. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... as howlets. And, in reason, how could it be otherwise? he would have his way, and she would have hers; he among his companions, and she among hers; he with his whores, and she with her rogues; and so they brought their[74] noble to ninepence. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... have come here for ninepence, third class. You paid that cabman three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an hour longer. Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep a servant, and it gives the missus a lot ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... over the spot on which they stood. The frost of the region, which penetrates the earth to the depth apparently of some hundred feet, would thenceforth preserve them from decay. The tusks form an article of considerable trade, the ivory selling from a shilling to one and ninepence a pound, according to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... Government will bear interest at the rate of three and a-half per cent., and any portion of such debt as may remain unpaid at the expiration of twelve months from the 8th August, 1881, shall be repayable by a payment for interest and sinking fund of six pounds and ninepence per cent, per annum, which will extinguish the debt in twenty-five years. The said payment of six pounds and ninepence per L100 shall be payable half yearly in British currency on the 8th February and 8th August in each year. Provided always that the Transvaal State shall pay in reduction ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... by the appearance, on the sign-post, and in the tavern and store, of some large placards, with very curious and funny pictures upon them. These placards made known the important fact, that, for the sum of ninepence, (a shilling, according to the currency of New York,) any boy and girl in the vicinity might have the pleasure of seeing some of the most astonishing feats of trained animals ever heard of. On a certain day there was to be a sort of juggler, who would play on some kind ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... cases was that of Catherine Sheehan, a child two years old. She had been a strong healthy child, never having complained of any sickness till she began to pine away for want of food. Her father was employed on the public works, and earned ninepence a day, which was barely enough to purchase food for himself, to enable him to continue at work. This child had had no food for four days before her death, except a small morsel of bread and seaweed. She died on ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... plough, and I can zow, And zometimes to the market go With Gaffer Johnson's straw or hay, And yarn my ninepence every day!' ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... AND ELEGANT BURIAL INSTITUTION,'" read Mr. Punch, surveying the paper presented to him, and continuing, "'A trivial payment of Ninepence a Month will ensure the youthful Subscriber, or his Representative, a sweet and elegantly-constructed little Coffin, beautifully frilled, with a one-black-horse Family Omnibus Hearse, and a tray of Two Handsome Plumes. N.B.—if ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... and ninepence," cried she in despair, after counting over her money; "but I'll give you my shawl, and you can sell it for four or five shillings—oh! won't that much do?" asked she, in such a tone of voice, that they must indeed have had hard hearts who ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that the "pieces of silver" here mentioned were Roman denarii, which were the silver pieces then commonly used in Ephesus. If now we weigh a denarius against modern silver, it is exactly equal to ninepence, and fifty thousand times ninepence gives L1,875. It is always a difficult matter to arrive at a just estimate of the relative value of the same coin in different ages; but reckoning that money then had at least ten times the purchasing value ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... if they are," Harry said cheerfully, "Evan can buy some more. Here, Evan; here are thirty-eight shillings and ninepence halfpenny, and it's all ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... she had set herself a task in undertaking any more work, but by arranging her time very carefully, she managed to perform one set of duties without neglecting another. She and Lesbia collected fifteen and ninepence for the cot among their friends in Skelwick, and wrote down the various items with much satisfaction in a notebook supplied for the purpose. The Gascoynes did not possess bicycles, so could not join the cycle parade, but Lesbia ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... been taken for their preservation. They had been "soled" and "heeled" more than once:—had they been "goloshed," their owner might have defied Fate! Well has it been said that "there is no such a thing as a trifle." A nobleman's life depended upon a question of ninepence. ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... the same idea is carried a step further, in the form of an advertisement: "NOTICE.—If the heavy joke, which was sent to the 'Puppet-Show' office last Monday, and for which two-and-ninepence was charged, be not forthwith removed, it will be sold to Punch to pay expenses;" and later on it hints that the Parisians will do well to import a few of Punch's jokes as the best of all possible material ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... (hic!) let's rattle up bald head, (hic!) if old 2-and-ninepence don't (hic!) shell out with his 'freshments, we'll (hic!) smash this 'ere borrered tea sarvice over his (hic!) figger head." Sayin which he gives the door bell a yank, which was enuff to pull the roof off from over ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... I am surprised at your not mentioning one which I know to be a fact. On the first night's performance of the company after his arrival at Bristol, his passionate love of the stage made him imprudent enough to throw away two shillings for a seat in the gallery, which left him with only ninepence in his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... finally the yellow dress was knocked down to a rosy-faced country girl for the sum of thirteen shillings and ninepence. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... never did know all my life how money went; but, go it does. When Fred and I were little chaps, some benevolent old soul tipped us half a crown apiece. Mine was gone by middle-day, and I could not account for more than ninepence of it—never could to this day. Fred, at the end of a twelvemonth's time, had got his half-crown still snug in his pocket. Had Fred come into Verner's Pride, he'd have lived in style on a thousand of his income yearly, and ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... penny fourteen, he bought pennyworths and sold them in half-pennyworths to his companions, thus realising a profit. Meeting an old woman with a basket of cucumbers, he bought them, and by selling them again, realised ninepence. Truly in his case the boy was father to the man. But, what was notable in him, he would give away his accumulated profits all at once, in the purchase of a hymn-book, or for the relief of some poor person. Even then, it was not for sordid or selfish ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... food as the Tommies. They are paid ninepence a day, and the work they do is a joke. They are well housed and kept clean and have their own canteens, where they can buy almost anything in the way of delicacies. They are decently treated by the English soldiers, who even ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... "It's the men who loaf, my dear," she said. "When you undertake the transcription of an author's scrawl at ninepence the thousand words you have to work unusually hard, especially when, as it is in this case, the thing's practically unreadable. Besides, the woman in it makes me lose my temper. If I'd had a man of the kind described to deal ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... sixpence. Deer were just as abundant in the more Northern colonies. At Albany a stag was sold readily by the Indians for a jack-knife or a few iron nails. The deer in winter came and fed from the hog-pens of Albany swine. Even in 1695, a quarter of venison could be bought in New York City for ninepence. At the first Massachusetts Thanksgiving, in 1621, the Indians brought in five deer to the colonists for their feast. That year there was also "great store of wild turkies." These beautiful birds of gold and purple bronze were at first plentiful everywhere, and were of great weight, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... the Twins discussed what should be done with this unexpected ten pounds which Lady Ryehampton had bestowed on the home. Erebus was for at once increasing their salaries to three shillings a week. The cautious Terror would only raise them to ninepence each. Then, keeping rather more than four pounds for current expenses, he put fifteen pounds in the Post-Office Savings Bank. He thought it a wise thing to do: it prevented any chance of their spending a large sum on some sudden ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... when my father died, but the vicar's wife she bought my canary back for me because I cried so. And I brought it to London and it hangs in my bedroom. And the vicar, he was so kind to me, he did give me a lot of advice, and Mrs. Amersham, who kept the chandler's shop, she did give me ninepence, all in threepenny bits." ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... "Ninepence. Of course, she has help from the parish as well—two shillings a week, I think, and a loaf ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... distinguish to a nicety the arrival of the Two-penny or the General Post. The summons of the latter is louder and heavier, as bringing news from a greater distance, and as, the longer it has been delayed, fraught with a deeper interest. We catch the sound of what is to be paid—eightpence, ninepence, a shilling—and our hopes generally rise with the postage. How we are provoked at the delay in getting change—at the servant who does not hear the door! Then if the postman passes, and we do not hear the expected ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... breath of the oven underground, the red glow of the fire, and the scythe-like swish of the long shovels. The boy blocked the squirrel under his armpit, dived into his pocket, and brought out some copper coins and counted them. There was ninepence. Ninepence was the sum he had to take home every night, and there was not a halfpenny to spare. He knew that perfectly before he began to count, but his appetite had tempted him to try again if his ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... be simply wrong of us not to go to another theatre to-night. I have three and ninepence, so that if you can scrape together ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... examined by the doctor, we were called up before the board one at a time. I was asked my age and time of service, and one of the gentlemen called out "Seven!" but the doctor immediately said "Nine!" as I had a wound in my knee; they evidently meaning that I should have ninepence a day as my pension, as that was what was settled on me for life. I then went to the office, where I received my expenses to Dorchester, to the amount of one and tenpence for myself, and three-halfpence for my wife for every ten miles; and with that we started off ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... rated to the poor as being of the value of L8,000 a-year only, its actual value is no less than L130,000 a-year, and that, until September last, no rate had been made exceeding sixpence in the pound, but that, in November, a rate was made of ninepence in the pound; but that rate has never been levied. (Loud cries of 'Hear, hear.')"—See "The Times" of ...
— A Journal of a Visit of Three Days to Skibbereen, and its Neighbourhood • Elihu Burritt
... of the laity, which daily endeavour to bring us also within the compass of their fifteens or taxes for their own ease, whereas the tax of the whole realm, which is commonly greater in the champagne than woodland soil, amounteth only to 37,930 pounds ninepence halfpenny, is a burden easy enough to be borne upon so many shoulders, without the help of the clergy, whose tenths and subsidies make up commonly a double, if not treble sum unto their aforesaid payments? Sometimes ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... day), walking about and enjoying colour effects and the oddities of the streets (which cost him nearly nought), and reading: there were three shops of Putney where all that is greatest in literature could be bought for fourpence-halfpenny a volume. Do what he could, he could not read away more than ninepence a week. He was positively accumulating money. You may say that he ought to have compelled Alice to accept money. The idea never occurred to him. In his scheme of things money had not been a matter of sufficient urgency to necessitate an argument with one's wife. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... to put, and it would have been a lot better only we didn't have much time to think, only while we walked up the hill, and Lynn did the most, 'cause she can always think of the rhymingest words, and we'd have made them much longer only we could only afford ninepence each, and we had to lend Max threepence, 'cause he'd only ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... was to the police officer in case of the worst. "You see how it was," says I; and of course I had to treat him and slip some notes into his hand.... Well, what do you say, your honour? We shifted the burden on to other shoulders; you see a dead body's a matter of two hundred roubles, as sure as ninepence.' ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... and arrived every day previously to the London mail—thus Chichester, in Sussex, was linked up with the Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Hampshire mails at that early period. The charge for the postage of a letter from Bristol to Portsmouth was at that time ninepence. ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... blind pulled down you wouldn't think how my heart'd go thump; and I'd stand wi' my head on the door-hapse an' say, 'If so be the Lord have took'n, I must go and comfort Susan—not my will, but Thine, Lord— but, Lord, don't 'ee be cruel this time!' And then find the cheeld right as ninepence and the blind only pulled down to keep the sun off the carpet. After a while my wife guessed what was wrong—I used to make up such poor twiddling pretences. She said, 'Look here, the Lord and me'll see after Bob; and if you ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he alleged, be opposed by the colonists, unless they were determined to rebel against Great Britain. Besides, a duty on that article, payable in England, and amounting to nearly one shilling on the pound, was taken off on its exportation to America, so that the inhabitants of the colonies saved ninepence ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... that I will not do. I will not give it to a waiter or a taxi-driver or to anybody else as a tip. If you estimate the market value of a shilling with a hole in it at anything from ninepence to fourpence according to the owner's chances of getting rid of it, then it might be considered possibly a handsome, anyhow an adequate, tip for a driver; but somehow the idea does not appeal to me at all. For if the recipient did not see the hole, ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... working, came on board us with fish. This was so fresh, so good in kind, and so very cheap, that we supplied ourselves in great numbers, among which were very large soles at fourpence a pair, and whitings of almost a preposterous size at ninepence a score. The only fish which bore any price was a john doree, as it is called. I bought one of at least four pounds weight for as many shillings. It resembles a turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmness ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... box of the post-office, and it was faithfully restored to the owner; but somehow the two ten-pound notes were absent. It was, however, a great comfort to get the passport, and the pocket-book, which must be worth about ninepence. ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which made it pleasanter. The passengers changed now and then. One woman told her next neighbor "she was goin' in to Boston to shop, because things were cheaper now. She always went after the rush was over. There were cambrics, she heard, for one and ninepence, and cotton cloth home-made was so much cheaper than the imported, but you had to bleach it. And little traps that you couldn't ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Artie, on his sixteenth birthday;" it was McTurk who ordered their hypothecation; and it was Beetle, returned from Bideford, who flung them on the window-sill of Number Five study with news that Bastable would advance but ninepence on the two; "Eric; or, Little by Little," being almost as great a drug as "St. Winifred's." "An' I don't think much of your aunt. We're nearly out ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... fatally subjugated to a mean-spirited thing called Charity, which during the last month has been perfectly rampant in the college. Yes, we will give a helping hand to bickerings, petty jealousies, back-bitings, and all sorts of good things, and will be as jolly as ninepence ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... over-scrupulous in his dealings) told me never to rub out the pencilled price on the backs of the cards. I asked him why. Lupin said: "Suppose your card is marked 9d. Well, all you have to do is to pencil a 3—and a long down-stroke after it—in FRONT of the ninepence, and people will think you have given five ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... my calculation," he said cautiously, "I think we may truly call it twenty-seven pounds ten shillings and ninepence." ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... but when they offered a guinea the woman looked at it through her spectacles and said she had no change; so the gloves had to be paid for out of Cyril's two-and-sevenpence that he meant to buy rabbits with, and so had the green imitation crocodile-skin purse at ninepence-halfpenny which had been bought at the same time. They tried several more shops, the kinds where you buy toys and scent, and silk handkerchiefs and books, and fancy boxes of stationery, and photographs of objects ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... is not now over-prevalent. In the towns they cheat and pilfer; they gamble in the streets; they drink hard on Saturdays and Sundays, and at times they murder one another. Liquor is cheap; a bottle of aguardente or caxaca (new raw rum) costs only fivepence, and the second distillation ninepence. I heard of one assault upon an English girl, but strangers are mostly safe amongst them. Their extreme civility, docility, and good temper, except when spoilt by foreigners, makes it a pleasure to deal with them. They touch their hats with ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... it. Why is music published at four shillings when you can buy it for one and four, or at most one and eight? Why are novels published at thirty-one and six and the magazines at a shilling? "Shilling shockers" are sold at ninepence, which is as comical as selling "tenpenny nails" at sixpence. The same principle rules in other trades. It almost seems as if there is an ineradicable instinct in humanity for getting things below their price, even if at more than their value. Hence the marked popularity ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill |
