"Pennyworth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Especially take heed of doing this by way of a prognostic for time to come. This wicked thing may be done by hoarding up (food) when the hunger and necessity of the poor calls for it. If things rise do thou be grieved. Be also moderate in all thy sellings, and be sure let the poor have a pennyworth, and sell thy corn to those who are in necessity; which thou wilt do when thou showest mercy to the poor in thy selling to him, and when thou undersellest the market for his sake because he is poor. This is to buy and sell with a good conscience. ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... faith; for the Lord had already determined as to what was to be done. Philip's reply showed surprize at the question, and conveyed his thought that the suggested undertaking was impossible. "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little," said he. Andrew added that there was a lad present who had five barley loaves, and two small fishes, "But," said he, "what are ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something great.—'Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the fortune-teller given thee a pennyworth?'—'I protest, pappa,' says the girl, 'I believe she deals with some body that's not right; for she positively declared, that I am to be married to a 'Squire in less than a twelvemonth!'—'Well now, Sophy, my child,' said I, 'and what sort of a husband are ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... with potatoes. For supper, rice cooked with milk and cinnamon. Germans use cinnamon rather as the Spaniards use garlic. They seem to think it improves everything, and they eat quantities of milky rice strewn with it. On Wednesday my family has soup for dinner, a solid soup made of goose, rice, and a pennyworth of carrots. For supper there is sausage, bread, and beer. By the way, this official is not really representative, for he spends nothing on tobacco, and only a penny every other day on beer. He cannot ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat. Sir, your pennyworth is good an your goose be fat. To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose: Let me see: a fat l'envoy; ay, that's ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... Christopher Milton lookt in on us. After saluting me with the usuall Mixture of Malice and Civilitie in his Looks, he fell into easie Conversation; and presentlie says to his Brother quietlie enough, "I saw a curious Pennyworth at a Book-stall as I came along this Morning." "What was that?" says my Husband, brightening up. "It had a long Name," says Christopher,—"I think it was called Tetrachordon." My Husband cast at me a suddain, quick Look, but I did not ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... that was much in use when we were young. Nowadays it is more fashionable to speak of this kind of thing as "penny wise and pound foolish." Looking to the outgoings of pence is voted slow work, and it is thought fine to show a languid indifference to small savings. "Such a fuss over a pennyworth of this or that, it's not worth while." Yes, but it is not that particular pennyworth which is alone in question, there is the principle involved—the great principle of thrift—which must underlie all good government. The heads of households little think of what evils they perpetuate ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... keep writing for our daily shoulder of mutton; otherwise we should have had no dinner." Mitford, while he was writing his most celebrated book, lived in the fields, making his bed of grass and nettles, while two-pennyworth of bread and cheese with an onion was his daily food. I know of no more refreshing reading than the books of William Hazlitt. I take down from my shelf one of his many volumes, and I know not when to stop reading. So fresh and yet so old! But through all the volumes there comes a melancholy, ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... more affably, "thank you kindly; no, I couldna tak' it in hand to sell six pennyworth of that ginger-cake and let one-and-sixpence worth gae dry in the bakery.—A beautiful day, mam! Won'erful blest in weather ye are! Let me open your umbrella for ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... supper still unfinished, and took from a shelf, from among a medley of herbs and medicine bottles, a penny bottle of ink with a pen sticking in it. Searching in a drawer of the round table she found a large envelope on which was written, "Giant pennyworth of note." She took from it one of the thin bluish sheets of paper, and sitting at the table, her sun-bonnet making a grotesque shadow behind her, she began to write. She wrote with little hesitation, urged by the strength ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... cried Elodie. "Look at him now. Here he is as soft as two pennyworth of butter. But in the theatre, if things do not go quite as he wants them—oh la la! It is Right turn—Quick march! Brr! And I who speak have to do just the same ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... a vicious man; but he was very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey, I shall love him." At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which were made more agreeable by contrast. But in general he dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpenny-worth of meat and a pennyworth of bread at an ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... from her mother in her and she lived out of doors for choice and loved a hard job. She'd pile the dry-built, granite walls with any man, and do so much as him in a day; and folk, looking on her, foretold that she'd be rich beyond dreams, but never know how to get a pennyworth of pleasure out of all ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... I think the best way of flooring this question is to say what I should do if I made the voyage. Take a cup of chocolate at Aerated Bread Company, with two pennyworth of butter and cake; then to the Lowther Arcade, to get some toys for the young 'uns. Next to GATTI'S Restaurant for Lunch. Being a good day for Matinees, look in at TERRY'S for First Act of Sweet Lavender, then to the Opera Comique ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... only to avoid surrendering all the ground to a reactionary party. The abolition of the stamp-tax has freed the daily press, and expensive newspapers no longer represent little cliques, but belong to the people of England, who take their pennyworth of honest criticism every morning; and the best of these newspapers have been for three years on the side of Northern republicanism. This is the instinct of human nature, which knows its rights and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... "I'll have you and Jim Spaulding for my two batmen over there. But never mind, I'll be good to you and will see that you get your ha'pennyworth of 'baccy and mug of ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... given orders that no food should be sold them in Burgos, so that they could not buy even a pennyworth. But Martin Antolinez, who was a good Burgalese, he supplied my Cid and all his company with bread and wine abundantly. "Campeador," said he to the Cid, "to-night we will rest here, and tomorrow we will be gone: I shall ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Where I affirmed, that the people might by other meanes be trayned with an equall largesse to semblable workes of charitie, he suspected lest I did not enter into a through consideration of their nature and qualitie, which he had obserued to be this: that they would sooner depart with 12. pennyworth of ware, then sixepence in coyne, and this shilling they would willingly double, so they might share but some pittance thereof againe. Now in such indifferent matters, to serue their humours, for working them to a good purpose, could breed no maner of scandall. As for the argument ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... her friend was well out of sight: then she hid her mutton-pie in the same place with the onions and the piece of bread, and started up the Grassmarket in her turn. She stopped at the first shop she passed and bought a pennyworth of cheese. Then she made her way to the Lothian road, and looked up and down it anxiously in search of the walking advertisement-man. He was not there, so she directed her course toward Princes street, and after promenading ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... as of ornament. If you ever indulge in a white choker, good reader, only reflect for a minute on what you have round your neck—a yard and a half of stuff, the intrinsic value of which may be a couple of shillings, plus a pennyworth of starch, plus a neck as thick as an elephant's leg, and as stiff as a door-post, minus all grace, minus all comfort. But go and look at the Second Charles at Hampton Court—see how the merry monarch managed his neck on gala-days. You will observe that he had half a yard ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... got a mate that works in my shop; he's chucked the Dining Room because they give him too much to eat. He found another place where they gave him four pennyworth of meat and two vegetables and it was quite as much as he could ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... dunces,—those of my own school days were among the pleasantest of the fellows, and have turned out by no means the dullest in life; whereas, many a youth who could turn off Latin hexameters by the yard, and construe Greek quite glibly, is no better than a feeble prig now, with not a pennyworth more brains than were in his head before his ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... than ever. He had consultations with all the doctors of the Sorbonne and all the lawyers of the Palais. But his magnificence grew as wearisome to him as his poverty had been before; and not one of the doctors whom he consulted could give him a pennyworth ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... costumes into bundles, and Alice thoughtfully bought a pennyworth of pins. Of course it was idle to suppose that we could go through the village in our gipsy clothes ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... come to the chief business of my letter, which is to desire your friendship and assistance in the disposal of those many rarities and curiosities which lie upon my hands. If you know any one that has an occasion for a parcel of dried spiders, I will sell them a pennyworth. I could likewise let any one have a bargain of cockle-shells. I would also desire your advice whether I had best sell my beetles in a lump or by retail. The gentleman above mentioned, who was my husband's friend, would have me make an auction of all his goods, and is now drawing up a catalogue ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... each other, it is true; and one side plumes itself on the moral support of Royalty and the aristocracy, while the other always bawls out that it has the inviolable will of the people at its back,—I daresay one assertion is about as true as the other—but I don't think there is a pennyworth of difference, really. There used to be a lot, mind you, when the Plebs were really struggling for a footing in the scheme of things; but bless you! we are all more or less in the same crowd now. Just a ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... for an assistant, and he had applications from a score of young man. He invited them all to come to his shop at the same time, and set them each to make up a pennyworth of salts into a packet. He selected the one that did this little thing in the neatest and most expert manner. He inferred their general practical ability from their performance of this ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... hear this young party deliver himself—'Well, ma'am,' says he, as I am a living man, 'I can cure you, if you like, with a dozen bottles of lotion, at eighteenpence a-piece; but if you'll take my advice, you'll buy two pennyworth of alum down street, do what I tell you with it, and cure yourself.' It's robbery, sir, I say, all these out-of-the-way cheap dodges, which arn't in the pharmacopoeia, half ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... imbecility, not a repulsive imbecility, the exalted imbecility of these proceedings, this station in torchlight, as if they had come there on purpose to have it out for the edification of concealed murderers. If Sherif Ali's emissaries had been possessed—as Jim remarked—of a pennyworth of spunk, this was the time to make a rush. His heart was thumping—not with fear—but he seemed to hear the grass rustle, and he stepped smartly out of the light. Something dark, imperfectly seen, flitted rapidly out of sight. He called out in a strong voice, "Cornelius! O Cornelius!" ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... continually of guts as though a belly were a kind of wit. Even in the society of his choice his attitude is remote and cold-blooded. There is no good-fellowship in him, no sincerity, no whole-heartedness. He makes a mock of the drawer who gives him his whole little pennyworth of sugar. His jokes upon Falstaff are so little good-natured that he stands upon his princehood whenever the old man would retort upon him. He impresses one as quite common, quite selfish, quite without feeling. When he learns that his behaviour may have lost him his prospective crown ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... Knockdunder was making his preparations also for the sermon. "After rummaging the leathern purse which hung in front of his petticoat, he produced a short tobacco-pipe made of iron, and observed almost aloud, 'I hae forgotten my spleuchan—Lachlan, gang doon to the Clachan, and bring me up a pennyworth of twist.' Six arms, the nearest within reach, presented, with an obedient start, as many tobacco-pouches to the man of office. He made choice of one with a nod of acknowledgment, filled his pipe, lighted it with the assistance of his pistol-flint, and smoked with ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... in a court close to St. Martin's Church—at the back of the Church,—which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, two pennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand,—somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... felt somewhat languid, having never I suppose had time for such feelings. No walking in America; taken down by stages to the boats however short the distance. Bought a pennyworth of cracked hickory nuts. A delightful breeze. Met on the steamer an English gentleman, his lady and child. Set off in a stage and left Buffalo at eleven A.M.; found it a pleasant drive mostly along ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... customer; it was part of the etiquette of the shop that customers, at any rate chance customers, should not exist for the daughters of the house, until an assistant had formally drawn attention to them. Otherwise every one who wanted a pennyworth of tape would be expecting to be served by Miss Baines, or Miss Sophia, if Miss Sophia were there. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... till their dealings have been betrayed. It is not long since one of this company was apprehended, who was before time reputed for a very honest and wealthy townsman; he uttered also more horses than any of his trade, because he sold a reasonable pennyworth and was a fairspoken man. It was his custom likewise to say, if any man hucked hard with him about the price of a gelding, "So God help me, gentlemen (or sir), either he did cost me so much, or else, by ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... mild tempered, without a pennyworth of malice in me. But she! oh! la! la! she looks like nothing; she is short and thin. Very well, she does more mischief than a weasel. I do not deny that she has some good qualities; she has some, and very important ones for a man in business. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to give me a little bit of a chance here,' said Miss Belmont, with her pretty little gloved hand on Paul's shoulder. 'You see, it's your forgiveness melts me, and if you forgive me like chucking a pennyworth of coppers at a beggar, I shan't be melted. Now, then: "Georgy"—say it like that, just a bit throaty and quivery—"I loved you so that I'd have laid down my life for you!" Try it like that. That's better. Now, give me your eyes, large and mournful, for just five ticks. Now turn, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... of the kind known as 'glass-alley,' with which she avers that, at the age of ten or thereabouts, our future hero disported himself. It must have been by some premonition that the venerable lady cherished it, having received it originally, as she remembers, in barter for a pennyworth of saffron cake, a species of delicacy to which the youthful Solomon was pardonably addicted. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... needful to sit still, or at any rate to maintain a perfect balance, or over you go. A gust of wind spins the canoe round like a top. These primeval boats are made on the island, thrown together out of fifteen-pennyworth of wood, a few yards of canvas, and a pitch-pot. They have some virtues. They are cheap, and they will not sink. The coraghs always come back, even if bottom up. And when they reach the shore the two occupants (if any) invert the ship, stick a head in the stem and another in the stern, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Philip had been very adroit, and it was with a heavy heart that he gave up his winning; but his fingers itched to play still, and a few days later, on his way to the football field, he went into a shop and bought a pennyworth of J pens. He carried them loose in his pocket and enjoyed feeling them. Presently Singer found out that he had them. Singer had given up his nibs too, but he had kept back a very large one, called a Jumbo, which was almost unconquerable, and he could not resist ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... a savage whimper. This he invariably did on first leaving the house with me, sometimes nipping me so severely, after we had gone a short distance, that I have hesitated whether to go back for a pistol to shoot him, or forward for a pennyworth of biscuit to buy him off. When told to "hie away," the extravagance of his joy knew no bounds. He would have been as invaluable to a tailor as was to the Parisian dcrotteur the poodle instructed by him to sully with his paws the shoes of the passengers; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... lonely stream-side on a few sandwiches, a flask of claret, and a pennyworth of apples; to talk about the books we loved; to exchange our hopes and dreams,—we asked nothing better than this ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, he called upon a rich grocer. The great man, addressing him, said, "I suppose, sir, you want my vote and interest at this momentous epoch of your life."—"No, I don't," said Abernethy. "I want a pennyworth of figs; come, look sharp and wrap them up; I want to ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... is sometimes a sad fatch and will not always give a horse what is worth its trouble in the eating. And being thrang this evening a-mending the heels of my old clock boots with lath nails, whereof I bought a pennyworth at Thomas Seed's shop in the market-place, I saw little of Paul, but left him to Greta. Then supped, and read a psalm and prayed in my family, and sat till full midnight. So I retire to my lodging-room, at peace with all the world, and commend my all to God. The Lord forgive the sins of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... six or seven shillings a week—I think it was six at first, and seven afterwards—and I had to support myself on that money all the week. My breakfast was a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, and I kept another small loaf and a modicum of cheese to make my ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the kinder Chambermaid, That will returne me love for my two peeces And give me back twelve pennyworth agen, Which is as much as I can well receave; So there is thirty and nyne shillings cleere Gotten in Love, and much good do her too't; I thinke it very ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... the inflated price of silver, a contemporary points out, the shilling now contains only ten-pence half-penny worth of silver. More important however is the fact that, owing to the inflated cheek of dairymen, it only contains three pennyworth of milk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... as though they had within them a faint remembrance of long-distant respectability. With anxious eyes they peer about, as though searching in the streets for other lodgers. Where do they get their daily morsels of bread, and their poor cups of thin tea,—their cups of thin tea, with perhaps a pennyworth of gin added to it, if Providence be good! Of this state of things Mrs Roper had a lively appreciation, and now, poor woman, she feared that she was reaching it, by the aid of the Lupexes. On the present occasion she ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... is like Falstaff's reckoning, with but a pennyworth of thanks to this monstrous quantity ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... his first lift in life there; many a man got a sorely needed berth by simply dropping in for four pennyworth of birds'-eye at an auspicious moment. Even Willy's assistant, a redheaded, uninterested, delicate-looking young fellow, would hand you across the counter sometimes a bit of valuable intelligence with your box of cigarettes, in ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... of the day; and as this was the time the lodgers were now crowding in, every one carrying the eatables he intended to use, which usually consist of half a pound of bacon, quarter of a pound of butter, a pennyworth of tea or coffee, with as much sugar. These are placed upon a half-quartern loaf, and carried in one hand; and, if eggs are in season, three or four may be seen ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... cheap, and perhaps they may for less than they cost; but if you have no occasion for them they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says: "Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries." And again, "at a great pennyworth pause awhile." He means that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only and not real; or the bargain by straitening thee in thy business may do thee more harm than good. For in another place he says, "many have been ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... were pretty proud," Jim said quietly. "All the people about made no end of a fuss about her, but Norah never seemed to think a pennyworth about it. Fact is, her only thought at first was that Dad would think she had broken her promise to him. She looked up at him in the first few minutes, with her poor, swollen old eyes. 'I didn't forget my promise, Dad, dear,' ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... sells the devil the best pennyworth that he meets with anywhere, and, like the Indians that part with gold for glass beads, he damns his soul for the slightest trifles imaginable. He betroths himself oftener to the devil in one day than Mecaenas did in a week ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... with you. You've escaped hanging, but there's something that's worse than hanging, to my mind, and that is the state of a man whom nobody will trust. You've come to that; and if you had a spark of gentlemanly feeling, you'd have bought two-pennyworth of rope and hung yourself rather than come ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... they had been a parcel of your petty spiritual usurers, Rome-bound, selling their all, and borrowing of others, to buy store of mandates, a pennyworth ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... wonderful property bestowed upon his knapsack, and very soon he had spent and squandered his gold as before. When he had but fourpence left, he came to a public-house, and thought that the money must go. So he called for three pennyworth of wine and a pennyworth of bread. As he ate and drank, the flavour of roasting geese tickled his nose, and, peeping and prying about, he saw that the landlord had placed two geese in the oven. Then it occurred ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... this family, I passed my leisure time. My own exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, I provided myself. I kept another small loaf, and a modicum of cheese, on a particular shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my supper on when I came back at night. This made a hole in the six or seven shillings, I know well; and I was out at the warehouse ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... That the Irish question should defeat an understanding between ourselves and England would be, to quote what a gentleman who is at once a loyal Catholic and a loyal member of the British Government said to me, "wrecking the ship for a ha'pennyworth ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... butterflies, and stretch it over thin slips of the spine of the cocoa-nut leaf, then they ornament it with bits of red or blue paper, and fasten it together with a pinch of boiled rice. The string is the most expensive part, and two pennyworth lasts many kites, for they are very frail affairs, and in that land of trees do not long escape being caught, though they fly beautifully. Miss J—— had a cockatoo which amused her and the little girls during sewing-class. ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... Somebody must make a match for her, sir; and a girl can't offer herself," said the old dowager, with great state. "Laura, my dear, I've been telling your cousin that all the young men are selfish; and that there is not a pennyworth of romance left among them. He is as bad ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... confident that the sagacity of our audience will make all smooth. Sometimes a full style, like Macaulay's, may, by means of amplification and illustration, spread the elements of a single syllogism over several pages—a pennyworth of logic steeped in so much eloquence. These practices give a great advantage to sophists; who would find it very inconvenient to state explicitly in Mood and Figure the pretentious antilogies which they foist ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... have done the trick at last. Lysimachus!" added he, "let a libation be poured out on so smiling an occasion, and a burnt-offering rise to propitiate the celestial powers. Run to the 'Sun,' you dog. Three pennyworth of ale, and ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... Baptist, and invited in a little, weazened, sweet- spirited, club-footed Baptist missionary, King John did not object. All he insisted on was that these wandering religions should be self-supporting and not feed a pennyworth's out of the ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... I am sure David Promoter has not a pennyworth of personal pride in him He is studying ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... after all, any greater thief than half the silk-hatted crowd who promote rotten companies in the City and persuade the widow to invest her little all in them? No. I live upon the wealthy—and live well, too, for the matter of that—and no one can ever say that I took a pennyworth from man or woman who could ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... the Faubourg is the chiffonier's); other filthy dens where whole suits of second and third-hand clothing are sold at prices that would ruin any proprietor who did not steal his stock; still other filthy dens where they sold groceries—sold them by the half-pennyworth—five dollars would buy the man out, goodwill and all. Up these little crooked streets they will murder a man for seven dollars and dump the body in the Seine. And up some other of these streets—most of them, I should ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the witness-box in the case of O'Donnell v. the Times. I suppose people buy newspapers to obtain information, or else to get a pennyworth of lies to induce equanimity in bearing the income-tax, the weather, and all other ills that an unnatural Government is responsible for; and I further suppose a halfpenny paper has to condense its inaccuracies, and serve them up in tabloid form for mental indigestion. However, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... well so far as execution with the right hand is concerned; his forte is passages in thirds. Aside from this he hasn't a pennyworth of feeling or taste; in a word he is a ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... wealth; the edge of his field borders on the Horeszkos' castle; he is respected in the district, he has an office, he is a judge! And you will yield the castle to him? Shall his base feet wipe the blood of my lord from this floor? No! While Gerwazy has but a pennyworth of spirit, and enough strength to move even with one little finger his penknife, which still hangs on the wall, never shall a Soplica ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... the whooping-cough here with a pennyworth of salt of tartar, after having filled them with the expensive poisons of Halford.[63] What an odd thing that such a specific should not ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... talking," said Berry. "I know. I'll go as a mahout. Now, that's easy. Six feet of butter muslin, four pennyworth of woad, and a harpoon. And we can lock the elephant's switch and park ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... lonely. I could not be half so happy a-thinking on him, left alone here by himself. Then, Libbie, he's just like a Christian, so fond of flowers and green leaves, and them sort of things. He chirrups to me so when mother brings me a pennyworth of wall-flowers to put round his cage. He would talk if he could, you know; but I can tell what he means quite as one as if he spoke. Do let Peter go, Libbie; I'll carry ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... the poulterer crammed his turkeys; the fishmonger skinned his eels; the wine merchant adulterated his port; as many hot-cross buns as ever were eaten on Good Friday, as many pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, as many Christmas pies on Christmas Day; on area steps the domestic drudge took in her daily pennyworth of the chalky mixture which Londoners call milk; through area bars the feline tribe, vigilant as ever, watched the arrival of the cat's-meat man; the courtesan flaunted in the Haymarket; the cab rattled through the Strand; and, from the suburban regions of Fulham ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... Master Eric hanging behind the bed. If I had one wish in the world, it would be either that my wife had no arms, or that I had no back. She may use her mouth as much as she pleases. But I must stop at Jacob Shoemaker's on the way—he'll surely let me have a pennyworth of brandy on credit—for I must have something to quench my thirst. Hey, Jacob Shoemaker! Are you up yet? ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... of "Man and Superman": "Liberty is a lively paper, in which the usual proportions of a half-pennyworth of discussion to an intolerable ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... with a violent effort, finished severing the cheese. The thin-faced woman took it, and, coughing above it, went away. The girl, who could not take her eyes off Thyme, now served them with three pennyworth of bull's-eyes, which she took out with her fingers, for they had stuck. Putting them in a screw of newspaper, she handed them to Martin. The young man, who had been observing negligently, touched Thyme's elbow. She, who had stood with eyes cast down, now turned. They went out, Martin ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... all ancient and modern physicians, it has been my object to touch chiefly on its leading characteristics; and to present the reader (in the language of my old friend Francis Quarles) with an "honest pennyworth" of information, which may, in the end, either suppress or soften the ravages of so destructive a malady. I might easily have swelled the size of this treatise by the introduction of much additional, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... long a puzzle to us. He was an elderly man, whose mode of life, ideas, and habits were in striking contrast with those of the country at large. I used to see him every day, with his threadbare cloak, going to buy a pennyworth of milk which the girl who sold it poured into the tin he brought with him. He was poor without being literally in want. He never spoke to any one, but he had a very gentle look about the eyes, and those who had happened to be brought into contact ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... having died, the family life was broken up. In "Les Miserables" the early struggles of Marius are described; and this, the author has told us, may be considered autobiography. He has related how the young man lived in a garret; how he would sweep this barren room; how he would buy a pennyworth of cheese, waiting until dusk to get a loaf of bread, and slink home as furtively as if he had stolen it; how carrying his book under his arm he would enter the butcher's shop, and after being elbowed by jeering ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... is still at Mauchline, as I am building my house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here, is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls; and I am only preserved from being chilled to death, by being suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind every day ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... nightly scene in a typical city alley. It is cold in the pantomime season; but the folk in that alley have not much fire. Joe, the costermonger, Bill, the market-labourer, Tom, the fish-porter, and the rest come home in a straggling way; and, if they can buy a pennyworth of coal, they boil the little kettle. Then one of the children runs to the chandler's and gets a halfpennyworth of tea, a scrap of bread, and perhaps a penny slice of sausage. The men stint themselves in food and firing; but they always have a little to spare ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... windfalls in the orchard, dig potatoes, or assist Anna in any way she was allowed to. And now that her parsley bed was really in full growth, in spite of its troubled beginning, she was very full of happy importance. To be asked if she could spare a pennyworth of parsley filled her with ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the familiar old horrors—the foggy and gas-lit labyrinth of Soho—shop windows containing puddings and pies kept hot by steam rising through perforated metal—a young novelist of 'two-and-twenty or thereabouts' standing before the display, raging with hunger, unable to purchase even one pennyworth of food. And this is no fancy picture,[4] but a true story of what Gissing had sufficient elasticity of humour to call 'a pretty stern apprenticeship.' The sense of it enables us to understand to the full that semi-ironical and bitter, yet not wholly ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... the Great Western Cooking Depots, where one could get a steak and bread and cheese for fivepence, but the rooms and tables and accessories were, to say the least, unappetising. Hunger had to be satisfied, however, and I had to swallow my pride and my five-pennyworth. I varied this occasionally by bringing with me my own sandwiches and eating them seated on a tombstone in Sighthill cemetery, which was less than a quarter of a mile distant from ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast; And lose the chance of a good pennyworth. I have a pack full of the choicest wares Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle 300 Is nothing like what may be found on earth; Nothing that in a moment will make rich Men and the world with fine malicious ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... sake! He had no strong moral feeling against a lie; but he had never had the slightest use for a lie, and a prevarication on his tongue would have been as strange to him as castanets in his palms. Guile takes alertness, adroitness; and the slim pennyworth of these that he could command he used up, no doubt, on Fontenette. I noticed that after an hour with the Creole he always looked tortured and exhausted. With us he was artless to the tips of his ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... Pewter and brass, andirons and kitchen-ware, Metals, that we must use our medicine on: Wherein the brethren may have a pennyworth For ready money. ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... the kitchen could not call to mind anything respecting a packet, though she was able to give me a painfully circumstantial account of the events of the morning—where she went and what she did, down to the purchase of three-pennyworth of pearl-ash and a pound of Glenfield starch for the head chambermaid, on which she dwelt with ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... olive-oil, 1 oz. of spermaceti, 3 pennyworth of essential oil of almonds, 3 pennyworth ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... forms the principal article of food. The people do not boil and drink it as we do, but eat the berry raw, with its husk on. The Arabs are very fond of eating these berries raw, and have often given us some. They bring them down from Uganda, where, for a pennyworth of beads, a man can have ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... myself—personally he was under no obligations to the lawyers—the services he received at the trial was done to him as a state prisoner, and not to Carboni Raffaello individually; when individually, he requested to be supplied with six pennyworth of snuff by Mr. Dunne, it was promised, but it never came to him. It would not have cost much to have supplied him, and it would have greatly obliged him, as habit had rendered snuff-taking necessary to him. With the permission of those present he would take ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... There still lingered about her eyes some remains of that look of perfect innocency and pure faith which had been hers not more than twelve months since. And now, at midnight, in the middle of the streets, she was praying for a pennyworth of gin, as the only comfort she knew, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... bitter. (For that is the experience of all those who go on wheels, that drinking begets thirst, even more than thirst begets drinking, until at last the man who yields becomes a hell unto himself, a hell in which the fire dieth not, and the thirst is not quenched.) Until a pennyworth of acrid green apples turned the current that threatened to carry him away. Ever and again a cycle, or a party of cyclists, would go by, with glittering wheels and softly running chains, and on each occasion, to save his self-respect, Mr. Hoopdriver descended ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... Eighteen pennyworth of mixture, to be taken thrice daily from tablespoons, spilled over the curb, and the skipper, thrusting the other packets mechanically into his pockets, disappeared hurriedly around ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... Westminster, who is our kinsman, and we had much discourse of Cottenhamshire, and other things with great pleasure. My cozen Roger did tell me of a bargain which I may now have in Norfolke, that my she-cozen, Nan Pepys, is going to sell, the title whereof is very good, and the pennyworth is also good enough; but it is out of the way so of my life, that I shall never enjoy it, nor, it may be, see it, and so I shall have nothing to do with it. After dinner to talk, and I find by discourse Mr. Turner to be a man mighty well read in the Roman history, which is ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... extort money from the people. We have seen instances in the reign of Mary. Elizabeth, before her coronation, issued an order to the custom-house, prohibiting the sale of all crimson silks which should be imported, till the court were first supplied.[*] She expected, no doubt, a good pennyworth from the merchants while ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... schooner Dash, owned by one Squire Burgle, who carried on a strictly legitimate trade with the Yankees over the line, though he always gave out that he hated them as a people, nor would ever sell a pennyworth of their notions which he denounced as worthless. Hornblower was a brusque old salt, but had a right good heart in him, and, not liking the way trade was restricted by imperial and colonial exactions, thought it no harm to work to windward of the collectors now and then, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... from the granary and went his way. When the red man who had dug the pit came back to it he saw that his cache had been levied on, and as the footprints showed the marauder to be an Englishman he went to the colonists and demanded justice. The matter could have been settled by giving a pennyworth of trinkets to the Indian, but, as the moral law had been broken, the Puritans deemed it right that ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... ha'p'orth of milk, a pennyworth of tea, and seven pounds (also price one penny) of coals in an apron. It was very seldom indeed that the Candys had more of anything in their room than would last them for the current day. There being no kettle, water was put ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured prints while her mother went forward. The old woman begged for the latter's custom as soon as she saw her, and responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson's request for a pennyworth with more alacrity than she had shown in selling six-pennyworths in her younger days. When the soi-disant widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for the rich concoction of the former time, the hag opened a little basket behind the fire, and looking up ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... my master, my brother, my landlord; I shall lose his favour, his house of work, and so decay my calling. O, saith another, I would willingly go in this way but for my father; he chides me and tells me he will not stand my friend when I come to want; I shall never enjoy a pennyworth of his goods; he will disinherit me—And I dare not, saith another, for my husband, for he will be a-railing, and tells me he will turn me out of doors, he will beat me and cut off my legs;" and then turning from the hindered to the ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... BARRIE,—I can scarce thank you sufficiently for your extremely amusing letter. No, The Auld Licht Idyls never reached me—I wish it had, and I wonder extremely whether it would not be good for me to have a pennyworth of the Auld Licht pulpit. It is a singular thing that I should live here in the South Seas under conditions so new and so striking, and yet my imagination so continually inhabit that cold old huddle of grey hills ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Scottish metropolis. I no longer stand in the outer shop of our bibliopolists, bargaining for the objects of my curiosity with an unrespective shop-lad, hustled among boys who come to buy Corderies and copy-books, and servant girls cheapening a pennyworth of paper, but am cordially welcomed by the bibliopolist himself, with, "Pray, walk into the back-shop, Captain. Boy, get a chair for Captain Clutterbuck. There is the newspaper, Captain—to-day's paper;" or, "Here is the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... could hear one and another inquiring anxiously, "Has the child been found?" But no favourable answer was received. In the afternoon, however, many hearts were gladdened by learning that he was safe. He had gone to the village, and got his pennyworth of yeast, and then, instead of returning immediately, he stopped to play with some boys. He had gone with them to a part of the village with which he was not acquainted and when he wished to go home, he did not know ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... strong beer, that he might be strong to labour. I endeavoured to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor; an expense ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... in force to preclude such levity. At Exeter, for example, one of the Canons was appointed to look after the Boy-Bishop, who was to have for his supper a penny roll, a small cup of mild cider, two or three pennyworths of meat, and a pennyworth of cheese or butter. He might ask not more than six of his friends to dine with him at the Canon's room, and their dinner was to cost not more than fourpence a head. He was not to run about the streets in his episcopal gloves, and he was obliged to attend choir and school ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... public, that you are about to be kept in suspense touching the moral of our argumentation, as too often in the pamphlets addressed in Johnsonian English to Thompsonian understandings, wherein a pennyworth of matter is set forth by a monstrous quantity of phrase. We mean to speak to the point; we mean to enlighten your understanding as by the smiting of a lucifer-match. Refrain, therefore, from running your eye impatiently along the page, as you are doing at this moment, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... follows, viz.: For breakfast, one loaf of bread for four, which [the dough] shall weigh one pound. For dinner for four, one loaf of bread as aforesaid, two and a half pounds beef, veal, or mutton, or one and three quarter pounds salt pork about twice a week in the summer time, one quart of beer, two pennyworth of sauce [vegetables]. For supper for four, two quarts of milk and one loaf of bread, when milk can conveniently be had, and when it cannot, then apple-pie, which shall be made of one and three fourth pounds dough, one quarter pound hog's fat, two ounces sugar, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... have said, if we are going to make a great saving on meat, we can well afford a few trifles, so long as they are trifles. A sixpenny bottle of thyme will last for months; and if we give up our gravy beef, or piece of pickled pork, or two-pennyworth of bones, as the case may be, surely we can afford a ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... a region beyond those fluctuations. With new books there was always a pound's worth of risk to a pennyworth of profit; but there was no end of money to be got out of old ones, if only you knew how to set about it. And Isaac did not quite know how. In his front shop it was the Public, in his side shop it was the books that mattered, and knowledge of the one, ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair |
