"Threepence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but there are people who have to consider the threepences; if Julia was one, she knew that Mr. Gillat was another, and she had allowed for this threepence, and he probably had not. He demurred, but she insisted. "Then I won't let you come with me;" ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... spoons. These were all common electroplated ware. They were weighed before and after gilding, and it was with difficulty that the increase of weight was detected, even though a fine bullion balance was employed. On calculating back to money, it appeared that the value of the gold deposited was about threepence. Assuming that an equal weight of silver had been accidentally dissolved by the free cyanide during the plating—which is unlikely—the total amount of gold deposited would be worth, ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... first opened in 1697. It was celebrated for its mineral water, which was sold at one penny per quart. At the beginning of the eighteenth century it was provided with a band of music, which played at intervals during the day, and the price of admission was threepence. A monthly concert, under the direction of Starling Goodwin, organist of St. Saviour's church, Southwark, was ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... the most minute quantities. Such tempting heaps of lumps of white sugar, only twopence! Such delectable cakes, two for a penny! Such seductive scraps of meat, which would make a breakfast nourishing as well as relishing, possibly even what called itself a dinner, blushing to see themselves labelled threepence or fourpence! We did not know whether to smile or to drop a tear, as we contemplated these baits hung out to tempt the coins from the exiguous purses of ancient maidens, forlorn widows, withered annuitants, stranded humanity in every stage of shipwrecked ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... tea-tax, which alone of the taxes lately imposed upon the colonies, the home Government was determined to retain, was met with defiance throughout America. 'Tis true we paid a shilling in the pound at home, and asked only threepence from Boston or Charleston; but as a question of principle, the impost was refused by the provinces, which indeed ever showed a most spirited determination to pay as little as they could help. In Charleston the tea-ships were unloaded, and the cargoes stored ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... weeks after the last-named occurrence, the body of a gentleman unknown, was found in the Regent's canal. In the trousers-pockets were four shillings and threepence halfpenny; a matrimonial advertisement from a lady, which appeared to have been cut out of a Sunday paper: a tooth-pick, and a card-case, which it is confidently believed would have led to the identification of the unfortunate gentleman, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Strand, it occurred to him that perhaps Mr. Jorrocks might have no objection to accompany him. On entering that great thoroughfare of humanity, he turned to the east, and having examined the contents of all the caricature shops in the line, and paid threepence for a look at the York Herald, in the Chapter Coffee-house, St. Paul's Churchyard, about noon he reached the corner of St. Botolph Lane. Before Jorrocks & Co.'s warehouse, great bustle and symptoms of brisk trade were visible. ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... should be levied on every barrel of ale. Walpole at first was not inclined to deal with the difficulty in this way, but as the feeling of the House was very strongly in favor of making some attempt, he consented to adopt the principle suggested, but required that the duty should be threepence instead of sixpence. The moment it became known in Scotland that any tax on malt or ale was to be imposed, rioting began in the principal cities; the spirit of the national motto asserted itself—"nemo me impune lacessit." The ringleaders of ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... The tax of threepence each person, by which strangers are ingeniously made to contribute to the "local charities," was not exacted of them at the New Road Gate, on the strength of their being residents, and personal friends of the owners ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... although some of the men received from sixty to eighty, and one a hundred pounds, mine was the modest sum of three shillings and sixpence, despite the fact that I had been receiving eightpence a day in addition to most of them—five pence as the organist, and threepence for ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... training on a nature not ignoble. But they are the very opposites, the antipodes, the direct antagonism, of that staring, posed, bewhiskered and bewigged deportment, that nil admirari, self-remembering assumption of manliness, that endeavour of twopence halfpenny to look as high as threepence, which, when you prod it through, has in it nothing deeper than deportment. We see the two things daily, side by side, close to each other. Let a man put his hat down, and you shall say whether he has deposited it with affectation or true nature. The natural man will probably be manly. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... our threepence entrance fee in the stone hall and went upstairs. I opened the door of Number 8, and we were shut in our little cabin, looking down on the world. Then I found the barber, Luigi, bowing profusely in a box opposite. It was necessary to make bows all round: ah, the chemist, on the upper tier, near ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... a newspaper cost threepence or thereabouts, and schools were so far from being free that only the sons of gentlemen (and seldom the daughters of even gentlemen, remember) attended them, the art of reading was not so common as it now is. Writing was still more uncommon. And it has not been pretended that Brown was other than ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... blue, flaked, white, and versi-coloured crocus flowers will never fail to put in an appearance. The common sorts thrive almost anywhere, and in almost any ordinary garden soil. They should be planted during the present month, about two inches under the surface. As the roots only cost about threepence per dozen hardly any spot ought to be bare of flowers from the middle of January to early in March. A universally-grown plant, even earlier than the crocus, is the well-known snowdrop. This also, like the crocus, can be grown ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... enthusiastically; "we'll stick together, and you see how we'll get on; and look here, I vote we each pay threepence a week, that will get us a room at two bob, and candles. Then we can work a' ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... 'rotten borough.' Scotland returned forty-five members and Cornwall forty-four members to Parliament! The reformers also demanded the abolition of the 'taxes on knowledge,' by which was meant the stamp duty of fourpence on every copy of a newspaper, a duty of threepence on every pound of paper, and a heavy tax upon advertisements. The new Poor Laws aroused bitter discontent. Instead of receiving payment of money for relief of poverty, as had formerly been the case, the poor and needy were now sent ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... pick rather than by arts of war. For it is written in history that neither king nor army can bar the path to the man who having twopence in his strong box, and knowing well where he can turn it to threepence, sets his mind to that one end. And as the frontier has broadened, the mind of Britain has broadened too, spreading out until all men can see that the ways of the island are continental, even as those of the ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bread, nine more in meat, and another six in tea! Or think what such an addition means to those working-women from the North, who at the same time protested in Trafalgar Square against the compulsory insurance because the payment of threepence a week would lose them two of their dinners—twice the penn'orth of bread and ha'porth of cheese that they always ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... have curtailed the length of his smile, but Foster gave me a little satisfaction by saying that if a man was ass enough to write about "exponents of the game," he was probably paid a penny a line for what he wrote, and had sacrificed me for the sake of threepence. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... in Suifu, who undertook to take me to Chaotong, 290 miles, in thirteen days, special inducement being held out to them in the shape of a reward of one shilling each to do the journey in eleven days. Their pay was to be seven shillings and threepence each, apart from the bonus, and of course they had to find themselves. They brought me from the coolie-hong, where they were engaged, an agreement signed by the hong-master, which was to be returned to ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The common folk of the neighbourhood, peons of the estancias, vaqueros of the seaboard plains, tame Indians coming miles to market with a bundle of sugar-cane or a basket of maize worth about threepence, are well aware that heaps of shining gold lie in the gloom of the deep precipices cleaving the stony levels of Azuera. Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time had perished in the search. The story goes ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... little car, almost with his heart in his mouth. Then they hired a pair of roller skates each, and bruised themselves black and blue with heavy falls on the asphalt. After that they had a ride on the merry-go-round, but Judy found it tame after the switchback, and refused to squander a second threepence upon it, contenting herself with watching Pip fly round, and madly running by his side, to keep up as long as she could. They finished the afternoon with a prolonged inspection of the fish-tanks, a light repast of jam tarts of questionable freshness, and twopennyworth of peanuts. ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... and so did Cinderella. On the whole we favoured "Warrior," but perhaps we were wrong. At all events, the interpretation of "P" was clearly set forth by another document, which explained that I was entitled to a pension of eight shillings and threepence per week so long as I remained among the happy W.P.'s. There was also an identity certificate, whereon some clergyman, magistrate or policeman must attest that I was alive when I brought it to him, and a form of receipt for all the papers in the batch. I signed it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... a great deal with a pound a week. Let us consider for a moment: rent, which includes all rates and taxes, five shillings a week; gas, purchased on the beautiful and simple penny-in-the-slot system, say, one shilling and threepence, and firing one shilling and sixpence—at Brown's you only have a fire when it is really cold, and it is wonderful how far you can make a halfpenny bundle of wood go when you know the trick of it. Now we come to the not unimportant item of food. It is quite easy; breakfast, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... The writing on the envelope was not Constance's; but even before examining it she had had a peculiar qualm. She received letters from England nearly every day asking about rooms and prices (and on many of them she had to pay threepence excess postage, because the writers carelessly or carefully forgot that a penny stamp was not sufficient); there was nothing to distinguish this envelope, and yet her first glance at it had startled her; and when, deciphering the smudged post-mark, she made out the word ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... bring along anything that we think will be useful. Some of us bring clothes and others butter or umbrellas, or French books, or razor-strops or cigarettes. Hepburn, the dairy farmer, keeps sending cart-loads of cabbages; old Miss Mackintosh at the Brae Foot sends threepence a week. And when we are short of anything we just stick up a notice to that effect in the village shop. I issued a call for jam yesterday and ever since it has rained pots and pots. We have three large families ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... we splash down to the quay to see a few million of herrings sold at four shillings a hundred, which will presently induce philanthropic fishmongers in London to advertise 'a glut this morning,' and to retail them at threepence apiece. At rare intervals we explore the dripping town. It is amazing what a fascination the small picture-shops, to which at home we should never give a glance, afford us; even the frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions; while the ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... is. And I remember a case in point, and that was one day, and I had sold a horse, and was with my boy in a moramengro's buddika [barber's shop], and my boy says to me, in Romanes, 'Father, I'd like to have my hair cut.' 'It's too dear here, my son,' said I, Romaneskes; 'for the bill says threepence.' And then the barber, he ups and says, in Romany, 'Since you're Romanys, I'll cut it for twopence, though it's clear out of all my rules.' And he did it; but why that man rakkered Romanes I don't know, nor how it comes about; for he hadn't no more call to ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... himself." "You say the postage is ninepence," said I, "here's a shilling." "Well, I call that honourable," said the old woman, taking the shilling and putting it into her pocket—"here's your change, young man," said she, offering me threepence. "Pray keep that for yourself," said I; "you deserve it for your trouble." "Well, I call that genteel," said the old woman; "and as one good turn deserves another, since you look as if you couldn't read, I will read your letter for you. Let's see it; it's from some ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... cancelled all debts on payment of the principal. No Jew might distress beyond the moiety of a Christian's land and goods; they were to wear their badge, a badge now of yellow, not white, and pay an Easter offering of threepence, men and women, to the King. They were permitted to practise merchandise or labor with their hands, and—some of them, it seems, were still addicted to husbandry—to hire farms for cultivation for fifteen years. On these terms they were assured of the royal protection. But manual labor and traffic ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... some southern counties give the boys in spring threepence a dozen for the heads of young birds killed in the nest. The heads are torn off, to be produced, like the wolves' of old times, as evidence of extinction. This—apart from the cruelty of the practice—is, I think, a mistake, for, besides the insects that ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... hammer, East and Tom laid their heads together, and resolved to devote their ready cash (some four shillings sterling) to redeem such articles as that sum would cover. Accordingly, they duly attended to bid, and Tom became the owner of two lots of Diggs's things:—Lot 1, price one-and-threepence, consisting (as the auctioneer remarked) of a "valuable assortment of old metals," in the shape of a mouse-trap, a cheese-toaster without a handle, and a saucepan: Lot 2, of a villainous dirty table-cloth and green-baize curtain; while East, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... breeches; both jokes of Andrew's. Borde's house, whither, it is said, Edward VI. once came on a visit to the jester, still stands. The oak room in which Andrew welcomed the youthful king is shown at a cost of threepence per head, and you may buy pictorial postcards and German wooden toys in ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... must say a bus is pleasanter riding than what they used to be not many years back, and then so much cheaper, too. Why, you can go all the way right from here to Mile End Road for threepence! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... been selling milk at threepence per quart. In trade circles it is supposed that he is doing it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... to Mr. Bumpkin for cash received from Mr. Skinalive, Mr. Prigg's friend, of seven hundred and twenty-two pounds, six shillings and eightpence-half-penny, left a balance due to Honest Lawyer Prigg of three hundred and twenty-eight pounds, seven shillings and threepence,—subject, of course, to be reduced ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... the mother looked for the eggs, and the father mended a wheel in an adjacent shed, the daughter was obliged to get up shivering to carry the flagon of wine and the three glasses to the arbour, where she placed them on one of the tables. And, having pocketed the price of the wine—threepence—in silence, she went back to her seat with a sullen look, as if annoyed at having been compelled to make such a long journey. Meanwhile the three men had sat down, and Prada gaily filled each of the glasses, although Pierre declared that ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... more palpable instance (Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 1.): "If this law hold in Vienna ten years, I'll rent the fairest house in it after threepence a bay." If this reading be wrong, which I do not admit, the second change in the first letter creates an obvious alteration, day, making at least some sort of sense, if not the correct one. Some years ago, I was rash enough ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... coppersmiths hammer all day at shining rotund vessels, while their wives plait straw; for Filippino Lippi's exquisite Madonna in a little mural shrine at the narrow end of the piazza, which a woman (fetched by a crowd of ragged boys) will unlock for threepence; and for the cathedral, with Filippino's dissolute father's frescoes in it, the Salome being one of the most interesting pre-Botticelli scenes in Italian art. If only it had its colour what a wonder of lightness and beauty this still would be! But probably most ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... price, aren't they? Ten to a dozen the penny at Keswick. Chickens be twopence and threepence apiece." ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... pier at Blackwater said he had carried my trunk to the steamer that sailed on Thursday midnight, thinking I was a maid from the great house until I had given him half-a-crown (his proper fee being threepence); how two female passengers had declared that a person answering to my description had sailed with them to Liverpool; how these clues had been followed up and had led to nothing; and how, finally, the correspondents had concluded the whole incident of my disappearance ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... efficiency to be expected in the teacher may be surmised from the circumstance of his salary being sometimes less than the munificent sum of threepence-halfpenny per day! With such machinery we may feel it was an achievement to be grateful for, if by the end of the winter's session the children had learnt to read, write, and cipher moderately, and could repeat by heart a prayer for morning and evening, the ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... always gave a silver threepence for three dozen. You know what a silver threepence is, don't you, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... I found the price of rye about five shillings, wheat about eight shillings, per bushel; mutton threepence to fivepence per pound; bacon from sevenpence to ninepence; cheese from fourpence to sixpence; butter from eightpence to tenpence; house-rent, for a poor man, from twenty-five shillings to forty shillings per year, to be paid weekly; wood for fire very scarce and dear; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... Threepence a pound upon tea, shipped direct to America from India, would save the impost to England, bring tea at a cheaper rate to the Colonies (even with the added tax), and at the same time yield a ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... Vindicator has a story of a sailor who pledged a sixpence for threepence, having it described on the duplicate ticket as "a piece of silver plate of beautiful workmanship," by which means he disposed of the ticket for two-and-sixpence. The Tories are so struck with this display of congenial ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... all the forms to themselves? "What would be the present We should hardly believe all expression for four-pence? this to be uttered in earnest, Why, 0.166 (a laugh); for if we had not known {177} that threepence? .0125; for a several persons who have not penny? .004166, and so on ad Mr. Lowe's humor, nevertheless infinitum (a laugh); for a have his impressions on this half-penny? .002083 ad point. It must therefore be infinitum. (A laugh). What answered; but how is this ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... a collection. I have no Chinese or West India stamps, and would be glad to exchange for them any of the following, which are all the duplicates I have: One zwei groschen Nord-deutscher post: one eighty centime, Empire Francais; one sixpence; two threepence; two two-hundred mils. Correos ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... You see, Madam, the collar was a patent waterproof one. One of those you wash over night with a tooth-brush, and hang on the back of your chair to dry, and there you have it next morning rejuvenesced. It was the only collar he had in the world, it saved threepence a week at least, and that, to a South Kensington "science teacher in training," living on the guinea a week allowed by a parental but parsimonious government, is a sum to consider. It had come to Lewisham as a great discovery. He had seen it first ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... he observed. "Leave my bag on the seat, and go and see that my portmanteau is safely in the van. Then if you come back here I will give you threepence for ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... 4, 5, 6, 7, All good children go to heaven. A penny on the water, twopence on the sea, Threepence on the ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... weedy loafer with a bottle nose and watery blue eyes, agreed to pull across for threepence; but no sooner were they embarked and on the tide-way, than he lay on his oars and jerked his thumb towards the moving ship. "Make it a crown, ma'am, and I'll overhaul her," ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and look into a few offices and counting-houses where some of my relations or acquaintance are so good as to tolerate me, and where I stand by the fire if the weather happens to be cold. I get through the day in this way until five o'clock, and then I dine: at a cost, on the average, of one and threepence. Having still a little money to spend on my evening's entertainment, I look into the old-established coffee-shop as I go home, and take my cup of tea, and perhaps my bit of toast. So, as the large hand ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... conventional value, the pieces had a money value, which was essential to be known by all who desired to win. The rook and knight were estimated at about sixpence each; the queen, threepence; the pawns, three-halfpence; and the 'side-pawns,' three farthings. The value of bishops varied, while the king was beyond all price. The regulations respecting odds were also well defined, in degrees from a single pawn up to a knight and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... strength of which she determined to give a tea-party and invite a number of persons of whom we know something already. She took a half-sheet of note-paper and made out her list as carefully as a country "merchant's clerk" adds up two and threepence (New-England nomenclature) and twelve and a half cents, figure by figure, and fraction by fraction, before he can be sure they will make half a dollar, without cheating somebody. After much consideration ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... well-to-do hypocrite—the penniless villain;—the man who had everything to lose—the man who had nothing in the wide world but his own mischievous, rascally life, a gold watch, chain and seals, which he had stolen the day before, and thirteen shillings and threepence halfpenny in his ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a bang. Then breakfast, very deliberate, but cheerful, because the glass went up when I banged it—it always goes up at that hotel ... like the cost of living. Up another five points to-day, I see. Bread's going to be one-and-threepence. But of course there won't be any bread this winter, so the price doesn't much matter. But what about coal? and milk? and meat? "Several new sets of wage claims are due for decision within the next few weeks, and it is possible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... to tell us, separate copies are to be had for the modest equivalent of twopence, as a matter of fact, it did not come under my notice for a long time after it was made. May I further venture to point out that (reckoning postage) the expenditure of twopence-halfpenny, or, at the most, threepence, would have enabled Dr. Wace so far to comply with ordinary conventions as to direct my attention to the fact that he had attacked me before a meeting at which I was not present? I really am not responsible for the five months' neglect of which Dr. Wace complains. Singularly enough, ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... Church in Lower Canada, then invests those lands with a fictitious value, and sets them down as representing "a capital of L700,000!" whereas the rights to these lands are simply seignorial, and the annual revenue arising from them does not amount to threepence per acre. The Jesuits' estates, 891,845 acres—by far the largest item in the Bishop's paper—are in the hands of the Government, and not of the Roman ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... long morning with the Indians and their cura, we took quite an affectionate leave of them. Their last words were an apology for making us pay threepence apiece for the pineapples which we loaded our horses with. In the season, they said, twelve for sixpence is the price, but the fruit was ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... was every fire in the land first lit for the winter. It was deemed an act of the highest impiety to kindle the winter fires from any other; and for this favour the head of every house paid a Scrubal, or threepence, tax, to the Arch-Druid of Samhain." [222] Another writer mentions another Irish moon-god. "The next heathen divinity which I would bring under notice is St. Luan, alias Molua, alias Euan, alias Lugidus, alias Lugad, and Moling, etc. The foundations, with which this ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... fire, although it was not yet the thirty-first of October, for it was very damp and raw. She had with much difficulty induced Mrs Cork to concede this favour (which probably would not have been granted if the coals had not yielded a profit of threepence a scuttleful), and Clara, therefore, asked if she could not have the kettle upstairs. Again Maria ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... on the way, and when they were coming home from church they always turned into the tavern which lay by the wayside and drank half a pint together. This was at the time when half a pint of brandy cost threepence, so that was just a penny from ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... him at the door, he was almost tired to death, having in forty-eight hours traveled almost half a mile with a huge silver threepence upon his back. Both his parents were glad to see him, especially when he had brought such an amazing sum of money with him. They placed him in a walnut-shell by the fireside and feasted him for three days upon a hazel-nut, which made him sick, for a whole nut usually served ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... threepence to be earned, even if you are tired all over," he murmured, as he trudged to and fro. Presently a cheerful sound of teacups and a delightful smell of toast came from the cottage, and then the old woman brought out a broom to sweep ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... poor prisoners!" The officers' charge (says Johnson) for taking a debtor to Ludgate was sometimes three, four, or five shillings, though their just due is but twopence; for entering name and address, fourteen pence to the turnkey; a lodging is one penny, twopence, or threepence; for sheets to the chamberlain, eighteenpence; to chamber-fellows a garnish of four shillings (for non-payment of this his clothes were taken away, or "mobbed," as it was called, till he did pay); and the next day a due of sixteen pence to one of the stewards, which was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Pleas, and during the next six years made in that one court 1320l. per annum. Mr. Foss, to whom the present writer is indebted for these particulars with regard to Sir John Cheshire's receipts, adds: "The fees of counsel's clerks form a great contrast with those that are now demanded, being only threepence on a fee of half-a-guinea, sixpence for a guinea, and one shilling for two guineas." Of course the increase of clerk's fees tells more in favor of the master than the servant. At the present time the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... students—unless they have lived in India, after which a physical change occurs in the sensibility of the nostrils—are finical enough to burn wax-lights. This will amount to two pounds, five shillings. Coals, say sixpence a day; for threepence a day will amply feed one grate in Edinburgh; and there are many weeks in the thirty which will demand no fire at all. Groceries and wine, which are all that remain, I cannot calculate. But suppose we allow for the first a shilling a ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... brutal way of speaking was just what was needed for the kine and cattle of this pen. She skipped off to a cupboard, and set wine before me, and a glass. I drank quite quietly till I had had enough, and asked what there was to pay. She said 'Threepence,' and I said 'Too much,' as I paid it. At this the ox-faced man grunted and frowned, and I was afraid; but hiding my fear I walked out boldly and slowly, and made a noise with my stick upon the floor of the hall without. Neither did I bid them farewell. ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... two, three, four, five, six, seven, All good children go to heaven: A penny by the water, Tuppence by the sea, Threepence by the railway, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... out of his scanty resources, her railway fare to a tearful and despairing girl who played the low-comedy part. But he had not yet come across any position quite so untenable as that of Wilmer. Forty odd years old, a wife, five children, all his life given honestly to his calling—and threepence ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... dull at fust, but arter he had 'ad two or three 'arf-pints 'e began to take a brighter view of things. He found a very nice, cosey little public-'ouse he hadn't been in before, and, arter getting two and threepence and a pint for the 'arf-dollar with Ginger's tooth-marks on, he began to think that the world wasn't 'arf as bad a place as people tried ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... Shakespeare alone? What a thrill passes through the veins, as we read of Rodd the bookseller meeting at a marine store-shop on Saffron Hill, somewhere about the thirties, with a volume of Elizabethan tracts, and having it weighed out to him at threepence three-farthings! Our space is far more limited than such anecdotes; but they all strike us as pointing the same moral. If one happens on a Caxton or a quarto Shakespeare to-day for a trifle, it is the isolated ignorance of the possessor which befriends one. ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... be splendid to be a horse-trainer," said Jeremy. "It was a lovely horse to-night... And I only spent a shilling. I had three and threepence halfpenny." ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... pennies from a small purse, and rising, took her letters with her with the evident intention of posting them. Appleton rose too, lifting his pile of correspondence, and followed close at her heels. She went to the office, laid down threepence, with her letters, turned, saw Fergus Appleton with the physical eye, but looked directly through him as if he were a man of glass and poor quality of glass at that, and sauntered upstairs as if she were greatly ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... nodded. One was counting his gains, which amounted to almost threepence. The loser wore a brave air of indifference, as behoved a reckless soldier taking loss or gain in ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... did appear to be some difficulty as to money. If, as Miss Todd assured her, Sir Lionel were really in difficulties, her own present annuity—all that she could absolutely call her own—her one hundred and eighty-nine pounds, seventeen shillings and threepence per annum—would not help them much. Sir Lionel was at any rate disinterested in his offer; that at least was ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... indifferent to circumstances, who did not pay his sixpence to Jock before set of sun each Monday. Jock made no demands, and gave no receipts; he engaged in no conversation whatever, but simply waited and took. If any one tried to compound with Jock for threepence, one look at the miserable produced the sixpence; and when little Cosh following in the devious steps of his elder brother insinuated that he had paid already, Jock dropped him into the lade to refresh his memory. No one directly ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... 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 shin of beef stewed (No. 493), and a-la-mode beef ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... the city took on themselves to meet this heretical inclination by putting forth a tariff regulating prices. Any man who belonged to the caste now dominant might walk into a shop, lay on the counter a bit of brass worth threepence, and carry off goods to the value of half a guinea. Legal remedies were out of the question. Indeed the sufferers thought themselves happy if, by the sacrifice of their stock in trade, they could redeem their limbs and their lives. There was not a baker's shop in ...
— The Paper Moneys of Europe - Their Moral and Economic Significance • Francis W. Hirst
... illustration of this process, let us suppose that there are five players taking part in the game, that the ante is fixed at threepence, and the limit at a shilling. The players cut for deal, and the deal falls ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel
... In the sixteenth century there were several covered tennis-courts in England, and some of our English monarchs were very devoted to the game. Henry VII. used to play tennis, and there is a record of his having lost twelvepence at tennis, and threepence for the loss of balls. Henry VIII. was also very fond of the game, and lost much money at wagers with certain Frenchmen; but, like a sensible man, "when he perceived their craft he eschewed their company, and let them ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead. The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are .. copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... endeavoring to settle the currency. Honest John Hull's pine-tree shillings had long ago been worn out, or lost, or melted down again; and their place was supplied by bills of paper or parchment, which were nominally valued at threepence and upwards. The value of these bills kept continually sinking, because the real hard money could not be obtained for them. They were a great deal worse than the old Indian currency of clam-shells. These disorders of the circulating medium were ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fight, and in some cases cannot be induced to abandon it. The old proconsular seat was draped, and occupied by the prefet and madame, and the sous-prefet. The spectators went where they liked, men paid fourpence, women threepence for admission. The arena was enclosed within a screen of strong ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... sugar; "say it is for Mrs. Brown, and he will give it a little better." The grocer, keenly alive to the weaknesses of his fellow-creatures, encourages this notion. "This tea," he says, "would be four-and-sixpence a pound to any one else, but to you it is only four-and-threepence." Judging from my own observation, I should say that retail dealers trade a good deal upon this singular fact in the constitution of the human mind, that it is inexpressibly bitter to most people to believe that they stand on the ordinary level of humanity,—that, in the main, they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... delirium from a contagious and infectious fever," and he will find they will instantly desist from their efforts and hurry to another portion of the train. To carry out this little ruse successfully it may be sometimes necessary to wink at the ticket-collector and give him threepence, but this does not follow as a matter of course. The plan will be found to work excellently on comparatively short excursions to the sea-side, during which people sent in search of health are necessarily anxious to avoid anything ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... she died. I began to feel rather unwell, too, and thought it best to give up working and the public-house: so I wrote to the authorities at Chelsea, and obtained through the influence of a kind gentleman an addition of threepence a day to my pension, making a shilling in all; and with that I am now living in a house that was bequeathed to me for as long as I live by my late master, as comfortably as these circumstances and the interposition of a few friends can ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... Stake being first called to the bar, and sworn touching the identity of Sir Launcelot Greaves and Captain Crowe, declared, that the said Crowe had stopped him on the king's highway, and put him in bodily fear; that he afterwards saw the said Crowe with a pole or weapon, value threepence, breaking the king's peace, by committing assault and battery against the heads and shoulders of his majesty's liege subjects, Geoffrey Prickle, Hodge Dolt, Richard Bumpkin, Mary Fang, Catherine ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... part of the body. The oldest of the two judges guesses at the person, by naming a name, then the younger judge, and lastly the oldest again. If they hit upon the right name, the steward leads the person back again; but, if they do not, he takes off the winnow-sheet, and the person receives a threepence, makes a low obeisance to the judges, but speaks not a word. When the second servant was brought, the younger judge guessed first and third; and this they did alternately, till all the money was given away. Whatever servant had not slept in the house the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... price of the different edibles displayed on the counter. A cold roast fowl, weighing, possibly, a fraction over a pound, was three shillings (sixty cents), delicious fresh rolls, sixpence (ten cents) a dozen, buttermilk on draught, threepence (five cents) a glass; English ale, half a dollar (fifty cents) a pint bottle; black pudding, a penny a pound; and as much cold roast pork and beans, or boiled ham, as I liked for a shilling. The man smiled at my ignorance in asking ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... this they obtained by going down in the morning, when the herring boats came in, and helping the men to strip the nets. The men were generally tired out and sleepy with their long night's work; and if they had had anything like a good haul, they were glad to give these lads twopence or threepence apiece to undertake the labour of lifting the nets, yard by yard, out of the hold, shaking out the silvery fish and dexterously extricating those that had got more firmly enmeshed. Moreover, it was a work the boys delighted in. If it was not the rose, it was near the ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... a gentleman of wit, ability, and affability, unfailingly humorous, and unswervingly faithful to the king. Among his first measures was the repeal (1770) of the hated Townshend duties. Merely a tax of threepence a pound on tea was retained, in order that the colonies might not think that Parliament had surrendered its right to tax them. Lord North even made an arrangement with the East India Company whereby tea was sold so cheaply that it would not pay to ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... gone; one possibility was yet left him in store! To his wife he must go, and talk the thing over with her. He had still, he believed, threepence in his pocket to pay ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... and letting live, as they say; and since I hae been sic a fule as to show you the post-office orderou, nae doubt, it maun be obeyed. But I'll no need your callant, mony thanks to yeI'll send little Davie on your powny, and that will be just five-and- threepence to ilka ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Meanwhile the threepence, base as it was, became the humble instrument of brighter fortunes to BRUSTLES; it showed a marvellous aptitude for turning up tails, which BEN no sooner perceived than he availed himself of a blessing that had, indeed, come to him ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... possible to sell great dailies for one cent. But this practice was not established until the twentieth century. And it was only a few years ago that the greatest newspaper of the world—and a very stronghold of upper-class monopoly—was able, or driven, to reduce its price from threepence (six cents) to a penny. But I specify the case of the London Times because, like a miracle of divine healing, but entirely due to the cheapness of paper, is the change of its policy from that of brutal ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... a goldfinch has been known to exist twenty-three years in a cage. The same person tells us that goldfinches are sold in the streets of London from sixpence to a shilling each, and when there is an extra catch, and the shops are fully stocked, at threepence and fourpence each. Only think, it is computed that as many as 70,000 song birds are captured every year about London; the street sale of the goldfinch being about a tenth of the whole. Goldfinches may be taught to perform ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... coarse, staggy, and of irregular value. Old hens were held firmly at sixpence, and it is my experience that they always have to be, at whatever price. Geese were plenty, dull, and weak. Old cocks,—why don't they say roosters?—declined to threepence ha'penny on Thursday in sympathy with fowls,—and who shall say that chivalry is dead? Turkeys were a trifle steadier, and there was a speculative movement in limed eggs. All this was illuminating, and I only wished I were quite certain whether the sympathetic old roosters were threepence ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... vines and fruit trees open to the citizens and their wives, who in fine summer weather took their pleasure there and drank the Rhine wines which the merchants imported from Germany and vended at the rate of threepence a flask. This wine was brought over in stone bottles, made principally at Fretchen, near Cologne, which, from a rough-looking face, intended to represent Charlemagne, placed under the lip, were commonly called "Flemish Gray-beards." ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... things came across his heart; 'it is too late now to go back. Those who once cared for me have thrown me over.' And then he would again think of Waterloo Bridge, and the Monument, and of what might be done for threepence or ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... inveighs against them. Martial satirized them: "Now you are a gladiator who once were an ophthalmist; you did as a doctor what you do as a gladiator." "The blear-eyed Hylas would have paid you sixpence, O Quintus; one eye is gone, he will still pay threepence; make haste and take it, brief is your chance; when he is blind, he will pay you nothing." The oculists of Alexandria were very proficient, and some of their followers, at various times throughout the period of the Roman Empire, were remarkably skilful. Their literature ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... proposes to give two lectures, on Friday the 23rd, and Friday the 30th, instant. No. 1, The Poetry of Childhood: Doctor Watts, Mrs. Barbauld, Jane Taylor, No. 2, The Poetry of Womanhood, and the Affections: Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L. Threepence will be charged at the doors, which will go to the use of the above two admirable Societies.' Potts wants me to go down and hear him. He has an eye to business. He has had a quarrel with Sir Barnes, and wants me to go down and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... appearance of dependence, which must be disagreeable to you. I remit by this conveyance to him, the amount of one quarter's salary, commencing the 1st of January last, and ending the 1st of April, which I have vested in bills at the present rate of exchange, which is six shillings threepence this money, for five livres, by which you gain almost five and a half per cent. You will be charged here two and a half per cent premium, which is the usual commission, and I shall consider myself ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... what I so carefully hoarded even from my best friends, till this last month or two; and that a work which was so lately lodged, in all privacy, in my bureau, may now be seen by every butcher and baker, cobbler and tinker, throughout the three kingdoms, for the small tribute of threepence. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... I should charge. I told her that some ladies had a guinea a lesson; at which she laughed so heartily, that I had to wait until the first transports of her amusement were over before I could finish by saying, that for my part I should be glad to give an hour's lesson for threepence, only, if she pleased, I should prefer it in silver. But how was she to know, she asked, that I could teach her properly. I told her I would let her hear me play; whereupon she led me into the shop, through a back room in which her husband sat smoking a long pipe, with a tankard ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... of the soldiers was very small. The private had only threepence a day. One half only of this pittance was ever given him in money; and that half was often in arrear. But a far more seductive bait than his miserable stipend was the prospect of boundless license. If the government allowed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the correspondence has been reissued as a Pall Mall "Extra" No. 24, and threepence will be well laid out by the purchaser ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... surpassed in any part of England, Scotland, or Ireland, is to be had at twopence per pound; the fine four pound loaf for sixpence halfpenny; brown sugar, fourpence; white, sixpence; candles, sixpence per pound; tea, the finest, three shillings the pound; fresh butter, one shilling and threepence per pound. Wild fowl in abundance. Vegetables are cheaper than in any part of England. Wines of moderate price, but not of good quality. Spirits first-rate, and every kind cheaper than in England, except whisky, which is seventeen and eighteen shillings per gallon; very old at twenty-one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... that day, and merely incredible to those of the present time. There was an unnecessary twopence for the ferry—admitting the whole business to have been unnecessary. There was sixpence for a meal, consisting of tea and a portentous allowance of scones with butter. There was threepence for a packet of cigarettes ('colonial' tobacco), the first I had ever smoked, and a purchase which had actually been decided upon some days previously. Finally, there was fourpence for a glass of colonial wine in a George Street wine-shop; and this ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... halfpence in his pocket, for Richmond. And as he trudges through the streets of the town, after a hard day's walk, in his blue smock-frock, and with his red garters tied under his knees, staring about him, he sees in the window of a bookseller's shop the "Tale of a Tub," price threepence; it piques his curiosity, and, though his money is nearly all spent, he closes a bargain for the book, and, throwing himself down upon the shady side of a hay-rick, makes his first acquaintance with Dean Swift. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... fore-ribs of roasting beef. He looked at them, but made me chaffer with the butcher for him, and I did so, and came back to him and told him what the butcher had demanded for either of them, and what each of them came to. So he pulls out eleven shillings and threepence, which they came to together, and bade me take them both; the rest, he said, would ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... that Physician Vilbert is the only proprietor of those celebrated pills that infallibly cure all disorders of the alimentary system, as well as asthma and shortness of breath. Two and threepence a box—specially licensed by ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... obviously of importance, can hardly as yet be considered as quite satisfactory. The payments for five weeks' rehearsals are 6s. on the L1, 1s. salaries, which include dancers, walkers-on, etc.: and 12s. 6d. a week on salaries of L3. In each case, of course, the threepence insurance has to be deducted, and it must be quite clear that no woman can live on 5s. 9d., much less make a good appearance, unless she ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... Lordship; nay, we almost think, if well let alone, it would in a measure keep itself among such a set of persons! And how it happens that when a poor hardworking creature of us has laboriously earned sixpence, the Government comes in, and (as some compute) says, "I will thank you for threepence of that, as per account, for getting you peace to spend the other threepence," our amazement begins to be considerable,—and I think results will follow from it by and by. Not the most dexterous keeping of ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... horse allowance, forage, and the like. It is credibly reported that one of these warriors, on emerging from a week's purgatory in a Belgian trench, found that his accommodation therein had been charged against him, under the head of "lodgings," at the rate of two shillings and threepence a night! ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... other man would add also the desire that we have to benefit other countries and to impeach our own. And it is, so sure as God liveth, that every trifle which cometh from beyond the sea, though it be not worth threepence, is more esteemed than a continual commodity at home with us, which far exceedeth that value. In time past the use of this commodity consisteth (for the most part) in cloth and woolsteds; but now, by means of strangers succoured here from domestic ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... upon them as blessings showered down from above, and which the more they improve to their own use, the greater is their gratitude and piety. Thus at Gravesend a sculler requires a shilling for going less way than he would row in London for threepence; and at Deal a boat often brings more profit in a day than it can produce in London in a week, or perhaps in a month; in both places the owner of the boat founds his demand on the necessity and distress of one who stands more or less in absolute want of his assistance, and with ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... in the cars. The distance was not more than a quarter of a mile, and the boys were quite curious to know what the price of the tickets would be, for such a short ride. They found that they were threepence apiece. ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... buy them," said the Terror firmly. "I'm going to give threepence each for kittens that can just lap. We don't want kittens that can't lap. They'd ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... the labour required for their possession, commenced a general system of plunder down the Rhine. He easily organized a band, composed, I believe, of deserters from the French and Austrian troops, who preferred wholesale robbery to being shot in either service at the rate of threepence a-day; and for a while nothing could be more prosperous than their proceedings. Their leader, with all his daring, was politic, professing himself the friend of the poor, standing on the best terms with the peasantry, scattering his money in all directions with the lavishness of a prince, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... while everybody, including the worthy Alderman aforesaid, was paying 2s. 6d., and 3s., and even 3s. 6d. for real Natives, some people were gratifying their molluscous tastes at the small charge of One Shilling and Threepence for thirteen, or were getting six oysters and a half—the half be demm'd—for sixpence. Long time is it since we paid 1s. 3d. for Real Royal Natives. They may have left Whitstable at that price, but they never came ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... always been able to come to Tom in the gay, confident spirit of an only child touching an indulgent father for chocolate cream. But he's just had a demand from the income-tax people for an additional fifty-eight pounds, one and threepence, and all he's been talking about since I got back has been ruin and the sinister trend of socialistic legislation and what will become ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... October, a negro was arrested for picking two cocoanuts, value threepence. This arrest had every exasperating condition. The fruit was taken from a plantation whose title was disputed, and upon which the negroes had squatted. The law which made the plucking of fruit a crime was itself peculiarly obnoxious. The magistrate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... was born, that is in the midst of the Crimean War, my father founded, in conjunction with David Bogue, a well-known publisher of the time, a journal called the Illustrated Times, which for several years competed successfully with the Illustrated London News. It was issued at threepence per copy, and an old memorandum of the printers now lying before me shows that in the paper's earlier years the average printings were 130,000 copies weekly—a notable figure for that period, and one which ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... little ones rivet my attention. Some are a few weeks old, others two, three, four, and five years old. Women are nursing them. Where are their mothers? I am told that they are out—and this and that girl is receiving twopence or threepence for minding baby until mother comes home once more. The whole thing is too terribly real; and now, now I begin to understand a little about Dr. Barnardo's work and the urgent necessity for it. "Save the children," he cries, "at any cost from becoming such as the men and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... made an investment of capital! In other words, he spent threepence in pen, ink, paper, and a candle, and spent one night in his lonely garret writing. It was a letter, addressed to a stranger, on a public question. In other words, it was an article to a London paper on, "Life in a Slum, by One who Lives There." It was a quiet, unsensational paper, with ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... is now prepared to wake up subscribers at any hour for threepence a call, and it is forming an "Early Risers' List." So many persons are anxious to take a rise out of the Telephone Service that the success of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... been seen by her to pass within the swing-doors of the "Queen's Arms" for his usual morning refreshment. Then she had occupied herself chiefly by collecting her various things at their respective shops, purchased by Frank's two-pound-ten, and putting them on. She had had a clear threepence to spare beyond the few shillings she had determined to put by out of the total, and had expended it by a visit to the cinematograph show in Victoria Street. There had been a very touching series of pictures of the "Old Home in the Country," and the milking of ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... low long road like an interminable white string stretched across the flats, and lined with those dwarfish trees that are elvish in their very dullness. At one point of the journey (I cannot conceive why) one is arrested by a toll gate at which one has to pay threepence. Perhaps it is a distorted tradition of those dark ages. Perhaps Alfred, with the superior science of comparative civilization, had calculated the economics of Denmark down to a halfpenny. Perhaps a Dane sometimes came with twopence, sometimes even ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... the tide came up and carried him away. And did I want to buy a bull calf? Gavroche knew where there was a fine one that could be bought cheap. Gavroche would show me both the calf and the stone chair for threepence. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... herself as she went; she was kinder than ever to the small children who came into the square every forenoon, and whose acquaintance she had very speedily made; she gave each of her crossing-sweepers threepence instead of twopence in passing. The servants had never seen her in such good spirits; she was exceptionally generous in presenting them with articles of attire; they might have had half the week in holidays if Mr. Lavender had not to be attended to. A small gentleman of three years of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... creation, is to be had for the sum of seven pence sterling; and that the gentleman who is fond of science, and spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after keeping his servant waiting several months, "Well! I'll give you fourpence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra threepence yourself, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... "At threepence a card! Then I can have two of them, Julia! and I can send one of them to Priscilla, for poor Priscilla has spent all her money on fireworks, and hasn't anything ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... you," said Archie. "You don't know what you mightn't let yourself in for. You may have promised to pay the child threepence a ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... of its own. Either he climbs to a shabby garret that he has, unless the landlady, weary of waiting for her rent, has taken the key away from him; or else he slinks to some tavern on the outskirts of the town, where he waits for daybreak over a piece of bread and a mug of beer. When he has not threepence in his pocket, as sometimes happens, he has recourse either to a hackney carriage belonging to a friend, or to the coachman of some man of quality, who gives him a bed on the straw beside the horses. In the morning, he still has bits of his mattress in his hair. If the weather ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Dick, and they laid down eightpence for a pound of sausages, and threepence for a small loaf, and returned to the barge. Here they fried their sausages and made some tea, for the fire in the stove was not out, and the good-natured bargewoman had left them a small bucketful of coke to make it ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... twenty-seven English shillings, and brings back one moidore, of full weight, is a gainer of ninepence Irish; in a guinea, the advantage is threepence, and twopence in a pistole. The BANKERS, who are generally masters of all our gold, and silver, with this advantage, have sent over as much of the latter, as came into their hands. The value of one thousand moidores in silver, would thus ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... nouns, and merely articles to be conveyed to Gleneesh according to orders. So he looked straight before him, presenting a sphinx-like profile beneath the peak of his leather cap, while a slow and solemn porter helped Jane and her luggage into the motor. When she had rewarded the porter with threepence, conscientiously endeavouring to live down to her box, the chauffeur moved foot and hand with the silent precision of a machine, they swung round into the open, and took the road for ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... if you requested him to do so; but unless you have that audacity he prefers to keep the teaspoon on his side of the bar, out of harm's way. This may seem strange, when you perceive that the teaspoon is fashioned of a metal unknown to silversmiths and might be priced at threepence. But even a threepenny teaspoon is a souvenir which some collectors ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... going to come York over me in that way, or Yankee either. There is threepence for your pound of ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... glaring too viciously at Mr. Crowl to reply. He understood the message as if it were printed. It ran: "You have broken one of my best glasses. You have annihilated threepence, or a week's school fees for half the family." Peter wished she would turn the lightning upon Denzil, a conductor down whom it would run innocuously. He stooped down and picked up the pieces as carefully as if they were cuttings from the Koh-i-noor. Thus the lightning passed harmlessly over ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... Trimmer's "Natural History." This I read, as usual, thoroughly and often, and wrote my name at the end, ending with a long snaky flourish. Years passed by, and I was at the University, when one evening, dropping in at an auction, I bought for six cents, or threepence, "a blind bundle" of six books tied up with a cord. It was a bargain, for I found in it in good condition the first American editions of De Quincey's "Opium-Eater," "The Rejected Addresses," and the Poems of Coleridge. But what startled me was a familiar-looking copy of Mrs. Trimmer's ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... rather low foreheads, and rather frowning eyes, and shut thin mouths, and shut thin expressions. She hoped that she would see him to-day. An hour ago a young man with a spotty complexion and bulging eyes like a rabbit's had handed her a note with his threepence, asking for a "two-and-a-half" in a lovelorn voice. She handed him back his halfpenny and his unopened note at once, saying, "Your change, sir," in a kind, absent-minded voice. I am afraid an incident ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... and unquestionable proof of distress as the last, while it bore other evidence, which though trivial in itself, is not unworthy of notice. Last year two theatrical shows visited us, displaying their "Red Barn" tragedies, and illuminated ghosts, at threepence per head, at which they did well; as also did a tremendous giantess, a monstrously fat boy, and several other "wonderful works of nature:" this year only one show of any description attended, and that, with kings and queens, and clowns, as well dressed and efficient, and ghosts, as white ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... stopped till the two shillings were made up. Threepence a week each, and a month seemed long to look forward to. Gloomily they leaned over the gate in the evening. Patter, patter, nearer and nearer came little feet. "Lizababuff has opened her money-box, and here is sixpence for ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... not know my way about London, if you would go with me to buy some things for my brothers, which I promised to carry back when I return. I have got some money to pay for them, for Charles gave me a sixpence, and three halfpence, and a farthing; and William gave me threepence; and I have got a silver penny and a twopence of my own, all screwed safely in ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... at seventy for one, is but sixty-four thousand two hundred and eighty pounds three shillings sterling, and on an average, is no more than three shillings and five pence sterling per head, per annum, per man, woman and child, or threepence two-fifths per head per month. Now here is a clear, positive fact, that cannot be contradicted, and which proves that the difficulty cannot be in the weight of the tax, for in itself it is a trifle, and far from being adequate to our quota ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... pounds: 5: 10, and its "carridge" from London 11s. 10d. Whitewashing the church came to 1 pound: 1s., and work in the gallery to 10s. 4d. Besides, there was a continual payment for dozens of sprow heads, also for fox heads at threepence apiece, for a badger's head, a "poul cat," marten cats, and hedgehogs. These last, together with sparrows, continue to appear till 1832, when the Rev. Robert Shuckburgh, in the vestry, protested against such use of the church rate, and it was discontinued. Mr. Shuckburgh was the first ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... shining day, and the larkes are pleased at it, and strike at it, as at a sheepe's eye, and at that time the nett is drawn over them. While he playes with his glasse he whistles with his larke-call of silver, a tympanum of about the diameter of a threepence. In the south part of Wiltshire they doe not use dareing-glasses but catch these ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... and set foot on firm ground, even for an hour. Those who, like ourselves, land at Halifax for the interior, are anxious to obtain rooms at the hotel, and all who have nothing else to do hurry to the ice-shop, where the luxury of a tumbler of raspberry-cream ice can be obtained for threepence. Besides the hurried rush of those who with these varied objects in view leave the steamer, there are crowds of incomers in the shape of porters, visitors, and coalheavers, and passengers for the States, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... were but two feather-beds, and but eight beds stuffed with chaff. There were but two stables and six cow-houses in the whole district. None of the women owned more than one shift, nor was there a single bonnet among them all, nor a looking-glass costing more than threepence. ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... threepence, but there are people who have to consider the threepences; if Julia was one, she knew that Mr. Gillat was another, and she had allowed for this threepence, and he probably had not. He demurred, but she insisted. "Then I won't let you come with ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... a penny a week was increased to threepence, he felt himself on the high road to wealth, and ere long he was the possessor of a Bible and a grammar, which he set himself to study whenever he could ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... suppose? One coffee, threepence," she jotted down. "Are you in a hospital? I wish I was nursing, instead ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... lie about the King's going to Ranelagh—No matter; there is no such thing as truth. Garrick exhibits the coronation, and, opening the end of the stage, discovers a real bonfire and real mob: the houses in Drury-lane let their windows at threepence a head. Rich is going to produce a finer coronation, nay, than the real one; for there is to be a dinner for the Knights of the Bath and the Barons of the Cinque-ports, which ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... realms, he would have taken it. He said no good-byes. He left no messages, no explanations. He went. On the next afternoon but one he arrived at Victoria with fivepence in his pocket. Twopence he paid to deposit his luggage in the cloakroom, and threepence for the Underground fare to Charing Cross. From Charing Cross he walked up to Kenilworth Mansions and got a sovereign from Mark Snyder. Coutts's, where Mark financed himself, was closed, and a sovereign was ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett |
