"Twopence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fact of his appointment would have quieted louder whispers than those which had been heard; but Mr Harding was an open-handed, just-minded man, and feeling that there might be truth in what had been said, he had, on his instalment, declared his intention of adding twopence a day to each man's pittance, making a sum of sixty-two pounds eleven shillings and fourpence, which he was to pay out of his own pocket. In doing so, however, he distinctly and repeatedly observed to the men, that though he promised for himself, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... beautiful pages of the autobiography of my Great Example—hereinafter to be called the G.E. It is wonderful to be admitted to the circle of the elect, week after week, at the low rate of twopence a time. Why, I've paid more to see ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... presence of mind, and bristling up and screaming in the front of her brood, and in the face of circumstances, succeeds, by her courage, in putting her enemy to flight; in like manner you will always, I think, find your wife (if that lady be good for twopence) shrill, eager, and ill-humored, before, and during a great family move of this nature. Well, the swindling hackney-coachmen are paid, the mother leading on her regiment of little ones, and supported by her auxiliary nurse-maids, are ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they may gain wealth which they probably cannot enjoy, will never gain an honest character, nor secure that without which wealth is nothing—a heart at peace. "The rogue cozened not me, but his own conscience," said Bishop Latimer of a cutler who made him pay twopence for a knife not worth a penny. Money, earned by screwing, cheating, and overreaching, may for a time dazzle the eyes of the unthinking; but the bubbles blown by unscrupulous rogues, when full-blown, usually glitter only to burst. The Sadleirs, Dean Pauls, and Redpaths, for ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... income of so much, and here is my neighbor who has the same; yet every year he gets something ahead and I fall short; why is it? I know all about economy." He thinks he does, but he does not. There are many who think that economy consists in saving cheese-parings and candle-ends, in cutting off twopence from the laundress' bill and doing all sorts of little mean, dirty things. Economy is not meanness. The misfortune is, also, that this class of persons let their economy apply in only one direction. They fancy ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... passports were. Also that I always supposed that foreigners conferred a great benefit on a country by spending their money in it; but that if I could not be admitted, that was an end of it; it was a matter of very trifling consequence, indeed, for we really did not care twopence whether we saw Russia or not; a country more or less made very little difference to such ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... of semi-religious tracts published during the Civil War, one appeared (in 1642) entitled "An Iron Rod for the Naylours and Tradesmen near Birmingham," by a self-styled prophet, who exhorted his neighbours to amend their lives and give better prices "twopence in the shilling at the least to poor workmen." We fancy the poor nailers of the present time would also be glad ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... of the N.S.P.C.C. should be drawn to the fact that several stall-holders on the beach of a popular seaside town are offering ices at twopence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... me, Angus," observed Mr Keith, quite gravely, "that you must have paid twopence extra ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... of a vast moor, or amid the threatening bulk of giant hills. He looks upon nothing that respects him. He can find nothing subservient to him. Therefore he flies to the crowded haunts of men, and the porter touching his hat to him for a prospective twopence at the railway station, is the welcome confessor of his disallowed divinity. It is, alas! the most common and humbling feature of human nature that we all stiffen our backs with pride when the knee of some fellow-creature is crooked in homage to us, although that homage may ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... in the street and interrupting people who are talking, he said: 'If they are tradesmen, their conversation will soon end, and may be well paid for by a halfpenny; if an inferior clings to the skirt of a superior, he will give twopence rather than be pulled off; and when you are happy enough to meet a lover and his mistress, never part with them under sixpence, for you may be sure they will never part ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... to do a mean or sneaking thing, especially to Aunt Pam, but she didn't seem to care a button for that shawl. I didn't think it was worth twopence. She used to wear it in all sorts of weather, and it looked to me as if it was patched up out of bits that she hadn't any other use for. I'm sure she'd worn it since she was a baby. I could remember seeing that shawl ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... she cried. "Yes, my frock is nice, isn't it?—and it cost twopence-halfpenny! Wasn't it a cheap shop? Silver has gone down in value, you see, so much, and green was always cheap. It's too heavenly to think that I shall come back to the house where you are. Usually I hate coming ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... also be insured against loss and damage by the payment of a small sum. Paying a penny insures to the extent of L5 and twopence to the amount ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... mile north from Shaftesbury, is noted for containing the wells from which the inhabitants of Shaftesbury are supplied with water. Great numbers of the inhabitants get their living by carrying water, for which they have three halfpence or twopence the horse load. On this account there is a particular custom yearly observed, according to ancient agreement, dated 1662, between the Lord of the Manor of Gillingham, and the Mayor and Burgesses of Shaftesbury. The Mayor is obliged, the Monday before Holy Thursday, to dress ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... Street at Stapleton was a tobacconist's shop, and Mr Prater, strolling in one evening to renew his stock of Pioneer, was interested to observe P. St H. Harrison, of Merevale's, purchasing a consignment of 'Girl of my Heart' cigarettes (at twopence-halfpenny the packet of twenty, including a coloured picture of Lord Kitchener). Now, Mr Prater was one of the most sportsmanlike of masters. If he had merely met Harrison out of bounds, and it had been possible to have overlooked him, he would have done ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... I should say. If you had adopted a few more of the words I got from Roget's Thesaurus, we should have been safer. Sending in a word like "disgusting" was sheer waste of one-and-twopence! And as for POMPILIA, with her synonyms to "sensational," and PRISCILLA, with her rubbishy superstition, depend upon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various
... a man not easily moved. He wrote down "George" without hesitation on a bit of pink paper and asked for twopence as he gave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... been dealt at those who maintain we are not a commercial race. "You gave me prussic acid in mistake for quinine this morning," a man told a chemist the other day. "Is that so?" said the chemist; "then you owe me another twopence." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... close-mouth. For Willie, his oldest, if not his choicest friend, had recently jeered at his intention of becoming a soldier, and they had parted on indifferent terms, though Willie had succeeded in adding to a long list of borrowings a fresh item of twopence. ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... the Outrams that I should not care about the sideboard if you had got it for twopence. What an awful smash! Just think of the old place being bought by a Jew! Tom and Leonard are utterly ruined, they say, not a sixpence left. I declare I nearly cried when I saw that man ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... must lisp," concluded Anne. "You must write a poem for the occasion—an 'Ode on Bank Holiday.' We'll print it on Uncle Henry's press and sell it at twopence a copy." ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... said Carroll, waving his pipe through the smoke. "Gatti's? Yes, on special occasions; but for necessity, the Chancellor's, where one gets a piece of the prime roast beef of Old England, from Chicago, and potatoes for ninepence—a pot of bitter twopence-halfpenny, and a penny for the waiter. It's most amusing on the whole. I am learning a little about London, and some things about myself. They are both most ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... felt so strange and contradictory an inward tumult as I felt for an hour that evening: soreness and laughter, and fire, and grief, shared my heart between them. I cried hot tears: not because Madame mistrusted me—I did not care twopence for her mistrust—but for other reasons. Complicated, disquieting thoughts broke up the whole repose of my nature. However, that turmoil subsided: next day ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Eightpence halfpenny you owe me now. I had to put on another farthing a week because his appetite grew so big. I knew you would rather pay more than see him suffer. And the guinea-pig died. There's twopence extra for funeral expenses. We put him in the orchard beside the dogs, and made a headstone out of your old slate. It's a rattling good idea, because, don't you see, you can ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... twopence a hundredweight dearer at Hamburgh than at Paris, which gives an exchange of 247 mille in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... What signifies a bit of whipcord! You can get a bit of whipcord twice as long as that for twopence; and who cares for twopence! Not I, for one! So here it goes," cried Hal, drawing out his knife; and he cut the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... effective: but here the design is confused and the result is an appearance of restless uncertainty. Drumdurris Castle seems to be a lunatic asylum, of which the principal inmates are two elderly female patients, one, like a twopence-coloured plate of some ancient Scotch heroine, with a craze about Scotland, and the other mad on saying "Fal-lal," and screaming out something about "motives." If eight of the characters were cut out, "they'd none ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... North-Western fares, till they had recouped themselves out of the public all they had lost by their fight." This did very well for the Parliamentary Committee; but it is a fallacy. At present the North-Western Railway, though empowered by law to charge three-pence a mile first-class, charge twopence a mile only: why?—because twopence a mile they find to be on the whole the most paying rate. Ergo, after the fight with their directly competing brother was over, they would settle down to twopence a mile again. The public could not lose by the competition; ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke
... they have got the job apparently done, they simmer away to nothing. They perform mysterious rites with ink-eraser. They scratch feebly with knives. They hold up to the light, they tittivate, they muse and they adorn. It is not the slightest use intimating that you do not care twopence whether there are typographic errors or not—the expert typist treats you with the scorn that the expert always does treat the layman with. At such junctures it is an advantage if the typist happens to be a he, because you can tell him what you think of him. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... Dorothy saw a letter for herself on the table in the now familiar hand-writing, and was more relieved than perhaps she would have confessed even to her closest friend, when she saw the twopence-halfpenny English stamp on the envelope. Yet its contents were startling enough, and this letter she did not read to Katherine Kempt, but bore its ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... Letters in the MORNING CHRONICLE on the Working Classes, are now being republished in Weekly Numbers, price Twopence; and Monthly Parts, price Ninepence; with Engravings of the Scenes and People from Daguerreotypes by BEARD. To be had of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... on the very day he travelled down with us. He started badly with a heavy reverse and casualty list, for we played bridge on the way and he lost his first day's pay, messing allowance and field allowance, all except twopence, which goes (I believe) to income-tax. When we arrived at our billet we found Pay in process. A private, who has a moment or so ago saluted and withdrawn with his pay, seeks re-admission. "Colour-Sergeant!" he says. "What is it?" "I think you have given me sixpence short." To which the brutal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... make it a little more out of the common way than that? But, Harcourt, without joke, you need not trouble yourself. I did want you to see her; but I don't care twopence as to your liking her. I shall think much more of your wife liking her—if you ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... notable places as we pass up the Broad Walk, it would be time to turn back before we reach them, and I simply wave my stick at Cecco Hewlett's Tree, that memorable spot where a boy called Cecco lost his penny, and, looking for it, found twopence. There has been a good deal of excavation going on there ever since. Farther up the walk is the little wooden house in which Marmaduke Perry hid. There is no more awful story of the Gardens than this of Marmaduke Perry, who had been Mary-Annish ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... but he told me sharply to be thankful for what I had, since I'd done no work to earn them; by work he meant the brainless manual work done by people like himself. So going on deck I called a boatman, who for twopence put me ashore on the Kingswear side of the river. He gave me full directions for finding Mr. Blick's house, telling me that in another five minutes I should come to it, if I followed my nose. As I started from the landing place I looked back at the barquentine, where I had had so many adventures. ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... but still Jimmy enjoyed his lemonade very much, and before he had half finished it, he put his sixpence on the counter. He thought it was a little dear at fourpence, and he looked sorry when he received only twopence change. Then he emptied his glass, and went outside again, thinking he would eat his ham-sandwiches. But the wind blew colder than ever, and seeing another open door a little farther along the platform Jimmy cautiously peeped in. The large room was quite empty, and an enormous ...
— The Little Clown • Thomas Cobb
... had paid her four and sixpence—one florin and a half-crown—and she had three threepenny-pieces in her pocket, and twopence. Then Sally had been out and got a shilling's-worth of soap, and six-penn'orth of blue, and brought home one shilling; and there was the sausages—no one could recollect what they had cost, though they talked so much about their ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... circularize the provinces with Leaflet No. 3, or to issue a statistical diagram showing the proportion of married women to spinsters in New Zealand; or that the net profits of Mrs. Hipsley's Bazaar had reached a total of five pounds eight shillings and twopence half-penny? ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... "AND THAT'S TWOPENCE!" cried a voice that seemed to come from the chimney, in a whining tone, like some discontented old body going ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... understand that you are in charge of the correspondence in this office. Well, during the last week you have three times sent unstamped letters to my fiancee, Miss Vera Delane, Woodlands, Southbourne, Hants. What's the matter with you? Do you think she likes paying twopence a time, ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... compress the cork to a size sufficiently small to allow it to enter the neck of the bottle, and a suspended weight, which in falling drives it home. These corks, which are principally obtained from Catalonia and Andalucia, cost more than twopence each, and are delivered in huge sacks resembling hop-pockets. Before they are used they have been either boiled in wine, soaked in a solution of tartar, or else steamed by the cork merchants, both to prevent their imparting a bad flavour to the wine and to hinder any leakage. They are commonly ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... labour infinite, produce a book of verse To languish on the "All for Twopence" shelf? The ballad bold and breezy comes particularly easy— I mean to take ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... 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 a little ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... afternoon in October the lady members of this club, being in urgent need of funds, decided to admit men among their audience at the small charge of twopence per head, and on hearing this, my father and myself strolled round to witness the proceedings. They were remarkably lively. Allix, while reading a report respecting the club's progress, began to libel some of the Paris convents, whereupon a National Guard in the audience flatly called him ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Loblolly Boy cantered home for the East End Weight-for-age Welter Handicap, I said that the son of Rattlesnake could make mince-meat of all his rivals. Since then he has made for his owner L5,000,000 in added money, at an initial expense of twopence halfpenny for saveloys and onions, a combination of which this splendid animal is particularly fond. Loblolly Boy was by Rowdy out of Hoyden, and his pedigree mounts up to Sallycomeup, Kissmequick, and Curate on Toast, whilst in the collateral line he can claim kinship with Artaxerxes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various
... true, As good to be a gardener. As for to be a pardoner. But when I heard him so far wide, I then approached and replied: Saying this, that this[432] indulgence, Having the foresaid penitence, Dischargeth man of all offence With much more profit than this pretence. I ask but twopence at the most; I-wis this is not very great cost, And from[433] all pain without despair, My soul for to keep[434] even in his chair, And when he dieth, he may be sure To come to heaven even at pleasure. And more ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... Alderman Harmer, rejected by the City, resigned in consequence his aldermanic gown. In 1857 the Dispatch commenced the publication of its famous "Atlas," giving away a good map weekly for about five years. The price was reduced from fivepence to twopence, at the beginning of 1869, and to a penny ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... without prejudice, it seemed quite a good proposition on paper. So on we went. The Turf Tissue was to be sold to the public at twopence a copy, a half-penny of which was to go to the seller. It was a good commission, but by giving it we hoped to attract a very large number of the newsboys who sold the evening paper, in view of the fact that by publishing the Tissue ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... his bedroom and counted out his money—twopence was all he possessed. He had expended the enormous sum of a shilling the day before on a grass snake. It had died in the night. He must get a cream blanc-mange somehow. His reputation for omnipotence in the eyes of the little girl next door—a reputation very dear to him—depended ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... home, but I won't—I tells her I'd run away first,—she is so little she can't carry the sacks home as other gals do; so a strong young woman who works at sacks carries them home for her, and charges her twopence for it,—they car-ries them home on the top of their heads; but she is too little, she is." (At that time women worked at sack-making, and carried them home ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... coffee and bread was twopence and a penny for the maid, you may say without lying that I had left behind me the escarpment of the Alps and stood upon the downward slopes of the first Italian stream and at the summit of the entry road with eight francs ten centimes in my pocket—my body hearty and my spirit light, for ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... spend all that time? Not I. Let him leave me alone. He does not care twopence about me, and it's mere humbug and hypocrisy all ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with the bread-bag over his shoulder. As soon as he had arrived on board, the lad communicated the fact to the crew of the Yungfrau, whose spirits were raised by the intelligence, with the exception still of old Coble, who shook his head, and declared, "It was twopence and a red-herring ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the doorkeeper was kept opening and closing the door. In the middle of the hall a clerk stood at a desk, having a great book in front of him, and making a show of challenging everybody as he entered. He recognised Aggie as an artiste, but passed Glory also on the payment of twopence and the signing of ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... 'Pray you to your God, and I will pray to mine when I think time.' And, when he was desired by some to give thanks for his meat, he said, 'Take a sackful of prayers to the mill, and shill them, and grind them, and take your breakfast off them.' To others he said, 'I will give you a twopence, and [if ye] pray until a boll of meal and one stone of butter fall down from heaven through the house-rigging to you.' To others, when bread and cheese was given him, and was laid on the ground by him, he said, 'If I leave this, I will [shall] long cry to God before he give it me again.' To others ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... once much cheaper, and much better, than at the public-house. The members take it in turns to be steward, and serve out the beer: if a man should decline to serve when his turn came, he would pay a fine of twopence. The steward lasts, as long as the barrel lasts. When there is a new barrel, there is a ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... care. Grumps always said that I had no heart, and, so far as green fly are concerned, Grumps was certainly right. Now, just look at this lily. It is an auratum. I gave three-and-six (out of my own money) for that bulb last autumn, and now the bloom is not worth twopence, all through green fly. If I were a man I declare I should swear. Please swear for me, Philip. Go outside and do it, so that I mayn't have it on my conscience. But now for vengeance. Oh, I say, I forgot, you know, I suppose. I ought to be ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... themselves in the summer mornings. On this chilly wintry day none of them were visible, except the cheerful old soul bent almost double, but with a chirruppy little voice like a superannuated sparrow, who acted as porter, and closed the big gates every night, and fined the old men twopence if they were too late. He trotted along the echoing passages, with his keys jingling, to show them the ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... opinions.' His proposals dazzled for a day, and then were seen to be a scheme of illusory compensations and dislocated expedients. He took off half of the malt-tax and half of the hop duty, and in stages reduced the tea duty from two shillings and twopence to one shilling. More important, he broke up the old frame of the income-tax by a variation of its rates, and as for the house-tax, he doubled its rate and extended its area. In one of his ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... and promised him twopence if he would come and blow for him while he practised. But he began by playing absently and carelessly, for since the letter had been despatched his problem had become infinitely more urgent, and it thrust itself between him and the music. His fingers roved dreamily over ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... of, it being of a frivolous character and lacking in the qualities of true poetry. I collected fourpence by the recital of "I remember, I remember." I knew it was fourpence, because they told me that if I kept it until I got twopence more I should have sixpence, which argument, albeit undeniable, moved me not, and the money was squandered, to the best of my recollection, on the very next morning, although upon what memory ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... good boy," returned she, "I knew you would touch them off. Between ourselves, three pounds, five shillings, and twopence is no bad day's work. Come, let ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... rightly managed? Examination is sure to show that there are monstrous inconsistencies in the mode of division, which being corrected, the verses tally as well as the chapters. And then how comes it? I cannot go on, {52} for I have no gift at torturing a coincidence, but I would lay twopence, if I could make a bet—which I never did in all my life—that some one or more of my readers will try it. Some people say that the study of chances tends to awaken a spirit of gambling: I suspect the contrary. At any rate, I myself, the writer of a mathematical book and a comparatively ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... ferry-boat. We touch the pier at last: a gangway is hastily thrown from the pier to the steamer, and in company with many others we go ashore. At the landward end of the jetty, detained there by a barrier of twopence each of toll, in round hats and alpaca dresses, are waiting our friend's wife and children, from whom we receive a welcome distinguished by that frankness which is characteristic of Glasgow people. But we do ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... livelihood as best I could, so that I had not much opportunity for education, though I cannot say that I thought that much hardship at the time, being fonder of an open-air life. I was employed for some time in frightening the birds off the corn, for which I received the sum of twopence a day; after which I was advanced to sixpence a day as ploughboy, in which situation I remained until I was fourteen years of age. My father then obtained twenty pounds from a friend, with which he apprenticed me to Henry Bush, a builder living at Studland, a village in the same county, for seven ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... thoroughfares that, after exploring it in its full extent by myself, I went for A——, and led her down one side its whole length and up the other. In these shops the precious old dears could buy everything they wanted in the most minute quantities. Such tempting heaps of lumps of white sugar, only twopence! Such delectable cakes, two for a penny! Such seductive scraps of meat, which would make a breakfast nourishing as well as relishing, possibly even what called itself a dinner, blushing to see themselves labelled ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... care?" said he, with a snort. "Who cares twopence about the lot of them—chaps like them too? You're a cut better than that lot, I ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... Notwithstanding, as Sall's shoe was not forthcoming, the next morning Bill goes on the quarter-deck, and complains to the first lieutenant, as how he had lost Sall's shoe. 'Damn Sall's shoe,' said he, 'haven't I enough to look after without your wife's confounded shoes, which can't be worth twopence?' Well, Bill argues that his wife had only one shoe left, and that won't keep two feet dry, and begs the first lieutenant to order a search for it; but the first lieutenant turns away, and tells him to go to the devil, and all the men grin ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Emily 'ad gone inside, and Joseph stood there, fidgeting, while the cabman asked Bill, as a friend, why he 'adn't paid twopence more for his face, and Bill was wasting his time trying to think of something to say to 'urt the cabman's feelings. Then he took Bill by the arm as the cab drove off and told 'im not to say nothing about the dream, because he was going ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... could go on shore, and for a few beads or a knife not worth twopence buy as many provisions as we required, or any other article, and we could play all sorts of pranks with the natives, and nobody interfered with us. Now, if we ask them to buy or sell, or to dance, or to do anything else on a Sunday, they won't do it, and we can have no fun of any sort; and ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... of letters by the penny-post 'was originally confined to the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark and the respective suburbs thereof.' In 1801 the postage was raised to twopence. The term 'suburbs' must have had a very limited signification, for it was not till 1831 that the limits of this delivery were extended to all places within three miles of the General Post Office. Ninth Report of the Commissioners of the Post ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... and Flora returned to her own business; but Blanche's interest was gone. Dazzled by the more lavish gifts, she looked listlessly and disdainfully at bodkins, three for twopence. "I wish I might have bought the writing-box for Janet Taylor! Why does not papa give us money to get pretty things for the children?" said she, as soon as ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Edith. "If a ball at any time is a good thing, why should it be bad now? Are we all to go into mourning, because Mr. Carroll has so decreed? For myself I don't care twopence for the ball. I don't think it is worth the ten shillings which it will cost. But I am all for showing that we don't care so ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... public being gathered together in the churchyard, a Cambridge scholar, and none of the soberest neither, inquired what the meaning of that concourse of people was (it being a week-day); and being told that one Bunyan, a tinker, was to preach there, he gave a lad twopence to hold his horse, saying he was resolved to hear the tinker prate; and so he went into the church to hear him. But God met him there by His ministry, so that he came out much changed; and would by his good will hear none but the tinker for a long time after, he himself becoming a ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... in England during the winter of 1915, when the cost of living had already risen by nearly 50 per cent, wholesale dealers often kept provisions of all sorts rotting in their stores rather than break the artificial scarcity they had created; farmers would not sell fresh eggs when the price was twopence-halfpenny, because they knew that in a week or two the price for the same eggs would have risen to threepence. Here is a cartoon from a Hungarian paper[20] showing the bloated profiteer of The Sugar Trust laughing at the women who feebly attack his barricade ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... round with the tambourine, the golden youth of Castel-le-Gachis turned from her coldly. Here and there a single halfpenny was forthcoming; the net result of a collection never exceeded half a franc; and the Maire himself, after seven different applications, had contributed exactly twopence. A certain chill began to settle upon the artists themselves; it seemed as if they were singing to slugs; Apollo himself might have lost heart with such an audience. The Berthelinis struggled against the impression; they put their back into their work, they sang loud and louder, ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... desire my reader to consider that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Will's under twopence each day, merely for his charges; to White's under sixpence; nor to The Grecian, without allowing him some plain Spanish, to be as able as others at the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even Kidney[*] ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... times with him so badly. His poor wife was my greatest friend. Mira Montanaro, daughter of the great banker, you know. It's not possible that that miserable little prig is my poor Mira's girl. The heiress of all the Montanaros in a black-lace gown worth twopence! When I think of her mother's beauty and her toilets! Does she ever wear the sapphires? Has anyone ever seen her in them? Eleven large stones in a lovely antique setting, and the great Valdez sapphire—worth thousands and thousands—for the pendant." No ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... suburban street must be nicer than a London one. We are just outside the Metropolitan main drainage system, and our death-rate is rather heavy, but then our rates are light. My butcher only charges me one-and-twopence a pound for best joints, and though this is a little dearer than London, the meat is probably more wholesome from being in such good air as we enjoy. In wintertime the journey to town, half-an-hour by train, has a most bracing effect on those capable ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... less than a shilling a day for food and drink. Naturally, his first purchase was of the materials of his craft; he had been without them too long. Half a day's investigations and comparison brought him to the conclusion that sausages and mashed potatoes, twopence a plate, were the best food. Now, sausages once or twice a week for breakfast are not unpleasant. As lunch, even, with mashed potatoes, they become monotonous. At dinner they are impertinent. At the end of three days Dick loathed sausages, and, going, forth, pawned his watch to revel on sheep"s ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... degree, and discourses in varying moods on a variety of topics. Yet, turning the pages again, I find them curiously and somewhat alarmingly consistent—consistent not only in themselves, but with their surviving author as he sits here to-day, using the same pen-holder which he bought for twopence in 1886, and gazing out of the same window, soon to be exchanged for another with a view more academic: and 'alarmingly consistent' because (as Emerson has very justly observed) a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I'd go myself for twopence. But I'd better wait here and get the ransom money ready, and then James Batty and I can start out together with a bag of it.' She laughed loudly at the prospect of setting forth with the respectable James. 'And it wouldn't ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... up every morning a skin bag of water (it is made of skins sewn together, with a small outlet at the top); for it we pay twopence, which is equal to more than a shilling in London. The water that he brings he pours into a large earthern jar, which keeps it cool, and to it is attached over the mouth of the jar a sieve which is made of thick unbleached calico: if this ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... find a curious and detailed account in the parish books of Southam, Warwickshire, for the year 1718. In the first place, a man was sent from Southam to Daventry to make a drawing of the ducking-stool of that town, at a cost of three shillings and twopence. The sum of one pound one shilling and eightpence is charged for labour and material in making and fixing the engine of punishment. An entry of ten shillings is made for painting it, which appears a rather heavy amount when we observe that the carpenter only charged ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... I should place the South Australian Register, published in Adelaide, as the best daily paper in Australia. In style and get-up it is almost an exact copy of its Melbourne contemporary, and its published price is twopence. In reports and correspondence it is quite as enterprising, but its leading columns and critiques being almost all written in the office, are necessarily weaker. The whole paper is less carefully edited, but its opinions are more liberal, and it is in ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... this morning, sir," said she, in a profusion of tears over her prospective loss. "He came down-stairs with a letter in his hand, and there was twopence for my little boy to take it when he came home from school. How should I know he had gone back, sir, to make away with himself like that, and ruin a poor ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... aloud, "I do not think that I am called upon to spend twopence-halfpenny" (for Isobel had forgotten the stamp) "in forwarding such poisonous trash to a son whom I should guard from evil. Hateful girl! At any rate she shall have ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... fares with the beautiful in this world," said the poet. And he made a song upon it, and sung it after his own fashion, but nobody listened. Then he gave a drummer twopence and a peacock's feather, and composed a song for the drum, and the drummer beat it through the streets of the town, and when the people heard it they said, "That is a capital tune." The poet wrote many songs about the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... you candidly, though I am afraid it is a dreadful confession, I have'nt felt wretched by any means since I left home. Poor old Daddy! I'm sorry he was bothered about such a trivial thing as a marriage settlement; perhaps it is that he wants twopence-halfpenny to square his accounts. Pump him, will you, and if it should be this that's preying on his mind, you may tell him he can draw on me for the amount, and I'll toss him double or quits when I come home. I suppose he's pretty nearly spliced by this time. Concerning ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... cards this year? Yes," said Blathers, "but not next year, or the year after that, as we shall be retrenching. They are quite modest trifles, yet at the mere sight of the envelope each recipient will, cheerfully, I hope, pay twopence towards the sinews of war. One hundred of these contributions will amount, I am told, to sixteen shillings and eightpence; not much, but it is my little offering to the country in her hour of need. This is the card I propose ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... in the enormous interest of money, which seems to have been considered by no means immoderate at 50 per cent.; certain Oxford scholars thought themselves relieved by being constrained to pay only twopence weekly on a debt of twenty shillings. In fact, the rivalry of more successful usurers seems to have afflicted the Jews more deeply than the exorbitant demands of the King. These were the "Caorsini," Italian bankers, though named from the town of Cahors, employed by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... shopkeeper compares notes with me about numerals, and is as much amused as I. He treats me to coffee and a pipe from a neighbouring shop while Omar eloquently depreciates the goods and offers half the value. A water-seller offers a brass cup of water; I drink, and give the huge sum of twopence, and he distributes the contents of his skin to the crowd (there always is a crowd) in my honour. It seems I have done a pious action. Finally a boy is called to carry the batterie de cuisine, while Omar brandishes a gigantic kettle which he has picked up a little bruised for four shillings. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... said the doctor, smiling graciously. "Where's the money? Ay! half-a-crown. I haven't twopence—never mind. Go away, young man; the case is dismissed. Vehementer miror quare hue venisti. You're more fit for anything than a college life. Keep good hours; mind the terms; and dismiss Michaelis Liber. Ha, ha, ha! May the devil!—hem!—that ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... coins there be these sorts of pieces: the least is a poledenga; the second, a denga; the third, nowgrote, which is as much to say in English, as halfpenny, penny, and twopence; and for other valued money than this there is none. There are oftentimes there coins of gold, but they come out of foreign countries; whereof there is no ordinary valuation, but they pass according ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... goods, he saw his own hood, stolen at Westminster, exposed for sale. After refreshing himself with a pint of wine, for which he paid the taverner one penny, he hastened to Billingsgate, where the watermen hailed him with their cry, "Hoo! go we hence!" and charged him twopence for pulling him across the river. Bewildered and oppressed, Master Lickpenny was delighted to pay the heavy charge, and to make his escape from the din and confusion of the great city, resolving never again to enter its portals or to have anything ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... judgments upon swearers, which had much impressed Bunyan. One was of a certain Dorothy Mately, a woman whose business was to wash rubbish at the Derby lead mines. Dorothy (it was in the year when Bunyan was first imprisoned), had stolen twopence from the coat of a boy who was working near her. When the boy taxed her with having robbed him, she wished the ground might swallow her up if she had ever touched his money. Presently after, some children who were watching her, saw a movement in the bank on which she was ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... who cares twopence for the French army or Lisbon or the Portuguese or the Junta or anything about it?—every man is pondering over his own affairs. One fellow wants to get home again, and be sent upon some recruiting station. Another ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... everlasting wire cable, and the initiated will tell you that here is the mechanism. I gave up asking questions. If it pleases Providence to make a car run up and down a slit in the ground for many miles, and if for twopence halfpenny I can ride in that car, why shall I seek the reasons of the miracle? Rather let me look out of the windows till the shops give place to thousands and thousands of little houses made of wood ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... providing employment for poor street boys, by furnishing them with brushes and blacking, and forming them into regular companies of shoeblacks. Each boy has his' particular stand, where he blacks the shoes of every passer by who chooses to take the trouble of putting up his foot and paying his twopence. Lord Shaftesbury also presented me to a lady who had been a very successful teacher in the ragged schools; also to a gentleman who, he said, had been very active in the London city missions. Some very ingenious work done in the ragged schools was set on the table ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which means the fulfilment of one's wishes (she used to try her fortune on the cards every morning), and her tea struck her as particularly delicious, for which her maid was rewarded by words of praise, and by twopence in money. With a sweet smile on her wrinkled lips, the lady walked about the drawing-room and went up to the window. A flower-garden had been laid out before the window, and in the very middle bed, under a rosebush, lay Mumu busily ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... little to the west of Brooke Street, and close by was Middle Row, an island of houses opposite the end of Gray's Inn Road, which formed a great impediment to the traffic. The Bars were the entrance to the City, and here a toll of a penny or twopence was exacted from non-freemen who entered the ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... said the voice of Mrs Gamp, 'though warm, which, bless you, Mr Chuzzlewit, we must expect when cowcumbers is three for twopence. How does Mr Chuffey find ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... could not possibly stop, much in the way of porters and trucks; Julia had to find him and find her luggage too, but he seemed to think he was of much service. Julia's hard young heart smote her when he gave twopence ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... to blame for the professor's regrettable explosion and departure, and he ought by all laws of justice to have suffered for it. As it was, I was the only person materially affected. It did not matter to Ukridge. He did not care twopence one way or the other. If the professor were friendly, he was willing to talk to him by the hour on any subject, pleasant or unpleasant. If, on the other hand, he wished to have nothing more to do with us, it did not ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... obstinately seated on the canvas chair, his legs stretched out before him. "What's the use? When we've just paid twopence each for our chairs? They'll be snapped up in a minute and we shan't get ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... going to the bazaar in support of the Deserving Inebriates next year, I have instructed Eliza to reply: "Not if Lady Sandlingbury and her friend have a stall." I positively refuse to meet them, and I do not care twopence ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... and states the price demanded. Milk is dear throughout Morocco in the late spring and summer, for, herbage being scanty, cows are small and poor. Eggs, on the other hand, are cheap; we can buy a dozen for twopence or its equivalent in Spanish or Moorish money, and chickens cost about fivepence apiece. If Salam, M'Barak and the Maalem were travelling alone they would pay less, but a European is rarely seen, and his visit ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... than that; I mean your own tongue, young woman. You let it run on too fast and too freely. I'm sure I don't know what kind of a school that is that you're at; but they don't teach you respect for your elders; and I'm beginning to wonder if you've paid the twopence extra for manners. If you have, you haven't ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... with their emblematic daces. But the times now, my dear father, are so cold-blooded that you can't be too cold-blooded to prosper. What could Chillingly Mivers have been in an age when people cared twopence-halfpenny about their religious creeds, and their political parties deemed their cause was sacred and their leaders were heroes? Chillingly Mivers would not have found five subscribers to "The Londoner." But now "The Londoner" is the favourite ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... country where their labor would be useful and their prosperity sure. It may be presumed, that in this spirit a girl and two boys were committed to take their trial for stealing some wood, valued at twopence, the property of the crown.[207] These acts of severity forcibly contrast with the happier fortunes of other classes. It is said of George III, that he arrested two Eton boys in the act of poaching: they took him for a keeper, and offered their pocket-money as a bribe. He threatened ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... and at less expense than ever Wilmet conceived. You wrap yourself in your virtue, and refuse to spend a couple of shillings, as deeming it robbery of the fry at home. You wear out at least a shilling's worth of boot leather, pay twopence for a roll and fourpence for a more villainous compound called coffee; come home in a state of inanition, cram down a quartern loaf and a quarter of a pound of rancid butter, washed down with weak tea; and if self-satisfaction ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sir," he said. "I don't care twopence for all the puppies that ever wore red coats, sir. My name is Nicholas Clam, Esq., No. 4, Waterloo Place, Wellington Road, Regent's Park, London; and I can shoot at a popinjay as well ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... of mere diversion and child's play that Mr. Stevenson began "Treasure Island." He is an amateur of boyish pleasures of masterpieces at a penny plain and twopence coloured. Probably he had looked at the stories of adventure in penny papers which only boys read, and he determined sportively to compete with their unknown authors. "Treasure Island" came out in such a periodical, with the emphatic woodcuts which adorn them. It is said ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... 11.35 P.M. to drive an elderly gentleman, wearing a fur-coat, to Golder's Green, you are tendered the legal fare plus twopence. Express, within ladylike limits, your appreciation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... said Mrs. Shiffney, looking quickly round her with searching eyes, while they waited for their hostess. "Nothing worth twopence-halfpenny, but nothing wrong. I declare I ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... There is 'no good' in what does not rest (literally, stop here)." Said the Gipsy, "Show me your money!" And he showed him a guinea, a sovereign, a half-sovereign, a half-guinea, a five-shilling piece, a half-crown, a two-shilling piece, a shilling, a sixpence, a fourpenny piece, a threepence, a twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a farthing, a half-farthing. Said the Gipsy, "This is all bad money." "No," said the other man; "it is all good and sound. Toss it in your hand and hear it ring!" "Yes," replied the Gipsy. "You told me that only bad things keep going, and this money ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... for more than a year, Johnson resolved to give it up and go to London, there to seek his fortune. Leaving his wife at Lichfield, he set off with his friend and pupil David Garrick, as he afterwards said, "With twopence halfpenny in my pocket, and thou, Davy, with three halfpence ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... rude enough to decline to go into the scheme on the ground that I did not care twopence whether the Rothschilds and Oppenheims went back to Palestine or not. This was felt to be an obstacle; but then he began to try and make me care, whereupon, of course, I had to get rid of ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... exalted), and it brought his heart into his mouth to see a cyclist ride down it, like a fly crawling down a window pane. The man hadn't even a brake. He visited the castle early in the evening and paid his twopence to ascend the Keep. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... intend to pass rapidly, for indeed they were too full of wretchedness to be dwelt upon. From early morning until late at night I wandered about the streets or in the parks, where also I slept. I took every care of my scanty stock of money, but at last it came to an end. Once I held a horse for twopence, once I carried a heavy portmanteau from Charing Cross to Tottenham Court Road for a penny, and once a lady took pity on my condition and gave me threepence. Then I parted with my jacket, and lived ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... absolute faithfulness a list of all his personal expenses—even to the gratuities he expended in traveling and entertainment. We find, for instance, that "John Cramer is to go into the service of Mr. Jefferson at twelve dollars a month and twopence for drink, two suits of clothes and a pair of boots." It seems that he bought a bootjack for three shillings; and the cost of countless other household items ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... up society. What earthly thing do you learn about people by meeting them in a general crush, where all are coming, going, laughing, talking, and looking at each other? No person of common sense ever puts forth any idea he cares twopence about, under such circumstances; all that is exchanged is a certain set of commonplaces and platitudes which people keep for parties, just as they do their kid gloves and finery. Now there are our neighbors, the Browns. When they drop in ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... see him, Kuno,' said the first huntsman, 'nowhere - not a trace, not a hair of the mare's tail! No, sir, he's off; broke cover and got away. Why, for twopence I would hunt ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... complain. Why is it that—I began to like going down to see Lady Maxwell—why did I like talking to her at Castle Luton? Well! of course it's pleasant to be with a beautiful person—I don't deny that in the least. But she might have been as beautiful as an angel, and I mightn't have cared twopence about her. She has something much less common than beauty. It's very simple, too—I suppose it's only sympathy—just that. Everybody feels the same. When you talk to her she seems to care about it; she throws her mind into yours. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... walk into those sardines, do you hear?" said our host. "Any more coffee, twins? Pass up those tea-cakes when you've helped yourself, Crow. I got them for twopence apiece—not bad, eh? I say, I suppose you've heard what's up in Hawk Street, eh?—jam to the Field-Marshal there. Yes, Harris of the Imports told me: he heard it from Morgan, who knows a fellow who knows old ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... aggrieved the people was an order for the abatement of the coinage. Henceforward, the nine-penny piece was to pass for sixpence, the groat or four-penny piece for twopence, the two-penny piece for a penny, the penny for a halfpenny, and the halfpenny for a farthing. Yet notwithstanding this, or perhaps in consequence of it, the price of provisions ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... bread-corn, it is for the most part brought to London after it is converted into flour, and both bread and flour are extremely reasonable: we here buy as much good white bread for three- halfpence or twopence, as will serve an Englishman a whole day, and flour in proportion. Good strong beer also may be had of the brewer, for about twopence a quart, and of the alehouses that retail it for threepence a quart. Bear Quay, below ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales |
