"Ninepence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 30, Lancaster Street; Mr. Ash, Prospect Row; Mr. White, 235, Bristol Street; Miss Davis, Sand Pits; and Mrs. Wood, 172, High Street, Deritend. Two deliveries took place daily—one at 8 a.m., the other at 5 p.m. The postage of a "single" letter to London then was ninepence; but a second piece of paper, however small, even the half of a bank note, made it a "double" letter, the postage of ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... that certain issues of The Daily Mail and Evening News last week, whose amazing editorial organisations were so freely and disinterestedly engaged in overcoming colossal obstacles in order to give information about the approaching revolution, were worth anything from fourpence to ninepence apiece. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... distraction, division and enmity. Week after week, the seceders were held up to public odium, derision and scorn. One day, they were "blasphemous," one day, "revolutionary," one day, they "sang small," and one day "their nobles were come to ninepence." Now, they were challenged to establish a society of their own principles; now, they were recommended to the mercy of the Attorney-General, and again commended to the hatred of the people. Meantime a blight had fallen on ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... 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; coal ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... worse fates than shoemakers and grasshoppers. Even WITH one, you know, I don't at all say that I should sniff at poor Mitchy. We must take what we can get and I shall be the first to take it. You can't have everything for ninepence." And the Duchess got up—shining, however, with a confessed light of fantasy. "Speak to ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... happens to have a ninepence about him," said the man in cell No. 3, "there's a sufferin' family here as could make use of it. Smallest favors gratefully ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... two, a dilapidated counterpane, four ragged blankets, and the infirm saucepan before mentioned, besides a few articles of cracked or broken crockery. For this accommodation the landlord charged ninepence per day, which sum had to be paid every night before the family was allowed to retire to rest! In the event of failure to pay they would have been turned out into the street at once, and the door padlocked. Thus the necessity for a constant, though small, supply of cash ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... rattle up bald head, (hic!) if old 2-and-ninepence don't (hic!) shell out with his 'freshments, we'll (hic!) smash this 'ere borrered tea sarvice over his (hic!) figger head." Sayin which he gives the door bell a yank, which was enuff to pull the roof ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... gathered about the table, for healthy young people can eat even in the midst of trouble. "I hate to borrow as much as Mother does, and I knew Aunt March would croak, she always does, if you ask for a ninepence. Meg gave all her quarterly salary toward the rent, and I only got some clothes with mine, so I felt wicked, and was bound to have some money, if I sold the nose off ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... same idea is carried a step further, in the form of an advertisement: "NOTICE.—If the heavy joke, which was sent to the 'Puppet-Show' office last Monday, and for which two-and-ninepence was charged, be not forthwith removed, it will be sold to Punch to pay expenses;" and later on it hints that the Parisians will do well to import a few of Punch's jokes as the best of all possible ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... tell her the news, and to go to two other places to let them know that Mrs. Minto would not be able to come for a time. And she was to be a good girl, and not worry, but to take the three shillings and ninepence which was in Mrs. Minto's purse, and look after herself, and explain to the landlady what had happened.... She had a host of things to do, and she paid her three calls within ten minutes. So far the ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... 'One-and-ninepence, sir, or your things will be taken away from you!' he said, in a kind of lisping tone, coming yet nearer ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... meeting when some ill-conditioned parishioner said that the Dean's curate was converting to his own uses the profits of the parish magazine. The periodical, as appeared later on, was actually run at a loss, and the curate had been seven-and-ninepence out of pocket the ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... Collection of Purchas. He says that he had also sent by one Mr Tomkins, probably the bearer of the letter and journal, some of the coin used there in common payments; The gold piece called mas, being worth about ninepence half-penny; and those of lead called caxas, of which it takes 1600 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... crop we had ever had; but when Dad came to sell it seemed as though every farmer in every farming district on earth had had a heavy crop, for the market was glutted—there was too much corn in Egypt—and he could get no price for it. At last he was offered Ninepence ha'penny per bushel, delivered at the railway station. Ninepence ha'penny per bushel, delivered at the railway station! Oh, my country! and fivepence per bushel out of that to a carrier to take it there! ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... Galician hotels. The main street is pervaded by small boys selling Russian newspapers or making a good thing out of cleaning the high Russian military 'sapogee' (top boots). They get five cents for a penny paper and ninepence or a shilling for boot-blacking, but considering the mud of Galicia (I have been up to my boot tops—that is, up to my knees—in it), the charge is not too heavy, especially if the unusual dearness of living be ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... of the smallest possible era yet written of. Whatever economies we pursue, political or other, let us see at once that this is the maddest of the uneconomic: partridges killed by our land magnates at, shall we say, a guinea a head, to be retailed in Leadenhall at one shilling and ninepence, with one poacher in limbo for every fifty birds! our poet, maker, creator, gauging ale, and that badly, with no leisure for making or creating, only a little leisure for drinking, and such like beer-barrel avocations! Truly, a cutting of blocks with fine razors while we scrape ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... that more westerly arch which celebrates Waterloo, there to sniff and immerse myself in the town. The hour is 8:15 post meridien and the time is early summer. I have just rolled down Wellington Street from the Strand, smoking a ninepence Vuelta Abajo, humming an ancient air. One of Simpson's incomparable English dinners—salmon with lobster sauce, a cut from the joint, two vegetables, a cress salad, a slice of old Stilton and a mug of bitter—has lost itself, amazed and enchanted, in ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... angry. What right had she to call any thing my husband did a bad habit? and to expect me to agree with her was ten times worse. I am saving my money now to buy him a grand new pipe; and I may just mention here, that once I spent ninepence out of my last shilling to get him a packet of Bristol bird's-eye, for he was on the point of giving up smoking altogether because of—well, because of what will appear ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... I worked like a Trojan, an' ha'f killed they jackasses; an' I tell 'ee 'twas busy all to carry dree-an'-twenty seam. In the eveling, arter work, I went to Lawyer Mennear an' axed 'n 'bout the nine-pence—I niver got ninepence so hard in all my born days. When he paid me, he looked ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... get them one is obliged to go and sell some tommy, and much one gets for it. Bacon at ninepence a-pound at Diggs', which you may get at a huckster's for sixpence, and therefore the huckster can't be expected to give you more than fourpence halfpenny, by which token the tommy in our field just cuts our wages atween ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... his jaws, he must pull very hard; and the instrument is introduced. A turn of the doctor's hand; the patient begins to utter a cry, but the tooth comes out first, with four prongs. The patient gets up, half amazed, pays the doctor ninepence, pockets the tooth, and the spectators are ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 216. The subscription for the Vaudois, of which two thousands pounds was given by the protector, amounted to thirty eight thousand two hundred and twenty-eight pounds four shillings and twopence. Of this sum twenty-five thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight pounds eight shillings and ninepence was sent at different times to the valleys; four hundred and sixty-three pounds seventeen shillings was charged for expenses; and about five hundred pounds was found to be clipt or counterfeit money.—Journals, ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any recognition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness of heart, Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he received with much humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb, directly afterwards, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... color, that they may be seen more plainly," said he; and he poured something like a little drop of red wine into the drop of water, but it was witches' blood from the lobes of the ear, the finest kind, at ninepence a drop. And now the wonderful little creatures were pink all over. It looked like a whole ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... appearance, on the sign-post, and in the tavern and store, of some large placards, with very curious and funny pictures upon them. These placards made known the important fact, that, for the sum of ninepence, (a shilling, according to the currency of New York,) any boy and girl in the vicinity might have the pleasure of seeing some of the most astonishing feats of trained animals ever heard of. On a certain day there was to be a sort of ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... of young men in a good station, who made of the "Hunters' Tryst" a frequent resort. They told me I had intruded on an "all-night sitting," following upon an "all-day Saturday tramp" of forty miles; and that the members would all be up and "as right as ninepence" for the noon-day service at some neighbouring church—Collingwood, if memory serves me right. At this I could have laughed, but the moment seemed ill-chosen. For, though six feet was their standard, they all exceeded that measurement considerably; and I tasted again some of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the price of the middling cotton of America for the last fifteen years has varied at Liverpool from fourpence to ninepence per pound, and now stands at seven and a halfpence by the last quotations. As the stock accumulates or the sale of goods is checked, the price naturally declines, and a check is given to production. As the stock declines or goods advance, an impetus is given to prices, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... section. 'Pepys,' that was unintelligible. 'Buttered toast,' no sense in that. 'Suede gloves,' yes, she had told Frank that when she came to town, she would buy some suede gloves at a certain shop in the City, where she could get for three and threepence a pair which would cost her three and ninepence in Woking. Maude was so conscientiously economical, that she was always prepared to spend two shillings in railway fares to reach a spot where a sixpence was to be saved, and to lavish her nerve and energy freely in the venture. Here, then, in the suede gloves, was a central point ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... result must have been equally clear to them,—which is, that, instead of realizing two shillings and twopence the rupee on their subscription, as they proposed, they could never hope to see more than one shilling and ninepence. This calculation probably shook the main pillar of the project of April. But, on the other hand, as the subscribers to the second scheme can have no certain assurance that the Company will accept bills so far ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... equidistant, and the subsequent operation of riveting is greatly facilitated. One of the results of the improved method was the great saving which was at once effected in the cost of preparing the plates to receive the rivets, the price of which was reduced from seven shillings per tank to ninepence. He continued to devote himself to the last to the improvement of the lathe,—in his opinion the master-machine, the life and soul of engine-turning, of which the planing, screw-cutting, and other machines in common use, are but modifications. In ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... the book—Bell's Introduction to the Study of the Classics, for Use of Beginners—and held it between both hands. Its price was ninepence, but Grindley junior appeared to regard it as a volume ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... a stag was sold readily by the Indians for a jack-knife or a few iron nails. The deer in winter came and fed from the hog-pens of Albany swine. Even in 1695, a quarter of venison could be bought in New York City for ninepence. At the first Massachusetts Thanksgiving, in 1621, the Indians brought in five deer to the colonists for their feast. That year there was also "great store of wild turkies." These beautiful birds of gold and purple bronze ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... neat as ninepence! He's taking it down like mother's milk. But there'll be wigs on the green to-morrow, Badger! It'll be twopence and toddle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and its commerce. That was a main object of the consultations which stirred the wonder of courtiers. The victualling of the expedition was confided to Ralegh. He contracted to provision 6000 men for three months at the rate of ninepence a head. He complained that he was out of pocket, which was not believed, though it was acknowledged that the work was very well done. It was sure to be. He appreciated fully Coligny's advice, as quoted by himself, that 'who will ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the doctor, we were called up before the board one at a time. I was asked my age and time of service, and one of the gentlemen called out "Seven!" but the doctor immediately said "Nine!" as I had a wound in my knee; they evidently meaning that I should have ninepence a day as my pension, as that was what was settled on me for life. I then went to the office, where I received my expenses to Dorchester, to the amount of one and tenpence for myself, and three-halfpence for my wife for every ten miles; and with that we started off for Bryant's Piddle ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six, together with two millions six hundred thousand pounds for their maintenance; and thirty-four thousand two hundred and sixty-three land soldiers, with nine hundred and thirty thousand six hundred and three pounds, six shillings and ninepence, for their support. An hundred thousand pounds were voted as a subsidy to the empress of Russia; fifty-four thousand one hundred and forty pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence, to the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel; and ten thousand pounds to the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... stood. The frost of the region, which penetrates the earth to the depth apparently of some hundred feet, would thenceforth preserve them from decay. The tusks form an article of considerable trade, the ivory selling from a shilling to one and ninepence a pound, according to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... my calculation," he said cautiously, "I think we may truly call it twenty-seven pounds ten shillings and ninepence." ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... he sighed, meditatively. "I have not possessed a watch for a year, and I've only ninepence in my pocket. They give me tick here. Foolish Spargetti. Long ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... what are you going to do with him if you meet him every day? I travel with a man and we want to make change very often in paying bills. But every time I ask him to change a pistareen, or give me two fo'pencehappennies for a ninepence, or help me to make out two and thrippence (mark the old Master's archaisms about the currency), what does the fellow do but put his hand in his pocket and pull out an old Roman coin; I have no change, says he, but this assarion ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... From an iron grid on the pavement there came the warm breath of the oven underground, the red glow of the fire, and the scythe-like swish of the long shovels. The boy blocked the squirrel under his armpit, dived into his pocket, and brought out some copper coins and counted them. There was ninepence. Ninepence was the sum he had to take home every night, and there was not a halfpenny to spare. He knew that perfectly before he began to count, but his appetite had tempted him to try again if his arithmetic was ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... seem over-scrupulous in his dealings) told me never to rub out the pencilled price on the backs of the cards. I asked him why. Lupin said: "Suppose your card is marked 9d. Well, all you have to do is to pencil a 3—and a long down-stroke after it—in FRONT of the ninepence, and people will think you have given five times ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... village near which we were encamped was called; and the poor woman, before we had finished our breakfast, gave birth to a daughter. The charge is half a rupee, or one shilling for a boy, and a quarter, or sixpence, for a girl. The tent-pitcher gave her ninepence, which the poor midwife thought very handsome, The mother had come fourteen miles upon a loaded cart over rough roads the night before; and went the same distance with her child the night after, upon the same cart. The first ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... carry them myself." The golfer missed his drive, foozled his second, put his third into a bunker, and endured other agonies. The caddie had been following at a respectful distance, and when the ball had been duly picked up out of the bunker, he made a further appeal. "I will carry for ninepence, sir." "No, I do not want a caddie," was the answer again. "I will carry for sixpence, then." "No, go away." On the next tee the player, overcome by conflicting emotions, missed the ball altogether two or three times, and then was ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... pure charity. Then I said, 'Soixante Dix?' which meant nothing to him, so I held up seven fingers; he waved his hand about genially, and said that as I was evidently a good fellow, a traveller, and as anyhow he was practically giving me the wine, he would make it ninepence; it was hardly worth his while to stretch out his hand for so little money. So then I pulled out 80 c. in coppers, and said, 'Tutto', which means 'all'. Then he put the bottle before me, took the money, and an immense clamour rose from all those who had been watching ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... put you up somethin' for your breakfast and luncheon," she said. "Sereno's gone to harness; for, pa, you must take one horse, and you can send Luke back with it Friday, so's we can get the things home. What do we want of two horses down here, at two and ninepence a day? I guess ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... it had reached the market. The loaf, which, under ordinary circumstances stood at fivepence, was already at one and twopence. Beef was three shillings and fourpence a pound, and mutton two shillings and ninepence. Everything else was in proportion. The Government had acted with energy and offered a big bounty for corn to be planted at once. It could only be reaped five months hence, however, and long before then, as the papers pointed out, ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mick, from whom the fine fuss and fright and flurry had banished all traces of his previous illness, making him as right as ninepence again, "they're jist in toime to ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... 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 ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... (which cost him nearly nought), and reading: there were three shops of Putney where all that is greatest in literature could be bought for fourpence-halfpenny a volume. Do what he could, he could not read away more than ninepence a week. He was positively accumulating money. You may say that he ought to have compelled Alice to accept money. The idea never occurred to him. In his scheme of things money had not been a matter of sufficient urgency to necessitate an argument with one's wife. She was always welcome ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... smoke-stained hay on another, the scraping of garden-paths that ran round the small pink house of a retired tradesman, who observed them magnificently though a plate-glass window all the while, with a cigar in his teeth, and ultimately gave them ninepence between them. They slept here and there—once, on a rainy night, in real lodgings, once below a haystack. Frank said hardly a word to Gertie, and did little more than listen to the Major, who was already beginning to ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... table above settee R.). Yes, darling, but you must be more dramatic about it than that. "George," you must say, with tears in your eyes, "I cannot pay off the whole of the mortgage for you. I have only two and ninepence; but at least let me take your niece off your hands." Then George will (hitting him on the shoulder) thump you on the back and say gruffly (crossing to L.), "You're a good fellow, Brian, a damn good fellow," and he'll blow his nose very loudly, and say, "Confound ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne
... said, shortly, handing it back to Bob. "Ninepence, please." Then, seeing the look of blank dismay on Bob's face, he added, ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... window; that he himself would swear he saw him descending; that the money would be so much gains in her pocket; that, besides his promises, which she might depend on being performed, she would receive from him twenty shillings and ninepence in ready money (for she had only laid out threepence in plain Spanish); and lastly, that, besides his honour, the count should leave a pair of gold buttons (which afterwards turned out to be brass) of great value, in her hands, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... exercise of great self-control he ceased from troubling Dialstone Lane for a week. Even then it was Edward Tredgold who took him there. The latter was in high spirits, and in explanation informed the company, with a cheerful smile, that he had saved five and ninepence, and was forming habits which bade fair to make him a rich ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... and raised vegetables and other "notions" with the usual success attendant upon the agricultural experiments of gentlemen amateurs; that is, his potatoes cost him about half a dollar a peck, and his quinces ninepence apiece. He had a greenhouse one quarter of a mile long, and kept a fire in it all the year round, at the suggestion of a rascally gardener, whose brother kept a wood and coal yard. We could tell some droll stories about Tubbs's gardening, if they were to the purpose. We will ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... No, just the other way about; money is so dear. The wages of a mason or a bricklayer are about sixpence a week; haymakers have the same; reapers get from a shilling to half-a-crown, and mowers one and ninepence. The gentlemen who wait on the King himself only receive a ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... said she, taking a letter out of her scrip, and looking at it. 'It is directed to the young man in Mumper's Dingle.' 'Then it is for me, I make no doubt,' said I, stretching out my hand to take it. 'Please to pay me ninepence first,' said the old woman. 'However,' said she, 'civility is civility, and, being rather a scarce article, should meet with some return. Here's the letter, young man, and I hope you will pay for it; for if you do not I must pay the postage myself.' ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... without noticing her sister, 'that earned as much as I did. Many a girl works there and has no more than one and ninepence to take home at ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... out, and their bodies thrown into the sea." The ordinances which they were bound to observe, include the following: "You shall inquire, whether any man in port or creek have stolen any ropes, nets, cords, etc., amounting to the value of ninepence; if he have, he must be hanged for the said crimes, at low-water mark." "If any person has removed the anchor of any ships, without licence of the master or mariners, or both, or if anyone cuts the cable of a ship at anchor, or removes or cuts away a buoy; for any of the said ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... mischief happens from Crows, Black Birds, and Squirrels, by pulling up corn at this season of the year, therefore, be it enacted by this Town meeting, that ninepence as a bounty per head be given for every full-grown crow, and twopence half-penny per head for every young crow, and twopence half-penny per head for every crow blackbird, and one penny half-penny per head for every red-winged ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... that is almost bread and vegetables, and a wage of one franc a day, are the ordinary conditions on which men work from sunrise to darkness. Lodging is not always included. I have known men in the full vigour of life earning only the equivalent of ninepence halfpenny a day, paying rent out of it, and presumably supporting a ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... father died, but the vicar's wife she bought my canary back for me because I cried so. And I brought it to London and it hangs in my bedroom. And the vicar, he was so kind to me, he did give me a lot of advice, and Mrs. Amersham, who kept the chandler's shop, she did give me ninepence, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... coat (two-and-sixpence), or the third who sprayed me with scent (one shilling, but had I known of the threatened attack I would have paid two shillings for immunity), or the fourth, who snatched my rather elderly silk hat and renovated it, not before its time, with some mysterious fluid (one-and-ninepence). These are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... after dinner. The cake fetched a shilling, and Diggory and Vance bid ninepence each for the book and pocket-knife; so Mugford came out of his difficulty without suffering any further loss than what was afterwards made good again by the generosity of his two comrades. They, for their part, made no fuss over this little act of kindness, but handed the book and clasp-knife ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... to a mean-spirited thing called Charity, which during the last month has been perfectly rampant in the college. Yes, we will give a helping hand to bickerings, petty jealousies, back-bitings, and all sorts of good things, and will be as jolly as ninepence and—who'll ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... philanthropist, John Jones Tibbets, Esquire"—was honorary secretary, and the capital stated at two millions. But such was the obtuseness of the industrial classes, so little did they perceive the benefits of subscribing one-and-ninepence a-week from the age of twenty-one to fifty, in order to secure at the latter age the annuity of L18, that the company dissolved into thin air, and with it dissolved also Uncle Jack's L3,000. Nothing more was then seen or heard of him for three years. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... make it ninepence. (JANE goes out in tears.) Servants are a great nuisance, aren't they? Jane is a peculiarly stupid person. She used to be aunt to my brother, and I have only taken her on out of charity. (She pours out from an imaginary tea-pot) Milk? Sugar? (She puts them in ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... a twinkling, her little gray eyes flashed fire as she replied, "I s'pose it's me you mean, Miss Bates; but I guess I've a right to eat what I'm a mind to. I only ask a dollar and ninepence a week for boarding ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... discussed what should be done with this unexpected ten pounds which Lady Ryehampton had bestowed on the home. Erebus was for at once increasing their salaries to three shillings a week. The cautious Terror would only raise them to ninepence each. Then, keeping rather more than four pounds for current expenses, he put fifteen pounds in the Post-Office Savings Bank. He thought it a wise thing to do: it prevented any chance of their spending a large sum on some ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... nothing—five and ninepence, perhaps; I trimmed it myself. If I were left a great fortune, I'd send to Paris to-morrow; no, I'd go myself to Paris to buy a bonnet, and I'd take you with me ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... been sold in New South Wales as low as ninepence a head: this, however, was under very extraordinary circumstances, and is not likely to happen again; more especially since the proprietor has found out that, by slaughtering the animal, and boiling down the carcase, he can get 3s. ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... cutlets—stripped the cutlets to the bone—and little crisp brown potatoes, and they drank between them a whole half bottle of—some white wine or other, Lewisham selected in an off-hand way from the list. Neither of them had ever taken wine at a meal before. One-and-ninepence it cost him, Sir, and the name of it was Capri! It was really very passable Capri—a manufactured product, no doubt, but warming and aromatic. Ethel was aghast at his magnificence and drank a glass ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... haddy right enough," he said. "No great things—cost you thrippence, I s'pose. Tea tuppence-ha'penny, and that's fivepence- ha'penny, and a ha'penny for wood, and tuppence-ha'penny for a loaf makes eightpence-ha'penny. There's more'n ninepence over, Margy, and all I want is a pint of beer and a screw. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... have taken place in our finances. The troops are regularly clothed and fed at West Point, and most of the other posts, at the moderate rate of ninepence a ration when issued, so that the innumerable band of purchasing and issuing commissaries is discharged. The hospitals are well supplied in the same way, and small advances of pay are made to the officers and men. Upon the whole, they were never in so comfortable a situation as they are at present. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... of "half a guinea and his box," under pretence of "driving him to the pollis," and subsequently defrauded by an unscrupulous tailor named one Mr. Dolloby ("Dolloby was the name over the shop-door at least") of the proper price of "a little weskit," for which he, Dolloby, gave poor David only ninepence,—trudged along that same Dover road footsore and hungry, "and got through twenty-three miles on the straight road" to Rochester and Chatham on a certain Sunday; all of which is duly recorded in The Personal ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... of physical violence and ninepence for executing the same," Roger murmured. "I'll enter ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... by would be a little casement hung with emblems, with medals and rosaries with little paltry prints of saints gilt and painted, and books of controversial theology, by which the faithful of the Roman opinion might learn a short way to deal with Protestants, at a penny apiece, or ninepence the dozen for distribution; whilst in the very next window you might see 'Come out of Rome,' a sermon preached at the opening of the Shepherd's Bush College, by John Thomas Lord Bishop of Ealing. Scarce ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that, in 1758, newspapers ceased to be carried free in the mails, and a charge of ninepence a year for each fifty miles of carriage was assessed; and our Benjamin brought about the change. He was then known as Deputy Postmaster General, and made the change in the interest of the public welfare. We think that, at the time, he must have recalled his tussle with the General ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... crying, and stood in sullen mood as I held her, asking me to let her go. I took out my purse, and offered her money which she would not take, but eyed wishfully as I kept chinking the gold in my hand. What a temptation bright sovereigns must have been to a girl who earned ninepence a day, and often ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... of such taxes. In lieu of a part of them, the people who live in the country, pay every year so much a-head, according to the sort of bread they are supposed to consume. Those who consume wheaten bread pay three guilders fifteen stivers; about six shillings and ninepence halfpenny. Those, and some other taxes of the same kind, by raising the price of labour, are said to have ruined the greater part of the manufactures of Holland {Memoires concernant les Droits, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Book. There are people who are derided because they are inclined to hesitate over that unimportant doubt, selecting their words with a waste of time which is grievous, when the real value of the sovereign is but nine and ninepence, in an uneconomic desire to be as right as their knowledge will allow. There is something to be said for them. There is a case to be made for getting a task finished as well as one knows how, if interest in it was ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... stating, that though the property within the union is rated to the poor as being of the value of L8,000 a-year only, its actual value is no less than L130,000 a-year, and that, until September last, no rate had been made exceeding sixpence in the pound, but that, in November, a rate was made of ninepence in the pound; but that rate has never been levied. (Loud cries of 'Hear, hear.')"—See "The ...
— A Journal of a Visit of Three Days to Skibbereen, and its Neighbourhood • Elihu Burritt
... reason, how could it be otherwise? he would have his way, and she would have hers; he among his companions, and she among hers; he with his whores, and she with her rogues; and so they brought their[74] noble to ninepence. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... afraid I might answer her letter, and she did not like the idea of having to pay the return postage. It shows that she does not consider my friendship worth ninepence." ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... in a low voice, as if the corpse of the deceased House were lying unburied in the next room, how Mrs Perch had first come to surmise that things was going wrong by hearing him (Perch) moaning in his sleep, 'twelve and ninepence in the pound, twelve and ninepence in the pound!' Which act of somnambulism he supposed to have originated in the impression made upon him by the change in Mr Dombey's face. Then would he inform them how he had once said, 'Might ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the summer-house in the garden to make plans. First we thought what would be the best present to give Father. Last Christmas we gave him a pipe, and he said that it was just what he wanted; it cost ninepence and was made like a man's head, and you put the tobacco in a hole ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... here I am" (I mused) "and quad and cloister Are beckoning to me with the old allure; The lovely world of Youth shall be mine oyster Which I for one-and-ninepence can secure, Reaching on Memory's wing Parnassus' groves and ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... learned at the diggings. "I'm sure I don't know how on earth my money goes; I never did know all my life how money went; but, go it does. When Fred and I were little chaps, some benevolent old soul tipped us half a crown apiece. Mine was gone by middle-day, and I could not account for more than ninepence of it—never could to this day. Fred, at the end of a twelvemonth's time, had got his half-crown still snug in his pocket. Had Fred come into Verner's Pride, he'd have lived in style on a thousand of his income yearly, and put by ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... in his treasury; lastly, that circumstance was deeply pathetic; for what so heart-rending as the exhibition of fallen greatness, of broken-down prosperity, of affluence regularly stumped and hard-up! The fact is, that "Punch," his theatre, and corps dramatique, are in pawn for eight-and-ninepence! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... condenser. It seems certain that since its adoption the Cornwall engines give unhoped-for results; that with one bushel of coal they equal the labor of twenty men during ten hours. Let us keep in mind that in the coal districts a bushel of coal only costs ninepence, and it will be demonstrated that over the greater part of England Watt reduced the price of a man's day's work, a day of ten hours' labor, to less than ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... prevented from working, came on board us with fish. This was so fresh, so good in kind, and so very cheap, that we supplied ourselves in great numbers, among which were very large soles at fourpence a pair, and whitings of almost a preposterous size at ninepence a score. The only fish which bore any price was a john doree, as it is called. I bought one of at least four pounds weight for as many shillings. It resembles a turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmness and flavor. The price had the appearance of being considerable ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... persons, of whom three were women, and their rights of remainder and reversion, were to pass by confiscation from them to the people. So, also, a parent whose sons went off and adhered to the enemy was subjected to a tax of ninepence on the pound of the parents' estate for each and every such son; and until a revision of the law, Whigs were as liable to this ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... as the Tommies. They are paid ninepence a day, and the work they do is a joke. They are well housed and kept clean and have their own canteens, where they can buy almost anything in the way of delicacies. They are decently treated by the English soldiers, who even buy them fags out of their own money. The nearest thing I ever saw to humiliation ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... and even twenty-four florins; and wheat advanced from one and one-third florin to thirty-two florins the veertel. Other articles were proportionally increased in market-value; but it is worthy of remark that mutton was quoted in the midst of the famine at nine stuyvers (a little more than ninepence sterling) the pound, and beef at fivepence, while a single cod-fish sold for twenty-two florins. Thus wheat was worth sixpence sterling the pound weight (reckoning the veertel of one hundred and twenty pounds at thirty florins), which was a penny ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... requires to swell this pig out to such extraordinary dimensions,—the extraordinary genius it displays for obesity,—and the laudable propensity of the flesh to desert the cheap regions of the body, and to agglomerate on those parts which are worth ninepence a pound,—such an observer of its utility does not scruple to call these otherwise hideous quadrupeds a ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... not a wild-cherry tree, I know," said Charlie. "It may have come up here, but the owner of this land would never fail to gather such cherries as these. They would sell for ninepence a quart in the village as ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... you ever hear of such a thing? Yes, it enables the people to live very cheaply, but how about the growers? If every man grew his own potatoes and lived on them, well and good, but he must have no rent to pay. That price would not pay for labour and manure. Oats are worth sixpence to ninepence a stone,—a ridiculous price; and we have not yet touched ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... fain out in the divisions about Sir G. Cartaret. Thursday was ordered for the second observation, the words of which are, Two hundred and thirty thousand seven hundred thirty and one thousand pounds thirteen shillings and ninepence, claimed as payd, and deposited for security of interest, and yet no distinct specification of time appeares either on his receits or payments, whereby no judgment can be made how interest accrues; so that we cannot yet allow ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... handed him his change, and with a graceful salute he fled without counting it. Immediately the door had closed Christina realized that she had given him one and ninepence. A small matter at such a time, yet it may have been the last straw. She had no word for Macgregor as he came to the counter, his uncertainty increased by that delicious smile given ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... noted a certain relaxation in Mr. Pengelly, as if he too had been feeling the strain. He began to chat with me. The wind, he said, was backing and we might look for this spell of weather to break up before long. Once past the Rame we should be right as ninepence and might run down the coast on a soldier's wind: it would stiffen a bit out yonder unless he was mistaken. He pulled out his pipe and lit it. Aft loomed the bulk of Mrs. Pengelly at the wheel. Save for a call now and again to warn us that the helm was down, to put about, she steered in silence. ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pistols at West Chester which cost him forty shillings. He continued in that city till the Chester coach was to go for London. At four miles distant from the town he attacked it, and robbed four passengers that were in it of fourteen pounds, six shillings and ninepence, two silver watches and a mourning ring, which was the first attempt of that kind that ever he made in his life; then he ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... pieces for nothing; and unless you pay twelve sous for greasing your wheels, how should the poor peasant get butter to his bread?—We really expect too much—and for the livre or two above par for your suppers and bed—at the most they are but one shilling and ninepence halfpenny—who would embroil their philosophy for it? for heaven's and for your own sake, pay it—pay it with both hands open, rather than leave Disappointment sitting drooping upon the eye of your fair Hostess and her Damsels in the gate-way, at your departure—and ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... down to breakfast half-an-hour late (8 o'clock) and we had our usual fare—porridge, bread and margarine, and tea with tinned milk—amazingly nasty, but quite wholesome and filling at the price. We have reduced our housekeeping to ninepence per head per day. After breakfast I cleaned the two houses, as I do every morning, made nine beds, swept floors and dusted stairs, etc. When my rooms were done and jugs filled, our nice little cook gave me a cup of soup in the kitchen, as she generally does, and I went over ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... sometimes," said Honeybird; "besides, too, I niver stole it. It as near as ninepence ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... sir, eighteenpence is the fare with threepence for my gratuity, that makes one and ninepence. So I have to give you ninepence back, although I ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... who spent a year's income on the ceremony of coronation. On the contrary, his successor, "Fat William" (1713-1740), the Sergeant-King, was a miser, who on his coronation only spent 2,227 thalers and ninepence, where his father had squandered over six millions, a maniac who collected tall grenadiers as other Kings have collected pictures, who tortured his children, and who wanted to punish with a death sentence a juvenile escapade of the heir to the throne. Frederick the Great ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... brought before the House of Commons, and ratified by a great majority; at the same time Mr Gladstone abolished a large number of import duties, but increased the income-tax for incomes over L150, from ninepence to tenpence in the pound. His proposal to repeal the paper duties was rejected by the Peers, the majority in its favour in the Commons having sunk to nine. A Commons Committee was appointed to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... daily discussion just now touching sundry moneys he expended during my week's absence at D'Urban for the kittens' food. Charlie calls them the "lil' catties," and declares that the two small animals consumed three shillings and ninepence worth of meat in a week. I laughingly say, "But, Charlie, that would be nearly nine pounds of meat in six days, and they couldn't eat that, you know." Charlie grins and shows all his beautiful even white teeth: then he bashfully turns his head aside and says, "I doan know, ma': I buy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... he had never done his duty; times when he was tempted to actual defiance of it, when a wistful calculating look in the eyes of some seedy scholar would knock all the moral fibre out of him, and a two and sixpenny book would go for ninepence or a shilling. And such was his conception of loyalty to Rickman's, that he generally paid for these excesses out of his own pocket, so that conscience was satisfied both ways. Therefore there had been no moral ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... cost but a ninepence to get a bar'l from Boston by sea," said Captain Crowe, in a melancholy tone; "and now it costs twenty-five ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... been "soled" and "heeled" more than once:—had they been "goloshed," their owner might have defied Fate! Well has it been said that "there is no such a thing as a trifle." A nobleman's life depended upon a question of ninepence. ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... forward his claim. One had entrusted Dick, it appeared, with a shilling, for which he was to receive a mouse with a "plum saddle," and two others had invested ninepence each in white mice. With Porter's half-crown, the total came to precisely five shillings—all Paul had in the world, the one rope by which he could ever hope to haul himself up ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... murdered missionaries and serious tracts against intemperance and tight-lacing, you lose in the second, before such worldly temptations as gingerbread, shirt-studs, and fascinating white hats for Sunday wear, at two and ninepence apiece. Let no man rashly say he has seen all that British enterprise can do for the extension of British commerce, until he has carefully studied the shop-fronts of the tradesmen ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... eve, "he'll have a laugh at the Surrey, for ever and ever, Amen. Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wish I durst leap it. What shall I do? Here bargee," cries he to a bargeman, "lend us a help over and I'll give you ninepence." The bargeman takes him at his word, and getting the vessel close to the water's edge, Jorrocks has nothing to do but ride in, and, the opposite bank being accommodating, he lands without difficulty. Ramming his spurs into ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... Isaac, "and it's plenty. There's ninepence for your dinner, fourpence for your tea, and twopence for a crust o' bread and cheese for supper. And if you must go and drown yourselves in beer, that leaves threepence each to go ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... beer;' and the little man gave a laugh and twisted his head, and ate his chop and drank his stout, as though he found that both were very good indeed. When he had finished, Charley paid the bill and discovered that he was left with ninepence ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... cheerfully. "Leastways not for the boy, it ain't. But Lord! when I think 'ow near I come to lettin' the policy fall through." He chuckled. "It's three weeks gone since I took it out," he said contentedly, "an' paid three weeks' money in advance, an' at threepence a week, that makes ninepence, an' the thought o' them nine half-pints I might 'ave 'ad out o' money 'as drove me 'arf wild with thirst, over an' over. I should 'ave 'ad to pay again come Monday, if only ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... due as aforesaid by the South African Republic to Her Majesty's Government will bear interest at the rate of three and a half per cent, from the date of the ratification of this Convention, and shall be repayable by a payment for interest and Sinking Fund of six pounds and ninepence per L100 per annum, which will extinguish the debt in twenty-five years. The said payment of six pounds and ninepence per L100 shall be payable half-yearly in British currency at the close of each half-year from the date of such ratification: Provided ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... know what money will do and what it will not, will understand how easily a man with a family, and with a hundred and thirty pounds a year, may be brought to the need of inhabiting such a chamber. When it is remembered that three pounds of meat a day, at ninepence a pound, will cost over forty pounds a year, there need be no difficulty in understanding that it may be so. Bread for such a family must cost at least twenty-five pounds. Clothes for five persons, of whom one must at any rate wear the raiment of a gentleman, can ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... system of those days may not be out of place. The cost of the letter when a frank had not been procured was borne by the recipient. The rate varied with the distance. The charge from London to Bridgewater in 1797 was sevenpence. Later it was raised to ninepence and tenpence. No regular post was set up between Bridgewater and Nether Stowey until 1808, when the cost of the carriage of a letter for the intervening nine ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... her. "There is no name upon it," said she, taking a letter out of her scrip and looking at it. "It is directed to the young man in Mumper's Dingle." "Then it is for me, I make no doubt," said I, stretching out my hand to take it. "Please to pay me ninepence first," said the old woman. "However," said she, after a moment's thought, "civility is civility, and, being rather a scarce article, should meet with some return. Here's the letter, young man, and I hope you will pay for it; for if you do not, I must ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... The remainder of the train being full, they invaded the officers' carriage and made themselves comfortable. They were out for a few days' "camp" in the National Park. For about ten shillings they would hire a rowing-boat for three days. Railway fares would be sixpence or ninepence per head. A good deal of their food they would catch with fishing lines; bread, jam, a little bacon, and, of course, the "billy" and its tea were brought with them. This was the great yearly festival, ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... will find it correct, sir,' answered the shopkeeper. 'Two jellies, sixpence each, make one shilling; two custards, sixpence each, two shillings; a bottle of ginger-beer, threepence, two and threepence; one raspberry cream, sixpence, two and ninepence; three gooseberry tarts, threepence, three shillings; two strawberry tarts, three and twopence; two raspberry ditto, three and fourpence; four cheesecakes, three and eightpence; two Bath buns, four shillings; and one lemon ice, ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... pleasanter. The passengers changed now and then. One woman told her next neighbor "she was goin' in to Boston to shop, because things were cheaper now. She always went after the rush was over. There were cambrics, she heard, for one and ninepence, and cotton cloth home-made was so much cheaper than the imported, but you had to bleach it. And little traps that you couldn't ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas |
