"Threepenny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boys," he said. "Have you all got your threepenny-bits ready? I like to see my boys give cheerfully and liberally of their abundance. If any boy does not happen to have any small change, I can accommodate him if he comes ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... number of tin check plates, marked respectively 3d. and 6d. each, which enabled the person to whom they were given to obtain an equivalent in refreshment of any kind at the Sir John Falstaff. The threepenny checks were for the workmen, and the sixpenny ones for the tradesmen. The chief housemaid had the distribution of these checks to persons employed in the house, the head-gardener to those engaged in the gardens, and the coachman to those in the stables. On one occasion, our informant remembers ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... many a chance threepenny job by the added thousands who contended with him against starvation, nevertheless, somehow he continued to subsist, as those tough old oaks of the cliffs, which, though hacked at by hail-stones of tempests, and even wantonly maimed by the passing ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... consecrated bread and told him he might eat it. He had been accustomed to eat it himself, as it seemed blasphemous to throw it away, but Philip's keen appetite relieved him from the duty. Then they counted the money. It consisted of pennies, sixpences and threepenny bits. There were always two single shillings, one put in the plate by the Vicar and the other by Mr. Graves; and sometimes there was a florin. Mr. Graves told the Vicar who had given this. It was always a stranger to Blackstable, and Mr. Carey wondered who he was. But Miss Graves ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... trait appears to have been considered a sign of great astuteness and infantine perception. His fond parents—the late Mr. Gurrage was alive then—gave him a new threepenny bit each week to give to a barrel-organ man who played before the house at Bournemouth. Augustus at the age of two invariably changed it on the stairs with the butler for two pennies and two halfpennies, keeping one penny halfpenny ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... box round, Mr. Ketchmaid watching in helpless indignation as the customers, discarding their pipes, thanked Mr. Wiggett warmly, and helped themselves to a threepenny cigar apiece. Mr. Clark was so particular that he spoilt at least two by undue pinching before he could find ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... this shooting-gallery too long. It is monotonous how the little coloured balls Make up and down on their silvery water thread; It would be pleasant to have money and go instead To watch your greasy audience in the threepenny stalls Of the World-famous Caravan of ...
— The Garden of Bright Waters - One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems • Translated by Edward Powys Mathers
... enormous influence with his powerful and war-like tribe, was a man utterly wanting in dignity. He was club-footed, and consequently went very lame. I remember being once sent on a message to his kraal. He came to know that I had a threepenny piece, so began begging for this. He paid no heed to my refusal, but clung to my stirrup-leather and dragged himself after me for nearly half a mile, begging in the most abject terms. I am glad to be able to say that I kept ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... attention to the fact that a countryman was this day observed to buy a threepenny loaf, and on leaving the baker's to tear it asunder and distribute the fragments with three confederates!!! an act which I need not say was evidently symbolical of their desire to rend asunder the Corn ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... half a century ago, we meet with one whose title reminds us of the "Life in London." It is called, "Doings in London; or, Day and Night Scenes of the Frauds, Frolics, Manners, and Depravities of the Metropolis." It came out in threepenny numbers, in 1828, and its professed object (in the queer language of George Smeeton, its compiler and publisher) was to "show vice and deception in all their real deformity, and not by painting in glowing colours the fascinating allurements, the mischievous ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... nine-and-sixpence that Celia hands over to her, without asking any questions. Indeed, anything that the Government wished deducted from Jane's wages we could deduct with a minimum of friction—from income-tax to a dog-licence. A threepenny insurance would be ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... inspecting the place with his glass as he sat contentedly under the awning, preferring to submit to the infliction of the flying coal-dust to a hot walk through the arid place. Then he leaned over the side and half-contemptuously threw threepenny-bits and sixpences into the clear water in response to the clamouring young rascals who wanted to scramble for them far below and show their swimming and ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... understood her relief, for, looking down into the little sealskin purse, he saw that there was no more gold in it. The last ten shillings must have been counted out in silver, and he was not quite sure it would not have ended in a threepenny piece and some halfpence. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... stone less than weight for age, with a baby on his back, at Esher last year, the betting being then 20 to 7 against the Harkaway filly, he showed what his true form was. Pepperpot, of course, is a rank impostor, but a careful man might do worse than put a spare threepenny-bit on Toothpick, who always runs better in a snow-storm. As for Dutchman, everybody knows he's not a flyer, and only a man whose brains are made ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... opinions on modern French art were changing. George spent three solitary and dejected days in Paris, affecting an interest in museums and architecture and French opera, and committing follies. Near the end of the third day, a Saturday, he suddenly sent a threepenny express note to Lois Ingram. He would have telephoned had he dared to use the French telephone. On Sunday morning, an aproned valet having informed him that Monsieur was demanded at the telephone, he had to use the telephone. Lois told him that he must come to ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... who had fallen into financial difficulties, and looked to Bradbury and Evans to help them out; and through their organisation Punch was taken up by the trade "on sale or return." To work up the sale of a threepenny publication was at that time a formidable task; but Orr certainly accomplished it, and for a time Punch undoubtedly owed more to his efforts than to Jerrold's pen or Leech's pencil. The head of the firm, in both senses, was William Bradbury, the keenest man of business ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... far as he could recollect, ten or twelve shillings; and it annoyed him all the more to reflect that if he had put it by, it would have gone far towards the purchase of an 'Orient' carpet in brilliant colours. Then there had been other expenses of his youth: he had purchased threepenny and even fourpenny cigars, the latter rarely, but the former frequently, sometimes singly, and sometimes in bundles of twelve for half-a-crown. Once a meerschaum pipe had haunted him for six weeks; the tobacconist had drawn it out of a drawer with some air of secrecy as he ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen |
