"Ninepence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more Northern colonies. At Albany 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 were at first plentiful ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... "The trade's ruined," you says, "by machinery," you says. "I was brought up to it for a livin'," says you, "an' it's the only thing," you says, "as I've got to yearn my daily bread by the sweat of my brow by," you says. Lord! I've had as much as ninepence in a day out o' that yarn on the very road as we're a ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... wrong.' Then would Mr Perch relate to gaping listeners, 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 I make so bold as ask, Sir, are you unhappy ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... knowledge, being a great favourite with the Indians, particularly with the young squaws, who seemed thoroughly to understand all the arts of coquetry. We were going into one wigwam when a surly old man opposed our entrance, holding out a calabash, vociferous voices from the interior calling out, "Ninepence, ninepence!" The memory of Uncas and Magua rose before me, and I sighed over the degeneracy of the race. These people are mendicant and loquacious. When you go in, they begin a list of things which they ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... allowance," ses 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
... 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 went off ...
— 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
... Bev,—right as ninepence in a minute, y' know!" stammered the Viscount, trying to steady his ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... 'Here's half-a-crown for Giovanni—he will now run along and poison somebody else. This being your show, I further abstract two sovereigns for the bill. I shall, I perceive, have to hand you ninepence in cash with the receipt. . . . But since you are intoxicated and I am what in any less sepulchral caravanserai might be described as merry, let us order our retreat with military precision. First, then, I fetch you yonder magnificent garment which has been drawing revolutionary ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Spain 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 shape that beast war must begin with his belly.' If he made ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... calculation," he said cautiously, "I think we may truly call it twenty-seven pounds ten shillings and ninepence." ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... of, a vacant sheet, a sheet in which a vision was let down, wrapper to a bar of soap, a cheap impromptu platter. New World, apostrophe to. New York, letters from, commended. Next life, what. Nicotiana Tabacum, a weed. Niggers, area of abusing, extended, Mr. Sawin's opinions of. Ninepence a day low for murder. No, a monosyllable, hard to utter. Noah enclosed letter in bottle, probably. Noblemen, Nature's. Nornas, Lapland, what. North, the, has no business, bristling, crowded off roost, its mind naturally unprincipled. North Bend, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... pound retail, but ninepence only if ye take a whole one. Ye had better let me send you one, Mr. Gibson, now that winter's drawing on. It's a heartsome thing, the smell of frying ham on a frosty morning"—and her laugh went skelloching ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... you've been misled. Yes. That over there is a chair. It cost three and ninepence in the King's Road. Local colour, you know. He's putting it in ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... 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 ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... the men who loaf, my dear," she said. "When you undertake the transcription of an author's scrawl at ninepence the thousand words you have to work unusually hard, especially when, as it is in this case, the thing's practically unreadable. Besides, the woman in it makes me lose my temper. If I'd had a man of the kind described to deal with ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... was busy i' the yaird hackin' sticks, an' whistlin' "Hey, Jockie Mickdonal'," juist's as gin naethin' had happened. He's been stickin' in like a hatter ever sin' syne, an' has a'thing as neat's ninepence; so I canna say a single wird. But is't ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... received opinion is that the "pieces of silver" here mentioned were Roman denarii, which were the silver pieces then commonly used in Ephesus. If now we weigh a denarius against modern silver, it is exactly equal to ninepence, and fifty thousand times ninepence gives L1,875. It is always a difficult matter to arrive at a just estimate of the relative value of the same coin in different ages; but reckoning that money then had at least ten times the purchasing value of money now, we arrive at what ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... of the black soldier is ninepence per diem, against a shilling per diem to the white, so that there would be some saving effected in that way. In fact, it has been calculated that for an annual addition to the army estimates of some L27,000, six new negro battalions, each 800 strong, could be maintained; ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... give me some tea in the afternoon, some supper, a bed, and a plain breakfast the following morning, for one and ninepence; this would leave the same sum to carry me to Hazleton, beyond which my plans did not at present extend. The woman, moreover, offered to tie Patch up in an out-house and give him some scraps, and later in the day she said that if I would go to bed early she would wash my shirt, which ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... 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 the end of ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... Portsmouth, and Chichester, and arrived every day previously to the London mail—thus Chichester, in Sussex, was linked up with the Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Hampshire mails at that early period. The charge for the postage of a letter from Bristol to Portsmouth was at that time ninepence. ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... said, shortly, handing it back to Bob. "Ninepence, please." Then, seeing the look of blank dismay on Bob's face, he ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... 'no' as if she meant it," said Lawless; "women can, if they like, eh? and then it will all be as right as ninepence. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... by giving him the letter from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; but Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he would rob a certain given number of persons of ninepence-half-penny a-piece, he only got sixpence; and thought himself very ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... can work, and to make provision for them not exceeding three-fourth parts as much as any other person would give for such labour. For example, if another person would give one of these a shilling, the Corporation ought to give but ninepence. And the reason is plain, first, because the Corporation will be obliged to maintain them and their families in all exigences, which others are not obliged to do, and consequently they ought not to allow so much as others. Secondly, in case any persons able to labour, shall come ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... lunched on 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 ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... place, you were to find regiments of British grenadiers ready to plunge bayonets into your poor panting stomach, and let out artificially the little breath left there? It is a marvel to think that soldiers will mount such places for a shilling—ensigns for five and ninepence—a day: a cabman would ask double the money to go half way! One meekly reflects upon the above strange truths, leaning over the ship's side, and looking up the huge mountain, from the tower nestled at the foot of it to the thin flagstaff at the summit, up to which have been piled the ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tea. He got to be at work again at eleven.' That's how they do's. Begins about ten or eleven o'clock, and don't leave off again afore six or seven, or p'raps nine or ten, next mornin'. Makes days an' quarters for three an' ninepence. I've knowed a many like that come 'ome an' git boozed fust glass, like old Isaac. I did laugh, though, and so did Dame Smith when she was ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... 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 ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... him short by giving him the letter from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; but Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he would rob a certain given number of persons of ninepence-halfpenny a-piece, he only got sixpence; and thought himself very well off to ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... and finally the yellow dress was knocked down to a rosy-faced country girl for the sum of thirteen shillings and ninepence. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... presently." But when he fairly embarked for France, with a troop of servants, and a suite of carriages, like a nobleman, then did the old fellow fairly curse and swear, and call him all the unnatural and petticoat-pinioned fools in his vocabulary, and prophesy his bringing his ninepence to a groat. Tom and Lady Barbara, however, upheld the honor of England all over the Continent. In Paris, at the baths of Germany, at Vienna, Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples—every where, they were distinguished by their fine persons, their fine equipage, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... had recovered my breath, I went on again. But I had only three-halfpence in the world, and as I trudged on, I pictured to myself how I should be found dead in a day or two, under some hedge. Passing a little pawnshop, I left my waistcoat, and went on, richer by ninepence, and I foresaw that my jacket would go next, in fact that I should be lucky if I got to Dover in a shirt ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... threepence to be an absurdly small charge for five adult and four infant teas, I destroyed this immediately, and made out another, putting each item fourpence more, and the bread-and-butter at one-and-six. I also introduced ninepence for extra teas for the children, who had had two mugs apiece, very weak. This brought the total to six shillings and tenpence, and I was beset by a horrible temptation to add a shilling or two for candles; there was one young man among the three who looked as if he would ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... time: he started on Monday and today was Friday: five days, from seven to five, less half an hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner, eight and a half hours a day—forty-two hours and a half. At sevenpence an hour that came to one pound four and ninepence halfpenny. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... (hic!) let's 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 off ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... blind pulled down you wouldn't think how my heart'd go thump; and I'd stand wi' my head on the door-hapse an' say, 'If so be the Lord have took'n, I must go and comfort Susan—not my will, but Thine, Lord— but, Lord, don't 'ee be cruel this time!' And then find the cheeld right as ninepence and the blind only pulled down to keep the sun off the carpet. After a while my wife guessed what was wrong—I used to make up such poor twiddling pretences. She said, 'Look here, the Lord and me'll see after Bob; and if you can't keep to your own work without poking your nose into ours, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the public supply of drink (a little vitiated by private commercial necessities) in the public-house. (It is horrible that life should be so wholesale and heartless.) And Jones, with a sudden effusion of manner, thrusts twopence or ninepence (got God knows how) into the economic mysteries and personal delicacy of Brown. I'd as soon a man slipped sixpence down my neck. If Jones has used love and sympathy to detect a certain real thirst and need in Brown and knowledge and power in its assuaging by some specially ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... view of the forthcoming examinations, Gwen found she had set herself a task in undertaking any more work, but by arranging her time very carefully, she managed to perform one set of duties without neglecting another. She and Lesbia collected fifteen and ninepence for the cot among their friends in Skelwick, and wrote down the various items with much satisfaction in a notebook supplied for the purpose. The Gascoynes did not possess bicycles, so could not join the cycle parade, but Lesbia was to sing in one of the glees, and Gwen meant ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... made by the directions of your Committee, and the 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 exceeding their allowance ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... appeared in person the widow Dorothy Careful to make a complaint against Henry Luckless, and other person or persons unknown, for breaking three panes of glass, value ninepence, in the house of the said widow. Being directed to tell her case to the court, she made a curtsey and began ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... 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 sudden ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... afternoon the rain ceased, so I again set out. My capital was now reduced to one and ninepence. Just before sundown I called at a farmhouse a few hundred yards from the road and asked for work. Here I was kindly entertained, and given a corner of an outhouse wherein to sleep, and some bags and straw wherewith to make a bed. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... for delay gave less trouble than another set of politicians, who were for a general and immediate recoinage, but who insisted that the new shilling should be worth only ninepence or ninepence halfpenny. At the head of this party was William Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury, and member of Parliament for the borough of Seaford, a most respectable and industrious public servant, but much more versed in the details of his office than in the higher parts of political ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... charge the clergy anything. I have cherished the delight of that moment from that day to this. It was the first thing I did the other day to go and hunt up that shop and hand in my hat to have it ironed. I said when it came back, "How much to pay?" They said, "Ninepence." In seven years I have acquired all that worldliness, and I am sorry to be back where I was seven ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Own," writes Sapper Mugridge of the Royal Engineers, "went into their first action shouting 'Early doors this way! Early doors, ninepence!'" "The Kaiser's crush" is the description given by a sergeant of the Coldstream Guards as he watched a dense mass of Germans emerging to the attack from a wood, and prepared to meet them with the bayonet. When first the ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... 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, to try the ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... on which they 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 the perfection of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... cents,—all kinds, from the Russian "kopeck" to the "half-penny token" of Great Britain. Those were the days when we had half cents in circulation to make change with. For part of our currency was the old-fashioned "ninepence,"—twelve and a half cents, and the "four pence ha'penny,"—six cents and a quarter. There was a good deal of Old ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... me, and spoke of him as a man of no genius, whose mind contained nothing but the lumber of learning. I was modestly beginning a panegyric upon the doctor, when he again interrupted me with, "Oh! never mind, that old blockhead. Have you such a thing as ninepence about you?" Luckily for him I had a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... stand to their award, I broke off the business for the present till I hear and consider further, and so thence by coach (my cozen, Thomas Pepys, being in another chamber busy all the while, going along with me) homeward, and I set him down by the way; but, Lord! how he did endeavour to find out a ninepence to clubb with me for the coach, and for want was forced to give me a shilling, and how he still cries "Gad!" and talks of Popery coming in, as all the Fanatiques do, of which I was ashamed. So home, finding my poor wife very busy putting ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... 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
... 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 ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... give them 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
... 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 ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... sea, I 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 ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... you bid a bit? That's a ninepence, ma'am. It's yours; going, gone for a ninepence. ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... two shocks on the journey, which was planned upon the most luxurious scale that the imagination of Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son could conceive. There was four pounds and ninepence to pay for excess luggage at Charing Cross. Half a year earlier four pounds would have bought all the luggage she could have got together. She very nearly said to the clerk at the window: "Don't you mean shillings?" But in spite of nervousness, blushings, and all manner ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... those to all save the farmers, who made such profits that they could, as I have heard, afford to let half their land lie fallow, while living like gentlemen upon the rest. Wheat was at a hundred and ten shillings a quarter, and the quartern loaf at one and ninepence. Even in the quiet of the cottage of Friar's Oak we could scarce have lived, were it not that in the blockading squadron in which my father was stationed there was the occasional chance of a little prize-money. The line-of-battle ships themselves, tacking on and off outside Brest, could ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which he was educated and attached himself to the Separatists, or Brownists, as they were called. He went into exile in Amsterdam in 1593, and worked for some time as a porter in a book-seller's shop, living (as Roger Williams wrote) "upon ninepence in the weeke with roots boyled." He established, with the Reverend Mr. Johnson, the new church in Holland; and when it was divided by dissension, he became the pastor of the "Ainsworthian Brownists" and so remained for twelve years. He was a most accomplished scholar, and was ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... 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 in ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as usual by starlight the next morning, before my host, or his men, or even his dogs, were awake; and, having left a ninepence on the counter, was already half-way over the mountain with the sun before ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... economy we get all our household requisites from Moggridge's Stores in the Tottenham Court Road, where we have a deposit account. Joan once worked out that by shopping in this manner we saved ninepence-halfpenny every time we spent one pound four and fivepence (her arithmetic cannot cope with percentages), besides having our goods delivered at the door by a motor van. This is a distinct score off our neighbours, who have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... for threat of physical violence and ninepence for executing the same," Roger murmured. "I'll ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... eightpence), a tin kettle (fivepence), a pound of sugar, a tin of Swiss milk, and a tin of American potted meat. I had often heard my mother groan over the expenses of housekeeping, and now I began to understand what she meant. Two and ninepence went like a flash, but at least I had enough to keep ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... 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 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... three days Mrs. Britling had to feed her new lodgers—the kitchen motors had as usual gone astray—and she did so in a style that made their boastings about their billet almost insufferable to the rest of their battery. The billeting allowance at that time was ninepence a head, and Mr. Britling, ashamed of making a profit out of his country, supplied not only generous firing and lighting, but unlimited cigarettes, cards and games, illustrated newspapers, a cocoa supper with such little surprises as sprats and jam roly-poly, and a ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... on America for the purpose of revenue. In its amount, namely, threepence on the pound, the tea duty was not a grievance, for the duty of one shilling paid in England was returned on re-exportation, so that the Americans could buy their tea ninepence per pound cheaper than in England. The colonial agitators, however, denied the right of taxation and the authority of parliament, and these the king and the English people generally were determined to maintain. Hillsborough's letter ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... 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, as ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... marriage, and Lily's demeanour may be imagined. She gazed through Simon as though he did not exist, and passed magnificently onwards as soon as the throng permitted. She was Mrs. Albert Shawn, as neat as ninepence, as smart and pert as a French maid out for the day. She drove in hansoms, and she had a five-pound ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... grinning with rage as he sees "Swell" skimming through the air like a swallow on a summer's 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 his nag, he now starts after "Swell," who ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... was held on a waste bit of land, about half a mile from the castle gates. When they got near enough to hear the steam-organ of the merry-go-round, Gerald suggested that as he had ninepence he should go ahead and get something to eat, the amount spent to be paid back out of any money they might make by conjuring. The others waited in the shadows of a deep-banked lane, and he came back, quite soon, though long after they had begun to say what a long time he had been ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... in view never was a boy who yielded to temptations more blithely than Tommy, but when he had such aim never was a boy so firm in withstanding them. At this Muckley he had a mighty reason for not spending money, and with ninepence in his pocket clamoring to be out he spent not one halfpenny. There was something uncanny in the sight of him stalking unscathed between rows of stands and shows, everyone of them aiming at his pockets. Corp and Gav, of course, were in the secret and did ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... to MOORE). As 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gingerbread and coloured rock on the stalls looked very tempting, and Dick, with Pat in his arms, and three-and-ninepence in his pocket, felt rich as he walked by. But though he liked sweet things, all the more because he had had so few to enjoy, he would not be ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... as it spoke to the floor, where lay the carpet which mother had bought in the Kentish Town Road for twenty-two shillings and ninepence. ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... the fare with threepence for my gratuity, that makes one and ninepence. So I have to give you ninepence back, although I thank you all ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... 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 repeat himself; but he was aware that ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson |
