"Sixpence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... passed through those curly heads during breakfast-time as to what a sixpence could buy; and it was with many bright visions that they darted away to be dressed to go into ...
— Adventures of a Sixpence in Guernsey by A Native • Anonymous
... I've a notion I shall be out of pocket by this job. Seven-and-sixpence won't pay for labour and all. However, never ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... were very provoking, and neither Mrs. Rusk nor Catherine Jones spent sixpence with him;—he was a stupid ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... astrologers, Diviners, and interpreters of dreams, I ne'er consult, and heartily despise: Vain their pretence to more than human skill: For gain, imaginary schemes they draw; Wand'rers themselves, they guide another's steps; And for poor sixpence promise countless wealth. Let them, if they expect to be believed, Deduct the sixpence, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... buy, sell, or exchange any thing, to the value of sixpence, without the allowance of his parents, guardians ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... confidence! and how many men do hover about them as soon as they come off the stage, and how confident they are in their talk!" Or he is whispered a bit of gossip, how Castlemaine is much in love with Hart, an actor of the house. Then Pepys goes back into the pit and lays out a sixpence for an orange. As the play nears its end, footmen crowd forward at the doors. The epilogue is spoken. The fiddles squeak their last. There is a ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... me which is Robert Davis, my little fellow?" the officer asked coaxingly, of a fine flaxen-headed boy, whose age did not exceed ten, and who was a curious spectator of what passed. "Tell me which is Robert Davis, and I will give you a sixpence." ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... applied for his balance after his tommy-book was paid up, and that incarnate nigger Diggs has made him take two waistcoats. Now the question rises, what is a collier to do with waistcoats? Pawn 'em I s'pose to Diggs' son-in-law, next door to his father's shop, and sell the ticket for sixpence. Now there's the question; keep to the question; the question is waistcoats and tommy; ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... his steps toward the climbing roses. He unsaddled him, fastened him in the little shed, rubbed him down with a great handful of straw, after which he entered the house, relieved himself of his sword and kepi, replaced the latter by an old straw hat, value sixpence, and then went to look for his godfather in ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... your while to think about it;" at the same time it involved questions of vital importance to him. This he said to divert his mind from brooding over it to his injury. "I never saw such a small watch in all my life; it was hardly bigger than a sixpence;" and yet it was of the ordinary size of a lady's watch. "It is no distance to go, and the hill is nothing to climb; you will get there in the time you are standing hesitating;" and this a father said to induce his son to go into the ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... their guesses, and then they went in and asked, and as soon as Gerty found that it was only three-and-sixpence she began to feel in her pocket for 'er purse, just like your wife does when you go out with 'er, knowing all the time that it's on the mantelpiece with twopence-ha'penny and a ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... afterwards to six-and-twenty. At length a clause was inserted in the bill for encouraging people to bring plate to the mint, settling the price of a guinea at two-and-twenty shillings, and it naturally sunk to its original value of twenty shillings and sixpence. Many persons, however, supposing that the price of gold would be raised the next session, hoarded up their guineas; and upon the same supposition, encouraged by the malcontents, the new coined silver money was reserved, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... for them. These innocent, hamlet girls, supposed to be so rurally simple, had just been telling him how they never forgot his nice cakes, but always came every fair day to buy some. For this they got sixpence each, it being well known that the old gentleman was so delighted with anybody who bought his cakes he generally gave them back their money, and a few ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... hope of ever seeing that country than I have of being Emperor of Mexico.' 'Hasn't he?' says I; 'we'll tell you a different story about that, Mr. Doctor. If you can patch the poor devil up between this and next Monday, I'll take him home in my ship, without the passage costing him sixpence.' You don't feel offended with me for having called you a poor devil, eh, Joyce?—for you really were, you know—you really were an uncommonly poor creature just then," murmured the ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... that it? Your friend; Oh, I see. Nate as ever, like a clane sixpence. Well, Barney, the world ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... intelligible by mere description here, but of important use, as from hence there is served out, two or three times daily, the fuel which is to cook for the whole crew. One gallon of the methylated spirits, costing four shillings and sixpence, will suffice for this ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... encounter all dangers. The worst of them all to her mind was the danger of not succeeding, and of so breaking faith with Alec. She had sixpence of her own in coppers in her box,—the only difficulty was to get into the house and out again without being seen. By employing the utmost care and circumspection, she got in by the back or house door unperceived, and so up to her room. In a moment more the six pennies ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... played so easily as I was when I first met you," he said. "Of course, in a sense, the pay's no great inducement to me; it's the idea of being offered it. I'm going to advise old Barnes, my trustee; he was fond of saying that I was fortunate in being left well off because I'd never earn sixpence as long as I lived, until I stopped the thing by offering him ten to one I'd go out and make it in a couple of hours by carrying somebody's bag from the station. Anyhow, this ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... If incurable, or permanently disabled, he was then turned adrift and left to shift for himself. A clean record and a sufficiently serious wound entitled him to a small pension or admission to Greenwich Hospital, an institution which had religiously docked his small pay of sixpence a month throughout his entire service. Failing these, there remained for him only the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... highwaymen. Who does not remember "that famous scene when Amelia is spreading, for the recreant who is losing his money at the Kings Arms, the historic little supper of hashed mutton, which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, 'while her Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas incurred by the Ace of Trumps being in the hands of his Adversary'—a scene which it is impossible to read aloud without a certain huskiness in the throat." ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... so much in Christian teaching about this 'faith' that, I fancy, like a worn sixpence in a man's pocket, its very circulation from hand to hand has worn off the lettering. And many of us, from the very familiarity of the word, have only a dim conception of what it means. It may not be profitless, then, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... a second glance at the sixpence; "unless old Joe is at the stable, as he's very likely to be. I'll go and find out for you." And she push'd open a door at her back, stepp'd through an adjoining room into a yard, whence her voice was the next moment heard calling the person ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... gentleman is a little bit 'hoff,' sir. He seems half silly to talk to. He's a queer sort, anyway. Comes here every blessed night, and in the same place. Never misses. Once he came sixpence short, and there was a rare fuss. They wouldn't let him in, and he wouldn't go away. I lent ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hardly got things into proper working order yet, but I have a grand scheme on foot that will, I fancy, take the wind out of the sails of many hitherto successful Stockdealers. In my new system three-and-sixpence will cover L500! Here will be a chance for even the schoolboy to taste the delights of Monte Carlo. But more of this later. Suffice it to say, that I have a "Combination Pool" in my eye, that if I can only carry out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... had started from their inn one morning, and had walked a mile or two, when Sedgwick suddenly stopped, and vowed that he would return, being certain "that damned scoundrel" (the waiter) had not given the chambermaid the sixpence intrusted to him for the purpose. He was ultimately persuaded to give up the project, seeing that there was no reason for suspecting the waiter of especial perfidy.—F.D.) Accordingly he came and slept at ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... not much softened by the publisher's statement that 'he does not mean by this to insinuate any want of merit in the poem, but rather a want of attention in the public.' Bit by bit his surgical instruments go to the pawnbroker. When one publisher sends his polite refusal poor Crabbe has only sixpence-farthing in the world, which, by the purchase of a pint of porter, is reduced to fourpence-halfpenny. The exchequer fills again by the disappearance of his wardrobe and his watch; but ebbs under a new temptation. He buys some odd volumes of Dryden ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... course, alleviations. Nature compensates all who can afford to purchase the compensations. Strawberries, long waited for, shy, retiring fruit, have now nearly approached the popular price of sixpence a basket. A divine of a past generation declared that in his opinion the joys of Paradise would consist of eating strawberries to the sound of a trumpet. For a poor sixpence half of this transcendental pastime may be ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... provisions and all were taken at high prices, and I was paid for the whole in Spanish gold; joes and half-joes being quite as much in use among us in that day as the coin of the realm. Spanish silver has always formed our smaller currency, such a thing as an English shilling, or a sixpence, being quite a stranger among us. Pieces of eight, or dollars, are our commonest coin, it is true, but we make good use of the half-joe in all heavy transactions. I have seen two or three Bank of England notes ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... there are widely and perpetually distinct classes of society in peace as well as war; the nobility and gentry furnishing all the officers, while the ranks are filled up with the vast crowd, poor and ignorant enough to fight for sixpence a day. To our little standing army of bygone days the system was well enough adapted, for in that we too had really two distinct classes of men. West Point furnished even more officers than we needed, with thorough education, and the refined and expensive habits that education brings ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... on the banks of the Brent, and you have come back to live with him,—and I have come to live with him too. You shall be our little housekeeper, and I will tell you the story of Prince Pettyman, and a great many others not to be found in 'Mother Goose.' Meanwhile, my dear little girl, here's sixpence,—just run out and change this for its worth ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that he rushed straight at the colonel. The colonel, he stepped on one side and let him pass. Then he went after him to the door, waited till he was about fifteen yards off, then up with his revolver, as cool as you like, and shot him as clean as a sixpence in the right leg. Down came Mr. Carr; he lay there a minute or two cursing, and then he fainted. 'Pick him up, dress his wound, and put him to bed,' says the colonel. Well, sir, it was only a flesh wound, so we soon got him comfortable, and there he ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... cry," Robert compassionately observes, to my further confusion,—as the harper strides away, richer by a gift of sixpence taken without thanks... "But I think he must be a gipsy. Gipsies are bad people—and they are wizards... Let us go ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... Chess Divan was opened by Mr. Huttman at No. 4 Little Russell St., Covent Garden. One of the attractions of this little saloon was the publication every week of a leaf containing a good chess problem, below it all the gossip of the chess world in small type. The leaf was at first sold for sixpence, including two of the finest Havannah Cigars, or a fine Havannah and a delicious cup of coffee, but was afterwards reduced to a penny without the cigars. The problem leaf succeeding well, a leaf containing games was next produced, and finally the two were merged ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... the carriage and grabbed the first newspaper that was thrust into his hand, gave the boy sixpence for it, and hurried away towards the entrance. He found a few cabmen outside the station; he hailed one of the drivers, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... whom, of course, he could not manage. On the death of his mother, an annuity was purchased for him, and paid quarterly, to keep him out of debt, if possible. He could not take care of money, and he was often hungry, and often begged the loan of a sixpence; and when the publicans made him welcome to what he pleased to have, in consideration of the company he brought together, to hear his wonderful talk, his wit, and his dreams, he was helpless in the snare. We must remember that he was a fine scholar, as well as a dreamer and a humorist; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... said Sir Hedley to himself. "In fact, we must give the investor something for nothing to make him lend his money to the country. A pound note looks big to the average Englishman. Why not give him a pound for every fifteen shillings and sixpence that he will lay aside for the use of the Nation? In other words, ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... confinement in the house of correction, are compelled to assist in the necessary repairs. The expense of keeping the roads in good order is defrayed by a tax of six days' labour on every inhabitant of the towns and villages in the colony, which, however, may be commuted to a fine of seven shillings and sixpence. ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... author of yours, as she says, and published a book on Switzerland in 1816, patronised by the 'Court and Colonel M'Mahon.' But it seems that neither the Court nor the Colonel could get over the portentous price of three pounds, thirteen, and sixpence,' which alarmed the too susceptible public; and, in short, 'the book died away,' and, what is worse, the poor soul's husband died too, and she writes with the man a corpse before her; but instead of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... "Oh, never mind, Mum!" said the little toy-maker, apologetically, "He mightn't like it perhaps"—adding, by way of explanation—"There's a small order just come in, for barking dogs; and I should wish to go as close to Natur' as I could, for sixpence!" Caleb's employer, Tackleton, in his large green cape and bull-headed looking mahogany tops, was then described as entering pretty much in the manner of what one might suppose to be that of an ogrish toy-merchant. His character ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... but inordinately vain, arrogant, and withal easily led by designing persons. He stood up manfully for the cause in which he was embarked, and was most strenuous in his demands for money. "Personally he cared," he said, "not sixpence for his post; but would give five thousand sixpences, and six thousand shillings beside, to be rid of it;" but it was contrary to his dignity to "stand bucking with the States" for his salary. "Is it reason," he asked, "that I, being sent from so great ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... explored and wrought. The abundance of the necessaries of life was so very great, that a gallon of wine was sometimes sold in Italy for less than three farthings, and a quarter of wheat at about five shillings and sixpence. Towards a country thus wisely governed, and rich and fertile, commerce was naturally attracted; and it was encouraged and protected by Theodoric: he established a free intercourse among all the provinces ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... miles around. The earl of the day was still the head landlord of a huge district extending over the whole barony of Desmond, and half the adjacent baronies of Muskerry and Duhallow; but the head landlord's rent in many cases hardly amounted to sixpence an acre, and even those sixpences did not always find their way into the earl's pocket. When the late earl had attained his sceptre, he might probably have been entitled to spend some ten thousand a-year; but when he died, and during the years just previous ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... time among his own people, and had also come into town now and then to work as a light porter, or do other odd jobs. The wants of the natives are few; and Jacky, unlike some of his people, did not drink rum or other spirits, so if he earned sixpence he was able to keep it. He it was who had given a shrill shout, and as I ran across a piece of waste ground to see what was the matter, I saw him crouching on the ground, while over him stood a big bully, whom I had before seen at the door of a low grog-shop; ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... promotion to, at least, the rank of corporal very early; for a Private John Lafontaine, who was promoted corporal, is shown in the muster roll terminating December 24th, 1796, as "claimed as a slave." The pay of a private in a West India regiment was then sixpence ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... Robin forgot his sorrows, and cheered on the horses with all the power of his shrill voice. The dray put them down at about half a mile from Angel Court, while it was still broad daylight, and Robin was no longer tired. Meg changed her last half-crown, and spent sixpence of it lavishly in the purchase of some meat pies, upon which they feasted sumptuously, in the shelter of a doorway leading to the ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... world, must have come to be hanged or starved or died untimely of those miserable diseases that proceed from want and vice, or have sold themselves as soldiers to be knocked on the head, or at best, by begging or stealing two shillings and sixpence, have made their way to Holland to become servants to the Dutch, who refuse none," he goes on to describe "a people whose frugality, industry and temperance and the happiness of whose laws and institutions, do promise to themselves long life, with a wonderful increase of ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... month she waited in vain. Then, one Friday, as she was returning by underground railway from the Strand to Edgeware Road, with Dolores in her arms, her eye fell as she passed upon the display-bill of the "Spectator." Sixpence was a great deal of money to Herminia; but bang it went recklessly when she saw among the contents an article headed, "A Very Advanced Woman's Novel." She felt sure it must be hers, and she was not mistaken. Breathlessly she ran over that first estimate ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... to David Copperfield: "Copperfield, my boy, one pound income, twenty shillings and sixpence expenses: result misery. But, Copperfield, my boy, one pound income, expenses nineteen shillings and sixpence; result, happiness." And there are vast multitudes of people who are kept poor because they are the victims of their own improvidence. It is no sin to be rich, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... Steve laid him down sixpence and three pennies. We had Mexican sixpences and shillings in those days. "You'll have enough on your mind without that debt. And next time think of the ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the Western front there is still what is nominally described as a "lull." But, as a young Officer writes, "you must not imagine that life here is all honey. Even here we do a bit for our eight-and-sixpence." Once upon a time billets were billets. They now very often admit of being shelled with equal exactitude from due in front and due in rear, and water is laid on throughout. "It is a fact well known to all our most widely circulated photographic dailies that the German gunners ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... you,' she replied; and turning to the elder lady, she said, 'May we go home at once, Mama? It would take me a long time to choose what I shall spend my sixpence in, and I should like to give Willy his ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... how Paul received this news. Being undecided whether six three-fourths meant six pounds fifteen, or sixpence three farthings, or six foot three, or three quarters past six, or six somethings that he hadn't learnt yet, with three unknown something elses over, Paul rubbed his hands and looked straight at Miss Blimber. It happened to answer as well as anything ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... as secretary and treasurer. Subscriptions flow in; and, to Bowley's infinite gratification, beer and spirits begin to flow out. The Charitable Chums, though eminently provident, are as bibulous as they are benevolent; for every sixpence they invest for the contingencies of the future tense, they imbibe at least half-a-crown for the exigencies of the present. The society soon rises into a condition of astonishing prosperity. The terms being liberal beyond all precedent, the Charitable Chums' becomes wonderfully popular. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... right in thinking I would have nothing to do with lawyers. Not one of them shall ever have so much as a crooked sixpence of mine, to save him from being hanged, or to save the Lakes from being filled up. But I really hope there may be feeling enough in Parliament to do a right thing without being ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... as if he expected to fill his pockets by the enterprise. If it does not lead to a surprise party, if he does not get a new pair of boots or a vote of thanks, it must be a failure. But he won't get anything. Well, no; I don't suppose he could get four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take the year around, but he stands a chance to save his soul—and such a soul!—which you do not. You can get more in your market for a quart of milk than a quart of blood, but yours is not the market heroes carry ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... will never be the owner of those people - the people that cultivate those lands; and so I suppose I shall not be worth a sixpence; for the land is not much ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... that the world had dropped from under him—and then risen to meet him. The brown mare turned, in the bush idiom, "on a sixpence," but Cecil did not turn. He went on. The onlookers had a vision of the mare chopping round, as duty bade her, to head off the bullock, while at right-angles a graceful form in correct English garments hurtled through the air in an elegant curve. When he came down, which ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... I see a little girl who has lately learnt to write, who has lately been given a beautiful brand new mahogany desk, with a red velvet slope, and a glass ink bottle, such a desk as might now be bought for three and sixpence, but which in the forties cost at least half-a-guinea. Very proud is the little girl, with the Kenwigs pigtails, and the Kenwigs frills, of that mahogany desk, and its infinite capacities for literary labour, above all, ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... countrymen, simply because I refuse to let you go and make a fool of yourself by marrying this little Russian girl? though my belief is that, even should I let you go, as soon as her father finds out that you haven't a sixpence to bless yourself with, he'll send you about your business with a flea in your ear. Come, Tom, think the matter over; you used to have some brains in your head, and I hope you have not left them all behind you in ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... To Anne Knish Lolita Spectrum of Mrs. Q Epitaph A Sixpence Three Spectra Two Commentaries A Womanly Woman Lolita Now is Old The Shining Bird The King Sends Three Cats to Guinevere Ode in the New ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... crooked sixpence under the hearth-rug; and upon Christmas Eve, he and Hunca Munca stuffed it into one of the stockings of Lucinda ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... anything from them you wanted, except what you have mentioned?-Sometimes I would get a sixpence and sometimes a shilling, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... brothers left the Oratory, which I may say was a school where the boys were allowed very considerable liberty, my father must have thought, no doubt, when he remembered the twenty-two and sixpence for birches, that it would be wise to send me somewhere where the rules of the college were, in his opinion, somewhat stricter. So off I was sent, early in 1870, to dear old Beaumont College, the Jesuit school, situated in that beautiful spot on ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... 'Nobody'd own no auks but me. You can't catch 'em alive. And I wouldn't sell no eggs at all till they'd first been blowed. I'd keep the business all in my own hands. Abner, I've been thinkin' a great deal about this thing. You've heard about the lively sixpence and the slow dollar? Well, sir, I'm goin' to sell them auk eggs for sixteen hundred dollars, two ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... told him, "for a quarter of a million. Mr. Heathcote shot himself. I am told that there is a probable dividend of sixpence-half-penny in the ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the Athenaeum, then edited by Hepworth Dixon, brought me ten-and-sixpence a column. I used to go to the old office in Wellington Street and have my contributions measured off on the current number with a foot-rule, by good old John Francis, the publisher. I wrote, too, for the Literary Gazette, where the pay was less princely—seven-and-sixpence a column, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... nation, the common highwayman's demand of "your money or your life," into that of "your money and your life." Neither does a great nation allow the lives of its innocent poor to be parched out of them by fog fever, and rotted out of them by dunghill plague, for the sake of sixpence a life extra per week to its landlords;[8] and then debate, with driveling tears, and diabolical sympathies, whether it ought not piously to save, and nursingly cherish, the lives of its murderers. Also, a great nation having made up its ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... to keep Priscilla's sixpence always, but she had not been at home many days before she received a letter from her cousin that altered her intentions. ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... of farming at Farnham, and he first ran away from Farnham to be a gardener. He was employed as a boy in the castle grounds, and there he met a man who was a gardener at Kew. They talked, and the eleven-year-old boy was fired to see for himself what gardening could be. Next day he started off, with sixpence-halfpenny in his pocket, and walked all day till he came to Richmond. There he should have had supper; he had threepence left to get it with. But threepence was exactly the price of a little book, The Tale of a Tub, which he spied in a bookseller's window. He bought it, took it into a field near ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... village-church, surrounded by villagers' graves, approached by four foot-paths over four stiles, perfect model of all the churches in all the novels of English literature,—was it partiality for me, ancient matron, or an eye to a silver sixpence, which made you, and makes you still, the heroine of my day of romance? At any rate, I shall never cease to invoke a blessing on that immaculate railway-company which decoyed me from London into the heart ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... about the perfect equality which may be secured by taking away so much of the funds as are proved to be totally unnecessary for the wants of the population. I do not mean that you should withdraw from the Protestant Church every sixpence now in its possession; what I mean is, that you should separate it from the State, and appropriate all the funds of which it might justly be deprived to some grand national object, such as the support and extension of the system of education now established in Ireland; an appropriation ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... Beth. "It's me native country; and they don't give you little bits of cake there the size of sixpence. What they have you're ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... inestimable value in cultivating democratic ideas. The young and old, rich and poor, here met on a perfect equality for the discussion of all local questions. In Hartford, every freeman who neglected to attend the town meeting was fined sixpence, unless he ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... continued Aristotle, "the thruppenny bit has further been proved in a thousand ways an adjuvator and prime helper of the Gods. For many a man too niggardly to give sixpence, and too proud to give a copper, has dropped this coin among the offerings at the Temple, and it is related of a clergyman in Armagh (a town of which Your Majesty has perhaps never heard) that he would frequently address his congregation ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... offended. A week ago she had written a verse about Harold's dog, and father had said it was very good and had given her sixpence for writing it. Since then she had spent most of her spare time trying to write other verses, but this afternoon she was beginning to get a little tired of being a poetess and to long ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various
... an iron kettle is such a weight", he explained, "and the last time we took one of those rubbishy sixpence-halfpenny tin ones the solder all melted directly we put it on to the fire, and the spout dropped off. We can sling the milk-can on a stick and prop it over the ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... street and danced for joy like a child, yes, and presented a crossing-sweeper against whom he butted with a whole sixpence in compensation. Thus he reached the Mansion House, not unsuspected of inebriety by the police, and clambered to the top of a bus crowded with weary and anxious-looking City clerks returning home after a ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... eight million one hundred and sixty-nine thousand pounds, ten shillings and sixpence." He then sat ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... that draws the beer to pay for the same, and bring his ticket up receipted when the subscriptions are paid; on failing to do so, a penalty of sixpence to be forfeited and paid ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... worth a quarter; but keep your lamps out for thruppenny-bits, or the publicans 'll shove 'em on you for sixpence." ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... and postcards, telegrams furnish another means of communication. For a telegram sent to any place in the United Kingdom, the charge is sixpence for the first twelve words, and a halfpenny for every word after the first twelve. Addresses are charged for, so a sixpennyworth of telegraphing does not represent a long message, but by ingenuity—and a business woman is nothing without ingenuity—a few words may be made to mean a great ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... one sixpence, or one penny, for God's sake," cried a voice from the other side of a fancy paling which separated the grounds in that quarter from a thoroughfare. "For heaven's sake, Mr. Lawson, help me as ye helped me before. I know you've the heart ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the doctor remembered presently. "She was the same old sixpence, only growing up now; she owns to nineteen—isn't she more than that? She always did romance and yarn so much about herself that you ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... used. The farmer who wishes his manures to last in the soil, and to lose their use, may be justly compared with the miser, who buries his gold and silver in the ground for the satisfaction of knowing that he owns it. It is an old and a true saying that "a nimble sixpence is better ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... he said to the night clerk at the Arlington. "Back again, like a bad sixpence! Have my trunk sent up, will you? ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... round pace. 'When will it be put in the pit?' I asked him. 'When the cart comes, and it is opened to-night,' he said. 'How much does it cost to be brought here in this way, instead of coming in the cart?' I asked him. 'Ten scudi,' he said (about two pounds, two-and-sixpence, English). 'The other bodies, for whom nothing is paid, are taken to the church of the Santa Maria della Consolazione,' he continued, 'and brought here altogether, in the cart at night.' I stood, a moment, looking at the coffin, which had ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... the Old Testament. I only recollect four subjects not sacred. Printing at home, we generally commenced the printing in August from the copper-plates, as they had to be coloured by hand. They sold, retail, at sixpence each, and we used to supply them to the trade at thirty shillings per gross, and to schools at three shillings and sixpence per dozen, or two dozen for six shillings and sixpence. Charity boys were large purchasers ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... folded it in the form of a heart, and directed it to Miss Angelina Lascelles, and left it, about dusk, with the money-taker at the pit door. I signed myself, if I remember rightly, Pyramus. What would I not have given that evening to pay my sixpence like the rest of the audience, and feast my eyes upon her from some obscure corner! What would I not have given to add ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... I rather want the shares. My getting them would help me at the meeting," he said. "Shall we say twelve-and-sixpence? This ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... because he so often uses his hands instead of a spade. This is a sign that Dering will never get on in the world. His mind is in the same condition as his fingers, working back to clods. He will get a rise of one and sixpence in a year or two, and marry on it and become duller and heavier; and, in short, the clever ones could already write ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... off a piece of a hat, asked charity of Harley. The dog began to beg, too. It was impossible to resist both; and, in truth, the want of shoes and stockings had made both unnecessary, for Harley had destined sixpence ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... For the Moscow is not best for any kind of wares for us to buy, save only wax, which we cannot have under sevenpence the Russian pound, and it lacks two ounces of our pound; neither will it be much better cheap, for I have bidden sixpence for a pound. And I have bought more—five hundred weight of yarn—which stands me in eightpence farthing the Russian pound, one with another. And if we had received any store of money, and were dispatched here of ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... value to a vulgar agricultural utensil. And the Society can be called 'The Royalists' for short. Its single rule is to be this, that any member speaking of any politician of the opposite Party except in terms of eulogy shall be fined ten shillings and sixpence. The fines to be divided equally between the Tariff Reform League and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... feeling of brute power: with his three hundred thousand pounds he had felt himself to be no more palpably near to the goal of his ambition than when he had chipped stones for three shillings and sixpence a day. But when he was led up and introduced at that table, when he shook the old premier's hand on the floor of the House of Commons, when he heard the honourable member for Barchester alluded to in grave debate as the greatest living authority ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... of notes on the nursery rhymes, where the "Song of Sixpence" was proved to be a solar myth. The pocketful of rye was the yield of the earth, and the twenty-four blackbirds sang at sunrise while the king counted out the golden drops of the rain, and the queen ate the produce while the maid's performance in ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flow towards the tenant when the poor-laws shall be extended to Scotland. But no rent, in such circumstances, can be really moderate. A clergyman, when asked to say how many of his parishioners, in one of these coast districts, realized less than sixpence a-day, replied, that it would be a much easier matter for him to point out how many of them realized more than sixpence, as this more fortunate class were exceedingly few. And surely no rent can be moderate that is paid by a man who realizes less than sixpence a-day. ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... that; but they're charlatans, professional artists, all, Pudgie. They haven't got any souls bigger than a sixpence to put into it.... You know, Pudgie, that Force and Matter are the same thing—that it's decided nowadays that you can't define matter otherwise than as ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... leader opposed a face as impenetrable as that of the sphinx of the desert. We should have been sadly at a loss, by the way, without him. He knew every soul in the whole ward who would come down to the extent of a sixpence for the sake of the poor; and he led his small phalanx boldly to the charge through all impediments. Under his guidance, we did what certainly we should never have attempted without it. We stormed the stout citadels of the merchants, and carried their strongholds ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... as the "Old Woman and the Silver Sixpence" may be illustrated by the class as a whole, each child cutting some one feature. This requires attention to relative proportions so that the parts may be in harmony when assembled. Such posters may be used for ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... for anyone in a shrine. He wanted a comrade, and he craved this particular comrade with all the intensity of a well-disciplined, entirely practical nature. He was not in the least conceited, but he knew that if he lived he would "get there," and the fact that he never had had, or ever would have, sixpence beyond the pay he earned did not deter him in his quest a single whit. Mary wouldn't have sixpence either. He knew the Redmarley rent-roll to a halfpenny. Mrs Ffolliot frankly talked over her affairs with him ever since he left ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... crest-risen this morning, thou didst eat yesternight too much millet and bolymong. Come hither, sirrah, come hither, I will give thee some cakes. Whereupon Forgier, dreading no harm, in all simplicity went towards him, and drew a sixpence out of his leather satchel, thinking that Marquet would have sold him some of his cakes. But, instead of cakes, he gave him with his whip such a rude lash overthwart the legs, that the marks of the whipcord knots were apparent in them, then would have fled away; but Forgier cried ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... making no question but that his honourable reasonings had prevailed, and that Mr. Salmon was about, without further hesitation, to pay him the five hundred and ninety-four pounds, ten shillings, and sixpence, ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... table linen—extra, sixpence?" asked Betty, bending her knee in what might have been called a perpendicular courtesy. Had she been sure that her customers were of high rank, she would have saluted them with a low bow, omitting to mention the extra charge for the linen. But as Frances and Nelly were not escorted by a gentleman, ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... them to look around thoroughly, but she keeps them away from the cradle. They leave, rather ashamed of their suspicion. As they are going out of the door, a thought strikes one of them whereby they can make partial amends. Deciding to give the child sixpence, he returns, lifts up the covering of the cradle, and discovers the sheep. Mak and his wife both declare that an elf has changed their child into a sheep. The shepherds threaten to have the pair hanged. They seize Mak, throw him on a canvas, and toss him into the air until they ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... winds to mariners. He was a venturous master of a vessel who left the roadstead of Stromness without paying his offering to propitiate Bessie Millie! Her fee was extremely moderate, being exactly sixpence, for which she boiled her kettle and gave the bark the advantage of her prayers, for she disclaimed all unlawful acts. The wind thus petitioned for was sure, she said, to arrive, though occasionally the mariners had to wait some time for it. The woman's dwelling and appearance ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... middle of them, and say good-bye to the world, with all its lies and its selfishness, till other times. I have still one great consolation here, and that is the rage and fury of the sqireens at the poor rates; six and sixpence in the pound with an estate mortgaged right up to high-water mark and the year's income anticipated is not the ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... butter, is eaten by these Trappists unless they fall ill, and then they have meat or anything else that they may need to make them well. There is, however, very little sickness amongst them. The living of each Trappist probably costs no more than sixpence a day to the community. Assuming that the money brought into the common fund by those who have a private fortune—the fathers, as a rule, are men of some independent means—covers the establishment expenses and the taxation imposed by the State, there must remain a considerable profit ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... to have buffets or rewards is known only to Heaven and to the Peers. I think that their Lordships are rather cowed. Indeed, if they venture on the course on which they lately seemed bent, I would not give sixpence for a coronet or a ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... antiquity, to remunerate a man for his labour in acquiring Greek? Men think very differently about what will remunerate any given labour. A fool (professional fool) in Shakspeare ascertains, by a natural process of logic, that a 'remuneration' means a testern, which is just sixpence; and two remunerations, therefore, a testoon, or one shilling. But many men will consider the same service ill paid by a thousand pounds. So, of the reimbursement for learning a language. Lord Camden is said to have learned Spanish, merely to enjoy Don Quixote ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... pressed his hands to his face. His head seemed like splitting, and his monetary difficulty, united with his literary difficulties, produced a momentary insanity. Work that morning was impossible, so he went out to study the eating-houses of the neighbourhood. He must find one where he could dine for sixpence. Or he might buy a pound of cooked beef and take it home with him in a paper bag; but that would seem an almost intolerable imprisonment in his little room. He could go to a public-house and dine off a sausage and potato. But at that moment ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... long as you don't promise anything on my account! I tell you, I haven't got sixpence to spend on subscriptions to anything or anybody. By the way, if you see Reynolds anywhere about the drive, you can send him to me. He and I are going round the Home Farm to pick up a few birds if we can, and see what the coverts look like. The stock has all run down, and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... reputation of an orator who spoke 'most exquisitely well;' he was an able diplomatist, and probably no man of the time took a wider interest in public affairs. In a corrupt age, too, he appears to have been politically incorruptible: 'I call corruption,' he writes, 'the taking of a sixpence more than the just and known salary of your employment under any pretence whatsoever.' The reform of the Calendar, in which he was assisted by two great mathematicians, Bradley and the Earl of Macclesfield, is also one of ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... at this strange talk. Mr. Constantine took his hand out of his pocket and held out a silver sixpence. ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... me respect the good sense of the reader, and not insult him by supposing him capable of believing a mythic jumble of kings and pigs and dirty marshes, which he will, if he cares to, find at full length in any 'Bath Guide'—price sixpence. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... swimming, skating in the winter, and so on; so you will not lack amusements—the necessaries for joining in which I will take care that you shall be provided with. And I have arranged that, for the present, you shall receive from the headmaster sixpence a week as pocket-money—a sum which I consider quite sufficient for a boy of your age. With regard to your studies, I would urge you to make the most of your opportunities; as, on the completion of your education, you will have to make your own way in the world. My profession, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... liable to fluctuations like every other product, thus in 1907 Trinidad cacao rose to one shilling a pound, whilst there have been periods when it has only fetched sixpence per pound. On April 2nd, 1918, the Food Controller fixed the prices of the finest qualities of the different varieties of ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... grayish-chestnut hair, a countenance somewhat marred by lines of care and marks of smallpox, withal benevolent and honest-looking—the kind of man to whom one could intrust the inheritance of a child with the certainty that it would be carefully administered and scrupulously accounted for to the very last sixpence. ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... was a portrait of himself, in the same attitude as his first, but disillusioned and tragic, with furrowed lines and white hair. No one cared whether he died or not, and it is recorded that after his death pictures by him could be bought for sixpence. Thus ended the life of one of the world's supremely ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... sweat and labour, I accomplished, and about eight of the clock next morning delivered them at Mistress Crane's house, who asked no question, but gave me a sixpence for my pains, and bade me return at ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... principal canons, twenty pence (to the sum of 16s. 8d.); to the petty canons, ten shillings; to the chaplains, twenty shillings; to the vicars, four shillings and eightpence; to the choristers, two shillings and sixpence; to the vergers, twelvepence; to the bell-ringers, fourpence; to the keeper of the lamps about the tomb of the said duke and duchess, at each of their said anniversaries, sixpence; to the Mayor ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... told us, that the same person having come up with a serjeant and twenty men, working on the high road, he entered into discourse with the serjeant, and then gave him sixpence for the men to drink. The serjeant asked, 'Who is this fellow?'. Upon being informed, he said, 'If I had known who he was, I should have thrown it in his face.' JOHNSON. 'There is much want of sense in all this. He had no business to speak with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... manner o' doin' business, and, though I ain't promised yer nothing, I'll show yer I'm better than my word, and them as trusts me'll find no reason to repent of 'aving done so. 'Ere's your original penny back, Sir, and one, two, three more atop of that—wait, I ain't done with yer yet—'ere's sixpence more, because I've took a fancy to yer face—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... quickly, 'it is 'igh for the rooms, perhaps, mum, though I've 'ad more; but it IS 'igh, mum. I won't deny it. Still, for you, mum, and the baby, I wouldn't mind making it twelve and sixpence.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... excited.] I had to run, or they would ha' caught me an' kept me. They was all roarin' to me to join 'em. Father Baumert was there too, and says he to me: You come an' get your sixpence with the rest—you're a poor starvin' weaver too. An' I was to tell you, father, from him, that you was to come an' help to pay out the manufacturers for their grindin' of us down. [Passionately.] Other times is comin', he says. There's goin' to be a ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... good weather the boys of George's Square would go on long excursions into the country, frequently staying away from home for several days at a time. On one such occasion they found themselves some twenty miles away from Edinburgh without a single sixpence left among them. Walter said afterward, "We were certainly put to our shifts, but we asked every now and then at a cottage door for a drink of water; and one or two of the good wives, observing our worn-out looks brought out milk in place of water—so with that, and hips and haws, ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... eternal surged to the surface. Several hundred men signed the War Roll, pledging their allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. One sailor boy came up to thank us, saying that he had all but fallen the week before; and simply for the lack of a sixpence he had been saved from sin. With God's help he would now live for Christ. Another came up who had been drinking heavily and had quarreled with his wife. He did not have the price of a postage stamp to write to her. He wanted to ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... see, a Spanish telegram, and it will cost"—he made a rapid calculation, then went to the sideboard and took out some silver. "It will cost five-and-sixpence. I therefore give you seven-and-sixpence, Frau Bauer. That is two shillings for your trouble. If possible, I should prefer that no one sees this telegram being despatched. ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes |
