"Twopence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to all I said. I shouldn't want to dress myself up like a play-hactor in a penny show, with a red pocket-hankerchy tied to a mop-stick, big boots, and a petticut instead of trowges, pretending he's a black pirate, with a blood-red flag, one of your penny plain and twopence coloured kind, you know. I did lots of them when I was a young 'un, and had a box of paints. Not me. There's a 'what then' to all this 'ere, a sting to it, same as there is ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... before very long a book-buyer as well as a book-lover, and he has for ever immortalised, in the charming pages of A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured, that old bookshop (late J. L. Smith) at the corner of Leith Walk, where eager boys without coppers were but coldly received, but whence the fortunate capitalist could emerge, after having spent his Saturday pocket-money, the proud possessor of plays positively bristling ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... episcopal Goliaths, whose croziers were like unto a weaver's beam. So that I almost think I might not have noticed Dr. Wace's attack, personal as it was; and although, as he is good enough to tell us, separate copies are to be had for the modest equivalent of twopence, as a matter of fact, it did not come under my notice for a long time after it was made. May I further venture to point out that (reckoning postage) the expenditure of twopence-halfpenny, or, at the most, threepence, would have enabled Dr. Wace so far to comply with ordinary conventions ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... said. But secretly he wondered at the heat of her reply; it was unlike her. "You're cracked about June! I can tell you one thing: now that she has the Buccaneer in tow, she doesn't care twopence about you, and, you'll find it out. But you won't see so much of her in future; we're going to live in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... then, with labour infinite, produce a book of verse To languish on the "All for Twopence" shelf? The ballad bold and breezy comes particularly easy— I mean to take to writing ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... thinking about no tuppences. I only wanted to say I was sorry your Mamma wasn't so well, and to ask how she finds herself this evening—and I've fetched her along a bit of sweetbrier, very sweet to smell it is. Twopence indeed," said he, and produced a bunch of sweetbrier from his hat, "just like a conjurer," as ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... of New Thought Books. Each 96 pages and cover, green silk cloth bound, printed on heavy egg-shell paper, size 5x7. Written by Sydney B. Flower. Price each, $1 postpaid to any part of the world; four shillings and twopence in ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower
... other people. Of course I should like to raise the standard. I should like to see ordinary people capable of perceiving what is good art, and not so wholly at the mercy of conventional and melodramatic art. But Herries does not care twopence about that. He is like the Calvinist who is sure of his own salvation, has his doubts about the minister, and thinks every one else irreparably damned. As I say, it is a lofty sort of ideal, but it is not a good sign when ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is hired by time, the fare (inside or outside the circle) is two shillings and sixpence for the first hour, and eightpence for every quarter of an hour afterwards. Extra payment has to be made for luggage (twopence per piece outside), for extra passengers (sixpence each for more than two), and for waiting (eightpence each completed quarter of an hour). If a horse cab is fitted with a taximeter (vide infra) the fare for a journey wholly within or partly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... twopence about the ballot," said Violet, as she put out her hand to Phineas. "Are we going to have a new iron fleet built? ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... 'there are apparitions of brown niggers done up as smart as twopence prancing about the house. Perfectly uninteresting, you know, the savage sophisticated out of his picturesqueness. I made a point of asking no questions, not knowing what I might be ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the only secret that Ramel jealously concealed, and which no more than two or three of his oldest friends knew anything about, and while he hesitated about spending twopence on himself, and went to the Institute and to the Chamber of Deputies outside an omnibus, Pepa led the happy life of a millionaire who is not frightened of the to-morrow, and brought up her son like a little ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... penny Uno soldo. Dooey saltee, twopence Dui soldi. Tray saltee, threepence Tre soldi. Quarterer saltee, fourpence Quattro soldi. Chinker saltee, fivepence Cinque soldi. Say saltee, sixpence Sei soldi. Say oney saltee, or setter Sette soldi. saltee, sevenpence Say dooee saltee, or otter ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... has been dealt at those who maintain we are not a commercial race. "You gave me prussic acid in mistake for quinine this morning," a man told a chemist the other day. "Is that so?" said the chemist; "then you owe me another twopence." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... to spend all that time? Not I. Let him leave me alone. He does not care twopence about me, and it's mere humbug and hypocrisy ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Lampton mind is a jolly good thing. That old drifter won't like living in a tent or a caravan, on twopence a day, when he's sixty!" Freddy lit his cigarette; he had finished breakfast. "You'll come, of course?" His eyes spoke to Mike. "Gad, what a topping morning ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Conservative Party got to say about it? Have they any right to complain of the taxes which are necessary for the maintenance of our naval power? Do we not see that they are ever exerting themselves to urge still greater expenditure upon the nation? He is a poor sort of fellow, a penny-plain-twopence-coloured kind of patriot who goes about shouting for ships, and then grudges the money necessary to build them. And when Mr. Balfour tells us that "gigantic sacrifices" are required, and that those gigantic ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... should subscribe twopence, and pay for my share of the dinner. By Jove! it is true, and the money was handed to me in a pewter-pot, of which they also begged to make me a present. We afterwards went to Tom Spring's, from Tom's to the 'Finish,' from the 'Finish' to the watch-house—that ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... confessors,—what know we? We promise heaven, methinks, too cheaply, and assign large revenues to minors incompetent to manage them. Epitaphs run upon this topic of consolation till the very frequency induces a cheapness. Tickets for admission into paradise are sculptured out a penny a letter, twopence a syllable, etc. It is all a mystery; and the more I try to express my meaning (having none that is clear), the more I flounder. Finally, write what your own conscience, which to you is the unerring judge, deems best, and be careless about the whimsies of ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... on, till Mr. May and Geoffrey had won all the pennies, except twopence of Ciccio's. Alvina ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... doubt, for a short spell I could manage to live on a couple of pence a day; but what I am doing now is not to be a mere spurt, but my regular mode of life for many a month to come. My tea and sugar and milk (Swiss) come collectively to one penny a day. The loaf is at twopence three-farthings, and I consume one a day. My dinner consists in rotation of one third of a pound of bacon, cooked over the gas (twopence halfpenny), or two saveloys (twopence), or two pieces of fried fish (twopence), or a quarter of an eightpenny ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... well, in spite of that unfortunate embrace. He was proud of his advance in life; he was no longer a baby; the nursery was now a schoolroom; he stayed up an hour later at night; he was to be allowed twopence a week pocket-money; his whole social status had risen. He began to read for pleasure, and discovered that it was easier than he had expected, so that he passed quite quickly through "Lottie's Visit to Grandmama" into "Stumps" and out again in "Jackanapes." ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... parlours. Peter Baron's window had always, to his sense, looked out on a good deal of life, and one of the things it had most shown him was that there is nobody so bereft of joy as not to be able to command for twopence the services of somebody less joyous. Mrs. Ryves was a struggler (Baron scarcely liked to think of it), but she occupied a pinnacle for Miss Teagle, who had lived on—and from a noble nursery—into a period of ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... show that there are monstrous inconsistencies in the mode of division, which being corrected, the verses tally as well as the chapters. And then how comes it? I cannot go on, {52} for I have no gift at torturing a coincidence, but I would lay twopence, if I could make a bet—which I never did in all my life—that some one or more of my readers will try it. Some people say that the study of chances tends to awaken a spirit of gambling: I suspect the contrary. At any rate, I myself, the writer ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... understand that you are in charge of the correspondence in this office. Well, during the last week you have three times sent unstamped letters to my fiancee, Miss Vera Delane, Woodlands, Southbourne, Hants. What's the matter with you? Do you think she likes paying twopence a time, or ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... who was to blame for the professor's regrettable explosion and departure, and he ought by all laws of justice to have suffered for it. As it was, I was the only person materially affected. It did not matter to Ukridge. He did not care twopence one way or the other. If the professor were friendly, he was willing to talk to him by the hour on any subject, pleasant or unpleasant. If, on the other hand, he wished to have nothing more to do with us, it did not ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... things to kill. They can get them by paying for them, and they know how to pay." He laughed a little, lifting his square shoulders. "Balthamor's six thousand acres of grouse moor and Elsty's salmon fishing are rented by the Chicago man. He doesn't care twopence for them, and does not know a pheasant from a caper-cailzie, but his wife wants to know ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... by way of mere diversion and child's play that Mr. Stevenson began "Treasure Island." He is an amateur of boyish pleasures of masterpieces at a penny plain and twopence coloured. Probably he had looked at the stories of adventure in penny papers which only boys read, and he determined sportively to compete with their unknown authors. "Treasure Island" came out in such a ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... and screaming in the front of her brood, and in the face of circumstances, succeeds, by her courage, in putting her enemy to flight; in like manner you will always, I think, find your wife (if that lady be good for twopence) shrill, eager, and ill-humored, before, and during a great family move of this nature. Well, the swindling hackney-coachmen are paid, the mother leading on her regiment of little ones, and supported by her auxiliary nurse-maids, are safe in the cabin;—you ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of life; it will be applied to every other pleasure and ornament of life if the Capitalist campaign can succeed. The argument we know; but it cannot be too often made clear. An employer, let us say, pays a seamstress twopence a day, and she does not seem to thrive on it. So little, perhaps, does she thrive on it that the employer has even some difficulty in thriving upon her. There are only two things that he can do, and the distinction between ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... sold in the gross could still be had for a halfpenny a pound in 1570.[24] Other articles of food were in the same proportion. The best pig or goose in a country market could be bought for fourpence; a good capon for threepence or fourpence; a chicken for a penny; a hen for twopence.[25] ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... scarcity of a circulating medium. Until 1661 Indian wampum had been a legal tender, and far into the eighteenth century it remained current in small transactions. "In 1693 the ferriage from New York to Brooklyn was eight stivers in wampum or a silver twopence." [35] As early as 1652 Massachusetts had sought to supply the deficiency by the issue of shillings and sixpences. It was an affair of convenience and probably had no political purpose. The infraction of the navigation laws was a more serious matter. ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... one which boasted a restaurant car, and Kew patronised this institution. But when he was in the middle of cold meat, he thought: "She is probably trying to live on twopence-halfpenny a week. Continual tripe ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... my little fourpence, pretty little fourpence, I love fourpence better than my life; I spent a penny of it, I spent another, And I took twopence home to my wife. ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... weeks. I wish I could send it some other way. So now to your letter, brave boys. I don't like your way of saving shillings: nothing vexes me but that it does not make Stella a coward in a coach.(18) I don't think any lady's advice about my ear signifies twopence: however I will, in compliance to you, ask Dr. Cockburn. Radcliffe(19) I know not, and Barnard(20) I never see. Walls will certainly be stingier for seven years, upon pretence of his robbery. So Stella puns again; why, 'tis well enough; but I'll not second it, though I could ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... numerals, and is as much amused as I. He treats me to coffee and a pipe from a neighbouring shop while Omar eloquently depreciates the goods and offers half the value. A water-seller offers a brass cup of water; I drink, and give the huge sum of twopence, and he distributes the contents of his skin to the crowd (there always is a crowd) in my honour. It seems I have done a pious action. Finally a boy is called to carry the batterie de cuisine, while Omar brandishes a gigantic kettle which he has picked ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... good lodgings or masters could be had here—for there are no middling class of people. Sixty noblemen's families lived in the town, who owned the vast plain round it, and the rest very poor indeed. This is the finest country for game that ever was; partridges twopence-halfpenny a couple, pheasants and woodcocks in proportion; and, in short, every species of poultry. We dined, supped, lay, and breakfasted next day, Saturday; then we proceeded on our tour, leaving Montreuil, you will suppose, with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... to the shops and the station. We've got twopence between us, and we want to spend it, and besides——" But Pauline broke off, recognizing it was worse than useless to explain to a person like Anna the pleasure they could obtain from watching to see whether Howie or their own Larkin got most of the customers ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... marrying! That's better! That is very much better. It strikes me, Johnnie, that two lucky crows are worth twopence, and three marrying crows are worth threepence. And as luck would have it I've got exactly five pennies in my pocket. Catch, bearer of good tidings! Here you are—one, two, three, four, five! Well caught! Is ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... that Stevenson's own great fault, that tendency to what has been called the 'Twopence-coloured' style, is always at its worst in books over ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... afford to spend a penny or twopence upon vanity and worldliness went to see the performance. It was quite a fashionable gathering. The best society were by common consent allowed to take the best seats—very hard benches—the less ambitious crowded behind, with minds fully made ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... I never had felt so strange and contradictory an inward tumult as I felt for an hour that evening: soreness and laughter, and fire, and grief, shared my heart between them. I cried hot tears: not because Madame mistrusted me—I did not care twopence for her mistrust—but for other reasons. Complicated, disquieting thoughts broke up the whole repose of my nature. However, that turmoil subsided: next day I was ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... marry any time I like. Pah! In Serbia one can get two maidens for twopence, and three widows for a ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... the General, with a grimace which was really much less humorous than he meant it to be, and in a voice which was hardly as steady as he would have liked to have it—'upon my word, Irene, I'd give twopence to be in your shoes at ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... had certain powers of advancement, and could increase wages to those who found favor in their eyes, to the extent of a penny or twopence per day, and justified it by representing that these girls were value for it, because they were better workers. Again, matters were always easier to these girls of easy virtue, for they got better jobs, and could even flout the authority of lesser gaffers, if their relations with the higher ones ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... She, resolved not to be cast off, seized him and clung to him. This was the movement that excited the derision of Wickens's boy in the adjacent gravel pit. Trefusis was glad of the interruption; and, when he gave the boy twopence and bade him begone, half hoped that he would insist on remaining. But though an obdurate boy on most occasions, he proved complaisant on this, and withdrew to the high road, where he made over one of his pennies to a phantom gambler, and tossed ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Heaven's sake, couple yourself, and the man—together!" said Winnington, flushing with anger. "I know nothing about him, when you first arrived here. Mr. Lathrop didn't matter twopence to me before. Now he ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... man, with a genuine apostolic inspiration. I don't care twopence whether he is right or wrong, but he's a perfectly splendid old fellow, as honest and transparent as the day's long. He believes in it all, and would give his life for it freely, if he thought he could forward the cause a single inch ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... it had ceased to be the town-talk, that every military officer, kept at free quarters by the City during the late alarms, had cost for his board and lodging four pounds four per day, and every private soldier two and twopence halfpenny; many months after even this engrossing topic was forgotten, and the United Bulldogs were to a man all killed, imprisoned, or transported, Mr Simon Tappertit, being removed from a hospital to prison, and thence to his ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the Eastward into the Southward of the line of Canterbury's pilgrims when they set forth to worship, on his homeward course, after a walk of two days out of Dover. He descended London's borough, having exactly twopence halfpenny for refreshment; following a term of prudent starvation, at the end of the walk. It is not a district seductive to the wayfarer's appetite; as, for example, one may find the Jew's fry of fish in oil, inspiriting the Shoreditch region, to be. Nourishment is afforded, according to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shillings; while no more than two shillings could be got for the Book of Good Manners. A fine copy of the Coverdale Bible realised only twenty shillings and sixpence, and Captain John Smith's History of Virginia went for seven shillings and twopence. The manuscripts also, even for those days, sold at ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... but two crowns of red gold, and I'll give you twopence of white silver, if Robin the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... street boys of the day whistled as they walked by, were not of a nature to display his powers. Harry could play other and very different kinds of music; for whenever Evan earned a sixpence by holding a horse, or doing any other odd job, a penny or twopence were sure to go in the purchase of a sheet of music for Harry at the cheap bookstalls. Harry had learned the notes from a secondhand book of instructions which John Holl had bought for him one Saturday night, when the weather had been particularly hot, ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... rest (literally, stop here)." Said the Gipsy, "Show me your money!" And he showed him a guinea, a sovereign, a half-sovereign, a half-guinea, a five-shilling piece, a half-crown, a two-shilling piece, a shilling, a sixpence, a fourpenny piece, a threepence, a twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a farthing, a half-farthing. Said the Gipsy, "This is all bad money." "No," said the other man; "it is all good and sound. Toss it in your hand and hear it ring!" "Yes," replied the Gipsy. "You told me that only bad things keep going, and this money has gone ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... draperies, slowly and heavily, in the upper gloom, as they were swept at intervals by currents of air. At this moment we were provoked by the showman at our elbow renewing his vile iteration of "Twopence, gentlemen; no more than twopence for each;" and so on, until we left the place. The same complaint has been often made as to Westminster Abbey. Where the wrong lies, or where it commences, I know not. Certainly I nor any man can have a right ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... live another ten years, and he would see them both in Marylebone Workhouse before he advanced sixpence, or I'm much mistaken in him. Her mother has only just enough to live upon; can't possibly help them. Her brother wouldn't give or lend twopence halfpenny.' ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... more abominable still! At least there was some pluck about those forged receipts of Gagneux. But this time he is as contemptible as a cook charging twopence extra for her cabbages. Powers of hell! To pilfer a franc and a half and clap it in his pocket! Hasn't the brute got any pride then? Couldn't he run away with the safe or play the ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... than merely in terms of beauty. And you can believe this, too: you've lost nothing from the point of view of looks that a few months of normal healthy life won't set right. Moreover, if you'd grown as plain as a pikestaff, I don't think Michael would care twopence! He's an artist, I know. He can't help that, but he's a man first. And he's a man who knows how to love. Promise me one thing," she went on insistently. "Promise that you'll do nothing definite—yet. Not, at least, ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... minor lent me a penny last Saturday, because I was fined for breaking the window; and I spent it at Keyte's. I didn't know there was any harm in it. And Wray major borrowed twopence from me when my uncle sent me a post-office order—I cashed it at Keyte's—for five bob; but he'll pay me back before the holidays. We didn't know there was anything ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... difficulty is the rate of wages. I offer the privates sixty piastres (the piastre equals twopence-halfpenny) per month, i.e., thirty piastres as equal pay to that of the regulars, and thirty piastres in lieu of clothes. Formerly these brigands nominally received fifty and fifty-five piastres, in addition to one third of all cattle that might ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... with more diligence: thenceforward posted day and night; did not halt beyond what was necessary for meals; and the postillions were excited by gratuities, after the habit of my cousin Alain. For twopence I could have gone farther and taken four horses; so extreme was my haste, running as I was before the terrors of an awakened conscience. But I feared to be conspicuous. Even as it was, we attracted only too much attention, with our pair and that white ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and then the muse is unkind, or the day uncommonly quiet, and then we rather starve; and sometimes the unconscionable editors will clip our paragraphs when they are a little too rhetorical, and snip off twopence or threepence at a go. I have many a time had my pot of porter snipped off of my dinner in this way; and have had to dine with dry lips. However, I cannot complain. I rose gradually in the lower ranks of the craft, and am now, I think, in the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... memory. In one newspaper, a member of Congress was denounced as having feloniously broken open a scrutoire, and having thence stolen certain bills and banknotes; another was charged with selling franks at twopence a piece, and thus coppering his pockets at the expense of ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... warning. Be careful how you ask me to do anything outre, to imitate the man in the pantomime, and to sit on my hat. Because I am a man whose soul has been emptied of all pleasures but folly. And for twopence I'd do it." ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... cultivation of the Rose in London long before Shakespeare's time. "In the Earl of Lincoln's garden in Holborn in 24 Edw. I., the only flowers named are Roses, of which a quantity was sold, producing three shillings and twopence."—HUDSON TURNER. ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... course. Picture post cards, you know. And if ever I've twopence halfpenny to spare I'll write a real letter; there'll be a lot to tell you." Peter expected Leslie to be rather funny in Italy, picking ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... were rather of the order of naturals. They were eccentric, or somewhat crazy, useless, idle creatures, who used to wander about from house to house, and sometimes made very shrewd sarcastic remarks upon what was going on in the parish. I heard such a person once described as one who was "wanting in twopence of change for a shilling." They used to take great liberty of speech regarding the conduct and disposition of those with whom they came in contact, and many odd sayings which emanated from them were traditionary in country localities. I have a kindly feeling towards these imperfectly ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... offenders to a country where their labor would be useful and their prosperity sure. It may be presumed, that in this spirit a girl and two boys were committed to take their trial for stealing some wood, valued at twopence, the property of the crown.[207] These acts of severity forcibly contrast with the happier fortunes of other classes. It is said of George III, that he arrested two Eton boys in the act of poaching: they took him for a keeper, and ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... under a machine furnished with a pair of claws, which compress the cork to a size sufficiently small to allow it to enter the neck of the bottle, and a suspended weight, which in falling drives it home. These corks, which are principally obtained from Catalonia and Andalucia, cost more than twopence each, and are delivered in huge sacks resembling hop-pockets. Before they are used they have been either boiled in wine, soaked in a solution of tartar, or else steamed by the cork merchants, both to prevent their imparting a bad flavour to the wine and to ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... out the half-sovereign. He felt in his pocket and gave me back the change—a shilling and twopence, and walked off with the halves of Pete's and my return tickets ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... go back to the house with our arms round each other's waists. It will show Alice that we have come to an understanding. I don't care twopence about Miss Harley nor about that other girl—I don't remember her name; but I want Alice to see us. Why, it's mad with jealousy she'll be. Come along, aroon. Here's my arm firm round your waist; now let us dance up to ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... thoroughfares that, after exploring it in its full extent by myself, I went for A——, and led her down one side its whole length and up the other. In these shops the precious old dears could buy everything they wanted in the most minute quantities. Such tempting heaps of lumps of white sugar, only twopence! Such delectable cakes, two for a penny! Such seductive scraps of meat, which would make a breakfast nourishing as well as relishing, possibly even what called itself a dinner, blushing to see themselves labelled ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... appeareth, parcelly, divers and sundry manner of writings, which I William Ebesham have written for my good and worshipful master, Sir John Paston, and what money I have received, and what is unpaid. For writing a "litill booke of Pheesyk" he was paid twenty pence. Other writing he did for twopence a leaf. Hoccleve's de Regimine Principum he wrote for one penny a leaf, "which is right wele worth." Evidently Ebesham did not find scrivening a ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... a pound weight of standard silver bullion is coined into sixty-two shillings, containing, in the same manner, a pound weight of standard silver. Five shillings and twopence an ounce, therefore, is said to be the mint price of silver in England, or the quantity of silver coin which the mint gives in return for standard silver bullion. Before the reformation of the gold coin, the market price of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the crew at defiance, knowing that they could not upset the boat without endangering their own lives as well as ours. They wetted us, however, purposely, with the spray, and did their best to frighten us, by rocking the boat like a cradle. First one piaster (about twopence-halfpenny) was given to the skipper, then the boat was advanced about a hundred yards, when the oars were laid down once more. Another row was the consequence, at the end of which another piaster was doled out to him, and forward we moved till we were fairly within cry of the ship, when I called ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... the flap of the tent; and followed, elate at having run his quarry to earth. A stout woman, seated at the entrance beside a drum on which she counted her change, thrust out an arm of no mean proportions to block his entrance, and demanded twopence, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as best I could, so that I had not much opportunity for education, though I cannot say that I thought that much hardship at the time, being fonder of an open-air life. I was employed for some time in frightening the birds off the corn, for which I received the sum of twopence a day; after which I was advanced to sixpence a day as ploughboy, in which situation I remained until I was fourteen years of age. My father then obtained twenty pounds from a friend, with which he apprenticed me to Henry Bush, a builder living at Studland, a village in the same county, for ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... bought it in any quantity, but I know that the price in the Southern States averaged from twopence to threepence a pound, the price in Liverpool at that time being ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... know anybody who keeps a conscience with respect to the profits he makes? Is there anybody scarcely who won't charge his neighbor more than the article is worth, if he has a chance, and call it lawful? That is extortion. It may be only asking twopence for an article worth a penny, or a 1,000 pounds for what 700 pounds should buy; it does not ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... you must lisp," concluded Anne. "You must write a poem for the occasion—an 'Ode on Bank Holiday.' We'll print it on Uncle Henry's press and sell it at twopence a copy." ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... fame at last. Again, George Stephenson, the great engineer, the son of a very poor man, who fired the engine at the Wylam Colliery, began his life labour when a mere boy. Besides watching the cows, and barring the gates at night after the coal waggons had passed, at twopence a day, he amused himself during his leisure moments in making clay engines, in imitation of that which his father tended. Although he lived in such humble circumstances that he was almost entirely unnoticed, ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... glad I was when you opened fire on your own account! Only frightened, you know." He was beginning to say something, but she stopped him with:—"I know what you are going to say, but that's just where the difficulty came in. If only I hadn't cared twopence about you it would have been so easy!... Did you say how? Foolish man!—can't you see that if I hadn't loved you one scrap, or only half across your lips as we used to say when we were children, it would have been quite a let-off to be met with offers of a brother's ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... prejudice, it seemed quite a good proposition on paper. So on we went. The Turf Tissue was to be sold to the public at twopence a copy, a half-penny of which was to go to the seller. It was a good commission, but by giving it we hoped to attract a very large number of the newsboys who sold the evening paper, in view of the fact that by publishing the Tissue at 10 A.M. the ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... a little trouble and inconvenience to double his capital in the shortest possible space of time—let him come out, and fearlessly. Living is cheap enough as far as the essentials are concerned. Butcher meat, not surpassed in any part of England, Scotland, or Ireland, is to be had at twopence per pound; the fine four pound loaf for sixpence halfpenny; brown sugar, fourpence; white, sixpence; candles, sixpence per pound; tea, the finest, three shillings the pound; fresh butter, one shilling and threepence per pound. Wild fowl in abundance. Vegetables are cheaper than in any ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... read? Not I! My mind is a perfect blank at this moment in regard to the wisdom of others on the essential question. Strange, is it not? But quite a common experience, I believe. Besides, I don't actually care twopence what any other philosopher has replied to my question. In this, each man must be his own philosopher. There is an instinct in the profound egoism of human nature which prevents us from accepting such ready-made answers. ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... reading, and I must pay a man so much an hour to come and do it for me. Say two hours a night at twopence-halfpenny. Half-a- crown a week. What do you think ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... do a mean or sneaking thing, especially to Aunt Pam, but she didn't seem to care a button for that shawl. I didn't think it was worth twopence. She used to wear it in all sorts of weather, and it looked to me as if it was patched up out of bits that she hadn't any other use for. I'm sure she'd worn it since she was a baby. I could remember seeing that shawl around as long as I could remember anything, and it ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... say! now exhibiting, the great Scotch brother and sister, the greatest man and woman ever exhibited! All for twopence; all for twopence! children half-price! You're just in time, you're in capital time; I'm so glad to see you in such good time. Come now, take your ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... towns was ordered on July 31st, 1638. No messengers were thenceforth to run to and from Bristol except those appointed by Thomas Withering, but letters were allowed to be sent by common carriers, or by private messengers passing between friends. The postage was fixed at twopence for under 80 miles, and at ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... so I prize what's come to me from my ancestors or been won by hard work.... We are aristocrats, and not those who can only exist by favor of the powerful of this world, and who can be bought for twopence halfpenny." ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Everything has its proper and true worth at any given time, in relation to everything else; and at that worth should be bought and sold. If sold under it, it is cheap to the buyer by exactly so much as the seller loses, and no more. Putrid meat, at twopence a pound, is not "cheaper" than wholesome meat at sevenpence a pound; it is probably much dearer; but if, by watching your opportunity, you can get the wholesome meat for sixpence a pound, it is cheaper to you by a penny, which you have gained, and the seller has ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... connections in London! Of course I can wire to my people for the address, but they won't have got my letter till to-morrow; meantime I'm without any money, came out with about a shilling on me, which went in buying the soap and getting the drink, and here I am, wandering about with twopence in my pocket and nowhere to go ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... been no love lost between Mrs. Bundlecombe and Mrs. Harrington, when they once lived in the same town. The grudge had arisen out of a very small matter. The bookseller's' wife had sold a Bible to Mrs. Harrington, in the absence of her husband, for twopence more than Mr. Bundlecombe had demanded for the same book, from some common acquaintance of both parties to the bargain, on the previous day; and this common acquaintance having seen the book and depreciated it a few weeks later, the purchaser ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... might be able to provide a flock or straw bed with some sort of covering; but the poverty of these people is so gnawing and dire that very few lodgings contain anything which could possibly be pawned for twopence. Usually the child seeks the streets; and in the dim and filthy haze he or she sports at large with other ragged companions. Then the women—the match-box makers, trouser-makers, and such like—begin to troop in—and they gravitate towards the gin-shop. The darkness deepens; the bleared lamps ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... any car with four wheels!" I exclaimed vaingloriously. "It's kismet, Miss Falconer; it's the hand of Providence, no less. Now, we'll leave these notes in the salle a manger to pay for our lodging, which would have been dear at twopence, and be off, if you ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... 1763). Written originally in German by the Rev. Mr. Hierusalem" (Father of the "Young Jerusalem" who killed himself afterwards, and became, in a sense, Goethe's WERTHER and SORROWS). Price, probably, Twopence).] Berg-Schotten, and English generally, Pembroke's Horse, Cavendish's Brigade,—we have mentioned their behavior; and how Maxwell's Brigade took one whole regiment prisoners, in that final charge on Broglio. "What a glorious set of fellows!" said the English ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... also gives the annual importation of the principal Indian goods into England, by the East India Company, and the price each article sold for in England; according to this table, the quantity of pepper was 250,000 lbs., which, bought in India for twopence halfpenny, sold in England for one shilling and eightpence:—150,000 lbs. of cloves, which bought in India for ninepence, sold in England for six shillings:—150,000 lbs. of nutmegs, bought for four-pence, sold for two shillings ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... ... He never will! Whatever happens, nothing will be allowed to interfere with 'the boys' and their careers! We shall all pinch and screw and live on twopence-halfpenny a week, so as to be able to pay your bills. It's always the same story. Everything is sacrificed ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... will excuse my clothes. You know, Lady Castlerich, that I'm very poor. Some years ago I lost my money, and since then I've been merely an expense. It is most humiliating to have to ask your wife for twopence to take ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... little house!" said Mrs. Shiffney, looking quickly round her with searching eyes, while they waited for their hostess. "Nothing worth twopence-halfpenny, but nothing wrong. I declare ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... would cost him at least fourpence. He thought he would be able to obtain a fairly good dinner in one of the little Italian restaurants for ninepence. His tea would cost the same as his breakfast. To these sums he must add twopence for tobacco and a penny for an evening paper—impossible to do without tobacco, and he must know what was going on in the world. He could therefore live for one shilling and eightpence a day—eleven shillings a week—to which he would have to add six shillings ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... of these tiny pieces; they just look as if they were meant for them." So she chose out a few one-pfennig copper coins, which are much smaller than our farthings, and one or two silver pieces, worth about twopence-halfpenny each, still smaller. Then she put in her pocket half a slice of the brown bread they had had with their coffee, and arming herself, more for appearance's-sake than anything else, with her parasol and the ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... from a record in the exchequer, that in 1354 the exports of England amounted to two hundred and ninety-four thousand one hundred and eighty-four pounds seventeen shillings and twopence; the imports to thirty-eight thousand nine hundred and seventy pounds three shillings and sixpence, money of that time. This is a great balance, considering that it arose wholly from the exportation of raw wool and other rough materials. The import was chiefly linen and fine cloth, and some wine. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... uniform will have to go buttonless as far as I am concerned. Damned if I'll waste twopence to ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... and a quarter from the post office to the Dower House, and it was always his custom to give telegraph messengers who came to his house twopence, and he wanted very much to get rid of the telegraph girl, who stood expectantly before him holding her red bicycle. He felt now very sick and strained; he had a conviction that if he did not by an effort maintain his bearing cool and ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... complaisance to a lay chancellor." He is something in the right; and therefore it is a pity there are any; and I hope the Church will provide against it. But if the sentence be just, it is not the person, but the contempt. And, if the author attacketh a man on the highway, and taketh but twopence, he shall be sent to the gallows, more terrible to him than the devil, for his contempt of the law, &c. Therefore he need not complain ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... harassed from post to post, from island to island: their hunting and fishing stations were unscrupulously seized by the invading English. They were shot down without the least provocation, or captured to be exposed as curiosities to the rabble at fairs in the western towns of Christian England at twopence apiece.' So much for the ill-fated savages among whom ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... land. Every time the lad went out I'd expect him to be brought in shot to his mother and me. And when I saw the lad's dead face, what would I think? And what would I say when his mother turned round and said, 'Ye have the land, haven't ye, William?' Our lives would not be worth twopence if I held on. Do you remember Carey, the informer? The British Empire couldn't protect him, though it shipped him across the world. How would I be among the mountains here? I could be shot going to or coming from ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... direction, he shall be waited on by a committee of the club and induced, if possible, to join us, for he will be an acquisition; and the sentences required are such as: "I think so-and-so a very jolly fellow, indeed I don't know a man in the college I like better than so-and-so, but I don't care twopence about him, at least it is all the same to me whether he cuts me ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... And, when he was desired by some to give thanks for his meat, he said, 'Take a sackful of prayers to the mill, and shill them, and grind them, and take your breakfast off them.' To others he said, 'I will give you a twopence, and [if ye] pray until a boll of meal and one stone of butter fall down from heaven through the house-rigging to you.' To others, when bread and cheese was given him, and was laid on the ground by him, he said, 'If I leave this, I will [shall] long cry to God before he give it me again.' ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... coming down!—What to do now?— My brain has stopt: it's like a clock that's fallen Out of a window and broke all its cogs.—Where's That old cider, Vine would have us pay Twopence a glass for? Let's try how it smells: Old Foxwhelp, and a humming stingo it is! (To the pot dog) Hullo, you! What are you grinning at?— I know! There'll be no score against me for this drink! ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... flight of larks came into the town, "which were", says Fuller, "as welcome as quails in the wilderness". The birds were so numerous that, notwithstanding the prevailing famine, they were sold for twopence a dozen. "Of this miraculous event", wrote Fuller, "I was not only an eye but a ...
— Exeter • Sidney Heath |
