"Twopenny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a sudden he would sing some little twopenny love-ballad or sentimental nigger melody so touchingly that one had the lump in the throat; poor Snowdrop would weep ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... idiot!" she said. "What on earth induced you to do it? I could see at the time you didn't care a twopenny dip ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... thoroughly established: the future was tinged with a golden hue. Ivory would be almost inexhaustible, as it would flow from both east and west to the market where such luxuries as twopenny mirrors, fourpenny knives, handkerchiefs, ear-rings at a penny a pair, finger signet-rings at a shilling a dozen, could be obtained for such comparatively useless lumber ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... popular demand were the majority of our countrymen of a stomach as unbounded as that of the Dundee laborer whom a Scotch journal commemorates. This extraordinary person, having not long since eaten nine large twopenny pies at a Dundee pie-shop within fourteen and a half minutes, announced his purpose to eat on the following Monday twelve pies within twenty-five minutes; and in fact, when the delicacies were put before him in the shape of a six-pound pile, fourteen inches high, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... belles generally, like the beaux, may have disdained tobacco as vulgar, yet there were doubtless still to be found here and there respectable women who occasionally indulged in a smoke. In an early Spectator, Addison gives the rules of a "Twopenny Club, erected in this Place, for the Preservation of Friendship and good Neighbourhood," which met in a little ale-house and was frequented by artisans and mechanics. Rule II was, "Every member shall fill his pipe out of his own box"; ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... own daily commerce with humanity. Is it history—when did it throw a light for you on modern politics? Is it science—when did it show you order in apparent disorder, and help you to put two and two together into an inseparable four? Is it ethics—when did it influence your conduct in a twopenny-halfpenny affair between man and man? Is it a novel—when did it help you to "understand all and forgive all"? Is it poetry—when was it a magnifying glass to disclose beauty to you, or a fire to warm your cooling faith? If ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... the stage were two doors for the players, and between them hung a painted cloth or arras behind which the prompter stood. Over these doors were two plastered rooms, twopenny private boxes for gentlefolk. In one of them were three young men and a beautiful girl, wonderfully dressed. The men were speaking to her, but she looked down at Nick instead. "What a pretty boy!" she said, and tossed him a flower that one of the men had just given ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... with respect to the nature of it, as a penny is as perfect silver as a shilling; nor yet with respect to a comparative degree, for so a shilling arriveth more toward the perfection of the number twenty, than doth a twopenny or a threepenny piece; but it is a righteousness so perfect, that nothing can be added to, nor can any thing be taken from it; for so implieth the words of the text, he is righteous as Christ is righteous; yea, thus righteous before, and in order to his ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a little, and showed him a dingy street, a gin-palace, a low French eating-house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and twopenny salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many women of many different nationalities passing out, key in hand, to have a morning glass; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part, as brown as umber, and cut him off from his blackguardly surroundings. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vaulting powers in a sport which he entitled in his broken English manner "ze leap of ze frog;" and, as for grave Doctor Batson, whom we all thought so formal and dignified in his professional tether, why, the way in which he "stuck in his twopenny," as the boys said, and "gave a 'back,'" was a caution to ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... my eyes had been idle." Nor was his the case of the mere literary smatterer, content if he but learn the names of things. In him, to do and to do well was even a dearer ambition than to know. Anything done well, any craft, despatch, or finish, delighted and inspired him. I remember him with a twopenny Japanese box of three drawers, so exactly fitted that, when one was driven home, the others started from their places; the whole spirit of Japan, he told me, was pictured in that box; that plain ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and how far you may push your fortune—and all that you design to make of it, is, to return to Scotland, eat raw oatmeal cakes, baked upon a peat-fire, have your hand shaken by every loon of a blue-bonnet who chooses to dub you cousin, though your relationship comes by Noah; drink Scots twopenny ale, eat half-starved red-deer venison, when you can kill it, ride upon a galloway, and be called my right ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Parton, Read, Wharry, Jackson, and Mingay, no less than 'unruffled Samuel Salt,' were all real persons, and were called to the Bench of the Honourable Society by those very names. One mistake, indeed, Lamb makes—he writes of Mr. Twopenny as if he had been a Bencher. Now, there never yet was a Bencher of the name of Twopenny; though the mistake is easily accounted for. There was a Mr. Twopenny, a very thin man too, just as Lamb described him, who lived in the Temple; but he was not a Bencher, he ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... it is impossible to place any period of termination. I will not speak of the classics—reminiscences of much evil in our early lives. We do not meet here to-day as critics with our appreciations and depreciations, our twopenny little prefaces or our forewords. I am not going to say what the world a thousand years hence will think of Mark Twain. Posterity will take care of itself, will read what it wants to read, will forget what it chooses to forget, and will pay no attention whatsoever ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... writers, together with their very clerks, the class whom Butler was looking after, had adjourned the debate to some favourite tavern. It was computed by an experienced arithmetician, that there was as much twopenny ale consumed on the discussion as would have floated ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Lectures, however, pass—for the present. We propose to deal with an earlier effort of Sir G. G. Stokes. Nearly two years ago he delivered a lecture at the Finsbury Polytechnic on the Immortality of the Soul. It was reported in the Family Churchman, and reprinted after revision as a twopenny pamphlet, with the first title of "I." This is the only pointed thing about it. The lecture is about "I," or, as Sir G. G. Stokes, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... this 'ere Mr. Macaroni," began the baker, who took in a twopenny paper every day, and gave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... Catechism, which was not intended for indiscriminate circulation among the laity, was not published until 1552; and The Twopenny Faith was not issued until the ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... preside. The business having so dwindled, Joanna was obliged to serve in the shop herself; and it galled and mortified her that Emily Lester, sitting in her large drawing-room over the way, could witness her own dancings up and down behind the counter at the beck and call of wretched twopenny customers, whose patronage she was driven to welcome gladly: persons to whom she was compelled to be civil in the street, while Emily was bounding along with her children and her governess, and conversing with the genteelest ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... twopenny," a name he used confidentially to her. "A little faint; the room is rather close," and he opened the window a trifle at the top, returning to his ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... hail it and so reach Hampstead in time for dinner, or whether he would dine at the Club. Edith would be annoyed if he failed to keep his appointment, and the Club dinners were not good. But neither were Edith's; moreover, by dining at the Club for one-and-six, and taking a twopenny tram instead of a three-and-sixpenny cab, he would ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... the verdict, delivered from rolling clouds: "If you were only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,—I'd let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the twopenny- halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir myself in your ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Why the deuce couldn't he have kept his twopenny thunderbolt in his pocket for a few hours, instead of launching it to-night and spoiling our sole a la Morny and ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... precocious young rascal of an Arthur for daring to propose to a play-actress, need not be told here. If pride exists amongst any folks in our country, and assuredly we have enough of it, there is no pride more deep-seated than that of twopenny old gentlewomen in small towns. "Gracious goodness," the cry was, "how infatuated the mother is about that pert and headstrong boy who gives himself the airs of a lord on his blood-horse, and for whom our society is not good enough, and who would ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... indebted to his promotion for detecting a brother letter-sorter appropriating the contents of a penny letter to his own uses, at the precise time that the said Josiah Claypole had his eye on it, for reasons best known to himself. The twopenny-postmen are highly incensed at this unheard-of and unprecedented passing them over; and great fears are entertained ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... blow-up. These imitation Scotch niggers in their plaid sarongs, as they call them, will be getting up a big quarrel with my men with their bounce and contempt for my well-drilled, smart detachment. Here's every common, twopenny-halfpenny Malay looking down upon my fellows, while there isn't one among my lads who isn't a better man than their Rajah. There will be a row some day; ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... Squire. "We won't say any more about it; and if you want a horse to ride, we'll see if we can't find you a horse to ride. I dare say you think your old father a terrible martinet, but it's all for your good, you know. You must say to yourself when you feel dissatisfied about some little twopenny-halfpenny disappointment ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... a hundred-guinea chronometer with a twopenny watch-key—as by means of a dirty wooden plug you set all the waters of Versailles a-raging, and splashing, and storming—in like manner, and by like humble agents, were Mrs. Catherine's tumultuous passions set going. ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... notes I made of the coaching trip were a few lines a day in twopenny pass-books bought before we started. As with "Round the World," I thought that I might some day write a magazine article, or give some account of my excursion for those who accompanied me; but one wintry day I decided that it was scarcely worth ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... coition and diet I was still fighting, and on the whole successfully. My fits of temper, however, were excessive and my ennui became gloomy despair. One day I blasphemed on crossing the Park and spoke contemptuously of "God and his twopenny ha'penny revolving balls," referring to the planetary system. But for long walks I should have gone mad. A. was drinking in the intervals of her fits. I found half-empty bottles of wine hidden away. This did not improve ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... prettinesses of allegorical language, and glittering hardness of external imagery. But he has wit at will, and of the first quality. His satirical and burlesque poetry is his best: it is first-rate. His Twopenny Post-Bag is a perfect "nest of spicery"; where the Cayenne is not spared. The politician there sharpens the poet's pen. In this too, our bard resembles the bee—he has its honey and ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... man talks usually in a mournful tone about his ill-health, and his death, which he feels to be approaching, yet he has occasional touches of humor that remind me of old Mourteen on the north island. To-day a grotesque twopenny doll was lying on the floor near the old woman. He picked it up and examined it as if comparing it with her. Then he held it up: 'Is it you is after bringing that thing into the world,' he said, 'woman of ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... faith! so I were hearkened to, he should shrewdly smart for it." Then, turning to her sons, she said:—"My sons, I told you plainly enough that this ought not to be. Now, have you heard how your worthy brother-in-law treats your sister? Petty twopenny trader that he is: were it for me to act, as it is for you, after what he has said of her and done to her, nought would satisfy or appease me, till I had rid the earth of him. And were I a man, who am but a woman, none, other but myself should meddle with the affair. God's curse upon ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of admission to the theatres varied according to the estimation in which they were held, and were raised on special occasions. "Twopenny rooms," or galleries, were to be found at the larger and more popular theatres. In Goffe's "Careless Shepherdess," 1656, acted at the Salisbury ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Bessie at once; easy manner). I'd like to know about this swindle that's going to be sprung on him. I didn't mean to startle the old man. You see, on my way here I dropped into a barber's to get a twopenny shave, and they told me there that he was something of a character. He has been ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... her mother, and prefers the Captain to her husband to this day. If, in a word, these two men could be made to fight, I believe their wives would not be displeased; and the reason of all this misery, rage, and dissension, lies in a poor little twopenny dinner-party in Lilliput Street. ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thing, watchman," hallooed out the accused, "the b—counter-skipper never had any watch! he only filched a twopenny-halfpenny gilt chain out of his master, Levi, the pawnbroker's window, and stuck it in his eel-skin to make a show: ye did, ye pitiful, lanky-chopped son of a ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lots sold would be about sixty-six. The early hour at which the sales began was soon dropped, and eventually the time of starting became noon, and from that to one or even two o'clock. It is quite certain that, up to ten shillings, penny and twopenny bids were accepted. The sales were chiefly held at the more noteworthy coffee-houses. Dr. King, in his translation (?) of Sorbiere's 'Journey to London,' 1698, says: 'I was at an auction of books at Tom's Coffee-house, near Ludgate, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... the twelfth century had been told that the lightning had been driven for leagues underground, and had dragged at its destroying tail loads of laughing human beings, and if they had then been told that the people alluded to this pulverising portent chirpily as "The Twopenny Tube," they would have called down the fire of Heaven on us as a race of half-witted atheists. Probably they would have ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... Beaumont, I won't stand it," exploded the large old gentleman. "I won't be made game of by a twopenny literary adventurer like that. I won't be made ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... forty shillings a day I'll stay; but if I can't earn that at once let us go back to New York. It is not the poverty I mind so much, nor yet the debt, nor yet even your distress, you dear old father. You and I could weather it out together on a twopenny roll. Things would never be altogether bad with us as long as we are together; and as long as we have not put ourselves in the power of Mahomet M. M. Fancy owing Mr. Moss a sum of money which we couldn't pay! Mahomet's 'little bill!' I would say to a Christian: 'All right, Mr. Christian, ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... common examples, chosen from a meagre little library, a "twopenny treasure-house," but they illustrate, on a minute scale, the nature of the collector's passion,—the character of his innocent pleasures. He occasionally lights on other literary relics of a more personal character ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... distance came the tinkle of the muffin-man's bell, the cries of the buy-a-brooms. He remembered the glowing charcoal in the stoves of the chestnut and potato sellers; the appetising smell of the cooked-fish shops; the fragrant steam of the hot, dark coffee at the twopenny stall, when he had turned shivering out of bed; he sighed for the lights and jollity of the "Hare and Hounds" on a Saturday night. He would never see anything of the kind again. No; here, under bare blue skies, out of which the sun frizzled you alive; here, where it couldn't ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... house considerably before two, quite in the style of Mr. Knight. Nice smiling Mr. Barlowe met us at the door and, in reply to enquiries after news, said that peace was generally expected. I have taken possession of my bedroom, unpacked my bandbox, sent Miss P.'s two letters to the twopenny post, been visited by M^{de} Bigeon and am now writing by myself at the new table in the front room. It is snowing. We had some snowstorms[282] yesterday, and a smart frost at night, which gave us a hard road from Cobham to Kingston; but as it was then getting dirty and heavy, Henry had ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... ten o'clock is brewed a large bowl of 'poor man's punch'—ale posset! This is the event of the night. Ale posset, or milk and ale posset as some call it, is made in this wise. Set a quart of milk on the fire. While it boils, crumble a twopenny loaf into a deep bowl, upon which pour the boiling milk. Next, set two quarts of good ale to boil, into which grate ginger and nutmeg, adding a quantity of sugar. When the ale nearly boils, add it to the milk and bread in the bowl, stirring it while ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... sir, this is the last time I shall have to trouble you with these twopenny concerns. But until some step is taken by the three Powers, or until I have quite exhausted your indulgence, I shall continue to report our scandals as they arise. Once more, one thing or other: Either what I write is false, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were bent over his open volumes when his clerk entered noiselessly and placed on his table a letter which the twopenny-postman had just delivered. With an impatient shrug of the shoulders, Ardworth glanced towards the superscription; but his eye became earnest and his interest aroused as he recognized the hand. "Again!" he muttered. "What mystery is this? Who can feel such interest in my fate?" ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... newspaper. What heads the column? Half a score advertisements of the "Mysteries of Paris"—a new edition of the "Wandering Jew," "illustrated by the first artists"—"Memoirs of a Physician," in twopenny numbers and shilling volumes; French novels, in short, at all prices and in every form. We step into the club; the produce of Paris and Brussels presses strews the table, and an elderly gentleman, with a solemn face and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... gifts of any kind. We were neither of us witty nor attractive, but I have often wondered, nevertheless, what it was which prevented us from obtaining acquaintance with persons who thronged to houses in which I could see nothing worth a twopenny omnibus fare. Certain it is, that we went out of our way sometimes to induce people to call upon us whom we thought we should like; but, if they came once or twice, they invariably dropped off, and we saw no more of them. This ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... telling me from his noisome couch how he got round, got in, got home, on that confounded, immaculate, don't-you-touch-me sort of fellow. He admitted that he couldn't be scared, but there was a way, "as broad as a turnpike, to get in and shake his twopenny soul around and inside ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... had kept the table as it was," pursued Steel over his cigar, "and had one of those flash-light photographs taken, as they do at all the twopenny banquets nowadays. All that was left of them—left ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... who are easy to please, who love and who give pleasure. Mighty men of their hands, the smiters and the builders and the judges, have lived long and done sternly and yet preserved this lovely character; and among our carpet interests and twopenny concerns, the shame were indelible if WE should lose it. Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties. And it is the trouble with moral men that they have ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nibbled to death by critics, but they are weakly ones that perish thus, such only as must otherwise soon have come to a natural death. Somewhat more numerous are those which are overfed with praise, and die of the surfeit. Brisk reputations, indeed, are like bottled twopenny, or pop "they sparkle, are exhaled, and fly"—not to heaven, but to the Limbo. To live among books, is in this respect like living among the tombs; you have in them speaking remembrancers of mortality. ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... at a Northern munition works' canteen. We have long been used to twopenny meals, but of course much more was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... has passed a resolution in favour of Irish independence. The remark attributed to Mr. A.J. BALFOUR, that he always thought Colorado was the name of a twopenny cigar, has failed to ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... party must quit possession incontinently. Jack prevailed on a good many to sign this document—though some did not like the idea of walking out, demurred, and added after the word incontinently, "i.e. when convenient,"—and thus signed, they put the Round Robin under a twopenny cover, and dispatched it to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... Messrs. Nevin & Nevin were of that dusty, gloomy and obsolete fashion which inspires such confidence in the would-be litigant. Large and raggedly bound volumes, which apparently had been acquired from the twopenny boxes outside second-hand bookshops, lined the shelves of the outer office, and the chairs were of an early-Victorian horsehair variety. Respectability had run to seed in those chambers. Mr. Jacob Nevin, the senior ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... old father-in-law had secured to the family in the event of such a contingency as a failure happening; so knowing Jorrock's propensity for sports, and being desirous of chatting over all his gallant doings with "The Surrey," shortly after the above-mentioned day he dispatched a "twopenny," offering him a day's shooting on his property in Surrey, adding, that he hoped he would dine with him after. Jorrocks being invited himself, with a freedom peculiar to fox-hunters, invited his friend the Yorkshireman, and visiting his armoury, selected ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... Glenalmond, I give you my word, when I came out of that Court, I longed to die - the shame of it was beyond my strength: but I - I -" he rose from his seat and began to pace the room in a disorder. "Well, who am I? A boy, who have never been tried, have never done anything except this twopenny impotent folly with my father. But I tell you, my lord, and I know myself, I am at least that kind of a man - or that kind of a boy, if you prefer it - that I could die in torments rather than that any one should ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Tom—'not more than is necessary.' And then he glanced at Henry. 'Look here, my bold buccaneer, you've got nothing to do just now, have you? You can stroll along with me a bit, and we'll see if we can buy you a twopenny ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... In the houses there is hardly anything to be got. No pepper, no onions, no meat killed or sold. No bread can be obtained for love or money. I laid in a stock of fresh bread in Tripoli for a fortnight, but my gluttonous camel driver devoured all in three or four days! There were no less than fifty twopenny loaves. He was accustomed to eat in the night, when I was asleep, and used to threaten to beat Said if he blabbed. I mentioned the circumstance after, to the Rais of Ghadames, who observed: "If you had brought a thousand loaves, all would have ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... at meetings hundreds of miles off, in the red velvet gown. And to hear the people crying 'Yes, me Lard!' and 'No, me Lard!' and to read the prodigious accounts of his Lordship in the papers: it seemed as if the people and he liked to be taken in by this twopenny splendour. Twopenny magnificence, indeed, exists all over Ireland, and may be considered as the great characteristic of the Snobbishness of ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... familiarly dealt with; and though too much familiarity certainly breeds contempt, we are only following the fashion of the day, in rendering science somewhat contemptible, by the strange liberties that publishers of Penny Cyclopaedias, three-halfpenny Informations, and twopenny Stores of Knowledge, are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... saying to me, "Look at the price of fresh eggs, and how much nicer it is to have your own." It is a curious thing about the country that people are always giving one disinterested advice in the matter of domestic economy. In London it is different. In London people let you take a twopenny bus ticket to Westminster instead of walking across the Park, and go to ruin in your own sweet way. They rather admire your dash. But in the country they tell you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... with the bills.] So this is the way the money goes! [Banging the bills.] While I have to smoke twopenny cigars! And can't ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... "How to Manage Twopenny Eggs" is the headline of a morning paper. A good plan is to grip them firmly round the neck and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... policeman pay his fare?" inquired the old gentleman on the twopenny tram, observing that no money passed between the constable and ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... building intended for use as a Concert Hall, &c., will soon be opened in Snow Hill, to be conducted on temperance principles.—A series of popular Monday evening concerts was commenced in the Town Hall, Nov. 12, 1844, and was continued for nearly two years.—Twopenny weekly "Concerts for the People" were started at the Music Hall, Broad Street (now Prince of Wales' Theatre), March 25, 1847, but they did not take well.—Threepenny Saturday evening concerts in Town Hall, were begun ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... has just occurred to me—that this is a quadruple letter, and that Elstree may not be within the twopenny post. Pray Heaven ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Scrap, Flap (what d'ye call him), Trapp,(5) your Chancellor's chaplain. 'Tis called A Character of the Present Set of Whigs, and is going to be printed, and no doubt the author will take care to produce it in Ireland. Dr. Freind was with me, and pulled out a twopenny pamphlet just published, called The State of Wit,(6) giving a character of all the papers that have come out of late. The author seems to be a Whig, yet he speaks very highly of a paper called the Examiner, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... him?" The stranger addressed Bessie with the utmost familiarity, in a deliberate, explanatory tone. "I didn't want to startle the old man." He lowered his voice as though he had known her for years. "I dropped into a barber's on my way, to get a twopenny shave, and they told me there he was something of a character. The old man has been a character ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... such queer ideas," thought Queen Selina, as the chariot rapidly receded from sight. "As if that twopenny-halfpenny pendant of Miss Heritage's could—but the Court Godmother will be annoyed if I don't follow her advice—and it's best not to offend the old creature. I'll go up and see if it's ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... it again into the bottle, together with a silver twopenny piece of 1772. Having covered the mouth of the bottle with a leaden cap, he placed it, the next morning in a pile of stones, erected for the purpose, upon a little eminence on the north shore of the harbour, and near to the place where it ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... you," he replied, "that you might trade your lawful right in the lady for a twopenny whistle and not lose ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... venture to state, of a far superior order, both as to drama and as to morality. It is not a mere lantern-hall, close and stuffy, with twopenny and fourpenny seats (half-price to children, and tea provided free at matinee performances), but a white-and-gold Picturedrome, catering to an exclusive class of patrons at sixpence and a shilling, with neat attendants in dove-grey who atomise scent about the aisles, two palms, one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... else matters a straw. If you love him enough to trust him with the whole of the rest of your life, you can surely trust him over a twopenny-halfpenny little secret which, after all, has nothing in the world to do with you. If you can't, do you know what ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... fish, as Sprat, Herring, Salmon; or the name of a thing, as Ginger, Hay, Wood; or of a colour, as Black, Gray, White, Green; or of a sound, as Bray; or the name of a month, as March, May; or of a place, as Barnet, Baldock, Hitchen; or the name of a coin, as Farthing, Penny, Twopenny; or of a profession, as Butcher, Baker, Carpenter, Piper, Fisher, Fletcher, Fowler, Glover; or a Jew's name, as Solomons, Isaacs, Jacobs; or a personal name, as Foot, Leg, Crookshanks, Heaviside, Sidebottom, Ramsbottom, Winterbottom; or a long name, as Blanchenhagen or Blanchhausen; ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... to be how to while away that hour. Well!—there was the Twopenny Tube. At that time it was new, and an excitement. Our friend had exactly fourpence in his pocket. That would take him to anywhere and back before the Bank closed. And also he could put some of that eau-de-Cologne on his face and hands. He had on ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... single blow, and to rise to the highest height of genius in the biggest battle that ever was fought, a mother of battles! But the Parisians wanting to save their trumpery skins, and afraid for their twopenny shops, open their gates and there is a beginning of the ragusades, and an end of all joy and happiness; they make a fool of the Empress, and fly the white flag out at the windows. The Emperor's closest friends among his generals forsake him at last and go over to ...
— The Napoleon of the People • Honore de Balzac
... the cup, if she's fit. They don't know much about her this way, either, though she's own sister to Boots, that won the Chester Cup last year, owing to Topham's being swindled into letting him off with seven lbs. He ran at the York Spring, you see, for a twopenny-halfpenny plate, and the boy that rode him pulled his head half off—I saw him do it—and then he won the Chester, and brought his owners a ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... time when the fortunes of the Cause were at their lowest ebb. Waldo Orpington is a frivolous little fool who chirrups at drawing-room concerts and can recognise bits from different composers without referring to the programme, but all the same he occasionally has ideas. He didn't care a twopenny fiddlestring about the Cause, but he rather enjoyed the idea of having his finger in the political pie. Also it is possible, though I should think highly improbable, that he admired Lena Dubarri. Anyhow, when Lena gave a rather gloomy ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... really one of the play's failures, it is so trivial and unspiritual and vulgar. And it was spoilt for me from the first. When I was a child I went to the twopenny travelling theatre to see Hamlet. The Ghost had on a helmet and a breastplate. ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... never heard you when you spoke to her, 'cause she was always trying to hear what some seedy old fool would be whispering to her across the counter. Then there were waitresses, and their notion of waiting was to spend an hour talking to a twopenny cup of coffee, and to look haughty and insulted whenever anybody as really wanted something ventured to ask for it. A frizzle-haired cashier used to make love all day out of her pigeon-hole with the two box-office boys from ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... after Tim's departure, I received a letter from him by the twopenny post. He had made the acquaintance of the gipsy, but had not extracted any information, being as yet afraid to venture any questions. He further stated that his new companion had no objection to a glass or two, and that he had no doubt but that ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... stud at Hampton was doomed to be sold, and the sale thereof created something of a sensation. On this subject there is, in a little twopenny weekly magazine, called The Torch, 9 Sep., '37 (vol. i., p. 19), a periodical now long forgotten, a poem by Tom Hood, which I have not seen in any collection of his poems. ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... stable, agreed to pass the time, until the weather should clear up, over a bowl of rumbo, which was accordingly prepared. But the fourth, refusing to join their company, took his station at the opposite side of the chimney, and called for a pint of twopenny, with which he indulged himself apart. At a little distance, on his left hand, there was another group, consisting of the landlady, a decent widow, her two daughters, the elder of whom seemed to be about the age of fifteen, and a country lad, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... through a perilous path of fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves, skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe drawers agape, and cast clothes a-sweetening in the sun. But the crowd is really too thick to walk amongst. As we are on pleasure bent, let us be recklessly extravagant and take a twopenny ride on ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... had come to an agreement, like the simple young men who combine to maintain a twopenny baggage, she would have cost ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... practise these and punishments to those who don't. The Potter God will save you if you please him; that means he'll save your body from danger and not let you starve. Potterism has no notion of a God who doesn't care a twopenny damn whether you starve or not, but does care whether you're following the truth as you see it. In fact, Potterism has no room for Christianity; it prefers the God of the Old Testament. Of course, with their abominable cheek, the Potterites have taken Christianity ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... a long story. He's run with the hare and hunted with the hounds too long, and there's no man more hated between here and the Foyle. His life's not worth a twopenny-piece." ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... Dennis Wayman; I didn't bolt with the swag—not sixpence of Valentine Jernam's money have I had the spending of; no even what I won from him at cards. I was nobbled one day, without a moment's warning, on a twopenny-halfpenny charge of burglary—never you mind whether it was true, or whether it was false—that ain't worth going into. I was took under a false name, and I stuck to that false name, thinking it more convenient. I should have sent to let you know, if I could have found a safe hand to take ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... trouble getting my own legs away from the inn than I have getting my piebald horse out of the stable. Oh, if I only dared drink another pennyworth! Who knows but Jacob Shoemaker might trust me for a penny or two, if I begged enough? Hey, Jacob! Another twopenny ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... There was to be preaching as often as the Ordinary thought fit: if the Rector could not preach he must find a substitute who could. Plain expositions of the sacraments were made out, were to be read aloud to the congregations, and were published at twopence ("The Twopenny Faith"). Administration of the Eucharist except by priests was to be punished by excommunication. {98a} Knox himself desired death for others than true ministers who celebrated the sacrament. {98b} His "true ministers," about half-a-dozen of them at this time, of ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... closely-printed columns of the paper to local news, which are not read by one-twentieth part of those who purchase it. Each small town in Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as elsewhere, would have its penny or twopenny newspaper, in which local news, local politics, and local talent, would have fair play; while large papers, like the Manchester Guardian or the Leeds Mercury, would be greatly improved by the change. They would be enabled to substitute good readable matter, literary ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... process. I have known it conjoined with a declarator of marriage.—Your beef is excellent,' he said to my father, who in vain endeavoured to resume his legal disquisition; 'but something highly powdered—and the twopenny is undeniable; but it is small swipes—small swipes—more of hop than malt-with your leave, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... same time, Mr Vanslyperken had made up his mind that a lad who could be floated out to the Nab buoy and back again without sinking—who could have a bullet through his head without a mark remaining—and who could swallow a whole twopenny-worth of arsenic without feeling more than a twinge in his stomach, was not so very easy to be made away with. That the corporal's vision was no fiction, was evident—the lad was not to be hurt by mortal man; but although the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Stag o' Tyne. The poor wretches had a miserable hovel of an inn to their own part on the western outskirts of the Chase, a place by the sign of the Hand and Hatchet, where they ate their rye-bread and drank their sour Clink, when they could muster coppers enough for a twopenny carouse. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Susanna' had been an established puppet play for more than two generations. An old copy of verses on Bartholomew Fair in the year 1665, describing the penny and twopenny puppet plays, or, as they had been called in and since Queen Elizabeth's time, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... bowels when you have the least reason to fear that bad water may bring gastric fever to you or yours. If there is any tendency to constipation get some liquorice, and boil it thoroughly with about half an ounce of senna leaves to a twopenny stick. Strain well, and let all in any danger have a teaspoonful of this thrice a day. It will do wonders in keeping matters in a good state within. If possible, give a good rubbing all over once a week with hot vinegar, and ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... to Banbury Cross, To see what Tommy can buy; A penny white loaf, a penny white cake, And a twopenny apple pie. ...
— Young Canada's Nursery Rhymes • Various
... you must keep moving all night continually, whereby you avoids the hact; or else you goes to a twopenny-rope shop and gets a lie down. And your bundle you'd best leave at my house. Twopenny-rope society a'n't particular. I'm going off my beat; you walk home with me and leave your traps. Everybody knows me—Costello, V ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... development of their nature all partook, from the congresses of mighty monarchs down to those humbler but not less majestic types of the predominant influence, which, in the expressive language of that age, were recognised as twopenny goes. It is known only to those whose researches have led them through the intricacies of that phase of human progress, how multifarious and varied were the forms in which the inner spirit, objectively at work in mankind, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... the refreshment tent, and blundered as far as offering her a twopenny ice-cream at the ice-cream stall. He was beginning to realize that she took her pleasures differently from most girls he knew; he felt disappointed and ill at ease with her—it would be dreadful if she went home and told Joanna ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... was queer to remark the change that had taken place in Mrs. Hoggarty's character now: for whereas she was in the country among the topping persons of the village, and quite content with a tea-party at six and a game of twopenny whist afterwards,—in London she would never dine till seven; would have a fly from the mews to drive in the Park twice a week; cut and uncut, and ripped up and twisted over and over, all her old gowns, flounces, caps, and fallals, and kept my poor Mary from morning till night altering ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... do; and the Gloria folk have heard of it already, I can tell you; and in their stupid outsider sort of way they go on as if their little twopenny-halfpenny Republic were being made an occasion for great state alliances on the part ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Travellers' Twopenny in Gas Works Garding,' this thing explains. 'All us man-servants at Travellers' Lodgings is named Deputy. When we're chock full and the Travellers is all a-bed I come out for my 'elth.' Then withdrawing into the road, and taking aim, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... the public seems to me to lie in the hands of the Examiners. I told Mr. Forster so, ages ago, when he talked to me about the gradual increase of the expenditure, and I have been confirmed in my opinion by all subsequent experience. What the people who read the reports may say, I should not care one twopenny d— if I had to administer ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... laughter; but Merton in a most gentlemanly manner said to Gowing: "I don't think you quite understand me. I intended to convey that our charming host and hostess were superior to the follies of fashion, and preferred leading a simple and wholesome life to gadding about to twopenny-halfpenny tea-drinking afternoons, ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... Scourge," he edited "The Bon Ton" magazine, and "Quizzical Gazette," and was author of a sea song once popular, "The King is a true British Sailor." He was an irreclaimable drunkard, thought only of the necessities of the hour, and slept in the fields when his finances would not admit of payment of a twopenny lodging in St. Giles's. His largest work was "Johnny Newcome in the Navy," for which the publisher gave him the generous remuneration of a shilling a day till he finished it. He died in ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... a twopenny trumpet, bought years ago in the village fair; and over it she and Captain Johnson tell, as best they can, between them, the story of Jackanapes's ride across the Goose Green; and how he won Lollo—the Gypsy's Lollo—the racer Lollo—dear ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... history of the bidding at these scenes of competition. It has been remarked as a singular circumstance that in the seventeenth century penny biddings were usual; but it was the silver penny of those days, and we have to remember the higher purchasing value of money. Twopenny and threepenny advances succeeded, and although these have long ceased in London, they yet survive in the provinces, where the lots are less important. Some of the principal houses now decline even sixpence, ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... still a part of the great world; something depended on me. Fifty-six? yes, but what was that? Many men are at their best at fifty-six. So exhilarated was I, that just before I mounted the omnibus—it was a cold morning, but I would not ride inside—I treated myself to a twopenny cigar. My excitement soon wore off. I could not so far forget myself as not to make suggestions now and then, and Jackman took a delight in snubbing me. It was a trial to me also to sit with the clerks. We had never set ourselves up as grand people at Stockwell, but I ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... reasonable, Mary," roared the gallant soldier, becoming a rich purple. "I know my duty, thank God! and I'm going to do it. When a man insults my daughter, it's my duty, as a gentleman and an officer, to give him a jolly good thrashing. When that twopenny sawbones of a doctor was rude to you, I licked him within an inch of his life. I kicked him till he begged for mercy; and if more men had the courage to take the law into their own hands, there'd be fewer damned blackguards in ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... remotely suggests the various flow of the hexameter. Translators who employ verse give us a feeble Homer, dashed with their own conceits, and moulded to their own style. Translators who employ prose "tell the story without the song," but, at least, they add no twopenny "beauties" and cheap conceits of ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... purchasing old linen rags for the paper-makers, etc., etc. We kept no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long time break and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress, in spite of principle: being call'd one morning to breakfast, I found it in a China bowl, with ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... not spend any of his money on drink; but he spent a lot on what he called 'The Cause'. Every week he bought some penny or twopenny pamphlets or some leaflets about Socialism, which he lent or gave to his mates; and in this way and by means of much talk he succeeded in converting a few to his party. Philpot, Harlow and a few others used to listen with interest, and some of them even paid for the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... that's true, how does it happen?" asked Dyck, with a little flash of interest. "Why should this little twopenny, one-horse place— I mean in size and furnishments—have such luck as to get the best there is in France? It means a lot of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
