"Fourpence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ladies' Clubs in Berlin all flourishing. The subscription to the Berliner Frauenklub is only six marks a year, yet it provides the members with comfortably furnished rooms and well cooked meals at low prices. A member of this club can dine for ninepence, and have a hot dish from fourpence to sevenpence. She has access to a library of 1300 volumes, to the leading papers and reviews, and to magazines in four languages. She can entertain women at the club, but not men; though she can meet men there at certain hours of the day. Social gatherings of ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... them, within y'e town of Dochester, y'e year ensuing, until our meeting in May next, and bring in their scalps with y'e ears on unto y'e town treasurer, shall be paid by y'e town treasurer Fourpence for every ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things. Johnson was impolite, not because he wanted benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller to him than to people who had never known what it was to live for fourpence ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cleanliness since these gentlemen were satisfied. So the bargain was struck, and I ordered tea to be ready in an hour, while I went back to the station to fetch up my luggage. A porter brought it up for eightpence (saving fourpence on a cab, my boy!) and so I found myself in the heart of Birchespool with a base of operations secured. I looked out of the little window of my lodgings at the reeking pots and grey sloping roofs, with a spire or two spurting up among ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... that, under the administration of a paternal aunt who died intestate, your client is entitled to two thousand five hundred pounds eight shillings and sixpence, Three per Cents.; one thousand five hundred pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence, Three per Cents., Reduced; one thousand pounds, Long Annuities; five hundred pounds, Bank Stock; three thousand five hundred pounds, India Stock, besides other securities, making up about ten thousand pounds, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... walked away with in broad daylight, and never so much as the flick of a coat-tail seen. Those are the sort of men I'm thinking of, not the bricklayer out of work, who smashes a window and gets ten years for breaking open a cheesemonger's till with nine and fourpence ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... newspaper is the natural enemy of despotic government, and was treated as such in England. Down to 1765 the duty imposed was only one penny, but as newspapers grew in influence the restraining tax was increased from time to time, until in 1815 it reached the maximum of fourpence." At this figure the tax seems to have continued many years, for under the year 1836 Mackenzie refers to it as such, and remarks, "that this rendered the newspaper a very occasional luxury to the working man; that the annual circulation ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... brought before the Legislature at its late memorable session. The Assembly, at this epoch, was unusually well-informed, and, having passed many other wise and wholesome enactments, it crowned all with the Cat-Act. In its original form, this law offered a premium for cat-heads (fourpence a-piece), but the Senate succeeded in amending the main clause, so as to substitute the word "tails" for "heads." This amendment was so obviously proper, that the House concurred in it ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... them with ready money, they turn factors, and take threepence or fourpence in the shilling brokerage. And here let me take notice of one very heinous abuse, not to say petty felony, which is practised in most of the great families about town, which is, when the tradesman gives ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... surprise. 'Why, there's seventeen and fourpence farthing here,' he said. 'Do you mean to say you two have been out for a week, and only spent two and ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... fourpence and takes your choice," I said, with an intended grandiloquent sweep of my hand towards the dozen derelict beds. We selected two that lay in an alcove at the end of the room farthest from the door, and turned in. In a few ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... will be thrown in the donor's face. Every factory must keep a barrel of spirits ready broached if the agents would buy eggs and yams, and the poorest negro comes regularly with his garrafa. The mixed stuff costs per bottle only a hundred reis ( fourpence), and thoroughly demoralizes the ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... o' oatmeal like Grandfeyther Grieve lived on, boil it for mysel, wi a sup o' milk, perhaps, an soom salt or treacle to gi it a taste. An I'll buy apples an pears an oranges cheap soomwhere, an store 'em. Yo mun ha a deal o' fruit when yo doan't ha meat. Fourpence!' cried Davy, his enthusiasm rising, 'I'll live on thruppence a day, as sure as yo're sittin theer! Seven thruppences is one an nine; lodgin, two shillin—three an nine. Two an three left over, for cloos, firin, an pocket money. Why, I'll be rich before ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in, 'Mr. Dusautoy is at the door. There is such a to do. All the women have been getting gin with their penny club tickets, and Mrs. Brock has been stealing the money, and Mr. Dusautoy wants to know if you paid up three-and-fourpence for ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, 'If I go into a cheesemonger's shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment'—at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... pounds and fourpence a week," an applicant told the Willesden Police Court, "out of which I give my wife three pounds." The man may be a model husband, of course, but before taking it for granted we should want to know what he does ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... women and children running along the banks selling eggs and fowls; as the demand has risen the prices have also advanced, and whereas at the opening of the campaign one could buy a dozen eggs for fourpence, by January 1917, I have seen officers pay twopence each or more. It is scarcely safe to jump ashore, as any moment the boat may launch out again into the middle of the stream, but when tied up by the ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... defect is the cause why the army has been so indifferently fed, clothed and paid. It is the cause, likewise, of the nerveless state of the campaign, and the insecurity of the country. Now, if a tax equal to thirteen and fourpence per head, will remove all these difficulties, and make people secure in their homes, leave them to follow the business of their stores and farms unmolested, and not only drive out but keep out the enemy from the country; ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... we were permitted to buy what we could, but I may say that it was very little because the buffet attempted to rob us unmercifully. A tiny sandwich cost fourpence, while a small basin of thin and unappetising soup, evidently prepared in anticipation of our arrival, was just as expensive. Still the fact remains that throughout the whole railway journey the German authorities never supplied us ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... "and buy them, too. I know of several lodging-houses where I could hire a baby from fourpence to a shilling a day. The prettier the child is the better; should it happen to be a cripple, or possessing particularly thin arms and face, it is always worth a shilling. Little girls always demand a higher price ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... should have! I'd bake the cakes and manage the refreshment stall! Tea and coffee, threepence a cup; lemonade, fourpence; fruit salad, sixpence ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... or three shake-down-beds upon the floor, to the more substantial landlord with his ten or twenty houses, and two or three hundred beds. Among these the houseless wanderer may find shelter, from a penny to three halfpence, twopence, threepence, fourpence, and sixpence a night, on beds of iron, wood, and straw, or on that more lofty couch a hammock; and some (that is, the penny-a-night lodger) have often no softer resting place than the hard floor. This common lodging-house business is a thriving trade; only small capital is required, ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... fittest, and therefore were unlikely to survive. You would have supposed that in a district that never ceases to grumble about bad trade and unemployment, thousands of boys would have been delighted to buy the Daily at fourpence a dozen and sell it at sixpence. But it ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Isaac, "and it's plenty. There's ninepence for your dinner, fourpence for your tea, and twopence for a crust o' bread and cheese for supper. And if you must go and drown yourselves in beer, that leaves threepence each to go and do ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... by a spirit of barbarous revenge. In 1626 the wages of seamen in the Royal Navy were increased to twenty shillings a-month, and of ordinary seamen to fourteen shillings, besides an allowance to a chaplain of fourpence, to a barber twopence, and to the Chest at Chatham of sixpence per month. A clerk and a keeper of all the king's stores and storehouses at Chatham, Portsmouth, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... Way, number two thousand and seventeen. Better make a note of it on y'r card. You, nought nought nought, type seven, sixty-four, b.c.d., gamma forty-one, female; you 'ave to go to the Metal-beating Company and try that for a day—fourpence bonus if ye're satisfactory; and you, nought seven one, type four, seven hundred and nine, g.f.b., pi five and ninety, male; you 'ave to go to the Photographic Company on Eighty-first Way, and learn something or other—I ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... scribe was at me before I was dressed. It was the small debt again. The Chinaman knew better than to seize the man; that would not have paid; he seized his coat, and actually was detaining that as ransom for a sum equal to fourpence English! He made a direct appeal to me to pay it, and of course I did it; though I was a little disgusted with the man's meanness, as I had given him a present of money amounting to about 1l. a few days before. This son of his is a great ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... that there is a poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in denying it. This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the papers which he meant to ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... hobbling along, As though he some cripple was mocking, To join in the blackguard throng, That met at Wednesbury cocking. He borrowed a trifle of Doll, To back old Taverner's grey; He laid fourpence-halfpenny to fourpence, He lost and ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... supper. We played for about an hour and a half, by the end of which time George had won fourpence - George always is lucky at cards - and Harris and I had lost ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... to become any one's guest, he eats little, and drinks in great moderation; then hurries on, never remaining long in one place. When at Hamburg, Dantzig, and elsewhere, money has been offered him, he never took more than two shillings (fourpence, one farthing), and at once distributed it to the poor, as token that he needed no money, for God would provide for him, as he rued the sins he had ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... to speak of my affairs like that," I said, as if I were quite stupid; "I mean to pay fourpence for every twopence—both to ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... fourpence on the counter," muttered the chemist, pulling the quilt over him. "Put it away in the till, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Stokeley to-morrow,' she went on, 'and if you liked I could get some print and make it a few frocks. I saw some very neat at fourpence three-farthings that would wash beautiful, and a good stout flannel at elevenpence. Oh! not like that,' she said as he laid a finger on some soft Saxony flannel with a pink edge which lay on the table. 'Something more serviceable for ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... naught nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you what I'll ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... pound of raisins and almonds mixed together, which they chanced to see in a fruiterer's window. The cost of the whole, the boys found, when they came to foot up the account, was only two shillings and fourpence. ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... Psalter was finished which cost 54$605 or L12, at the rate of 6$000, L1, 6s. 8d. for each of four large headings, forty illuminated letters with vignettes at 2s. 2d. each, a hundred and fifteen without vignettes at fivepence-halfpenny, two hundred and three in red, gold, and blue at fourpence-farthing, eighty-four drawn in black at twopence, and 2846 small letters at the beginning of each verse at less than one farthing. Next March this Psalter was brought back to Thomar on a mule whose hire was two shillings and twopence—a sum small enough for a journey of well over a hundred ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... guns cost fourpence, and dominoes threepence halfpenny; it seemed to her, therefore, that Tommy was defrauding her ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... for you in the meat line, my dear," said her parent. "I don't indulge in meat more than once a week myself, but we'll take it out in fish. Fish is cheap and plentiful in Dawlish, and we can get dear little crabs for fourpence apiece." ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... petitions were presented to Parliament in favour of Mr. Hill's plans, and eventually they were adopted and became law by the 3rd and 4th Vict., cap. 96. The new postage law by which the uniform rate of fourpence per letter was tried as an experiment, came into operation on the 5th of December, 1839, and on the 10th January, 1840, the reduced uniform rate of 1d. per letter of half-an-ounce weight was commenced. Under the new system the privilege of franking letters enjoyed by members of Parliament was ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... clearly relishes the fight, and in some cases cannot be induced to abandon it. The old proconsular seat was draped, and occupied by the prefet and madame, and the sous-prefet. The spectators went where they liked, men paid fourpence, women threepence for admission. The arena was enclosed within a screen ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... New Inn Hall Street. When they reached the North Gate, they had to wait to go out, for it was just then blocked by a drove of cattle, each of which had to pay the municipal tax of a halfpenny, and they were followed by a cart of sea-fish, which paid fourpence. The gate being clear, they passed through it, Flemild casting rather longing looks down Horsemonger Street (the modern Broad Street), where a bevy of young girls were dancing, while their elders sat at their doors and looked on; but she did not attempt ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... to distance. There was a company in London that carried letters from one part of that town to another for twopence apiece, and this was the cheapest post in England. A letter from London to Otterbourne cost eightpence, and one from Winchester either threepence or fourpence, one from Devonshire elevenpence, and this was paid not by the sender, but by the receiver. It was reckoned impolite to prepay a letter. Moreover, the letter had to be on a single sheet. The sheet might be of any ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... WATTS, ESQUIRE, by his Will dated 22nd August, 1579, founded this Charity for Six Poor Travellers, who, not being Rogues or Proctors, May receive gratis for one Night Lodging, Entertainment, and Fourpence each. ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... learning, some of whom at least certainly had other objects in view independent of those which ostensibly appeared. Whoever was desirous of joining the brotherhood, was bound to remain in it thirty-four days, and to have fourpence per day at his own disposal, so that he might not be burthensome to any one; if married, he was obliged to have the sanction of his wife, and give the assurance that he was reconciled to all men. The Brothers of the Cross were not permitted ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... a day), walking about and enjoying colour effects and the oddities of the streets (which cost him nearly nought), and reading: there were three shops of Putney where all that is greatest in literature could be bought for fourpence-halfpenny a volume. Do what he could, he could not read away more than ninepence a week. He was positively accumulating money. You may say that he ought to have compelled Alice to accept money. The idea never occurred to him. In his scheme of things money ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... carried off as soon as possible, to be sold as manure for ploughed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead cats are comprised. They are, generally, the perquisites of the women searchers. Dealers come to the wharf, or dust-field, every evening; they give sixpence for a white cat, fourpence for a colored cat, and for a black one according to her quality. The "hard-ware" includes all broken pottery, pans, crockery, earthenware, oyster-shells, &c, which are ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... think it will compel submission. "We will make out a case, and send the police to drag you off to gaol!" they yell; and sometimes there is risk of serious trouble, for a case can be made out cheaply in India. But this did not promise to be serious, so we inquired the stolen sum. It came to fourpence halfpenny, which we paid for the sake of peace, though she told them where the money was, and we found out later that she ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... hands of an enemy. I found everything much dearer than when I was here in 1780. Sheep cost four Spanish dollars each and were so small that it answered better to purchase the mutton for the ship's daily use at fourpence ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... "working-men's Metropole" almost opposite Baruch Emanuel's shop, and papered its outside walls with moral pictorial posters, headed, "Where have you been to, Thomas Brown?" "Mike and his moke," and so on. Here, single-bedded cabins could be had as low as fourpence a night. From the journals in a tobacconist's window Esther gathered that the reading-public had increased, for there were importations from New York, both in jargon and in pure Hebrew, and from a large poster in Yiddish and English, announcing ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... listened with perseverant and praiseworthy patience, though (as I was afterwards told, in complaining of certain gales that were not altogether ambrosial,) it was a melting day with him. And what, sir! (he said, after a short pause,) might the cost be? only FOURPENCE, (O! how I felt the anti-climax, the abysmal bathos of that FOURPENCE!) 'only fourpence, sir, each number, to be published on every eighth day'. That comes to a deal of money at the end of a year; and how much did you say there was to be for the money? Thirty-two pages, sir! large octavo, closely ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... she set before them; for they knew that their father, the breadwinner, was away, and that she had to work sore for their bit and drap. I dare say, the only vexation that ever she had from any of them, on their own account, was when Charlie, the eldest laddie, had won fourpence at pitch-and-toss at the school, which he brought home with a proud heart to his mother. I happened to be daunrin' by at the time, and just looked in at the door to say gude-night: it was a sad ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... ma'am; you are very kind," replied Katy; and her nimble fingers had soon made a nice little parcel for the lady, who gave her a fourpence. ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... time (and this is a thing that often comes with food and with rest) they had made me feel the fatigue of so long a night. I rose up, therefore, determined to find some place where I could sleep. I asked this friend of mine how much there was to pay, and he said 'fourpence'. Then we exchanged ritual salutations, and I took the road. I did not leave the town or village without noticing one extraordinary thing at the far end of it, which was that, whereas most places in France are proud of their town-hall and make a great show of it, here in Flavigny they had ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... soon as we see a nice place,' said Anthea. 'I've got threepence, and you boys have the fourpence each that your trams didn't cost the other day, so we can buy things to eat. I expect the ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... brought back to his old home. Any tax, too, fell more heavily on the poor than the rich. One tax, especially, called the poll tax, which was made when Richard was sixteen, vexed them greatly. Everyone above fifteen years old had to pay fourpence, and the collectors were often very rude and insolent. A man named Wat Tyler, in Kent, was so angry with a rude collector as to strike him dead. All the villagers came together with sticks, scythes, and flails; ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... paper. On making inquiry, he ascertained that there were two tons and a half to be disposed of, and that an equal quantity had already been sold, for the purpose of converting it into pasteboard. The vendor said he could get fourpence a pound for the whole, and that it made capital Bristol board. The fact was mentioned by a member of the Council of the Royal Society, and they thought it necessary ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... a time-table showed that the price of Pauline Roper's ticket would be two pounds nine shillings and fourpence halfpenny. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... you what you do, Bill. You go to a hotel, and I'll beat it down to a lodging-house on Duke Street.... Juke Street!... Remember how I ran onto Pete on the street? He told me you could get a cot down there for fourpence." ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... and sweeten with sugar. Two ounces of cocoa nibs cost a penny three-farthings, one quart of skim milk twopence (in the country one penny), two ounces of moist sugar three-farthings; thus, for about fourpence halfpenny, you may prepare sufficient cocoa for the breakfasts of four persons. This would be much wholesomer and cheaper than tea. To be sure, it would take some trouble and care to prepare it, and this should be attended ...
— A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes • Charles Elme Francatelli
... to know; many strange things he heard, and saw some that were abominable. It was to one of these last that he owed his deliverance from the Domain. For some time the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to the remaining eightpence: and he sat one morning near the Macquarrie Street entrance, hungry, for he had gone without breakfast, and wet, as he had already been for several days, when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... employed in the corn trade, especially between Egypt and Rome, were the largest of any in the Mediterranean: this probably arose from the encouragement given to this trade by Tiberius, and afterwards increased by Claudius. The former emperor gave a bounty of about fourpence on every peck of corn imported: and Claudius, during the time of the famine, made the bounty so great as, at all events, and in every instance, to secure the importers a certain rate of profit. He also used all his efforts to persuade the merchants ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... not so careful about money as a pattern boy should be. He did not say to himself, "Now I have got a sovereign which must last me fifteen weeks, therefore I may spend exactly one shilling and fourpence in each week"—and spend exactly one and fourpence in each week accordingly. He ran through his money at about the same rate as other boys did, being pretty well cleaned out a few days after he had got back ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... that as soon as Mopsa was full grown she was destined to be Queen herself. One day, just before dusk, she said to Jack: "Jack, will you give me your little purse that has the silver fourpence in it?" ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... discount of thirty per cent. will be no objection against M'Culla's proposals; because, if the charge of coinage will honestly amount to so much, and we suppose his copper notes may be returned upon him, he will be the greater sufferer of the two; because the buyer can lose but fourpence in the pound, and M'Culla must lose sixpence, which was the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... the staple foods of the nation, are good and inexpensive. For 40 centimes one may purchase a bottle of vin de gard, a thin tipple, doubtless; but what kind of claret could one buy for fourpence a quart at home? Graves I have seen priced at 50 centimes, Barsac at 60, and eau de vie is plentiful ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... at fourpence apiece, including the binding, is an excellent photogravure portrait of the Archbishop. The face is keen and scholarly, and not unpleasant. A noticeable nose, a large fluent mouth, shrewd eyes, and a high well-shaped head, make on the whole an agreeable picture. Something ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... a leisurely people rather than a nation of "hustlers" is the patience with which they submit to the long-drawn tyranny of the barber. In England, one grudges five minutes for a shave, and one pays from fourpence to sixpence; in America one can hardly escape in twenty-five minutes, and one pays (with the executioner's tip)[G] from a shilling to eighteenpence. The charge would be by no means excessive if one wanted ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... cum hif hi cant pi by septmbr but hi am trustin God der polly e asn't forgot us. hi 'm glad the poppies grew. ere's a disy hi am sendin yu hi can mike the butonoles yet. hi do sum hevry di mrs purdy gave me fourpence one di for sum i mide for her hi ad a cup of tee that di. hi am appy ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... Paris. More than once in the course of our drive, half-naked Indians produced from their waist-cloths rubies, sapphires, and emeralds for which they asked from one to four thousand rupees, and gratefully took fourpence, after a long run with the carriage, and much vociferation and gesticulation. After table-d'hote dinner at the hotel we went off to the yacht in a pilot boat; the buoys were all illuminated, and boats with four or five men in them, provided ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... fell on a Thursday, 'Bias called upon Mrs Bosenna with his rent and with the pleasing announcement that in a week or so he proposed to pay her a further sum of seven pounds eight shillings and fourpence; this being the ascertained half-year's dividend earned by the hundred pounds she had entrusted ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... you! Didn't I see you give Mr. Durfy a letther for fourpence this minit, and a bigger letther than this? and now you want me to pay elevenpence for this scrap of a thing. Do you think I'm ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... in that reign, a common labourer earned threepence-halfpenny a day; and that a fat sheep was sold, at the same time, for one shilling and twopence, and a fat hog, two years old, for three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose for twopence-halfpenny. You never read that women received a penny a day for hay-making or weeding in the corn, and that a gallon of red wine was sold for fourpence. These are matters which historians have deemed to be beneath their ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... eranambatra into ten vary-venty, each of which last is about the weight of a plump grain of rice. Four weights, marked with a government stamp, are used in weighing the money. These weights are equal, respectively, to about a half-a-dollar, a quarter-dollar, sixpence, and fourpence. Other amounts are obtained by varying these in the opposite scales and adding grains of rice. But all this forms no difficulty in Madagascar. Like most Easterns the natives there dearly love to haggle and prolong a bargain—as our travellers found to their amusement that day; ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... consolidate the paper duties and to reduce their amount in a manner which he proceeded to explain; and after accounting for L200,000, the balance of the surplus he intended to apply to the reduction of the stamp on newspapers. The duty minus the discount was fourpence, which he proposed to reduce to a penny, and to give of course no discount. The reader must not suppose from the foregoing, however, that all the proprietors of newspapers of that day paid the duty; on the contrary, the large majority evaded it in ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... shillings and sixpences by sheer thoughtlessness? Servants and small clerks, to whom shillings and sixpences are of consequence. Did you ever hear of Rothschild or Baring dropping a fourpenny-piece down a gutter-hole? Fourpence in Rothschild's pocket is safer than fourpence in the pocket of that woman who is crying stale shrimps in Skeldergate at this moment. Fortified by these sound principles, enlightened by the stores of written information in my commercial ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... said with lots of scorn, "Fourpence!!"—just like that. Then he said the money was to go to buy things for the Indian troops, and what would they think of fourpence? Old Jones minimus said sixpence when he got his pocket-money on Saturday; then the Head ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... of every one around her,—he said to Butler, "Py the py, minister, I have a letter here either for your canny pody of a wife or you, which I got when I was last at Glasco; the postage comes to fourpence, which you may either pay me forthwith, or give me tooble or quits in a ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... "So you confess that you are a vile scoundrel!" he exclaimed. "You confess that you purchased an old promissory note of mine for fourpence, and then sent a man here to seize my goods! Ah! you'd like to trample the poor under foot, would you! Very well. I have you now, and I'll settle your account! Take that!" And so saying, he dealt his supposed creditor a terrible blow with his clinched ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... which to brace up my saw in the frame, I asked for a "fip's" worth of cord. The man behind the counter looked rather sharply at me, and said with equal sharpness, "You don't belong about here." I was alarmed, and thought I had betrayed myself. A fip in Maryland was six and a quarter cents, called fourpence in Massachusetts. But no harm came from the "fi'penny-bit" blunder, and I confidently and cheerfully went to work with my saw and buck. It was new business to me, but I never did better work, or more of it, in the same ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass
... men in the Reserve have put in at least seven years' service. They go into the Reserve first for a term of five years at sixpence a day, and then (if they wish) for a term of four years at fourpence a day. Of course when the Reserves are called out they receive the same pay as regular soldiers, and their wives have separation allowances. As everyone knows, this was the first time that any ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... made into Punch for six shillings; and so in proportion to the smallest quantity, which is half-a-quartern for fourpence halfpenny. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... little rascal, can't you be polite enough to say 'Miss Clara'? What do you want with her?" continued Sebastian roughly. "She owes me fourpence," explained the boy. ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... has been offered. At Sotheby's in June 1896, Shelley's Oedipus Tyrannus, 1820, it is said, was carried under these circumstances to L130. It was, we believe, one of two copies, picked up by a well-known amateur for fourpence each. On another account—its perfectly immaculate state in boards—a large-paper copy of Byron's poems, 1807, was thought by Mr. Edward Huth not too dear at L105. It had been acquired by a London ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... Shanghai to Hankow and thence to Ichang by steamer—then by house-boat towed by coolies through wonderful gorges and one dangerous rapid to Chunking and Chengtu. In those parts the travellers always took the three principal rooms of the inn they patronised, the cost 150 cash, something less than fourpence—oranges 20 a penny—the coolies with 100 lb. loads would cover 30 to 40 miles a day—salt is got in bores sunk with bamboos to nearly a mile in depth; it takes two or three generations to sink a bore. The lecturer described the Chinese ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... bed which the Count had occupied a year previously, and undressed, and laid in it, and affectionately tucked up by her aunt, who marvelled at the fineness of her clothes, as she removed them piece by piece; and when she saw that in Mrs. Catherine's pocket there was only the sum of three and fourpence, said, archly, "There was no need of money, for the Captain ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... given by parliament to export corn when it was at low prices; wheat at six shillings and eightpence a quarter, money of that age; barley at three shillings and fourpence.[****] It appears from these prices, that corn still remained at near half its present value; though other commodities were much cheaper. The inland commerce of corn was also opened in the eighteenth of the king, by allowing any collector ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... Mrs. BARTHWICK's cook gave me a little bit of bacon. I'm going to make a stew. [She prepares for cooking.] There's fourteen shillings owing for rent, James, and of course I 've only got two and fourpence. They'll be coming ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to you for going to Jones's. I send stamps for two shillings and fourpence, which is what I owe to you. It used only to be two shillings and twopence, but they say everything has got to be dearer now, and I suppose pills as well as other things. Only think of Pritchard coming to me, and saying ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... mild cider, two or three pennyworths of meat, and a pennyworth of cheese or butter. He might ask not more than six of his friends to dine with him at the Canon's room, and their dinner was to cost not more than fourpence a head. He was not to run about the streets in his episcopal gloves, and he was obliged to attend choir and school the next day like the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... soul that was in all England; and provision made for it of 'fourpence halfpenny a day.' Yet a giant, invincible soul; a true man's. One remembers always that story of the shoes at Oxford; the rough, seamy-faced, raw-boned College Servitor stalking about, in winter season, with his shoes worn out; how the charitable Gentleman Commoner secretly places ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... star-jewelled skies. "Twice three pound is six, an' twice seventeen bob is one-fourteen. Seven pounds fourteen is wot that pore boy's crool end 'as dropped into my pocket, and I'd 'ad those best clothes ever since I got married; an' there was only eight an' fourpence in the piller o' the ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... little fourpence, a jolly, jolly fourpence, I love fourpence as my life; I spent twopence of it, I spent twopence of it, And I took twopence home ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... back for Wellington, down through the wide and rather dreary-looking Hutt Valley. They were broke. They carried their few remaining belongings in two skimpy, amateurish-looking swags. Steelman had fourpence left. They were very tired and very thirsty—at least Steelman was, and he answered for both. It was Smith's policy to feel and think just exactly as ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... she was as pleasant-looking a woman as one was likely to meet between Littlebourne and London. "Going to town" was rather an event in her life, and one that called for the best gown and bonnet as well as for three-and-fourpence ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... and a sword. Also of a daily income of one loaf, butter, tea, and a pound of meat (often uneatable), and the sum of one shilling and twopence subject to a deduction of threepence a day "mess-fund," fourpence a month for delft, and divers others for library, washing, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... trifle and some excellent coffee that Robina brewed over a lamp on the table while Dick and Veronica cleared away. It was one of the jolliest little dinners I have ever eaten; and, if Robina's figures are to be trusted, cost exactly six- and-fourpence for the five of us. There being no servants about, we talked freely and enjoyed ourselves. I began once at a dinner to tell a good story about a Scotchman, when my host silenced me with a look. He is a kindly man, and had heard the story before. He explained to me afterwards, ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... the other lady to her friend, handing the man a shilling, "I owe you sixpence, you give me fourpence and I'll pay ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... said Attorney B., coolly drawing out a bill and receipt. "So, Neighbour Grace, you must pay me three and fourpence, and that settles ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... over the fire. I stole my hand into hers; she clasped it, but did not speak a word. At last she said, with forced composure in her voice, "If that bank goes wrong, I shall lose one hundred and forty-nine pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence a year; I shall only have thirteen pounds a year left." I squeezed her hand hard and tight. I did not know what to say. Presently (it was too dark to see her face) I felt her fingers work convulsively in my grasp; and I knew she was going to speak again. I heard the sobs in her ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... for the sake of argument. It makes my calculations clearer. Very well, then. You buy your hen. It lays an egg every day of the week. You sell the eggs—say—six for fivepence. Keep of hen costs nothing. Profit at least fourpence, three farthings on every half-dozen eggs. What do you think ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... prepared. Four days before his death he made and signed his will, in which he bestowed gifts and legacies with the liberality that was so marked a characteristic of his life. That crowds of poor would attend his obsequies he was probably aware, for to each poor person seeking a bounty he bequeathed fourpence, "for the love of God and his soul's health". To the Cathedral, on which he had expended so much of his genius, he left money for its completion; and bequeathed to it many precious things, including a cross of gold in which was a piece of the ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... back again, quite out of breath. "Wishing you many happy returns of the day, my dear child!" he went on, addressing the smiling little girl, who had run to meet him. "Allow me to give you a birthday-present. It's a second-hand pincushion, my dear. And it only cost fourpence-halfpenny!" ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... a moment at the door, surveying the court, then walked up to a party of boys, and laid his hand on the shoulder of one, holding a silver fourpence to him. "Anderson Junior," said he, "there's your money. I am not going to let Stoneborough School be turned into a gin palace. I give you notice, it is not to be. Now you are not to bully May junior for telling me. He did not, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... they were to go, and Mr. Dutton explained that there was only a quarter of a mile's walk from the station; that return tickets would be furnished at a tariff of fourpence a head; and that there would be trains at ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... public library in New York, from which books were loaned at fourpence ha'penny per week. New York thus became very early the seat of learning, and soon afterwards began to abuse the site where ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... masquerade. They hold assemblies at their own houses: they make sumptuous entertainments, and treat with the richest wines of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne. The substantial tradesman, who wont to pass his evenings at the ale-house for fourpence half-penny, now spends three shillings at the tavern, while his wife keeps card-tables at home; she must likewise have fine clothes, her chaise, or pad, with country lodgings, and go three times a week to public ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... expense than ever Wilmet conceived. You wrap yourself in your virtue, and refuse to spend a couple of shillings, as deeming it robbery of the fry at home. You wear out at least a shilling's worth of boot leather, pay twopence for a roll and fourpence for a more villainous compound called coffee; come home in a state of inanition, cram down a quartern loaf and a quarter of a pound of rancid butter, washed down with weak tea; and if self-satisfaction and exhaustion combined are soporific, it is only to leave you ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... grin that it was not worth while to crack their skulls over a poor wretch's old coat. The gown was torn and bloody; it was not worth a penny; but in order to end a dispute between his brave countrymen he would offer fourpence, which they could divide in peace among them. The coat was delivered over to Schobal. He went up and down in the crowd with the garment. It was the coat of the Prophet who was being executed! Who wanted a souvenir of that day? He would sell the coat for the half of ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... and equal?" Oh, NEBUCHADNEZZAR! how can they talk sech tommy-rot? Might as well say as Fiz and Four-Arf should be equally fourpence a pot. Nice hidea, but taint so, that's the wust on it. There's where these dreamers go wrong. Ought's nothink, and that as is, is; all the rest isn't wuth ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... years' service. 'Er Majesty sez: "Good day— You'll please to come when you're rung for, an' 'ere's your 'ole back pay; An' fourpence a day for baccy—an' bloomin' gen'rous, too; An' now you can make your fortune—the same as ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... are better, they say," she went on, "but it seems to me that the real thing is that there shouldn't be all this immense number of people with only fourpence or fivepence in their pocket. That's ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... across when hunting for the Statutes referred to by the Boke of Curtasye as fixing the hire of horses for carriage at fourpence a piece, and they caused me some surprise. They made me wonder less at the energy with which some people now are striving to erect "barriers against democracy" to prevent the return match for the old game coming off.—However improving, and however justly retributive, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... is not capable of rapid enunciation, and 'groat' is decidedly objectionable for designating ten farthings, as it is still sacred to fourpence in the English mind. Whatever the names, the full enunciation of them at first would appear stiff and solemn; but abbreviated modes of expression would soon be established. 'Four-two' would be understood as L.4, 2 (florins), while 'four and two' would convey four florins, two cents. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... the "king's evil," as scrofula used to be called. Our honored friend The Dictator will tell you that the brother of one of his Andover schoolmates was taken to one of these gifted persons, who touched him, and hung a small bright silver coin, either a "fourpence ha'penny" or a "ninepence," about his neck, which, strange to say, after being worn a certain time, became tarnished, and finally black,—a proof of the poisonous matters which had become eliminated from the system and gathered upon the coin. I remember that at one time I used to carry fourpence ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 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 part of England. Wines of moderate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are eightpence a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect. Porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. The Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the price of admission is one shilling. Of the streets, I would recommend you to see Regent Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and Cheapside. I think these will please you after ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury |
