"Shilling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... supply, are the profusion of low riot, and the idle lavishness of negligence and laziness. A fool squanders away, without credit or advantage to himself, more than a man of sense spends with both. The latter employs his money as he does his time, and never spends a shilling of the one, nor a minute of the other, but in something that is either useful or rationally pleasing to himself or others. The former buys whatever he does not want, and does not pay for what he does want. He cannot withstand the charms of a toyshop; snuff-boxes, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... blacksmith; and the Huttons were richer than the Harrisons, so that Jane had gayer bonnets and smarter dresses than Kitty and Amy. This morning she had such beautiful new ribbons that Kitty's attention was quite caught by them. And Jane too was not a little proud of them; her mother had given a shilling a yard for them at the next town. If Kitty had found it difficult to learn her lessons before, she now found it quite impossible; for in the midst of every line she could not help reckoning how many weeks' halfpence it would take, and how many times she would have ...
— Amy Harrison - or Heavenly Seed and Heavenly Dew • Amy Harrison
... thinkest the town will extoll them, Print thy dull notes; but be thrifty and wise: Instead of angels subscribed for the volume, Take a round shilling, and thank ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Hood, looking keenly upon him. "Now I believe that what thou tellest is no true tale. If I am not much mistook thou hast somewhat in the bottom of that fat sack of meal. Good Arthur, empty the bag upon the ground; I warrant thou wilt find a shilling ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... devise no more judicious mode of wreaking vengeance on his undutiful boy than by marrying the cook. The cook gave birth to a son named Joseph, who succeeded to all the lands of the family, while James was cut off with a shilling. The favorite son, however, was so extravagant that he soon became as poor as his disinherited brother. Both were forced to earn their bread by their labor. Joseph turned dancing master, and settled in Norfolk. James struck off the Mac from the beginning of his name, and set up as a portrait ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... twelve hundred a year, a fortune which, for a single man, was in that age not only easy but splendid. He continued, however, to practise the frugality which he had learned when he could scarce spare, as Swift tells us, a shilling to pay the chairman who carried him to Lord Halifax's. Though he had nobody to save for, he laid up at least as much as ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... him, though wise and good, is but a man, and would no more know how to perform a woman's duties than I should how to do a man's! What should he know of china-closets and linen chests? Why, Ishmael, he doesn't know fi'penny bit cotton from five shilling linen, and would have been as apt as not to have ordered the servants' sheets on the children's beds and vice versa; and for mamma's supper he would have been as likely to have fried pork as the broiled spring ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... father died, leaving me not only penniless, but encircled by petty obligations which have cramped every movement I would have made. I have had no time, no quiet, to make an effort such as my position requires. This day I have spent my last shilling. I am too proud to beg, and to borrow is to beg when a man is known to be in real distress. Within one hour from this time I shall be beyond all the tortures of a life which for my own sake I care little to preserve. And yet I have spent my youth in accumulating ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... throbbing of their hearts so that their sons and husbands might feel no weakness for their sakes. The fishermen of Marblehead, used to face the storms and fogs of the Newfoundland Banks; the farmers and mechanics, who could hit a Bay shilling (if one could be found in that era of paper money) at fifty paces; and the hunters, who knew the craft of the Indians and were inured to every fatigue and hardship—finer material for an army was never got together ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?" Said the piggy, "I will." So they took it away, and were married next day By the turkey who lives on the hill. They dined upon mince and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon, And hand in hand on ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... he said. 'You know I never borrow. It's against my principles. But I must have a shilling, or I'm a ruined man. I seem to have had my pocket picked by some scoundrelly blackguard. Can you, my dear fellow, oblige me with a shilling until next Tuesday afternoon at three-thirty? I never borrow, so I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll let you have this (producing a beastly little three-penny-bit ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... while he's waiting, then his journey in a nice train would be a grateful change. But no, that would be common sense—and out of place in a government. And then, besides, they save in that other little detail, you know—repudiate their own tickets, and collect a poor little illegitimate extra shilling out of you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... them both, but they are in opposite directions—one at your elbow, the other a four mile walk. Which will you see first? We'll toss for it,' taking a shilling from a pocketful of loose cash, always ready for moments of hesitation. 'Heads, house; tails, grave. Tails it is. Come and have a smoke, and see the poet's grave. The splendour of the monument, the exquisite neatness with which it is kept, will astound you, considering that we live in a period ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... occupying single rooms, had so much space to spare as to be able to take in a lodger or two. When such rooms can be rented for from three to six shillings per week, it is a fair conclusion that a lodger with references should obtain floor space for, say, from eightpence to a shilling. He may even be able to board with the sublettees for a few shillings more. This, however, I failed to inquire into—a reprehensible error on my part, considering that I was working on the basis of a ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... physic, get her tea, Get her bread and something nice; Not a penny piece had he, And scarce a shilling might suffice; No wonder that his soul was sad, When not one ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... Nor of Premium either—the necessities of the former could not extort a shilling from that benevolent Gentleman; and with the other I stood a chance of faring worse than my Ancestors, and being knocked down ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... that here was a grand specimen of the kind of Irish he had been taught to despise—the Irish that take the king's shilling, the gentlemen Irish that lead the king's cockneys into battle. And yet, strange to say, no thought of that entered his head now. He stepped up to Captain O'Hara, looked round cautiously as if expecting to be overheard, winked knowingly ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... old man looked at the child, and, as he saw the tears rolling down her checks, he seemed touched by her distress. Putting his band in his pocket, he drew out a shilling and ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... take it, Mr. Walker. But if you would give a shilling or two to poor Rummy Mitchens! you really did hurt ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... he continued, with much gravity, "if I were to make the necessary calculation—which, I may remark, would be a question in proportion running into what I may be allowed to style infinitesimal fractions—I would probably find out that the proportion payable to one would be a shilling, to another half a sovereign, to another a pound or so, while to many would accrue so small a fraction of a farthing that no suitable coin of this realm could be found wherewith to pay it. If I were to go with, say two shillings, and offer them ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... thing with me just now is time. I might give you a shilling at a pinch, but a half hour is an article which I do not happen to have about me.... By the way, your rhapsody over the East in "M.K." ["Meister Karl"] had something to do with my acceptance of the Turkish Mission; and if you ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... he should have been delighted to give the poor fellow a shilling, but most unfortunately he had left his purse ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... steam-boats start for Prescott and Bytown daily. The total expense for the transport of an adult emigrant from Quebec to Toronto and the head of Lake Ontario, by steam and Durham-boats, will not exceed 1 pound, 4 shillings currency, or 1 pound, 1 shilling sterling. Kingston, Belleville, up the Bay of Quinte, Cobourgh, and Port Hope, in the Newcastle district, Hamilton and Niagara at the head of Lake Ontario, will be convenient stopping-places for families intending to ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... campaign cost England can be figured out exactly, to the pound and shilling. She simply purchased the downfall of Russia with the loan of a few hundred ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... financial experts was delegated the power and authority to perfect a fair, impartial monetary system. First of all, they arbitrarily declared the dollar, the peso and the shilling to be without value. "Time" script was to be issued by the governing board, and as this substitute would automatically become useless on the day the castaways, were discovered and taken off the island, no citizen was to be allowed to reduce or ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... Newgate. Mediaeval Torture Chamber in full work. Grand Execution Tableaux, in the grounds; realistic renderings of punishments inflicted on RAVAILLAC, DAMIENS, &c., &c. (3 o'clock and 6.30.) Auto-da-Fe at 2.30 and 7. Admission One Shilling. Children under eight half-price. Ladies' Reserved Seats (inclusive of all Shows) One Guinea. Open 10 till 10. (Thirty thousand persons, chiefly Ladies, passed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... there were some hundred felonies in the English code of jurisprudence for which the sentence of death by hanging could be imposed. These felonies included such offenses as stealing a pig or anything of greater value than a shilling. The ruling classes of England had long realized that punishments were too severe for offenses which today would be misdemeanors; and in the fifteenth century an effort had been made to mitigate the severity ...
— Religious Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - The Faith of Our Fathers • George MacLaren Brydon
... farther off, leaving every one laughing, and his mother tenderly observing that he was going to run a quarter of a mile and back, and lose his only chance of pudding for the week—old Bishop Whichcote's rules contemplating no fare but daily mutton, to be bought at a shilling per sheep. A little private discussion ensued between Harry and Hector on the merits of the cakes at Ballhatchet's gate, and old Nelly's pies, which led the doctor to mourn over the loss of the tarts of the cranberries, that ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... enough to let me have a barrel of claret; which improved every week by travelling, and which cost only a franc a bottle: it began as a bon ordinaire, and the little that returned to Cairo ranked with a quasi-grand vin, at least as good as the four-shilling Medoc. Finally, Dr. Lowe, of Cairo, kindly prepared for us a medicine chest, containing about L10 worth of the usual drugs and appliances—calomel, tartar emetic, and laudanum; blister, plaster, and ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... saw the reappearance, for the fourth time, of the fatal dish of three compartments, for badly boiled potatoes, for peas looking poisonously green, and for cauliflower drenched with a glue-like substance, I declined, and sighed for Poledor, who nourished my studious youth on a dainty repast at a shilling per day." ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... be sent for," he ordered. "Send a bottle and four rods (value about a shilling) and messengers to ask her ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... supposed magistrate got down, not from the carriage itself, but from the box, a place which is not habitually occupied by the owner. Another unusual thing. People travelled at that period in England in two ways—by coach, at the rate of a shilling for five miles; and by post, paying three half-pence per mile, and twopence to the postillion after each stage. A private carriage, whose owner desired to travel by relays, paid as many shillings per horse per mile as the horseman paid pence. The ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... to Bet, little bits every day. I have got an ink-pot and a quill pen up in the garret, and Mr Chatterton gave me some paper from the office, but I don't think that is quite honest, so please buy me a little. I can give you a shilling,' she said, putting her hand in the large pocket which was fastened to her waist ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... been accustomed to. I do not doubt that the consumption increased from the mere fact of increased cheapness. I believe it is an invariable law of trade, that consumption increases as price diminishes. If silks were to fall to a shilling a yard, everybody would turn away from cotton shirts. As it was, shirts were made without collars, and the collars were produced in great manufactories by steam. They were made by millions, and by millions they were consumed. They were sold in boxes of a dozen or a hundred, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... In the village streets With the date and the price: one shilling; And he billed himself "Signor" because He thought he would get immense applause By the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... and discarded clerical vestments, which to some extent may account for my otherwise inexplicable distaste for things ecclesiastical. My mother was poor, after wedlock, owing to the eccentricity of a parent who was so inexorably opposed to religion that he cut her off with a shilling upon her marriage to my father. Before this she had had and done what she chose, as was fitting for a daughter of a substantial citizen who had made a fortune in ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... spared; that at this function they devoured three-fourths of a ginger-cake, and just as she was mournfully regarding the remainder my servant came in and took it off her hands; that she had kept a bakery for thirty years and her mother before her, and never had a two-shilling ginger-cake been sold in pieces before, nor was it likely ever to occur again; that if I, under Providence, so to speak, had been the fortunate gainer by the transaction, why not eat my six penny-worth in solemn gratitude once for all, and not expect a like miracle to happen the next week? And ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said) Grew tired, and but set me half way to Lasswade, While Jones, you, and I, Wat, went on without flutter, And at Symonds's feasted on good bread and butter; Where I, wanting a sixpence, you lugged out a shilling, And paid for me too, though I was most unwilling. We {p.143} parted—be sure I was ready to snivel— Jones and you to go home—I to go ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... upward the Fair came nearer to him. He did not notice it. He crossed a path and was at a turnstile. A man asked him for money. He paid a shilling and moved forward. He liked crowds; he wanted crowds now. Either crowds or no one. Crowds where he would be ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... although he would have to search among a multitude of others belonging to the same person; proving that it was not smell which guided him, but an understanding of what he was required to do. One evening, a gentleman in company with others, accidentally dropped a shilling on the floor, which, after diligent search, could not be found. Dandie had been sitting in the corner of the room, apparently unconscious of what had been going on, Mr. M'Intyre then said to him. ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... now. It is a beautiful spot, endless forest stretching along the shore as far as the eye can reach; and after driving through it for miles you come suddenly, at the end of an avenue of arching trees, upon the glistening, oily sea, with the orange-coloured sails of distant fishing-smacks shilling in the sunlight. Whenever I have been there it has been windless weather, and the silence so profound that I could hear my pulses beating. The humming of insects and the sudden scream of a jay are the only sounds in summer, and in winter the stillness is the ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... for an instant. He said in a clear voice: "I will go and get the shilling changed." And then he ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... a very high price in Chili, from the heavy freight and customs' duties. An ingenious Scotchman, named Macfarlane, set up a brewery at considerable expense, and malt costing in Chili barely a shilling per fanega (about a bushel), soon produced beer of a fine quality, at a low price. The Government forthwith imposed a duty on his beer equal to the whole freight from England, customs' dues, and his profit, the consequence being, that the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... Ale, one Barrel and a half or more, at sixteen Shillings per Barrel, that holds thirty two Gallons, from the Tun. For Intire small Beer, five or six Barrels off a Quarter, at seven or eight Shillings per Barrel from the Tun. For Pale and Amber Ale, one Barrel and a Firkin, at one Shilling per ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... men. A Bulwer Lytton lays the scene of one of his novels inside the earth instead of outside. A Rider Haggard introduces us to a lady whose age is a few years more than the average woman would care to confess to; and pictures crabs larger than the usual shilling or eighteen-penny size. The number of so called imaginative writers who visit the moon is legion, and for all the novelty that they find, when they get there, they might just as well have gone to Putney. Others are continually drawing for us visions of ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... doll was a shilling, and there were quickly added to it, boxes of toys, elaborate bead-work pincushions, polished blue and green boxes, the identical writing-case—even a small Noah's ark. Meta hardly asked the prices, which certainly were not extravagant, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... indignation by an impudent proposal to injure the business of himself and his neighbors. In England, he says, "the halfpence and farthings pass for very little more than they are worth, and if you should beat them to pieces and sell them to the brazier, you would not lose much above a penny in a shilling." But he goes on to say that Mr. Wood, whom he describes as "a mean, ordinary man, a hardware dealer"—Wood was, as we have already seen, a large owner of iron and copper mines and works, but that was all one to Dean Swift—"made his halfpence ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... "I don't want your money, you silly thing. I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... feel as if I'd come down to a cheap circus, and we were going into a country town where the big tent had been set up, and that by and by we should be all riding round the ring doing Mazeppa and the Wild Horse, or Timour the Tartar; stalls a shilling covered with ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... head]. Valkyrias find no market in this land! When the faith lately was assailed in Syria, Did you go out with the crusader-band? No, but on paper you were warm and willing,— And sent the "Clerical Gazette" a shilling. ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... has told us that a TANNER or sixpence, sometimes called a Downer, owes its pseudonym to the Gipsy word tawno or tano, meaning "little"—the sixpence being the little coin as compared with a shilling. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... supposed to exceed that of any country in the world, except Red India. If there were to be a strike of conferents or conferees, whatever they are called, in England, it is impossible to say what would happen. But it might be possible to lay down a datum line—a shilling extra for the first million words above two hundred and fifty million per shift, and two shillings more for every million words above that. Fortunately this will never be necessary, for people who confer are so fond of conferences that they will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... 1841, four years later, that he heard of, and at once procured, a book published at a shilling by the S.P.C.K. (the title of which he could not recall in after years), to which he owed his first scientific glimmerings of the vast study of botany. The next step was to procure, at much self-sacrifice, Lindley's "Elements ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... and bottles on the table, the sharp features and strained, farcical eyes of Malkiel framed in the matted, curling hair. Then all was not over yet. There was something still in store for him. He sat up, pushed the creaming four-shilling foam out of his sight, turned to his interlocutor, and with a great effort ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... my ease, so I paid my shilling and called for a prettier wench. The second was worse than the first, and I sent her away, and ten others after her, while I could see that my fastidiousness amused the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Thus, at Northfield, Deacon Ebenezer Alexander, a veteran of sixty who had served at Louisbourg, built a "mount," or blockhouse, on the knoll behind his house, and carried a stockade from it to enclose the dwelling, shed, and barn, the whole at the cost of thirty-six pounds, one shilling, and sixpence, in Massachusetts currency, which the town repaid him, his fortifications being of public utility as a place of refuge for families in case of attack. [Footnote: Temple and Sheldon, History of Northfield, 237, give ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... St. Patrick's Channel; educated a bit at Eton, a bit at Harvard; always too much money to have to make any; in love lots of times, and never a heartache after that wasn't a pleasant one, and never a real purpose in life until I took the king's shilling and earned my wings; something ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... found about a shilling and half, and in other chest his hat, 1 watch, and 2 small boxes of measuring instrument, and in each box there was one. 1 compass, 3 other kind of measuring instrument. 4 other kind of measuring instrument. And in other chest 3 drachmas and half ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... it is twenty-one shillings and sixpence. Now we know that doesn't help a man who is trying to learn. I find myself down-town somewhere, and I want to get some sort of idea where I am—being usually lost when alone—and I stop a citizen and say, "How far is it to Charing Cross?" "Shilling fare in a cab," and off he goes. I suppose if I were to ask a Londoner how far it is from the sublime to the ridiculous he would try to express it in a coin. But I am trespassing upon your time with these geological statistics ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... shilling and six-pence. 'Leastways, the debt was nine pound, and the rest was lawyers', justices' and sheriffs' fees. I callate they'll find them figgers cut into my heart, when ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... that an evening spent in listening to an oratorio may be regarded as a sort of service, and is almost as good as going to church. Every one in the audience holds a Handel piano score in the same way as one holds a prayer-book in church. These scores are sold at the box-office in shilling editions, and are followed most diligently—out of anxiety, it seemed to me, not to miss certain points solemnly enjoyed by the whole audience. For instance, at the beginning of the 'Hallelujah Chorus' it is considered proper for every one to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... its code of morals; nor did he scruple, when it served his purpose, to rob the bunglers of his own profession. By this means, indeed, he raised the standard of the Road and warned the incompetent to embrace an easier trade. While he never took a shilling without sweetening his depredation with a joke, he was, like all humorists, an acute philosopher. 'Remember what I tell you,' he said to the foolish persons who once attempted to rob him, the master-thief of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... Garibaldi, he has made a resurrection for Italy. As part of that resurrection (for no nation can live and be great without its poet) was born a true poet, Carducci. He visited the bountiful, everlasting source, and of what did he sing? Possess yourselves, as for a shilling you may, of his Ode "Alle fonte del Clitumno," and read: for few nobler poems have adorned our time. He sang of the weeping willow, the ilex, ivy, cypress and the presence of the god still immanent among them. He sang of Umbria, of the ensigns of Rome, of Hannibal swooping down ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... exclaimed the poor man, "but if they would take half, where's the money to come from? I 'arn't got a shilling in the world but what's coming to me Friday night; and when I take my wages now, I 'arn't any pleasure in looking at the money, because it 'arn't my own; it should go to pay my debts, and I'm obliged to use it to buy victuals. I think in my heart I ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... soul to the devil to accomplish any villainy, and would cut the throat of his brother, did he dare to give the villainy he had so acted its right name.—Now, why stand you amazed, good Master Jerningham, and look on me as you would on some monster of Ind, when you had paid your shilling to see it, and were staring out your pennyworth with your eyes as round as a pair of spectacles? Wink, man, and save them, and then let thy tongue untie ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... a fellow to do? Home's wretched; one never has a shilling. The guvnor's mad over his essence, as he calls it, and I believe, if he saw us starve, he would smile ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... to read and write, but under Aunt Barbree's roof he learned no more than he was minded to, and among the things he taught himself was a tolerable imitation of a hacking cough. With this and the help of a hollow tooth he could spit blood whenever he wanted a shilling. He played this game for about six months, until the poor woman—who was losing flesh with lying awake at night and wondering what would happen to her when cast out in the cold world—fixed up her courage to know the worst, and carried him off to a Plymouth doctor. The doctor advised ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fresh and exhilarating. All the country people from several leagues round were assembled, and the trees up to their very topmost branches presented a collection of bronze faces and black eyes, belonging to the Indians, who had taken their places there as comfortably as spectators in a one-shilling gallery. A platform opposite ours was filled with the wives and daughters of agents and small farmers, little rancheras, with short white gowns and rebosos. There was a very tolerable band of music, perched upon a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... and would trust my chauffeur with my last shilling," answered Allerdyke. "And as for his brother, I'll take my man's word for him. Besides, they both know—or Mr. Gaffney knows—that I'm a pretty generous paymaster. If a man does aught for me, and does it well, he profits to a ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... clock-room. The clock, which cost L300, was made by Langley Bradley in 1708. The minute-hands are 9 feet 8 inches long, and weigh 75 pounds each. The pendulum is 16 feet long, and the bob weighs 180 pounds, and yet is suspended by a spring no thicker than a shilling. The clock goes eight days, and strikes the hours on the great bell, the clapper of which weighs 180 pounds. Below the great bell are two smaller bells, on which the clock strikes the quarters. In the northern tower ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... pays money at the day appointed, beginning first at one shilling, or one pound, and so ceaseth not until he hath in current coin told over the whole sum to the creditor, does well at the beginning; but the first shilling, or first pound, not being the full debt, cannot be counted or reckoned ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not seem surprised at the abruptness of my question, and answered 'yes.' I thereupon touched his penis, and found he had an erection! I suggested retiring to a bench that was near. We sat down. I masturbated him till he experienced the orgasm; then intercrurally. I gave him a shilling, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... The livre of Tours was worth ten pence, while that of Paris was worth one shilling ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... forsook his habits of poverty and exchanged his twelve-penny seat in the theatre gallery for a place in the pit—and that on a rare occasion (doubtless when he was alone and there was but one seat to buy) he arose to the extravagance of a four-shilling box. ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... I hear about bolls of meal?" he said; "what wots this fair damosel of our rude Scots measures for oats and bear? You talk like the holder of a twenty-shilling land, James." ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the irritation caused by frivolous talk in his near neighbourhood while a serious play is in progress. On one occasion, when he sought to practise a praiseworthy economy by taking a back seat in the shilling gallery, his evening's enjoyment was well-nigh spoiled by finding the gaze of four clerks in his office steadily directed upon him from more expensive seats down below. On another occasion, when in the pit with his wife and her waiting-woman, he ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... written sooner to say that I am very willing to subscribe 1 pound 1 shilling to the African man (though it be murder on a small scale), and will send you a Post-office-order payable to Kew, if you will be so good as to take charge of it. Thanks for your information about the Antarctic Zoology; I got my numbers when in Town on Thursday: would it be asking your publisher ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... that he had not got a coin in his pocket with which to pay the postage. One of the institutions of the workhouse was, however, a kind of pawnshop kept by one of the under-masters, as they were called, and Zachariah got a shilling advanced on a pocket-knife. The letter, therefore, was duly despatched, and he gave his secretary a penny for his trouble. This led to a little further intimacy, and Zachariah asked him how he ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... empty, but is coming to dress itself for Saturday. My Lady Coventry showed George Selwyn her clothes; they are blue, with spots of silver, of the size of a shilling, and a silver trimming, and cost—my lord will know what. She asked George how he liked them; he replied, "Why, you will ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... his purse. He had, carefully stowed away, thirty shillings in gold, and of his regular pocket-money a two-shilling piece, a shilling, a threepenny bit, and some coppers. It was enough to take him some hours' distance out of London, where he would be quite as likely to find what he wanted, employment at some ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... make me pay for dinner after I've kept the table so long?" she thought in her ignorance of hotel customs. "And I've got only a shilling!" ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... "Well, believe it or not, Josiah, it 's the truth for all that. Why, talk about the land of Canaan flowin' with milk and honey! This here water 's just alive with money! Any boy could go out and haul up a shilling on his own hook ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... letter from Caelius praying for panthers.[81] In passing through the province of Asia to his own province, he declares that the people everywhere receive him well. "My coming," he says, "has cost no man a shilling."[82] His whole staff has now joined him except one Tullius, whom he speaks of as a friend of Atticus, but afterward tells us he had come to him from Titinius. Then he again enjoins Atticus to have that ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... neglect us so, Henry? We hang up our stockings every year, but he never seems to notice them. Even a diamond necklace or a few oranges or a five-shilling postal order ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... bought twenty-five pounds of potatoes at forty cents a pound, and packed them home on his back. In less than two days afterwards half a dozen cargoes had arrived, and the same vegetable was selling at a shilling a pound. The trains had been on the road several weeks, but the heavy showers, which had continued almost daily through the month of April, had ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... will find it correct, sir,' answered the shopkeeper. 'Two jellies, sixpence each, make one shilling; two custards, sixpence each, two shillings; a bottle of ginger-beer, threepence, two and threepence; one raspberry cream, sixpence, two and ninepence; three gooseberry tarts, threepence, three shillings; two strawberry tarts, three and twopence; two raspberry ditto, ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... fun o't, and 'twould be a fine sight for him," said a buxom woman. "There's no danger at all, Christian. Every man puts in a shilling apiece, and one wins a gown-piece for his wife or sweetheart ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... can't find it. But tomorrow some miserable, chinless, half-witted reptile of a caddie with pop eyes and eight hundred and thirty-seven pimples will find it, and will sell it to someone for sixpence! No, it was a brand-new ball. He'll probably get a shilling for it. That'll be sixpence for himself and sixpence for the Greens Committee. No wonder they're buying cars quicker than the makers can supply them. No wonder you see their wives going about in mink coats and pearl necklaces. Oh, dash it! ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... forty years of reign; after having exhausted everything? Every pleasure that Dubois could invent for his hot youth, or cunning Lebel could minister to his old age, was flat and stale; used up to the very dregs; every shilling in the national purse had been squeezed out, by Pompadour and Du Barri and such brilliant ministers of state. He had found out the vanity of pleasure, as his ancestor had discovered the vanity of glory: indeed, it was high time that he should die. And ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Miss Costigan's manager. Life went on in an utterly careless way: the rehearsal for the day over, the company met in cafes or beer-gardens and stayed there until it was time to move, in view of the evening performance; any one who had a shilling spent it, while those who had no shillings accepted their friends' hospitality and hoped for the good time coming. Ladies quarrelled and then kissed; gentlemen threatened to kill each other in ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... cold dew of sudden terror stole over him—suppose that young woman, that wronged young woman, Charlotte Home, should take it into her head to go and read her father's will. The will could not be put away. For the small sum of one shilling she might go and master the contents, and then the whole fraud would be laid bare. Was it likely that Mrs. Home would do this? Jasper had only seen her for a moment, but during that brief glance he read determination and fixity of purpose ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... Lawyers.—It used to be said that four lawyers were wont to go down from Lincoln's Inn and the Temple in one hackney coach for one shilling. The following ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... and shifting from one foot to the other in his excitement, "don't give it; refuse it. But why spread abroad in every back street that my position is hopeless, and all the rest of it? I can't endure such benevolence and friend's assistance where there's a shilling-worth of talk for a ha'p'orth of help! You can boast of your benevolence as much as you please, but no one has given you the right to gossip ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... And when the song was ended, he said, "'Tis a true word, Mr Maguire, that there's no place like old Ireland; and you'll not find an Irishman anywhere in America that wouldn't put the man down that said a word against her. But what with the landlords taking every shilling you can scrape together and charging you higher rent whenever you make a bit of an improvement on your farm, there's no chance at all to get on in the world. And with the children, God bless them, coming along by sixes and dozens, and little for them to do at home, and no ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... mean bachelors; the expense of women causes matrimony to be dreaded by men. Tea forms, as in England, the basis of parties of pleasure; many things are dearer here than in France; a hairdresser asks twenty shilling a month; washing costs four shillings ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... November or December, slice some horseradish the thickness of a shilling, and lay it to dry very gradually in a Dutch oven, for a strong heat would very soon evaporate its flavour. When quite dry, pound ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... reiteration that Ulster considered it Ulster's duty and Ireland's duty to take a full share, equally with the rest of the United Kingdom, in all the consequences of the war—even if it cost them their last shilling; and Ulster speakers denounced our argument as a bribe. Some Nationalists were inclined to discount these protestations, yet I see no reason to doubt their sincerity. At all events, no one disputed that it was ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... in use, for large sums, as the pounds-shillings-and-pence arrangement. But all sums under a quarter are reckoned in English money,—pennies, half-pennies, four, six and eight-pences, and that sort of thing. One of our quarters passes for a shilling, but a silver dime wont pass in the shops. The darkeys will take them—or almost anything else—as a gift. I didn't have to get our money changed into gold. I got a draft on a Nassau house, and generally drew greenbacks. But I saw, pretty plainly, that I couldn't draw very much for ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... window; we read it until moonlight and morning met, and the breakfast bell ringing out into the soft air from the old gable, found us at the end of the fourth volume. Dear old times! when it would have been deemed little less than sacrilege to crush a respectable romance into a shilling volume, and our mammas considered only a five volume story curtailed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... cave among the woods. Here he is but the ape of a monkey. Now if we were to catch you young, good subscriber or contributor, yourself, and put you into a cage to crack nuts and pull ugly faces, although you might, from continued practice, do both to perfection, at a shilling a-head for grown-up ladies and gentlemen, and sixpence for children and servants, and even at a lower rate after the collection had been some weeks in town, would you not think it exceedingly hard to be judged of in that one of your predicaments, not only individually, but nationally—that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... croak, his Irishwoman, his real wife. Now we'll see if he'll marry the other one. Forty-five years old Mistress Maranne is, and not a shilling. You ought to see how afraid she is that he'll turn her out. Marry her, not marry her—kss-kss—what a laugh we'll have." And the more they gave him to drink, the more he told, speaking of his unfortunate mistress as the lowest of the low. For my part, I confess ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... . . to Elizabeth Rundle, my dead sister's child, desiring that she may marry and bequeath the same to the heirs of her body; less the sum of one shilling sterling, which I command to be sent to my only ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... became, was, it is said, fairly covered by the postage, which it was possible and by no means unreasonable to levy. The recognised tariff seems to have been 20 centimes for 4 grammes, or at the rate of not greatly more than a shilling per English ounce. Surely hardly on a par with fame in prices in a time ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... mint-master would have the best of the bargain. They offered him a large sum of money, if he would but give up that twentieth shilling, which he was continually dropping into his own pocket. But Captain Hull declared himself perfectly satisfied with the shilling. And well he might be; for, so diligently did he labor, that, in a few years, his pockets, his money-bags, and his strong box, were overflowing with pine-tree shillings. This was probably the case when he came into possession of Grandfather's ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... shall have more money to spend on other things. It is pocket-money day to-day, and it must all go towards the feast. My sixpence and yours, Jim, and Helen's and Tommy's threepences make one and sixpence. That is a lot of money, and I am sure Hal will give us his shilling." ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... him rent, and that such rents as he received were paid to him partly in money and partly in victuals, as oats, oatmeal, butter, hogs, and sheep. The money-rents were chargeable on all the cows, milch or in calf, which grazed on his lands, at the rate of a shilling a quarter each. The cows were to be numbered in May and November by the earl's officers, and 'so the rents were taken up at said rate for all the cows that were so numbered, except only the heads and principal men of the creaghts, as they enabled them to live better than ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... What you have to promise me is, that if I come to your funeral, you will make such a will that not one acre of the land or one shilling you possess shall ever ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... "They'd be about a shilling in Manchester shops," she decided, "and they might be put down to sixpence. They're good enough to take ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... An earnest is a pledge given in advance as an evidence of good faith. We are familiar with the usage of paying down a small part of the price agreed upon to make a business transaction binding. In old English it is called caution money. My mother has told me of seeing her mother many a time pay a shilling in the Belfast market-house to insure the delivery of a bag of potatoes, paying the remainder ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... unsatisfied, and that she considered that there was no pleasure on earth which wealth could bring her to be compared to the excitement of a "first night," as viewed from the gallery, she determined to give her a treat. She had not been to the theatre for many years; the necessary shilling for the gallery was never forthcoming; picking down old uniforms ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... diminished price. But the eighteen pence charged by the apothecary might have been fairly divided into two parts, three pence for medicine and bottle, and fifteen pence for attendance. The chemist, therefore, who never attends his customers, if he charges only a shilling for the same medicine, realizes a profit of 200 or 300 per cent upon its value. This enormous profit has called into existence a multitude of competitors; and in this instance the impossibility ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... ask him," replied Caroline; "and tell him if he only could catch them, and send them down to me, I would give him my new shilling papa gave me on my birth-day. Tell him to be sure and not ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... neither of them; and the lock's that loose, it's a disgrace. But I shouldn't think the people that own this place had spent a shilling on it since I was born. When you go to lay hold on things they're ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... accounted for; the Assessment Act for the payment of wages to the Assembly was amended; the militia was further regulated; horned cattle, horses, sheep, and swine were not to run at large; the Gaols and Court Houses Act was amended; a duty of one shilling and three pence per gallon was laid upon stills, and the manner of licensing ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... for my own amusement. Now you watch me a doin' up this garter—keep yer eye on it. (He coils up the strip.) It goes up 'ere, ye see, and down there, and in 'ere agin, and then round. Now, I'm ready to bet anything from a sovereign to a shilling, nobody 'ere can prick the middle. I'll tell ye if ye win. I'm ole BILLY FAIRPLAY, and I don't cheat! (A Spotty-faced Man, after intently following the process, says he believes he could find the middle.) ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... property was left to the Wingfields, but William Herrick received a legacy of L100, with ten pounds apiece to his two children, and a ring of twenty shillings to his wife. Nicholas and Robert were only left twenty-shilling rings, and the administration of the will was entrusted to William Herrick and the Wingfields. The will may have been the result of a family arrangement, and we have no reason to believe that the unequal division gave rise to any ill-feeling. ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... had always been regarded by Sir Lionel as a fountain from whence his own son might fairly expect such waters as were necessary for his present maintenance and future well-being. But Mr. George Bertram senior had regarded the matter in a different light. He had paid no shilling on account of his nephew, or on other accounts appertaining to his brother, which he had not scored down as so much debt against Sir Lionel, duly debiting the amount with current interest; and statements of this account were periodically sent to Sir Lionel by Mr. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... ten shillings will be a sufficient valuation of their solidus of gold. It was the common standard of the Barbaric fines, and contained forty denarii, or silver three pences. Twelve of these denarii made a solidus, or shilling, the twentieth part of the ponderal and numeral livre, or pound of silver, which has been so strangely reduced in modern France. See La Blanc, Traite Historique des Monnoyes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... had never in his life possessed more than a shilling, was staring at the gold piece in his hand, when the door opened, and Sir Harry's horse-racing friend came in to ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I never owed a shilling in my life, or my father before me, it is odd that I should have family ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... news, however, with a start which frightened me. All her money, but a shilling or two, was in the trunk. To place money in trunks is a weakness of the female mind which I have nowhere seen accounted for. Worse than this, though,—as appeared after a moment's examination of ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... happiness; happiness to me above all others. For I also in those days was among the young and the gay; I was healthy; I was strong; I was prosperous in a worldly sense! I owed no man a shilling; feared no man's face; shunned no man's presence. I held a respectable station in society; I was myself, let me venture to say it, respected generally for my personal qualities, apart from any advantages I might draw from fortune or inheritance; I had reason to think myself popular amongst ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... like this," she answered, licking an imaginary plate with her tongue. I gave her a shilling (to get rid of her), and ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... you need not want one long. I'll be bound there's plenty of young women where you came from as would be glad to keep the 'Vine' under you. And, if you come to that, our Mercy is a treasure on the farm, but she is no help in the inn, no more than a wax figure. She never brought us a shilling, till you came and made her sing to your bass-viol. Nay, what you want is a smart, handsome girl, with a quick eye and a ready tongue, and one as can look a man in the face, and not given to love nor liquor. Don't you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... cause of the dearness of serious books; they are bought as rarities, and have to be sold in the same spirit. But when libraries learn to buy by the dozen and the hundred, there is no reason why the sort of book now published at 10s. 6d. should not be sold at a shilling from the beginning.] The Professors, being busy and important men, lecture from their particular standpoints, and having lectured, bolt; there is no provision whatever for the intelligent discussion of knotty points, and the only way to ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... be the last of your taunts, old man." He turned to the ostler: "Bill, give Black Dick his oats at sunrise; and in ten days at furthest I'll pay every shilling this house and farm do owe. Now, Master White, you'll put in hand a new sign-board for this inn; a fresh 'Packhorse,' and paint him jet black, with one white hoof (instead of chocolate), in honor of my nag Dick; and in place of Harry ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... runs, in rendering the service desired. If all the labour to be undergone, or damage incurred, or risk encountered, by the sailor who goes about by private bargain to be my ferryman, is fairly met by the remuneration of a thirty-shilling watch, he has no right to stipulate for any more, not though the passage that he gives me sets me on the way to a throne. The peculiar advantage that I have in prospect does not come out of him, but out ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... I must take some money, I suppose," said Kate, going to her box and unlocking it. She did not like her cousin to see what a small store of money she had, and so she put the purse into her pocket as it was, but not intending to spend more than a shilling, for the little sum her mother had given her was to last three ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie |
