"Ninepence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Carroll, waving his pipe through the smoke. "Gatti's? Yes, on special occasions; but for necessity, the Chancellor's, where one gets a piece of the prime roast beef of Old England, from Chicago, and potatoes for ninepence—a pot of bitter twopence-halfpenny, and a penny for the waiter. It's most amusing on the whole. I am learning a little about London, and some things about myself. They ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... they had no voice of terror for me. I was intimately acquainted with a young man in the town, and well remember his coming to my shop one morning and asking the loan of ninepence with which to buy rum. I let him have the money, and the spirit was soon consumed. He begged me to lend him a second ninepence, but I refused; yet, during my temporary absence, he drank some spirit of wine which was in a bottle in the shop, and used ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... British grenadiers ready to plunge bayonets into your poor panting stomach, and let out artificially the little breath left there? It is a marvel to think that soldiers will mount such places for a shilling—ensigns for five and ninepence—a day: a cabman would ask double the money to go half way! One meekly reflects upon the above strange truths, leaning over the ship's side, and looking up the huge mountain, from the tower nestled at the foot of it to the thin flagstaff at the summit, up to which have been piled the most ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... coined of that value. I found that a proclamation was issued shortly before Mr. Bunyan's time (April 8, 1603), to save the people from being deceived with the silver harp money of Ireland, purporting to be twelve and sixpenny pieces. It fixed the value of the Irish twelvepence to be ninepence English; so that the Irish sixpence was to pass current for fourpence-halfpenny in England. That accomplished antiquary, Mr. Hawkins, the curator of the coins in the British Museum, shewed me this Irish silver money; and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sold readily by the Indians for a jack-knife or a few iron nails. The deer in winter came and fed from the hog-pens of Albany swine. Even in 1695, a quarter of venison could be bought in New York City for ninepence. At the first Massachusetts Thanksgiving, in 1621, the Indians brought in five deer to the colonists for their feast. That year there was also "great store of wild turkies." These beautiful birds of gold and ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... I have cherished the delight of that moment from that day to this. It was the first thing I did the other day to go and hunt up that shop and hand in my hat to have it ironed. I said when it came back, "How much to pay?" They said, "Ninepence." In seven years I have acquired all that worldliness, and I am sorry to be back where ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... up bald head, (hic!) if old 2-and-ninepence don't (hic!) shell out with his 'freshments, we'll (hic!) smash this 'ere borrered tea sarvice over his (hic!) figger head." Sayin which he gives the door bell a yank, which was enuff to pull the roof off from over ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... her little gray eyes flashed fire as she replied, "I s'pose it's me you mean, Miss Bates; but I guess I've a right to eat what I'm a mind to. I only ask a dollar and ninepence a week for ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... Separatists, a typical Elizabethan Puritan, who left the church in which he was educated and attached himself to the Separatists, or Brownists, as they were called. He went into exile in Amsterdam in 1593, and worked for some time as a porter in a book-seller's shop, living (as Roger Williams wrote) "upon ninepence in the weeke with roots boyled." He established, with the Reverend Mr. Johnson, the new church in Holland; and when it was divided by dissension, he became the pastor of the "Ainsworthian Brownists" and so remained for twelve ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... you 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, three and fourpence; four cheesecakes, three and eightpence; two Bath buns, four shillings; and one ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... case of the worst. "You see how it was," says I; and of course I had to treat him and slip some notes into his hand.... Well, what do you say, your honour? We shifted the burden on to other shoulders; you see a dead body's a matter of two hundred roubles, as sure as ninepence.' ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... save the farmers, who made such profits that they could, as I have heard, afford to let half their land lie fallow, while living like gentlemen upon the rest. Wheat was at a hundred and ten shillings a quarter, and the quartern loaf at one and ninepence. Even in the quiet of the cottage of Friar's Oak we could scarce have lived, were it not that in the blockading squadron in which my father was stationed there was the occasional chance of a little prize-money. The line-of-battle ships themselves, tacking on and off outside Brest, could earn ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... persons who had been induced to purchase a pair of Tractors. These little bits of brass and iron, the intrinsic value of which might, perhaps, amount to ninepence, were sold at five guineas a pair! A man who has paid twenty-five dollars for his whistle is apt to blow it louder and longer than other people. So it appeared that when the "Perkinean Society" applied to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... taken place in our finances. The troops are regularly clothed and fed at West Point, and most of the other posts, at the moderate rate of ninepence a ration when issued, so that the innumerable band of purchasing and issuing commissaries is discharged. The hospitals are well supplied in the same way, and small advances of pay are made to the officers and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... medium of communication with the outer world, began to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual comatose on pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, and the change of her clients ninepence short. His son began to supersede Mrs Bangham, and to execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be of the prison ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... and one-third florin to thirty-two florins the veertel. Other articles were proportionally increased in market-value; but it is worthy of remark that mutton was quoted in the midst of the famine at nine stuyvers (a little more than ninepence sterling) the pound, and beef at fivepence, while a single cod-fish sold for twenty-two florins. Thus wheat was worth sixpence sterling the pound weight (reckoning the veertel of one hundred and twenty pounds at thirty florins), which was a penny more than the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... three-and-five—provided that the horse won and the man at the fishmonger's round the corner paid up. My brother Lemberg had the same talent. If he bought a packet of fags and paid with a ten-shilling note, he could always negotiate the change so that he made ninepence for himself and had the cigarettes thrown in. His only mistake was in trying to do it twice at the same shop, but the scar over his right eye hardly shows now. A sharp-cornered tobacco-tin was not the thing to have ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... the pressed man had to be fed, or, as they said in the service, subsisted or victualled, and for this purpose a sum varying from sixpence to ninepence a day, according to the cost of provisions, was allowed him. On this generous basis he was nourished for a hundred years or more, till one day early in the nineteenth century some half-score of gaunt, hungry wretches, cooped up for eight weary weeks in ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... errand-boy, had arrived crying, with tidings that the shop and house were shut up; nobody answered his knock; Mother Butterfly had "cut" in the night, gone off, he believed, with the circus, and Miss Lydia too; and there was two-and- ninepence owing ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 1798, on the same account, beef was down to threepence a pound. [Footnote: Do., Account of James Morrison and Melchia Myer, October 12, 17098.] Linen cost two and fourpence, or three shillings a yard; flannel, four to six shillings; calico and chintz about the same; baize, three shillings and ninepence. A dozen knives and forks were eighteen shillings, and ten pocket handkerchiefs two pounds. Worsted shoes were eight shillings a pair, and buttons were a shilling a dozen. A pair of gloves were three and ninepence; a pair of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... pavement there came the warm breath of the oven underground, the red glow of the fire, and the scythe-like swish of the long shovels. The boy blocked the squirrel under his armpit, dived into his pocket, and brought out some copper coins and counted them. There was ninepence. Ninepence was the sum he had to take home every night, and there was not a halfpenny to spare. He knew that perfectly before he began to count, but his appetite had tempted him to try again if his arithmetic ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... and so thence by coach (my cozen, Thomas Pepys, being in another chamber busy all the while, going along with me) homeward, and I set him down by the way; but, Lord! how he did endeavour to find out a ninepence to clubb with me for the coach, and for want was forced to give me a shilling, and how he still cries "Gad!" and talks of Popery coming in, as all the Fanatiques do, of which I was ashamed. So home, finding my poor wife very busy putting things in order, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... his drive, foozled his second, put his third into a bunker, and endured other agonies. The caddie had been following at a respectful distance, and when the ball had been duly picked up out of the bunker, he made a further appeal. "I will carry for ninepence, sir." "No, I do not want a caddie," was the answer again. "I will carry for sixpence, then." "No, go away." On the next tee the player, overcome by conflicting emotions, missed the ball altogether two or three times, and then was the caddie's opportunity, which he seized without hesitation. "I ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... weather yesterday had prevented from working, came on board us with fish. This was so fresh, so good in kind, and so very cheap, that we supplied ourselves in great numbers, among which were very large soles at fourpence a pair, and whitings of almost a preposterous size at ninepence a score. The only fish which bore any price was a john doree, as it is called. I bought one of at least four pounds weight for as many shillings. It resembles a turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmness and ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... pains had been taken for their preservation. They had been "soled" and "heeled" more than once:—had they been "goloshed," their owner might have defied Fate! Well has it been said that "there is no such a thing as a trifle." A nobleman's life depended upon a question of ninepence. ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... Elector, Frederick I. (1688-1713), the first King of Prussia, was an extravagant fop who spent a year's income on the ceremony of coronation. On the contrary, his successor, "Fat William" (1713-1740), the Sergeant-King, was a miser, who on his coronation only spent 2,227 thalers and ninepence, where his father had squandered over six millions, a maniac who collected tall grenadiers as other Kings have collected pictures, who tortured his children, and who wanted to punish with a death ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... Risum teneatis Amici to a dozen pamphlets, at sixpence per each, six shillings; for Omnia vincit Amor, et nos cedamus Amori, sixpence; for Difficile est Satyram non scribere, sixpence. Hum! hum! hum!—sum total for thirty-six Latin mottoes, eighteen shillings; ditto English, one shilling and ninepence; ditto Greek, four—four shillings. These Greek ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... noticing her sister, 'that earned as much as I did. Many a girl works there and has no more than one and ninepence to take home at the end ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... the best-loved doctor were present to review and address us. We took much pride in the decoration. Wreaths of plaited leaves were twisted around the stovepipe; the top of the stove was banked with pond-lilies gathered from a pond in our woods. Medals were primitive. For a week I wore a pierced ninepence in evidence of my proficiency in mental arithmetic; then it passed to ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... during which every reference to "cold pudden" (and there are several) is received with roars of laughter. WILLIAM CORDER, on the ingenious plea that he wishes to take some flowers up to London, borrows a spade and pickaxe from TIM, to whom it appears he owes ninepence, which he promises—like the villain he is—to repay "the very next time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... the vicar's wife she bought my canary back for me because I cried so. And I brought it to London and it hangs in my bedroom. And the vicar, he was so kind to me, he did give me a lot of advice, and Mrs. Amersham, who kept the chandler's shop, she did give me ninepence, all ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... is that the "pieces of silver" here mentioned were Roman denarii, which were the silver pieces then commonly used in Ephesus. If now we weigh a denarius against modern silver, it is exactly equal to ninepence, and fifty thousand times ninepence gives L1,875. It is always a difficult matter to arrive at a just estimate of the relative value of the same coin in different ages; but reckoning that money ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... gave a laugh and twisted his head, and ate his chop and drank his stout, as though he found that both were very good indeed. When he had finished, Charley paid the bill and discovered that he was left with ninepence in his pocket. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... directly after dinner. The cake fetched a shilling, and Diggory and Vance bid ninepence each for the book and pocket-knife; so Mugford came out of his difficulty without suffering any further loss than what was afterwards made good again by the generosity of his two comrades. They, for their part, made no fuss over ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... the price of the middling cotton of America for the last fifteen years has varied at Liverpool from fourpence to ninepence per pound, and now stands at seven and a halfpence by the last quotations. As the stock accumulates or the sale of goods is checked, the price naturally declines, and a check is given to production. As the stock declines or goods ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... own household bills, exclusive of wine or beer, had worked out, since he had had this new expensive housekeeper, at something like fifteen shillings a head, a fact which he had managed to conceal from Maud, who "did" her William so well on exactly ten shillings and ninepence all round! ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... undertook difficult needlework of various kinds, in answer to advertisements which promised ample remuneration for a few hours' labour. Fifteen hours' hard work she found was worth just threepence, and the materials cost one shilling: consequently she laboriously worked herself poorer by ninepence. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... may not be out of place. The cost of the letter when a frank had not been procured was borne by the recipient. The rate varied with the distance. The charge from London to Bridgewater in 1797 was sevenpence. Later it was raised to ninepence and tenpence. No regular post was set up between Bridgewater and Nether Stowey until 1808, when the cost of the carriage of a letter for the intervening nine miles ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... lady'll have to get spliced," said the mate sternly. "Then there'll be no tales told. A Scotch marriage is as good as any, and we'll just lay off and put you ashore, and you can get tied up as right as ninepence." ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... at it through her spectacles and said she had no change; so the gloves had to be paid for out of Cyril's two-and-sevenpence that he meant to buy rabbits with, and so had the green imitation crocodile-skin purse at ninepence-halfpenny which had been bought at the same time. They tried several more shops, the kinds where you buy toys and scent, and silk handkerchiefs and books, and fancy boxes of stationery, and photographs of objects of interest in the vicinity. But nobody cared to change a guinea that day ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... ninepence," cried she in despair, after counting over her money; "but I'll give you my shawl, and you can sell it for four or five shillings—oh! won't that much do?" asked she, in such a tone of voice, that they must indeed have had hard hearts who ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... The salt is found in small lakes. The people amass it with the water, and make of it round cakes; the water runs away, and the cakes become hard and dry. It is then packed up in camel-loads. A large camel-load pays to the Tibboos half a metagal, or about ninepence English money. It is thus evident that the Tibboos do derive a revenue from their salt, contrary to what was stated by them to Major Denham. Since his time, however, this people have found themselves in a better condition to enforce this impost on the Kailouee ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... to give me some tea in the afternoon, some supper, a bed, and a plain breakfast the following morning, for one and ninepence; this would leave the same sum to carry me to Hazleton, beyond which my plans did not at present extend. The woman, moreover, offered to tie Patch up in an out-house and give him some scraps, and later in the day she said that if I would go to bed early ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... and white American maize—the yellow Hungarian quality is generally considered inferior—were ninepence to one shilling cheaper per hundredweight than oats, I laid in a stock of them, and was able to give not only an increased weight of ration, but one of considerably greater nutritive value. Thus I gained the double advantage, not only of not being ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... that they may be seen more plainly," said he; and he poured something like a little drop of red wine into the drop of water, but it was witches' blood from the lobes of the ear, the finest kind, at ninepence a drop. And now the wonderful little creatures were pink all over. It looked like a whole ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... could never be opposed by the colonists, unless they were determined to rebel against Great Britain. Besides, a duty on that article, payable in England, and amounting to nearly one shilling in the pound, was taken off on its exportation to America; so that the inhabitants of the colonies saved ninepence in the pound. The members of the opposition, in both Houses, advocated the repeal of the clause on tea, and predicted the inefficiency of the Bill should that clause be retained, and repeated the arguments on the injustice and inexpediency of taxing America by Act of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... cockatoo To whistle comic songs profound, But, just when "Jolly Dogs" it knew, It failed for ninepence ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... political or other, let us see at once that this is the maddest of the uneconomic: partridges killed by our land magnates at, shall we say, a guinea a head, to be retailed in Leadenhall at one shilling and ninepence, with one poacher in limbo for every fifty birds! our poet, maker, creator, gauging ale, and that badly, with no leisure for making or creating, only a little leisure for drinking, and such like beer-barrel avocations! Truly, a cutting of blocks ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... there had been so many occasions on which he had never done his duty; times when he was tempted to actual defiance of it, when a wistful calculating look in the eyes of some seedy scholar would knock all the moral fibre out of him, and a two and sixpenny book would go for ninepence or a shilling. And such was his conception of loyalty to Rickman's, that he generally paid for these excesses out of his own pocket, so that conscience was satisfied both ways. Therefore there had been no moral element ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... relaxation in Mr. Pengelly, as if he too had been feeling the strain. He began to chat with me. The wind, he said, was backing and we might look for this spell of weather to break up before long. Once past the Rame we should be right as ninepence and might run down the coast on a soldier's wind: it would stiffen a bit out yonder unless he was mistaken. He pulled out his pipe and lit it. Aft loomed the bulk of Mrs. Pengelly at the wheel. Save for a call now and again to warn us that ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... threepence to be an absurdly small charge for five adult and four infant teas, I destroyed this immediately, and made out another, putting each item fourpence more, and the bread-and-butter at one-and-six. I also introduced ninepence for extra teas for the children, who had had two mugs apiece, very weak. This brought the total to six shillings and tenpence, and I was beset by a horrible temptation to add a shilling or two for candles; there was one ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "I have not possessed a watch for a year, and I've only ninepence in my pocket. They give me tick here. Foolish Spargetti. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... become an institution in Galician hotels. The main street is pervaded by small boys selling Russian newspapers or making a good thing out of cleaning the high Russian military 'sapogee' (top boots). They get five cents for a penny paper and ninepence or a shilling for boot-blacking, but considering the mud of Galicia (I have been up to my boot tops—that is, up to my knees—in it), the charge is not too heavy, especially if the unusual dearness of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... MOORE). As neat as ninepence! He's taking it down like mother's milk. But there'll be wigs on the green to-morrow, Badger! It'll be tuppence and ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... eighteenpence is the fare with threepence for my gratuity, that makes one and ninepence. So I have to give you ninepence back, although I thank you all ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... Queen-Woman, or The Fireside Lamp, or any of the other horrors. Oh the joy of not being forced to create villains, only to crush them in the end! No more secret doors and coiners' dens, and unnaturally beautiful dressmakers' assistants for me! Instead of doing typing at ninepence a thousand words Phil can embroider things for curates, and instead of peopling the world with prigs and puppets at a guinea a thou', I can—oh, I can do anything. I don't know what I shall want to do most, and that's ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... cost but a ninepence to get a bar'l from Boston by sea," said Captain Crowe, in a melancholy tone; "and now it costs twenty-five cents by ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of them, and after the death of her husband she had to fend for all. The little croft was hungry land, and to make a sufficient living she used to weed for her more prosperous neighbours. It was ill-paid labour—ninepence a day fine days and sixpence all weathers, with a can of milk twice a week and a lump of butter thrown in now and then. The ways were hard and the children were the first to feel them. Five of them died. "They weren't willing to stay with me," she used to say. My father alone was left to her, ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the Six-Feet-High Club, an athletic society of young men in a good station, who made of the "Hunters' Tryst" a frequent resort. They told me I had intruded on an "all-night sitting," following upon an "all-day Saturday tramp" of forty miles; and that the members would all be up and "as right as ninepence" for the noon-day service at some neighbouring church—Collingwood, if memory serves me right. At this I could have laughed, but the moment seemed ill-chosen. For, though six feet was their standard, they all exceeded that measurement considerably; and I tasted again some of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who will never agree upon anything but upon doubting. I would not give ninepence for the best gown upon the most thrifty of 'em; and their fingers are as stiff and hard with their pedlary, knavish writing, as any bishop's are with chalk- stones won honestly ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... Collection of Purchas. He says that he had also sent by one Mr Tomkins, probably the bearer of the letter and journal, some of the coin used there in common payments; The gold piece called mas, being worth about ninepence half-penny; and those of lead called caxas, of which it takes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... from Crows, Black Birds, and Squirrels, by pulling up corn at this season of the year, therefore, be it enacted by this Town meeting, that ninepence as a bounty per head be given for every full-grown crow, and twopence half-penny per head for every young crow, and twopence half-penny per head for every crow blackbird, and one penny half-penny per head for every red-winged blackbird, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... to have a ninepence about him," said the man in cell No. 3, "there's a sufferin' family here as could make use of it. Smallest favors gratefully received, ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... what to put, and it would have been a lot better only we didn't have much time to think, only while we walked up the hill, and Lynn did the most, 'cause she can always think of the rhymingest words, and we'd have made them much longer only we could only afford ninepence each, and we had to lend Max threepence, 'cause he'd ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... Right as ninepence. Never had nowt the matter with me. 'Sides," continued the man, with a grin, "I had the ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... brought before the House of Commons, and ratified by a great majority; at the same time Mr Gladstone abolished a large number of import duties, but increased the income-tax for incomes over L150, from ninepence to tenpence in the pound. His proposal to repeal the paper duties was rejected by the Peers, the majority in its favour in the Commons having sunk to nine. A Commons Committee was appointed to deal with this conflict between ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... like a Trojan, an' ha'f killed they jackasses; an' I tell 'ee 'twas busy all to carry dree-an'-twenty seam. In the eveling, arter work, I went to Lawyer Mennear an' axed 'n 'bout the nine-pence—I niver got ninepence so hard in all my born days. When he paid me, he looked so sly, ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to MOORE). As neat as ninepence! He's taking it down like mother's milk. But there'll be wigs on the green to-morrow, Badger! It'll be twopence and toddle with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... o'clock an' git 'n a cup o' tea. He got to be at work again at eleven.' That's how they do's. Begins about ten or eleven o'clock, and don't leave off again afore six or seven, or p'raps nine or ten, next mornin'. Makes days an' quarters for three an' ninepence. I've knowed a many like that come 'ome an' git boozed fust glass, like old Isaac. I did laugh, though, and so did Dame Smith when ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... at three farthings a gross, when more children and violet-makers than they can cope with are being born right along? This violet-maker handles each flower four times, 576 handlings for three farthings, and in the day she handles the flowers 6912 times for a wage of ninepence. She is being robbed. Somebody is on her back, and a yearning for the Beautiful and True and Good will not lighten her burden. They do nothing for her, these dabblers; and what they do not do for the mother, undoes at night, when the child comes home, all that they have done for the child ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... ses 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
... you keep busy. You might drive into Cunjee with Brownie on Tuesday—probably you'd get a letter from Dad a day earlier, and hear when he's coming home—and if he says he's coming home on Thursday, Wednesday won't seem a bit long. You'll be as right as ninepence ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... come of it—except flies. Time had been when it had put a forlorn trust in imitative jewellery, for in one pane of glass there was a card of cheap seals, and another of pencil-cases, and a mysterious black amulet of inscrutable intention, labelled ninepence. But, to that hour, Jerusalem Buildings had bought none of them. In short, Tetterby's had tried so hard to get a livelihood out of Jerusalem Buildings in one way or other, and appeared to have done so indifferently in all, that the best position in the firm ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... riveting is greatly facilitated. One of the results of the improved method was the great saving which was at once effected in the cost of preparing the plates to receive the rivets, the price of which was reduced from seven shillings per tank to ninepence. He continued to devote himself to the last to the improvement of the lathe,—in his opinion the master-machine, the life and soul of engine-turning, of which the planing, screw-cutting, and other machines in common use, are but modifications. In one of the early lathes ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... I did (he produces an enormous nose and cheeks from his tail-pocket). But it's no mortal use; the minute I put it on I'm recognised (plaintively). And I gave one-and-ninepence for the beastly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... 'Only ninepence,' he said; 'it's a bit lop-sided, but we can tie ivy on or something to make that right. I'm glad that old cat wouldn't let us help. It's much ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... different application of the same rule. Washington, in traveling, was in the habit of paying at inns the same for his servants as for himself. An innkeeper once charged him three shillings and ninepence for himself, and three shillings for his servant. Thereupon Washington sent for his host, said that his servant ate as much as he, and insisted ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... and today was Friday: five days, from seven to five, less half an hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner, eight and a half hours a day—forty-two hours and a half. At sevenpence an hour that came to one pound four and ninepence halfpenny. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... cause, of keeping in his more prosperous moments a modest farobank,—all of whom were sure enough of their shilling could they catch old Mr. Bowdoin in the office alone. If they waylaid him in the street, it annoyed him a little, and he would give them only ninepence. It was currently believed by Mr. James and Jamie that there was a combination among these gentry not to give away the source whence they derived this modest but assured income. Once there had been Homeric strife and outcry on the dusty wooden stairs; and Mr. James had rushed out only ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... edge of your bayonets. Mecca is his holy shrine, and the old Sultan acts as a sort of elder or high priest who takes up the collections. We meet 'em ourselves—religious beggars who're always passing round the hat for ninepence to make up another shilling. Religion is always an expensive business, except in Scotland, where you get free seats to support the Kirk and Government. Isn't ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... hug can express some things. Nannie straightened her cap. "Well, then," she said, drawing herself up, "I couldn't do it for sixpence, it cost ninepence halfpenny. I said, 'Come. Been ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... she was afraid I might answer her letter, and she did not like the idea of having to pay the return postage. It shows that she does not consider my friendship worth ninepence." ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... streets. But two difficulties present themselves. There is no law by which the children can be compelled to attend the evening school. How, then, can they be made to come in? And if the rate is now ninepence, what will it be when to the burden of the elementary school is added that of ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... we was fust married and run the 'Liza Ann, the best gown May Jane had to her back was a mereener or balzarine—dummed if I know what you call it—at one and ninepence a yard; but now, lord land, what's two hundred dollar gownd to me! Ann Eliza can have forty on 'em, if she wants to. There she is; there's the kerridge! By gosh, though, ain't she a neat little filly!' and the father's face glowed with pride as he watched his daughter alighting from the ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... half-an-hour late (8 o'clock) and we had our usual fare—porridge, bread and margarine, and tea with tinned milk—amazingly nasty, but quite wholesome and filling at the price. We have reduced our housekeeping to ninepence per head per day. After breakfast I cleaned the two houses, as I do every morning, made nine beds, swept floors and dusted stairs, etc. When my rooms were done and jugs filled, our nice little cook gave me a cup of soup in the kitchen, as she generally does, and I went ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... for ninepence, third class. You paid that cabman three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an hour longer. Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep a servant, and it gives the missus a lot of trouble ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... likewise some nice fresh air fried in naething, for I took her for a short walk. I could manage wi' ninepence.' ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... and square by him like he had by them, or it (I don't know if vestry is singular or plural), and we went home. But before we went we held a hurried council and collected what money we could from the little we had with us (it was ninepence-halfpenny), and wrapped it in an old envelope Dicky had in his pocket and put it gently on the billowing middle of the poor tramp's sleeping waistcoat, so that he would find it when he woke. None of the dogs said a single syllable while we were doing this, so we knew ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... up to the number of 200 exemplaires at the witching hour; and they were almost all destroyed by eight in the morning. But I think the nickname will stick. Dos Reales; deux reaux; two bits; twenty-five cents; about a shilling; but in practice it is worth from ninepence to threepence: thus two glasses of beer would cost two bits. The Italian fisherman, an old Garibaldian, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... boss! me an' my mate ain't had a smoke for three days!" What's a man ter do? I put it ter you! I'm a heavy smoker meself, an' I've known what it is to be without a smoke on the track. But "nail-rod" is ninepence a stick out here, an' I have ter pay carriage. It all mounts up, ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... country-folk as were within hearing of the transaction, the itinerant bibliopolist had forthwith added them to his stock in trade. He found a merchant sooner than he expected; for Archibald, much applauding his own prudence, purchased the whole lot for two shillings and ninepence; and the pedlar, delighted with the profit of such a wholesale transaction, instantly returned to Carlisle to supply ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... when Dad came to sell it seemed as though every farmer in every farming district on earth had had a heavy crop, for the market was glutted—there was too much corn in Egypt—and he could get no price for it. At last he was offered Ninepence ha'penny per bushel, delivered at the railway station. Ninepence ha'penny per bushel, delivered at the railway station! Oh, my country! and fivepence per bushel out of that to a carrier to take it there! ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... certain that since its adoption the Cornwall engines give unhoped-for results; that with one bushel of coal they equal the labor of twenty men during ten hours. Let us keep in mind that in the coal districts a bushel of coal only costs ninepence, and it will be demonstrated that over the greater part of England Watt reduced the price of a man's day's work, a day of ten hours' labor, to less than a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Lives of the Twelve Caesars?" "Aye, aye," said old Henderson, with a gracious smile; "thirteen if you like." The copy of Suetonius was produced, and "How much do you want for Suet.?" queried Forbes. "Half-a-crown," said old Henderson. "I'll give you ninepence," said Forbes. "Make it one-and-six," said the bookseller, rising from his Biblical throne, "and the book's yours." "I'll give you a shilling and a half of whisky," retorted Forbes. "Say a whole glass and the shilling, and we'll ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Maudslay therefore offered, if the Board would give him an order for two thousand tanks, to supply them at the rate of eighty per week. The order was given: he made tools, by which the expense of punching the rivet-holes of each tank was reduced from seven shillings to ninepence; he supplied ninety-eight tanks a week for six months, and the price charged for each was reduced from seventeen ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... brown potatoes, and they drank between them a whole half bottle of—some white wine or other, Lewisham selected in an off-hand way from the list. Neither of them had ever taken wine at a meal before. One-and-ninepence it cost him, Sir, and the name of it was Capri! It was really very passable Capri—a manufactured product, no doubt, but warming and aromatic. Ethel was aghast at his magnificence and drank ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... of the King's Own," writes Sapper Mugridge of the Royal Engineers, "went into their first action shouting 'Early doors this way! Early doors, ninepence!'" "The Kaiser's crush" is the description given by a sergeant of the Coldstream Guards as he watched a dense mass of Germans emerging to the attack from a wood, and prepared to meet them with the bayonet. When first the fierce German searchlights were ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick |
