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Pence   Listen
noun
Pence  n.  Pl. of Penny. See Penny.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pence" Quotes from Famous Books



... his companions when he was hunting, his courtiers found him, a few days after, in a market-place, disguised as a porter, and lending out the use of his shoulders for a few pence. At this they were as much surprised as they were doubtful at first whether the porter could be his majesty. At length they ventured to express their complaints that so great a personage should debase himself by so vile an employment. His majesty having heard them, replied—"Upon my honour, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... were often compelled to throw themselves upon charity in their old age. The pittance that they received seldom made it possible for them to secure food enough to sustain properly their arduous labors. Many worked for fourteen pence a day, and those that were most favored earned two shillings. The condition of the poorer class of workmen in the cities was, if possible, worse than that of the agricultural laborers, for economic conditions had combined ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... bad thing for a fellow like me to become a chief among the Red Skins—if they would have me. With them my lack of pence would be no bar to success. I can swim and shoot and ride: although I cannot paint a picture, I daresay that I could paint myself; and I know several fellows whose scalps I should have much pleasure in taking. As for the so-called ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... and turned in, and in the morning when I woke up there was Bill sitting alongside of me, and looking about as lively as the fighting kangaroo in London in fog time. He had a black eye and eighteen pence. He'd been taking down ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... he came; for loss of time, Although it grieved him sore, Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, Would trouble ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... fellow-clerk admire it, why, it is nothing; surely the ledger-man hath such scraps in his poke, or at least can roll off better. 'True bards believe all able to achieve what they achieve,' said Naddo. But lo! that ambition is a word that begins with pounds and ends with pence—like life, quoth the ledger-man, who, after all, had but card-scores, a tailor's account, and the bill for his wife's ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... was stirred; and the good housewife commanded the little printer's respect as he looked round on a kitchen as tidy as if it were in his own country. And the bargain was struck that Ambrose Birkenholt should serve Master Hansen for his meals and two pence a week, while he was to sleep at the little house of Mistress Randall, who would keep his clothes ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... for humanity's sake, it is a duty for the highest moral motives, to sympathize with them; but beside all these there is a material and an interested reason why you should sympathize with them. Pounds and pence join with conscience and with honor in this design. [Footnote: The World's Famous Orations, Vol. X, p. 12. ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... informed two days ago by one of the permanent scavengers of the district, that he "wasn't worth the price of a second-hand boot-lace." On inquiring the meaning of this curious phrase, he was told that "his blooming head would be knocked off for two-pence." We understand that the Vestryman's vote on a question of salary is responsible for the indignation of the scavenger, a member of a class usually noted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various

... eightpence at an ordinary: a cut of meat for sixpence, bread for a penny, and a penny to the waiter, making out the charge. One of his acquaintance had told him that a man might live in London for thirty pounds a year. Ten pounds would pay for clothes; a garret might be hired for eighteen-pence a week; if any one asked for an address, it was easy to reply, "I am to be found at such a place." Threepence laid out at a coffee-house would enable him to pass some hours a day in good company; dinner might be had for sixpence, a bread-and-milk breakfast for a penny, and supper was ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... somewhat hot in the face with the wild rush for her ticket, and grasping her uncounted change, pence and all, in her little gloved hand, she found herself thrust, hap-hazard, at the very last moment, into the last compartment of the last ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... said she. 'This green ribbon was fourteen-pence a yard, this silk three shillings,' and so she went on, forcing herself to speak about these trifles as if they were all the world to her, and she had no attention to throw away on her mother and her ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... midnight, the couples twirled and whisked round and round the wooden floor. Why should not something of the kind be allowed in our parks from seven to twelve in the evening at a charge of a few pence? ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... Michaelerhaus there lived at this date not only the future composer of "The Creation," but the Scribe of the eighteenth century, the poet and opera librettist, Metastasio. Born in 1698, the son of humble parents, this distinguished writer had, like Haydn, suffered from "the eternal want of pence." A precocious boy, he had improvised verses and recited them on the street, and fame came to him only after long and weary years of waiting. In 1729 he was appointed Court poet to the theatre at Vienna, for which he wrote several of his best pieces, and when he made Haydn's acquaintance his ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... ecclesiastical menaces were generally unavailing to overcome the repugnance which people who were no longer children felt to the idea of submitting themselves to public questioning.[1234] Bishop Bull, at Brecknock, practically confessed the futility of the effort by giving a dole of twelve-pence a week to old people of that town on condition of their submitting ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... European discoveries and settlements in America. A chapter on Medals and Coins contains attractive matter, particularly that portion which relates to the "Rosa Americana coins," connected as they are with the "Wood's half-pence," immortalized by Dean Swift. The notes and biographical sketches by the editor, scattered through the volume, add materially to its value—as also the numerous maps and engravings. We have heard hints that some small suggestions of disinterested economists of the public money, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... parchment window the Moose looked at all those wonderful things, and at the red flannel shirts, and at the four flint guns and the spotted cotton handerchiefs, each worth a sable skin at one end of the fur trade, half a six-pence at the other. There was tea, too—tea, that magic medicine before which life's cares vanished like snow in ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... twelfth chapter, the fourth to the sixth verse, we read, "Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman

... that she's for complaining: she reads to earn pence; And from those who can't pay, simple thanks are enough. Does she leave lamentation for chaps without sense? Howsoever, she's made up of wonderful stuff. Ay, the soul in her body must be a stout cord; She sings little hymns at the close of the day, Though she has but three fingers to lift to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... curious parliamentary incident occurred. The original proposal was to reduce the duty from eighteen-pence to sixpence. A motion to repeal it altogether was rejected by ten. Then a motion was made to substitute zero for sixpence in the clause. The Speaker ruled that this reversal of the previous vote was not out of order, and it ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... tell which is which when they're all alike as two ha'pence?" growled Ben, but he received no answer, as both Mr. Duff and Ralph were intent on the ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... dear beyond all understanding. At The Hague, for example, we drank Eau d'Evian, a very popular bottled water for which in any French restaurant one expects to pay a few pence; and when the bill arrived this simple fluid cut such a dashing figure in it that at first I could not recognise it at all. When I put the matter to the landlord, he explained that the duty made it impossible for him ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... "it is not to be expected." So she fully consented to this arrangement, which was duly carried out; and the bargain left the cobbler with a few shillings, which he tied up in a bag and put in his pocket, having first changed them into pence, that they might make more noise when he jingled the bag as he walked ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... why should you be pleased because he called you 'dear'? He doesn't really care two-pence about you; his blood goes no quicker when you pass by and no slower when you stay away. Why do you bother about him? and what made you talk all that stuff this afternoon? Because you think he is in a queer ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... many who think that economy consists in saving cheese parings and candle ends, in cutting off two pence from the laundress' bill, and doing all sorts of little, mean, dirty things. Economy is not meanness. The misfortune is also that this class of persons let their economy apply only in one direction. They fancy they are so wonderfully economical in saving a half-penny, where they ought to spend ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... sting of it was that this fellow, with his cool airs and graces and tantalizing repose of manner, had no need to hold back if he could win her. There would be no need for him to plan and pinch and despair; no need for faltering over odd shillings and calculating odd pence; he could marry her in an hour if she cared for him, and he could surround her with luxuries, and dress her like a queen, and make her happy, as she deserved to be. And then the poor fellow's heart would beat fiercely, and the very blood would tremble in his veins, at the mere thought ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Sunday I wos walkin' up the road, wen who should I see, a-standin' at a chapel door, with a blue soup-plate in her hand, but your mother-in-law! I werily believe there was change for a couple o' suv'rins in it, then, Sammy, all in ha'pence; and as the people come out, they rattled the pennies in it, till you'd ha' thought that no mortal plate as ever was baked, could ha' stood the wear and tear. What d'ye think it was ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... above all he was devoted to the hair on his face. The beard was doomed by the czar. He could not play barber to all his subjects, but he imposed a heavy tax upon unshaven faces. Owners of beards paid from thirty to one hundred rubles, and moujiks had to pay two pence for theirs every time they ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen

... 'Tis strange. A three-pence bow'd would hire me, Old as I am, to queen it. But, I pray you, What think you of a duchess? Have you limbs To bear that load ...
— The Life of Henry VIII • William Shakespeare [Dunlap edition]

... in the same boat there," Lucile comforted. "There is one thing I'm learning pretty well, though, and that is to count in shillings and pence. I can figure in English money almost as well as ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... missies," said the vile Hollins. "Three pence a pint, and how's your honoured mother to-day? Yes, fresh, so help ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... under his own observation. He says, that a fine Newfoundland dog, which was kept at an inn in Dorsetshire, was accustomed every morning as the clock struck eight, to take in his mouth a certain basket, placed for the purpose, containing a few pence, and to carry it across the street to a baker's, who took out the money, and replaced it by the proper number of rolls. With these Neptune hastened back to the kitchen, and safely deposited his trust; but what was well worthy of remark, he never attempted ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... thieves and gamesters wear such cloaths as these? play is my folly, not my vice; it is my impulse, and I have been a martyr to it. Would a gamester have asked another to play when he could have lost eighteen-pence and won nothing? However, if you are not satisfied, you may search my pockets; the outside of all but one will serve your turn, and in that one there is the eighteen-pence I told you of." He then turned up his cloaths; and ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... with eyes that seemed to see nothing. By the side of the mantel was a framed piece of history, an itemized bill of the first generation of the firm, dated June 28, 1706, and quaint with its old spelling, its triple column of pounds, shillings and pence. ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... question is under no control in this province, and to this may be ascribed the mode in which licenses to cut timber are issued in very many cases, in quantities less than one hundred tons, subject to a duty of one shilling, three pence per ton, and the excessive fee on each of forty-five shillings. By this mode, a large part of the receipts is paid in the shape of fees, at once injuring the subject without benefiting the revenue; and the assembly feel convinced, if the office were under colonial management, that while ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... cell cent vice rice lace city since nice trice dice farce fence slice pace mice voice lance price trace grace pence mince truce mace cease hence prince place brace fleece dance thence space twice peace glance chance splice spruce choice ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett

... had come slowly along, without meaning any mischief, to deliver a large sealed packet, with sixteen pence to pay put upon it, "to Mistress Philippa Yordas, etc., her own hands, and speed, speed, speed;" which they carried out duly by stop, stop, stop, whensoever they were hungry, or saw any thing to look at. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... seem in the least frightened by our visit. A negro servant, belonging to an officer of marine, interpreted between us; and the good women, who, when they had heard of our misfortunes, offered us millet and water for payment. We bought a little of that grain at the rate of thirty pence a handful; the water was got for three francs a glass; it was very good, and none grudged the money it cost. As a glass of water, with a handful of millet, was but a poor dinner for famished people, my father bought two kids, which they would not give him under twenty piastres. We immediately killed ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... nearly, after her curt nod from a distance had engaged him, he had responded to the blandishments of a fussy little woman, with many more bags and rugs, and a parrot cage, who was now doling French coppers out of the window of the next compartment. "Seven pence 'apenny of this stuff ain't much for carrying all that along, I DON'T think!" grumbled his mate; and Jane's young porter experienced the double joy of faith confirmed, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... authority."—The most pleasant part, however, is at the close where he defends the art from the objections of Mr. Chamber by recrimination. Chamber had enriched himself by medical practice, and when he charges the astrologers by merely aiming to gain a few beggarly pence, Sir Christopher catches fire, and shews by his quotations, that if we are to despise an art by its professors attempting to subsist, or for the objections which may be raised against its vital principles, we ought by this ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... Lyric, what do you mean by all this? Here you have lodged two years in my house, promised me eighteen-pence a week for your lodging, and I have never received eighteen farthings, not the value of that, Mr. Lyric, (snaps her fingers.) You always put me off with telling me of your play, your play! Sir, you shall play no more ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... containing the famous Court of the Maidens and the Hall of the Ambassadors. It cost a good many millions of pesetas to erect its front elevations, not to speak of its elaborate interior decorations, although the workmen only received two pence per day, and they had a local "blue ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... under these circumstances: he gave him a good deal of practical advice, but he could not sympathise with him. Blake was a sharp, hard, sensible man, who reduced everything to pounds shillings and pence. Lord Ballindine was a man of feeling, and for the time, at least, a man of pleasure; and, though they were, or thought themselves friends, they did not pull well together; in fact, they ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... he was sold to the Priests, to the Scribes, and to the Pharisees: and to signify this the threefold sign of the cross is repeated, at the words, "blessed, enrolled, ratified." Or again, to signify the price for which He was sold, viz. thirty pence. And a double cross is added at the words—"that it may become to us the Body and the Blood," etc., to signify the person of Judas the seller, and of Christ ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... witness he affects your cause, And lies to every lord in every thing, Like a king's favourite—or like a king. These are the talents that adorn them all, From wicked waters even to godly * * Not more of simony beneath black gowns, Nor more of bastardy in heirs to crowns. In shillings and in pence at first they deal; And steal so little, few perceive they steal; Till, like the sea, they compass all the land, From Scots to Wight, from mount to Dover strand: And when rank widows purchase luscious nights, Or when a duke ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... with which this slim primer of one hundred and fifty pages for eighteen pence had been greeted inspired Sabre towards a much bolder work, on which the early summer of 1912 saw him beginning and into which he found himself able to pour in surprising volume thoughts and feelings which he had scarcely known to be his until ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... form their plurals not according to any general rule; thus, man, men; woman, women; child, children; ox, oxen; tooth, teeth; goose, geese; foot, feet; mouse, mice; louse, lice; brother, brothers or brethren; cow, cows or kine; penny, pence, or pennies when the coin is meant; die, dice for play, dies for coining; pea and fish, pease and fish when the species is meant, but peas and fishes when we refer to the number; as, six peas, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... look. It made him sadder. To cheer him up they brought him much money. The widow's trade had taken a wonderful start the last few years, and she had been playing the same game as he had, living on ten-pence a day, and saving all for him. This made him ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... yourselves, my friends," said the pretender, "to give to the real dark man, that you all know so well, and save me from that schemer," and with that he collected some pennies and half-pence. While he was doing so, Moran started his Mary of Egypt, but the indignant crowd seizing his stick were about to belabour him, when they fell back bewildered anew by his close resemblance to himself. The pretender now called to them to "just give him a grip of ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats

... and I don't think they're likely to charge for attendance; if they do, it'll be a swindle, for I ordered eggs and bacon an hour ago, and they've not come yet. I wonder what they'll charge for the eggs and bacon. Suppose there are two eggs, that'll be 2 pence; and a slice of bacon, 2 pence; bread, 1 penny; tea, 1 penny; that's 7 pence; oughtn't to be more than 10 pence ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... going to mass, met old Marechal Villars, leaning on a wooden crutch not worth fifteen pence. She rallied him about it, and the Marshal told her that he had used it ever since he had received a wound which obliged him to add this article to the equipments of the army. Her Majesty, smiling, said she thought this crutch ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... and 5th. Call money rose to 40%. June witnessed great distress in business circles. On the 27th the Government of India stopped the coinage of silver for individuals and decreed the exchange value of the rupee at 16 pence. This lowered the exchange value of our silver bullion certificates to 62. President Cleveland helped matters somewhat by announcing that Congress would be convened early in September. In early July the panic ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... registrar would receive two shillings and sixpence for each name entered by him within twenty days after birth or death, and one shilling extra after that time, and the superintendent of the registrar would be paid two-pence on each entry. It was calculated that altogether there would be about 812,000 entries made in the course of one year, and that the amount paid to the registrars thereon would be somewhat more than L40,000. The total expense, including superintendents and the register-office in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... beauty, and the statesman and the lawyer, and the mother with her young daughters, and the artist with his fresh pictures, and the poet with his new book. It is the gay time, too, for the starved journeyman, and the ragged outcast that with long stride and patient eyes follows, for pence, the equestrian, who bids him go and be d—-d in vain. It is a gay time for the painted harlot in a crimson pelisse; and a gay time for the old hag that loiters about the thresholds of the gin-shop, to buy back, in a draught, the dreams of departed ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... day's labor on the highway (1791) was as follows: For a day's labor by a man, 2 shillings, 8 pence; for a yoke of oxen, 2 shillings; for a horse, 1 shilling, 6 pence; for a cart, 1 shilling, 4 pence. One notes the prices ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... the bill was only fo'pence—six and a quarter cents, Spanish—and that it was the fashion now, so she was told, "to have they buttons diffunt, so they could dentrify they clothes," I settled without remark. Mammy's financial skill and ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... Johnson used to maintain that for thirty pounds a year one could live like a gentleman, and as proof would quote an imaginary acquaintance who argued that ten pounds a year for clothes would keep a man in good appearance; a garret could be hired for eighteen pence a week, and if any one asked your address you could reply, "I am to be found in such a place," Threepence laid out at a coffeehouse would enable one to pass some hours a day in good company; dinner might be had for sixpence, and supper you could do without. On clean-shirt ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... to hear it. And the penny public take freely. Our circulation goes up. I asked for a rise of three pence ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... a few things and earned a few pence—I had perhaps even had time to begin to think I was finer than was perceived by the patronising; but when I take the little measure of my course (a fidgety habit, for it's none of the longest yet) I count my real start from the evening George Corvick, breathless ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James

... Pence per Gallon on Rum and Wine, Brandy and Spirits; and Twenty Shillings per Poll for Negroes; for raising a Supply to defray the Public Charge of this Province; and Twenty Shillings per Poll on Irish Servants, to prevent the importing ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... prices, she put the "cart before the horse." Her gruff papa never lectured her verbally, but wrote his remarks on the margin of the paper, and returned it for correction. One such instance was as follows: "General Campbell thinks five-and-six-pence exceedingly dear for parsley." Henrietta instantly saw her mistake; but, instead of formally rectifying it, wrote against the next item,—"Miss Campbell thinks twopence-halfpenny excessively cheap for fowls"; and sent it ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... scorn of Peter's-pence, And number'd bead, and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spence, [1] And turn'd the ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... look ten years younger and twice as strong, and each man owns a cottage and twenty acres of freehold land, at which he works in spare time, as well as having more pounds than he ever possessed pence in the old country, put safely away in the bank. There can be no doubt about the future of any working man or woman in our New Zealand colonies. It rests in their own hands, under God's blessing, and the history of the whole human race shows us that He always has blessed honest labour and rightly ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... spent the Sunday's earnings. As for wages, calculated on an average of several years, they are about as follows:—The average pay for a day's labour is three shillings and twopence. The lowest day's pay known is five pence, and the highest thirty shillings. About thirty thousand of us receive half-a-crown a day; five or six times as many (the majority) receive some sum between half-a-crown and four and twopence. About ten thousand receive ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... into more danger." Here is one story told of courage, and another of fear. Let us pause for a moment and regard the facts. Catiline, when hunted to the last gasp, faced his enemy and died fighting like a man—or a bull. Who is there cannot do so much as that? For a shilling or eighteen-pence a day we can get an army of brave men who will face an enemy—and die, if death should come. It is not a great thing, nor a rare, for a man in battle not to run away. With regard to Cicero the allegation is that he would not be allowed to be bribed ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... been the motive, the effect was deplorable. The articles, at once collected into a pamphlet (price two pence), as the "Report of the Pall Mall Gazette's Secret Commission," and headed by a laudatory quotation from one of the late Lord Shaftesbury's indiscreetly philanthropic speeches, were spread broadcast about every street and lane in London. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... glad that such as you are abroad—good specimens of Englishmen: with the proper fierte about them. The greater part are poor wretches that go to see oranges growing, and hear Bellini for eighteen-pence. I hope the English are as proud and disagreeable as ever. What an odd thing that the Italians like such martial demonstrations as you describe—not at all odd, probably—their spirit begins and goes off in noise and smoke. It is like all other grand aspirations. So —-'s ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... night she went to keep her appointment. The girl was there, but the boy came late. He said he had earned only a few pence that day, and would be beaten. He spoke in a whimpering tone which caused the girl to desire a translation of his words. Emilia told her how things were with him, and the girl expressed a wish that she had an organ, as in that case she would be sure to earn more ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the old man. "I don't want to force my company on nobody," and after thinking 'ard for a minute or two he put 'is 'and in 'is trouser-pocket and gave them eighteen-pence each. ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... beautiful flame, regardless of cost, and burns in one evening what his victim had been economizing for so long. To burn for burning's sake, however, has always been the fate of tallow, the only difference being in the way it is done. Like the poor man's clumsy pence, which were put by to be spent some day or other, only in another manner. It is worth noting here, that some of the Russian soldiers who were in France in 1815 had a very good idea of restoring candles to their original destiny. As children of the north, driven to get fire wherever ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... to the enormous sum of two shilling and ten pence. James termed the custom of using tobacco an "evil vanitie" impairing "the health of a great number of people their bodies weakened and made unfit for labor, and the estates of many mean persons so decayed and consumed, as they are thereby driven to unthriftie shifts only to maintain their gluttonous ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... heart: it ran thus, "A subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford, and for enabling him to improve himself in Writing and English Grammar." Few contributed more than five shillings, and none went beyond ten-and-six-pence: enough, however, was collected to free me from my apprenticeship (the sum my master received was six pounds) and to maintain me for a few months, during which I assiduously attended the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... sin, in tidies, and chair-covers, and Christmas slippers,—we know how to take you now; we have found out what all that is worth we can appraise your tears by the bottle—in pounds, shillings, and pence." But the beer-men curtail my harangue, so I shake my departing fist at the cowering lion, and, leaving this British institution, proceed to investigate another British institution,—the undaunted English army, in its development in Fort Wellington. A wall shuts the world out from those sacred ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... instance, is, at Paris, one penny the pound, and in London at eight-pence the quartern loaf, which weighs just four French pounds, the price is exactly double. If every thing was conducted in a fair way, corn, from all countries, where it is equally as cheap as in France, might be brought and sold ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... time there remained in hand but twenty-seven pence ha'penny, in all, to meet the needs of hundreds of orphans. Nevertheless this was the ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... he used to say, "he will never be in want of pence; he has got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here? Every one can see that he hasn't come for money, for his father would never give him any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet his father ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... remove inefficient men from its high places. The King also agreed to do something that had never been done before in England, namely, to establish separate courts (S151) for the trial of Church cases (SS164, 165). Finally, he agreed to pay the customary yearly tax to Rome, called "Peter's pence." ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... women who sell their bodies for a very small sum. They seldom ask over thirty or forty pfennigs for a night, which is usually spent in the open air. In England it is practically the same thing. In all the large cities there are women who are glad to do business for three or four pence, and those "on ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... a loveless match, And lovers who but sought the pence to catch; The crew censorious, rebels against Love; And those whose verses ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... for a lark, such as weddings, shooting, bowling, the newly fashionable masquerades, and evening parties, the most dangerous of all evil customs. Independence Day, which degenerates into a perfect orgy of debauchery, was not then in vogue. Now if he figured only two pence a week for brandy or wine, that made four crowns again. If he skipped three dance-Sundays, still he needed at least a crown if he was to pay the fiddler, have a girl, and, as was customary, go home full; ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... I have to tell is worse than all this; we have been persuaded to take a furnisht house, where we go on Monday; and we are to pay for it, for three months, no less than a hundred and fifty pounds, which is more than the half of the Doctor's whole stipend is, when the meal is twenty-pence the peck; and we are to have three servan' lassies, besides Andrew's man, and the coachman that we have hired altogether for ourselves, having been persuaded to trist a new carriage of our own by the Argents, which I trust the Argents will find money to pay for; and masters are to come in ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... a shot, a sou is paid if he do not hit the cannon, but if he succeed in so doing, he receives a sou; the reader may suppose that a miss takes place at the rate of about seven times to a hit; and after several young countrymen had been trying in vain, and had lost a good many pence, they began to grumble and declare that it was next to impossible to hit the cannon more than once in a hundred times, upon which the proprietor himself took the cross-bow and at the same distance as the others stood, hit the cannon five times running with the most perfect apparent ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... Mr. Speaker; Cobbett will soon Move to abolish the sun and moon; Hume, no doubt, will be taking the sense Of the House on a saving of thirteen-pence; Grattan will growl or Baldwin bray; Sleep, Mr. Speaker; ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... do things as they should be, and give the poor soul as good a title by law to practise, as his wife had given by institution,—he cheerfully paid the fees for the ordinary's licence himself, amounting in the whole, to the sum of eighteen shillings and four pence; so that betwixt them both, the good woman was fully invested in the real and corporal possession of her office, together with all its rights, members, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... him, for sche is a synful womman. And Jhesus answerde and seide to him, Symount, I han sum thing to seye to thee. And he seide, Maistir, seye thou. And he answerde, Tweye dettouris weren to oo lener [one lender]; and oon oughte fyve hundrid pens [pence] and the tother fifty. But whanne thei hadden not wherof thei schulen yelde, [yield, pay] he forgaf to bothe. Who thanne loueth him more? Symount answerde and seide, I gesse that he to whom he forgaf more. And he answeride to him, Thou hast demed ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... never the better for that Passage. In lieu of these are to be had Yams and Casada. All sorts of Grain—though it may be the produce of this Country—is Dear. Fresh Beef (tho' bad) is to be had in plenty at about 2 1/4 pence per pound, and Jurked Beef about the same price. This is cured with Salt, and dryd in the shade, the bones being taken out, and the Meat cut into large but very thin slices. It eats very well, and if kept in a dry place will remain good a long ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... twopence. Well what did it all come to—sponge-cakes so much, buns so much, biscuits," he went on murmuring to himself and touching his fingers to remind him—"yes, it is very curious," he said, "it comes to just two shillings and three half-pence. I have one halfpenny change to give you, Audrey, and I hope you think I ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth

... and if they went to three pounds, he could clear nearly eight thousand. What an idea! It was ripe fruit tumbling off the tree without the trouble of plucking it. But five hundred pounds! He had not as many pence, and he did not know where to get it. If he could only borrow it from someone—but then he could offer no security. A sense of his own helplessness came on him as he saw this golden tide flowing ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... to see her? You might say a few kind words to her. It would please me, for I'm going on a rather unpleasant errand. I thought that she would have strength enough to make some little boxes like me, and thus earn a few pence for herself; but she has kept the work I gave her more than a month now, and if she really cannot do it ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... England was great, coal being at three-and- sixpence, bread at nine pence; a cry had arisen for the Union of Britain with the Sea; and on the 27th of January a plebiscite among the Trade Unions resulted in an affirmative vote of five millions out of an electorate ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... inhabited only by fishermen; they are the poorest individuals of their tribe, who have no flocks or camels, and are obliged to resort to this occupation to support themselves and families. We bought here for thirty-two paras, or about four-pence halfpenny, thirty-two salted fish, each about two feet in length, and a measure of the dried shell-fish, Zorombat, which in this state the Arabs call Bussra. For the smaller kinds of fish the fishermen use ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... few who were taken into custody; and, in the final sentence, the measure of his fine proclaims him eminently guilty. The total estimate which he delivered on oath to the House of Commons amounted to 106,543 pounds 5 shillings and 6 pence, exclusive of antecedent settlements. Two different allowances of 15,000 pounds and of 10,000 pounds were moved for Mr. Gibbon; but, on the question being put, it was carried without a division for the smaller sum. ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... about two hundred and ninety thousand pounds a year, less then a tenth part of what the military establishment of France then cost in time of peace. The daily pay of a private in the Life Guards was four shillings, in the Blues two shillings and sixpence, in the Dragoons eighteen pence, in the Foot Guards tenpence, and in the line eightpence. The discipline was lax, and indeed could not be otherwise. The common law of England knew nothing of courts martial, and made no distinction, in time of peace, between a soldier ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... is situate on an islet, on each side of which the sea passes inland and forms a large lagoon. There is at Biban a single European resident, an Italian, who acts as a French agent and spy on the frontiers of Tunis and Tripoli. He is paid about eighteen-pence a day, cheap enough for his high political mission. The French are mighty fond of planting spies all over Barbary; but espionage is their forte. In the evening we arrived at the Salinæ[8], "salt pits," on the coast, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... popular delusion. The sole foundation for that delusion manifestly is that in these countries the values of all commodities are commonly stated in terms of a pound sterling; in other words, in pounds, shillings, and pence; a shilling being a twentieth part of the pound, and a penny the ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter

... the most accomplished arithmetician to solve. No wonder that it had puzzled Allie's infantile brains. To recall and set it down here, at this length of time, would be quite impossible; nor would the reader care to have it inflicted upon him. Days, weeks, and years, peanuts, pence, and dollars, were involved in the statement he made, or attempted to make, for me to work out the solution thereof; but it was hopeless to try to tell what the boy would be at; and, indeed, his own ideas on the subject were more than hazy, and, to his great ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... trembling compass well, Before the days of Robert Bell. A little further up the street, James Martin's name the eye did greet A round faced Caledonian, who Good eating and good drinking knew; And "Four-pence-half-penny" McKenzie Daily vended wolsey linsey, Next door to one of comic cheer Acknowledged the best auctioneer, That ever knock'd a bargain down, Or bidder if he chanced to frown; He set himself up in the end As Carleton's most worthy friend And by vox populi was sent To Parliament to represent ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... WERE full of your chaff, but you must have been drinking when you wrote all that cock-and-a-bull gammon. Thirty pounds! No; nor fifteen; nor as many pence. I never heard of the party you mention by the name of the Count of Monte Cristo; and as for the Prince, he's as likely to be setting out for Boulogne with an eagle as you are to start a monkey and a barrel- organ in Jericho; or may be THAT'S the ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... all points of music, And asses be doctors of every science, And cats do heal men by practising of physic, And buzzards to scripture give any credence, And merchants buy with horn, instead of groats and pence, And pyes be made poets for their eloquence, Then put women in ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... as sand-grains in the sea, As many as stars in heaven be, As many as beasts that dwell in fields, As many as pence which money yields, As much as blood in veins will flow, As much as heat in fire will glow, As much as leaves in woods are seen And little grasses in the green, As many as thorns that prick on hedges, As grains of wheat that harvest ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... gave that great man four francs, and he said regretfully that it was more than enough. To his son and heir—the identical boy who had brought the ring of bread up the mountain to the chalet where we lunched. I gave something under two-pence, for guiding me across two doubtful fields into a beaten track, and he expressed himself as even more content than the maire. They both told me that it was impossible to miss the way; but I imagine that I achieved that impossibility, ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... this sum, the custom and excise duties were increased, and the income-tax was renewed, though not to its former extent; a duty of one shilling in the pound was imposed on land, to be paid by the landlord, and nine-pence by the tenant. The war taxes were estimated at L12,700,000 annually, but they were to cease at the end of six months after the return of peace, Some of the new taxes imposed were extended to Ireland, and the lord-lieutenant of that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... in, examined some of the stores the shop contained, and with great difficulty restrained myself to the purchase of the Seven Champions of Christendom, which cost me a shilling. The other eighteen pence I found an opportunity, it being market day, of sending by a neighbour to my mother; with an injunction that six-pence of it should be given ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... 'remainder' of The Talisman came to light. The 'find' consisted of about Five Copies, which were sold in the first instance for an equal number of Pence. The buyer appears to have resold them at progressive prices, commencing at Four Pounds ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... Miss Matilda, "is a pattern of upright living to his day and generation. But of course if you're incapable of understanding the difference between a sinful wager of money and the few pence necessary to keep up the interest ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... was twelve he went to the university, and also got a place in a shop as errand boy. He used to run through the streets between his work and his classes. Potatoes and salt fish, which could then be got at two pence the pound if bought by the half- hundred weight, were his food. There was not always a good meal for two, yet when Gavin reached home at night there was generally something ready for him, and Margaret had supped "hours ago." Gavin's hunger urged him to fall to, but ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... him. And when he reached the Court of the savage black man he entered the hall, and beheld four-and-twenty ladies, the fairest that could be seen. And the garments which they had on were not worth four-and twenty pence, and they were as sorrowful as death. And Owain asked them the cause of their sadness. And they said, "We are the daughters of Earls, and we all came here with our husbands, whom we dearly loved. And we were received with honour and rejoicing. And we were thrown ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... worthy deed unto the Pope, who rewarded him liberally, and gave him letters unto the King of Spain, where he was very well entertained of him there, who for this his most worthy enterprise gave him in fee twenty pence a day. From whence, being desirous to come into his own country, he came thither at such time as he conveniently could, which was in the year of our Lord God 1579; who being come into England went unto the ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... Polly, she was perhaps in point of artificial accomplishments very little his superior. She had been good-humouredly working and drudging for her life all her life, and was a sober steady-going person, with matter-of-fact ideas about the butcher and baker, and the division of pence into farthings. But she was a good plain sample of a nature that is ever, in the mass, better, truer, higher, nobler, quicker to feel, and much more constant to retain, all tenderness and pity, self-denial and devotion, than the nature of men. And, perhaps, unlearned as she was, she could have ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... from tooth, lice from louse, mice from mouse, geese from goose, feet from foot, dice from die, pence from penny, brethren from brother, children ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... was deemed only fit for fuel. On the South Downs I know some plantations of this tree, which have been sold, after twenty-five years growth, at a price which averaged a profit of twenty shillings per annum per acre, on land usually let for sheep-pasture at one shilling and six-pence. ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... stitched, she could see the night pass from purple to black, and from black to the lilac of daybreak. There, with a hundred pounds' worth of silk and lace on her knee, she would sit and work a dozen hours to earn as many pence. With fingers weary and—But you know Hood's song, and no doubt have taken it to ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... yellowish white silk, of which there were used 22,000 yards at about 5 shillings 4 pence a yard, so that the cost of the silk alone was 5,866 pounds. This was cut into 118 gores, which were entirely hand-sewed with a double seam, and some idea of the vastness of the work may be gathered ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne

... the ears, for I had only a silver fourpenny piece in my pocket. Never had my lack of pence weighed so heavily upon me as just at that moment. But she read me at a glance, and there in an instant was a little moleskin purse with a silver clasp thrust into my hand. I paid the man, and would have given it back, but she still would have me ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... she take it off?" Ned demanded of Chris, frowning with concentration. "'Twas asked with rare politeness, anyone would agree to that." He shook his head solemnly. "Why no, Master Christopher, that she did not! Our Becky had just paid the final pence upon that hat, and after a year, seven months and eighteen days, the hat was hers. She wanted all beholders to admire it. What cared she if the gentleman seated on the bench behind her saw more of her bonnet than of the play? In Becky Boozer's opinion, 'twas a more than fair exchange! So she ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... chanting high Mass, our Carmelite wandered about, hoping to find some one who wanted a Mass said, whereby the monk could earn a few pence, but no one ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... wish to possess the Series or sheet containing any specific article particularised in the Index, will be at liberty to purchase it separately, on One Penny or Three-half-pence each sheet respectively, or at one penny each extra post-free, through the Publisher. Series 1 to 17 sell at 1d., and 18 to 25 at 11/2d. each, but it must be observed that each sheet or Series contains ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various

... of the mad Elwes breed, who have brought discredit upon a character, which cannot exist without certain admirable points of steadiness and unity of purpose. One may hate a true miser, but cannot, I suspect, so easily despise him. By taking care of the pence, he is often enabled to part with the pounds, upon a scale that leaves us careless generous fellows halting at an immeasurable distance behind. C. gave away 30,000l. at once in his life-time to a blind charity. His house-keeping was severely looked after, but he kept the table of a gentleman. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... number of coolie huts, each standing in a little pineapple patch. I spent ninepence of my capital in the purchase of a dozen pines, getting three separate lots of four at three-pence per lot. It was late in the afternoon when I reached D'Urban. The date was the 27th of January, so I had spent twenty four days on the road. Considering the weather I had encountered, I had not done so badly. Next morning I read in a newspaper that the man with whom I had foregathered on the previous ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... practices among the present barbarous nations. The king also imposed on them a duty of two shillings on each tun of wine imported, over and above the old duty; and forty pence on each sack of wool exported besides half a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... fighting for rotten fruit, cabbage stocks, and even the very trimmings of vegetables. On the side walks, were great numbers hovering about the doors of the more wealthy, and following strangers, importuning them for "pence to buy bread." Sickly and emaciated-looking creatures, half naked, were at our heels at every turn. After passing through a half dozen, or more, of narrow and dirty streets, we returned to our lodgings, impressed with the ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... silver pieces I gave him, which caused him, to wish me—"Buon appetito e un sorriso della Madonna!"—(a good appetite to you and a smile of the Madonna!) Imagine the Lord Laureate of England standing at the corner of Regent Street swallowing half-pence for his rhymes! Yet some of the quaint conceits strung together by such a fellow as this improvisatore might furnish material for many of the so called "poets" whose names are mysteriously honored ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... council, who made their award a few days before Easter.(1160) It decreed that at the forthcoming festival every subject should pay to the parson or curate of his parish after the rate of 2s. 9d. in the pound, and 16 pence half-penny in the half-pound, and that every man's wife, servant, child and apprentice receiving the Holy Sacrament should pay two pence. These payments were to continue to be paid "without grudge or murmur" until such time as the council should ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... ninety-three pounds seven shillings and fourpence. Let us now examine my purse. Here is a five-pound note; there is a golden sovereign. I now count out and place on the table twelve and sixpence in silver and two pence in coppers. The purse thus becomes empty. Let us add the silver and copper to the amount on the paper. Do my eyes deceive me, or is the sum exactly a hundred pounds? There is your money fully ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... most honourable part: 'Landlord, here's the money for this glass of brandy and water—do me the favour to take it; all right, remember I have paid you.' 'Landlord, here's the money for the pint of half-and-half—four-pence halfpenny, a'nt it?—here's sixpence, keep the change—confound the change!' The landlord, assisted by his niece, bustled about; his brow erect, his cheeks plumped out, and all his features exhibiting a kind of surly satisfaction. Wherever he moved, marks of the most cordial amity ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... sometimes of suet, which is probably added to give it a richness which the cacao employed may not possess of itself. In the West Indies they rarely add anything to cacoa but arnatto (sometimes a little fresh butter), though it is often scented and sweetened, and sold in little rolls at five-pence and ten-pence each, currency. It is always boiled with milk, which, though very indigestible when boiled and taken alone, seems to lose this quality when taken with chocolate. Chocolate thus made is much drank, when cold, in the middle of the day, and is ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... time we have some narratives concerning his honesty that compare favorably with the story of Washington and the cherry tree. While he was keeping Offut's store a woman overpaid him four pence and when he found the mistake he walked several miles that evening to return the pennies before he slept. On another occasion in selling a half pound of tea he discovered that he had used too small a weight and he hastened forth to make good the deficiency. Indeed one of his chief traits ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers

... and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice, With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice! The changeable world to our joy is unjust, All treasure 's uncertain, Then down with your dust! In frolics dispose your pounds, shillings, and pence, For we shall be nothing a hundred ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... he asked when he had found the right place. "Am I a night boy? Have I ever tended fires for two pence a night and my supper? ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... into the house and frighten Mother, or into the waterhole and dirty the water. Dad said it was the fault of the cove who broke her in. Dad was a just man. The "cove" was a union shearer—did it for four shillings and six pence. Wanted five bob, but Dad beat him down. Anybody else would ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... necessary steps: be wide awake.' 'What steps d'ye mean?' 'Your strength will soon run short, Unless your stomach have some strong support. Come, rouse yourself: take this ptisane of rice.' 'The price?' 'A trifle.' 'I will know the price.' 'Eight-pence.' 'O dear! what matters it if I Die by disease or robbery? still I die.' "'Who then is sane?' He that's no fool, in troth. 'Then what's a miser?' Fool and madman both. 'Well, if a man's no miser, is he sane That moment?' No. 'Why, Stoic?' I'll explain. The ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... the Well-intentioned, so far as we have yet found out, is the Education Act, for which the London rate has now mounted to nine-pence in the pound. It is a failure, like the emancipation of the slaves; because, though it has done some things well, it has wholly failed to achieve the great results confidently predicted for it by its advocates in the year '68. What is more, we now ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... can do it. You can figure up how much a cheese that tips the steelyard at twenty pounds and three ounces will come to at three pence ha'penny per pound. You know, or you ought to know, the difference between a pistareen and a smooth-faced shilling. When you truck and dicker, you've got to remember that the other feller is doing it all the time, while you will be as green as a pumpkin in August. When you are tasting 'lasses, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... diameter, extremely pure and transparent. It was sold in my time at Cumana to the dyers and tanners, at the price of two reals* per pound, while alum from Spain cost twelve reals. (* The real is about 6 1/2 English pence.) This difference of price was more the result of prejudice and of the impediments to trade, than of the inferior quality of the alum of the country, which is fit for use without undergoing any purification. It is also found in the chain of mica-slate and clay-slate, on the north-west coast ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... estimated, in its depreciated condition, at about seventy-two millions more of debt. The ragged Continental soldiers, frequently reduced to seven-tenths of a pound rations, their arrearages of wages paid in Continental currency worth four pence on the dollar, were now about to be discharged to return to their needy families carrying only paper promises of the United States to pay. These certificates could be disposed of only to brokers and that at ruinous rates. What was to become of a veteran who was disabled? Congress had already ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... England the tenant does not perform the obligations or in any way aspire to the character of owner. If he thinks he can get a cheaper farm, he quits his former one, regarding his interest in the land as a mere matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. Not so the Irish tenant. He has made what he calls improvements, he claims a quasi-ownership in the land, and has the characteristic Celtic attachment for the patch of ground forming his holding, however squalid it may ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... resorts must be limited within a small back-yard. These places of cheap sustenance and recreation depend for support upon the innumerable pleasure-parties who come from London Bridge by steamer, at a fare of a few pence, and who get as enjoyable a meal for a shilling a head as the Ship Hotel would afford ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... that rakes their revels keep, Kindlers of riot, enemies of sleep; His scattered pence the flying Nicker flings, And with the copper shower the casement rings; Who has not heard the Scowerer's midnight fame? Who has not ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... still worse. What I understood best was subtraction, for that has a very practical rule: 'Four can't be taken from three, therefore I must borrow one.' But I advise every one in such a case to borrow a few extra pence, for no one can tell what may happen. . . . As for Latin, you have no idea, madam, what a complicated affair it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had first had to learn Latin. Luckily for them, they already knew in their cradles what nouns have their accusative ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... that's Mrs Billson as you can smell. I've been talking to her, and she drink 'orrid. Ain'tcher got a few pence for your poor lone mother, who's ready to break her heart sometimes because she's ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... payment known as Peter's Pence had first been levied by the King of the West Saxons in 727, and was a tax of one penny on each family that owned lands producing thirty pence per annum; its object was the support of a Saxon College at Rome. Offa now induced the Pope to allow the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... seemed as if now there might be a school-house, but with little income to depend upon, since poor Alan Ernescliffe's annual ten pounds was at an end. However, Dr. May leaned over her as she was puzzling over her pounds, shillings, and pence, and laid a cheque upon her desk. She looked up in his face. "We must make Cocksmoor Harry's ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... pay off a debt that was upon it. Then my brother sprang up and declared that the family of an upright and faithful servant of the State, and of a friend of the Schoppers, should have some better and more honorable means of living than beggars' pence. He was not yet of full age, but it was his intent to demand forthwith of our guardian Im Hoff so much of that which would be his, as might be needed to release the house from the burden of debt; and albeit Master ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... bought papers recklessly—in fact, he must have spent the best part of six-pence. But in spite of all the supposed and suggested clues, there was nothing—nothing at all new to read, less, in fact than ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... adopted by Swift in his letters to the people of Ireland anent Wood's pence, and which led to the cancelling of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... but it has ceased. That wretched woman with the infant in her arms, round whose meagre form the remnant of her own scanty shawl is carefully wrapped, has been attempting to sing some popular ballad, in the hope of wringing a few pence from the compassionate passer-by. A brutal laugh at her weak voice is all she has gained. The tears fall thick and fast down her own pale face; the child is cold and hungry, and its low half-stifled wailing adds to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... proud of his opening promise, and hopeful, yet apprehensive, of his future. Here he and his sister, "excellent Nell," acquired music, first upon an old harpsichord, obtained by his father in discharge of a debt, and afterwards on a piano, to buy which his loving mother had saved up all superfluous pence. Hence he issued to lake country walks with unhappy Robert Emmet. Hither he came—not less proudly, yet as fondly as ever—when college magnates had given him honor, and the King's Viceroy had received him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... rare—and almost too old. If it had been done fifty or more years later, on one of Gutenberg's presses, Quaritch might give you two thousand pounds for it. Hand-work—which ought really to be more valuable than machine-work—is worth pence, where the other sells for pounds. One of Gutenberg's Bibles sold here a year ago for three thousand guineas, so I am told. What are the ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... their normal state are independent farmers differing only in wealth. One Boer might be the possessor of perhaps ten farms and be worth a quarter of a million, while another might be but a poor "bywoner" and not worth a hundred pence, yet the two men would occupy the same rank ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... by means of a Roots blower. The Manchester corporation has 28 cells of this type in use, and the approximate amount of refuse burnt per cell per 24 hours is from 6 to 8 tons at a cost per ton for labour of 3.47 pence. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... or speaking of sums of money the expression takes the form of "pounds, shillings, and pence"; for example, Twenty-one pounds five shillings and nine pence. Sometimes the word "sterling" is added, meaning genuine or standard coin of the realm. In accounts the figures are placed in three parallel columns under the heading of s. d. "" ...
— Everybody's Guide to Money Matters • William Cotton, F.S.A.

... the "sort of thing" they put on the presentation copies of their photographs, and I was sure they wrote a beautiful hand. It was odd how quickly I was sure of everything that concerned them. If they were now so poor as to have to cam shillings and pence they could never have had much of a margin. Their good looks had been their capital, and they had good- humouredly made the most of the career that this resource marked out for them. It was in their faces, the blankness, the deep intellectual ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James

... on all estates, real and personal, to eighteen-pence in the pound, fully rated; and the tax on the profits of trades and professions, with other taxes, do, I suppose, make full ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... When my father died, I undertook this business; and Capuzzi was in the highest degree satisfied with me, because, as he once affirmed, I knew better than anybody else how to give his moustaches a bold upward twirl; but the real reason was because I was satisfied with the few pence with which he rewarded me for my pains. But he firmly believed that he more than richly indemnified me, since, whilst I was trimming his beard, he always closed his eyes and croaked through an aria ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... draught for each hour. Pursuing my theme, for amusement was in it, There were ten shillings sterling for each fleeting minute, And for ev'ry pulsation of time, called a second, "According to Cocker," two-pence must ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various



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