Penny

“ The conflict, even though the spending of a single penny was concerned, now became severe: love for the child plead earnestly, and as earnestly plead the old habit that seemed as if it would take no denial.
It was his last penny that was between the cobbler's fingers. Had there been two pennies in his pocket, all difficulty would have immediately vanished. Having thought of the orange, he would have bought it with one of them, and supplied his pipe with the other. But, as affairs now stood, he must utterly deny himself, or else deny his child. ”

“ When we recovered from this shattering explosion of Penny's books, a little quiet work would have begun, had not Doe, with his romantic imagination lit by the glow of Penny's audacity, started to crave the notoriety of being likewise a leader of men. He rose from his desk, approached Mr. Cæsar, and extended his hand with a belated "Good morning, sir." ”

“ A hundred pounds will with difficulty support you for a year; with somewhat more difficulty you may spend it in a night; and without any difficulty at all you may lose it in five minutes on the Stock Exchange. If you are of that stamp of man that rises, a penny would be as useful; if you belong to those that fall, a penny would be no more useless. When I was myself thrown unexpectedly upon the world, it was my fortune to possess an art: I knew a good cigar. Do you know nothing, Mr. Somerset?’
‘Not even law,’ was the reply. ”

“ The boy or man who has made up his mind to save pence, and has found an old teapot on the mantelshelf but an insecure custodian, would not like to pass on to the savings bank at one stride. No, the humbler office close by, with an easy, sympathising, domestic air about it, which takes a penny, indeed adopts the very name of this coin, that is the house for him to keep his account at—the best stepping stone to the larger establishments. ”

“ But could he for a moment hesitate, if he really loved that sick child? is asked. Yes, he could hesitate, and yet love the little sufferer; for to one of his order of mind and habits of acting and feeling, a self-indulgence like that of the pipe, or a regular draught of beer, becomes so much like second nature, that it is as it were a part of the very life; and to give it up, costs more than a light effort.
The penny was between his fingers, and he took a single step toward the ale-house door; but so vividly came back the image of little Lizzy, that he stopped suddenly. ”

“ A very striking instance of the value of a penny is set before us in that most wonderful system the penny-postage, the institution of which was a boon to the kingdom that cannot be too highly appreciated. It enables rich and poor alike to bring their thoughts and desires into communication with each other, and so relieve anxious cares in regard to the health and wealth, the joys and sorrows of friends in an easy manner. A penny stamp can convey all our requirements, whether for good or for evil, and many a large sum is now transmitted under its care. ”

“ I think it cruel to make a bairn bank the penny it gets for running a message. Spending is always a pleasant thing, but a bairn gets more delirious joy out of buying a hapenny lucky-bag than an adult gets out of buying a thousand guinea Rolls Royce motor.
Some parents are foolish enough to give their bairns too much to spend. Little Mary Wallace has a penny every day of the year. I think that foolish of her mother. Spending must be a very rare thing if it is to yield the highest pleasure. ”

“ But maybe, Reader, in your youth you have heated a penny above a lamp, and with treacherous smile you have come before an open window. And when the son of Italy has grinned and beckoned for your bounty—the penny being just short of a molten 78state—you have thrown it to him. He stoops, he feels.... You have learned by this how much more blessed it is to give than to receive. Or, to dig deep in the riot of your youth, you have leased a hurdy-gurdy for a dollar and with other devils of your kind gone forth to seek your fortune. ”

“ It is a little difficult to know what to do with your hands, even in your pockets, when there is nothing else there. Years ago, when my whole capital would occasionally come down to "what in town the people call a bob," I would recklessly spend a penny of it, merely for the sake of having the change, all in coppers, to jingle. You don't feel nearly so hard up with eleven pence in your pocket as you do with a shilling. Had I been "La-di-da," that impecunious youth about whom we superior folk are so sarcastic, I would have changed my penny for two ha'pennies. ”

“ A penny seems a small sum to talk about, and with many, I am sorry to say, is looked upon as so insignificant as to be considered almost worthless; but I hope, before I have done, to show you something of the great value of even a penny, and of the effects and products we have been enabled to produce and dispose of with a reasonable profit at the cost of one penny. ”

“ This fellow Penny-Fling is at no little expense today, entertaining Soft. So how will he pay that debt? He has drawn everything from the bank." "Friend Deed," said the second, "I had to do it. The final consequence is your affair." Now at dawn a policeman came with money, a favor from the king, and gave it all to Penny-Fling.
When he saw this, Soft thought: "This Penny-Fling person, even without any capital, is a better kind of thing than that scaly old Penny-Hide. The proverb is right:
The Scriptures' fruit is pious homes ”

“ So I just thought of a penny I had in my pocket, and I said to myself, 'Now if I give this penny, mamma will call me a good boy, and then I shall be glad:' and so I gave it to him."—"Now, my dear, this is what you should have said: 'This old man is very poor, and I have a penny to spare that will do him good, and he shall have it.'"—"Ah! ”

“ In short, I am myself quite unacquainted with any logic by which it can be maintained that while a newspaper weighing six or eight ounces is conveyed for a halfpenny, a letter weighing but half an ounce should be chargeable with a penny, or, in other words, why the lightest letter should be charged twice as much as the heaviest newspaper. ”

“ If we take back shop it is merely taking back something that store has never been able to rid us of: we use shop-worn, shoplifter, shopping, shopper, shop-girl and to shop every day. In the same way the word penny has survived among us, despite the fact that there has been no American coin of that name for more than 125 years. We have nickel-in-the-slot machines, but when they take a cent we call them penny-in-the-slot machines. ”

“ Her father would often remark with no little show of determination: "Penny shall never throw herself away on any whipper-snapper of a fellow! She'll not be a pauper, and she can afford to wait a bit till she meets her match!" ”

“ Scotch boys are seldom spoiled with money. We thought more of a penny those economical days than the poorest American schoolboy thinks of a dollar. To decide what to do with that first penny was an extravagantly serious affair. I ran in great excitement up and down the street, examining the tempting goodies in the shop windows before venturing on so important an investment. My playmates also became excited when the wonderful news got abroad that Johnnie Muir had a penny, hoping to obtain a taste of the [11] orange, apple, or candy it was likely to bring forth. ”

“ A penny, Andrew, breaks the silver shilling into coppers; and twopence will buy half a stone of potatoes—that’s a consideration. If we don’t manage to keep things comfortable at home, the women won’t have the heart to mend the coat. Not,” added James with a sly smile, “that I can deny having taken to TEMPERANCE CORDIALS myself.” ”

“ As we go out into the open air, we may yet find a few of them scorning an ignoble repose. For instance, there is a penny-a-liner—literally he is not a penny-a-liner, as he is generally paid three-farthings a line, and very good pay that is, as the same account, written on very thin paper, called flimsy, is left at all the newspaper-offices, which, if they all insert, they all pay for, and one short tale may put the penny-a-liner in funds for a week. The penny-a-liner has long been the butt of a heartless world. ”

“ Had he not had such a father, he would not have devised his plan of Penny Postage. Had he not had such a mother, he would not have succeeded in making what seemed the scheme of an enthusiast a complete and acknowledged success. ”

“ Money itself is usually occupative or local (Chapter XVII) , and Shilling is the Anglo-Saxon name Scilling. The oldest and commonest of such nicknames is the simple Penny, with which we may compare the German surname Pfennig and its compounds Barpfennig, Weisspfennig, etc. The early adoption of this coin-name as a personal name is due to the fact that the word was taken in the sense of money in general. We still speak of a rich man as "worth a pretty penny." ”

“ Our penny curse—one of the cheapest things in the trade—is considered infallible. We have some very superior blessings, too, but they’re very little asked for. We’ve only sold one since Christmas—to a gentleman who bought it to send to his mother-in-law—but it turned out that he was afflicted in the head, and it’s been returned on our hands. But our sale of penny curses, especially on Saturday nights, is tremendous. We can’t turn ’em out fast enough. ”

“ Can you correctly answer these questions without having the coins in sight? On which side of a penny is the date given? Some people are so unobservant that, although they are handling the coin nearly every day of their lives, they are at a loss to answer this simple question. If I lay a penny flat on the table, how many other pennies can I place around it, every one also lying flat on the table, so that they all touch the first one? The geometrician will, of course, give the answer at once, and not need to make any experiment. ”

“ A penny is a very small matter; girls who have a great deal of money perhaps would not suppose it worth thinking about, but a great many pennies every week will in time come to a sum that is not so contemptible. ”

“ The penny of the present bronze coinage is of only about half the value of the old copper penny. The German pfennig was also originally a silver coin bearing the same relation to the German pound of silver as the English penny to its pound. And in the twelfth century it was made so broad, in imitation of the Byzantine coins, that it would no longer bear to be struck with a die on each side as before, but was struck on one side only. ”

“ A penny goes for mustard, a halfpenny for thread,
And you gave threepence the other night, for a piece of pig’s head.
A red herring every morning is sevenpence a week,
Sometimes you send me out for fish, you say you can’t eat meat,{50}
Last Monday night you got so drunk, amongst your dirty crew,
It cost two pence next morning for a basin of hot stew.
There’s a penny goes for pepper too, as you shall understand,
Twopence soda, starch and blue, and a halfpenny for sand,
Sevenpence for Candles, a halfpenny for matches,
And a penny worth of Corduroy, I bought to mend your breeches. ”

“ Penny exclaimed. “How did that happen?”
“He hinted to Mrs. Van Cleve that he would like to serve. Naturally, after his handsome donation, she couldn’t refuse.”
“Why do you suppose Mr. Blake has taken such a sudden interest in the Home?”
“I wonder myself. I’ve thought from the first that he’s up to something. So far I’ve not been able to figure out his little game.”
“Well, you’re on the board too,” Penny declared, undisturbed. “If he starts any monkey business you can put a quick stop to it.” ”

“ Certainly those vagabond merchants who take the penny as the unit of our coinage live somehow; but who ever saw them complete a bargain? There is a man near the corner of Great Portland Street, Oxford Street, who offers little Jacks-in-the-box, which jump out with a spring and squeak, at only a penny. I have passed him, I may say without any exaggeration, hundreds of times; he is always nipping the spring of the box-toy, and starting the little image, then shutting him down again, and thus giving him an intermittent view of society throughout the day ”

“ He also reduced the weight of the penny to a standard, ordering that it should weigh thirty-two grains of wheat taken out of the middle of the ear. This penny was called the penny sterling. Twenty of these pence were to weigh an ounce; whence the penny became a weight, as well as a coin. By subsequent acts it has been further reduced. In ancient statutes, the penny was used for all silver money; hence the ward-penny, the avert-penny, the rete-penny, &c. ”

“ The Penny Readings have been found to "draw" a higher class of audience than those for whom they were originally intended. The curate himself, if unmarried, secures the whole spinsterhood of the parish. His rendering of the lines, "On the receipt of my mother's picture out of Norfolk," is universally acknowledged to be "delightful;" and so, in course of time, the Penny Readings have been found to supply a good parochial income; and the incumbent, applying the proceeds to some local charity, naturally wishes to augment that income as much as possible. ”

“ It is for a similar reason that we say, if there remain anything which can be either identified or confounded with a penny, it should be lowered rather than raised in value. Small prices are not easily adjusted, and the temptation in the other case lies on the side of the dealer not to alter them. It is more certain, for instance, that a baker will take care to divide 2s. worth of bread into twenty-five penny-loaves, when a penny comes to be the twenty-fifth of a florin, than that he will divide 1s. worth into ten only, if a penny become the tenth of a shilling. ”