penn'orths

All the year round the hawkers are standing patiently on the curbstone with their wonderful penn'orths; but it is at Christmas-time that they do most business.

Chatterbox, 1905. Various

I gave him sixpence (for he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out on two three penn'orths of gin-and-water, which so brisked him up that he sang the favourite comic of 'Shivery Shakey, ain't it cold?'

Charles Dickens and Music James T. Lightwood

Signora Diana told me she observed an unusual concourse of pedling women that came on pretext to sell penn'orths of lace, china, etc., and several young gentlemen, very well powdered, that were perpetually walking before her door, and looking up at the windows.

Lady Mary Wortley Montague Melville, Lewis 1925

I gave him sixpence (for he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out on two three penn'orths of gin-and-water, which so brisked him up that he sang the favourite comic of 'Shivery Shakey, ain't it cold?'

Charles Dickens and Music Lightwood, James T 1912

He kept his ink in a single moderate-sized jar, out of which he measured penn'orths and ha'p'orths into the various receptacles brought by customers who came to demand "a sup" or "a drain."

Strangers at Lisconnel Jane Barlow 1887

"I know him well; I saw him selling penn'orths of nuts a week or two ago in the Borough."

My Friend Smith A Story of School and City Life Talbot Baines Reed 1872

Last Saturday night me and my little Emma here, we sold 7 pounds worth of whelks between eight and half past eleven o'clock -- and almost all in penn'orths and twopenn'orths -- a few, hap'orths, but not many.

The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler 1868

"Were you wanting me, this evening?" and she took up the knife with which she cut penn'orths of tobacco for her customers, and hitting the counter with its wooden handle looked as hard as copper, and as bold as brass.

The Kellys and the O'Kellys Anthony Trollope 1848

The shop was shut up, at an unusually early hour; and many were the unavailing kicks bestowed upon the closed door by applicants for quarterns of sugar, or half-quarterns of bread, or penn'orths of pepper, which were to have been 'left till Saturday,' but which fortune had decreed were to be left alone altogether.

Sketches by Boz, illustrative of everyday life and every-day people Charles Dickens 1841

Behind the counter of a fried-fish shop in High Street, Camden Town, serving slabs of browned hake, and skate, and penn'orths of fried eels and chips to the hungry customers who surge in tempestuously to be fed on their homeward way from the Oxford or the Camden Hall of Varieties, or the theatre at the junction of Gower Street and the Hampstead Road -- one develops acuteness of observation, one gains experience, there being always the bloke who cuts and runs without paying, or eats and shows reversed trouser-pockets in default of settlement, to deal with ....

The Dop Doctor Richard Dehan 1897