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She took the ducat, saying that she was sure she was leaving her daughter in good hands. "You may be sure of that," said I, "so be off." The daughter made such witty observations on the above dialogue that I could not help laughing, and I began to be in love with her. She was only thirteen, and was so small that she looked ten.
Soon after his accession to this dignity, a quantity of copper coin was received from England and put into circulation, upon which occasion the following table of specie was issued: A guinea, one pound two shillings, a johannes, four pounds; a half ditto, two pounds; a ducat, nine shillings and sixpence; a gold mohur, one pound seventeen shillings and sixpence; a pagoda, eight shillings; a Spanish dollar, five shillings; a rupee, two shillings and sixpence; a Dutch guilder, two shillings; an English shilling, one shilling and one penny: a copper coin of one ounce, two pence; a ditto of half an ounce, one penny; and a ditto of a quarter of an ounce, a halfpenny.
Capuzzi on the stage embraced Doctor Gratiano with great kindness, and asked how he was. Only yesterday he had spent his last ducat for a pair of rosemary-coloured stockings for his sweetheart, and was just going to walk round to one or two bankers to see if he could borrow thirty ducats" "But how can you pass over your best friends?" said Capuzzi.
Didn't I know her before you? She was mine first." Ducat got up. We all got up. The air became tense, and in the silence there seemed no motion of ship or wave. I said to myself, "This is murder." Ducat, very pale, an inscrutable look on his face, his black eyes narrowed, said quietly, "Monsieur, do you mean that?" "Why, sure I do? Why shouldn't I mean it? It's true."
A stampede towards the window interrupted the conclusion of the sentence, and the sisters stared at the unconscious couple with eager scrutiny. They peered to right and left, craned their necks to one side and then the other, rushed to a second window to obtain a better view, and finally turned back and faced each other with expressions of awed conviction. "It is for a ducat!
The weight of each castellano, a Castilian coin, is called a peso, and the entire sum, therefore, amounted to fifteen thousand castellanos. The castellano is a coin somewhat inferior to one thirtieth of a pound, but its value exceeds that of a golden ducat. This coin is peculiar to Castile, and is not minted in any other province.
The difference was that, instead of being forced to the companionship of school, they themselves had deserted their fathers and mothers and fled from their homes; that here were those about whose neck a rope had already been wound, and who, instead of pale death, had seen life, and life in all its intensity; those who, from generous habits, could never keep a coin in their pockets; those who had thitherto regarded a ducat as wealth, and whose pockets, thanks to the Jew revenue-farmers, could have been turned wrong side out without any danger of anything falling from them.
Then pulling out a brass token, resembling a dinar, she said to the maid, who was a simpleton, "Take this ducat and go in to thy mistress and say to her, 'Umm al-Khayr rejoiceth with thee and is beholden to thee for thy favours, and on the day of assembly she and her daughters will visit thee and handsel the tiring-women with the usual gifts." Said the girl, "O my mother, my young master here catcheth hold of his mamma, whenever he seeth her;" and she replied "Give him to me, whilst thou goest in and comest back."
I conceived we were observed, and turned an inquiring glance on Miss Vernon. "It is nothing," said she, faintly; "a rat behind the arras." "Dead for a ducat," would have been my reply, had I dared to give way to the feelings which rose indignant at the idea of being subjected to an eaves-dropper on such an occasion.
Shall I present each singer with a golden snuff-box, while I entertain the troupe at a supper, where champagne shall flow like water, and Indian birds-nests shall be served up with diamonds? Shall I present myself in full court-dress at the anteroom of the tenor, and, slipping a ducat in the hand of his valet, solicit the honor of an interview?
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