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The closing passage in it is of especial interest. "I have seen Sheridan's last letter imploring Rogers to come to his assistance. It stated that he was dying, and concluded abruptly with these words 'they are throwing the things out of window. The memorialist certainly took pennyworths out of his friend's character.
The financial ideas of the latter scarcely went further than "making cheap pennyworths of their plunder, giving to courtesans and living like lords till all be gone," so that negotiating the sale of bonds was a mystery far too high for them something which they could never hope to attain to. But the company included one man who was a rare exception to the ordinary ride of such society.
This was actually within the papal states, under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Sienna, to whose knowledge came the astounding fact that pennyworths of heresy were circulated within the range of his pastoral charge: the matter was reported at head- quarters, taken up with due seriousness, and a Sunday appointed, on which, no doubt, I was quietly worshipping in the college chapel at Sandhurst, wholly unconscious that my name was then being proclaimed at a hundred Italian altars, with a denunciation against all who should read, circulate, or possess any book, tract, or treatise penned by me.
Next, he opened his stall and spread his meat upon the bench, then, taking his cleaver and steel and clattering them together, he trolled aloud in merry tones: "Now come, ye lasses, and eke ye dames, And buy your meat from me; For three pennyworths of meat I sell For the charge of one penny.
Four fixed prices have I. Three pennyworths of meat I sell to a fat friar or priest for sixpence, for I want not their custom; stout aldermen I charge threepence, for it doth not matter to me whether they buy or not; to buxom dames I sell three pennyworths of meat for one penny, for I like their custom well; but to the bonny lass that hath a liking for a good tight butcher, I charge nought but one fair kiss, for I like her custom the best of all."
As to the third vessel which came with them, it was a kind of bark of the country, who, having intelligence of our design to traffic, came off to deal with us, bringing a great deal of gold and some provisions, which at that time we were very glad of. In short, we traded upon the high seas with these men, and indeed we made a very good market, and yet sold thieves' pennyworths too.
The kind of problem presented to the poor town child will deal with shopping in pennyworths or ounces, with getting coals in pound bagfuls. Clothes are generally second-hand, and so ordinary standard prices are out of the question. Bread is bought stale and therefore cheaper, early in the morning. Preserved milk only is bought, and that in halfpenny quantities.
He went as far as those things which were put up in packets, such as what were called 'grits' for making gruel, and he was also authorised to venture on pennyworths of liquorice and peppermints, but the sale of half-a-dozen yards of cotton print was as much above him as the negotiation of a treaty of peace would be to a messenger in the Foreign Office.
His traffick is a kind of pedlary-ware, scutchions, and pennons, and little daggers and lions, such as children esteem and gentlemen; but his pennyworths are rampant, for you may buy three whole brawns cheaper than three boar's heads of him painted. He was sometimes the terrible coat of Mars, but is now for more merciful battles in the tilt-yard, where whosoever is victorious, the spoils are his.
Povy's, but missed him, and so hearing only that this Allbon is gone to Fleet Street, I did only call at Martin's, my bookseller's, and there bought "Cassandra," and some other French books for my wife's closet, and so home, having eat nothing but two pennyworths of oysters, opened for me by a woman in the Strand, while the boy went to and again to inform me about this man, and therefore home and to dinner, and so all the afternoon at the office, and there late busy, and so home to supper, and pretty pleasant with my wife to bed, rested pretty well.
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