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It became a not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under his door at night, enclosing half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and then at long intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the Marshalsea. 'With the compliments of a collegian taking leave. He received the gifts as tributes, from admirers, to a public character.
She offered it to me out of sheer good nature, because she knew I needed it, so I had no cause to complain. I began, even whilst I sat there on the step, to ask her pardon in my own mind for my behaviour. Particularly, I regretted bitterly that I had shown myself ungrateful to her at the last, and thrown half-a-sovereign in her face.... Half-a-sovereign! I gave a whistle.
An empty cart, drawn by a stout horse, passed us. Frank glanced at the pale little child beside him. "Where to?" cried he. "Forest Creek." "Take us for what?" "A canary a-piece." "Agreed." And we gladly sprung in. For the sake of the uninitiated, I must explain that, in digger's slang, a "canary" and half-a-sovereign are synonymous. We passed the "Porcupine Inn."
"Something over a fortnight had passed since the night when I lost half-a-sovereign and found twelve hundred and fifty pounds in looking for it, and instead of that horrid hole, for which, after all, Eldorado was hardly a misnomer, a very different scene stretched away before us clad in the silver robe of the moonlight.
"Oh," said Billy, "you are come, are you? We want that money for the roof yonder." The farmer then went on to say, "Two days ago it came to my mind to give two pounds for the preaching house, but as I was coming down the hill on yesterday morning, something said to me, 'if you give one pound it will be handsome; then I thought I would give only half-a-sovereign; and then that I would give nothing.
The man took the money and scrutinized me closely. At what was he standing there staring? I had a feeling that he particularly examined the knees of my trousers, and his shameless effrontery bored me. Did the scoundrel imagine that I really was as poor as I looked? Had I not as good as begun to write an article for half-a-sovereign? Besides, I had no fear whatever for the future.
There is no more fundamental brainwork in it than in a game I saw being played in a railway carriage the other day, when a man drew a handful of coins from his pocket and bet his friend half-a-sovereign that there would be more heads than tails lying uppermost. This is a game at which it is possible to lose five pounds in two minutes.
Then he was cautioned to keep his own counsel as to the incident, and he went away to get gloriously drunk on half-a-sovereign. In the seclusion of the sitting-room, Winter related the outcome of his inquiries. They were negative.
Yet it was a struggle! All Mr. Soames' commercial instincts were up in arms against this voice of a greater avarice which counseled abstention. For instance: he could have added half-a-sovereign a week to his earnings by means of a simple arrangement with the local wine merchant.
Gladys approached, and took the half-crown, but with it there was half-a-sovereign. 'The rest is for yourself, to do what you like with, added the colonel, in a low voice. 'Thank you, sir, but I never take money, said Gladys, leaving the gold in his hand, 'I do not need it. 'Give it to the poor, then, said the colonel, letting it drop, and looking annoyed.
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