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"'Tis a poor ignorant lad, and mayhap was driven hard by hunger, for these be grievous times for the unfortunate; mark you, he hath not an evil face but when hunger driveth Good woman! dost know that when one steals a thing above the value of thirteenpence ha'penny the law saith he shall HANG for it?"
Those were the days when we had half cents in circulation to make change with. For part of our currency was the old-fashioned "ninepence," twelve and a half cents, and the "four pence ha'penny," six cents and a quarter. There was a good deal of Old England about us still. And we had also many living reminders of strange lands across the sea.
"No one knows better than your old Chief that your destiny is no such ha'penny affair as that. But at least you wouldn't make an ass of me. God knows what is in store for me at the hands of scribblers." "You lend yourself fatally well to marble and stone, sir," said Hamilton, mischievously.
Being a wery reg'lar gen'l'm'n, he din'd ev'ry day at the same place, where it was one-and-nine to cut off the joint, and a wery good one-and-nine's worth he used to cut, as the landlord often said, with the tears a-tricklin' down his face, let alone the way he used to poke the fire in the vinter time, which wos a dead loss o' four-pence ha'penny a day, to say nothin' at all o' the aggrawation o' seein' him do it.
It is unfortunate that the Ha'penny Joker and its kind should have so many readers. Maybe it teaches those to read who otherwise would never read at all. We are impatient, forgetting that the coming and going of our generations are but as the swinging of the pendulum of Nature's clock.
He instructed me then in this way: I was to go in alone and order for my friend outside a pint of "mull and bitter, in a tankard." The potman, he informed me, would bring it out to him. The expense of this refreshment was not heavy; it came to one penny ha'penny. The services of the obliging potman were gratuitous.
For that matter, indeed, luck here, luck there, I no care the toss up o' a ha'penny about omens mysel'; but now that ye've fortunately come, I'm a great deal easier, an' it will be ae craik out o' the way, for it will please her; an' ye may guess, between you an' me, that she's worth the pleasin', or I wadna had her; so I'll just step ower an' tell the ither lad that I hae a cousin come to be my best man, an' he'll think naething o't."
Down here, a British steamship line has laid down local rules which, in my case anyway, are ridiculous. The question is, are you going to be bound by the red tape of a ha'penny British colony, or by your oath to the President of the United States?" The sophistry amused Marshall. He smiled good-naturedly and shook his head. "I'm afraid, Senator," he said, "that way of putting it is hardly fair.
Even a wary old bird like me can make a mistake. Mrs. Vavasour has just warned my wife about her. It's no good arguing, Georgie, my boy. Nowadays you can't draw the line too rigidly. Things permissible in Paris or Nice won't pass muster here. I'm sorry, Georgie. She's a high stepper and devilish taking, I admit. Writes for some ha'penny rag er for some cheap society paper, I hear.
Old cocks, why don't they say roosters? declined to threepence ha'penny on Thursday in sympathy with fowls, and who shall say that chivalry is dead? Turkeys were a trifle steadier, and there was a speculative movement in limed eggs. All this was illuminating, and I only wished I were quite certain whether the sympathetic old roosters were threepence ha'penny apiece, or a pound.
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