Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season

Twenty years ago, Hezekiah Thornypath was in Luck's way--so much so, that Luck kicked him out of it. Hez went up to London to make his fortune, and he took his wife and children...

No snow, no frosts, no bare trees, but in the daytime glowing, sultry heat, and of a night soft, balmy, dewy, moonlit hours, and yet it was Christmas-time, and the whole of the...

"Now, once for all," said Asher Skurge, "if I don't get my bit o' rent by to-morrow at four o'clock, out you goes, bag and baggage, Christmas-eve or no Christmas-eve. If you can...

Well, no, sir, I can't complain, I've risen well in the force, and I'm very well satisfied with my position, but then there's a great deal of responsibility attached to one's of...

"Shoot the lot, Sir, if I had the chance. I would, O by Jove; that is, if I had dust shot in the gun--a set of rogues, rascals, scamps, tramps, vagabonds, and robbers. Don't tel...

I couldn't stop indoors, for I couldn't bear to see them all. The children didn't seem to mind it so much, for they ran about and played, and their little hearts were light; but...

Fancy being almost born a DD, like unto Mr Dagon Dodd, a gentleman who resided, when in what he called his prime, at Number Nine, Inkermann Villas, Balaclava-road, Russiaville--...

"For shame," said Mrs S. "How can you talk in that way, when you know what interest she takes in you, and how she praises all you write. No, now, it isn't gammon, as you so poli...

And I've found that out that it isn't money, nor a well-furnished house, nor clothes that make a man happy, but the possession of a good wife; and it took me ten years to find i...

"But what an out-of-the-way place to get to," I said, after being most cordially received by my old school fellow and his wife, one bitter night after a long ride. "But you real...

Whether I believe in ghosts, fetches, hobgoblins, table spirits, and the rest of the lights and shades of the supernatural world, is a question that we will not stop to discuss,...

"Forty-five years' boy and man, I've been a sailor," he'd say; "rated AB, I am; and AB I hope to keep till I'm sewed up in my hammock and sent overboard; for none of your rottin...

"Ha-ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha!" laughed Shadrach--Shadrach Pratt, light porter at Teman, Sundry, and Sope's, the wholesale and retail grocers in the City. "Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Shadrach,...

Rather cold outside here, sir; but of course, if you like riding on the box best, why it's nothing to me, and I'm glad of your company. Come on. "Ony a bob's worth, Tommy," says...

Of course they were--the good old times, or, as Macaulay has it, "the brave days of old." Things are not now as they used to be; and mind, O reader, these are not my words, but...

Dumb animals would be all very well, no doubt, and I don't suppose I should have much objection to keeping one, but then where are you going to get 'em? That's what I want to kn...

"Very, very glad to see you, my boy," said my friend Broxby, as I reached his house quite late on Christmas-eve, when he introduced me to his wife, a most amiable woman of an ex...

"You must fetch the doctor," says Dick, as I stood over him looking at his poor worn face, all drawed with pain and hollow-looking, although he'd got his paint on and the band a...

Hush! Be silent! Let this be to you as if whispered under the seal of confession, for it is of the secret, secret. Never let it be known to a soul, or body, let it never even be...

"No, nor yet in goblinsh, nor witches, nor nothing of the kind, I don't," cried Sandy Brown, talking all the while to himself as he was making his way home from the village aleh...

"Diet, sir; Diet, decidedly. Now you'll take this to John Bell's, in Oxford Street, and they'll make up the prescription; then you'll go on to Gilbey's--crooked-looking place, y...

Heart-sore and spirit-weary, Life blank, and future dreary, Mournfully I gazed upon my fire's golden glow, Pondering on idle errors, Writhing under conscience terrors, Gloomily...

In Portsmouth harbour the good ship lay, Her cruising ended for many a day, And gathered on deck while receiving their pay, The sailors most thickly were mustered. The Jews on t...

But your lips don't shoot, For my king's but fruit, And your brows don't frown with scorning; For if to an end Came my noble friend, The nation would go into mourning.

Down by the woods in the rocky valley, Where the babbling waves of the river sally, Where the pure source gushes And the wild fount rushes, There's the sound of the roar That is...

Away with a shout and a shriek from the North, The host of the Storm King in rage hurries forth; With the monarch to lead them away o'er the main, Sweep with whistle and wild sh...