sovereign - gold coin worth a pound, first issued in 1817.sparrow-grass - popular folk corruption of the word asparagus.speculation - card game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculation-(card-game)spencer - a short, close-fitting coat worn by woman and children in the early 19th century....
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 ...
Dickens, while visiting America in 1842, noted in a letter home to his friend John Forster that the salary paid to his traveling secretary, George Washington Putnam, was ten dollars a month, worth about two pounds five shillings in English money (Forster, 1899, v. 1, p. 208). Privy C...