Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 6.pdf/6

 1829. Vidocq's Memoirs, 'On the Prigging Lay' [Farmer, Musa Pedestris (1896), 107 missing?]. I stops a bit: then toddled quicker, For I'd prigged his reader, drawn his ticker.

1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, III. v. None knap a reader like me in the lay.

1842. Egan, 'Jack Flashman' (in Capt. Macheath). Jack long was on the town, a teazer; Could turn his fives to anything, Nap a reader, or filch a ring.

1859. Matsell, 'A Hundred Stretches Hence' [Vocabulum]. The bugs, the boungs, and well-filled readers.

Ready (The) (Ready-stuff, -John, -gilt, or ready-money), subs. (old).—1. Money: spec. money in hand (B. E. and Grose). Hence ready thick-'un = a sovereign; 20/-: see Rhino.

c. 1618. Webster and Rowley, Cure for a Cuckold, ii. 2. Ready money is the prize I look for.

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, I. Take up on the reversion, 'tis a lusty one; and Cheatly will help you to the ready.

1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, I. iii. He was not flush in ready, either to go to law or to clear old debts.

1732. Fielding, Covent Garden Tragedy, ii. 1. Therefore, come down the ready, or I go. Ibid. (1743), Jonathan Wild (1893), 28. Mr. Wild immediately conveyed the larger share of the ready into his pocket.

1821. Egan, Life in London, I. v. The notoriety [Logic] had obtained for the Waste of Ready in Hoyle's Dominions, was great indeed.

1840. Barham, Ingold. Leg. (Merchant of Venice). While, as for the ready, I'm like a Church-mouse,—I really don't think there's five pounds in the house.

2. (colloquial).—Prepared. Hence, a good ready = on the spot (q. v).

1886. Roosevelt, Hunting Trips, 119. Patiently and noiselessly from the leeward his rifle at the ready.

Verb. (racing).—To pull a horse.

1886-96. Marshall, Nobbled ['Pomes, 114]. He made us all believe he could ready his chance.

1889. Sporting Times, 29 June. So as not to let the favourite be readied.

Real, adj. and adv. (originally American: now general).—A superlative: very; quite; really. Whence real fine, glad, good, &c. = very fine, glad, good, &c., indeed; real jam = an acme: see Jam; real grit = 'sound to the core': see grit: the real (or the real thing) = the genuine article.

c. 1830. American Humour, I. I reckon the chaplain was the real grit for a parson—always doin' as he'd be done by, and practisin' a darn'd sight more than he preached.

1841. Thackeray, Men and Pictures, Persons who make believe that they are handing you round tokay—giving you the real imperial Stuff.

1872. C. D. Warner, Blacklog Studies, 4. A cynic might suggest as the motto of modern life this simple legend—'Just as good as the real.'

1879. Justin M'Carthy, Donna Quixote, xvii. But I do like her. I took to her from the first Real jam, I call her.

1885. Punch, 3 Jan., 4, 2. Without Real Jam—cash and kisses—this world is a bitterish pill.

Ream. See Rum.

Ream-penny, subs. phr. (old).—Peter-pence (that is 'Rome'-penny). To reckon one's ream pennies = to confess one's faults.

Rear, subs. (University).—A jakes: also as verb.