So the gun was a purse; and very handy, too; you could pay out money in the dark with it, with accuracy; and you could carry it in your mouth; or in your vest pocket, if you had one.

I made them of several sizes -- one size so large that it would carry the equivalent of a dollar.
Using shot for money was a good thing for the government; the metal cost nothing, and the money couldn't be counterfeited, for I was the only person in the kingdom who knew how to manage a shot tower.
"Paying the shot" soon came to be a common phrase.

Yes, and I knew it would still be passing men's lips, away down in the nineteenth century, yet none would suspect how and when it originated.
The king joined us, about this time, mightily refreshed by his nap, and feeling good.

Anything could make me nervous now, I was so uneasy--for our lives were in danger; and so it worried me to detect a complacent something in the king's eye which seemed to indicate that he had been loading himself up for a performance of some kind or other; confound it, why must he go and choose such a time as this?
I was right.

He began, straight off, in the most innocently artful, and transparent, and lubberly way, to lead up to the subject of agriculture.