subs. phr. (tramps’).—A lodging-house: one in which the charge is (or was) twopence: sacking stretched on ropes served as a shakedown. TO HAVE TWOPENN’ORTH OF ROPE = to ‘doss down’ in such a place: Fr. coucher à la corde.
1837. DICKENS, Pickwick Papers, xvi. ‘The TWOPENNY ROPE, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller,’ is just a cheap lodgin house…. At six o’clock every mornin’, they lets go the ropes at one end, and down falls all the lodgers.’
