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I came across the following sentence.

Then he sold his piano and let the mice live in a bureau drawer. But money he got for that too began to go, so he sold the brown suit he wore on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.

This is from a novel "The Story Of Doctor Dolittle". I am taught that after "too" is adjective like the car is too fast to drive. However "began" is a past tense of "begin", isn't it? What's the meaning of "too began to go"?

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    Too means also here.
    – Em.
    Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 16:47
  • Thank you for your comment. Do you mean that "too" means "quite" and "began to go" means "began to be spented"?
    – Yuuichi Tam
    Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 16:57
  • 3
    That money also began to run out; his money was almost depleted.
    – Em.
    Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 17:02
  • This sentence has a few grammatical errors, like "the brown suit" and "poorer and poorer." I would suspect either an incorrect translation/transcription, or that the narrator is speaking in "vernacular". Vernacular is deliberately incorrect English, to establish someone is rural or uneducated. As you are referring to a story with talking animals, it could easily be the second.
    – user11628
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 17:56
  • Sorry, I transferred incorrectly. What you said is correct. I edited it. Thank you for teaching.
    – Yuuichi Tam
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 18:50

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The sentence meaning is muddled by poor punctuation. I had to reread it a few times to gather the meaning. My slightly edited version follows:

Then he sold his piano and let the mice live in a bureau drawer. But the money he had(?) for that, too, began to go, so he sold the brown suit he wore on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.

(I added a couple commas)

Here, we can see that "too" is taking its meaning as "as well." The sentence then means:

Then he sold his piano and let the mice live in a bureau drawer. But the money he had(?) for that as well began to go, so he sold the brown suit he wore on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.

So the money he had for the mice living in the drawer (Not certain what this part is, never read the book myself) began to go as well as some other money not mentioned in the sentence.

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  • @YuuichiTam If this fully answers the question, select this answer as "accepted" by clicking the check mark below it. This way, others see it as already answered when browsing questions.
    – Ethan Chapman
    Commented Sep 29, 2016 at 10:48
  • @EthanChapman -- This is not quite right. Here "got" means received. The money he received (as a payment for the sold piano) also began to run out (to be spent, to be used up).
    – JeremyDouglass
    Commented Nov 28, 2016 at 1:38

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