“Sooner than which, myself,” says Mrs Perkins, “I would get my living by selling lucifers.”

I first learned the word "lucifer" when I was allowed to have exclusive use of a finished room in our attic, which had once been living quarters for my grandfather's hostler.
The latter had left as sole evidence of his occupancy, a very sturdy small vase with a wide heavy base to keep it from tipping over, and some things that looked like strong toothpicks with little gobs of pale yellow chemical on the ends, which I first noted because they glowed in the dark.
I took them down to my father, who said: "Old Jack must have left those, they are called lucifers, and have phosphorus in the tips. Those rings around the vase have another chemical in them with will set the tip on fire. But they are poisonous. Wash your hands."

Lucifer \Lu"ci*fer\, n. [L., bringing light, n., the morning
star, fr. lux, lucis, light + ferre to bring.]
1. The planet Venus, when appearing as the morning star; --
applied in Isaiah by a metaphor to a king of Babylon.

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of
the morning ! how art thou cut down to the ground
which didst weaken the nations ! --Is. xiv. 12.

Tertullian and Gregory the Great understood this
passage of Isaiah in reference to the fall of Satan;
in consequence of which the name Lucifer has since
been applied to, Satan. --Kitto.

2. Hence, Satan.

How wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes'
favors! . . . When he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again. --Shak.

3. A match made of a sliver of wood tipped with a combustible
substance, and ignited by friction; -- called also
lucifer match, and locofoco. See Locofoco.

4. (Zo["o]l.) A genus of free-swimming macruran Crustacea,
having a slender body and long appendages