"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ask that Mr. Loring should come to see me," railed Nevins. "I have important matters—papers and messages from my wife, and he holds aloof. By God, Gleason! you tell him for me that if he can't treat me decently, and come to see me before tattoo this night, I demand that he hand back those diamonds and things! Do ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... Suddenly the sharp tattoo sounded so close to the spot where they were standing that Barnes caught his breath and with difficulty suppressed an exclamation. It was like the irregular rattle of sticks on the rim of a snare-drum. The ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... that moment two little, futile, frenzied fists began to beat a mad tattoo on Jo Hertz's broad back. Jo tried to turn in the crowd, all indignant resentment. "Say, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... perhaps once fair, her charms had seen their prime, and the system of circles and circlets which composed her personnel had assumed a tremulous and gravitating tendency. She was habited in the height of Fan fashion. Her body was modestly invested in a thin pattern of tattoo, and a gauze-work of oil and camwood; the rest of the toilette was a dwarf pigeon-tail of fan- palm, like that of the men, and a manner of apron, white beads, and tree bark, greasy and reddened: the latter was tucked under and over the five lines of cowries, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... slim black shadows across the low adobe buildings and splashed the tip of their shade in the dust-cloud that filled with haze the corral a hundred yards away. Sing Pete stepped from the door and beat a tattoo on the iron triangle suspended by a piece of wire from the lowest branch of a mesquit tree at the corner of the house, announcing by the metallic clamor that the work of the day was finished and supper was ready and waiting. Parker swung back the ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... at the gate. Sunfish scrambled with his feet for secure footing, found it and waded up to the front door. The water was a foot deep on the porch. Thurston beat an imperative tattoo upon the door with the butt of his quirt, and shouted. And Mona's voice, shorn of its customary assurance, ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... ancestry. An' remember, God loves the Irish—Kwaque! Go fetch 'm two bottle beer fella stop 'm along icey-chestis!—Why, the very mug of you, my lad, sticks out Irish all over it." (Michael's tail beat a tattoo.) "Now don't be blarneyin' me. 'Tis well I'm wise to your insidyous, snugglin', heart-stealin' ways. I'll have ye know my heart's impervious. 'Tis soaked too long this many a day in beer. I stole you to sell you, not to be lovin' you. I could've loved you once; but that was before me and beer ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... they could not find anyone at home, the whole community being away in the forest peeling bark from the birch trees for the making of canoes. But the same kind of thing had happened before, so Katherine was not at a loss. Picking up a tin pan, she commenced beating a military tattoo upon it with a thick stick; while Phil, with a trumpet improvised from a roll of birchbark, produced an ear-splitting din which must have carried far through the quiet woods. It was not long before their customers arrived on the scene, and then ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... wheel. Jones worked himself into it, and laid aft in a clean rig when the Old Man called for a hand to the wheel. There he made the most of it, and hung gracefully over the spokes with his wrists turned out to show the tattoo marks. ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... It was just after one of the louder peals that I thought I heard some glass smash in the other room. I stopped writing, and turned round to listen. For a moment I heard nothing; the hail was playing the devil's tattoo on the corrugated zinc of the roof. Then came another sound, a smash—no doubt of it this time. Something heavy had been knocked off the bench. I jumped up at once and went and opened the door leading into the ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... those regions. He devoted two years to the task, and, on his return in 97, he submitted to his sovereign this request: "In the eastern wilds there is a country called Hi-taka-mi (Sun-height). The people of this country, both men and women, tie up their hair in the form of a mallet and tattoo their bodies. They are of fierce temper and their general name is Yemishi. Moreover, the land is wide and fertile. We should attack it and take it." [Aston's translation.] It is observable that the principal motive of this advice is aggressive. The Yemishi had not molested the Japanese or ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... comic expression to her, and I am a charming 'rogue', and I am entertained on the topic she assumes to be principally interesting me. I must avoid her. The thought of her leaves me no choice. She is clever. She could tattoo me with epigrams." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... welcome to the little lad's appearance, and with his tail beat a friendly tattoo upon the kennel floor; but the woman spoke no word. With impassive face she watched the shivering little figure as it hurried into its clothes, and then, with celerity born of experience, went about the making ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... Larsen, as men called him, ceased pacing and gazed down at the dying man. So fierce had this final struggle become that the sailor paused in the act of flinging more water over him and stared curiously, the canvas bucket partly tilted and dripping its contents to the deck. The dying man beat a tattoo on the hatch with his heels, straightened out his legs, and stiffened in one great tense effort, and rolled his head from side to side. Then the muscles relaxed, the head stopped rolling, and a sigh, as of profound relief, floated upward from his lips. The jaw dropped, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... was infectious; the aged Delmia's eyes also began to gleam with religious enthusiasm, while her trembling hand caused the crutch to keep up a soft tattoo on the floor. ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... there and watched the strange duel in the heavens. The thrill of that occasion would never be forgotten by any one of the three scouts. And all the while the guns over beyond the low-lying hills were beating a terrible tattoo that was like the music of the orchestra when a play is being performed. That tragedy was there above them, the stage being the limitless ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... hammer plays a perpetual tattoo to no purpose. The talking and the interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost license. Everyone esteems himself as good as his neighbor, and puts in his oar, apparently as often for love of riot and confusion as for anything else.... The Speaker orders a member whom he has discovered ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... splintering across the smooth surface as he sought to gnaw his way inside. The remaining three circled the cabin, sniffing explosively at the cracks between the logs. Shady was seized with a fit of excessive shivering induced by these dread sounds, and Collins heard her hind leg-joints beating a spasmodic tattoo on the cabin floor. Then he turned on his ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... resorted to to ease conscience and evade the law. In this case, strange to say, it had its effect. After some parleying, it was agreed to share the booty equally between the guard and ourselves. They helped us cut brush and cover it nicely, and after tattoo all were to return and divide up. We did not know the guards personally, but knew their command. And so we returned to the camp to await the return of our pickets and night. It was soon noised in camp that there was a fine fat porker to be distributed after tattoo, and no little ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... included) of the right hand, and, pointing toward the heart near the chest, throw the hand forward and to the right once, twice, or many times, through an arc of about six inches. (Dakota IV.) "Some say they use this sign because these Indians tattoo their breasts." ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... immediately began swarming upstairs after her—if that word of doubtful etymology be admissible—on his arms and legs; while the eldest (known in the family by the name of Biler, in remembrance of the steam engine) beat a demoniacal tattoo with his boots, expressive of grief; in which he was joined by ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... play rat-tat-tat and beat the tattoo before the lasses again, lest he should find himself westwards in the Blue Mountains before he was well ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... maintenance, decoration, and furnishing; of the assignment of rooms, the supply of food, the heating, lights, silver, and livery. He commanded the detachments of the Imperial Guard on duty in the Imperial palaces. He gave orders to beat the reveill and the tattoo, to open and shut the palace gates. When the Emperor was with the army, or travelling, he had to find him quarters. In 1805 the Grand Marshal's budget amounted to 2,338,167 francs. In 1806 it reached the sum of 2,770,841 francs. There were four tables in the palace,—that of the ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... natives of New Zealand and the South Sea Islands generally, women as well as men, whose bodies are covered with patterns of an elaborate, or fantastic, or picturesque description, though sometimes the design is of a comparatively simple sort. Nearly every British sailor has tattoo-marks on his arm—an anchor, ship, initials, or what not—and unless I am much mistaken, some of the lads now perusing these sentences have now and then ornamented (or disfigured) their hands ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... all "raw"; and my duty, with others, consisted in "licking them into shape". It was drill, drill, from morning till night; and, by early tattoo, I was always glad to crawl into my tent and go to sleep—such sleep as a man can get among scorpions, lizards, and soldier-crabs; for the little islet seemed to have within its boundaries a specimen of every reptile that came ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... still, By vale and wood and moor and hill, His noisy song was lost. Upon the pillow, soft and white, I nestled down once more, To think about this Postman, who Goes singing all the dark world through, And beats a noisy, wild tattoo On every winter door. And when again with joy I saw The frosty sunshine glow, I quickly drew the blind aside, And through the frosty window spied The letters he had scattered wide In drifts of ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... of arms of a mould not usually to be found outside the prize-ring, and but seldom within the sanctuary of that magic circle. As if in compensation for the merely nominal allowance of costume tolerated by this crustacean professor, his chest and arms were entirely covered with a wild arabesque of tattoo-work, in blue and red. Many and original artists must have been employed in the embellishment of Robert's tawny hide. The one to whose sense of the fitness of things was intrusted the illustration of his right arm ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... sometimes added. This is represented in No. 2. While others, as in No. 3, weave their own hair on pieces of hide into the form of buffalo horns; or, as in No. 4, make a single horn in front. The features given are frequently met with, but they are by no means universal. Many tattoo their bodies by inserting some black substance beneath the skin, which leaves an elevated cicatrix about half an inch long: these are made in the form of stars, and other figures of no ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... glowed. Here were the men drinking coffee infused with rose water, pepper, or mint, smoking tobacco and hasheesh. And here were the dancing women—"The Pearl," "Lips of Pomegranate," "The Star"—their foreheads bearing the tattoo marks of their tribes, their cheeks and chins smeared with saffron, their fingernails tinted with henna, their bodies moving convulsively ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... dragged unmercifully for three persons. Eleanor beat a nervous tattoo on the seat-arm, Miss Madison stared fixedly at the clock, and Betty blushed and twisted and wished she could have seen Miss Mansfield before class. The delayed interview was beginning to seem very formidable. But it ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... were, by a single blow of the hammer, made to leave their indelible impression. I observed a few the handles of which were mysteriously curved, as if intended to be introduced into the orifice of the ear, with a view perhaps of beating the tattoo upon the tympanum. Altogether the sight of these strange instruments recalled to mind that display of cruel-looking mother-of-pearl-handled things which one sees in their velvet-lined cases at ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... such antics, though it had seen gay doings in its time; for of all the boys who had climbed over it, not one had ever stood on his head upon each of the big balls which ornamented the posts, hung by his heels from the arch, gone round and round like a wheel with the bar for an axis, played a tattoo with his toes while holding on by his chin, walked about the wall on his hands, or closed the entertainment by festooning himself in an airy posture over the side of the lantern frame, and kissing his hand to the audience as a well-bred Cupid is supposed ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... words had been a cue, the sounds again burst forth—no longer muffled nor faint. They roared; they seemed to pelt through air and drop upon us; they beat about our ears with thunderous tattoo like covered caverns drummed upon by Titans with trunks of ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... played a tattoo that made Stacy sore in more senses than one. Instead of burrowing deeper into the cedar boughs, he got up hastily. In his desperation he seized the Professor's feet, giving ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... all ship-shape, he lit a pipe and pulled an enormous watch from his fob. The vessels he had passed since entering the harbour's mouth seemed one and all asleep. But a din of horns, kettles, and tea-trays, and a wild tattoo of door-knockers, sounded along the streets behind the stores and houses that lined the water-side. Already the town-boys were ushering in ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... we entered our bunk house than we threw off all the restraint of etiquette which we had to observe at the "big" house, and quickly had a roaring fire in our stove, and while out of doors another blizzard was playing a tattoo upon the telegraph wires and was piling tons of snow upon the right of way, we had brewing in a pot upon the stove something that is not altogether in accordance with the tenets of temperance, but which meant additional cheer to us, whose thoughts were ever and anon slipping back to those days when ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... believe that their regard can be otherwise than flattering to an animal; but I did see one man intelligent enough to receive this impression. He was a decent and a good-tempered young person, and he had beaten a prolonged tattoo on the glass with the handle of his umbrella, murmuring at the same time vague words of cajolery. Then, as the cat remained motionless, absorbed in revery, and seemingly unconscious of his unwarranted attentions, he turned to me, a new light ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... poisoned arrows. Sir H. H. Johnston states that the Bambute have a good idea of drawing, and with a sharpened stick can sketch in sand or mud the beasts and birds known to them. The Bambute do not tattoo or scar, nor have they any love of ornament, wearing no ear-rings, necklets, anklets, &c. The upper incisors and canines are sharpened to a point. In the forests they go quite naked. They speak a corrupted ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... ecstasies. So much so, that she could not wait to beat the tattoo and effect any alterations. But having succeeded, while conversing with her cousins, in devising a stanza in her mind, she promptly inscribed it on the first piece of paper that came to hand. "I have," she remarked, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... short staves severing the mob in two—crick, crack, crick, crick, crick, crick, crack, crack. In three seconds ten heads were broken, with a sound just like glass bottles, under the short, deadly truncheon, and there lay half a dozen ruffians writhing on the ground and beating the Devil's tattoo with ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... of the imitation of one man by another in the evolution of civilisation. Imitation is one of the chief spurs to action. Imitation begets custom, custom begets sanctity. At first all custom is sacred. To the savage it is as much a religious duty to tattoo himself as to sacrifice to his gods. But certain customs naturally survive, because they are really useful; they actually have good effects, and so need no social sanction. Others are really useless; but man is too conservative and imitative to abandon ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... provinces of Camarines in this island of Luzon, and those of Leyte, Samar, Panay, and other neighborhoods, came, I have heard, from the districts of Macasar, where it is said that Indians live who make designs on and tattoo the body, in the manner of our Pintados. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, in the relation which he wrote of the discovery of the Salomon Islands in 1595, says that an island called Madalena was found in ten degrees north latitude, at a distance from Piru of one thousand eight hundred leguas (which is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... left his face, and he leaned at ease against the cask, drumming upon its head with his fingers. The sunlight, shrinking from floor and wall, had left but a single line of gold. In the half light strange and sombre shapes possessed the room; through the stillness, beneath the sound of the tattoo upon the cask head, the river ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... that in the end they died. The cruel chief's wives were said to be the instigators of this "most bloody business" and the leading lady's photograph warranted the assertion. Her face was tattooed and was curiously like a Red Indian's. I have read in a book that the Chins tattoo their wives' faces to prevent them being stolen for their beauty! I gather this punitive expedition that we have come across unexpectedly, was carried out without a shot being fired, so it won't be in the papers. The wicked chief and his wives awoke one morning to find their village ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... headquarters are at Cortachy Castle, is haunted by the phantasm of a drummer that beats a tattoo before the death of one of the members of the clan. There is no question as to the genuineness of this haunting, its actuality is beyond dispute. All sorts of theories as to the origin of this ghostly drummer have been advanced by a prying, inquisitive public, but it is ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... enlaced the feathers in the meshes of their hats and caps, or fastened them into scepters with pitch. They could make houses, etc., with their axes only by long-continued industry.[231] South American Indians made tools for printing tattoo patterns on the body. They were blocks, on each face of which a pattern was raised, perhaps a different one on each side.[232] It should be noticed what prodigious power a large body of men can put forth when they all work at the same task and are greatly interested in it. They begin by the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... want me to tell you about it? It belongs to the man that takes care of our furnace; he's got a peach of a tattoo mark on his arm. My mother told me I had to wear a sweater so I grabbed that as I went through the back hall. I always go out through the kitchen, do ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... sleep came down again on Cassel; but an hour or two later the hush was broken by a roar like the last trump. This time it was no question of mitrailleuses. The Wild Man rocked on its base, and every pane in my windows beat a tattoo. What was that incredible unimagined sound? Why, it could be nothing, of course, but the voice of the big siege-gun of Dixmude! Five times, while I was dressing, the thunder shook my windows, and the air was filled with a noise that may be compared—if ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... does the man also scratch his though he takes much more pains over his hair, combing and smoothing it in order to divide it well in front and display the tattoo ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... waistcoat were new George guineas; and the buttons on his coat were of silver, very beautifully chased. His shoes had big silver buckles on them, and there was a silver buckle to the flap of his grey slouch hat. The tattoo marks on his left hand were covered over by broad silver rings, of the sort the Spanish onion-boys used to sell in Dartmouth, after the end of the war. He looked extremely handsome in his fine clothes. I wondered how I could ever ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... at full length and he seemed to be caught. In fact he was caught, and the reason for it was that Bunny was a little too big to fit in the stage trough—that is his shoulders were too large. But his legs and feet were free, and with his shoes he was drumming a tattoo on the inside of the tin trough, which was ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... herself before the mirror. Her black eyes constantly sought her watch, however. At last she turned from the mirror with a peculiar smile and abruptly left the room. Straight to the star's dressing room she walked. Her thin fingers beat a sharp tattoo on the door. It opened, and she stood face to face with Constance Stevens, who was just about to take her place in the wings, preparatory to the beginning of the opera. She was to make her first entrance directly ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... induced Bizco to tattoo his arms, or the idea was original with him, cannot be said; probably the tattooing he had seen on one of the bandits that he ran after had suggested a similar adornment for himself. Vidal imitated him, and for a time ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... had fallen on the guilty party. Here was a jealous woman who evidently knew a good deal. Putting two and two together is the very essence of scientific thought and Dr. Starr was no beginner. Sophy's foot was beating a rapid tattoo on the floor. On her face the color kept going ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... try again." But it seemed no use knocking, and Wildney at last, in a fit of impatience, thumped a regular tattoo on the bedroom door. ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... shaggy fell, his choicest tool a flake of stone; His best of ornaments tattood skin and holes to hang ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... two accompanying letters in Hungarian may be answered by the General Secretary of the Royal Hungarian National Academy of Music, Abranyi Kornel, in my name. Before I left Budapest we read together the polyphone tattoo by J. K., and I then requested you to make the composer understand that Meyerbeer's far-famed "Rataplan, Rataplan, plan, plan" (in the "Huguenots") is quite ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... the storm would come. The mare turned out of the barnyard and ploughed through a drift and struck hard-packed road. Her hoofs beat a swift tattoo; our runners sang beneath us. We dropped to the little bridge and across and began the mile-long climb to the top of Rayborn Hill. The road from Hazen's house to town is compounded of such ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... Rule by allowing themselves to be stampeded. Their English friends, the enemy, playing upon their prejudices, they became drunk with hate, and then their shillalahs resounded a tattoo upon the head of their leader. Nations and people who turn upon their best friends ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... rested upon this staircase: in renewed excitement he hurried down the hall and, regardless of the consequence, beat a quick tattoo with his knuckles upon the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... gentleman was inveighing at Hood upon America's lack of mirth; the American people had utterly lost their capacity for laughter, the old man averred. Deering's fork beat a lively tattoo on his plate as ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... the whistling wind, I heard the welcome rain,— A fusillade upon the roof, A tattoo on the pane: The keyhole piped; the chimney-top A warlike trumpet blew; Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife, A softer ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... myself, I can therefore readily sympathise with those who own a similar treasure—such, for example, as the famous, or rather infamous, Drummer of Cortachy Castle, who is invariably heard beating a tattoo before the death of a member of ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... I did na know it?" answered Nick, his heart beginning to beat tattoo as he stared through the peep-hole in ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... "Dick Tattoo" was shouted quick enough along the deck, for everyone now saw that not a moment was to be lost, as the ship had just then heeled over still more. The moment the drummer was called, all hands began tumbling ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... and part of their religion, and no woman could marry without it. Benri fancies that the Japanese custom of blackening the teeth is equivalent to it; but he is mistaken, as that ceremony usually succeeds marriage. They begin to tattoo the arms when a girl is five or six, and work from the elbow downwards. They expressed themselves as very much grieved and tormented by the recent prohibition of tattooing. They say the gods will be angry, and that the women can't ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... When tattoo sounded on the night of the twelfth, the little garrison retired to rest. All was silent but the elements, which raged furiously throughout the night. Nothing was to be heard but the howling of the wind and the ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... friendships you ever heard tell of. Nothing delighted the pair more than to borrow a boat off my father and pull out to the rocks where the Primrose and the Despatch had struck and sunk; and on still days 'twas pretty to hear them out there off the Manacles, the drummer playing his tattoo—for they always took their music with them—and the trumpeter practising calls, and making his trumpet speak like an angel. But if the weather turned roughish, they'd be walking together and talking; leastwise, the youngster listened ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... John Powers, would be ensconced at the home of Mrs. Fogel, his mother. Mollie Bent was there, and girl like, was delighted over the romance being enacted under that roof. The heart of the Indian maid was beating a happy tattoo under her ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... beat a loud tattoo and the trumpeter blew a call that startled the squaws and the children into shrieks; the braves were quicker in hiding their astonishment. Then Smith and Newport walked forward, Newport ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... said Lady Gorgon, cursing Mr. Scully in her heart, and beginning to play a rapid tattoo with her feet, "that miscreant, that traitor, that—that attorney has ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and final and most precious reward All beggars, each in his own way Always an incompleteness somewhere, and the shadow Assent to what must be Ax on his shoulder proceeding toward a grindstone Beating the dirge of yesterday or the tattoo of to-morrow Begum, of Bengal, days out from Canton—homeward bound! Best friend I have ever had, but is the best man I have known Brown's Hotel Byron Casanova & Pepys & Saint Simon Cats really owned Stormfield Certainty Chastity, you can carry it too far. ...
— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger
... ain't nothin' betwixt old Red and me, nothin' at all—'cept this iron wall," and he would drum a vicious tattoo on the thin wall with the heel of his boot. Or when he heard the creak of the Red Fox's hammock as he droned his Bible aloud, he would say to ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... a lively tattoo on the rug. "I don't know what you mean by a 'note,'" she commented, with majestic indignation. "I have not lived in South Denboro, and perhaps my understanding of English is defective. But marriages among cultivated people, society ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... But with this letter he did not do so. He put it in a drawer of his writing-table, so that he might find it again when necessary, but he did not put it in his breast pocket. And then he sat for some time doing nothing, looking before him, with his legs stretched out and his hand beating a little tattoo upon the table. "Well: well? well!" That was about what he said to himself, but it meant a great deal: it meant a vague but great disappointment, a sort of blank and vacuum expressed by the first of these words—and then it meant a question of great importance and many ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... sultry heat grew more oppressive. The air was nauseous with the dank mucky odour that cooked out of the mangrove swamp. Rowelled by the squeaky music to recollection of old-world ports and places, Borckman lay on his face on the hot planking, beat a tattoo with his naked toes, and gutturally muttered an unending monologue of curses. But Van Horn, with Jerry panting under his hand, placidly and philosophically continued to smoke, lighting a fresh cigar ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... He told me the old monks that used to carve things—no matter what they carved you could always find a cross, or something like a cross in it. 'Cause they think that way, see? The same as sailors always tattoo fishes and ships and things on their arms. He said some places in the Black Forest the toymakers are French peasants and you can always tell if a fancy thing is carved by them on account of the shape of the fleur-de-lis. It ain't that they do it on purpose," ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... her heat, feeling, not only astonished but worried him a little. She was standing there now beating a tattoo on the window pane. He wondered what she was thinking about. The experience as to Ann revealed Katie to him as having thought about things he would not have dreamed she was thinking about. What in the world did she mean by saying she'd like to be a deserter herself? One of her preposterous ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... whistles sounded distantly; a trench mortar crashed; then the accentless tattoo of machine guns ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... different from what I had allowed for; stead of being fixed so I could take my own time if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to save me and set me free when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the world betwixt me and sudden death but just them tattoo-marks. If they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in the presence of a superior being. "An' what did you say your dad's name was?" asked Raegen, awkwardly. But this was beyond the baby's patience or knowledge, and she waived the question aside with both arms and began to beat a tattoo gently with her two closed fists on Raegen's chin and throat. "You're mighty strong now, ain't you?" mocked the young giant, laughing. "Perhaps you don't know, Missie," he added, gravely, "that your dad and mar are doing time on the Island, and you won't see ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... this or that direction or from every direction at once. Applause was intermingled with hissing, violent discussions were in progress between individual members of the audience, sticks were brandished threateningly, others beat a tattoo on the floor, and the interrupters were greeted with yells of 'Put him out!' or ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... out of the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... joy to pity, from love back to happiness, Sanders never withdrew his gaze. His bead-like eyes followed the artist; he saw each individual finger rise and fall, and the bow bound over the finger-board, always avoiding, never coming in contact with the middle string. Suddenly the old man beat a tattoo on his cranium and closed his eyes, apparently ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... Jinnie first heard that he wished to see her, she thought her heart could beat no faster, but his words made that small organ tattoo against her sides like the flutter of a bird's wing in fright. She could do something for him! Oh, what joy! What ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... interior is gaudy with childish colouring and raw tones; for there, instead of expressing regret and tranquillity, it rouses a suggestion of the childish glee of an old savage in his second childhood, who laughs when his tattoo marks are renewed, and his skin rough-cast with ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... common house-door is but a flimsy barricade against a mob, especially if that mob be led by five-and-twenty stout-bodied seaman. We had shut it merely to gain time, and when the cudgels outside began to play tattoo upon its upper panels I looked for no more than a minute's respite at ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... to say we have lost," said Athos, quietly, drawing four pistoles from his pocket and throwing them upon the table. "Come, gentlemen," said he, "they are beating the tattoo. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... steadied it between her teeth, gazed miserably at the floor, and beat a desolate tattoo on it with ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... playing the devil's tattoo with his pencil, scowling somewhat nervously. "Did you ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... less experienced men essay to doubt my word, and, on their own supposition that I am a Russian, begin to take unwarrantable liberties with my person; one of them steals up behind and commences playing a tattoo on my helmet with two sticks of wood, by way of bravado, and showing his contempt for a subject of the Czar. Turning round, I take one of the sticks away and chastise him with it until he howls for Allah to protect ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the breakfast gong. Five minutes later the tattoo of knives and forks and spoons told of appetites in process of appeasement. Charlie came into the kitchen in the midst of this, bearing certain unmistakable signs. His eyes were inflamed, his cheeks still bearing the flush of liquor. His demeanor ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and only then did the orchestra spring to life with a screech and a mad tattoo of ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer
... a staccato rattle of horseshoes in the stable yard, and the great gates were opening as we skimmed past in the nick of time. In another minute we were skulking in the shadow of the kitchen-garden wall while the high-road rang with the dying tattoo of galloping hoofs. ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... mere animal wants—which has never exhibited the least inclination to develop the most ordinary arts—which not only rejects clothing, but is absolutely indifferent to ornament—which leaves its weapons uncarved, its skin unpainted, free from tattoo, we must not despair of the general efficacy of civilization. These savages of Australia, as we call them, who have adorned the rocks of Depuch Island with their drawings, have in one thing proved themselves superior to the Egyptian ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... cage cowered the powerful creature, its broad, snake-like head thrust forward, its tiny golden eyes fixed before it, a curious snarl—like a grin—now and then contorted the immobility of its powerful jaws. The sinewy tail beat a restless tattoo on ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... boy," said BULMER to me, while he inserted his thumbs in the arm-openings of his waistcoats, and drummed an approving tattoo upon his shining shirt-front, "my dear boy, I have always been your friend, and nobody knows it better than you. Many a time have I proved it to you, and I can honestly assure you that nothing gives me greater pleasure than ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... presence of my lord chief justice that is to be, and should not talk lightly of the laws. But still you say reason: give me your arm, sergeant, and lead the way to the east wing; my eyesight is good for nothing in such a dark night. A soldier should always visit his guard before the tattoo beats." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... mirthful on the ginger-wine; keeping up a continual buzz, like a colony of bees, sadly itching to be at something—a wish that is not to be realized at once, for little Miss Newsoince is going to do that eternal tattoo, the "Rataplan:"—yes, there she is, in Tom's felt-hat and polonaise, as "La Vivandiere," thumping upon an empty band-box with two knitting-pins, singing, as some of the mammas say, very prettily; but as the boys, who have heard it many times before, designate ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... a voice at my elbow. It was old Blake. His mahogany face shone with the effects of the first soap and water he had been able to use for weeks, for we had been very short of water; and even his arms showed the tattoo-marks that were usually hidden by the grime inseparable to ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... war canoe, would head up the Peace, which meant west. He was going as far as Hudson's Hope, and this was within two hundred and fifty miles of where David wanted to go. He proved that fact by digging up an old Company map. David's heart beat an excited tattoo. This was more than he had expected. Almost too good to be true. "You can work your way up there with me," declared Hatchett, clicking his pipe stem. "Won't cost you a cent. Not a dam' cent. Work. Eat. Smoke. Fine trip. Just for company. ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... you have tattooed immediately above your wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... up, but an attempt to do so proved ineffectual. We went on very slowly on account of the many trains in front of us. Every now and again, too, there came a wearisome stop. It was bitterly cold, and it was in vain that we beat the tattoo with our feet in the hope of thereby warming them. The men with me were also desperately hungry, and complained of it so bitterly and so frequently, that, at last, I could not refrain from producing ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... half dozen things forgotten at the last minute, and then proceeded to dress with haste. But, sure enough, at a quarter past eight, Ferren, true to his word, emerged immaculate from his bedroom, and commenced beating a tattoo on Kitty's door. ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... wait. Joe mused an appreciable time, beating his tattoo on the table. "Yes," he finally said, "they've got to give the minority something, and I know one of the members who can get what I want. He's owing me a little favor—see? I needn't figure in the deal at all, and Burroughs will be mad as thunder." Again he thrummed, decisively this time. "If I get ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... the ceremony was concluded, all the furniture in the room joined in singing a beautiful song, which had been composed by the lead pencil, and which went to the melody of a military tattoo. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... features were reflected in the water. My exclamation had the strangest effect upon Sinfi. Her lips, which usually wore a peculiarly proud and fearless curve, quivered, and were losing the brilliant rosebud redness which mostly characterised them. The little blue tattoo rosettes at the corners of her mouth seemed to be growing more distinct as she gazed in the water through eyes dark and mysterious as Night's, but, like Night's own eyes, ready, I thought, to call up the throbbing fires of a ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... laughed. He had still a wonderfully young body, muscular, without any fat. His skin was smooth and clear. It might have been the body of a man of twenty-eight, except that there were, perhaps, too many blue scars, like tattoo-marks, where the coal-dust remained under the skin, and that his chest was too hairy. But he put his hand on his side ruefully. It was his fixed belief that, because he did not get fat, he was as thin as a starved rat. Paul ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... in the pine-scented shipyard, amid the tattoo of the mallets; Or he leaned on the rail of the bridge, letting his thoughts flow with the whispering river; He hearkened also to ancient tales, and made them young ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... over him encircling the elevation on which he stood, and he could hear the wild beating of the wings as though they were rolling a tattoo on muffled drums. Then suddenly the circle broke, and rose like a puff of smoke against a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... impossible for them to exchange a single word just then, owing to the riot of sound that came from beyond. The thunder bellowed, the wind roared, trees could be heard at intervals crashing to the ground, and the rain beat a terrible tattoo on ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... But tattoo had not sounded that still and starlit evening when a strange story was in circulation about the post, brought up from the trader's store by pack-train hands who said they were there when Mr. Blakely came in and asked for Hart—"wanted him right away, bad," ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... that caught her by the skirts and drew her back, that set the branches tossing and swept the dead leaves racing about her ankles. And at the same instant from just above her head there beat upon the air a violent, joyous tattoo—a sound that was neither of the sea nor of the woods, a creaking, swiftly repeated sound, like the flutter of ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... morsel was still in his throat when consciousness left and a deep sleep overwhelmed him. His wife immediately undressed him and put on him the garments of the kalandar. The servant shaved his head and made some tattoo marks on his body. When the night set in the lady called her servant and said, "Hyacinth, be kind enough to take the superintendent on thy back, and carry him to the convent instead of that kalandar, and if ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... "Some one beats a tattoo on the window, and I half open it. A silhouette with a streaming hat appears, as though carried and driven there by the terrible force of the blast that ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... her ease when the rapid tattoo of hoofs was heard, and a horse and rider drew up abruptly at the corral. One of the punchers from the rear dining-room went out to meet him and presently appeared sheepishly in the doorway ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... gentleman in the nightcap, about whom he professed to have such a tender interest. The hypocrite was looking and listening with all his might in the direction of George's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs, beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the risk of his life, finding out if Tommy Topsail-tie and Jack Waterwitch were among them. The old trader had told him that one of their number was a very big man, whose legs, back, and neck were tattooed as the Kingsmill Islanders tattoo, and he (Flemming) had formed the idea, since his conversation with the manager of the plantation, that this big man was Binoke—the dear friend of his boyhood's days, the ever-wanted "Tommy Topsail-tie" of his brother and his sister Medora, ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... up the pass, eyes and ears open. The white horse took the climb as if it had been level ground, his hoofs ringing a brisk tattoo against the stones. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... green-plumed parrots and cuckoos, Pee-wits and sparrows join the piercing cries Of gorgeous herons, while now upward flies The eagle screaming, joyful spreads his wings Above the forest; and the woodchuck rings A wild tattoo upon the trees around; And humming-birds whirr o'er the flowering ground In flocks, and beat the luscious laden air With emerald and gold, and scarlet, where These perfect forms with godly grace divine, In loveliness upon the ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... Something struck me on the back of the head, partially stunning me and knocking me to the deck. My first thought was that something had carried away aloft; but even as I went down, and before I struck the deck, I heard the devil's own tattoo of rifles from the boats, and twisting sidewise, I caught a glimpse of the sailor who was standing guard. Two big niggers were holding his arms, and a third nigger from behind was braining him with ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... a tattoo with her heels upon the floor, shutting her fists, the thumbs tucked inside. She closed her eyes, shaking her ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... new baits.[10] Before the lines were properly out, in they had to come again. Flop-flop went the fish on the bottom-boards as we jerked them carelessly off the hooks. Every moment or two one of them would dance up and flip its tail wildly; beat on the bottom-boards a tattoo which spattered us with scales; then sink back among the glistening mass that was fast losing its beauty of colour, its opalescent pinks and steely blues, even ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... blacksmith, butcher, fireman, greaser, tinsmith, copper-smelter, and now, endlich, enfin, at last, a donkeyman. His frame is gigantic, his strength prodigious. On his chest is a horrific picture of the Crucifixion in red, blue, and green tattoo. Between the Christ and the starboard thief is a great triangular scar of smooth, shiny skin. One of his colossal knees is livid with scars. He tells me the story like this, keeping time with the click of ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... patterns. When you look at them closely the invention displayed is truly remarkable; but at a distance they give a dingy, dusky appearance to the men, as if they were daubed with an inky sponge. Nature having denied them beards, they tattoo curly locks along their faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of showing his strength and agility. He piques himself ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... how well he feels, he whirred yet more loudly, until, unwittingly, he found himself drumming, and tickled with the discovery of his new power, thumped the air again and again till he filled the near woods with the loud tattoo of the fully grown cock-partridge. His brother and sister heard and looked on with admiration and surprise; so did his mother, but from that time she began to be a little ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... music started up. The line was formed, the procession advanced, 'Zekiel and Quincy bringing up the rear. As Quincy took the last wrister from the pan that the Professor held, the latter turned quickly away and beat a tattoo on the bottom of the pan with his knuckles and cried out, "Gentlemen will please find their partners. The wristers become the property ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... to set a limit to his journeying. Perhaps, if he had no luck in the town, he would go to sea. And then one day he would come to some coast that interested him, and he would land, and go to the gold-diggings. Over there the girls went mother-naked, with nothing but some blue tattoo-work to hide their shame; but Pelle had his girl sitting at home, true to him, waiting for his return. She was more beautiful even than Bodil and yellow-haired Marie put together, and whole crowds followed her footsteps, but she sat ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... here is different—sonorous, tense, elastic; On it you might a tattoo beat, with fingers or with a stick. There's costiveness and atrophy, with features Hippocratic; When these appear, there's much to fear, all safety is erratic. Although a cordial laxative, mix'd up with some carminative, Might be prescribed, with morphia, or hops, to keep the man alive; Take ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... be always guessed at, even when not seen. Sir Marmaduke had his back to the light: he was sitting astride a low chair, his high-booted foot tapping the ground impatiently, his fingers drumming a devil's tattoo against ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... Polynesia, with few exceptions; the higher the family, the better the man—better in sense, better in manners, and usually taller and stronger in body. A stranger advances blindfold. He scrapes acquaintance as he can. Save the tattoo in the Marquesas, nothing indicates the difference of rank; and yet almost invariably we found, after we had made them, that our friends were persons of station. I have said 'usually taller and stronger.' I might have been more absolute,—over ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to Luella's question, a tattoo was beaten upon the door and a muffled shout came from the other side. I stepped down from the ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... a bed near me began to catch my attention: the toe beneath the sheets became more and more agitated, then the toes of the other foot joined the first foot, beating a frenzied tattoo beneath the coverings. ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... sexless to him, but as devoid of personality as it is to any Western materialist. Lesser deities suffered a like unsubstantial transformation. The thunder-god, with his belt of drums, upon which he beats a devil's tattoo until he is black in the face, is no longer even indirectly associated with the storm. As for dryads and nymphs, the beautiful creatures never inhabited Eastern Asia. Anthropoid foxes and raccoons, wholly lacking in those engaging qualities that beget ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... pleasing countenance, and white; but because they adorn their bodies with figures from head to foot, when they are young and have sufficient strength and energy to suffer the torment of the tattooing; and formerly they tattooed themselves when they had performed some act of valor. They tattoo themselves by pricking the skin until the blood comes, with sharp, delicate points, according to designs and lines which are first drawn by those who practice this art; and upon this freshly-bleeding surface they apply a black powder, which is never effaced. They do not tattoo the body all at ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... upon the road the rhythmic foot-beats of horses, and the rattle of some farmer's wagon rumbling homeward from the village. Then together they screamed for help. But the hoofs went on beating their tattoo till the sound grew faint, and the rattle of the wagon died in the distance. Again and again the sound which told of human nearness woke hope in their hearts only to ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... at the glass, received no attention, and commenced to beat a tattoo. The window was snatched open, and the fat clerk, very red, thrust ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... the Salariki were firmly insistent upon. In the end the natives won and Kosti was summoned to carry on board the chest which the servants had brought. Having seen it carried safely inside the spacer, the aliens departed, but Van Rycke was frowning and Jellico's fingers were beating a tattoo on his belt as ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... difficulty as though in her presence I were other than a son of Adam. And I stood looking at her and whenever she raised her wrist to take up a morsel, the dimple[FN133] became manifest from without, and upon the skin was a tattoo of green colour and about it jewelled ornaments[FN134] and armlets of red gold and a pink dye appeared upon the whiteness of her hand: so glory be to Him who created her and she was naught but a seduction ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... and I had emotions that it would take more than language to express proper. So I peels off for it, down to a sleeveless jersey and a pair of flannel pants, and starts in to drum out the devil's tattoo on that pigskin bag. ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... gotten down to two degrees below zero, the ground frozen as hard as brick-bats, and the winds whistled gaily through our tattered tents, our teeth beating tattoo and our limbs shivering from the effects of our scanty clothing and shoes. But our wagons were gathering in supplies from the rich valleys of the French Broad and the Nolachucky, and while we suffered from ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... after him," suggested Jack, and, nothing loath, Mark assented. The two lads broke into a run, but, as they leaped forward, the man also increased his pace, and they could hear his feet pounding out a tattoo ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... the few standing cornstalks and caused the dry twigs to rap a tattoo upon the windows of the farm houses. It attacked the shivering form of a lonely little cur who took his tail between his legs and scurried away down the road in search of some sheltering barn or shed; it nipped ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... intimate relations with primitive man, in Oceania and elsewhere, have imbued me with a deplorable taste for tattoo-work; and I had wished to carry away on my own person, as a curiosity, an ornament, a specimen of the work of the Japanese tattooers, who have a delicacy ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... permitted her grandmother to continue her sententious advice, while she herself sat tapping her feet on the floor, and performing the most rapid variations of that air which is called the Devil's Tattoo, burst out, at length, to the elder lady's surprise, with an outbreak of indignation, a flushing face, and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... proof of strength, often come to the aid of the male sexual instinct. Even in certain animals supplicant and plaintive sounds assist the male after his repeated refusal, apparently or in reality, by the female. We shall see in Chapter VI that savage men have a much greater tendency to tattoo and adorn themselves than ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... every one who knows her. You do, don't you, Mike?" added Donald, and the dog beat a tattoo on the rug with ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... soldier or seaman found straggling after the beating of the tattoo; or who may be found in a convict's hut, is to be detained; and information of him immediately ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo— No more on earth's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread And glory guards with solemn sound The Bivouac of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... etc., gun squad drills, dinner, and in fine weather and good condition of the ground in afternoon often, field drill of which battery, with guns, caissons, teams, cannoneers, drivers and all stable call, supper, camp amusements of all kinds, tattoo and finally taps. There were two buglers in the company, Charles M. Donoho was at the company headquarters. He acted as messenger also. The other, Rufus Menander Rosser was in the same mess as the writer. One of ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... having been sentenced to receive military punishment, one of the drummers refused to inflict it, saying it was not his duty. "Not your duty, Sirrah!" said the adjutant, "what do you mean?" "I know very well," replied Tattoo, "that it is not my duty; I was present at the court martial, and heard the colonel say he was to receive corporal punishment. I am no corporal, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... first call in the morning, reveille, is at five; breakfast call, six; surgeon's call, seven; drill, eight; recall, eleven; dinner, twelve; drill again at four; recall, five; guard-mounting, half-past five; first call for dress-parade, six; second call, half-past six; tattoo at nine, and taps at half-past. So the ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... was engaged in this second assault, with windows smashing to right of them and to left of them, with glass falling all around them, and the staves of old ash-barrels playing a devil's tattoo about them, the devoted band of editors, reporters, and copy-readers worked nobly on. They had confidence in their leader that their hour would come. Their first duty was to get out the paper. After that they looked for ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and flanks. She lets the hydrant water run: He hearkens Father Sebastian cooking and spreading homely themes over an inept-looking clavier confounding the wits of his children and all men's children down to the last generation. He marvels at the paradox, drums his head with the tattoo: how can a thing as small as he shape and maintain an art out of himself universal enough to carry her daily vigil to crystalled immortality? She ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... stood on bank of the Alleghany, vigorously waving her hand and hailing the youthful navigator. The forward end of the one by twelve inch board was reluctantly headed for shore, and slowly idled in. As the child reached land, he was grasped by the angry and anxious mother, who beat a merry tattoo on a tender portion his body with ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton |
