"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 as it died ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... 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 ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... taste." He raised his head, swallowed a piece of the hot cake and lay down again. The 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, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Adelantado drops down the river at eleven. But in passing I'll venture a little prophecy. You're down on your luck now, and a bit hot-hearted in consequence; but some day you will strike it right and come out on top. When you do, you'll be a hard master; tattoo that on your arm somewhere so you'll be reminded ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... 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 where ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... ain't got no birthmarks," ses the woman, speaking very slow—and I could see she was afraid of making a mistake and losing me—"but he's got tattoo marks. He's got ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... true. Marian had clasped her hands and rather worshipfully stared at him. Mr. Strong stood with legs apart, looking him over with unfeigned admiration; while the Colonel, also gazing, unconsciously drummed a marching tattoo with his fingers ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... oppressive blackness suggested weight, so that one trembled for the stability of the chalky scarp which must uphold that ebon canopy. Paul moved further along the aisle to a spot where the foliage was unbroken, as rain began a rapid tattoo upon the leafy roof. In the following instant the hillside was illuminated wildly as lightning wrote its message in angular characters across the curtain of darkness. Life cowered affrighted to the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... Tommy quickly raised her head she might have sustained a fractured skull. Her feet left the rock and beat a positive tattoo in the air. A moment more and she had managed to entangle them in the rope and, powerless to help ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... the universality of this custom. It is an old custom, they say, 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 marry unless they are tattooed; and they implored both Mr. ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Johnston assigned it to me, despite my efforts to decline the honor of such society. He promised, however, to sustain me in any measures to enforce discipline, and but a few hours elapsed before the fulfillment of the promise was exacted. For some disorder after tattoo, several "Tigers" were arrested and placed in charge of the brigade guard. Their comrades attempted to force the guard and release them. The attempt failed, and two ringleaders were captured and put in irons for the night. On the ensuing morning an order for a general court-martial ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... May 15th.—After we had gone to bed last night,—we in the tent, the Doctor and Pilgrim under the fly, which serves as a porch roof,—the heavenly floodgates lifted; the rain, coming in sheets, beat a fierce tattoo on the tightly-stretched canvas, and visions of a sudden rise in the fickle river were uppermost in our dreams. Everything about us was sopping at daybreak; but the sun rose clear and warm from ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... satin slipper stopped its regular tattoo on the rugged floor. She lifted her face to his and looked ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... with his fingers on the table what they used to call the "devil's tattoo," regarding me with steady, half-shut eyes—a too frequent and not well-mannered way he had, and one I much disliked. He said nothing, nor had he a chance, for I instantly answered the colonel: ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... 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
... he beat a tattoo on the sides of the horse with his feet. But as Dick had on soft slippers, he did not hurt the White Rocking Horse in the least, nor did he chip off any paint. "Here I go! Here I go!" shouted Dick. ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope
... would. This was the argument always last 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, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Romalis, and making the bits of broken crockery rattle as well as if they had been ebony and ivory castanets. That girl was good company, I can tell you! Evening fell, and I heard the drums beating tattoo. ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... 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 ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... Mrs. Cranston then sought to search her husband's face, but the captain was forearmed and chose to keep his back towards his better half and to pull on his arctics and overcoat and gather up his little hurricane lamp. The trumpet was sounding first call for tattoo, and though it was no concern of his, for Mr. Sanders, his cheery subaltern, had just gone whistling by on his way to the troop quarters, Cranston preferred to face the falling snow rather than those speaking, luminous, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... his heart beating a tattoo, rushed into the garden, dug a gourd full of worms, drew his long cane rod from the eaves of the cabin, and with old Boney trotting at his heels was soon on his way to a deep pool in the ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... and the blood rushed to his head, leaping, beating in his ears like the dull thunder of an ocean. He set his teeth, and springing at a window-sill, dragged himself up and hung to the iron bars. Then reason fled; there surged in his brain the sound of many voices, his heart leaped up beating a mad tattoo, and gripping at cornice and ledge he worked his way along the facade, clung to pipes and shutters, and dragged himself up, over and into the balcony by the lighted window. His hat fell off and rolled against the pane. For a moment he leaned breathless against the ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... to fly has always inspired Indians of all tribes and of all degrees of civilization with wonder and reverence. The bird chiefs have their own places in Indian myths. Owl is chief of the night; Woodpecker, with his ceaseless tattoo on the trees, is chief of the trees; Duck is chief of the water; but Eagle is chief of the day. It is always Eagle who is chief of the birds, even though Wren may outwit him in a tale told by the fire glimmering in the tepee, when the story tellers of ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... 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 ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... and enter the camp in time. On the next occasion of his awaiting her she did not appear in her usual place at the usual hour. His disappointment was unspeakably keen; he remained staring blankly at the spot, like a man in a trance. The trumpets and tattoo sounded, and still he ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... still raged and the old house shook and creaked in the blast. The rain swirled furiously against the windows, and a swift rush of hailstones beat a fierce tattoo on the roof. Built on the summit of a hill and with only a few trees near it, the Judson mansion was but poorly protected ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... tattoo with his blackthorn stick on the panels of the door. For five minutes this continued, interspersed with occasional loud calls for Karospina. At last the siege was raised. After preliminary unboltings, unbarrings, and the rattling of the chain, Gerald saw before him a middle-aged ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... did na know it?" answered Nick, his heart beginning to beat tattoo as he stared through the peep-hole in ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... moment of consolation, because I met with something which seemed to me ideally perfect. It was a poor drummer beating the tattoo in the streets of Paris. I walked behind him in returning to the school on the evening of a holiday. His drum gave out the tattoo in such a way that, at that moment at least, however peevish I were, I could find no pretext ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... Malayo-Polynesian family. The New Zealanders surpassed all other people in the art of tattooing, to which their chiefs gave especial attention. Mete Kingi, as our picture shows, was no exception. Tattooing on the face they termed moko. The men tattoo their faces, hips, and thighs; the women their upper lips; for this purpose charcoal made from kauri gum is chiefly used. It has the blue color when pricked into the skin, growing lighter in shade in the course of years. The subject of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... tumbled; whistles sounded distantly; a trench mortar crashed; then the accentless tattoo of machine guns ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... yoke. It was cleverly managed, and these chiefs were influenced to sign a letter addressed to Queen Victoria to ask her protection. But the most clearsighted of them saw the folly of this step; and one of them, after having affixed his tattoo-mark to the letter by way of signature, uttered these prophetic words: "We have lost our country! henceforth it is not ours; soon the stranger will come and take it, and we ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... from England bringing General William Howe, General Henry Clinton, and General John Burgoyne, with several thousand troops to carry on the war. Every morning Miss Newville heard the drums beating the reveille and in the evening the tattoo. Many officers called at the hospitable home of Honorable Theodore Newville to enjoy the society of his charming daughter, who received ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... from under the arm that rested across her forehead, realized how her last night's breach of authority had impressed each one of them. And secretly rejoicing at her triumph, she kept up a brisk tattoo. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... a certain jaunty grace, upon her hair, and prepared to dissolve, while he lightly tapped a tattoo upon his leg with the dove-colored gloves ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... her high heels on the concrete sidewalk was a rattling tattoo so eloquent of disorganized panic that more than one head was thrust from a neighboring window to investigate, and more than one head was pulled back, nodding to the well-worn and charitable hypothesis, "Their first quarrel." ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... family, whose 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, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... One night after tattoo the long roll began to beat. Officers and men hurriedly dressed, snatched their arms and accoutrements and formed in the company streets. As soon as a company was ready it started for the color line, and, ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... man disliked to be questioned. On the arm of his chair he beat with his fingers a quick, brief tattoo. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... the music of that sighing rustle through the audience which bespeaks a profound impression. He could scarcely keep the fingers of his hands, covering his bowed face in a devotional posture as they were, from drumming a jubilant tattoo. His pulses did this in every vein, throbbing with excited exultation. The insistent whim seized him, as he still bent thus before his people, to whisper to his own heart, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... 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
... enveloped it; and when George suggested to me carelessly one spring afternoon that I should stop by his house and have a look at his uncle's classical library, I felt my cheeks burn, while my heart beat an excited tattoo against my ribs. The house I knew by sight, a grave, low-browed mansion, with a fringe of purple wistaria draping the long porch; and it was under a pendulous shower of blossoms that we found the General seated with ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... too—a thunderous flapping and thrashing in the tree-top, the furious battering, falling tumult of broken branches and blindly beating wings, drumming convulsively in descent. Then came a thud; a feathery tattoo on the ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... trains toil to the place of rest. All through the evening prevails that peculiar, cheerful din of a camp, as peculiar and characteristic as the roar of a great city; gradually the noises decline, the bugles and drums sound the tattoo, the fires grow dim, and the vast mass of hardy, resolute humanity is asleep—all except the two or three score of sick and dying men, wasted by fever, who have been jolted all day over the rough roads in the ambulances, and now groan and writhe in delirium upon their narrow ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... motioned me to come round from the side-table, where I had been eating, to enjoy the sport of the search. On the first page there were only some scraps of writing, such as a man with a pen in his hand might make for idleness or practice. One was the same as the tattoo mark, "Billy Bones his fancy"; then there was "Mr. W. Bones, mate," "No more rum," "Off Palm Key he got itt," and some other snatches, mostly single words and unintelligible. I could not help wondering who it was that ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a petticoat and a jacket. The men wear a turban, a loose robe, and a jacket; they tie up their hair in a knot behind, and tattoo their legs, by pricking their skin, and then putting in black oil. They have the disagreeable custom of smoking, and of chewing a stuff called "coon," which ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... very well. As you say. But one hundred thousand dollars in gold—bless my soul! I was told nothing about that; the letters barely mention it." Mr. Johnston beat a mad tattoo on the arm ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the determination that he should not contribute personally to the further upbuilding of anybody's reputation. His eyes with this resolve shining in them rested intently on de Spain, and at his side the long fingers of his right hand beat a soft tattoo against his pistol holster. De Spain's question seemed to arouse him. "What's your name?" he demanded bluntly. His voice was heavy and his deafness was reflected in the ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... you speak the truth. Wait till you see me thump the Devil's tattoo with my old flail on your thrashin'-floor! But you look as cheery as an Easter-mornin' sun; you've not much for to complain of, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... 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 voice ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... nodding, "only—hurry, Martin!" By the time the old groom had returned with the scarlet hunting-frock and helped Barnabas into it, "The Terror" was led out from his box, and immediately began to snort and rear and beat a ringing tattoo with his great, round hoofs to a chorus of chirruping and whoa-ing ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... alcoves stood two light iron bedsteads, with a single mattress on each, carefully folded back during the day, and made up only after tattoo. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... his face went ruminative and then sad. With a sudden indrawing of breath he freed himself from his reverie, and bending over from his saddle patted a buckskin neck in affectionate tattoo. Tawny ears turned backward in appreciative fellowship, but without any break in a plodding dog-trot. Though the rider's aspect might say with the desert that time was nothing, the pony's expressed a logical purpose. Thus the speed of their machine-like progress was ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... I came after visiting hours and was not introduced. On all subsequent nights they were persevering and relentless; I was bitten until portions of my body appeared as if recovering from a Polynesian tattoo. They used to get inside my under clothing by some mysterious way and when there they walked up and down like sentries on duty and bit at every other step. It was impossible to flee from them, and they appointed their breakfasts and lunches at ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... a perfect tattoo in joy and was quickly answered. Then the thud, thud began again, but this time the pace ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... breaths and then reflected a minute or two, during which I clinked a soft tattoo with my iron wristlets, and eyed him joyously. He was there—a free lordling, I was here—a chained rebel, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... the dead man's chest. Hey! ho! and a bottle of rum!" Faith, that's a chorus I can rattle off with zest. Gratefully it clatters upon DAVY'S tym-pa-num, Like a devil's tattoo from Death's drum! Fi! Fo! Fum! These be very parlous times for old legends of the sea. VANDERDECKEN is taboo'd, the Sea Sarpint is pooh-pooh'd, but 'tis plain as any pikestaff they can't disestablish Me! DADDY NEPTUNE may delight in the Island trim and tight, where his sea-dogs breed and fight, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... on 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 ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... his little beard, narrow and sharp, stuck out comically on one side, and gave his shadow swinging on the wall the appearance of a man sticking out his tongue teasingly. Stepan sat with his elbows on the table, and beat a tattoo on the boards. His wife stood at the oven without stirring; the mother felt her look riveted upon herself and often glanced at the woman's face—oval, swarthy, with a straight nose, and a chin cut off short; her ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... Forsyth's livid face was streaked with tiny streams of blood, which proceeded from a series of irregular wounds. One group of these clustered upon his left temple, another beneath his right eye, and others extended from the chin down to the throat. They were black, almost like tattoo marks, and the entire injured surface was bloated indescribably. His fists were clenched; ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... the conquest was started and continued in all the neighboring islands. Those islands are inhabited by people, natives of the same islands, called Vicayas; or by another name, Pintados—for the more prominent of the men, from their youth, tattoo their whole bodies, by pricking them wherever they are marked and then throwing certain black powders over the bleeding surface, the figures becoming indelible. But, as the chief seat of the government, and the principal Spanish ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... sounds.] Roll — N. roll &c v.; drumming &c v.; berloque^, bombination^, rumbling; tattoo, drumroll; dingdong; tantara^; rataplan^; whirr; ratatat, ratatat-tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari^, racket; cuckoo; repetition &c 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; reverberation &c 408. [sound of railroad train rolling on rails] clickety-clack. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 695. Tattoo, taps, mess, sick, church, recall, issue, officers', captains', first sergeants', fatigue, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... under clear Montana skies, or at the midnight hour by the dim campfire light, the rain beating its tattoo on the tepee above our heads—surrounded by an army of shining tepees, like white ghosts of the plains, while these pathetic figures told the story of their lives. The warrior of other days gave himself up to mirthful tale, to boyhood's transports, ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... machines—"An Artist's Model" and "On the Beach at Atlantic City." A gun pops foolishly in the rear and the 3-inch bullseye clangs. In a corner behind the Postal Card Photo Taken in a Minute gallery sits Dutch, the world's leading tattooer. Sample tattoo designs cover the two walls. Dragons, scorpions, bulbous nymphs, crossed flags, wreathed anchors, cupids, butterflies, daggers and quaint decorations that seem the grotesque survivals of the mid-Victorian schools of fantasy. Photographs of famous men also cover ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... The rolling tattoo of goat-skin drums filled the royal reception-hall of King M'tesa, as the great tyrant entered with his chiefs. M'tesa, his dark, cruel heavy face in vivid contrast with his spotless white robe, sat heavily down on his stool of State, while brazen ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... its decanter and wine-glasses, the faces of her father and mother eloquent with the appeal of a thousand memories. The clock ticked on loudly, fiercely, like a summoning drum; the rain beat an impatient tattoo on the window-panes, the wind rattled the doors and casements. "Go forth, go forth," they called, "go forth where your lover waits you, to bear you of into the new and the unknown." And the louder they called ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... roll himself up in his cloak in a corner of the ward room, when the fearful cry of "Fire! fire!" was raised. He hurried on deck, where Jack and all the officers and crew quickly assembled. The drum beat to quarters. The men flew to their stations. The soldiers, who well knew the meaning of the tattoo, hastened on deck and fell in, according to their officers' orders, on ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... feinted for Rondeau's jaw with his right, and when the woods-boss quickly covered, ripped a sizzling left into the latter's midriff. Rondeau grunted and dropped his guard, with the result that Bryce's great fists played a devil's tattoo on his countenance before he could crouch ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... rather sleepy-headed in the morning and it is a part of the cook's job to get them up. The next I knew, Herman had a tin pan on which he was beating a vigorous tattoo, all the time hollering, "We haf cackle-berries und antelope steak for breakfast." The baby was startled by the noise, so I attended to him and then dressed myself for breakfast. I went down to the little spring ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... pain extends over considerable space the tattoo marks are smaller, and are arranged in rows or continuous lines. Such marks may be found upon some individuals to run outward over either or both cheeks from the alae of the nose to a point near the lobe of the ear, clearly indicating that the tattooing ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... ended, The lean years of famine are fled, When, sick for a spoonful of aught that was tuneful, We've sorrowed as over the dead For Music, forlorn and unfriended, Gone down into glimmerless gloom, While rude "rag-time" revels were dancing a devils' Tattoo on her tomb. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... beat a tattoo on the floor: "There is not a soul in the house but you can do the simplest thing. Eyes and no eyes! Fingers and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Alf Leek, just as he always was. Give him a chance, and he'd ride over any one; but get the upper hand of him, and he is meeker than Moses. Not that much meekness is needed to come up to Moses, either." Then, after an impatient tattoo, she exclaimed: ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Maryland, Paul became an excellent hunter, and was out with my papa nearly every day, bringing home plenty of quail and other game. He was a happy dog, taking great interest in garrison life, always attending retreat and tattoo with the officer of the day, and even going the rounds with him on his tour of inspection after midnight. No weather was too bad for Paul, who knew every note of the bugle, and was always on hand at the ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... transgression, my vigilance having been rendered useless by a cursed captain, named M. Minutoli, who, when on guard, always shut the gate he had charge of an hour before the usual time. I was returning home with my two companions, and had got within half a league of the city, when I heard them beat the tattoo; I redouble my pace, I run with my utmost speed, I approach the bridge, see the soldiers already at their posts, I call out to them in a suffocated voice—it is too late; I am twenty paces from the guard, the first bridge is already drawn up, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... of painful emotions are equally numerous, and still more vehement. Discontent is shown by raised eyebrows and wrinkled forehead; disgust by a curl of the lip; offence by a pout. The impatient man beats a tattoo with his fingers on the table, swings his pendent leg with increasing rapidity, gives needless pokings to the fire, and presently paces with hasty strides about the room. In great grief there is wringing of the ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... in his passionate nature. Much as he loved Hamilton, he had no hesitation in using him, and our petted young hero was to learn what work meant for the first time in his life. He wrote most of the day, often half the night; but although he chafed angrily at the confinement, beat many a tattoo on the floor with his heels, and went for a hard ride more than once that he might keep his temper, the result was that mass of correspondence, signed "George Washington," which raised the commander of the American forces so high in the estimation of Europe, adding to his military renown the splendour ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... 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 divisions. How could it ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... to year. A wilderness of weeds, tall and luxuriant, springs up to hide the stone over which Jacob Cochrane stepped daily when he issued from his door; and the polished stick with which three-year-old Patty beats a tattoo may be a round from the very chair in which he sat, expounding the Bible according to his own vision. The thickets of sweet clover and red-tipped grasses, of waving ferns and young alder bushes hide all of ugliness that belongs to the deserted spot and serve ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that they study personal appearance quite as much as the most fashionable of Parisian belles; for they bestow much labour, time, and thought, and endure much actual suffering in the elaborate patterns with which they tattoo, and, as they vainly suppose, embellish their faces and persons. The ancient Britons, who painted themselves in various devices, also bore witness to the natural craving after personal adornment, which seems to be inherent in the whole ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... 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
... a tattoo on Veronica's door next. She had been taught to be ceremonious with her, at least. No reply was made, and she came to my door again. "I expect Miss Veronica has gone to see poor folks; it is a way she ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... and, at 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 man who, with Jack Waterwitch, ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... towards Florent and looked at him; then she looked at Gavard, who was beating a tattoo with his finger-tips on the marble table. She smiled at them, as though inviting ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... easily believe he had never known tragedy and shipwreck. More than any one I ever knew, he lived in the present. Most of us are either dreaming of the past or anticipating the future—forever beating the dirge of yesterday or the tattoo of to-morrow. Mark Twain's step was timed to the march of the moment. There were days when he recalled the past and grieved over it, and when he speculated concerning the future; but his greater interest was always of the now, and of the particular locality ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... considered good form. He could not, however, bring himself to admire Gondebiza, though the Monsieur Worth of Fanland had done his utmost for her. Still, she must have looked really engaging in a thin pattern of tattoo, a gauze work of oil and camwood, a dwarf pigeon tail of fan palm for an apron, and copper bracelets and anklets. The much talked of gorilla Burton found to be a less formidable creature than previous ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... tattoo for some moments, and then exclaimed, "You may say what you will, but the present system of society is ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... people are generally very dark, more so than the natives of Nueba Espana. There are but few islands where blacks are not found among the mountains. The inhabitants of the lowlands are of the former kind, and are accustomed to tattoo their bodies, arms, legs, and even their faces, where a beard should grow, with very carefully-drawn and handsome figures. The greater the chief, or the more valiant he is, the more he tattoos himself, leaving untattooed only the parts covered by the breech clout—the [clothing or] dress worn ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... and spreading a piece of red cloth before the footprint, lay their offerings of grain upon it. Members of this sept may not be tattooed, because they think the splashes of colour on the peacock's feathers are tattoo-marks. Their women must veil themselves if they see a peacock, and they think that if any member of the sept irreverently treads on a peacock's footprints he will fall ill. The Ghodmarya (Horse-killer) sept may not tame a horse nor ride one. The ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... 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 given to the ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... 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 ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... 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 holding ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... corner of the room and sat down at as great a distance from Vandeman as its dimensions would permit. He turned his face to the small window there, and through all that Vandeman said, kept up a steady, maddening tattoo with ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... its occupant, who, except for an entire want of animation, looks much like what he did in the railway-carriage—the same strong-looking man with well-marked cheek-bones, very thick brown hair and bushy brows, a skin rather tanned, and a scar on the bridge of the nose; very strong hands with a tattoo-mark showing on the wrist and an abnormal crop of hair on the back, running on to the fingers, but flawed by a scar or two. Add to this the chief thing you would recollect him by, an Elizabethan beard, and you will have all the particulars about him that a navy-blue serge suit, with shirt ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... very spot where they have committed a crime, notwithstanding the fact that they have taken a hundred precautions to avoid detection. This same recklessness prompts them, when the danger is scarcely past, to make verses or pictures of their exploits or to tattoo them upon their persons, ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... must 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
... and tattoo their faces, hands and wrists, in lines, triangles and circles. On their bodies also stripes of irregular design and varying colors are often used, all having a symbolic meaning originally, now lost, however, at least to all the younger members of the tribe. Painting ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... was bumpers and no heeltaps, and we were full to the throat. Then to the nard; and enter to us guitar and light fantastic toe. Thereafter, one shinned up the ladder, on post-prandial japery intent, another beat the devil's tattoo, a third ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... while the little brain was at work. "Goin' to Angel's mamma,—her goin' to her mamma," suddenly the child broke forth as Norma hurried along the hot streets, and the little hand beat a gleeful tattoo as it rested on ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... pieces of hide in the form of buffalo horns, projecting on either side of the head. The young men twine their hair in the form of a single horn, projecting over their forehead in front. They frequently tattoo their bodies, producing figures in the form of stars. Although their heads are thus elaborately adorned, their bodies are ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... naturally restless, excitable, and untutored in the art of calming the agitation of her mind by active employment, she could do nothing but wander in and out of her aunt's apartment; stand at the window watching for the postman, beating the devil's tattoo upon the panes; counting the hours, fretting over their insupportable length, and breaking out, at intervals, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... 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 ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... scabbard; but Schmitz gave him no chance to use it. Like a famished wolf he seized his enemy by the throat, throttling him, and, dropping his cane, with his clenched fist he dealt him several fearful blows on forehead and mouth, winding up with a tattoo that sounded like the beating of a drum on the man's skull. A violent push made Roth stumble and fall to ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... child," said Mrs. Gordon, when she had read the few anxious sentences. "Look here, Dick;" and Dick, who was beating a tattoo upon the window-pane, turned listlessly and asked, "Pray, ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... to tea, each man getting a pint of tea and a quarter of a pound of white bread. After that meal, some in dress and others in undress uniform, went into town; others remained in barracks, playing drafts and other games, until "tattoo," at half-past eight, when the first post sounded, and all men about the town, on hearing it, immediately returned to barracks, or should have done so. In the meantime the orderly-sergeants called the rolls of the respective rooms, noted all the men absent, ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... of Wellington Barracks the drums and fifes sounding the tattoo shrilled through the open window with a startling clearness like a sharp summons, and diminished as the band marched away across the gravel and again grew loud. Feversham did not change his attitude, but the look upon his face was now that of a ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... the delighted Mrs. Tony and dashed up the stairs to her own little room which looked out over the whole of Ramble Valley. It was warm with the March sunshine and the leafless boughs of the creeper that covered the end of the house were tapping a gay tattoo on the window panes to the music ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... enough to 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, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... addressed by a woman, he leaned forward and asked with satirical politeness, "What will the lady have?" "I wish to speak to the question under discussion," said Miss Anthony calmly, although her heart was beating a tattoo. Turning to the few rows of men in front of him, for the women occupied the back seats, he inquired, "What is the pleasure of the convention?" "I move she shall be heard," said one man; this was seconded by another, and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... 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 dawning in his eyes. ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... unmelodious snore in the back room, sent no gloom to his soul. It had been a happy evening. It had cost him a hard struggle to restrain the emotion which he had felt at times; and when he withdrew, soon after the trumpets sounded tattoo, and the ladies fell to discussing him, as women will, there was but one ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... the girl's eyes had grown bright with interest. She leaned forward, listening with eager attention. As Jack ceased, apparently she was about to speak, but there came a tattoo of knuckles on the door which caused her to ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... 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 ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... 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
... instant there came shouts from 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 ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... 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
... 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, ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... eastern source of the Irawadi. This agrees with Martini's indication of the seat of the Kin-Chi as north of Yung-ch'ang. One of Hannay's notices of Singpho customs should also be compared with the interpolation from Ramusio about tattooing: "The men tattoo their limbs slightly, and all married females are tattooed on both legs from the ankle to the knee, in broad horizontal circular bands. Both sexes also wear rings below the knee of fine shreds of rattan varnished ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Tilly and Timothy Toad chuckled, Gerty Gartersnake giggled, Wallie Woodpecker beat a tattoo on wood, Billie Bumblebee buzzed and Winnie Woodchuck sang ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... to 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! ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... on a coffin falls A knock upon the door! The colours wane, The dreams vanish! And leave that foul white scar, Tattoo'd with dreadful marks, the old calendar Blotching the blistered walls! The winter whistles thro' a shivered pane, And scatters on the bare boards at my feet These poor ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... all in the name of heaven, what could it be? by which I was obligated to put on my big-coat, and, with my hat and staff, go out to enquire. The whole town was aloof, the aged at the doors in clusters, and the bairns following the tattoo, as it was called, and at every doubling beat of the drum, shouting as if they had been in the face ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... You talked like a sure-enough book pest," asserted Martin. "But I noticed something phony about you—your tanned face, and the tattoo marks on your arms. I remember, I wondered how a book agent came ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... sea-cloth, and well cut. The buttons on his scarlet 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 have been afraid ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... who knows her. You do, don't you, Mike?" added Donald, and the dog beat a tattoo on the rug with his ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... beat of the drum, of signal for soldiers to go to their quarters, and a direction to the sutlers to close the tap, anddtew nomore liquor for them; it is generally beat at nine in summer and eight in winter. The devil's tattoo; beating with one's foot against the ground, as done ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... of your 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 ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... himself, "that it is not like that of Notre Dame de Poitiers, where the 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 ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... naturally, I went to the military tattoo, at which, by an unpardonable indifference, I have not regularly been present, although these patriotic demonstrations have been organized by Monsieur Joseph Boneas and his League of Avengers. A long-drawn shudder, shrill and sonorous, took flight ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... me said, "There are in Egypt many people known as Rhagarin, or Ghagarin, who are probably the same as the gypsies of Europe. They are wanderers, who live in tents, and are regarded with contempt even by the peasantry. Their women tell fortunes, tattoo, and sell small wares; the men work in iron. They are all adroit thieves, and noted as such. The men may sometimes be seen going round the country with monkeys. In fact, they appear to be in all respects the same people as the gypsies ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... fast, as such tidings always do, and Aunt Plenty was constantly employed in answering inquiries, for her knocker kept up a steady tattoo for several days. All sorts of people came: gentlefolk and paupers, children with anxious little faces, old people full of sympathy, pretty girls sobbing as they went away, and young men who relieved their feelings by swearing at all emigrants in general ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... instant, she lay against his shoulder, too astounded for protest. Then her satin slippers began beating a furious tattoo and her small fists pummeling him as her cheeks flamed and her mismatched eyes burst into indignant fire. These demonstrations her brother ignored as he carried her in effortless fashion out into the ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... the Hudson Bay Eskimos invariably tattoo their boys and girls. Lucien M. Turner writing of ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... 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 somewhat ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... thin, straggling growth of beard and moustache which adorns their Asiatic progenitors. The labrets of the men are offset by the long pendant earrings of the women, which are made from H.B. Co. beads and shells brought by Alaska Indians from the Pacific, It is only the women who here tattoo their faces, the three long stripes extending from lower lip to the chin. The men crop their hair in the style of the tonsure of the monk. Neither man nor woman provides any head covering except the hood of the artikki or ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... in a noiseless tattoo upon the stool, and for a time looked off into space. She wanted to draw him out, to know from what depth this particular enthusiasm had sprung. She was accustomed to his exuberance of spirits, it was one of the many things she loved him for. If this new craze were but an idle fancy, and he ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... fellow. There was a quiet, cynical smile on his face as he sat there beating a tattoo on his leggings with ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his chair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if he were not particularly pleased with the turn ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... that the 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 enough ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... 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 me, as a curiosity, an ornament, a specimen of the work of the Japanese tattooers, who have a delicacy of finish which ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... of it—unless you will go to him yourself, and tell him you know the whole story, and do whatever your tact and goodness suggest to set the matter right." She bent forward with her arms folded on her lap, looking up at him eagerly as she spoke, and beating a "devil's tattoo," with her slender feet, on the ground ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... fluted. Sometimes horizontal lines seem to divide them into strata. Again, the lines may be winding and spiral, so that on looking at certain cliffs it might be thought possible that the Maoris had got from them some of their curious tattoo patterns. Though pale and delicate, the tints of the rock are not their least beauty. Grey, yellow, brown, fawn, terra-cotta, even pale orange are to be noted. No photograph can give the charm of the drapery that clothes these cliffs. Photographs give no light or colour, and New Zealand ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... mongrel whined a 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 of a fire. Suddenly a hitherto unthought-of possibility flashed into the ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... 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 when ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... apparently—had been waiting for, for the next moment the guns of our port battery crashed forth, one after the other, while our port Maxim— the only one of the two that could be brought to bear—started its savage thud-thudding tattoo, and in less than half a minute the ship was enveloped in a cloud of acrid smoke which, hanging motionless in the stagnant air, effectually cloaked the approach of the attacking force, and as effectually prevented ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... 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 which distinguishes the parting. ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... of vigor, just as a colt frisks to show 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 ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... retreating, boys, The last tattoo is beating, boys, So let every man Finish his can, And drink to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... 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 ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... fell, his choicest tool a flake of stone; His best of orn'aments tattoo'd skin and holes to ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... was a little at a nonplus, as he never had undergone the operation which he had described. Fortunately for the support of his veracity, it happened that during one of his piratical excursions, in an idle fit, he had permitted one of his companions to tattoo a small mermaid ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... jet, ladye, Thy cheek is sharp and high, And there's a cruel leer, love, Within thy rolling eye: These tangled ebon tresses No comb hath e'er gone through; And thy forehead, it is furrowed by The elegant tattoo! ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... felt for the lady, and felt for my hat too, Improvised on the crown of the latter a tattoo, In lieu of expressing the feelings which lay Quite too deep for words, as Wordsworth would say: Then, without going through the form of a bow, Found myself in the entry,—I hardly knew how,— ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... finished when a quick step came along the corridor, and stopped at her door. Jim's fingers beat the tattoo that ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... 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 pair gave themselves up enthusiastically to self-tattooing. They pricked ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... did not intend to light, but some idle curiosity, like my own, made him pause a moment on the old gray rail. Then a woodpecker lit on the side of a post, and sounded it softly. But he was too near the ground, too near his enemies to make a noise; so he flew to a higher perch and beat a tattoo that made the woods ring. He was safe there, and could make as much noise as he pleased. A wood-mouse stirred the vines and appeared for an instant on the lower rail, then disappeared as if very much frightened at having shown himself in the sunlight. He always does just ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... door and for several minutes Mary played a tattoo on her machine. Then she keyed down quietly and, setting her transmitter at its maximum, she turned it ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... 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 he attacked ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson |
