"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... troubling me at all—particularly if Peters is about. I daresay you could find Peters, Alice, and if it's not troubling Peters too much, perhaps he would see to it. And ask the gentleman to come in. We can't keep him standing on the door-mat. ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... Oriental rugs. I had never allowed a child or dog in the house for fear of the matting, except of course my poor Lindo, who had died a few months previously, and whom I had taught to wipe his feet on the mat. ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... I'm going to tell you in the next story about Brighteyes and Sister Sallie—that is if no one takes our door mat to use for ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... the village, a matter of satisfaction to the professor, as it enabled him at once to plunge into his beloved work unobserved by the youngsters. It also afforded him a better opportunity of collecting moths, etcetera, by the simple method of opening his window at night. A mat or wicker-work screen divided the hut into two apartments, one of which was entirely given over to the ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... at anything. Big Charley Everson drank him down at the beer busts. Harrison Jackson, at hammer- throwing, always exceeded his best by twenty feet. Carruthers out- pointed him at boxing. Anson Burge could always put his shoulders to the mat, two out of three, but always only by the hardest work. In English composition a fifth of his class excelled him. Edlin, the Russian Jew, out-debated him on the contention that property was robbery. Schultz and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... formerly had been. When Maria was nearly two months old, her father one morning sent me word that he and all the white prisoners were put into the inner prison in five pairs of fetters each, that his little room had been torn down, and his mat, pillow, &c. been taken by the jailers. This was to me a dreadful shock, as I thought at once it was only ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... roof of the house but that of a two-story rear extension, he found himself in what seemed a small roof-garden, made private by awnings and Venetian blinds. Between his soles and the stone flooring he could feel the yielding texture of a grass mat, and he could not only dimly discern but also smell the perfume of green things in pots here and there. And his first step forward brought him into soft collision with a ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... out the folded page and left the room with quiet dignity, but caught his foot in the mat. Both ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... dear vessel, spoke his former state; But then a sort of kerchief round his head, Not over tightly bound, nor nicely spread; And, 'stead of trowsers (ah! too early torn! 480 For even the mildest woods will have their thorn) A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat Now served for inexpressibles and hat; His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face, Perchance might suit alike with either race. His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth, Which two worlds bless for civilising both; The musket swung behind his shoulders ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... and certainly airy bed-chamber; for half the front wall, and a portion of one of the sides, were entirely formed of wooden trellice, which admitted, with the utmost freedom, all the winds of heaven, the sun, and also the dust. There was a mat upon the floor, and the apartment was whitewashed to the rafters, which were in good condition; and upon Mohammed's declaration that it was free from rats, I felt an assurance of a share of comfort which I had dared not expect before. ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... fraud," he went on—the position of both head and miniature pleased him now—"do you remember the time I hauled you out from under the table when the hucksters were making a door-mat of your back; and the time I washed you off at the pump, and what you said to the gendarme, and—No, you never remembered anything. You'd rather sprawl out on the grass, or make eyes at Gretchen or the landlady—fifty, if ...
— Fiddles - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... wine, and the smell of it was evil. Then he took his staff, and his sandals, and likewise his clothes, with his weapons of war; and .he betook himself forth to the valley of the acacia. He entered the tower of his younger brother, and he found him lying upon his mat; he was dead. And he wept when he saw his younger brother verily lying dead. And he went out to seek the soul of his younger brother under the acacia tree, under which his younger brother lay in ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... we lodged in at Rama had a doore so low to enter into, that I was faine to creepe in, as it were vpon my knees, and within it are three roomes to lodge trauellers that come that way: there are no beds, except a man buy a mat, and lay it on the ground, that is all the prouision, without stooles or benches to sit vpon. Our victuals were brought vs out of the towne, as hennes, egges, bread, great store of fruite, as pomgranates, figges, grapes, oringes, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... (With the Corporation as he sat, Looking little, though wondrous fat; Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister Than a too-long-opened oyster, Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous 50 For a plate of turtle, green and glutinous) "Only a scraping of shoes on the mat? Anything like the sound of a rat ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... the hunting and fighting and woman's to do the work. Woman's instinct has been to conserve and protect life. It is much easier to fight than to make peace. We women would not allow our country to be made the door mat for other nations but we would find a way to settle disputes without killing ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... have been 'the other one'; he was rather shy. He sat down on a mat of reeds that was spread beside a corridor near the gateway; and, gazing up at the sky, meditated for some moments in silence. The chrysanthemums in the gardens were in full bloom, whose sweet perfume soothed us with its gentle ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... in this exchange is intensified, if time is allowed to intervene. Inside the we-group the first need for money is for fees, fines, amercements, and bride price. In Melanesia pigs are not called money and there is shell, feather, and mat money, but pigs are paid for fines, penalties, contributions to feasts, fees in the secret society, pay for wives, and in other societal relations. What is needed is a mobile form of wealth, with which social dues can be paid. This is the function of money ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... decapitated bodies were washing in the surf on the beach, from which they soon disappeared, having been probably washed away by the tide. Sexton and I were then placed in charge of two natives, who covered us with the sail of the canoe, a sort of mat, but paid no attention to my wound, which had been ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... the plates around the table, at equal intervals, and the knives and forks at regular distances, each in the same particular manner, with a cup-mat, or cup-plate, to each, and a napkin at the right side ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... of petlatl is a mat or rug; it is here to be taken in its figurative sense of power or authority, chiefs and other prominent persons being provided with mats at the ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... desired exceedingly to secure Dirk's vote in favor to the proposed entertainment he could not, at that moment, have chosen a better way. Dirk tossed his thick mat of black hair in a ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... up," the boy said, squinting down the barrel of the rifle he was lovingly cleaning. "It's going to be a perfect day! I'm going to the game myself. If it rains, you and I'll go to the Orpheum mat., ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... to "Virgil;" and then a girl who wanted some cheap French reading-book. Just as the clock began to strike five, Mr. Emblem lifted his head and looked up. The shop-door opened, and there stepped in, rubbing his shoes on the mat as if he belonged to the house, an elderly gentleman of somewhat singular appearance. He wore a fez cap, but was otherwise dressed as an Englishman—in black frock coat, that is, buttoned up—except that his feet were ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... saturated with a still fluid enriched alloy. If the solidification of an ingot of impure tin be watched it will be evident that the frosted appearance of the surface is due to the withdrawal of the fluid portion from a mat of crystals of purer tin which have been for some time solid and a contraction of the mass. The shrinking of the last part to become solid is further shown by the collapse of the surface of the ingot where weakest; that is, a furrow ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... his father was sitting on a mat of bast, and stepped behind his father and remained standing there, until his father felt that someone was standing behind him. Quoth the Brahman: "Is that you, Siddhartha? Then say ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... put on your hands something that will not let the electricity into your body—or stand on something that will "insulate" you; for instance, rubber gloves or rubber tobacco pouches, dry silk handkerchiefs, other silk garments or newspapers used in place of gloves if necessary. Stand on a rubber mat or on dry boards, or glass, or in dire necessity dry clothes can be used to stand on. They must not be wet as then they will carry the electric current through your body and you must also be ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... Mat's look, as he stood listening among his neighbors, was now just as quietly vigilant, his manner just as gruffly self-possessed, as usual. But it had cost him a hard struggle that morning, in the solitude ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... saddle, pack saddle; pommel. bed, berth, pallet, tester, crib, cot, hammock, shakedown, trucklebed[obs3], cradle, litter, stretcher, bedstead; four poster, French bed, bunk, kip, palang[obs3]; bedding, bichhona, mattress, paillasse[obs3]; pillow, bolster; mat, rug, cushion. footstool, hassock; tabouret[obs3]; tripod, monopod. Atlas, Persides, Atlantes[obs3], Caryatides, Hercules. V. be supported &c.; lie on, sit on, recline on, lean on, loll on, rest on, stand on, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... house, when your father read at prayers the miracle of healing the sick of the palsy—where he is told to take up his bed and walk? I do, and I can now so well realize the force of that passage. The smallest piece of mat is the bed of the Oriental, and yesterday I saw a native perform the very action, which reminded me to mention it. But you are better read than I, and perhaps you knew all this long ago....One day I bought some small native idols to send home to you as curiosities, but afterwards finding they had ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... drafted. The money his mother had put aside to purchase his release had been used up as a result of six months of poor business and by credits given to certain lorettes on the street, who had left the key under their door-mat one fine morning. He had not prospered, in a business way, himself, and his stock in trade had been taken on execution. He had been that day to ask a former employer to advance him the money to purchase a substitute. But the old perfumer ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... the window, dear, and wait till you hear me open the inside door," said she. "I'll run through the house and enter from the living-room. The key is under the mat, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... side by side, on their hands and knees, while Mr. Hench explained to de Laney that this method of beginning the bout was necessary, because the limited area of the mat precluded flying falls. At a signal from Mr. Beck, they turned and grappled, Jeems, by the grace of Providence, on top. In the course of the combat it often happened that the two mattresses would slide apart. The contestants, suspending their struggles, would then try to kick ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... at his word, so far as the first clause of the injunction was concerned. He went to bed in his room on the opposite side of the hallway. In passing through the hall he perceived Nero lying asleep on the mat in front of his master's bedroom, which was the small room in the rear of the large apartment where the ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... with but little of the June grass in sight. Each struggles for possession and does the best it can, and to some extent one supplements the other, with the result that at all times from spring to fall there is a close mat of living green which delights the eye and is pleasant to the feet that tread upon it. In soft ground, with plenty of room, a bit of quick or quack grass, or Bermuda, will extend in a year three to five feet or more ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... was bouncingly fat, As round as a robin was he; The jolliest babe ever sat on a mat To frolic and gurgle with glee! His father who tossed him now up and now down, Called him "Timothy Trundle of ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... bright and a little elated, and she disregarded her father's invitation to be seated. She stood on the mat instead, and looked down on him. "Look here, daddy," she said, in a tone of great reasonableness, "I MUST go to that dance, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... though, for she had seen him and he was well. She was always thinking about his health. He was weighed down with flannel, and in the holidays she fed him well with meat, giving him all the gravy from underdone beef so that he should grow strong and tall. She bought him a small mat to sit on at school because the forms were so hard. There were separate bed-rooms for the pupils, and Mme. Mauperin furnished her son's like a man's room. At twelve years of age he had a rosewood dressing-table and chest of drawers of his own. The boy became a young man, the young man left ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... glad," I heard him say, "and I hope we shall be the best of neighbours;" and his face was flushed, and he looked very handsome; while, when they shook hands on the door-mat, I could see the bright-eyed thing smiling in his face and looking pleased; and that shaking of the hands took a deal longer than it ought, while she gave him a look that made me think if I'd had a daughter like that, she'd have had ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... corner of Peter's mind. It was so subtle that Peter himself would have been the first, in all good faith, to deny it and to affirm that all his motives were altruistic. Once he looked back through the cedars. He could still see the boy hunched over, chin in fist, staring at the mat ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... the door, and Douglas Stone walked down the narrow passage, glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. There was no oilcloth, no mat, no hat-rack. Deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. Following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... few days, I constantly expected to see her arrive. I took it for granted that she would be brought to London just as I had been myself; and every evening, at the hour of our own arrival, I went to the hall-door, and sat patiently on the mat for a considerable time, fully expecting every moment that a carriage would stop, and that I should be the first to welcome ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... season of pancakes, which was all Lent was to me at the time of which I speak, the Carnival had rushed upon my sight, carrying all our friends through its whirlpool. Every gay cloth, shawl, and mat that could be brought into service I had rejoiced to see displayed upon the balconies. A narrow, winding street the Corso seemed, being so full, and the houses so high; and a merry blue strip of heaven far away overhead, glancing along the housetops, assured us space still existed. Sudden descents ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... an open flat, gray and red with short grass, and sheltered by towering pines on one side. Under these we set up our tents. The mat of pine needles was half a foot thick, soft and springy and fragrant. The woods appeared full of slanting rays of ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... his face, and he laughs all the time, and the perspiration just oozes out of him, and his face gets red, and he walks so wide. O, he disgraced us all. At one place he wished the hired girl a happy new year more than twenty times, and hung his hat on her elbow, and tried to put on a rubber hall mat for his over shoes. At another place he walked up a lady's train, and carried away a card basket full of bananas and oranges. Ma wanted my chum and me to follow Pa and bring him home, and about dark we found him in the door yard of a house where they ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... early in a morning, a great fire was made in a long house, and a mat spread on the one side as on the other; on the one they caused him to sit, and all the guard went out of the house, and presently came skipping in a great grim fellow, all painted over with coale mingled with oyle; and many Snakes and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the exception of a mat laid before the door leading into another and larger room, before one of the windows of which a white curtain was gently blowing in the wind. A rough, uncovered table pushed against the wall, three or four chairs, and a hair-cloth settee completed the furniture, with the exception of a low rocking-chair, ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... the kettles set on to boil, the mess-baskets opened, and a portion of their contents brought forth to be made ready for breakfast. One Frenchman spreads our mat within the tent, whence the bedding has all been carefully removed and packed up for stowing in the boat. The tin cups and plates are placed around on the new-fashioned table-cloth. The heavy dews make it a little too damp for us to breakfast ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... on some trees and a church. But Leila, who hated dining by daylight, had soon drawn curtains of a deep blue over them. The picture which Fort remembered was this: A little four-square table of dark wood, with a Chinese mat of vivid blue in the centre, whereon stood a silver lustre bowl of clove carnations; some greenish glasses with hock cup in them; on his left, Leila in a low lilac frock, her neck and shoulders very white, her face a little powdered, her eyes ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... melodrama, and the author of Pickwick. It is only in old age that I have learnt that there was real beauty and charm in David Copperfield. So, too, Mill I worshipped; and Carlyle, though I knew him, I despised—perhaps too much. Mat. Arnold was to me, in his day and my day, only a society trifler, whereas now ... after for years I have visited his tomb, I recognize him as a great writer of the age in ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... astonished at all the proceedings, for he had never dreamed that it was the king's son who had been working for him all the year and sleeping on a mat at his side on the floor ...
— Tales of Giants from Brazil • Elsie Spicer Eells
... announcement showed in a more striking point of view than many lengthened speeches could have done, the trustfulness and faith of Bailey's nature; since he had, in fact, last seen the visitor on the door-mat, where, after signifying to him that he would do well to go upstairs, he had left him to the guidance of his own sagacity. Hence it was at least an even chance that the visitor was then wandering on the roof of the house, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... three miles back, cantering in front of a tricycle. There was nothing to be done but to go leisurely home, waiting every now and then to see if the dog was coming, while growing always more and more uneasy at his non-appearance. At last the home was reached—and on the front-door mat sat Daniel! ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... spindle as she sat, Errina with the thick-coiled mat Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes, Gazing with a sad surprise At surging visions of her destiny— To spin the byssus drearily In insect-labor, while the throng Of gods and men wrought deeds ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... sister-turned-mother Of the sickly babe she tried to smother Somehow up, with its spotted face, From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place; She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping Already from my own clothes' dropping, Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on: Then, stooping down to take off her pattens, She bore them defiantly, in each hand one, Planted together ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... I tie a loop of heavy cord, or rope, about the top of each post, in which I can hang my willow-frame." This was also done, and the scouts helped place the woven mat in position. ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... balm of the spring morning for the doors to open he circumnavigated the block nine times—he counted them. Coming in on the last tack he sighted the portly form of the banker careening with dignified speed around the corner. Another instant he had crossed the mat and disappeared into his financial harbor. Mr. Strumley ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... flight of owls, bats, or rails, according to its direction, indicates the result of a battle or a war; the howling of a dog is a sign of coming misfortune; if a centipede crawls on the top of a mat it is a good omen, if on the bottom of a mat it is bad; it is unfortunate when a lizard crosses one's path; if a basket be found turned upside down in a road, this is a sign of evil; the way in which sacred stones fall to the ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... now in a sob, her throat seemed choked, but with an effort which seemed indeed amazing in one of her years, she controlled her tears, and for a moment was silent. The gray twilight crept in through the door of the cottage, where Mat, bareheaded and humble, still waited ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... you, Bandy?" said the seaman, walking smartly up to the chief, who was sitting on a mat inside his doorway, surrounded by a part of his harem and family, "you haven't forgotten ...
— The Tapu Of Banderah - 1901 • Louis Becke
... whose eyes rolled fearfully at sight of the dead wolf. Both animals wore packs lashed on their backs by ropes of twisted hide. Then another man came along, with another brace of donkeys. Finally, a fourth man, wearing skins for covering and with a mat of beard on his cheeks and chin, appeared. His uncovered head, a bush of uncombed flaxen hair, shone whitish as he knelt beside the dead beast, a knife with a dull-gray blade in his hand, and set to work skinning the wolf with appreciable skill. Three more ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... advent was notified by the arrival of the money-box, much resembling the old-fashioned wooden desk of the last century. The contractor sat on the ground on a bit of old carpet, under the shade of a grass-mat, with the box before him. The process of paying often went on for some hours, because it was accompanied by much fierce arguing and angry debate. The contractor, though taking large contracts, could neither ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... mind that I would not complain about Shock, when there was a loud thump of the knocker, and directly after I heard the door open, a heavy step in the passage, the door closed, and then the sound of old Brownsmith wiping his shoes on the big mat. ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... warmth and interest he was welcomed back when his wrongs and wanderings were known. For several days he held regular levees, that curious boys and sympathizing girls might see and pity the changed and curtailed dog. Sancho behaved with dignified affability, and sat upon his mat in the coach-house pensively eying his guests, and patiently submitting to their caresses; while Ben and Thorny took turns to tell the few tragical facts which were not shrouded in the deepest mystery. If the interesting ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... soft pine-needle mat, face down, and she groveled and burrowed there, in an agony that could not bear the sense of light. All she had suffered was as nothing to this. To have awakened to a splendid and uplifting love for a man whom she had imagined she hated, who had fought for her name and had killed in revenge ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... minor typographic corrections have also been made: p8: "al" changed to "all" p13: "sorrrow" changed to "sorrow" p81: "trom" changed to "from" p112: "Mat." changed to "Matt." for consistency ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... on the mantelpiece, as if glad to make itself heard at last. Outside, a plaintive snuffle made itself heard. John, the bull-dog, Mike's inseparable companion, who had followed him to the study, was getting tired of waiting on the mat. Mike got up and opened the door. John ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... locks, blew them out like fluttering red-gold pennons. All the Carlyles had red hair of varying shades and natures. Audrey's was long and heavy, with a pretty wave in it. Faith's was shorter, darker, and curly. Tom's curled tightly over his head, a fiery mat of curls. Deborah's, finest and silkiest of all, hung in soft auburn waves to her waist. Baby Joan's fluffy curls were the colour of ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... off and if you take the house your folks can step right in. Mrs. Congdon left only yesterday. Suppose you'll be going on the five eleven; it's your only chance of getting back to Boston tonight. If you don't find it convenient to stop here again, just leave the key under the door mat." ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... anything Agatha had ever seen. The stair-rail glistened, the polished floors shone. A neat bouquet of sweet peas stood exactly in the center of a snow-white doily, which was exactly in the middle of a shiny, round table. The very door-mat was brand new; Agatha would never have thought of wiping her shoes ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... "What's a mat?" hollers Genaro. "What's a use hava the fighta now? Wait till we starta the picture, then everybody she'sa fighta! Something she'sa go wrong. Sapristi! we feexa her then. Joosta holda ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... Hirakl,[FN199] we alighted in its shade. Presently a man came out to us and said, 'There are madmen in the monastery,[FN200] and amongst them one who speaketh wisdom; if ye saw him, ye would marvel at his speech.' So we arose all and went into the monastery' where we saw a man seated on a skin mat in one of the cells, with bare head and eyes intently fixed upon the wall. We saluted him, and he returned our salaam, without looking at us, and one said to us, 'Repeat some verses to him; for, when he heareth verse, he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... of Allegra, after long delay, were at length buried in the church, just under the present door mat, over which the congregation enter the church; but no memorial tablet or other record of her appears on the ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... the dismal interior did not cheer me. I locked the door with the great iron key, spread my mat, and blew out the lantern. Soon from out the huge brick oven where for decades Lam Kai Oo had baked his bread there stole scratching, whispering forms that slid along the slippery floor and leaped about the seats where many long since dead ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... gained more hellish energy and more devilish cruelty from its temporary abatement. The roads were thick with troops of people rushing wildly from their homes and fleeing from their native country as from a land cursed alike by God and by man. Mat Blake, passing along from Dublin to Ballybay, was almost driven to insanity by the sights he saw at the different ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... cried Henrietta Vance as the door bell rang. They all rushed to the door, running and scrambling, eager to tell the news. Young Haight stood bewildered on the door mat in the vestibule, his arms full of brown-paper packages, while they recounted the marvel. They all spoke at once, holding imaginary beer glasses toward him in their outstretched hands. Geary, however, refused to be carried away by their excitement, and one heard ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... his wife had shown him the decency of cutting down small personal expenses, and next morning's papers would have the same news in anyway; he walked home up the suburban road for the four thousandth five hundredth and fiftieth time; entered quietly not to disturb the baby; rubbed his boots on the mat; answered his wife brightly and manfully; washed his hands in cold water—the hot water being saved for the baby's bath and the washing-up in the evenings—and sat down to about the four thousandth five hundredth and fiftieth ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... about that in a room of five white cots and three barred windows, with the aid of a practical nurse and a tiny gas stove on a tin mat, Lilly prepared her daughter for ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... and Douglas Stone walked down the narrow passage, glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. There was no oil-cloth, no mat, no hat-rack. Deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. Following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent house. There ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is a small ivory plate with incised representations of funerary offerings before the king. Animals are being sacrificed to him; jars full of beer and other things are being offered. The figure of the king, in front of a hanging mat, is not preserved; but the upper corner still remains with the two names, which were written above the figure. First, there is the same Horus name which occurs on all the inscribed objects of this tomb and which may be translated "The Warrior." Beside the Horus name in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... neglected by writers on the eighteenth century. He has no biographer. M. Walferdin wrote (in an edition of Diderot's Works, Paris, 1821, Vol. XII p. 115): "Nous nous occupons depuis longtemps rassembler les matriaux qui doivent servir venger la mmoire du philosophe de la patrie de Leibnitz, et dans l'ouvrage que nous nous proposons de publier sous le titre "D'Holbach jug par ses contemporains" nous ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... to the field. As this is often at a distance from the house, the poor villager may be often seen carrying his infants in two baskets suspended over his shoulder by a bamboo. In these baskets some food also is taken, as the family does not return until night. An oblong mat also forms a usual part of what is carried into the field. This mat defends the children as well as the victuals from the sun and rain, and is sometimes used by the labourers for the same purposes, especially ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... a black boy to terrify him, at length confessed himself vanquished. The saint's food was only bread, with a little salt, and he drank nothing but water; he never ate before sunset, and sometimes only once in two, or four days: he lay on a rush mat, or on the bare floor. In quest of a more remote solitude he withdrew further from Coma, and hid himself in an old sepulchre; whither a friend brought him from time to time a little bread. Satan was here again permitted to assault him in a visible manner, to terrify him with ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... making me uncomfortable that I'm not married yet—not papa or Izzy, but you—you! Never does one of the girls get engaged that you don't look at me like I was wearing the welcome off the door-mat." ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... mainsail of a boat. Her foot was as long and as flat as a snow shoe, and her hands looked as shapeless and as hard as two large sponges froze solid. Her neck was as thick as a bull's, and her scalp was large and woolly enough for a door-mat. She was as strong as a moose, and as ugly too; and her great-white pointed teeth was a caution to ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... all the taps are red-hot, and, by the time you've burnt yourself to hell, you're wondering whether, if you start at once, you'll have time to leave the house before the thing bursts. Finally, you knock the gas off with the cork mat.... ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... willingly, for I was very hungry, and the viands looked very tempting. When I had eaten a good meal, I jumped up and shook the old chief and his son very heartily by the hand; and then sitting down on a mat, I threw myself back, and began singing away at the top of my voice, as if I had been perfectly contented with my lot. When, however, I got up to leave the house, signs were made to me that I was ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... everything, too large or too small for the happy proportion of the picture, and the conveying of a just notion of the stature. The work will have to be done over, and time sacrificed, if this is not attended to. The adjustment of the head to the size of the plate (as seen from the margin of the mat), is not to be taught: everyone must bring himself, by scrutinizing practice, to mathematical accuracy; for something will be discovered in every face which can be surmounted only ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... been published of the change which sheep imported from Europe undergo in the West Indies. Dr. Nicholson of Antigua informs me that, after the third generation, the wool disappears from the whole body, except over the loins; and the animal then appears like a goat with a dirty door-mat on its back. A similar change is said to take place on the west coast of Africa. (3/92. See Report of the Directors of the Sierra Leone Company as quoted in White 'Gradation of Man' page 95. With respect to the change ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... when he stood on the door-mat beside his captor merely added mystery to mystery. Just within the luxuriously furnished hall, where the light of the softly shaded hall lantern served to heighten the artistic effect of her red house-gown, stood a woman—a lady, and evidently the mistress of the Georgian mansion. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... substantial viands and delicacies usually provided on such occasions. There were also many presents for the bride from her old friends, not costly or fine, but in keeping with their manner of living. Mrs. Loper brought a sheep-skin for a mat, the wool combed out smoothly and colored crimson, Maggie a white crocheted tidy as big as a cart-wheel, Mrs. Sapp a wooden butter-stamp, Mary Sapp a picture-frame made of pasteboard, with beech-nuts glued together thickly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... give thee water for washing thy feet and such fruits and roots also as may be liked by thee, for this is what my religion hath prescribed to me. Be thou pleased to take at thy pleasure thy seat on a mat made of the sacred grass, covered over with a black deer-skin and made pleasant and comfortable to sit upon. And where is thy hermitage? O Brahmana! thou resemblest a god in thy mien. What is the name of this particular religious vow, which thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Violetta's bed came on and the men threw the pillows from one to the other, as if they were playing ball. They hung up a crucifix, which I thought was unnecessary, and brought in a candlestick. I wondered if they were going to put a warming-pan in the bed. A mat was laid down with great precision. Then Nilsson came in, dressed in a flounced petticoat trimmed with lace, a "matinee," and black slippers, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... consisted of some races, and a mat de cocagne, or greased pole, placed horizontally over the river; the feat being to walk safely to the end, where the prize was fixed, without falling into the water. In the evening "ronds" were danced, and every house had illuminations, in the shape of a candle stuck in a ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... a headache, and she lay on a mat alone in her house. Suddenly she remembered some fruit that she had heard of but had never seen, and she said to herself, "Oh, I wish I had some of the oranges ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... his arms and leaned against a tree. Beatrix, with a sigh, settled down upon the mat of pine-needles like a bluebird upon her nest. The hermit followed suit; drawing his feet rather ...
— Options • O. Henry
... unattended; so he crept up and made him smell and sniff up levigated Bhang and he became as one dead. Then Sahim went out and took a male mule, and wrapping the King in the coverlet of his bed, laid him on its back; after which he threw a mat over him and led the beast to the Moslem camp. Now when he came to Gharib's pavilion and would have entered, the guards knew him not and prevented him, saying, "Who art thou?'' He laughed and uncovered his face, and they knew him and admitted ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... suns, when from the social meal The wicker window held the summer heat, Praised have those been who, going unperceived, Opened it wide, that all might see you well: Nor were the children blamed, upon the mat, Hurrying to watch what rush would last arise From your foot's pressure, ere the door was closed, And not yet wondering how they dared to love. Your counsels are more precious now than ever, But are they—pardon if I err—the ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... saddle; pommel. bed, berth, pallet, tester, crib, cot, hammock, shakedown, trucklebed^, cradle, litter, stretcher, bedstead; four poster, French bed, bunk, kip, palang^; bedding, bichhona, mattress, paillasse^; pillow, bolster; mat, rug, cushion. footstool, hassock; tabouret^; tripod, monopod. Atlas, Persides, Atlantes^, Caryatides, Hercules. V. be supported &c; lie on, sit on, recline on, lean on, loll on, rest on, stand on, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... into his grim presence that Myles was introduced by Gascoyne. Sir James was in his office, a room bare of ornament or adornment or superfluous comfort of any sort—without even so much as a mat of rushes upon the cold stone pavement to make it less cheerless. The old one-eyed knight sat gnawing his bristling mustaches. To anyone who knew him it would have been apparent that, as the castle phrase went, ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... straight; when sitting down, sat upright; and when standing, stood erect. She would not taste strange flavors, nor have anything to do with spiritualism; if her food were not cut straight she would not eat it, and if her mat were not set straight, she would not sit upon it. She would not look at any objectionable sight, nor listen to any objectionable sound, nor utter any rude word, nor handle any impure thing. At night she studied some canonical work, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... got was in a mat factory; at least, Aunt got that for me. I didn't want to have anything to do with mats or carpets. The worst of it was the boss didn't seem to want me to go, and I had a job to get him to sack me, and when he did he saw some of my people ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... Mr. Round had kept his promise to Mr. Furnival; or, at least, had done something towards keeping it. He had not himself taken the matter into his own hands, but he had begged his son to be cautious. "It's not the sort of business that we care for, Mat," said he; "and as for that fellow down in Yorkshire, I never liked him." To this Mat had answered that neither did he like Mr. Mason; but as the case had about it some very remarkable points, it was necessary to look into it; and then the matter ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... wished he had the time to solve this riddle, for it was a riddle, and four-square besides. Back in the States young women did not offer to play the Good Samaritan to strange young fools whom Jawn D. Barleycorn had sent to the mat for the count of nine: unless the young fool's daddy had a bundle of coin. Maybe the girl was telling the truth, and then again, ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... who was lying on a mat by the door, rose. "Philo, take this ring. Follow me to the door of the banqueting room, and stand behind the hangings. If I say 'Run, Philo!' carry out the orders that I have before given you. Speed first to the room where the Britons sleep, and tell them to arm and come up by the private ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... On a mat of straw, overspread by a thick layer of sand, was a bed of charcoal kept glowing by attendants armed with fans attached to long poles. Priests were intoning a prayer to the god of water, who lived in the moon, to descend with vengeance upon the god of fire. With much ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... gult of gomorre gare[gh] me to wrath; I schal ly[gh]t i{n}-to at led & loke my seluen, If[34] ay haf don as e dyne dryue[gh] on-lofte, 692 ay han lerned a lyst at lyke[gh] me ille, at ay han fou{n}den i{n} her flesch of faute[gh] e werst, Vch male mat[gh] his mach a man as hy{m} seluen, & fylt{er} folyly i{n} fere, on fe{m}male[gh] wyse. 696 I compast hem a kynde crafte & kende hit hem derne, [Sidenote: The ordinance of marriage had been made for them, but they foully set it at nought.] ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... torment will be posthumous. They do not know, nor, in times when the land is preparing for early harvest, do they greatly care, what or when the end may be. Your wise Moor waits to gather in his corn and see it safely hoarded in the clay-lined and covered pits called mat'moras. That work over, he is ready and willing, nay, he is even anxious, to fight, and if no cause of quarrel is to be found ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... Jane says, which they hesitated about some time. Colonel Campbell rather preferred an olive. My dear Jane, are you sure you did not wet your feet?—It was but a drop or two, but I am so afraid:—but Mr. Frank Churchill was so extremely—and there was a mat to step upon—I shall never forget his extreme politeness.—Oh! Mr. Frank Churchill, I must tell you my mother's spectacles have never been in fault since; the rivet never came out again. My mother often talks of your ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... The wisest and the best of men, Betook him to the place where sat With folded feet upon a mat Of precious stones beneath a palm, In sweet and everlasting calm, That ancient and immortal gent, The God of Rational Content. As tranquil and unmoved as Fate, The deity reposed in state, With palm to palm and sole to sole, ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... inn's worst room, with mat half hung, The walls of plaster, and the floor of dung; The George and Garter dangling from the bed, Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies; alas, how changed from him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... shutter. The pale daylight entered from without, throwing a sinister light on the saffron-coloured walls. The floor—for though the laboratory and the vestibule were tiled, The Yellow Room had a flooring of wood—was covered with a single yellow mat which was large enough to cover nearly the whole room, under the bed and under the dressing-table—the only piece of furniture that remained upright. The centre round table, the night-table and two chairs had ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... this way, then it goes that, Just like a bird on the wing. And all of a tremble I crouch on the mat Like a Lion, ...
— The Kitten's Garden of Verses • Oliver Herford
... She knew it was something about herself, because the Plynck's tone was exactly like Mother's when she wished to remind Sara, without seeming officious, that she had not wiped her feet on the mat, or spread out her napkin, or remembered to say "Thank you" at ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... chief difficulty. On week days she wore none, but of course St. Mark's demanded a headgear of some kind, and at last Mrs. Jenkins triumphantly produced one of Tam o' Shanter shape manufactured from a lamp mat and adorned with some roses bestowed by the leading lady. The belligerent locks of the little scrub-girl refused to respond to advances from curling iron or papers, but one of the neighbors whose hair was a second cousin in hue ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... receive the good spirit to his bosom," says a black-eyed daughter, patting him gently upon the head, then looking in his face solicitously, as he turns his eyes upward, and for a few moments seems invoking the mercy of the Allwise. "Yes, father," she resumes, lightening up the mat of straw upon which he lays, "the world has been unkind to you, but you are passing from it to a better-you ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... sufferance. Give, Sire, to me the clove, also the wand, I will seek out the Spanish Sarazand, For I believe his thoughts I understand." That Emperour answers intolerant: "Go, sit you down on yonder silken mat; And speak no more, until that I ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... against the other; till majestic Reason, deigning to look downward from her contemplation of eternal causes, spelt backwards for me, with a pitying smile, the homely, harmless inscription on the BATH MAT, which was lying there ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... shoe-buckles—there was nothing left of the boy himself but the whites of his eyes. The tavern is placed where men moving in the new ways of a busy and adventurous world would not see it, for they would not be there. Its dog Ching was asleep on the mat of the portico to the saloon bar; a Chinese animal, in colour and mane resembling a lion whose dignity has become sullenness through diminution. He could doze there all day, and never scare away a chance customer. None ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... deceive him. I do not think I danced a horn but I did step around lively, maybe, a little on tip He said, he thought he had cured me up, that the application he gave would make me well. I crawled into bed very much pleased indeed to think the mat was settled, as far as I was concerned. John S. had crawled into bed while I was paying the penalty. Father excused him because he was so young; he said I was the one to blame, and must stand it all. I thought as all young Americans do that it was rather hard to get such ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... bottom he suddenly became aware that the door before him, that giving on the landing, was shut, and that some one, almost certainly a child—for there was not room on the mat for a full-grown person—was crouching down ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... market-place, Anne realised with some annoyance that she was late again for the Wednesday evening service. She dearly loved punctuality and order, and disliked to be either checked or hastened in her superb movements. She disliked to be late for anything. Above all she disliked standing on a mat outside a closed church door, in the middle of a General Confession, trying to surrender her spirit to the spirit of prayer, while Walter lingered, murmuring profane urbanities that claimed her as ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... Oriole, also called the Baltimore Bird, is a distinguished weaver. With strong stalks and hemp or flax, fastened round two forked twigs corresponding to the proposed width of nest, it makes a very delicate sort of mat, weaving into it quantities of loose tow. The form of the nest might be compared to that of a ham; it is attached by the narrow portion to a small branch, the large part being below. An opening exists at the lower end of the dwelling, and the ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... by another madman, who was in an opposite cell; and raising himself up from an old mat, whereon he had thrown himself stark naked, he demanded aloud, who it was that was going away ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Place of Execution, the Cushion was laid on the Ground, upon a Portugal Mat, spread there for that Purpose; and the Princess stood on the Cushion, with her Prayer-Book in her Hand, and a Priest by her Side; and was accordingly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... made by putting layers of various kinds and colors of ice creams into a brick mold. Pack and freeze. At serving time, cut into slices crosswise of the brick, and serve each slice on a paper mat. ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer
... last she threw them, and knelt on the mat With doves and biddy and dog and cat. And her mother came to the open house-door: "Dear little daughter, I bring you some more. My ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... a door-mat out of hisself before, it was worse after you come. He was the greatest hand for little things that ever I see—colts, kittens, calves, puppies and a baby! He walked the floor carrying you on a pillow for fear ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... cellars of Pebbleson Nephew. The Joey Ladle in question. A slow and ponderous man, of the drayman order of human architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of door-mat and rhinoceros-hide. ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... likely his name would have represented the double achievement of being a famous racer, and the sire of famous racers too. He was bought for 1,600l., the purchase being effected on the recommendation of Mat Dawson, the trainer, and the horse was then a two-year-old. That he could go at a terrific pace is proved by an observation made one day by Fred Archer to the trainer. St. Simon was at exercise when Archer's spur touched him, unintentionally by the jockey. He bounded into ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... blows day and night, and throughout the year the day temperature does not vary more than five or six degrees, the average being about eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. In 1850 the town of Honolulu was little else than a native village of grass and mat huts. Two or three merchants had good houses. In one of these Fred and Samson were domiciled; there was no such thing as a hotel. I was the guest of General Miller, the Consul-General. What changes may have ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the gang (Lady Purcell, it should have been mentioned, had also been responsible for her daughters' names), rising from her chair and pouring what was left of her after dinner coffee into her saucer, a proceeding which caused four pairs of lambent eyes to discover themselves in the coiled mat of red setters that ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... had come round in the afternoon," said the visitor, standing with his thick legs astride upon the door-mat. "It seems a pity to break his chain of thought. The morning is his time ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was a beautiful pink sea-shell, lying on a mat made of balls of red-shaded worsted. This shell was greatly coveted by mother, but she was only allowed to play with it when she had been particularly good. Hiram had showed her how to hold it close to her ear and hear the roar of the sea ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... two forts. An Honour like Unto Knighthood. Goldsmiths, Blacksmiths, Carpenters, and Painters. The Privilege and state of the Smiths. Craftsmen. Barbers. Potters. Washers. Jaggory-makers. The Poddah, Weavors, Basket-makers. Mat-makers. The lower ranks may not assume the habit or names of the higher. Slaves. Beggers. The reason the Beggers became so base and mean a People. They live well. Their Contest with the Weavors about dead Cows. Incest common among them. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... ova, are of the etooa-tree, or cordia, as neat as if made in our turning-lathe, and perhaps better polished. And amongst their articles of handicraft, may be reckoned small square fans of mat or wicker-work, with handles tapering from them of the same, or of wood; which are neatly wrought with small cords of hair, and fibres of the cocoa-nut coir intermixed. The great variety of fishing-hooks are ingeniously ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... I. "If I'm ever brought home on a shutter, I shall look for Cornelia to be waitin' on the mat with a needle and thread, ready to sew ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... drawing back. But at a word from the mistress, they lifted the man and brought him in and laid him down on the braided woollen mat before the fire. Then for a moment there was silence, for he wore the dress of a British soldier, and his right arm was bandaged. He had fainted from loss of blood, apparently—perhaps from hunger. Basha loosened his coat at the throat, and tried to force ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... easily. It would be great fun to replace the bit of porch furniture with it. As for doormats, the preoccupied neighborhood doctor had left his out last Halloween, and could be depended on to do it again; also, there were the apartment entrances, each with a heavy rubber mat in front of the stone steps. As for the can-and-string trick, the frame dwelling where the fat little tailor lived was marked for the experiment, as were a ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... in the room, except a mat at one corner. They were standing all about us, and perfectly able to murder us if so disposed, but none made any effort to restrain ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Sphagnum mat has begun its growth, the strength given by its interlaced fibres enables it to extend off from the shore and float upon the water. In this way it may rapidly enlarge, if not broken up by the waves, so that its front advances into the lake at the rate of several inches each ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... rose from her little wooden stool and took down a heavy cloak that she threw about her shoulders. Then from under a sheepskin mat she drew forth a long sharp dirk, which she placed in her leathern belt. She went further into the cave and put some bread cakes into her wallet. Then drawing aside a curtain that shut off a side chamber in the rocky walls, she held ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... little culture and how many of the boys gave up their ponies altogether, wore store clothes and took 'em off when they went to bed all the time they were in college; but, try as I would, I couldn't make the answers as ridiculous as his questions. He had me on the mat, two points down and fighting for wind all the time. His thirst for knowledge was wonderful and his objection to believing what his eyes must have told him was still more wonderful. There he was, half-way across the country from New York, and he must have looked out of the car windows ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... economical way to plant them will be in furrows made by the plough. Most of the bedding used in covering them, if it be as coarse as it ought to be to admit as much air as possible while it should not mat down on the cabbages, will, with care in drying, be again available for covering another season, or remain suitable for bedding purposes. These "winter-headed" cabbages, as they are called in the market, are not so solid and have more shrinkage to them than those headed in the open ground; hence ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory
... lady placed upon her patient brother constituted a state of absolute tyranny. Lest her immaculate door-step should be soiled, she would rarely allow him to enter the house by the front-door. She placed a thick mat inside his workshop, at the doorway leading into the front-room; and she exercised a lynx-eyed supervision to ensure that he always wiped his feet before coming in. She would never permit him to go upstairs ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... thought," said Peace, after a pause, "I might earn a little crocheting. Once, long ago, I made a mat out of ends of worsted I found, and it didn't hurt me hardly any; on my good days it wouldn't honestly hurt me at all. It's pretty work, crocheting, ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Form boys—one of whom took Grundy by the shoulders and pushed him away, with the command to "Get out and lie on the mat"—put an end, for the time being, to the altercation. The crowd increased: boys of all ages stopped to read the verses; some few laughed, and pronounced them jolly good; but to do them justice, the greater number of Ronleians were too jealous of the honour of their school to see ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... at his flank. He now saw in his front the same active and wary adversary, prepared to bar the direct road to Richmond. General Lee had taken up his position on the south bank of one of the four tributaries of the Mattapony. These four streams are known as the Mat, Ta, Po, and Nye Rivers, and bear the same relation to the main stream that the fingers of the open hand do to the wrist. General Lee was behind the Po, which is next to the Nye, the northernmost of these water-courses. Both were difficult to cross, and their banks heavily ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... MacCailein!" said she; "thy daddy put his hand on my head like a son when he came back from his banishment in Spain, and I keened over thy mother dear when she died. The hair of Peggy Bheg's head is thy door-mat, and her son's blood is ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... laid, in their leaves, in great mats with the tops turned south to prevent the entrance of north winds, with the leaves of each layer covering the butts of that below, and with a blanket of earth over the last butts in the mat. Here these canes usually stayed until January when they were stripped and strewn in the furrows of the newly plowed "stubble" field as the seed of a new crop. After enough seed cane were "mat-layed," the rest of the cut was merely ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... lived in the shadow of their father, who was dead," they declared; "ever since they were little they had lived in his shadow. He had received them when they were outcasts and wanderers without a mat to lie on, or a blanket to cover them, and they had grown fat in his shadow. Then he had died, and the Star, their father's daughter, had married me, Macumazahn, and they had believed that I should take their father's place, and let ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... were very damp, I felt my way as well as I could to the pulpit, in doing which something rushed by me, and almost threw me down. At last I found out the pulpit, and having shut the door, I laid down on the mat and cushion to sleep, when something pulled the door, as I thought, for admittance, which prevented my going to sleep. At last it cried: 'Bow, wow, wow!' and I knew it must be Mr. Sanderson's dog, which had followed me from their house to the church; so I opened ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... prefixes—devilgrass. It was yellow, the dirty, grayish yellow of moldy straw; and bald, scuffed spots immodestly exposed the cracked, parched earth beneath. Over the walk, interwoven stolons had been felted down into a ragged mat, repellent alike to foot and eye. Perversely, onto what had once been flowerbeds, the runners crept erect, bristling spines showing faintly green on top—the only live color in the miserable expanse. Where the grass had gone to seed there were patches of muddy ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the killing of such a quarry as the fox, who himself was easily able, and big and strong enough for the killing of such prey as Finn had learned to hunt. The shoulders of a hare or a rabbit were easily smashed between Finn's jaws; but the shoulders of the big fox, with their mat of dense fur, were far otherwise. Finn's teeth sank deep, but they ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... look, at first sight, of the mate of a ship, he stood gently stamping the snow off his boots on the door mat, laughing in a low tone, as if he was very much pleased to see the worthy Mrs. Falkoner, and was enjoying her stare of ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... acquaintance; but Mrs. Eccles had a front parlor—a front parlor with the bottled-up smell in it peculiar to front parlors; a parlor with a real mahogany table, on which photograph albums and a few select volumes were symmetrically arranged round an inkstand, nestling in a very choice wool-work mat; a parlor with wax-flowers under glass shades on the mantle-piece, and an avalanche of paper roses and mixed paper herbs ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... stimulated our inquiries, and, above all, led us to wonder where she had learned it all. Even the slight restrictions which her neat habits imposed on our breezy and turbulent natures seemed all quite graceful and becoming. It was right, in our eyes, to cleanse our shoes on scraper and mat with extra diligence, and then to place a couple of chips under the heels of our boots when we essayed to dry our feet at her spotless hearth. We marveled to see our own faces reflected in a thousand smiles and winks from her bright brass andirons,—such andirons we thought were seen ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe |
