"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with red, fleshy lips, with humid, intoxicated, seemingly unctuous eyes, merrily sparkling from under the high bows of black, regular, Little Russian eyebrows, was whirling around and stamping out a tattoo on one spot. All the beauty and all the art of her dance consisted in that she would now bow her little head and look out provokingly from under her eyebrows, then suddenly toss it back and let her eyelashes down and spread her hands out at her sides; and ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... back in her chair and showed them a scornful shoulder, compressing indignant lips to a straight, unlovely line, and beating out the devil's tattoo ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... Private Tom Clary, "I belave we can do bist by oursilves. Me afthernoon's lave ixpires at tattoo, but if, as me shuparior officers, ye'll allow me to be out of camp a bit longer, I think ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... Eye Powers, that is, Mrs. John Powers, would be ensconced at the home of Mrs. Fogel, his mother. Mollie Bent was there, and girl like, was delighted over the romance being enacted under that roof. The heart of the Indian maid was beating a happy tattoo under ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... a tattoo on the window, and I half open it. A silhouette with a streaming hat appears, as though carried and driven there by the terrible force of the blast that ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... in the grasp of Bottazzi and Madame Bottazzi. Galeotti then raised the drum in his hand, high above his head and against the curtain, and requested 'John' to beat it. 'John' pushed a hand against the drum and beat a muffled tattoo. All this was utterly out of the psychic's reach. The strife over the drum would seem to argue a complete and powerful figure ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... of him, neither he nor his horse was anywhere to be seen. Thinking this was rather queer, but quite ready to attribute it to natural causes, I approached the building, and, making use of my knuckles in lieu of a knocker, beat a loud tattoo on the woodwork. There was no response. Again I rapped, and the door slowly opening revealed a pair of gleaming, dark eyes. 'What do you want?' enquired a harsh voice in barbarous accents. 'A night's lodging,' I replied; 'and I'm willing ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... who so long did'st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... and Lucile's hand went out instinctively to silence the interruption. "Sh-h!" she warned, but the Frenchman seemed not to have heard and continued his narrative, while his hand beat a nervous tattoo on ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... bound. At first they could not find anyone at home, the whole community being away in the forest peeling bark from the birch trees for the making of canoes. But the same kind of thing had happened before, so Katherine was not at a loss. Picking up a tin pan, she commenced beating a military tattoo upon it with a thick stick; while Phil, with a trumpet improvised from a roll of birchbark, produced an ear-splitting din which must have carried far through the quiet woods. It was not long before their customers arrived on the scene, and then the business of barter began. A very long business ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... lightly of the laws. But still you say reason: give me your arm, sergeant, and lead the way to the east wing; my eyesight is good for nothing in such a dark night. A soldier should always visit his guard before the tattoo beats." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the pass, eyes and ears open. The white horse took the climb as if it had been level ground, his hoofs ringing a brisk tattoo against the stones. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... 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 ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Hotel has invented an ingenious system of calling sleepy guests. The other night a man left instructions that he wished to be called early. Next morning he was disturbed by a loud tattoo upon the door. "Well?" he demanded sharply. "I've got a message for you, sir." Yawning until he strained his face, the guest jumped out of bed and unlocked the door. The bellboy handed him an envelope and then went away quickly. The guest opened the envelope, ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... 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, into ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... followed the appearance of Sir Patrick and his companions in the room—was Geoffrey. The only change visible in him was a change in the handling of his walking-stick. Instead of tracing patterns on the carpet, it beat a tattoo. For the rest, there he sat with his heavy head on his breast and his brawny arms on his knees—weary of it by anticipation ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... cooking and spreading homely themes over an inept-looking clavier confounding the wits of his children and all men's children down to the last generation. He marvels at the paradox, drums his head with the tattoo: how can a thing as small as he shape and maintain an art out of himself universal enough to carry her daily vigil to crystalled immortality? She lets ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... was covered with small tattoo marks, each of which I was assured represented a victim ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... and metallic, like the click of a withdrawn bolt, and came first from the case at his side. A second sharp rap replied from the other raised casket, then an echoing tattoo of metallic impacts rattled and clattered in the resounding room. Each of the hundreds of caskets was adding its voice ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... with what so long as it is some form of practical or mental activity. You may see that this is so by the way in which people who have no work or nothing to think about, immediately begin to beat the devil's tattoo with their knuckles or a stick or anything that comes handy. The truth is, that our nature is essentially restless in its character: we very soon get tired of having nothing to do; it is intolerable boredom. This impulse to activity should be regulated, and some sort of method introduced into it, ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... turned up the student's lamp and sat down in the swivel chair before his desk. He sat uneasily, beating a tattoo on his knees with his fingers, and looked about him as if he were bored. He glanced at his watch, then absently took from his pocket a bunch of small keys, selected one and looked at it. A contemptuous smile, barely perceptible, played on his lips, but his eyes ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... her grandmother to continue her sententious advice, while she herself sat tapping her feet on the floor, and performing the most rapid variations of that air which is called the Devil's Tattoo, burst out, at length, to the elder lady's surprise, with an outbreak of indignation, a flushing face, and a voice ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... system of tattooing practised by the Maoris. See Tattoo. It is not a fact—as popularly supposed—that the "moko" was distinctive in different families; serving, as is sometimes said, the purpose of a coat-of-arms. The "moko" was in fact all made on the same pattern—that of all Maori carvings. Some were more elaborate than others. The sole ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... forward. Jawn fingered the lever with a lover's caress. He knew old "eleven," every foot of her, every tube, bolt, and strap. As they cleared the yards, he threw her wider and wider open until she was lunging and lurching madly. The cinders beat a tattoo upon the cab, and Jim Weeks crowded up into the corner. The fireman, a strapping young fellow, threw in great shovels of coal with the regularity of a machine, pausing only to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... two—crick, crack, crick, crick, crick, crick, crack, crack. In three seconds ten heads were broken, with a sound just like glass bottles, under the short, deadly truncheon, and there lay half a dozen ruffians writhing on the ground and beating the Devil's tattoo ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... at it in due and proper form." He rose and hobbled to the door and was so set upon haste that his shaking hand played a rattling tattoo on the latch. "I—I'll go and have the papers drawn, and you will sign them, Captain Ireton; I have your passed word ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... stick played a tattoo that made Stacy sore in more senses than one. Instead of burrowing deeper into the cedar boughs, he got up hastily. In his desperation he seized the Professor's feet, giving a mighty ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... curious friendships you ever heard tell of. Nothing delighted the pair more than to borrow a boat off my father and pull out to the rocks where the 'Primrose' and the 'Despatch' had struck and sunk; and on still days 'twas pretty to hear them out there off the Manacles, the drummer playing his tattoo—for they always took their music with them—and the trumpeter practising calls, and making his trumpet speak like an angel. But if the weather turned roughish, they'd be walking together and talking; ...
— The Roll-Call Of The Reef • A. T. Quiller-Couch (AKA "Q.")
... and protracted 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... woman stood on bank of the Alleghany, vigorously waving her hand and hailing the youthful navigator. The forward end of the one by twelve inch board was reluctantly headed for shore, and slowly idled in. As the child reached land, he was grasped by the angry and anxious mother, who beat a merry tattoo on a tender portion his body ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... painful produce a comic expression to her, and I am a charming 'rogue', and I am entertained on the topic she assumes to be principally interesting me. I must avoid her. The thought of her leaves me no choice. She is clever. She could tattoo ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mainspring of all his actions, and the very sights and sounds of a stricken field were dear to his soul. Nothing had such power to stir his pulses as the rebel yell. "I remember," says a staff-officer, "one night, at tattoo, that this cry broke forth in the camp of the Stonewall Brigade, and was taken up by brigades and divisions until it rang out far over field and woods. The general came hastily and bareheaded from his tent, and leaning on a fence near by, listened in silence to the rise, the climax, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... but trembling like a leaf with nervous fear. A terrific gust of wind roared around the corner, shaking the little brown house from rafter to foundation; the great elm trees tossed and groaned in sympathy, and the leafless vines over the porch beat a mournful tattoo against ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... before me and fell to eating without shyness or difficulty as though in her presence I were other than a son of Adam. And I stood looking at her and whenever she raised her wrist to take up a morsel, the dimple[FN133] became manifest from without, and upon the skin was a tattoo of green colour and about it jewelled ornaments[FN134] and armlets of red gold and a pink dye appeared upon the whiteness of her hand: so glory be to Him who created her and she was naught but a seduction ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 black" (p. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... 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
... divine. At every cudgelling bestowed on the wooden heads the pitiless audience went into shrieks of laughter; and the sharp thrusts delivered by the puppets at each other's breasts, the duels in which they beat a tattoo on one another's skulls as though they were empty pumpkins, the awful havoc of legs and arms, reducing the characters to a jelly, served to increase the roars of laughter which rang out from all sides. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... the tenants go through the next house. No matter if they are cramped; by and by they will have room. By and by comes the spring, and with it the steamer. Does not the green branch speak of spring and of hope? The policeman on the beat hears their hammers beat a joyous tattoo past midnight, far into Christmas morning. Who shall say its message has not reached even them ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... pointing toward the heart near the chest, throw the hand forward and to the right once, twice, or many times, through an arc of about six inches. (Dakota IV.) "Some say they use this sign because these Indians tattoo ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... Something struck me on the back of the head, partially stunning me and knocking me to the deck. My first thought was that something had carried away aloft; but even as I went down, and before I struck the deck, I heard the devil's own tattoo of rifles from the boats, and twisting sidewise, I caught a glimpse of the sailor who was standing guard. Two big niggers were holding his arms, and a third nigger from behind was braining him with ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... "Suddenly the tattoo sounded,—not loud and shrill, as on ordinary occasions, but in a subdued and cautious manner, as if fearful of being heard by the British, whose white tents might be seen in the distance. Obedient to the signal, the greater part of the soldiers ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... gentleman in the nightcap, about whom he professed to have such a tender interest. The hypocrite was looking and listening with all his might in the direction of George's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs, beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other signs of great ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... greaser, tinsmith, copper-smelter, and now, endlich, enfin, at last, a donkeyman. His frame is gigantic, his strength prodigious. On his chest is a horrific picture of the Crucifixion in red, blue, and green tattoo. Between the Christ and the starboard thief is a great triangular scar of smooth, shiny skin. One of his colossal knees is livid with scars. He tells me the story like this, keeping time with the click ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... track selected by the buffalo. Too terrified to move, she watched, with white face and parted lips, the maddened animal sweep toward her, head down and tail up, its hoofs beating a thunderous tattoo on ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... citizens are gathered about the bivouac of the battalion at the water-works while the trumpets are sounding tattoo. A few squares away the familiar notes come floating in through the open windows of a room where Jim Drummond is lying on a most comfortable sofa, which has been rolled close to the casement, where every whiff of the cool lake breeze can fan his face, and where, ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... "Tattoo lao! Get my pony! Here, come in out of the rain till I'm ready. What blasted nuisances you are! That's brandy. Drink some; you want it. Hang on to my stirrup and tell me if I ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... shift his attitude, fingers curved to clutch, arms extended, until he heard the tattoo of their horses' hoofs on the ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... 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 had "got itt," ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 a bed of eastern ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... just it, Bohannan. A duel." And the Master fixed strange eyes on his companion. His muscular fingers fell to tapping the prayer-rug on the table, drumming out an impatient little tattoo. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... 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, as soon as the ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... were all "raw"; and my duty, with others, consisted in "licking them into shape". It was drill, drill, from morning till night; and, by early tattoo, I was always glad to crawl into my tent and go to sleep—such sleep as a man can get among scorpions, lizards, and soldier-crabs; for the little islet seemed to have within its boundaries a specimen of every reptile that came safely out ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... it injustice: it had been working round me. Approaching the next corner, I would hear the tattoo of its drum. Before I had gone another quarter of a mile it would be in full pursuit of me. I would jump upon a tram, and travel for miles. Then, thinking I had shaken it off, I would alight and proceed upon my walk. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... was another and greater necessity than either of those driving him on, and, opening the gate, he quickly knocked upon the door. It was low but heavy, a repeated and insistent knock, like the muffled tattoo of a drum, and at last Miss Grayson answered, opening the door a scant four inches and staring ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Privates, lieutenants, captains, colonels, generals, all are subject to the orders of their superior officers. All must obey the general in command. You march, drill, eat, sleep, go to bed, and get up by order. At sunrise you hear the reveille, and at nine o'clock in the evening the tattoo. Then the candle, which has been burning in your tent with a bayonet for a candlestick, must be put out. In the dead of night, while sleeping soundly and dreaming of home, you hear the drum-beat. It is the long roll. There is a rattle of musketry. The pickets are at it. Every man springs ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... 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 ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... all the same melody. Then those came marching up, in little bands, who are only busy with their mouths. There were ringing bells that sang alternately; and then came the little drummers that beat their tattoo in the family circle; and acquaintance was made with those who write without putting their names, which here means as much as using grease instead of patent blacking; and then there was the beadle with his boy, and the boy was the worst off, for in general he gets no notice ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... and knocked sharply. There was no response, and he repeated the summons, but again without effect. Thereupon, with a muttered exclamation, he grasped the knocker a third time and executed a veritable tattoo upon the door. When this had proceeded for about half a minute ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... 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 Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... his blood-thirsty proclivities. Leaving his countryman to beat his devil's tattoo on the submarine commander, Terence leaped to the open scuttle just in time to bang another head as it appeared on a level with ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... 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 ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... surgeon's call, seven; drill, eight; recall, eleven; dinner, twelve; drill again at four; recall, five; guard-mounting, half-past five; first call for dress-parade, six; second call, half-past six; tattoo at nine, and taps at half-past. So the day ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... lay and pressed her palms to her eyeballs, so firmly that when she removed them, the room was a blur. Maurice, standing at the window, beat a tattoo on the pane. Then, with his back to her, he began to speak. He blamed himself for what he called the folly of the past weeks. "I gave way when I should have been firm. And this is the result. You have ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... went in not at all for personal ornamentation, any more than he allowed his dignity to be broken by anything resembling emotionalism. No tattoo marks, no ear ornaments, no rings nor bracelets. He never even picked up an ostrich feather for his head. On the latter he sometimes wore an old felt hat; sometimes, more picturesquely, an orange-coloured fillet. Khaki shirt, khaki ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... from incipient slumber; he thought he heard the cow in her stall, clattering her chain. Surprised, he collected his wits. "Of course," he then said to himself, "it is the tattoo. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... intimate relations with primitive man, in Oceania and elsewhere, have imbued me with a deplorable taste for tattoo-work; and I had wished to carry away on my own person, as a curiosity, an ornament, a specimen of the work of the Japanese tattooers, who have a delicacy of finish which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... crowd, lay on the deck farther aft. One was on top of the other, his fingers clutching the gullet of his helpless opponent. The agony of the man underneath found expression only in the drumming heels that beat a tattoo on the floor. The spasmodic feet were shod in Oxford tans of an ultra-fashionable cut. No doubt the owner of the smart footwear had been pulled down as he was escaping ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... happen. The Duke, the oak, and I were silence personified. A dead branch would crack, or the trunks of smaller and ignorant pines would knock together, and the Duke would look around the corner and say "Chut!" in a low voice, thinking I was playing a tattoo on the tree. ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo— No more on earth's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread And glory guards with solemn sound The Bivouac of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... by the slamming of the outside door, and by a voice in the entry; a moment later, there was a sharp tattoo on the library door. The colonel opened it and answered the ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... cage cowered the powerful creature, its broad, snake-like head thrust forward, its tiny golden eyes fixed before it, a curious snarl—like a grin—now and then contorted the immobility of its powerful jaws. The sinewy tail beat a restless tattoo on the floor ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... patience. Their women, whom they do not confine, will, it is said, do more field-work than the men; indeed, one often finds women at work in the crops when the men are lying down. Like the women of low Hindu castes they tattoo their bodies, a practice disapproved by Musalmans in general. Abul Fazl writes that the Meos were in his time famous runners, and one thousand of them were employed by Akbar as carriers ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... 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 ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... every direction at once. Applause was intermingled with hissing, violent discussions were in progress between individual members of the audience, sticks were brandished threateningly, others beat a tattoo on the floor, and the interrupters were greeted with yells of 'Put him out!' or ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... of his everlasting wrath—to break down? Forbade you at your peril, to allow your frightened heart to beat the long-roll, or the tattoo?" ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... here, roight side up wid care, Jack, darlint," chirped the other, temporarily ceasing his tattoo upon the ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... was inwardly in 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, with a precursory smile, "stuck to the metre and written ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... Again the tattoo sounded, but as before it produced no results. So Elmer opened the door, which he saw had been fashioned in the rudest way from boards, and hung upon ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... these punctures a preparation made from the kernel of the candle-nut, mixed with cocoa-nut oil, is rubbed, and the mark thus made is indelible. The operation is performed by a class of men whose profession it is, and they tattoo as much at a time as the person on whom they are operating can bear; which is not much, the pain and inflammation caused by tattooing being very great, sometimes causing death. Some of the chiefs were tattooed with an ornamental stripe down the legs, which gave ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... a lively feast. Jimsy King, in one of Kada's white jackets, waited on the table. They ate enormously, and when they had finished they pronounced their ungodly grace—a thunderous tattoo on the table edge, begun with palms ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... creatures, who suffered not a little from their finery! The eyebrows and eyelids are dyed black while the children are very young, and they frequently paint themselves with dark-blue streaks of a finger's breadth over the eyebrows, and with spots on the forehead. The adult women tattoo their breasts, foreheads, noses, or temples with red, white, or yellow colours, according as they are particularly attached to one or the other deity. Many wear amulets or miniatures hung round their necks, so that I at first thought they were Catholics, and felt gratified at the brilliant ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... meanwhile were happening in Troy. On the eighth morning of his eclipse Admiral Buzza was startled by a brisk step upon the stairs; the devil's tattoo was neatly struck upon his bed-room door, and the head ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... live in tents, and are regarded with contempt even by the peasantry. Their women tell fortunes, tattoo, {189} and sell small-wares; the men work in iron (quincaillerie). They are all adroit thieves, and noted as such. The men may sometimes be seen going around the country with monkeys; in fact, they appear to be in all respects the same people as ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... voice at my elbow. It was old Blake. His mahogany face shone with the effects of the first soap and water he had been able to use for weeks, for we had been very short of water; and even his arms showed the tattoo-marks that were usually hidden by the grime inseparable ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... lassies came flying in upon me, crying 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 Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... 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
... on. Vann Shatrak summoned a robot to furnish him with a cold beer and another cigar. Erskyll was drumming an impatient devil's tattoo with his fingernails on the gold-encrusted table in front of him. Lanze Degbrend began interpolating sarcastic comments. And finally, Pyairr Ravney, who came from Lugaluru, reverted to the idiom of his ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... guilty party. Here was a jealous woman who evidently knew a good deal. Putting two and two together is the very essence of scientific thought and Dr. Starr was no beginner. Sophy's foot was beating a rapid tattoo on the floor. On her face the color kept going ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... benisse, mon fils; but what is your great hurry—where can you be going in such happy haste?" Rene did not stop to parley with the priest. He flung some phrase of pleasant greeting back over his shoulder as he trudged on, his heart beginning a tattoo against his ribs when the Roussillon place came in sight, and he took hold of his mustache to pull it, as some men must do in moments of nervousness and bashfulness. If sounds ever have color, the humming in ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... tattoo; the only people in the hills who tattoo are certain tribes of the Bhoi country which are really Mikir. These tattoo females on the forehead when they attain the age of puberty, a straight horizontal line being ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... dark and starless night. Tattoo-beat had long been heard, and Hay's Brigade, weary after a long day's march, rested beneath the dewy boughs of gigantic oaks in a dense forest near the placid Rappahannock. No sound broke the stillness of the night. The troops were ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... another second, he was singing softly to himself, and dancing a grotesque step-dance in front of her, his limbs and body shaking loose, his face flickering palely, a constant thing, whilst his feet beat a rapid mocking tattoo, and his body seemed to hang all loose and quaking in between, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... 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 ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... rifle fire answered the tattoo of the machine-gun, and the sharp ping of bullets striking on the dome could be plainly heard. An occasional shot kicked up a spurt of white dust from the concrete, but the machine-gun kept up a steady rattle ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... 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 ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... he, "you are suffering from rheumatism, bronchitis, fever and corns, and you must go home to bed. I will finish your round for you. Listen," and he beat such a tattoo as Pere Bracasse had never accomplished in his ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... out of the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man we ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... ain't. He told me the old monks that used to carve things—no matter what they carved you could always find a cross, or something like a cross in it. 'Cause they think that way, see? The same as sailors always tattoo fishes and ships and things on their arms. He said some places in the Black Forest the toymakers are French peasants and you can always tell if a fancy thing is carved by them on account of the shape of the fleur-de-lis. It ain't that they do it on purpose," he added; "it's because ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... hardly keep pace with one's eagerness, and here were we crawling at the rate of four miles per hour. I fancied that the last three miles never would be accomplished; and often wished internally, as I beat the devil's tattoo upon the footboard of the coach-box, that I had bought or borrowed or stolen a horse at Chippewa, and galloped to the wonder alone ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... different—sonorous, tense, elastic; On it you might a tattoo beat, with fingers or with a stick. There's costiveness and atrophy, with features Hippocratic; When these appear, there's much to fear, all safety is erratic. Although a cordial laxative, mix'd up with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... frenzy of sudden fun. And then, as suddenly as it had risen in the night, the clamor of voices died away. A single shout came up the river. Carrigan thought he heard a low rumble of laughter. A tin pan banged against another. A dog howled. The flat of an oar played a tattoo for a moment on the bottom of a boat. Then one last yell from a single throat—and ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... when a camp-fire was lighted in a grove of such trees the evening effect was a thing to remember for a lifetime. The regimental camps were all alive with diversions of different sorts from the time of the halt at the end of a march till tattoo sounded. Each had its trained pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At a signal one of the dogs would seize ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... orders. Recall from fatigue sounds at 5 o'clock. Parade assembly is at 5.30 at this time of the year, with retreat and evening gun-fire at 6.10. Then comes mess call to supper. With that ends, usually, the working day of the enlisted man. Tattoo sounds at 9 in the evening, with call to quarters at 10.45, and taps, or lights out, at 11 p. m. Except when on guard or special duty you're not likely to have to be with your men much ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... they always were called, a much more imposing tribe than any of the Indians they had seen. The men were taller and more robust, more fearless and self-respecting, even arrogant in their deportment. The women were a strapping lot. Some of them wore the blue line tattoo on the lower lip, showing them to be married women; others, young girls not uncomely to look upon. All were clad in the fur garments of the North, even though it now was summer-time, the date of their arrival ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... brutal in its haste, for some indication of identity. They examined the men's pockets, their bloodstained clothes, the machine, the framework. They turned the bodies over and flung them aside. There was not a tattoo mark. . . . Everything was elaborately free of any indication of ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... 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 by ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... gloom, tapped on the parlor window the signal tattoo agreed upon between himself and Miss Elsham. The light in the parlor went out promptly and she came and replied to Crowley under the edge of the lifted sash. She had been apprised by her associate of the advent of Miss Kennard on the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... rested upon this staircase: in renewed excitement he hurried down the hall and, regardless of the consequence, beat a quick tattoo with his knuckles ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... 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 a ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... Timothy Toad chuckled, Gerty Gartersnake giggled, Wallie Woodpecker beat a tattoo on wood, Billie Bumblebee buzzed and Winnie Woodchuck ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... gory battlefields. With him the fascination which soldiers and all things military have for the boyish mind took the form of an intense eagerness to reproduce in colour and line the gay pageant of the march. The skirl of the fife and the tattoo of the drum inspired him with a desire, not to shoulder a gun, but to seize a pencil. There was a shop in Piccadilly where water-colour sketches of military types might frequently be seen displayed to view, and to Reynolds junior ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... yesterday and the day before, and the thirteen thousand others sail as soon as the transports can return. Messieurs d'Allemagne (576) roll their red eyes, stroke up their great beards, and look fierce-you know one loves a review and a tattoo. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... in, 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 ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... perspectives, stuffy upholstery and textiles, make the place handsome, wholesome, simple and cool, or, as a rich English manufacturer would express it, poor, bare, ridiculous and unhomely. For Tottenham Court Road civilization is to this Egyptian civilization as glass bead and tattoo civilization ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... been sentenced to receive military punishment, one of the drummers refused to inflict it, saying it was not his duty. "Not your duty, Sirrah!" said the adjutant, "what do you mean?" "I know very well," replied Tattoo, "that it is not my duty; I was present at the court martial, and heard the colonel say he was to receive corporal punishment. I am no corporal, but only ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... tattoo on the roof, and this, mingling with the drowsy purr of the cat, who was now marching to and fro with tail erect in front of Gethryn, exercised a soothing influence, and presently a snore so shocked the parrot that he felt obliged to relieve his mind by a series of intricate ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... is only a girl!" cried Folly, tossing her frizzled head, "and there never yet was a girl that could not be wheedled by Folly into doing the silliest thing in the world. If I persuaded Matty that Fashion required her to tattoo her nose all over, to dye her hair green, or blue, or mauve, or to walk on all fours like a cat,—don't you suppose that she would ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... response. The brilliant state of the door-brass afforded evidence of the fact that Ah Tsong had arisen, even if the other members of the household were still sleeping, and Harley, growing irritable, executed a loud tattoo upon the knocker. This had its effect. The door opened and Ah ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... to the painful and spectacular expedient of just grazing the heels of your fiery steed with Dick's racer all the way back to Sherrill's and matching up his hoof-beats on the shell-road with a devil's tattoo ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... to say we have lost," said Athos, quietly, drawing four pistoles from his pocket and throwing them upon the table. "Come, gentlemen," said he, "they are beating the tattoo. Let ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... throbbing hot through his temples. She had called and been unable to rouse him, while he lay there like a yokel and dreamed of her! He conjured up visions of all sorts of disaster. The boy might have returned and—he shuddered and drew back from the suggestion. He refused to imagine. He beat a tattoo with the inane ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... 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 man listening, and listening thoughtfully, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... the third in the row, I concluded I had only a few minutes of life before me. I thought of you and your dear ones and I contrived to kiss Plestcheiev and Dourov, who were next to me, and to bid them farewell. Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo, we were unbound, brought back upon the scaffold, and informed that his Majesty had spared us our lives." The sentence ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to me as though it were one of those crimes of passion which are so frequent in this country," he said. "Mordon was a Frenchman and I have been able to identify him by tattoo marks on his arm, as a man who has been in the hands of ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... morning air, the swift hoofs beat their tattoo along the road, keeping time to the pulsing of two hearts that are moved with the same eager desire—to conquer space, to devour the distance, to attain the goal of ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... excitedly into the light with a kettle-shaped object balanced on his head, which he set down in front of us. The man proved to be Swein Poulsson, and the object a big drum, and he straightway began to beat upon it a tattoo with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... panting a little from the rapidity of his ascent, and began a vigorous tattoo on a ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... out upon the quarter-deck beneath the awning, he pulled a large tub from under a boat turned upside down over the deck cabin; and then, while the young monkey had scrambled round to his back, and was beating a tattoo with his tiny fists on his shoulders, Banou caught up a bucket and proceeded to draw water from over the side, which he dashed into the tub. When he had nearly filled the tub he felt around with his black paws as delicately as if he was about to seize a musquito, and, clutching ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... his banter there is a brave heart. He is a rare man who, having brain and heart to guide, follows the heart." He picked up the pipe and began to play a tattoo on the sill. "As for me, I know nothing of women, save what I have read in books, and save that I have been too ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... 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, ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... that moment two little, futile, frenzied fists began to beat a mad tattoo on Jo Hertz's broad back. Jo tried to turn in the crowd, all indignant ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... shades of the night were coming apace, The tattoo had beat; the tattoo had beat. The noble one sprang from his dark lurking-place, To make his retreat; to make ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... boy," she said, pleasantly enough; and walked back to the desk. She eyed the clerk, a half-smile on her lips, one arm, in its neat tailored sleeve, resting on the marble, while her right forefinger, trimly gloved, tapped an imperative little tattoo. (Perhaps you think that last descriptive sentence is as unnecessary as it is garbled. But don't you get a little picture of her—trim, taut, tailored, mannish-booted, flat-heeled, ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... 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 ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... tattoo sounded. The major went out with McLean to receive the reports, and when they returned Mr. Hatton ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... times like these. All depends on the promptness of our decision. You, Picart, go to the cure and order him to ring the alarm-bell, in order to get together the people, to whom I am going to announce the news. You, Torchebeuf beat the tattoo throughout the whole neighborhood as far as the hamlets of Gerisaie and Salmare, in order to assemble the militia in the public square. You, Pommel, get your uniform on quickly, just the coat and cap. We are going to the town-hall to demand Monsieur de Varnetot to surrender ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... men were busy with the search, was sprawling in one of the big leather-covered chairs, on the arms of which his dirty finger-nails were beating an impatient devil's tattoo. He was at no pains to conceal the intense disappointment which he would experience, were ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the gate. Sunfish scrambled with his feet for secure footing, found it and waded up to the front door. The water was a foot deep on the porch. Thurston beat an imperative tattoo upon the door with the butt of his quirt, and shouted. And Mona's voice, shorn of its customary assurance, answered faintly ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... Zora sprang forward and seized the burning liquid in both hands. A dozen hands clapped a devil's tattoo. A score of voices yelled and laughed. The shriek of the music was drowned beneath the thunder of stamping feet. Men reeled to singing women's arms, but above the roar rose the song of the voice of Zora—she glided to the middle of the room, standing tip-toed with skirts that curled and turned; ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... intimate relations with primitive man, in Oceania and elsewhere, have imbued me with a deplorable taste for tattoo work; and I had wished to carry away on me, as a curiosity, an ornament, a specimen of the work of the Japanese tattooers, who have a delicacy ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... sinister expression. He had a neck of unusual size, and the fat ran in ridges to the back of his scalp, worked up by his collar as he moved his head rapidly with every sentence. He seemed altogether unable to sit still or control himself. His boots—brown tops with narrow patent vamps—beat a tattoo upon the floor. No wonder that Felicia shrunk into the corner of her lounge! I felt that it was impossible for me to sit and watch them any longer. I rose ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... services in working their vessels along the Slave Coast. And in order to prevent any Kruboy being carried off as a slave by mistake, which would have prejudiced these useful allies, the slavers persuaded them always to tattoo a band of basket-work pattern down their foreheads and out on to the tip of their broad noses: this is the most extensive bit of real tattoo that I know of in West Africa, and the Kruboys still keep the fashion. Their next tutors were the traders, who have taught and still teach them ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... impels the criminal to visit the scene of his crime, Alfred began a pilgrimage to the little red school-house. Walking along the old pike the sound of a horse's hoofs beating a tattoo on the road reached his ears. He recognized in the ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... and perhaps once fair, her charms had seen their prime, and the system of circles and circlets which composed her personnel had assumed a tremulous and gravitating tendency. She was habited in the height of Fan fashion. Her body was modestly invested in a thin pattern of tattoo, and a gauze-work of oil and camwood; the rest of the toilette was a dwarf pigeon-tail of fan- palm, like that of the men, and a manner of apron, white beads, and tree bark, greasy and reddened: the latter was tucked under and over the five lines of ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... broached to her daughters until the evening on which we first introduced them to our readers. Then taking her seat by the brightly burning lamp, she drew the letter from her pocket and read it aloud, while Alice drummed an occasional note upon the piano and Eugenia beat a tattoo upon the carpet with ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... and Teddy had fastened a firm grip on January's tail, not appearing to be in the least afraid of the flying hoofs that were beating a tattoo ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... leaving her to infer that she had good reason for her fears. As they passed the only store which the Valley boasted, Kitty came rushing out, a bright new tin saucepan dangling at her side like a drum. It was tied by a piece of twine, and she was beating a tattoo upon it with a long-handled iron spoon. Keith followed, his overcoat ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... with his fingers. The sunlight, shrinking from floor and wall, had left but a single line of gold. In the half light strange and sombre shapes possessed the room; through the stillness, beneath the sound of the tattoo upon the cask head, the river ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... With a heavy sigh, I knocked slowly but decidedly at the crazy door. I saw the curly head of a boy glance for a moment against the broken window. There was a stir within, but no one answered our summons. Emilia was rubbing her hands together, and beating a rapid tattoo with her feet upon the hard and glittering snow, to keep ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... 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 ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... struggling through the clouds, and I could dimly discern the outline of the quaint gabled front of the house, with its mullioned windows, and masses of clinging ivy. Dismounting at the old stone porch, I seized the knocker and beat a mighty tattoo. There was no reply. Even the light had disappeared from the window almost simultaneously with the approach of our carriage wheels, and though I hammered for fully five minutes I failed to obtain the slightest response ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... bloodshot eyes positively ached, until tears of weakness dribbled down his face and splashed on to the pavement. As for his head, it throbbed as if a giant hammer were within it, and some demon were rattling the interior of his skull and were dancing a tattoo upon ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... himself in the pine-scented shipyard, amid the tattoo of the mallets; Or he leaned on the rail of the bridge, letting his thoughts flow with the whispering river; He hearkened also to ancient tales, and made them young again ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... stood there, just outside the door, watching a man scramble down the road, who finally returned with Stefansson. Helen stood perfectly still, except for the toe of one of her boots, which was tapping a tattoo on the boards. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... South Seas, and stabbed it with the knife in his right hand, just as the monster's teeth were closing on his other arm. And to make his story more vivid he bared his great shaggy arm, and showed us an ugly white scar among the tattoo marks above the elbow. Another man told us how he had stood beside Nelson on the "Victory," just as the admiral received his death-wound; and it never occurred to us to wonder how a man of not more than thirty-five could have been present at that famous battle, which took place fifty years ago! ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... teacher of "physical culture," one will probably be innocent of such solecisms as thrusting the feet out to display the shoes; sitting sideways, or cross-legged; or slipping half-way down in the chair; or bending over a book in round-shouldered position; rocking violently; beating a noisy tattoo with impatient toes; or standing on one foot with the body thrown ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... boy, and 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. "Oh, what ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope
... that caught her by the skirts and drew her back, that set the branches tossing and swept the dead leaves racing about her ankles. And at the same instant from just above her head there beat upon the air a violent, joyous tattoo—a sound that was neither of the sea nor of the woods, a creaking, swiftly repeated sound, like the flutter of ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... shook the wagon and swayed the kerosene lamp in its bracket, while a pounding rain beat a tattoo on the canvas cover. The tension was telling on Kate and a kind of nervous frenzy grew upon her as the time dragged by and she was no nearer learning what she had hoped to learn—than when she had had ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... an entirely new group, and this time there were three automobile fenders and a carnival rattle. When Kennicott again interrupted his shaving, Cy piped, "Naw, you got to give us two dollars," and he got it. A week later Cy rigged a tic-tac to a window of the living-room, and the tattoo out of the darkness frightened Carol into screaming. Since then, in four months, she had beheld Cy hanging a cat, stealing melons, throwing tomatoes at the Kennicott house, and making ski-tracks across the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... there 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 settlement, was ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... 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 hands, and even tearing of the hair. An angry child stamps, or rolls on ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... waiting for the final rush. Olaf was peering through the gun-hole again. And then came what he had expected—a rattle of fire from the snow-ridge. The PIT-PIT-PIT of bullets rained against the cabin in a dull tattoo. Through the door came a bullet, sending a splinter close to Armin's face. Almost in the same instant a second followed it, and a third came through the crevice so close to Philip that he felt the hissing breath of it in his face. One of the dogs emitted a wailing howl and flopped among its ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... too, Mr. Jordan," said Bennington. He played a tattoo on his strong white teeth with his pencil. "Mr. Warrington ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath |
