"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ashamed of your ancestry. An' remember, God loves the Irish—Kwaque! Go fetch 'm two bottle beer fella stop 'm along icey-chestis!—Why, the very mug of you, my lad, sticks out Irish all over it." (Michael's tail beat a tattoo.) "Now don't be blarneyin' me. 'Tis well I'm wise to your insidyous, snugglin', heart-stealin' ways. I'll have ye know my heart's impervious. 'Tis soaked too long this many a day in beer. I stole you to sell you, not to be lovin' you. I could've loved you once; but that ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... determination to discontinue Hebrew, Mr. Leigh expressed no surprise, asked no explanation, but the minister noticed that he bit his lip, and beat a hurried tattoo with the heel of his boot on the stony hearth; and as he studiously avoided all allusion to her, he felt assured that the conversation which she had overheard must have reached the ears of her partner also, and supplied him with a satisfactory solution ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... 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
... 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 ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... tattoo for some moments, and then exclaimed, "You may say what you will, but the present system of society is ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... four slim, young top riders of the ranch force, chaparajos and sombreros being much in evidence. They gave the usual stunts in the typical Western way on a track tramped as hard as asphalt, the tattoo of hoofs making the hard earth ring in the soundless atmosphere. Their feats, singly and together, were marvelous, but there was lacking to the onlookers the charm of novelty, as they had long been accustomed to these ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... went to the military tattoo, at which, by an unpardonable indifference, I have not regularly been present, although these patriotic demonstrations have been organized by Monsieur Joseph Boneas and his League of Avengers. A long-drawn shudder, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... 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 improvised drumsticks. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... quarters of Lieutenant Alfred Sully, where nearly all the officers of the garrison were assembled, listening to Sully's stories. Lieutenant Derby, "Squibob," was one of the number, as also Fred Steele, "Neighbor" Jones, and others, when, just after "tattoo," the orderly-sergeants came to report the result of "tattoo" roll-call; one reported five men absent, another eight, and so on, until it became certain that twenty-eight men had deserted; and they were so ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... himself with Mrs. Jarley's poppy-loaded bonnet and refreshing his halting memory of the lecture with sundry promptings from Len Adams who held the book. Chip Bennett was whittling his sword into shape and Weary was drumming a tattoo in the great wooden bowl with the spoon he used to devour poisoned rice upon the stage. The others were variously engaged; not one of them appeared conscious of the fact that Happy Jack was facing the tragedy of his ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... for he, in common with all his comrades, had other traits of the savage. One of them was the same passion for ornament that induces the African to wear anklets and bracelets of hide and of metal, and to decorate himself with tufts of hair, and to tattoo his body. In John's day there was a rage at school among the boys for wearing bracelets woven of the hair of the little girls. Some of them were wonderful specimens of braiding and twist. These were not captured in war, but were sentimental tokens of friendship given ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... confusion, and my first breathless efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his bare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, close in ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... us with water, but the shells were not falling on board now. The two German destroyers were sweeping down on the helpless boat ahead, the missiles from their light guns playing a regular tattoo on her. It was an even chance we wouldn't find ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... malfrui. Tarry (to stay in a place) resti. Tart (pastry) torto. Tart acida. Task tasko. Taskwork tasklaboro. Tassel drappendajxo. Taste gustumi. Taste gusto. Tasty (palatable) bongusta. Tatter cxifonajxo. Tattle babilajxo, babilado. Tattoo tatui. Taunt sarkasmo. Taut strecxa. Tautology ripetado, tauxtologio. Tavern drinkejo. Taw felpreparadi. Tawdry falsluksa. Tawny dubeflava. Tax taksi. Tax takso, imposto. Tea teo. Tea canister ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... a Tattoo for the evening," he announced in conversation with the Canadian Officer the day ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... was infectious; the aged Delmia's eyes also began to gleam with religious enthusiasm, while her trembling hand caused the crutch to keep up a soft tattoo ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... thought them also the most estimable. This is the rule in Polynesia, with few exceptions; the higher the family, the better the man—better in sense, better in manners, and usually taller and stronger in body. A stranger advances blindfold. He scrapes acquaintance as he can. Save the tattoo in the Marquesas, nothing indicates the difference of rank; and yet almost invariably we found, after we had made them, that our friends were persons of station. I have said 'usually taller and stronger.' I might have been more absolute,—over all Polynesia, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... work and the 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 ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... of his reflections the drub of the muffled telephone beat its insistent tattoo. His dream vanished, and his senses became alert. He leant forward in his chair and picked up ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... nightcap, about whom he professed to have such a tender interest. The hypocrite was looking and listening with all his might in the direction of George's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs, beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The gravediggers may not enter their houses till they have bathed and so removed from their persons the contagion of death, in order that the soul of the deceased may have no power over them.[502] Mourners sometimes tattoo themselves in honour of the dead. For a father, the marks are tattooed on the cheeks and under the eyes; for a grandfather, on the breast; for a mother, on the shoulders and arms; for a brother, on the back. On the death of a father or mother, the eldest son or, if there is none such, the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... at the gate. Sunfish scrambled with his feet for secure footing, found it and waded up to the front door. The water was a foot deep on the porch. Thurston beat an imperative tattoo upon the door with the butt of his quirt, and shouted. And Mona's voice, shorn of its customary assurance, ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... edge of his knife. It was sharp. The point was sharp. He would fling himself upon the bear and kill it. But his heart began its warning thump, thump, thump. Then followed the wild upward leap and tattoo of flutters, the pressing as of an iron band about his forehead, the creeping of ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... nodding, "only—hurry, Martin!" By the time the old groom had returned with the scarlet hunting-frock and helped Barnabas into it, "The Terror" was led out from his box, and immediately began to snort and rear and beat a ringing tattoo with his great, round hoofs to a chorus of chirruping ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... masse, when our chaplain, Rev. Augustus Woodbury, read a portion of scripture, followed by prayer, the service closing with singing the doxology by the entire regiment, accompanied by the band, with most solemn and impressive effect; tattoo roll-call at 9 P. M., taps at 9.30, when lights were extinguished and every man was supposed to be in his bunk for the night; but on many occasions there was more of supposition than reality. Notwithstanding the circumstance that we were United ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... about our heads. It was bumpers and no heeltaps, and we were full to the throat. Then to the nard; and enter to us guitar and light fantastic toe. Thereafter, one shinned up the ladder, on post-prandial japery intent, another beat the devil's tattoo, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... paintings where all that is proper to painting is ignored:—plane always preferred to line, the constructive details, perceptible only as projection, not as colour or value (like the insertion of the leg and the thigh), marked by deep lines that look like tattoo marks; and perspective almost entirely ignored, at least till a late period. It is necessary thus to examine Greek painting[16] in order to appreciate, by comparison with this negative art, the very positive influence of mediaeval painting ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... had us to the house for bowls and cricket, which the ladies joined, spoiling it somewhat for my taste; and we played golf at Mr. Lispenard's, which presently lost all charm for me, as Elsin Grey remained at the pavilion and touched no club, neither wood nor iron, save to beat the devil's tattoo upon the grass and smile into the bold eyes of ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... been doing 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. Five ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... Anna and those sisters (and many and many a wife and mother from Callender House to Carrollton), the vast, stealthy, fireless bivouac at fall of night, in ear-shot of the enemy's tattoo, unsheltered from the midnight storm save by raked-up leaves: Saw, just in the bivouac's tortuous front, softly reddening the low wet sky, that huge, rude semicircle of camps in the dark ridged and gullied forests about Shiloh's log meeting-house, where ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... 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 ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... an elaborate tattoo of the American flag on the extended wrist, to which he pointed with ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... morning, reveille, is at five; breakfast call, six; surgeon's call, seven; drill, eight; recall, eleven; dinner, twelve; drill again at four; recall, five; guard-mounting, half-past five; first call for dress-parade, six; second call, half-past six; tattoo at nine, and taps at half-past. So the day ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... 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 ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... maneuvers were gone through and orders were read. After the parade, when the regiment was again in its quarters, the arms were placed in the arm-racks, the horses attended to, a fifth roll-call endured, and tattoo sounded. Then the lights were extinguished and all were expected to be ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... work, of course. It was just after one of the louder peals that I thought I heard some glass smash in the other room. I stopped writing, and turned round to listen. For a moment I heard nothing; the hail was playing the devil's tattoo on the corrugated zinc of the roof. Then came another sound, a smash—no doubt of it this time. Something heavy had been knocked off the bench. I jumped up at once and went and opened the door ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... tattoo in joy and was quickly answered. Then the thud, thud began again, but this ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... Gusher, friend of his Youth and God-Father to his Children. He explained that his Heels were beating a Tattoo on the Ragged Edge of Insolvency, and unless he could raise the Wind, it meant a Receiver over at the Works, his Credit evaporated and the Pianola ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... "That wasn't hard. Her sun tan and the condition of her feet proved she was a practicing nudist. No Betan girl ever practices nudism to my knowledge. Besides, the I.D. tattoo under her left arm and the V on her hip are no marks of our culture. Then there was another thing—the serological analysis revealed no gerontal antibodies. She had never received an injection of longevity compound in her life. This might occur, but it's highly improbable. ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... rested upon this staircase: in renewed excitement he hurried down the hall and, regardless of the consequence, beat a quick tattoo with his ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... One-and-All—' Rosewarne's coffin,' they call her—that nigh broke me. He didn' let me know till two nights afore he sailed. 'Beggars can't be choosers,' he said; and afterwards I found out from Peter Benny that he'd covered his poor body with tattoo marks—his body that I've a-washed hundreds o' times, and loved to feel his legs kickin' agen' me. Beautiful skin he had as a child; soft as satin the feel of it, and not a blemish anywhere. 'Tis hard to think of it criss-crossed with them ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pull his head against the scratchy curves of braid, but he was preoccupied and kept up a tattoo on the writing-table with a paper-knife. There had been so many of these scenes since Nicky had been growing up; Georgie had changed towards the boy ever since her own children had been born. She was never unfair to him, but she seemed as though ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... strains of music came floating in from the parade, and, as is always the case, visitors began to arrive. Several ladies and officers dropped in during the evening; they sat on the piazza enjoying the serenade until the shrill piping of the fifes and rattle of the drums sounding tattoo sent the musicians off to bed and numerous pairs of white trousers scurrying towards the cadet barracks. They watched the simultaneous "dousing of the glim" in the long facade as the clock struck ten and the three taps of the drum ordered ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... 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
... 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 Mullendore brought ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... One 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 ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... allows of anything like the variety of blank verse in this regard, and no other metrist makes so splendid a use of its freedom. He never forgets the pattern; yet he never stoops to teach it by the repetition of a monotonous tattoo. Hence there are, perhaps, fewer one-line quotations to be found in the works of Milton than in the works of any other master of blank verse. De Quincey speaks of the "slow planetary wheelings" of Milton's ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... been resounding with the lively tattoo of the woodpecker, and finally Downy was found at the top of a dead dry elm, busily doing this reveille, fast and loud as the roll of a snare drum. His head was going so fast that it looked like a quick series of heads and the tree rattled so it could be heard afar. Most writers ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... has written upon it the name of Ina-Esagil-lilbur";(442) and another "on whose left hand was written the name of Meskitu."(443) These were the names of the owners, not of the slaves themselves. This renders it probable that the branding and the like was always an incised mark, a species of tattoo, which of course was indelible. That the same person who tattooed men should brand animals, or even shear them, is not an insuperable objection. But there is no reason to suppose that the brander ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... behind it came a noise of rattling, bumping and clattering. Something soft and heavy thumped on to the floor, and a cloud of floury dust arose. A bottle of bovril embedded itself quietly there without damage, and a tin of Bath Oliver biscuits beat a fierce tattoo on one of corned beef. Innumerable dried apricots from the burst package flew about like shrapnel, and tapped at the tins. A jar of prunes, breaking its fall on the flour, rolled merrily out into the ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... several blue lines running from the lower lip to the chin; and he remarks that when a young woman of this tribe is anxious to become a mother she tattoos the figure of a child on her forehead. After they marry Mojave girls tattoo the chin with vertical blue lines; and when an Eskimo wife has her face tattooed with lamp-black she is regarded as a matron in society. The Polynesians have carried this dermal art to an extent which is unequaled by any other people, and ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... him. He was one of the sailor boys on Joby's van. You remember their helping us with the luggage at Indian Queens'? He showed me his tattoo ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pain extends over considerable space the tattoo marks are smaller, and are arranged in rows or continuous lines. Such marks may be found upon some individuals to run outward over either or both cheeks from the al of the nose to a point near the lobe ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... fine weather and good condition of the ground in afternoon often, field drill of which battery, with guns, caissons, teams, cannoneers, drivers and all stable call, supper, camp amusements of all kinds, tattoo and finally taps. There were two buglers in the company, Charles M. Donoho was at the company headquarters. He acted as messenger also. The other, Rufus Menander Rosser was in the same mess as the writer. One of his duties was to blow the Reveille ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... pleasing incense. A chat over the events of the day, and the prospect of the morrow, the wonderful merits of each man's horse, and the disgusting irregularities of the mails from home, lasted until the silver-voiced bugle rang out the sweet, mournful tattoo of the Regulations, to the flowing cadences of which the boys had arranged the absurdly ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... "Come over under the light so I can get a good look. That is queer—the hilt of the knife is curved a little just the same on both sides. It looks to me as if somebody had drawn it on your back—only the color doesn't look like a tattoo." ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... circle swayed forward. The rather pretty girl who had mustered the nerve to come as a bearded lady trembled with excitement, thinking to be rewarded for an evening's hideousness. The man who had spent the afternoon having tattoo marks painted on him skulked on the edge of the crowd, blushing furiously when any one told him he was sure to ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... that he should not contribute personally to the further upbuilding of anybody's reputation. His eyes with this resolve shining in them rested intently on de Spain, and at his side the long fingers of his right hand beat a soft tattoo against his pistol holster. De Spain's question seemed to arouse him. "What's your name?" he demanded bluntly. His voice was heavy and his deafness was reflected ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... other trade. Giustino was seldom punished. On the contrary, the Director was so enamoured of his progress and blue eyes that he entered him as a fox long before the regular three years' course was up, and offered to tattoo the symbol of proficiency, a cross, on the back ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Patagonia are Indians. They have red-brown skin, long black hair, and small eyes. The men are very tall. Some of them are seven feet high. They paint their faces red and black, and tattoo their arms. They do this with a needle. They put the needle into dye, and then prick the ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw
... being thus addressed by a woman, he leaned forward and asked with satirical politeness, "What will the lady have?" "I wish to speak to the question under discussion," said Miss Anthony calmly, although her heart was beating a tattoo. Turning to the few rows of men in front of him, for the women occupied the back seats, he inquired, "What is the pleasure of the convention?" "I move she shall be heard," said one man; this was seconded by another, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... short breaths and then reflected a minute or two, during which I clinked a soft tattoo with my iron wristlets, and eyed him joyously. He was there—a free lordling, I was here—a chained rebel, but I ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... was in the habit of clumping through the morning in flat, heavy shoes, Miss Harrison's small heels beat a busy tattoo on the tiled floor. With the rustling of her starched dress, the sound was essentially feminine, almost insistent. When he had time to notice it, it amused him that he ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... bead-like eyes followed the artist; he saw each individual finger rise and fall, and the bow bound over the finger-board, always avoiding, never coming in contact with the middle string. Suddenly the old man beat a tattoo on his cranium and closed his eyes, apparently deep ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... had permitted her grandmother to continue her sententious advice, while she herself sat tapping her feet on the floor, and performing the most rapid variations of that air which is called the Devil's Tattoo, burst out, at length, to the elder lady's surprise, with an outbreak of indignation, a flushing face, and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as became the trained groom, was for his horses, and he was rubbing them down and bedding their stalls for the night when the sergeant of the battery guard, lantern in hand, appeared at the door. It was not yet tattoo, but by this time the darkness was intense, the heavens were hid, and the wind was moaning about the stables and gun-shed and whistling away over the dismal expanse of flat, wet, ditch-tangled fields towards the swamp. But the cockney's spirits were blithe as the clouds were black. ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... side of her cot, from which the gray blanket had been dragged and folded half across her shoulders, where one hand held it, while the other clutched savagely at her throat; with her bare delicate feet beating a tattoo on the white sanded floor, and her thin nostrils dilated in the battle for breath, Iva Le Bougeois moaned in abject terror. The coarse, unbleached "domestic" night-gown that fell to her ankles was streaked across the bosom with some dark brown fluid; and similar ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... very moment there rang forth the sharp tattoo of a horse's hoofs on the paved courtyard without, followed by the sharp challenge of a sentry, the bang of a matchlock, and then a very babel of ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... setter when he is on the scent of a rabbit, alive or dead—but, Tattine, don't forget they have their good sides, Doctor and Betsy; just think how fond they are of you and me. Why, the very sight of us always makes them beat a tattoo with their tails." ...
— Tattine • Ruth Ogden
... tattoo on Veronica's door next. She had been taught to be ceremonious with her, at least. No reply was made, and she came to my door again. "I expect Miss Veronica has gone to see poor folks; it is a way she has," and spitefully ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... behind, but women who have already had a child wear two in front, one over the other. A similar remark applies to tattooing and kindred ornamentations of the body and its members. Among the women of the Bajansi on the middle Congo, for example, a certain form of tattoo indicated that the woman had ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... would come. The mare turned out of the barnyard and ploughed through a drift and struck hard-packed road. Her hoofs beat a swift tattoo; our runners sang beneath us. We dropped to the little bridge and across and began the mile-long climb to the top of Rayborn Hill. The road from Hazen's house to town is compounded of such ups ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... at 9.30. Men who wish are privileged to make up their beds and turn in at this hour. Greg was among the large number who went to sleep soon after tattoo this sultry night. For that matter, young Holmes was lonely, both Dick and Anstey having been drawn for ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... paint and tattoo their faces, hands and wrists, in lines, triangles and circles. On their bodies also stripes of irregular design and varying colors are often used, all having a symbolic meaning originally, now lost, however, at least to all the younger ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... into the wind. Peter, flat on his stomach, grasped the buoy and hauled it on board. The fore-sheets beat their tattoo on the deck. The boom swung ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... where swallows build their nests from year to year. A wilderness of weeds, tall and luxuriant, springs up to hide the stone over which Jacob Cochrane stepped daily when he issued from his door; and the polished stick with which three-year-old Patty beats a tattoo may be a round from the very chair in which he sat, expounding the Bible according to his own vision. The thickets of sweet clover and red-tipped grasses, of waving ferns and young alder bushes hide all of ugliness that belongs to the deserted spot and serve as a miniature forest in ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wanderers who 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 ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... above the whistling wind, I heard the welcome rain,— A fusillade upon the roof, A tattoo on the pane: The key-hole piped; the chimney-top A warlike trumpet blew; Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife, A ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... like a beacon into the surrounding gloom. The moon was 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 to my knocks. I was on the point of turning away in despair and driving back ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... she slipped into the chair, beat a light tattoo with her riding-whip against her teeth, and looked fixedly at the wall again, as if to gaze beyond it, into the dim future. But she saw nothing save that she was young and that the days in Dresden, for all their penury, were ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... cords. In a corner of the 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 ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... at our warrant?" exclaimed Duncan Cameron. "Hut-tut! We'll teach him to respect warrants issued under authority of 43d King George III.," and the dictator of Fort Gibraltar fussed angrily among the papers of his desk and beat a threatening tattoo with knuckles and heels. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... onward leap, and making a desperate blow at him, my wrist struck his paw, and the knife flew far from my hand. There was nothing else for me but to seize him by the loose skin of the neck with both hands, and hold on like "grim death," keeping him at arm's length, while his paws beat a tattoo to a double quick time on my breast and body, stripping my garments into ribbons in a most workmanlike manner, and ornamenting my sensitive skin with a variety of lines and characters, done in red—a process which I did not care to prolong, however, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... my lips;—her hand, holding a spoon, trembled so that the spoon beat a tattoo on her saucer. She was watching me in breathless suspense; and all at once I ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... By and by came "tattoo," and finally far away a trumpet sounded "taps"; then another and another and another still. At last, when all were through, "taps" rose once more out of the darkness to the left. This last trumpeter had waited—he knew his theme and ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... 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
... are," said Dick, panting a little from the rapidity of his ascent, and began a vigorous tattoo on a door ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... cohabitation. When a Coolie reaches the age of twenty-one, he is allowed to choose his own "Loubra." Every male who then takes unto himself a helpmate, loses a front tooth, which is knocked out of him. The natives generally tattoo their arms and breasts, but not their faces; many carry a long white wooden pin, or a feather, pierced through the thin part of the nose; and they all twist kangaroo teeth and the bones of fishes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... copper. On one side of his face was a curious discoloration in the skin and a long, crooked, cruel scar that ran diagonally across forehead and temple and cheek in a white, jagged seam. This discoloration was of a livid blue, about the tint of a tattoo mark. It made a patch the size of a man's hand, lying across the cheek and the side of the neck. Hiram could not keep his eyes from this mark and the white scar ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... as Mrs. Brown afterwards said it was. The little fellows soon get very mirthful on the ginger-wine; keeping up a continual buzz, like a colony of bees, sadly itching to be at something—a wish that is not to be realized at once, for little Miss Newsoince is going to do that eternal tattoo, the "Rataplan:"—yes, there she is, in Tom's felt-hat and polonaise, as "La Vivandiere," thumping upon an empty band-box with two knitting-pins, singing, as some of the mammas say, very prettily; but as the boys, who have heard it many times before, designate ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... last and final and most precious reward All beggars, each in his own way Always an incompleteness somewhere, and the shadow Assent to what must be Ax on his shoulder proceeding toward a grindstone Beating the dirge of yesterday or the tattoo of to-morrow Begum, of Bengal, days out from Canton—homeward bound! Best friend I have ever had, but is the best man I have known Brown's Hotel Byron Casanova & Pepys & Saint Simon Cats really owned Stormfield Certainty Chastity, you can carry it too far. Claudius Conceit in believing ...
— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger
... suffused with a glow of satisfaction. His ears caught the music of that sighing rustle through the audience which bespeaks a profound impression. He could scarcely keep the fingers of his hands, covering his bowed face in a devotional posture as they were, from drumming a jubilant tattoo. His pulses did this in every vein, throbbing with excited exultation. The insistent whim seized him, as he still bent thus before his people, to whisper to his own ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... in passing I'll venture a little prophecy. You're down on your luck now, and a bit hot-hearted in consequence; but some day you will strike it right and come out on top. When you do, you'll be a hard master; tattoo that on your arm somewhere so ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... in which I had enveloped it; and when George suggested to me carelessly one spring afternoon that I should stop by his house and have a look at his uncle's classical library, I felt my cheeks burn, while my heart beat an excited tattoo against my ribs. The house I knew by sight, a grave, low-browed mansion, with a fringe of purple wistaria draping the long porch; and it was under a pendulous shower of blossoms that we found the General seated ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... Montriveau beat a tattoo on the marble chimney-piece, and only looked composedly ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... He has been a blacksmith, butcher, fireman, greaser, tinsmith, copper-smelter, and now, endlich, enfin, at last, a donkeyman. His frame is gigantic, his strength prodigious. On his chest is a horrific picture of the Crucifixion in red, blue, and green tattoo. Between the Christ and the starboard thief is a great triangular scar of smooth, shiny skin. One of his colossal knees is livid with scars. He tells me the story like this, keeping time with the ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... his words had been a cue, the sounds again burst forth—no longer muffled nor faint. They roared; they seemed to pelt through air and drop upon us; they beat about our ears with thunderous tattoo like covered caverns drummed upon by Titans with ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... assistance, I slipped off my evening garments and was pulling on my riding boots when I heard the tattoo of Wildfire's impatient ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... and fringe. But why blame her? This is a blunder in art as universal as it is amazing, when one considers the amount of apparent thought her sex devotes to dress. They might just as well score a fair plot of velvet turf with rows of box, or tattoo ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... upon the road the rhythmic foot-beats of horses, and the rattle of some farmer's wagon rumbling homeward from the village. Then together they screamed for help. But the hoofs went on beating their tattoo till the sound grew faint, and the rattle of the wagon died in the distance. Again and again the sound which told of human nearness woke hope in their hearts only to die in the ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... is but a flimsy barricade against a mob, especially if that mob be led by five-and-twenty stout-bodied seaman. We had shut it merely to gain time, and when the cudgels outside began to play tattoo upon its upper panels I looked for no more than a minute's respite ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... was the argument always last resorted to to ease conscience and evade the law. In this case, strange to say, it had its effect. After some parleying, it was agreed to share the booty equally between the guard and ourselves. They helped us cut brush and cover it nicely, and after tattoo all were to return and divide up. We did not know the guards personally, but knew their command. And so we returned to the camp to await the return of our pickets and night. It was soon noised in camp that there was a fine fat porker to be distributed ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... lay against his shoulder, too astounded for protest. Then her satin slippers began beating a furious tattoo and her small fists pummeling him as her cheeks flamed and her mismatched eyes burst into indignant fire. These demonstrations her brother ignored as he carried her in effortless fashion out into the broad hall and half-way down the stairs. She ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on Life'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 round, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... brows were scowling to an extent that the eyes beneath them looked like sparks of living fire. And though he was lounging comfortably back in his chair, without energy, without alertness, and one arm was resting on the table at his side, and his outstretched fingers were indolently drumming out a tattoo on the bare wood, his breath was coming short and fast, in a manner that belied ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... being addressed "Mbolane," he politely replied "An," which in cannibal-land is considered good form. He could not, however, bring himself to admire Gondebiza, though the Monsieur Worth of Fanland had done his utmost for her. Still, she must have looked really engaging in a thin pattern of tattoo, a gauze work of oil and camwood, a dwarf pigeon tail of fan palm for an apron, and copper bracelets and anklets. The much talked of gorilla Burton found to be a less formidable creature than previous travellers had reported. "The gorilla," he, says, in his matter-of-fact ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... 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
... arms they tattoo a Raindragon, and the character 'Bamboo'—thinking never of the ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... a shaggy fell, his choicest tool a flake of stone; His best of orn'aments tattoo'd skin and holes to hang his bits ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Home Rule by allowing themselves to be stampeded. Their English friends, the enemy, playing upon their prejudices, they became drunk with hate, and then their shillalahs resounded a tattoo upon the head of their leader. Nations and people who turn upon their best friends are ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard |
