"Tap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The first fearful tap was too light to arouse any mortal ears. At the second, though not much better, she heard some one move, and John opened the door. Without waiting to hear her speak, he immediately drew her in, very unwillingly on her part, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... went up to the door and knocked, but nobody came. Again rap-tap-tap; still nobody; and at last she lifted the latch and ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... tongue run the quicker, And as long as his tap never fails, Thus over his favorite liquor Old Peter will tell his old tales. Says he, "In my life's ninety summers Strange changes and chances I've seen,— So here's to all gentlemen drummers That ever have ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... unoffending. She prefers minding her own business to assuming a trust control of other people's affairs, but HER mother—well, I don't wish any ill to Mrs. Evarts, but if anybody is ambitious to adopt an orphan lady, with advice on tap at all hours in all matters from winter flannels to the conversion of the Hottentots, I will cheerfully lead him to the goal of his desires, and with alacrity surrender to him all my right, title, and interest in ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... little group stood Ruth Nelson, red-lipped, bright-eyed, eager, her slender white-clad figure on tiptoe with buoyant expectancy. The crimson rose caught in her hair kept impatient time to the tap of her restless high-heeled slipper, and she swayed and sang with the music in a way to set the ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... the whole question. This decision says to the Republican party, "Your mission is not yet ended. This is not a free country. Our flag does not protect the rights of a human being." This decision is the tap of a drum. The old veterans will fall into line. This decision gives the issue for the next campaign, and it may be that the Supreme Court has builded wiser than it knew. This is a greater question than the tariff or free trade. It is a question of freedom, of human rights, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... itself." This was followed by a signature traveling perpendicularly down the page in Chinese fashion. It was outlined in an oblong of red ink, but was itself written in green, the capitals being supplied with tap-roots extending to the base of each name. Mary tossed the letter over to Stefan with a smile. He looked ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... but with plenty of advice from men who knew less about farming than he did. He found a soft place between two roots on one side of the first tree, made a narrow, irregular hole, and burrowed down till he reached a level where the tap-root was somewhat less than four feet in diameter, and not quite as hard as flint: then he found that he hadn't room to swing the axe, so he heaved out another ton or two of earth—and rested. Next day he sank a shaft on the other side of the gum; and after ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... avail. Smith then handed it to his wife, who gave it to the witch doctor, and he returned 1s. to her. He then proceeded to foil the witch's power over his patient by tapping her several times on the palm of her hand with his finger, telling her that every tap was a stab on the witch's heart. This was followed by an incantation. He then gave her a parcel of herbs (which evidently consisted of dried bay leaves and peppermint), which she was to steep and drink. She was to send to a blacksmith's ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... makin' manners an' sayin', 'Howdy, ladiz, howdy, howdy!' An' de gals dey'd giggle an' twis' an' putt a finger in de cornders er der moufs, an' w'en a man step up ter one uv 'em ter choose her out, she'd fetch 'im a li'l tap an' say, 'Hysh! g'way f'um yer, man! better lemme 'lone!' an' den she'd giggle an' snicker some mo', but I let you know she wuz sho' ter go wid him in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... enough, travelling in this way along a lonely road at dead of night, closely shut up in an oblong box, and surrounded by some twenty or more dusky savages, who could quietly tap one on the head at any time, and appropriate the bag of rupees — inseparable from Indian travelling — without the slightest difficulty. That they do not do so is probably from the knowledge they possess that with the bag of rupees there is generally to be found a revolver, and that an English ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... wife went up to him, and gave him a friendly tap on the shoulder, "What are you thinking ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... give the readers of the Independent, and the electors of this borough, fair notice, that when the dissolution of Parliament takes place, a good man, a true man, a man of experience, no dangerous Radical, or brawling tap orator—Mr. Hicks's friends well understand whom we mean—but a gentleman of Liberal principles, well-won wealth, and deserved station and honour, will ask the electors of Newcome whether they are, or are not discontented with their present ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a brisk tap at her chamber door the lady turned with a guilty start to find the fresh-colored, impertinent face of the French maid obtruding itself into ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... deuoutly, and tolde his alie honor, I had matters of some secrecie to impart vnto him, if it pleased him to grant me priuate audience. With me young Wilton quoth he, marie and shalt: bring vs a pint of syder of a fresh tap into the three cups here, wash the pot, so into a backe roome he lead mee, where after hee had spit on his finger, and pickt off two or three moats of his olde moth eaten veluet cap, and spunged and wrong all the rumatike ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... rapids became woven into his speech, the nucleus of power which made so many things possible. From this he moved into the wilderness and before his listeners there began to unroll the north country in its primeval silence, broken only by the occasional tap of a prospector's pick or the heavy crash of a moose through a cluster of saplings. And with the story of the wilderness came that of pulp wood and great areas now tributary to St. Marys. And after the pulp mills came the discovery ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... o'clock in the morning when we set out on this important business, and the first house we came to was Farmer Wilson's. Here Margery stopped, and ran up to the door, tap, tap, tap. "Who's there?" "Only Little Goody Two-Shoes," answered Margery, "come to teach Billy." "Oh! Little Goody," says Mrs. Wilson, with pleasure in her face, "I am glad to see you Billy wants ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... A faint tap at the door at last apprised Kearney that some one was without, and he hastily, half angrily, cried, 'Come in!' Old Kearney almost started with surprise as the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... a gentle tap at the door, and quickly he replaced the photograph in his case, folded it, and returned it to his pocket as he rose to unlock ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... quite easy on that score." A soldier contrived to obtain the egg and crush it on the breast of the giant, who immediately expired. In another Breton tale the life of a giant resides in an old box-tree which grows in his castle garden; and to kill him it is necessary to sever the tap-root of the tree at a single blow of an axe without injuring any of the lesser roots. This task the hero, as usual, successfully accomplishes, and at the same ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Service Code to whistle, foghorn, bugle, or trumpet, one short blast indicates a dot and one long blast a dash. With the drum, one tap indicates a dot and two taps in rapid succession a dash. Although these signals can be used with a dot and dash code, they should be so used in connection with a ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... between Widjendrift and Langemarck. The rest of the Brigade Staff were to remain at rear H.Q. at Huddersfield Dugouts on the Yser Canal close to Bard's Causeway. At this time I was much worried by what appeared to me to be an attempt to tap the information of the Brigade as to the details of the forthcoming attack. Naturally an Intelligence Officer has to be discreet at all times, but especially so at times like this. I simply record my impression although I cannot ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... "Not a tap. He depends upon his dad fer a livin'. See what he did this mornin'. Instead of stayin' home an' lookin' after the hayin', he went to the city. That's what he's always doin'; runnin' away when there's work to ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... God. What is past I know; what is, is; what is to be, is so near that, behold, sometimes in the stillness of the night I hear the angels whispering as they take counsel as to the moment when, one shall tap me upon the shoulder, ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... a meal much accounted of. It was reckoned effeminate to require more than two meals a day, though, just as in the verdurer's lodge at home, there was a barrel of ale on tap with drinking horns beside it in the hall, and on a small round table in the window a loaf of bread, to which city luxury added a cheese, and a jug containing sack, with some silver cups beside it, and a pitcher of fair water. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moment the lady of the eye-glass drifted closer, and with a tap of her wand, and a careless "Peter, look at this," swept him to the other side of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... had finished dressing for dinner, there was a tap at my door. My friend (?) stood there beaming. "Have you got it done? You know you promised to write me a description of ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... when I die, as needs must hap, Then bury me under the good ale tap; With folded arms there let me lie Cheek for jowl, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the assembly. "And ten," quietly added the Marquis. There ended the strife. Ere Evans let the hammer fall, he paused; the ivory instrument swept the air; the spectators stood dumb, when the hammer fell. The stroke of its fall sounded on the farthest shores of Italy. The tap of that hammer was heard in the libraries of Rome, Milan, and Venice. Boccaccio stirred in his sleep of five hundred years, and M. Van Praet groped in vain amidst the royal alcoves in Paris, to detect a copy of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... haunts in France, "de actu et visu." He can pilot you, on occasion, to vice or virtue with equal assurance. Blest with the eloquence of a hot-water spigot turned on at will, he can check or let run, without floundering, the collection of phrases which he keeps on tap, and which produce upon his victims the effect of a moral shower-bath. Loquacious as a cricket, he smokes, drinks, wears a profusion of trinkets, overawes the common people, passes for a lord in the villages, and never permits himself to be "stumped,"—a slang expression all his ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... an iron pail at the boiler-tap, and, as I stood waiting, my thoughts flew back to earlier days at Acacia Road, and to Jane and her energetic manner of smacking the oilcloth. But I suppose my ideas had developed since those times, and certainly I felt this morning that I was being ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... undressed, had already dismissed his attendants, and in a mood of deep dejection he was standing before a large mirror; a taper was burning dimly beside him. There was a gentle tap at his door. Undine used to tap thus when she wanted playfully to tease him "It is all fancy," said he to himself; "I must seek my ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... the Sappers volunteered. I found him in the tap-room. They should be on their way ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... heavens, as if they alone could answer the mysterious questions his soul was whispering to him; then passed on with his hand pressed on his brow to control or restrain the thoughts which agitated him. He did not hear a light tap upon the door, he did not see it open, and his most intimate and dearest friend, Count Kalkreuth enter, dressed in the full costume of ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... window the captain of the "Vixen" could see his daughter and the captain of the "Albatross" walking side by side upon the smoothly kept lawn. He used to look unutterably sly as he watched the two figures; and on one occasion went so far as to tap his nose significantly several times ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... were almost as big as donkeys. It need hardly be said that it was in this period that most of the Coal-measures were laid down by the immense accumulation of the spores and debris of the club-moss forests. Ages afterwards, it was given to man to tap this great source of energy—traceable back to the sunshine of millions of years ago. Even then it was true that no plant or animal lives or ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... a fearful volubility, and her haranguing echoed in Dick's ears with the meaningless sound of a water-tap heard splashing on the flagstones ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... and motionless in the wild saraband of dancing shadows. Then the ship, obedient to the call of her anchor, forged ahead slightly and eased the strain. The cable relieved, hung down, and after swaying imperceptibly to and fro dropped with a loud tap on the hard wood planks. Singleton seized the high lever, and, by a violent throw forward of his body, wrung out another half-turn from the brake. He recovered himself, breathed largely, and remained for a while glaring ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... room, and at the picture of Samson and Delilah which hung on the wall, and at the circular beer-stains on the table, and at the spittoons underfoot filled with sawdust. The whole aspect of the scene had that depressing effect on Jude which few places can produce like a tap-room on a Sunday evening when the setting sun is slanting in, and no liquor is going, and the unfortunate wayfarer finds himself with no other haven ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... Environment - current issues: tap water is not potable; poaching has diminished the country's reputation as one of the last great wildlife refuges; ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the bank, and began to unfold the large packet of linen that had to be washed. The tap of a stick made her look up, and standing before her she saw a little old woman, whose face ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... situation. About the year 1815 I was invited by a friend, who was an artist, to visit a small public-house in Leadenhall Street, to see a picture by Hogarth: it was "The Elephant," since, I believe, pulled down, being in a ruinous condition. In the tap-room, on the wall, almost obscured by the dirt and smoke, and grimed by the rubbing of numberless foul jackets, was an indisputable picture by the renowned Hogarth. It represented the meeting of the committee ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... five months this little seed just grew and did not let anybody know it was there, until one day it began to tap against the sides of the walls of this little room, and every time it did mamma's heart just bounded with joy as she thought of the precious seed growing to be a darling baby—and all inside of her very own ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... near them listening, with blanched cheek. She had not shed a tear. Her anxiety had been so concealed that no one had noticed it. She had occupied herself mechanically in the household cares. Now she answered a gentle tap at the kitchen door, opening it to receive from a neighbor's hand a letter. "It is from him," was ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... Baltic which must be mentioned, because it gave rise to another effectual illustration of the sea power of England, manifested alike in the north and south with a slightness of exertion which calls to mind the stories of the tap of a tiger's paw. The long contest between Sweden and Russia was for a moment interrupted in 1718, by negotiations looking to peace and to an alliance between the two for the settlement of the succession in Poland and the restoration ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... advance from Macalistairs, was thirty-eight thousand pounds. I say disconcerting because it emphatically did disconcert Henry. He could not cope with it. He was like a child who has turned on a tap and can't turn it off again, and finds the water covering the floor and rising, rising, over its little shoe-tops. Not even with the help of Sir George could he quite successfully cope with this deluge of money which threatened ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... The rose baith ear' an' late; He water'd it, and fann'd it, And wove it with his fate; But the thistle tap it wither'd, Winds bore it far awa', And Scotland's heart was broken, For the rose sae like ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... cloth around the neck of the bottle, thus expanding it, or, if this is not effective, pour a little salad oil round the stopper, and place the bottle near the fire, then tap the stopper with a wooden instrument. The heat will cause the oil to work round the stopper, and it should be ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... answered: "and I know not if that be not the commoner fault of the twain. He calls, and calls, and they come not; and such sheep find many a sharp tap from the rod ere they will walk, never say run. Our Shepherd is human, therefore He can feel for us; He is Divine, therefore can He have patience with us. Let us thank God ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... remarked to me that he thought nothing could be more satisfactory for me than to have on tap, so to speak, an institution like the House of Martha, from which I could draw a secretary whenever I wanted one, and keep her for as long or as short a time as pleased me; and to have this supply in the immediate neighborhood was ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... think's downstairs?" she gasped, bursting in the door of his bedroom, without even the customary tap. "Oh, bless Gawd! dat you'se outen dat bed! and dressed and tryin' yo' po' legs about the room. He's comin' up. Got a man wid him I ain't neber see befo'. Says he's a-lookin' fer somebody! Git in ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... it, justle it, overthrow it, evert it, invert it, subvert it, overturn it, beat it, thwack it, bump it, batter it, knock it, thrust it, push it, jerk it, shock it, shake it, toss it, throw it, overthrow it, upside down, topsy-turvy, arsiturvy, tread it, trample it, stamp it, tap it, ting it, ring it, tingle it, towl it, sound it, resound it, stop it, shut it, unbung it, close it, unstopple it. And then again in a mighty bustle he bandied it, slubbered it, hacked it, whittled it, wayed it, darted it, hurled it, staggered ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the landlord saw no cause for it. "What makes you carry on like this?" he said; "it was only last night we was talking in the tap-room of getting a subscription up, downright liberal. I said I was good for a crown, and take it out of the tick they owes me. And when you come to think ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... welcome had been subdued into mere gladness, there was a discreet tap at the door, and the respectable maid came in with a tray of sherry-glasses and cake. Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman looked at each other brimming over with smiles. It was the same kind of cake, and might have been cut ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... she said he would be doing. He was sitting in the kitchen, rocking a pink baby wrapped in white outing flannel with blue border, when Mrs. Hanson, without the formality of more than one warning tap on the screen door, walked in with Bud. She held out her hands for the baby while she introduced the cashier to Bud. In the next breath she was explaining what was ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... showering iron filings upon the paper, I notice a tendency of the filings to arrange themselves in determinate lines. They cannot freely follow this tendency, for they are hampered by the friction against the paper. They are helped by tapping the paper; each tap releasing them for a moment, and enabling them to follow their tendencies. But this is an experiment which can only be seen by myself. To enable you all to see it, I take a pair of small magnets and by a simple ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... stock-in-trade, lay on the other. Before the fire, warming his back, stood a short, thick-set man, humming the air of a vulgar ditty; his hands were thrust into the pockets of a velvet shooting-jacket, ornamented with large ivory buttons, such as are commonly worn by cabmen and other tap-room blackguards. His countenance was by far too dark and sinister-looking to be honest, and, as he occasionally favoured us with a few oblique and professional glances from beneath a white castor, half-pulled over his brow, ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... the coals. Just above them was a boiling hot spring, and Albert used the water from this for cooking purposes. "Hot and cold water whenever you please," he said to Dick. "Nothing to do but to turn the tap." ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... breakfast, by the appearance of Annie on her pony, looking in at our dining-room window. She had a pretty way of riding up noiselessly on the green grass, and making her pony, which was tame as a Newfoundland dog, mount the stone steps, and tap with his nose on the panes of the long glass door till ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... features, as of family qualms, he was, as yet, radiantly unaware. Snatching his towel, he scampered barefoot down the passage to the nursery bathroom, where the tap was already running. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... man! Or no—not a man—what a demi-god! You should have seen him enter the orchestra on the call: "Mr. Francioli, please!" Your ordinary music-hall conductor ducks from below, slips into his chair, and his tap has turned on the flow of his twenty instruments before you realize that he is up. But not so Francioli. For him the old school, the old manners, laddie. He never came into the orchestra. He "entered." ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... launch, with other nations, an exploration of the ocean depths to tap its wealth, and its energy, and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... the lantern. Apparently the effect of the love tap administered by his automatic was more or less of a lasting character, and the men were put to some ado to restore the body of Kell to consciousness. At length their efforts began to bear fruit, however, and it became expedient to remove the patient to the softer couch in the sitting room ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... to the deuce went it! The landlord, he looks glum, On the tap-room wall, in a very bad scrawl, He has chalked to us a sum. But a glass we’ll take, ere the grey dawn break, And then saddle up and ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... that cafe noir is a much more ready and abundant tap than water, and so it was here; notwithstanding which, the bedroom apparatus was most comfortable and complete. The chambermaid was a boy, and under his auspices a sheet of postage-stamps and a lead pencil vanished from the table. When it was suggested to him that possibly ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... house by words and deeds I've run an Anti-Waste Campaign; On every tap the legend reads: "Teetotalers, abstain!" While on each bath and tub of mine I've drawn freehand a PLIMSOLL ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... the building a clock struck three, and at that instant there was a tap at the door, ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... of each procession walked an Indian beating a drum, tap, tap, tap, without a vestige of time. The other processions with stoles and canopies, and the officials of the city in dress-coats and yellow kid gloves, were paltry ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... delighting in labour, and continually working both winter and summer at his mural painting, which breaks down the healthiest of men, he became so afflicted by the damp and so swollen with dropsy, that his physicians had to tap him, and in a few days he rendered up his soul to Him who had given it. First, like a good Christian, he partook of the Sacraments of the Church, and made his will. Then, having a particular devotion for the Hermits of Camaldoli, who ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... secretary, reaching down to tap the document upon the desk. "You will pardon me, but I've never heard ...
— Project Mastodon • Clifford Donald Simak
... the covers preparatory to rising, "I might suggest that the next time you feel it coming on, you might choose something more comfortable, that's all. Wondering about such things might become wearing. What's that?" she asked, as a sharp tap sounded on ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... the town girls and myself, with a boy apiece, had been to see Amy, and when we went up-stairs (just the girls) to see a new hat a city cousin had sent her, we heard a little tap at the west window. It had been raining, which accounted for our being indoors with the windows lowered, and when we heard the tapping we were so excited we could hardly breathe. It was fearfully thrilly, just like things one reads about in books, and ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... Bessy, never brew wi' bad malt upo' Michael-masday, else you'll have a poor tap," said Mr. Tulliver, winking and smiling at Mr. Riley, with the natural pride of a man who has a buxom wife conspicuously his inferior in intellect. "But it's true there's no hurry; you've hit it ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Triffitt that here was an easy way of making a call upon your next door neighbour; instead of crossing the corridor and knocking at his door, you had nothing to do but walk along the balcony and tap at his window. Filled with this thought Triffitt immediately stepped out on his balcony and inspected the windows of his own and the next flat. He immediately saw something which filled him with a ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... that they may be seen at their best. I am not unmindful that in the menu the courses grew shorter until they culminated in the pungent and brief episode of cheese, and so I take it that as to the oratory here on tap, you desire it to become gradually more brief and ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... companies are drawn up in order again, and receive the praise and thanks of those in whose honour they had been called together. To these compliments they reply in a novel and imposing fashion. At a given signal each man begins to softly tap his ox-hide shield with the handle of his spear, producing a sound somewhat resembling the murmur of the distant sea. By slow degrees it grows louder and louder, till at length it rolls and re-echoes from the hills like thunder, and comes to its conclusion with a ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... them were on the same side of the veil with us, and they were rather decent; so we chummed up in the end and Ockley took us all away together. They were jolly lucky in getting Ockley. There I go again! Come on, it's your turn. Has the bathroom tap been mended yet?' ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... man will have nothing to worry about for a good many years to come! That represents a flood of power vaster than man could comprehend. Why try to release any more energy? We have more than we can use; we may as well tap that vast ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... the darkening and dewy green. But old Bunyan's donkey is still browzing there, and yonder is old Bunyan's self—the brawny tramper dispread on the settle, retailing to the more clownish residents tap-room wit and roadside news. However, it is young Bunyan you wish to see. Yonder he is, the noisiest of the party, playing pitch-and-toss—that one with the shaggy eyebrows, whose entire soul is ascending in the twirling ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... then, after a moment's pause, the dignified advance of the superintendent. There was a tap on the door. The doors of some rooms, owing to discipline, were never tapped by Mrs. Thomas, but the reason that compelled her to show this courtesy to Priscilla also caused her to wish this young Canadian was a less serious person; one more prone to frivol in her "hours off," ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... thus, in his opinion, concluded his own and the public business, returned well satisfied with the result, after receiving the gipsy's reiterated promise to tap THREE TIMES at the window ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... we are in presence of the uncanny. Many of us have this feeling about moths. Moths are the ghosts of the insect world. It may be the manner in which they flutter in unheralded out of the night that terrifies us. They seem to tap against our lighted windows as though the outer darkness had a message for us. And their persistence helps to terrify. They are more troublesome than a subject nation. They are more importunate than the importunate widow. But they are most terrifying of all if one ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... speak English over the telephone," replied the Frenchman, "the Germans will hear you with the instruments they use to tap the underground circuit." ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... brings to my recollection a method which was in use among the "telegraph boys" some years ago when I was one of them. Sometimes when we were visiting and asked to communicate to a "brother chip," anything that it was not advisable for the persons around us to know, a slight tap-tapping on the table or chair would draw the attention of the party we asked to talk to, and then by his watching the forefinger of the writer, if across the room, or if near enough, by placing the hand of the writer carelessly on the shoulder of the party we desired ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... through the white water, we talked of the northern spring that was just beginning. He sells cream, eggs, poultry, potatoes, honey, occasionally pork and veal; but at this season it was the time for the maple sugar crop. He has a sugar orchard, where he taps twelve hundred trees and hopes soon to tap as many more in addition. Said Cherrie: "It's a busy time now for Fred Rice"—Fred Rice is the hired man, and in sugar time the Cherrie boys help him with enthusiasm, and, moreover, are paid with exact justice for the work they do. There is much wild life about the farm, although it ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... it hard to believe he was waking. But he done a sensible thing and went to Inspector's private tap and poured ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... a faint tap at the window, and she raised her head, staying her breath to listen. Soon she heard it again, just a faint but very deliberate tap, which convinced her that someone was outside in the darkness. Softly she stole ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... of Scotland, that she stood stanchly by her old ally, France, and would have nothing to do with that dirty little slice of the worst part of Spain—Portugal, or her brandified potations. In the old Scotch houses, a cask of claret stood in the cellar, on the tap. In the humblest Scotch country tavern, the pewter tappit hen, holding some three quarts, "reamed," Anglice, mantled, with claret just drawn from the cask. At length, in an evil hour, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... twinty years a section boss, he worked upon the track, And be it to his cred-i-it he niver had a wrack. For he kept every j'int right up to the p'int wid the tap of the tampin-bar-r-r; And while the byes was a-swimmin' up the ties, It's "Jerry, wud yez ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... the Northern States, whose more sober citizens must by now be weary of the sham of American democracy, and disgusted with the rowdyism of political elections, which "combine the morals of a horse race, the manners of a dog fight, the passions of a tap-room, and the emotions of a gambling house[75]." Probably such suggestions had little real purpose or meaning at the moment, but it is interesting that this idea of a "compensation" in Canada should have been voiced thus early. Even in the United States the same thought ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... sleep and Sam tried his best to study. But it was hard work and the youngest Rover made slow progress. An hour passed and then there came a soft tap on the door. ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... "Small Masters."—Having made so much progress in our analysis, we shall approach more intelligently another important aspect of the "sweating system." Mr. Booth and other investigators find the tap-root of the disease to consist in the multiplication of small masters. The leading industrial forces of the age, as we have seen, make for the concentration of labour in larger and larger masses, and its employment in larger and larger factories. Yet in London and in certain other ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... more to the left, by the action of this misapplied "aid." If the lady's whip is not sufficiently long to give her mount the requisite reminder on the off flank, either by being pressed closely against it, or by the administration of a sharp tap, it will be useless for straightening him. Lady Augusta Fane, who is one of the best horsewomen in Leicestershire, and who certainly rides a greater variety of hunters during a season than any other lady in the Shires, is strongly ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... end of the passage. The window behind us gives an extensive view of grey rain and grey sea. But I prefer to look at the smiling, freckled face that speaks so eloquently of sunny days. The wet, trailing fingers of the briar-rose climbing over the porch tap at the casement, the loose branch of the plane-tree creaks in the wind, the distant sea moans and murmurs; but I prefer to listen to my little friend's artless and occasionally "h-less" English, as she tells me how the Andersons have always been tenants of Down End since her great-grandfather ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... the violin, and rides away into the forest attended by only one groom, and is gone for days together. He has composed an opera, which has not yet been put on the stage. People, when they speak of him, tap their foreheads with one finger. But I don't believe it. The same liberality that induced him, years ago, to restore "William Tell" to the stage has characterized the government ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... like those conduits the Italian peasants use to bring down the water from the Maritime Alps to their fields and orchards; and you hear the soft gurgle of it the whole night long, and day long, too, whenever you stop. After supper we can read awhile by our electric lamp (we tap the current in the telephone wires anywhere), or Aristides sacrifices himself to me in a lesson of Altrurian grammar. Then we creep back into our van and fall asleep with the Southern Cross glittering over our heads. It is perfectly safe, ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... donkeyman" in future—what you call longshoreman. His wife has a nice little business in Neath now, and "she wants 'im 'ome." Have I noticed how that high-press guide is leaking? Should he tighten up the tap-bolts in the bottom plate? I dissent, because one cannot reach them safely while she is running. It is only a trifle; better let it go. He acquiesces doubtfully, and resumes greasing. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... prescribed part at the altar, kneeling and reading at intervals. The busy censer boys in white gowns; the flaring candles casting long shadows athwart the high altar; the files of soldiers kneeling and rising at the tap of the drum; the atmosphere clouded with the fumes of burning incense,—all combined to make up a singularly dramatic picture. The gross mummery witnessed at the temple of Buddha in Ceylon differed only in form, scarcely ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... is beautifully illustrated. Have a small barrel or bucket so constructed as to be fitted with gauze at the top; immerse it exactly, so that the water may form a film between the meshes, and then open the tap at the bottom: the water will not flow till the meshes at the top are broken by blowing on their surface. The adhesion of the particles in a soap-bubble is another illustration, no less beautiful, as well as more familiar; for the soap, which might be supposed to be the cause of the ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... laughing in derision; "Lord, Captain, naething confuses my head—I ance jumped up and laid the dogs on the fox after I had tumbled from the tap o' Christenbury Craig, and that might have confused me to purpose. Na, naething confuses me, unless it be a screed o' drink at an orra [*Occasional] time. Besides, I behooved to be round the hirsel ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... day in her vine-shaded home, looking out through the slender branches of the honeysuckle, which were gently swayed by a refreshing breeze, when she heard a slight tap. She listened eagerly. Another tap—presently another. How her heart fluttered! It proceeded from one of those highly-prized eggs, and she knew it was the timid knock of a birdling, who was in that little chamber, and was waiting to have the door opened. Of how small ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... close enough to tap the other man's ribs with his thumb, "were you born yesterday? I say," continued the Cherub, for Langdon had turned away somewhat impatiently, "what's the good av givin' me that gup; you didn't stand for it yourself—not on yer life. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... resumed: "A friend of my own sex, and young, and a close neighbour, is just what I would have prayed for. And I'll excuse you, my dear, for not being so anxious about the friendship of an old woman. But I shall be of use to you, you will find. In the first place, I never tap for secrets. In the second, I keep them. Thirdly, I have some power. And fourth, every young married woman has need of a friend like me. Yes, and Lady Patterne heading all the county will be the stronger ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thrush would fly across the lane, a blackbird would appear by the gateway yonder in the shadow which he loves, a finch would settle in the oaks. None of these incidents occur; none of the lesser signs of life in the foliage, the tremulous spray, the tap of a bill cleaned by striking first one side and then the other against a bough, the rustle of ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... to be the messenger, was obliged to deliver his summons three times—the last time with the accompaniment of a tap on the tutor's shoulder—before that virtuoso swung round on his stool ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... descending in the soil, will find the lowest outlet to which there exists a channel through which it can flow, and that if, after heavy rains, it rise too near the surface of the ground, the proper remedy is to tap it at a lower level, and thus remove the water table to the proper distance from the surface. This subject will be more fully treated in a future chapter, in considering the question of the depth, and the intervals, at which drains should ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... Republic tap water is not potable; poaching has diminished the country's reputation as one of the last ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... stammered, "God save the Tsar!" After which he saw them to the door. When the door had closed after them, he said, "My little Annouchka, you mustn't reckon without me." He hurried toward the sofa, where Rouletabille was lying forgotten, and gave him a tap ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... jumped up, and stood staring at me. I went to the tap, and turned the flow off, and then ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... a momentary cessation of the ceaseless tap tap, he listened. Silence was never profounder than in this forest on that windless night. Earth and air seemed, to his strained ear, emptied of all sound. The clatter of his own steady, unhastened heart-beat was all that broke upon the stillness. He might be alone in the Universe ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... to perpetuate What so much loving labor did create?— I hear Oblivion tap upon the gate, And acquiesce, not ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... wish for were, according to our "Official Gazette," to be had for the asking. At the hotels, "Highland Cream Whiskey" was for ever arriving; and "O.K." (another thistle!) kept "licking 'em all" with monotonous invincibility. Iced beer was on tap; the champagne was sparkling; the wine needed no bush. The cheese was still alive (on paper). Cakes, hams, jams, biscuits, potted fish, flesh, and good red herring were, so to speak, all over the shops. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... two large sarcophagi of white marble. One of these has been elaborately worked in rich garlands of flowers and very grand bulls' heads, together with nude figures, all of which have been much damaged. These sarcophagi have been used as cisterns for containing water, as the tap is still visible. Immediately opposite is the entrance to the great hall, which is in good repair, as a new cement floor was added by the British authorities, with the intention of converting it into a temporary hospital ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... no spindles, nor wheels to be whirled, No forges nor looms from the outside world, Stunning the ear with clamour; You hear but the whisper of leaves unfurled, And the tap ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... received us at Clerkenwell, looked remarkably sullen; and when we enquired for Clinker, 'I don't care, if the devil had him (said he); here has been nothing but canting and praying since the fellow entered the place. — Rabbit him! the tap will be ruined — we han't sold a cask of beer, nor a dozen of wine, since he paid his garnish — the gentlemen get drunk with nothing but your damned religion. — For my part, I believe as how your man deals with the devil. — Two or three as bold hearts as ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... to it—a curious assembly, since though they scramble and swing and knock their heads against the glass, they seem to have no purpose—something senseless inspires them. One gets tired of watching them, as they amble round the lantern and blindly tap as if for admittance, one large toad being the most besotted of any and shouldering his way through the rest. Ah, but what's that? A terrifying volley of pistol-shots rings out—cracks sharply; ripples spread— silence laps smooth over ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... dunnest of all duns! thou daily Knockest at doors, at first with modest tap, Like a meek tradesman when approaching palely Some splendid debtor he would take by sap: But oft denied, as Patience 'gins to fail, he Advances with exasperated rap, And (if let in) insists, in terms unhandsome, On ready money, or "a draft ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... insane delusions, for example, or psychopathic obsessions, the source is yet to seek, but by analogy it also should be in subliminal regions which improvements in our methods may yet conceivably put on tap. There lies the mechanism logically to be assumed—but the assumption involves a vast program of work to be done in the way of verification, in which the religious experiences of man must play ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... the bathroom, wondering what there was going to be for breakfast while I massaged the good old spine with a rough towel and sang slightly, when there was a tap at the door. I stopped singing and opened ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... it wants," he replied, smiling. "Th' tap roots go straight down 'til they find it, sometimes fifty feet. That's why it don't shrivel up in th' sun. Then there are a lot of little roots right under it an' they protects th' tap roots. Th' shade it gives is th' coolest out here, ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... the cool placidity of her face one of Eve Edgarton's boot-toes began to tap-tap-tap against the piazza floor. When she lifted her eyes again to Barton their sleepy sullenness was shot through suddenly with an ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... awful sentence pronounced, "Depart ye wicked into everlasting punishment." How I escaped from that scene to my own room I do not know. I was too wretched for tears. I sat alone for a long time when a gentle tap announced my betrayer. She put her arms around me affectionately and kissed ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... no monument. 'Twas a quare world; a poor man had the chance of dying wid a rich man, but was not to be berrid in his company. Well, he supposed it was for the best," and here he hammered the heel-tap out of his pipe on the side of his shoe; "when the last bugle sounded a field-officer would feel uncomfortable like if he had to be looking for his bones in the same ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... taking my stand at the board of green cloth, so as to have a good view of the game, and to watch the conflicting emotions depicted on the countenances of these devotees of the fickle goddess, I felt a gentle tap on the shoulder, and turning round, beheld ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his Teller's window with a gentle bang. Patrick took notice and swung to the iron grating of the outer door. You might peer in and beg ever so hard—unless, of course, you were a visitor like myself, and even then Peter would have to give his consent—you might peer through, I say, or tap on the glass, or you might plead that you were late and very sorry, but the ostrich egg never turned in its nest nor did the eyebrows vibrate. Three o'clock was three o'clock at the Exeter, and everybody might go to the devil—financially, of course—before the rule would be broken. ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... later, a tap sounded on the door. Cummings stood by while I opened it to Barbara, and a slender, veiled woman, taller by half a head in spite of bent shoulders and the droop of weakness which made the girl's supporting arm ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... the Heiress Will perk at the tap o' the ha', Encircled wi' suitors, wha's care is To catch up her ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... left the town at twelve. It was already past eleven. Mrs. Morton had retired to bed; and her husband, who had, according to his wont, lingered behind to smoke a cigar over his last glass of brandy and water, had just thrown aside the stump, and was winding up his watch, when he heard a low tap at his window. He stood mute and alarmed, for the window opened on a back lane, dark and solitary at night, and, from the heat of the weather, the iron-cased shutter was not yet closed; the sound was repeated, and he heard a faint ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... devastated lands and impending taxes to a new country glowing with the deceptive greenness of far fields. The population had increased; the housing for it had not. So that rents went up and up until economic factors exerted their inexorable pressure and the tap of the carpenter's hammer and the ring of his saw began to sound in every city, in every suburb, on ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... settler into whatever territory, by reason of the potential fertility of its soil or for other causes, has held out promise of some day becoming populated. Along the railway the population has then flowed. In forcing its way westward each company in its course has sought to tap with its lines the richest strips of territory: all alike endeavoured to obtain a share of the traffic originating from a point where a thriving town was already established or topographical conditions pointed out a promising site. As the American laws impose practically no restrictions on railway ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... There's Dorothy, you know; we were playing at executions the other day—she was Mary Queen of Scots an' I was the headsman. I made a lovely axe with wood and silver paper, you know; and when I cut her head off she cried awfully, and I only gave her the weeniest little tap—an' they sent me to bed at six o'clock for it. I believe she cried on ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... dressing when there came a tap at the door. Finishing what he was doing in front of the mirror, he answered, "Yes, what ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson |
