"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through the grove he sped; Then far away, and farther still, By vale and wood and moor and hill, His noisy song was lost. Upon the pillow, soft and white, I nestled down once more, To think about this Postman, who Goes singing all the dark world through, And beats a noisy, wild tattoo On every winter door. And when again with joy I saw The frosty sunshine glow, I quickly drew the blind aside, And through the frosty window spied The letters he had scattered wide In drifts of dazzling snow. The leafless trees stood mute and still By snowy field and lawn; Each twig was graced with ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... hammer plays a perpetual tattoo to no purpose. The talking and the interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost license. Everyone esteems himself as good as his neighbor, and puts in his oar, apparently as often for love of riot and confusion as for anything else.... The Speaker orders a member whom he has ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... the fellows talking about," said Snubby frankly. "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
... varies according to the nature of the 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 ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... bluets [75] and raspberries, in which they carry on an extensive traffic with the other tribes, taking in exchange skins, beads, nets, and other articles. Some of these people pierce the nose, and attach beads to it They tattoo their bodies, applying black and other colors. They wear their hair very straight, and grease it, painting it red, as they do also ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... 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 marks ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... women, whom they do not confine, will, it is said, do more field-work than the men; indeed, one often finds women at work in the crops when the men are lying down. Like the women of low Hindu castes they tattoo their bodies, a practice disapproved by Musalmans in general. Abul Fazl writes that the Meos were in his time famous runners, and one thousand of them were employed by Akbar ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... show how well he feels, he whirred yet more loudly, until, unwittingly, he found himself drumming, and tickled with the discovery of his new power, thumped the air again and again till he filled the near woods with the loud tattoo of the fully grown cock-partridge. His brother and sister heard and looked on with admiration and surprise; so did his mother, but from that time she began to be a ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... taking place in the habits of these Indians through frequent intercourse with the whites, and those who dwell on the banks of the Tapajos now seldom tattoo their children. The principal Tushaua of the whole tribe or nation, named Joaquim, was rewarded with a commission in the Brazilian army, in acknowledgment of the assistance he gave to the legal authorities ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... find it again when necessary, but he did not put it in his breast pocket. And then he sat for some time doing nothing, looking before him, with his legs stretched out and his hand beating a little tattoo upon the table. "Well: well? well!" That was about what he said to himself, but it meant a great deal: it meant a vague but great disappointment, a sort of blank and vacuum expressed by the first of these words—and ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... another sound, too—a thunderous flapping and thrashing in the tree-top, the furious battering, falling tumult of broken branches and blindly beating wings, drumming convulsively in descent. Then came a thud; a feathery tattoo on the ground; silence in ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... from behind the house and a leaden tattoo began on the door. "Other window!" whispered O'Neill. The foreman got there before him and, shoving his Colt out first to clear the way, yelled with rage and pain as a pole hit his wrist and knocked the weapon out of his hand. He was still commenting when Duke Lane pried open the door and, dropping ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... 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, The bivouac ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... 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 ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... When I see him roll up his shirt-sleeve in the trade-room, an' I see some tattoo mark on his arm, I ...
— Sarreo - 1901 • Louis Becke
... occupant, who, except for an entire want of animation, looks much like what he did in the railway-carriage—the same strong-looking man with well-marked cheek-bones, very thick brown hair and bushy brows, a skin rather tanned, and a scar on the bridge of the nose; very strong hands with a tattoo-mark showing on the wrist and an abnormal crop of hair on the back, running on to the fingers, but flawed by a scar or two. Add to this the chief thing you would recollect him by, an Elizabethan beard, and you will have all the particulars ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... men and some of the women are tattooed in the most grotesque patterns. When you look at them closely the invention displayed is truly remarkable; but at a distance they give a dingy, dusky appearance to the men, as if they were daubed with an inky sponge. Nature having denied them beards, they tattoo curly locks along their faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of showing his strength ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... England bringing General William Howe, General Henry Clinton, and General John Burgoyne, with several thousand troops to carry on the war. Every morning Miss Newville heard the drums beating the reveille and in the evening the tattoo. Many officers called at the hospitable home of Honorable Theodore Newville to enjoy the society of his charming daughter, who received them ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... shot from shore. I straightened up to look. Something struck me on the back of the head, partially stunning me and knocking me to the deck. My first thought was that something had carried away aloft; but even as I went down, and before I struck the deck, I heard the devil's own tattoo of rifles from the boats, and twisting sidewise, I caught a glimpse of the sailor who was standing guard. Two big niggers were holding his arms, and a third nigger from behind was ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... and protracted sounds.] Roll — N. roll &c v.; drumming &c v.; berloque^, bombination^, rumbling; tattoo, drumroll; dingdong; tantara^; rataplan^; whirr; ratatat, ratatat-tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari^, racket; cuckoo; repetition &c 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; reverberation &c 408. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... hear him or look at the stout gentleman in the nightcap, about whom he professed to have such a tender interest. The hypocrite was looking and listening with all his might in the direction of George's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs, beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other signs of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Months ago had the accustomed serenity of the Queen City given place to noisy military life. Its by-ways and suburbs were dotted with tents, the phantom homes of soldiers. Men who yesterday were gentlemen, were to-day only vassals, whose existence was marked by the morning rveille and the evening tattoo. The drilling, drilling, drilling, still hourly went on; but not that peaceful exercise the inhabitants had been wont to observe in Citadel Square in days agone. Marching, guarding, countermarching, watching, were the order of the day. Some hearts were wild with enthusiasm, others dark ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... were busy with Mosk, with his victim, with Baltic; she wondered if Jentham had been in possession of certain papers, if these had been stolen by Mosk, if they were now in the pocket of Baltic. This last idea made her blood turn cold and her heart drum a loud tattoo. She covered her face with her hands; she sat down, she rose up, and in a nervous fever of apprehension leaned against the wall. Then, after the manner of those over-wrought, she ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the children wound the clock up when they were playing with it up here and when it went off the striker beat against the head of the drum and played a regular tattoo." ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... a thoughtful tattoo upon his fleshy knuckles with the letter-opener. "Nothing. Aren't ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Welcome Hotel has invented an ingenious system of calling sleepy guests. The other night a man left instructions that he wished to be called early. Next morning he was disturbed by a loud tattoo upon the door. "Well?" he demanded sharply. "I've got a message for you, sir." Yawning until he strained his face, the guest jumped out of bed and unlocked the door. The bellboy handed him an envelope and then went away quickly. The guest opened the envelope, and took out a slip of paper ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... in fact, Mr. Vholes?" says Richard, sitting down again with an impatient laugh and beating the devil's tattoo with his boot on ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Twilight melted into darkness. From the camp the voices of the soldiers in song or story floated in to her. Peggy went to the casement window and stood staring out into the night. Tattoo sounded. The noises of the camp died away, for the soldiers' day was ended. Would there never be another day for Clifford? How was he bearing it out there alone in the guard-house? Would his high courage remain with him to the end? That he would ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... few standing cornstalks and caused the dry twigs to rap a tattoo upon the windows of the farm houses. It attacked the shivering form of a lonely little cur who took his tail between his legs and scurried away down the road in search of some sheltering barn or shed; it nipped little Hi Babson's ears and snatching his cap, tossed it ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... to be your—mistress," she said. Truth disconcerts the vast majority. It disconcerted him—after a ringing silence through which the beating of rain on the window came to him like the steady tattoo ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... Zora sprang forward and seized the burning liquid in both hands. A dozen hands clapped a devil's tattoo. A score of voices yelled and laughed. The shriek of the music was drowned beneath the thunder of stamping feet. Men reeled to singing women's arms, but above the roar rose the song of the voice of Zora—she glided to the middle of the room, standing tip-toed ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... minutes past the half-hour 'twixt seven and eight, and there were girls in every group, and many a young fellow in the rigid line of gray and white before them, resentful of the fact that dress parade was wofully late and long, with tattoo and taps only two hours or so away. The season for the regular summer "hops" had not yet begun, for this was away back in the eighties, when many another old West Point fashion still prevailed; but there was to be an informal dance in the dining-room ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... 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
... punctured. Into these punctures a preparation made from the kernel of the candle-nut, mixed with cocoa-nut oil, is rubbed, and the mark thus made is indelible. The operation is performed by a class of men whose profession it is, and they tattoo as much at a time as the person on whom they are operating can bear; which is not much, the pain and inflammation caused by tattooing being very great, sometimes causing death. Some of the chiefs were tattooed with an ornamental stripe down the legs, which gave them the appearance of being clad ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... sunned himself in the pine-scented shipyard, amid the tattoo of the mallets; Or he leaned on the rail of the bridge, letting his thoughts flow with the whispering river; He hearkened also to ancient tales, and made them young again with ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... at Hood upon America's lack of mirth; the American people had utterly lost their capacity for laughter, the old man averred. Deering's fork beat a lively tattoo on his plate as he attacked ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... attempted to emerge from the circle of its mere animal wants—which has never exhibited the least inclination to develop the most ordinary arts—which not only rejects clothing, but is absolutely indifferent to ornament—which leaves its weapons uncarved, its skin unpainted, free from tattoo, we must not despair of the general efficacy of civilization. These savages of Australia, as we call them, who have adorned the rocks of Depuch Island with their drawings, have in one thing proved themselves superior to the Egyptian and the Etruscan, whose works ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... awoke after not more than one hour of fitful sleep. The door to the garage apartment shook under the tattoo of a heavy fist. Miss Tapp's heart thudded somewhere inside her thirty-eight-inch bosom. She lay rigid in darkness penetrated only by the glimmer of ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert
... feeling which impels the criminal to visit the scene of his crime, Alfred began a pilgrimage to the little red school-house. Walking along the old pike the sound of a horse's hoofs beating a tattoo on the road reached his ears. He recognized in the rider, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... Lucile's hand went out instinctively to silence the interruption. "Sh-h!" she warned, but the Frenchman seemed not to have heard and continued his narrative, while his hand beat a nervous tattoo on the arm ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... every direction at once. Applause was intermingled with hissing, violent discussions were in progress between individual members of the audience, sticks were brandished threateningly, others beat a tattoo on the floor, and the interrupters were greeted with yells of 'Put him out!' or ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... machines—"An Artist's Model" and "On the Beach at Atlantic City." A gun pops foolishly in the rear and the 3-inch bullseye clangs. In a corner behind the Postal Card Photo Taken in a Minute gallery sits Dutch, the world's leading tattooer. Sample tattoo designs cover the two walls. Dragons, scorpions, bulbous nymphs, crossed flags, wreathed anchors, cupids, butterflies, daggers and quaint decorations that seem the grotesque survivals of the mid-Victorian schools of fantasy. Photographs of famous men ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... 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 ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... hands closing softly over the restless brown one drumming a tattoo on the window-sill, and her golden head drooping so close to Eve's, her curls mingled with her dark locks, "I could never love any one in this world again. I loved once—it was the sweetest, yet the most bitter, experience of my life. ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... being fixed so I could take my own time if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to save me and set me free when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the world betwixt me and sudden death but just them tattoo-marks. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... powerless to turn as if he had been paralyzed from head to foot. Down he went, straight as an arrow. There followed a splash as his head struck the water of the ditch, the lad's feet beating a tattoo in the air while his head was stuck fast in the mud at ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... head to toe for scratches, cuts, bruises, moles, tattoo marks. Everything about the hair, eyes, teeth, nose, ears, and other parts, is written down. The height, the age, the muscular ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... The forward end of the one by twelve inch board was reluctantly headed for shore, and slowly idled in. As the child reached land, he was grasped by the angry and anxious mother, who beat a merry tattoo on a tender portion his ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Sinfi's features were reflected in the water. My exclamation had the strangest effect upon Sinfi. Her lips, which usually wore a peculiarly proud and fearless curve, quivered, and were losing the brilliant rosebud redness which mostly characterised them. The little blue tattoo rosettes at the corners of her mouth seemed to be growing more distinct as she gazed in the water through eyes dark and mysterious as Night's, but, like Night's own eyes, ready, I thought, to call up the throbbing fires ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... tanned to an Indian 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 cutting ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... very much to me as though it were one of those crimes of passion which are so frequent in this country," he said. "Mordon was a Frenchman and I have been able to identify him by tattoo marks on his arm, as a man who has been in the hands ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... there came from the sea a sudden gust of wind that caught her by the skirts and drew her back, that set the branches tossing and swept the dead leaves racing about her ankles. And at the same instant from just above her head there beat upon the air a violent, joyous tattoo—a sound that was neither of the sea nor of the woods, a creaking, swiftly repeated sound, like the flutter ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... the astonishment of the Judge, put his foot on the first round of the political ladder as candidate for the legislature. At the same time Janey returned from the school in the East, where she had been "finished," and David's heart beat an inspiring tattoo every time he looked at her, but he was nominated by a speech-loving, speech-demanding district, and he had so many occasions for oratory that only snatches of her companionship were possible ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... to receive military punishment, one of the drummers refused to inflict it, saying it was not his duty. "Not your duty, Sirrah!" said the adjutant, "what do you mean?" "I know very well," replied Tattoo, "that it is not my duty; I was present at the court martial, and heard the colonel say he was to receive corporal punishment. I am no ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... race, the native New Zealanders, a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian family. The New Zealanders surpassed all other people in the art of tattooing, to which their chiefs gave especial attention. Mete Kingi, as our picture shows, was no exception. Tattooing on the face they termed moko. The men tattoo their faces, hips, and thighs; the women their upper lips; for this purpose charcoal made from kauri gum is chiefly used. It has the blue color when pricked into the skin, growing lighter in shade in the course of years. The subject of our ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... allow, a shower of blows descended on his back, which brought him on his knees, when, ordering him to pick himself up and follow, on pain of a further dose of the colt, Sam Coulson passed on. The sharp tattoo of a drum beaten rapidly sounded at the same time through the ship; but what it signified Paul in his ignorance could not tell, nor was there any one near him to ask. Bewildered and unable to see in the darkness, he tried in vain to gain the hatchway. He groped his way aft as fast as ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... fair, her charms had seen their prime, and the system of circles and circlets which composed her personnel had assumed a tremulous and gravitating tendency. She was habited in the height of Fan fashion. Her body was modestly invested in a thin pattern of tattoo, and a gauze-work of oil and camwood; the rest of the toilette was a dwarf pigeon-tail of fan- palm, like that of the men, and a manner of apron, white beads, and tree bark, greasy and reddened: the latter was tucked under and ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... came out of the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man we ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... said. "The Adelantado drops down the river at eleven. But in passing I'll venture a little prophecy. You're down on your luck now, and a bit hot-hearted in consequence; but some day you will strike it right and come out on top. When you do, you'll be a hard master; tattoo that on your arm somewhere so you'll be reminded ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... drummers to rub a handful of snow over the skins to prevent them from cracking under the heavy blows. The drum is held aloft and struck with a thin stick (mumwa).[8] It gives a deep boom in answer. The shaman uses a smaller baton with which he beats a continuous tattoo as an accompaniment to his songs. The northerners strike the back of the rim with their sticks, while the Yukon people belabor the face ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... at his or her ease when the rapid tattoo of hoofs was heard, and a horse and rider drew up abruptly at the corral. One of the punchers from the rear dining-room went out to meet him and presently appeared sheepishly in the doorway where Bissell could ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... it?" said Amelia, beating a tattoo of impatience, with one hand, on the door. "You've been up attic, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... the darkness, against a great rear-wood screen of lofty trees. Up the driveway of one of these he turned, his horse's hoof-beats dropping clear and sharp on the hard macadam. He reined up at the house and rapped a loud tattoo with the stock of his whip on ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... well. As you say. But one hundred thousand dollars in gold—bless my soul! I was told nothing about that; the letters barely mention it." Mr. Johnston beat a mad tattoo on ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... prisms in the chandelier over our heads clinked together, as if they had been swept by a finger. More of the flowers came. We were pelted with them. And into the quiet that followed there came a light, fine but steady tattoo on the table in our midst. Then at last silence, and the medium in deep trance, and Mrs. Dane rapping on the floor ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... back in her chair and showed them a scornful shoulder, compressing indignant lips to a straight, unlovely line, and beating out the devil's tattoo with her slipper. ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... like a bull and plunging wildly under my brother's fingers, his clubfoot beating a thunderous tattoo on the parquet floor. In his fall Clubfoot's left arm had been bent under him and was now pinioned to the ground by his great weight. With his free right arm he strove fiercely to force off my brother's fingers as Francis ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... Before the lines were properly out, in they had to come again. Flop-flop went the fish on the bottom-boards as we jerked them carelessly off the hooks. Every moment or two one of them would dance up and flip its tail wildly; beat on the bottom-boards a tattoo which spattered us with scales; then sink back among the glistening mass that was fast losing its beauty of colour, its opalescent pinks and steely blues, even as it ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the mob in two—crick, crack, crick, crick, crick, crick, crack, crack. In three seconds ten heads were broken, with a sound just like glass bottles, under the short, deadly truncheon, and there lay half a dozen ruffians writhing on the ground and beating the Devil's tattoo ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... 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 sharply ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... her fears. As they passed the only store which the Valley boasted, Kitty came rushing out, a bright new tin saucepan dangling at her side like a drum. It was tied by a piece of twine, and she was beating a tattoo upon it with a long-handled iron spoon. Keith followed, his overcoat ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... war. For me the beginning of the war was a torchlight tattoo on Salisbury Plain. It was held on one of those breathless evenings in July when the peace of Europe was trembling in the balance, and when most of us had a heartache in case—in case England, at this time of internal crisis, did not rise ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... untutored in the art of calming the agitation of her mind by active employment, she could do nothing but wander in and out of her aunt's apartment; stand at the window watching for the postman, beating the devil's tattoo upon the panes; counting the hours, fretting over their insupportable length, and breaking out, at ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... gossip for you, thick as mortar," cried the charcoalman, and the mealman's fingers beat a tattoo ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... two accompanying letters in Hungarian may be answered by the General Secretary of the Royal Hungarian National Academy of Music, Abranyi Kornel, in my name. Before I left Budapest we read together the polyphone tattoo by J. K., and I then requested you to make the composer understand that Meyerbeer's far-famed "Rataplan, Rataplan, plan, plan" (in the "Huguenots") is quite enough henceforth for ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... admiration for the gods, that Power in whose chapels the old major was a faithful worshiper must have looked upward approvingly upon the constancy of Pendennis's martyrdom. There are sufferers in that cause as in the other; the negroes in the service of Mumbo Jumbo tattoo and drill themselves with burning skewers with great fortitude; and we read that the priests in the service of Baal gashed themselves and bled freely. You who can smash the idols, do so with a good courage; but do not be too fierce with the idolaters—they ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sparing of its use. "He would walk out behind the convict-hoers in a morning gown and morocco slippers, with a Penang Lawyer hugged close under his right arm, or borne like a royal sceptre before him, plucking at every tuft as he paced about, and drumming such a tattoo upon the shoulders of the unlucky wight, whose ground was not completely chopped, and grass fairly uprooted, as made the whole brush dance with fire-flies ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... Gulansigung Mountains and the valley of the eastern source of the Irawadi. This agrees with Martini's indication of the seat of the Kin-Chi as north of Yung-ch'ang. One of Hannay's notices of Singpho customs should also be compared with the interpolation from Ramusio about tattooing: "The men tattoo their limbs slightly, and all married females are tattooed on both legs from the ankle to the knee, in broad horizontal circular bands. Both sexes also wear rings below the knee of fine shreds of rattan varnished black" (p. 18). ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... The poplars in front of the house flung slim black shadows across the low adobe buildings and splashed the tip of their shade in the dust-cloud that filled with haze the corral a hundred yards away. Sing Pete stepped from the door and beat a tattoo on the iron triangle suspended by a piece of wire from the lowest branch of a mesquit tree at the corner of the house, announcing by the metallic clamor that the work of the day was finished and supper was ready and waiting. Parker swung back the heavy gate at the corral ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... poor creatures, who suffered not a little from their finery! The eyebrows and eyelids are dyed black while the children are very young, and they frequently paint themselves with dark-blue streaks of a finger's breadth over the eyebrows, and with spots on the forehead. The adult women tattoo their breasts, foreheads, noses, or temples with red, white, or yellow colours, according as they are particularly attached to one or the other deity. Many wear amulets or miniatures hung round their necks, so that I at first thought they were Catholics, and felt ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... had turned towards Florent and looked at him; then she looked at Gavard, who was beating a tattoo with his finger-tips on the marble table. She smiled at them, as though inviting them to ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... first heard that he wished to see her, she thought her heart could beat no faster, but his words made that small organ tattoo against her sides like the flutter of a bird's wing in fright. She could do something for him! Oh, what joy! What ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... were beating a light tattoo on the arm of his chair. "Well, those are my orders. That will do. You needn't come again ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... 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, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... a waiter stood by a tuneless piano, upon which a bloated "professor" was beating a tattoo of cheap syncopation accompaniment of the advantages of "Bobbin' Up An' Down," which was warbled with that peculiarly raucous, nasal tenor so popular in Tenderloin resorts. The musical waiter's jaw fell in the middle of a bob, as he espied the ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... smashed it up, and there she was dancing the Romalis, and making the bits of broken crockery rattle as well as if they had been ebony and ivory castanets. That girl was good company, I can tell you! Evening fell, and I heard the drums beating tattoo. ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... from under the arm that rested across her forehead, realized how her last night's breach of authority had impressed each one of them. And secretly rejoicing at her triumph, she kept up a brisk tattoo. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... My heart beat a tattoo against my ribs as I followed the Prince and Raasay to the drawing-room where his sister and Miss Macdonald awaited us. Eight months had passed since last I had seen my love; eight months of battle, of hairbreadth escapes, and of hardships scarce to be conceived. She too had endured ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... seas, splashed to my kilted knees, Ocean or ditch, it was ever the same; In leaguer or sally, tattoo or revally, The message on every pibroch that came, Was "Cruachan, Cruachan, O son remember us, Think o' your fathers and never be slack!" Blade and buckler together, though far off the heather, The Hielan's, the Hielan's were all ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... it. Like a famished wolf he seized his enemy by the throat, throttling him, and, dropping his cane, with his clenched fist he dealt him several fearful blows on forehead and mouth, winding up with a tattoo that sounded like the beating of a drum on the man's skull. A violent push made Roth stumble ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... knocked sharply. There was no response, and he repeated the summons, but again without effect. Thereupon, with a muttered exclamation, he grasped the knocker a third time and executed a veritable tattoo upon the door. When this had proceeded for about half ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... as he never had undergone the operation which he had described. Fortunately for the support of his veracity, it happened that during one of his piratical excursions, in an idle fit, he had permitted one of his companions to tattoo a small mermaid ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... some of your friends," he began tentatively, "in the streets, you know." He paused and looked down at his own hands; he turned one palm up, showing the faint tattoo on the wrist. "I'm only a rough seafaring man," he went on. "They might think it strange—might wonder whom you had ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... already running on third speed, and the motor was taking about all the gasolene it could use. She adjusted the spark to give the best service, and now, as an additional means of inducing speed, she cut out the muffler. The explosions of the motor played a tattoo on ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... imitation of one man by another in the evolution of civilisation. Imitation is one of the chief spurs to action. Imitation begets custom, custom begets sanctity. At first all custom is sacred. To the savage it is as much a religious duty to tattoo himself as to sacrifice to his gods. But certain customs naturally survive, because they are really useful; they actually have good effects, and so need no social sanction. Others are really useless; but man ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... little amusement?—Madam!' He took off his hat and waved it to her. 'Madam! might I observe that if you won't condescend to notice that we're here your front door will run the risk of being severely injured!—She don't care for me any more than if I was nothing at all,—sound another tattoo upon that knocker. Perhaps she's so deaf that nothing short of a cataclysmal uproar will reach her ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... the night were coming apace, The tattoo had beat; the tattoo had beat. The noble one sprang from his dark lurking-place, To make his retreat; ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... me that if I was stationed at Greenlaw Barracks I had walked in a very curious direction, for I was thirteen miles, by the ordinary road, out of my course. I was exceedingly ill at ease to hear this pronouncement, and told him that it would be "hot" for me if I was not in before the "tattoo," or the "last post." The keeper, I found, was a true Scotchman, and of a very obliging nature. He proffered to take me through the wood to a place called Milton Bridge. We started, and were soon at the village mentioned, where, at the "Fishers' Tryst," ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... aeronauts took cover and became energetic infantry soldiers. Others hovered above the fight, their men ever and again firing shots down at some chance exposure below. The firing came in paroxysms; now there would be a watchful lull and now a rapid tattoo of shots, rising to a roar. Once or twice flying machines, as they circled warily, came right overhead, and for a time Bert gave himself body ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the closing door of a room overhead had shut them from his ears, he stood there, with puckered brows and pursed-up lips, drumming with his finger-tips a faint tattoo upon the framework of the shattered lid; then he walked over to the skeleton case, and silently regarded the gruesome ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... as the heavy wagon trains toil to the place of rest. All through the evening prevails that peculiar, cheerful din of a camp, as peculiar and characteristic as the roar of a great city; gradually the noises decline, the bugles and drums sound the tattoo, the fires grow dim, and the vast mass of hardy, resolute humanity is asleep—all except the two or three score of sick and dying men, wasted by fever, who have been jolted all day over the rough roads in the ambulances, and now groan and writhe in delirium ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... glance at the Secretary. He was beating a tattoo on the pad before him and looking calmly at her—as impersonal as though she were a door-jamb; and she understood; however much he might be inclined to aid her, this was not the time for him even to appear interested. On another ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... the orders of their superior officers. All must obey the general in command. You march, drill, eat, sleep, go to bed, and get up by order. At sunrise you hear the reveille, and at nine o'clock in the evening the tattoo. Then the candle, which has been burning in your tent with a bayonet for a candlestick, must be put out. In the dead of night, while sleeping soundly and dreaming of home, you hear the drum-beat. It is the long roll. There is a rattle of musketry. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... ring rode the 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 and similar ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... 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 people ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... drafted agreements at all hours of the day and night, improvising as his office the back room of a liquor saloon or the cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of any other writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief though binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... boy ixpects a pony at Chris'mas, an' ivry little girl a chain an' locket; an' ivry man thinks he's sure goin' to get th' goold-headed cane he's longed f'r since he come over. But they all fin'lly land on rockin'-horses an' dolls, an' suspindhers that r-run pink flowers into their shirts an' tattoo thim in summer. An' they conceal their grief Chris'mas mornin' an' thry to look pleasant with ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... beats a tattoo on the window, and I half open it. A silhouette with a streaming hat appears, as though carried and driven there by the terrible force of the blast that came with it, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... bright crimson, green-bronze, maroon, or pure green; and when a camp-fire was lighted in a grove of such trees the evening effect was a thing to remember for a lifetime. The regimental camps were all alive with diversions of different sorts from the time of the halt at the end of a march till tattoo sounded. Each had its trained pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At a signal one of the dogs would seize a ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Phil's heart beat to the rhythm of it! The men commenced to swarm from the corridors. He took a step forward. Jim pushed him encouragingly from behind with a "Quick, man, before somebody else asks her up!" and he was in the stream and away with the current. He started across, his heart drumming a tattoo on his ribs. Half-way over the floor—and he would have turned back but for the thought of Jim. He kept on, still somewhat indeterminately. When he got near to Miss Pederstone, she looked up almost ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... had been beating a loud tattoo with the fork which she still held in her hand, sprang to her feet and struck the table with a force which ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... 'Tattoo lao! Get my pony! Here, come in out of the rain till I'm ready. What blasted nuisances you are! That's brandy. Drink some; you want it. Hang on to my stirrup and tell me ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... in my ears still whin I felt in the bones of me that Dinah was comin', an' I heard a shout, an' thin I saw a horse an' a tattoo latherin' down the road, hell to shplit, under women. I knew - I knew! Wan was the Tyrone Colonel's wife - ould Beeker's lady - her gray hair flyin' an' her fat round carkiss rowlin' in the saddle, an' the other was Dinah, that shud ha' been ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... increase in artillery last year may be judged from the fact that in the last six months of 1917 one million tons of shells were used by the British on the western front. By day the drum-fire of the guns beat on one's ears like a devil's tattoo until one felt that in another week reason would be unseated. But at night was added the horror of flame that drove away the darkness with a ruddy glare. It seemed as if thousands of Bessemer furnaces ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... a tribe of North American Indians, now some 3000 in number, living around the mouth of the Skeena river, British Columbia, and on the islands near the coast. They are a powerfully built people, who tattoo and wear labrets and rings in noses and ears. They are skilful fishermen, and live in large communal houses. They are divided into clans and distinct ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... to me were numberless; began with the echo of the morning gun (or before) and ended not till the three taps of the drum at night. The cadets had gone into camp by this time; and the taps of the drum were quite near, as well as the shrill sweet notes of the fife at reveille and tattoo. The camp itself was a great pleasure to me; and at guardmounting or parade I never failed to be in my place. Only to sit in the rear of the guard tents and watch the morning sunlight on the turf, and on ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... musing mood, playing the Devil's tattoo on the library table; at last he raised his eyes, and said in a low whisper, "Are you so certain that I ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... utterly impossible for them to exchange a single word just then, owing to the riot of sound that came from beyond. The thunder bellowed, the wind roared, trees could be heard at intervals crashing to the ground, and the rain beat a terrible tattoo on the rock that ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... don't know how it happened," he said, "but I overslept myself. I've only just waked up, and he'd play the devil's tattoo on me if he knew the letter hadn't gone. I know a famous secret, Antoine; but don't say anything about it to the clerks if I tell you; promise? He would send me off if he knew I had said a single word; ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... 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
... had lifted the big glass jar into the lantern light and was trying to get a glimpse of the exquisite moth, whose wings of olive green, rose, and bronze velvet were already beating a hazy death tattoo ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... command very high prices, one hundred and fifty pesos or more. Many men were elaborately tattooed, the pattern starting well down the chest on each side and running up around the front of the shoulder and part way down the arm. If, as is said, this elaborate tattoo indicates that its owner has killed a human being, then Bontok during our stay was full of men that had proved their valor in this particular way. Earrings were very common in both sexes; frequently the lobe was distended ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... family, whose headquarters are at Cortachy Castle, is haunted by the phantasm of a drummer that beats a tattoo before the death of one of the members of the clan. There is no question as to the genuineness of this haunting, its actuality is beyond dispute. All sorts of theories as to the origin of this ghostly drummer have been advanced by a prying, inquisitive public, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... out her hand and took his. He was terrifically conscious of the warm smoothness of her fingers playing a soft tattoo on the back of his hand, while ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... beat a lively tattoo on the rug. "I don't know what you mean by a 'note,'" she commented, with majestic indignation. "I have not lived in South Denboro, and perhaps my understanding of English is defective. But marriages among cultivated people, society people, intelligent, ambitious people ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... brilliant state of the door-brass afforded evidence of the fact that Ah Tsong had arisen, even if the other members of the household were still sleeping, and Harley, growing irritable, executed a loud tattoo upon the knocker. This had its effect. The door opened ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... south-west, Commissioner Polo came to the Cinnamon river, called Brius, on the borders of the province of Caindu, to the porcelain-making districts of Carazan, governed by Kublai's son, and so to Bengal, "which borders upon India," and where Marco laughs at the tattoo customs of "flesh embroidery for the dyeing ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... delighted Mrs. Tony and dashed up the stairs to her own little room which looked out over the whole of Ramble Valley. It was warm with the March sunshine and the leafless boughs of the creeper that covered the end of the house were tapping a gay tattoo on the window panes to the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the Great Mogul. At length recovering from the shock of 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, and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... had read the paragraph he glanced quickly at Archie, whose fork was beating a queer tattoo on ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... Patmos. At a low whistle, he observed the veteran peeping out to reconnoitre, like an old badger with his head out of his hole. 'Ye hae come rather early, my good lad,' said he, descending; 'I question if the red-coats hae beat the tattoo yet, and we're not ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... voice at my elbow. It was old Blake. His mahogany face shone with the effects of the first soap and water he had been able to use for weeks, for we had been very short of water; and even his arms showed the tattoo-marks that were usually hidden by the grime inseparable to life ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... was—quite close to her, only a few tables away—and beside him sat a heavy built, clean-shaven man of middle age. That would be Cloran, of course—the man who was to have been lured to his death. And Danglar was nervous and uneasy, she could see. His fingers were drumming a tattoo on the table; his eyes were roving furtively about the room; and he did not seem to be paying any but the most distrait attention to his companion, who was talking ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... inwardly in ecstasies. So much so, that she could not wait to beat the tattoo and effect any alterations. But having succeeded, while conversing with her cousins, in devising a stanza in her mind, she promptly inscribed it on the first piece of paper that came to hand. "I have," she remarked, with a precursory smile, "stuck to the metre and written two ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... he hid themselves under the body of the car, and a sound of hammering and stentorian breathing followed. Of them all that was visible was four feet beating a tattoo on the road. Miss Forbes got out Winthrop's camera, and took a ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... nothin' betwixt old Red and me, nothin' at all—'cept this iron wall," and he would drum a vicious tattoo on the thin wall with the heel of his boot. Or when he heard the creak of the Red Fox's hammock as he droned his Bible aloud, he would say ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... knew I should see you again," said the girl as though she had not heard Armitage's banality. "I know now why I spoke to you on the General and why I wrote you that note in church." Her slipper beat an impatient tattoo on the door. "But why," she began, "why are you willing to enter service as a physical instructor, or motor ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... the shape of an oval crown, or the head part of the helmet. Some negresses use false tails as well as false locks, as our belles do, the long flowing curls being preferred by the sooty Nigritian beauties, in spite of such an ornament being unnatural to them. These ladies, however, neither paint nor tattoo their faces, and in general, painting with red and white is not used by the Libyan and Oriental beauties. In Algeria, however, some of the Mooresses have learnt to paint from their new mistresses, as an acquirement of French civilization in Africa. Dr. Shaw is quite right in his ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... 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, and a part ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for the lady, and felt for my hat too, Improvised on the crown of the latter a tattoo, In lieu of expressing the feelings which lay Quite too deep for words, as Wordsworth would say: Then, without going through the form of a bow, Found myself in the entry,—I hardly knew how,— On doorstep ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... father's bleeding heart, of the crushing of proud hopes, of the impiety of youth, and the lonesomeness of old age. And then, rather disconnectedly, beating a tattoo with the fingers of his big hand on the top of the table, he spoke of the constraint in which he found himself with reference to the opulent owner of the mill. He told Daniel he had gone on a man's note, had been suddenly obliged to redeem ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... Yo' doan' want no tea, eh?" The nigger cook, beating tattoo on a saucepan lid, called us back to affairs of the moment, and we sat down to our scanty meal in high spirits, talking—all at one time—of our chances of ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... go to him yourself, and tell him you know the whole story, and do whatever your tact and goodness suggest to set the matter right." She bent forward with her arms folded on her lap, looking up at him eagerly as she spoke, and beating a "devil's tattoo," with her slender feet, on the ground ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... bed near me began to catch my attention: the toe beneath the sheets became more and more agitated, then the toes of the other foot joined the first foot, beating a frenzied tattoo beneath the coverings. ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... indications of painful emotions are equally numerous, and still more vehement. Discontent is shown by raised eyebrows and wrinkled forehead; disgust by a curl of the lip; offence by a pout. The impatient man beats a tattoo with his fingers on the table, swings his pendent leg with increasing rapidity, gives needless pokings to the fire, and presently paces with hasty strides about the room. In great grief there is wringing of the hands, and even tearing of the ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... drive wheels, and the engine plunged forward. Jawn fingered the lever with a lover's caress. He knew old "eleven," every foot of her, every tube, bolt, and strap. As they cleared the yards, he threw her wider and wider open until she was lunging and lurching madly. The cinders beat a tattoo upon the cab, and Jim Weeks crowded up into the corner. The fireman, a strapping young fellow, threw in great shovels of coal with the regularity of a machine, pausing only to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand as ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... seeing Paris, for the first time in one's life, before night. In my catalogue it stands numbered as sensation the 5th; Westminster, the night arrival in France, and the Cathedral of Rouen, giving birth to numbers 1, 2, and 4. Though accustomed to the tattoo, and the evening bugle of a man-of-war, the drums of Havre had the honour of number 3. Alas! how soon we cease to feel those agreeable excitements at all, even a drum coming in time to pall on ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dancing pole. Kohokumu caught the line that was fast to the butt of the pole and under-handed it in until a two-foot ukikiki, battling fiercely to the end, flashed its wet silver in the sun and began beating a tattoo on the inside bottom of the canoe. Kohokumu picked up a squirming, slimy squid, with his teeth bit a chunk of live bait out of it, attached the bait to the hook, and dropped line and sinker overside. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... and well cut. The buttons on his scarlet waistcoat were new George guineas; and the buttons on his coat were of silver, very beautifully chased. His shoes had big silver buckles on them, and there was a silver buckle to the flap of his grey slouch hat. The tattoo marks on his left hand were covered over by broad silver rings, of the sort the Spanish onion-boys used to sell in Dartmouth, after the end of the war. He looked extremely handsome in his fine clothes. I wondered how I could ever have been afraid ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... 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 had ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... manger." A chicken, with legs as blue as a Highlander's in winter, for my dinner; and the hours that all Christian mankind were devoting to pleasant intercourse, and agreeable chit-chat, spent in beating that dead-march to time, "the Devil's Tattoo," upon my ricketty table, and forming, between whiles, sundry valorous resolutions to reform my life, and "eschew sack ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... 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, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... was bounding; his dreams of military splendor were coming true. Marian had clasped her hands and rather worshipfully stared at him. Mr. Strong stood with legs apart, looking him over with unfeigned admiration; while the Colonel, also gazing, unconsciously drummed a marching tattoo with ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... over him encircling the elevation on which he stood, and he could hear the wild beating of the wings as though they were rolling a tattoo on muffled drums. Then suddenly the circle broke, and rose like a puff of smoke against ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... third fashion is to weave the hair on pieces of hide in the form of buffalo horns, projecting on either side of the head. The young men twine their hair in the form of a single horn, projecting over their forehead in front. They frequently tattoo their bodies, producing figures in the form of stars. Although their heads are thus elaborately adorned, their bodies ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the pass, eyes and ears open. The white horse took the climb as if it had been level ground, his hoofs ringing a brisk tattoo against the stones. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... every private's tent. The first call in the 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 ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... maintenance, decoration, and furnishing; of the assignment of rooms, the supply of food, the heating, lights, silver, and livery. He commanded the detachments of the Imperial Guard on duty in the Imperial palaces. He gave orders to beat the reveill and the tattoo, to open and shut the palace gates. When the Emperor was with the army, or travelling, he had to find him quarters. In 1805 the Grand Marshal's budget amounted to 2,338,167 francs. In 1806 it reached ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... flying up the hill road, beating a tattoo of new life upon the soft, breathing air ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... does every one who knows her. You do, don't you, Mike?" added Donald, and the dog beat a tattoo on the rug ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the welcome sound of gun-fire and tattoo announced that the day's work was over he felt fully prepared for the morrow's recitations. But he was in no mood for play. The quiet that had reigned through the building for the last two hours was suddenly broken ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... the soldier's drill, And the tattoo's nightly sound; We shall hear no more, with a joyous thrill, Peace, peace, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... 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 marks stained the pillow where ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... evening on which we first introduced them to our readers. Then taking her seat by the brightly burning lamp, she drew the letter from her pocket and read it aloud, while Alice drummed an occasional note upon the piano and Eugenia beat a tattoo upon the carpet with her delicate ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... histrionic honours was at the outset very nearly nipped in the bud. He, of course, had to disclose the fact that in his earlier life he had committed a pardonable youthful indiscretion and had had both his forearms fancifully adorned in indelible blue tattoo with a representation of snakes, mermaids, and sundry. A solemn council of the senior members of the company was forthwith held, presided over by the Mem Sahib, "Old Party," and "Syl" Dignam. After a good deal ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... and Timothy Toad chuckled, Gerty Gartersnake giggled, Wallie Woodpecker beat a tattoo on wood, Billie Bumblebee buzzed and Winnie Woodchuck ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... contribute personally to the further upbuilding of anybody's reputation. His eyes with this resolve shining in them rested intently on de Spain, and at his side the long fingers of his right hand beat a soft tattoo against his pistol holster. De Spain's question seemed to arouse him. "What's your name?" he demanded bluntly. His voice was heavy and his deafness was reflected in ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... graceful; and he was, if anything, a bit too well groomed. He had light hair, and moustache. He had cold eyes that smiled; cold lips that smiled. He stood in the doorway, trying to accustom his eyes to the gloom within, the while playing a deft tattoo upon his booted calf with light crop that he carried in his ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne |
