"Tapping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tapping her fan on the back of her left hand; one distinct tap for every thousand pounds she possesses. If the number of taps be satisfactory to the gentleman, he must, by a deep inspiration, inflate his lungs so as to cause ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... where you are and don't look over the edge, or you will faint again. Here, take my hand. Now, you brute," and he made energetic motions to the surviving priest, indicating that he must lead them back along the path by which they had come, at the same time tapping his rifle significantly. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... in this prison that she first learned the secret code that prisoners in Russia used to communicate with one another. One day, as she lay on the bundle of rags that formed her couch, she heard a faint tapping on an iron pipe that ran through her cell. She responded, and on the pipe tapped out the alphabet, one tap standing for "a", two for "b" and so on. From this laborous method she learned another code which was the ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... the cabin, one opening into the bows of the launch, the other into the stern. He got up, looking very grave and rather confused, and opened the former. The wind rushed in, carrying with it spray from the sea. At the same moment there was a loud tapping on the glass behind them. Vere looked round. Gaspare was crouching down with his face against the pane. She put her ear to the glass by ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... evident she was kept standing off and on outside the harbour, as an armed man may pace to and fro before a gate. With the hum of six hundred wakeful lives in her flanks, the tap-tapping of a drum, and the shrill modulations of the boatswain's calls piping some order along her decks, she floated majestically across our path. But the only living being we saw was the red-coated marine on sentry by the lifebuoys, looking down at us over the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... there was silence, till suddenly a sound was heard in the dark sanctuary where stood the statue of the god, a sound as of a stick tapping upon the granite floor. Then the curtains of that sanctuary were drawn, and standing between them there appeared the figure of an ancient, bearded man, with stony eyes, who was clad in a beggar's robe. It was he who had met Tua and Asti in the wilderness and eaten up their food. It was ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... so intensely that I thought he had got the line round a rock. It might be broken, might be holding fast to a sunken stone, for aught that I could tell; and the time was passing, I knew not how rapidly. I tried all known methods, tugging at him, tapping the butt, and slackening line on him. At last the top of the rod was slightly agitated, and then, back flew the long line in my face. Gone! I reeled up with a sigh, but the line tightened again. He had made a sudden rush under my bank, but there he lay again like ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... de babies on de plantashun." "Tell your mammy that I will see her in the morning." "Yas, sir," he said, and left the room. The Colonel soon retired, as he felt somewhat jaded. He awoke at an early hour, and having some moments leisure got up and dressed himself. About this time he heard a tapping at his door, and at the same time the voice of the boy exclaiming: "Ise got a pitcher of fresh water for you." "Bring it in," said the Colonel. The boy entered, showing two rows of white ivory. "Boss, will you hab a fire made?" "No," said the Colonel, "I will ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... or more after my head touched the pillow, I lay awake listening to the unaccustomed sound of the surf and those skeleton fingers tapping at the pane. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... the next morning in the corolla of a blue canterbury bell, she heard a fine, faint rustling in the air and felt her blossom-bed quiver as from a tiny, furtive tap-tapping. Through the open corolla came a damp whiff of grass and earth, and the air was quite chill. In some apprehension, she took a little pollen from the yellow stamens, scrupulously performed her toilet, then, warily, picking her steps, ventured to the outer edge of the drooping blossom. It was raining! ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... he spoke hopefully, he turned his head again and again towards the glare of light above Omdurman. He could no longer hear the tapping of the drums, that was some consolation. But he was in a country of silence, where men could journey swiftly and yet make no noise. There would be no sound of galloping horses to warn him that pursuit was at his heels. Even at that moment the Ansar soldiers might be riding within ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... and, with a grand flourish after the "seventeen remainder," Tip threw down the chalk, pushed back the hair from his hot temples, and walked to his seat. The boys could not keep quiet any longer: a very soft tapping was heard at first, then, finding they were not silenced, it rose to a loud, decided stamping of many feet. But Mr. Holbrook was on his feet again, and they were quiet directly, for the report was finally to ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... her small inner room, her curly head tucked down comfortably under the rugs, she dreamed she heard a knocking on her door. The sound seemed faint at first, but grew louder, and after a minute she woke up, lifted her head, and listened. Yes, there was a tapping on her door, she heard it quite distinctly. She got up immediately, slipped into her fur coat and boots, and taking one of her pistols in her hand, went to the door. That there was danger in answering such a summons at such an hour she knew quite well, but that did not ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... few weeks ago—and I immediately took him into my confidence and asked his help. With the result," added the Princess, "that he cabled to Mr. Fullaway there and that all this has come about! I tell you in the most emphatic manner at my command," she went on, turning to the official, and tapping the edge of his desk as if to accentuate her words, "it's impossible that anybody over there in Russia could have known of my arrangements with Mr. James Allerdyke—utterly impossible. For I never spoke of them to any one there, and I'm ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... change. The ice grew thinner, the air warmer, the trees taller. Birds, such as he had never seen before, sang in the bushes, and fowl of many kinds were pluming themselves in the warm sun on the shores of the lake. The gay woodpecker was tapping the hollow beech, the swallow and the martin were skimming along the level of the green vales. He heard no more the cracking of branches beneath the weight of icicles and snow, he saw no more the spirits of departed men dancing wild ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... of it, the Baron was about to announce that he was better, but at the outset he paused, corrected himself, and, tapping the breakfast-table with his fork, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... cluster of bells sounded and everybody fell into line along the outer edge of the beautiful building. It was a grand march and the tapping of the feet seemed like an encore to the music. Then the first couple stepped out on the floor. Everybody dances in fairy land that is presided over by godmothers. Oh, it ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... parallel to one of these drives. And he had been walking only a little while when a limousine veered in, slowing down abreast of him, and he saw a white-gloved hand tapping the pane. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... up from the assembled multitude. But the day was bitterly cold, and the exposure cost him his life. Some months later, as he lay on his sick bed, he observed to the doctor, 'The best is yet to come.' In tapping his chest one day, the physician said,' This is the way we doctors telegraph, professor,' and Morse replied with a smile, 'Very good—very good.' These were his last words. He died at New York on April 2, 1872, at ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... thought can a young man give to his clothes when about to wrap himself in glory? He is politely tapping at the shed window of the Indian woman, and touching his cap in farewell and gallant capitulation, and with long-limbed sweeping haste, unusual in a quarter-breed, he is gone to the docks, with a bundle under one arm, waving his hand as he passes. All ...
— The Mothers Of Honore - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... up her scissors to cut an end of ribbon, when a low, stealthy tapping sounded on the outer wooden shutter ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... time the gods on the rostrum were tapping messages to the four corners of the world. Even Chicago and Mark Lane altered their prices as the finger of one of these ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... sat down, and leaning back in his chair stared up at pale-faced Barnabas, tapping the table-edge softly with the barrel ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... All our trunks and bags were emptied, one end of the carpet rolled back, the mattresses torn from the beds. The secret-service men were down on their knees before piles of clothes, going over the seams, emptying the pockets, unfolding handkerchiefs, tapping the heels of shoes; every scrap of paper was passed over to the chief, who tucked it into his portfolio. I watched him, hating his square, stolid body that filled out his uniform smoothly. His eyes were long and watchful like a cat's, and his fair mustache ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... of some neighbouring pine or hemlock, bade the intruders on his quiet haunts defiance; yet so bold in his indignation, he scarcely condescended to ascend beyond their reach. The long-continued, hollow tapping of the large red-headed woodpecker, or the singular subterranean sound caused by the drumming of the partridge striking his wings upon his breast to woo his gentle mate, and the soft whispering note of the little tree-creeper, as it flitted from one hemlock to another, collecting its food between ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... that strength Which, out of darkness, length by length, Spun all thy shining threads of vine, Netting the fields in bond as thine; I see thy tendrils drink by sips From grass and clover's smiling lips; I hear thy roots dig down for wells, Tapping the meadow's hidden cells; Whole generations of green things, Descended from long lines of springs, I see make room for thee to bide, A quite comrade by their side; I see the creeping peoples go Mysterious journeys to and fro; Treading to right and left of thee, ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... festivities, and who would have been quick to suspect that something was on foot, if they saw him prowling around, he crept up to the window and waited until one of the faithful came near. Gently tapping on the glass, he got the attention of the editor, the very man he wanted, and, in pantomime, gave him to understand that his presence was requested. The editor, pleading a terrific headache, said good-night, or rather good-morning, to his hostess, and withdrew. From ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... midnight, Robert was awakened from a sound sleep by some one tapping on his window lattice. He rose, at first hardly able to believe his senses; but the moon was shining quite brightly, and he distinctly saw the outline of a man standing outside his window, and there came a tapping ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... my wearied limbs in the boat, resolving the next morning to harbour what I had gotten in my new-found subterraneous grotto; & not to carry my cargo home to my ancient castle. Having refreshed myself, and got all my effects on shore I next proceeded to examine the particulars; and so tapping the cask, I found the liquor to be a kind of rum, but not like what we had at the Brazils, non indeed near so good. At the opening of the chest, several things appeared very useful to me; for instance, I found in one a very fine case of bottles, containing the ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... inside, knows the chosen word, and when the assistant is called in, he makes many signs with the stick, tapping in the ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... shouldn't have a wife as well as another," says the professor, idly tapping his forefinger on the table near him. "She would bore me. But a ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... know," said Honor, tapping her foot nervously on the shining fender, "but we both agreed that if such a thing happened in real life as was represented on the stage to-day, the man who thus slighted and neglected any woman he had promised to cherish and love, should be punished just as far as justice and ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... was dark, but about midnight the moon would rise. Later on the air became clearer, but the storm swept over the perturbed sea with undiminished fury; the fisher folks had long since gone to bed, but in such weather there was no chance of closing an eye. Presently there was a tapping at the window; the door was opened, and a ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... is this noise in the sanctuary? It seems to be full of people. There, sure enough, beyond a second row of columns, is quite a little crowd talking loudly in English. I fancy that I can hear the clinking of glasses and the tapping of knives and forks. ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... front of the scrotum. If ascites should form in an adult in whom the tunica vaginalis still communicates with the peritonaeal sac, the fluid which accumulates in the latter membrane will also distend the former, and all the collected fluid may be evacuated by tapping the scrotum. When a hydrocele is found to be congenital, it must be at once obvious that to inject irritating fluids into the tunica vaginalis (the radical cure) is inadmissible. In an adult, free from all structural disease, ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... think the tree will be less blackened in the wood, and will last longer, provided it be judiciously performed. Cut a small, smooth gash; one year tap the tree low, and another high, and on alternate sides; scatter the wounds, made from year to year, as much as possible. Another process of tapping is now most popular with all who have tried it. Bore into the tree half an inch, with a bit not larger than an inch, slanting slightly up, that standing sap or water may not blacken the wood. Make the spout out of hoop-iron one and a fourth inches wide; cut the iron, with a cold ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... office, he obtained an explanation of the matter. The youth of the night before was near the door and his companion was now wearing the head phone and tapping the keys of the apparatus, listening and ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... truth, the medical colleges are permitted to remain twenty-five or fifty years behind absolutely demonstrated facts as to medical truth and medical practice. In 1761 a German physician, Avenbruger, after discovering that different sounds revealed diseased tissue, used "chest tapping" in the diagnosis of lung trouble. In 1815 Leannec discovered that sound from the chest was more distinct through a paper horn. On that principle the modern stethoscope is built. He made an accurate diagnosis of tuberculosis, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... Even in a mere sketch, such as that of the blind beggar at the opening of the same romance, with the tap-tap of his stick to announce his coming, we get a remarkable example of effect secured by an economy of details; that tap-tapping gets on your nerves, you never forget it. It seems like the memory of a childhood terror on the novelist's part. Throughout his fiction this chemic union of fact and the higher fact that is of the imagination marks his work. The ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... I expected," he said, "and I think," he added, tapping his note-book, "I owe much ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... Chris. "What is my age? At the present moment I feel in the neighborhood of twenty-one, and Ambition is tapping me on the shoulder and whispering 'Young man, go West!' The years are slipping away from me, my dear Jill,—slipping so quickly that in a few minutes you will be wondering why my nurse does not come to fetch me. The wanderlust is upon me. I gaze around ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... have out his say had the King been present in person. "Be assured, your Excellency, it is not the King who orders that affront to his faithful colony; it is the King's ministers—the King's mistresses—the snuff-box-tapping courtiers at Versailles, who can spend the public money in more elegant ways than in raising up walls round our brave old city! Ancient honor and chivalry of France! what has ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... 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 I told the girls to put out the light quick, and when it was out I went to the window and saw Taylor standing in the shadow of a big tree. He signaled ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... breakfast-room, about 6:30 P.M., in January 1883, and supposed her father to be taking a walk with his dog. She heard noises, which may have had any other cause, but which she took to be the sounds of a key in the door lock, a stick tapping the tiles of the hall, and the patter of the dog's feet on the tiles. She then saw the dog pass the door. Miss C.E. next entered the hall, where she found nobody; but in the pantry she met her sisters—Miss E., Miss H.G.E.—and a working-woman. Miss E. and the working-woman had been in the hall, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... earth of my vermicularium with a pencil, the unmutilated worms will come to the surface; but, when the organs described above are removed, the worms so mutilated will not respond to the tapping, but will remain in their tunnel. The worms are not appreciably impaired by such mutilation; on the contrary, they seem to thrive as well as those to which the ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... emptiness, and sinking; and, when it arises to a certain degree, is attended with syncope, or a total quiescence of all motions, but the internal irritative ones, as happens from sudden loss of blood, or in the operation of tapping in the dropsy. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Pennsylvania, which is a free State. After I had seen my master into one of the best carriages, and was just about to step into mine, an officer, a full-blooded Yankee of the lower order, saw me. He came quickly up, and, tapping me on the shoulder, said in his unmistakable native twang, together with no little display of his authority, "Where are you going, boy?" "To Philadelphia, sir," I humbly replied. "Well, what are you going there for?" "I am travelling with my master, who is ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... those gathered before the door, and in the lighted distance of a white-walled room, painted with figures of soldiers and Arab chiefs, she saw a small wriggling figure between two rows of squatting men, two baby hands waving coloured handkerchiefs, two little feet tapping vigorously upon an earthen floor, for background a divan crowded with women and musicians, with inflated cheeks and squinting eyes. She stood for a moment to look, then she turned away. There was an expression ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... tranquility. People stare; the only expression. The moment any thing is declared, one shall not perceive the novelty of the reign. A nation without parties is soon a nation without curiosity. You may now judge how little your situation is likely to be affected. I finish; I think I feel ashamed of tapping the events of a new reign, of which probably I shall not see half. If I was not unwilling to balk your curiosity, I should break my pen, as the great officers do their white wands, over the grave of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... quite finished my supper, and was leaving, the waiter who had been attending on us arrested my attention by tapping me on the shoulder. I thought it unusual for a waiter at a private ball to expect a tip, but nevertheless gave a shilling, as he had been very attentive. He smilingly replied: "I beg your pardon, sir, this is no good," alluding ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... bargain shocked no feeling of these tenement bairns nor marred their pleasure in the adventure. Presently there was a tap-tap-tapping of crutches on the heavy gallery that fronted the Cunzie Neuk, and on the stairs that descended from it to the steep and curving row. The lassie draped a fragment of an old plaid deftly over her thinly clad shoulders, ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... watched, and in the small hours he raised a false alarm that my uncle was dying, and made an extraordinary fuss. He raised the house. I shall never forget that scene, I think, which began with a tapping at my bedroom door just after I had ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... smelt the air for hours long—it seemed to him that he could smell the odor of hemp, of the smoke of fire—the colorless and biting smell of burning. Now he whirled about in the room like a top, touching the walls, tapping them nervously with his fingers from time to time, taking aim, boring the ceiling with his gaze, filing the prison bars. By his restlessness, he had tired out the soldiers who watched him through the little window, and who, several times, in despair, ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... exceeding bitterness, her foot tapping the parquet unceasingly. "Do you think he would have stooped to avenge himself on YOU? On you! Or that he could hurt me one hundredth part as much here as—as—" She broke off stammering. Her scorn faltered for an instant. "Bah! he is a man! ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... gardens and the galleries of the Palais Royal. Surprised at the lateness of the hour, it was then on the stroke of seven, he was about to return homewards, when the loud voice of Gawtrey sounded behind, and that personage, tapping ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... tapping her box, "we are happy in our own good opinion this evening, Mr. Croftangry. And so you think you can restore the gloss to the tartan which it has lost by being dragged through so ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... "Macaire." Henry was always plotting to be funny. When Toole as Jacques Strop hid the dinner in his pocket, Henry, after much labor, thought of his hiding the plate inside his waistcoat. There was much laughter later on when Macaire, playfully tapping Strop with his stick, cracked the plate, and the pieces fell out! Toole hadn't to bother about such subtleties, and Henry's deep-laid plans for getting a laugh must have seemed funny to dear Toole, who had only to come on and say "Whoop!" ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... tapping at every grave-hill, there staid One skeleton, tripping behind; Though not by his comrades the trick had been played— Now its odour he snuffed in the wind: He rushed to the door—but fell back with a shock; For well for the wight of the bell and the clock, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... deep, And Nature's face betokened death-like sleep. Few sounds were heard to break the stillness round, Yet in those few our hero pleasure found. The loud report of Indian hunter's gun, Which sometimes made the cattle homeward run; The beauteous woodpecker's quick rap-tapping At girdled trees, that long since had no sap in; Besides, the chopper's almost constant stroke Rang through pure air, and louder echoes woke; While ever and anon a tree would fall With thundering crash, ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... visible cart track to the lakes. If Rawdon's whiskey mill, as Ben called it, was really somewhere among them, there must of necessity have been a road tapping their shores at some point, for an extensive business employing so many men could hardly exist without a means of easy transportation. To the neighbourhood of the Lakes Settlement, however, this ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... possibly some account of my own experiments might be interesting to the members of the Society. The first tubes that I used were bits of glass tube about a centimeter diameter, and simply drawn out to a tapering point. I have the tubes here. The first experiment I tried was by tapping the glass tube so as to mechanically shift the position of the mercury, and by listening on the telephone for the effect. For a long time, at least an hour, I could get no effect at all. At last I got a sound, but could not understand ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... will fall into the condemnation of flat treason." "I am assured of your kindness," he answered; "but let these judges come in to us and you shall hear what we have to say to each other." The judges were already tapping at the doors, for a word with the audacious bishop. "Gentlemen, you are wise enough to know that your holy Mother the Church has everywhere this prerogative: all who are falling into any danger of condemnation and fly to her, may get freedom, and be kept unhurt." This they well knew ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... men in our street I like the cobbler best, Tapping, tapping at his last Without a ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... Madame Desvarennes, sharply tapping with the tips of her fingers Cayrol's great fist which he held menacingly like a butcher about to strike. Then, taking him quietly aside ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... reward their anxious care, A gentle sound the parents hear Of tapping from within the shell: This sound doth please the mother well, And, fondly helping with her bill, She hears the voices weak and shrill. "Caw! Caw!" the downy young ones say, "How lovely is this peep of day, Oh what a glorious sight is this, There can be nothing here ...
— CAW! CAW! - The Chronicle of Crows, A Tale of the Spring-time • RM
... their place fresh, foaming glasses five at a time. Hundreds of arms and hands were continually stretched out, on both sides of the shed, toward this streaming bar, and through the babel of eager cries rose without pause the racket of mallets tapping new kegs. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... did he tell you?" Lady Mabel sat watching her father with eager eyes, her hands firmly clasped, and her heel impatiently tapping the floor, while she strove to master her ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... can just do what they learns by 'art, not one of them could draw that 'ere chair or table from natur'; but I could. I 'ave an original talent. It was a long time afore I found out it was there,' he said, tapping his forehead; 'but it is there,' he said, fixing his eyes on Hubert, 'and when it is there they can't take it away—I mean my mates—though they do laugh at my ideas. They call me "the genius," for they don't believe in me, but I believe ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... in his heart, and croaking war-songs when Lalun sang on the City wall. As he grew more acquainted with the Subaltern he unburdened his old heart of some of the passions that had withered it. "Sahib," he used to say, tapping his stick against the parapet, "when I was a young man I was one of twenty thousand horsemen who came out of the City and rode round the plain here. Sahib, I was the leader of a hundred, then of a thousand, then of five thousand, and now!"—he ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... rock in order to blow it up with gunpowder, others shovelling the broken ore into baskets to be carried to the mouth of the mine, others hitting away with their pickaxes. Sometimes, if the miner was in a very lonely part, he would hear only a tap-tapping, no louder than that of a woodpecker, for the sound would come from a great distance off ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... she said, tapping the pine floor with the ferrule of her parasol. Rose continued to transfer her plums to the preserving-pan. "I expect you heard of the dreadful experience I had with that horrid, drunken digger who caught me ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... surroundings, "I'm sadly afraid that all this means the end of Murray Frobisher, and a mighty unpleasant end it promises to be. No escape possible either," he went on, carefully making a tour of the apartment, and at intervals tapping on the walls with an iron tool which he had picked up, in an endeavour to obtain some idea of their thickness, and so to judge as to the possibility of digging himself out, if he were left alone long enough. But the results were disheartening, to say the least of it. ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... called. "Lieutenant Dean will report in the living room in about three minutes." Hopping out of bed she reached for her bath robe. Then the sound of tapping fingers again came to her ears. This time they were on Mary's door. Hastily drawing on stockings and bed-room slippers, she sped from her room and down the stairs. Her father stood stiffly at the foot of the stairway in his most general-like ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... spoke Nurse Jane. "It's some one tapping at our front door. I can't answer because my paws are all covered with ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... the window, and what should he see sitting on the sill outside but a little woman tapping the ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... limbs were slender and rounded; his skin was a baby's. But no, the stolid old doctor carried on, as though Doe were nothing to sing songs about. He tested his eyes, surveyed his teeth, tried his chest, tapping him before and behind, and telling him to say "99" and to cough. All these liberties so amused Doe that he could scarcely manage the "99" or the cough for giggling. And I was doing my best to increase his difficulty by pretending to be ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... gate of the mansion opened: Foedor got out of his sleigh, and immediately went up to his room. He threw himself upon a sofa, overwhelmed by his thoughts. About midnight he heard someone tapping at the door: much astonished, he got up and opened it. It was Annouschka, who came with a message from her mistress, that Vaninka wished to see him immediately. Although he was astonished at this message, which he was ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... boy and march off in terrible haughtiness, and lock herself and her child in her room, and for hours afterwards the poor major would wander about the house, suffering the lonelines of the guilty soul. You would hear him tapping gently at his lady's door. "Honey! Honey! Are you mad with me?" "Major Castleman," the stately answer would come, "will you oblige me by leaving one room in this house to which I may ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... looked at his terrible better half, who, like an angry woman, sat tapping the floor with her foot while keeping sullen silence; she avoided even casting wrathful looks at Augustine, appearing to leave to Monsieur Guillaume the whole responsibility in so grave a matter, since her opinion was not listened ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... of face was not pleasant as he said this, and he grasped the letter in front of him in a violent way, as if he were wishing his long fingers were round the writer's throat. Tapping with his wooden leg on the floor, he was about to recommence his musings, when he heard a step in the passage, and the door of his office being pushed violently open, a man entered without further ceremony, and flung himself down on a ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... in response to her repeated tapping at his door; and suddenly the remembrance of that stooping shadow came ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... asked himself. "Barwig, you are a fool, a madman! Mr. Stanton is her father; I must love him, too. My heart must not beat every time I hear his name. Come! Let us go to work; our studies—" he said aloud, tapping the book. "We must go to work. I have brought with ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... a moaning in the room below, and then steps on the stairs, and a tapping at the door. It was Mary. Mrs. Clark had awakened and was crying for her son. "But we must not waken him," I said. "Give Mrs. Clark the medicine the doctor left for her—that ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... drinking so much New England rum in honour of St Patrick's Day that their muskets would have hurt friends more than foes if an attack had been made that night. Next evening the French crept up, hoping to surprise the place. But the sentries were once more alert. Through the silence they heard a tapping noise on the lake, which turned out to be made by a Canadian who was trying the strength of the ice with the back of his axe to see if it would bear. This led to a brisk defence. When the French advanced ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... swirled about Dalgard's waist now, tugging at his belt, his arrow quiver, tapping on the bottom of the canister which held his precious air supply. His brow, shielded from the wet by its casing, was swallowed up ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... for use, a new one was built near our own house. I well remember, when a little boy, the family were sometimes waked up in the dead of night by an express, with the report that the Indians were at hand. The express came softly to the door and by a gentle tapping raised the family. This was easily done, as an habitual fear made us ever watchful, and sensible to the slightest alarm. The whole family were instantly ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... sate in grief and sorrow, Rather drunk than otherwise, Till the golden gush of morrow Dawned once more upon his eyes; Till the spunging bailiff's daughter, Lightly tapping at the door, Brought his draught of soda-water, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... there and drank a cup of it scalding hot, with her head in the air and her foot tapping the floor. But I couldn't drink a drop. I was just sick with the thought of how he loved her, and of how ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... Pinckney, tapping the ash off his cigarette. "All the same, you need not be worried at the impropriety of the business; there's none, nothing improper could live in the same house with my aunt, Maria Pinckney. Vernons belongs to her ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... fellow in the War Office was buyin' up autos like I'd buy pipe-lights. The hundred lorries was shipped over, an' I saw 'em safe through the specified tests an' handed 'em over. Same with the next two hundred, an' this"—tapping his toe on the floor—"is one of 'em ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... troop having come to a halt, as described, before the cottage, the gentleman-usher entered it, and, tapping against the inner door with his wand, took off his cap as soon as it was opened, and bowing deferentially to the ground, said he was come to invite the Queen of May to join the pageant, and that it only ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of them turn, you will find, on the outcropping of new significance in a phrase because of its environment. Thus the anecdote of the servant who had been instructed to summon the visiting English nobleman by tapping on his bedroom door and inquiring, "My lord, have you yet risen?" and who could only stammer, "My God! ain't you up yet?" Or the anecdote of the minister who in a sermon on the Parable of the Prodigal Son told how a young man living dissolutely in a city had been compelled ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... tapping the ground with the tip of his boot.' And so you are a Yankee? I heard there was a lot of ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... brought his conception into being. Those were his trucks bringing in his ore from his mines; that was his consequential little locomotive fussing in front of them. His men, dwellers in his cottages on the brow of that hill, which was also his, happened to be tapping one of his furnaces at the moment; that was his pig-iron running out into the moulds as magically as an electric advertisement writes itself upon the London sky at night. The sense of possession is the foible ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... had suddenly appeared as though by magic, and of the fourth place at table there seemed to be left no visible signs. All the time, Sabatini, unmoved, continued to roll his cigarette. Then there came a tapping at the door. ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in a low voice, tapping the bit of flimsy paper with his finger, "this throws a light on the affair of this morning. No ordinary crime, that, gentlemen! When two brothers are murdered on the same night, at places hundreds of miles apart, it signifies something out of the common. ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... busy morning. Misty London light shone hazily through the glazed windows and cast dark shadows in the corners. On a high perch in the background a weary-faced, elderly man, with muttering lips and tapping fingers, cast up endless lines of figures. Beneath him, in front of two long shining mahogany desks, half a score of young men, with bent heads and stooping shoulders, appeared to be riding furiously, neck and neck, in the race of life. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his forehead. Why did Andy tap like that—two taps, pause, another tap—over and over again? Suddenly he understood. Andy was sending him a message in Morse, and the first letter was C. He looked up, caught Andy's eye, and nodded. The tapping went on. ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... he resumed, tapping the note which he still held. 'I don't think you need go there very often. It seems to me you don't get much good ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... looked from Jordan to Warden, and then back again at Jordan, who had taken up the pencil again and was nervously tapping with it upon the ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... came a tapping at the door behind them, and a small, silvery voice said, "May I come in?" as the door opened and Mrs. Crozier, very precisely ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... home. In these afternoon hours the street was nearly deserted, and sometimes I ventured close up to the window and peered through. I could see him in a little inner office, writing and poring over papers and accounts. Once while I was thus occupied, a policeman greatly alarmed me by tapping me on the shoulder and observing roughly, "Now then, ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... condemn himself to make all his life a minute particle of some object, who is stifled at his little tapping machine, which he ends by loathing, give him the chance of tilling the soil, of felling trees in the forest, sailing the seas in the teeth of a storm, dashing through space on an engine, but do not make an idler ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... generally stations itself at the bottom of the tube. When, by tapping on the door, or by other means, a gentle vibration is caused, the spider runs to the top of his nest, raises the lid, looks out and reconnoitres. If a small creature is seen, it is seized and devoured. If ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... a gentle smile, and tapping the priest on the shoulder with a kindly and familiar gesture—'because, my Calenus (see now, I will read thy heart, and explain its motives)—because thou didst wish thoroughly to commit and entangle me in the trial, so that I might have ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... in an appearance, and the night passed without news of them. Just before dawn, however, Mahony was wakened by a tapping at the window. Thrusting out his head he recognised young Tommy Ocock, who had been sent by his father to tell "doctor" that the soldiers were astir. Lights could be seen moving about the Camp, a ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... in detecting the exact morbid condition which causes the watery effusion and accumulation, can select his remedies to meet the peculiar indications presented by each individual case. Sometimes the removal of the watery accumulation by tapping becomes necessary, in order to afford relief and give time for remedies to act. We have found it necessary to perform this operation very frequently in cases of hydrocele, and also quite often in cases of abdominal dropsy. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... up arguing. He took the old lady firmly by the shoulders, and placed her in the doorway of the audience-room; then he was up the inner stairs in three strides, through the sitting-room, and was tapping at the door of the bedroom. A faint sound of ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... you, Clarence Hervey," said another, tapping him upon the shoulder.—"Give ye joy, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... a lady's horse to canter are an over collection and a tapping on the mane with the whip; that is, take your reins too short in the left hand, and tap the horse's mane till he canters. When off, if the reins are too short, take one in each hand, turn the fore fingers towards you, and let the reins slip. If the ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... to appear to be disdainfully unaware of it, she raised her voice and began at once speaking with conviction of Sonia's undoubted ability to assist her, of "her gentleness, patience, devotion, generosity and good education," tapping Sonia on the cheek and kissing her warmly twice. Sonia flushed crimson, and Katerina Ivanovna suddenly burst into tears, immediately observing that she was "nervous and silly, that she was too much upset, that ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... his reserve as he drew near the long table before the Throne. Like a quarry that is at last hemmed in, the Jew was quickly surrounded by a half thousand black-robed monks. The silence—sick, profound, and awful—was punctuated by the low, sullen tapping of a drum. Its droning sound reminded the prisoner of life-blood dripping from some single pore; the tone was B, and its insistent, muffled, funereal blow at rhythmic intervals would in time have worn away rock. Mendoza felt a prevision of his fate; ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... may be conquered; but when there has been previous disease of almost any kind, comparatively few patients permanently recover. Irritability of the stomach, and a small and accelerated pulse, are unfavourable. If the operation of tapping has taken place, at all times there is danger; but, if there is a thick, brown, albuminous or fetid discharge, it is very unlikely that any permanent advantage will ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... breath. "How the blood do puff up in anybody's head, to be sure, a-stooping like that! I was just going out to gate to hark for ye." He then carefully began to wind a strip of brown paper round a brass tap he held in his hand. "This in the cask here is a drop o' the right sort" (tapping the cask); "'tis a real drop o' cordial from the best picked apples—Sansoms, Stubbards, Five-corners, and such-like—you d'mind the sort, Michael?" (Michael nodded.) "And there's a sprinkling of they that grow down by ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... But it's wonderful how you could ever bring it about, though you can do anything! Has n't it worn upon you?" Miss Gleason darted out her sentences in quick, short breaths, fixing Grace with her eyes, and at each clause nervously tapping her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to invitation when subjected to an electric impulse from afar. He enhanced the value of his device by the vital discovery that the conductivity bestowed upon filings by electric discharges could be destroyed by simply shaking or tapping them apart. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... judged too desperate to be let loose. They sat, three feet apart, in two long lines, each man with a heap of stones between his outstretched legs, and cracked the pebbles in leisurely fashion. The double row of dismal woodpeckers tapping at this terribly hollow beech-tree of penal discipline had a semi-ludicrous appearance. It seemed so painfully absurd that forty muscular men should be ironed and guarded for no better purpose than the cracking of a cartload of quartz-pebbles. In the meantime the air was heavy with ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... week, hour after hour, and, as it seemed, almost inch by inch, the cutter crawled on around the wild coast of Kadiak, tapping each arm and inlet, literally combing out the full extent of the broken shore-line. So gradually they passed below the southern extremity of the island, worked up from the southeast, and one day came to anchor not far from the native settlement known as Old Harbor. Here a breakdown ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... a sharp tapping at the door. I moved across the room to open it. Arthur threw his hat upon ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... came upon Pagratide, likewise stalking about with restlessly roving eyes, like a hunter searching a jungle. The foreigner paused with one foot tapping the marble rim of a small fountain, and Benton passed ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... spoke I heard it, low and penetrating, and I stretched out my arms imploringly towards Gladys; but she only smiled, and the knock was repeated, and the whole scene dissolved around me, and I was sitting up in bed in semi-darkness, while somebody was tapping with a quick agitated touch at my door. I remembered then that I had forgotten to unlock it before I went to bed, and I rose at once and made haste to open it, not without a passing thrill of unpleasant conjecture ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... and a bathing-machine boy, at whose father's property the Prince was throwing stones. An account of this historic battle is preserved in a doggerel ballad, printed and sold locally, and composed Heaven knows where, which is called "Tapping the War-Lord's Claret: ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... that music was a very sovereign balm; She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, Or carolling to her spinet ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... could afford to work more cheaply than others who were 'established,' and who had a wife and children to keep; consequently the pile of old boots and shoes that looked quite unmendable rose in front of him, and for three or four weeks he remained in the same place stitching and tapping. Having locked up his things at night in the tower—he had obtained permission to make this use of it—he disappeared with his dog, and what became of them until next day was ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... angrily, tapping the deck with his foot; then: "Isn't he? Well, give him my love when you come together again for ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... on a hinge. Of these two arms one hangs down into the tube, closing the passage, while the other lies under the arched upper lip. When the Bee pushes its proboscis down the tube (Fig. 11) it presses the lower arm to one side, and the upper arm consequently descends, tapping the Bee on the back, and dusting it with pollen. When the flower is a little older the pistil (Fig. 9, p) has elongated so that the stigma (Fig. 10, st) touches the back of the Bee and carries off some of the pollen. This sounds ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... with such rapidity as to present the appearance of a continued discharge. If a long wire or an electro-magnet be used as the connecting conductor instead of a short wire, a similar appearance may be produced by tapping the vessel containing the mercury and making it vibrate; but the sparks do not usually follow each other so rapidly as to produce an apparently continuous spark, because of the time required, when the long ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... a thousand sticks tapping upon something hard, very faintly. It continued to grow, and I knew the sound for that of the beating hoofs of animals galloping. Then there were isolated noises, very faint and thin; they might be shouts; then something that ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... Raffles was tapping the chronic cigarette on the table at his elbow; he stood up to light it, as one does stand up to make the dramatic announcements of one's life, and he spoke through the flame of the match as it rose ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... a man, and speak right out," whispered his teacher, tapping his arm reassuringly with her fan as ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... three weeks since my last tapping, and my belly and limbs were distended with water. This did not give me the worse opinion of tar-water; for I never supposed there could be any such virtue in tar-water as immediately to carry off a quantity of water already collected. For my delivery from this I well ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... to hear her talk now," whispered Favraud; "that is a sign—equal to General Finistere's—the snuffbox tapping, I mean. The oracle is beginning to arouse! Come I let me stir her further!" and he inclined ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... says they shout and spit on the ground, your Reverence, and only one has a chair and him they call a 'chairman' because of it, and yet he sits not but shouts and spits even as the others and keeps up a tapping with a hammer like a very pico. And there it is they are ever 'resolving' that which is not, and consider ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Ruggles decidedly, tapping the end of his pencil on his desk and leaning forward to emphasise his words, "we're not selling NOW. That's said and signed, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Mrs. Wesley sat tapping the mahogany gently with her finger-tips. "To my thinking, the key of this mystery, if there be one, lies at Surat. My brother had powerful enemies: his letters make that clear. We must inquire into them—their numbers and the particular ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... two infant twins to bring up, and on the night in question she and her husband were taking turns sitting up with these babies, who were just recovering from the measles. While Smith was sleeping, his wife heard a tapping on the window, but gave it no attention. The mob, believing that all within were asleep, then burst in the door, seized Smith as he lay partly dressed on a trundle bed, and rushed him out of doors, his wife crying "murder." Smith struggled as best he could, but they carried him around ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... . and he might not return for some time . . . and . . . He took a cigarette from the case, tapped, with careful carelessness, its end upon the case—he would not have dreamed of smoking without first going through the tapping process—lighted the cigarette and blew a large and satisfying ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... was tapping at the door of Mizraim, the Chief Eunuch. Three times he tapped in the same way. Presently the door opened, and he stepped inside. The lean, dark figure of Mizraim bowed low; the long, slow fingers touched the forehead, the breast, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... they perceived Bongrand pass by on a friend's arm, with a congestive face and a nervous air as he waved his hand to them; while almost immediately behind him, surrounded by his disciples, came Chambouvard, laughing very loudly, and tapping his heels on the pavement with the air of absolute mastery that comes from ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... late autumn day I stopped to watch a Junco feeding among some weed stalks near a hillside trail. After remaining motionless for a minute or two I became conscious of a light muffled tapping somewhere near by. It did not take long to locate the sound. On the underside of a slanting decayed limb, twenty feet above, was a new, well-rounded hole perhaps an inch in diameter. Even as I looked the occupant came to ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... take out the various things that had been hidden; and tapping the walls, to make sure nothing had been overlooked, they detected a hollow sound that indicated the presence of some unsuspected cavity. With picks and bars they broke the wall open, and when several stones had come out they found a large closet like a laboratory, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the house, where the front door was already open to admit Lady Ambermere, who was telling "her people" when to come back for her, and fled with the heels of his slippers tapping on the oak stairs up to Hamlet. Softly he shut out the dark spirits from Madras, and made himself even more secure by turning the key in his door. It would never do to appear as a high caste Brahmin from Benares before anyone who knew India with ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... glucose were out of his class. Yet he realized that if sugar could be made from corn, there was a fortune in it for somebody. Opportunity, we are told, knocks once at each man's door. Our David Harum was forty, past, and he had often thought Opportunity was tapping, but when he opened wide the door, darkness there, and nothing more! Opportunity had knocked, but was too timid to stay. This time, he heard the knock, and when he opened up the door, Opportunity made a rush for him, grabbed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... He comes slowly over to the hearth, tapping with his stick, and seats himself in front of the fire. He seems to stare at the glowing turf. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... inasmuch as He vouchsafed to give a timely warning in order that the dying persons might prepare for death, and make their peace with the great Judge. To have hinted, under such circumstances, that the ticking sounds were caused by a small wood moth tapping for its mate, would have subjected the hinter to the name of infidel or unbeliever in Scripture, as superstitious people ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... Carlinwark made no long job of the horseshoeing. For, as he hammered and filed, he marked the eye of the young Earl restlessly straying this way and that along the green riverside paths, and his fingers nervously tapping the ashen casing of the smithy window-sill. Malise MacKim smiled to himself, for he had not served a Douglas for thirty years without knowing by these signs that there was the swing of a ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... riding-coat, buckskins and spurred boots; at my wonderful aunt, her dark and statuesque beauty as she sat, her noble form posed like an offended Juno, dimpled chin on dimpled fist, dark brows bent above long-lashed eyes, ruddy lips close-set and arched foot tapping softly beneath the folds of her ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... shadows through the smoke and touched the clouds of steam with violet gleams. Elizabeth could see dark, gnome-like creatures, each with a hammer, and with a lantern swinging from a bent elbow, crouching along by the cars and tapping every wheel. She counted the blows that tested the trucks for the climb up the mountains: click-click; click-click. She was glad they were testing them; she must get across the mountains safely; there ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... pith, under some bough or branch of a well-spreading birch; cut it oblique, and not long-ways (as a good chirurgion would make his orifice in a vein) inserting a small stone or chip, to keep the lips of the wound a little open. Sir Hugh Plat, (giving a general rule for the gathering of sap, and tapping of trees) would have it done within one foot of the ground, the first rind taken off, and then the white bark slit over-thwart, no farther than to the body of the tree: Moreover, that this wound be ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... a tapping above him, cast his eyes upward, and beheld a fairy slater rapidly repairing a hole in the roof; and when he bent them down again they fell on a fairy doctor mixing a cordial for the sleepers. Nay, there was even a fairy parson, who, not having ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... of the Hearthstone Magazine has his own ideas about the selection of manuscript for his publication. His theory is no secret; in fact, he will expound it to you willingly sitting at his mahogany desk, smiling benignantly and tapping his knee gently with his ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry |
