"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cannibal-land is considered good form. He could not, however, bring himself to admire Gondebiza, though the Monsieur Worth of Fanland had done his utmost for her. Still, she must have looked really engaging in a thin pattern of tattoo, a gauze work of oil and camwood, a dwarf pigeon tail of fan palm for an apron, and copper bracelets and anklets. The much talked of gorilla Burton found to be a less formidable creature than previous travellers had reported. "The gorilla," he, says, in his ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... their prime, and the system of circles and circlets which composed her personnel had assumed a tremulous and gravitating tendency. She was habited in the height of Fan fashion. Her body was modestly invested in a thin pattern of tattoo, and a gauze-work of oil and camwood; the rest of the toilette was a dwarf pigeon-tail of fan- palm, like that of the men, and a manner of apron, white beads, and tree bark, greasy and reddened: the latter was tucked under and over the five lines of cowries, which acted as ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... intent on was the determination that he should not contribute personally to the further upbuilding of anybody's reputation. His eyes with this resolve shining in them rested intently on de Spain, and at his side the long fingers of his right hand beat a soft tattoo against his pistol holster. De Spain's question seemed to arouse him. "What's your name?" he demanded bluntly. His voice was heavy and his deafness was ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... back to their parents with a polite recommendation that they should be taught some other trade. Giustino was seldom punished. On the contrary, the Director was so enamoured of his progress and blue eyes that he entered him as a fox long before the regular three years' course was up, and offered to tattoo the symbol of proficiency, a cross, on the back of his ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the fireplace, his hands deep in his pockets, where his guest could see his long fingers beat a tattoo on his thighs, Newton Winch dangled and swung himself, and threw back his head and laughed. "Well, I must say you take it amazingly!—all the more that to see you again this way is to feel that if, all along, there was a man whose delicacy and confidence and general attitude might have marked ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... A tattoo on the window, caused by the tree-droppings blowing against it, brought her indecision to a close. She turned the key and opened ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... on this wad of fat an' laziness an' lies." (Thud . . . thump . . . and a double tattoo.) He threw the instrument of castigation aside and spinning the hulk of flesh and sprawling legs erect, began applying the sole of his boot. "A'll no take m' fist t' y' as A wud t' a Man! A'll ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... 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
... work. Making spears. Gathering and threshing barley. The roast ox and the feast. Making bread. The surprising novelties for the warriors. Determining to make guns before dismantling. Building a new wagon. Uraso directing the work of the men. The universal tattoo. Its significance. Designating name and rank. Clothing. Blakely drilling the army at the Brabo village. News of the approach of the old chief Suros. The Professor and party receiving him with honor. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... But tattoo had not sounded that still and starlit evening when a strange story was in circulation about the post, brought up from the trader's store by pack-train hands who said they were there when Mr. Blakely came in and asked for Hart—"wanted him right away, bad," was the way they put it. Then it ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... instant there came shouts from this or that direction or from 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 ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... Amelia, beating a tattoo of impatience, with one hand, on the door. "You've been ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... this irritability meant, and we sat in silence gazing into the glowing ashes. His fingers beat a nervous tattoo against the chair and presently, with some mumbled words, he rose and moved towards the door. Now I knew the fight was on, the fight with the Demon, drink, that was drawing him away from me. I followed him into ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... they heard upon the road the rhythmic foot-beats of horses, and the rattle of some farmer's wagon rumbling homeward from the village. Then together they screamed for help. But the hoofs went on beating their tattoo till the sound grew faint, and the rattle of the wagon died in the distance. Again and again the sound which told of human nearness woke hope in their hearts only to die in ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... 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 ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... we all blacked our faces with burnt cork, and played at the West Coast in one of the back passages, and at James being the captain of a slave ship; because he tried to catch us when we beat the tom-toms too near him when he was cleaning the plate, to make him give us rouge and whitening to tattoo with. ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... 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
... do," said Barnabas, nodding, "only—hurry, Martin!" By the time the old groom had returned with the scarlet hunting-frock and helped Barnabas into it, "The Terror" was led out from his box, and immediately began to snort and rear and beat a ringing tattoo with his great, round hoofs to a chorus of chirruping ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... overcoming it, is an object of admiration for the gods, that Power in whose chapels the old Major was a faithful worshipper must have looked upwards 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 History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with primitive man, in Oceania and elsewhere, have imbued me with a deplorable taste for tattoo work; and I had wished to carry away on me, as a curiosity, an ornament, a specimen of the work of the Japanese tattooers, who have a delicacy of finish ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... 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 ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... were of the very finest sea-cloth, 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 ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... "Dick Tattoo" was shouted quick enough along the deck, for everyone now saw that not a moment was to be lost, as the ship had just then heeled over still more. The moment the drummer was called, all hands began tumbling down the hatchways to their quarters, that ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... Meanwhile the tattoo had sounded in the village square. The people had returned from their work. The herd lowed as in clouds of golden dust it crowded at the village gate. The girls and the women hurried through the streets and yards, turning in their cattle. The ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... came; not even a cloud obscured the blue of the sky for a moment, and not a suspicion of dew fell during the hours of darkness. Only the lightning came, as soon as the sun was down, blazing, flaring, and flashing round the horizon and high overhead; disturbing the darkness as the patter of a tattoo disturbs silence; punctuating the night into periods of sombre, awful blackness by moments of dazzling, blinding white fury, that made the eyes tingle through the succeeding moments of dark, and the ears shrink and tremble, anticipating ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... ancestry. An' remember, God loves the Irish—Kwaque! Go fetch 'm two bottle beer fella stop 'm along icey-chestis!—Why, the very mug of you, my lad, sticks out Irish all over it." (Michael's tail beat a tattoo.) "Now don't be blarneyin' me. 'Tis well I'm wise to your insidyous, snugglin', heart-stealin' ways. I'll have ye know my heart's impervious. 'Tis soaked too long this many a day in beer. I stole you to ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... 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 ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... handkerchief. As she did so her eyes fell upon a tattoo-mark, an anchor inside a true-lover's knot. It was an ordinary enough tattoo-mark, but the sight of it struck at Mollie for she had seen it before. The odd impression of last night, which she had forgotten in the various exigences of the situation, came rushing ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... Colonel Jacques sat and smiled; but he is a modest man, and his fingers were beating a nervous tattoo on the table. The young officer stood and read, glancing up now and then to smile at his chief's embarrassment. The wind howled outside, setting the sacks at ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and intimate relations with primitive man, in Oceania and elsewhere, have imbued me with a deplorable taste for tattoo-work; and I had wished to carry away on my own person, as a curiosity, an ornament, a specimen of the work of the Japanese tattooers, who have a delicacy ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... foot, and firm of will, has passed over hill-side, through wood-path, and across meadow-land, and drawn near the domains of Felix Clerron, Esq. Light of heart perhaps I scarcely ought to say. Certainly, that enterprising organ had never before beat so furious a tattoo in Ivy's breast, as when she stood, hat in hand, on the steps of the somewhat stately dwelling. To do her justice, she had intended to do the penance of wearing her hat when she should have reached her destination; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... himself, "that it is not like that of Notre Dame de Poitiers, where the interior is gaudy with childish colouring and raw tones; for there, instead of expressing regret and tranquillity, it rouses a suggestion of the childish glee of an old savage in his second childhood, who laughs when his tattoo marks are renewed, and his skin rough-cast with ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... want 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 of ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... would head up the Peace, which meant west. He was going as far as Hudson's Hope, and this was within two hundred and fifty miles of where David wanted to go. He proved that fact by digging up an old Company map. David's heart beat an excited tattoo. This was more than he had expected. Almost too good to be true. "You can work your way up there with me," declared Hatchett, clicking his pipe stem. "Won't cost you a cent. Not a dam' cent. Work. Eat. Smoke. Fine trip. Just for company. A man needs company once in ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... said, at the same time kicking a tattoo on the ribs of the snoring Antonsen. "You go back to White Horse. We'll go ahead and ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... their wells, for which they lack patience. Their women, whom they do not confine, will, it is said, do more field-work than the men; indeed, one often finds women at work in the crops when the men are lying down. Like the women of low Hindu castes they tattoo their bodies, a practice disapproved by Musalmans in general. Abul Fazl writes that the Meos were in his time famous runners, and one thousand of them were employed by Akbar as carriers of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... 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 Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... a stupid guy, So, lest he sleep too late, He placed a tattoo clock near by To waken him ...
— The Rocket Book • Peter Newell
... boy, and he beat a tattoo on the sides of the horse with his feet. But as Dick had on soft slippers, he did not hurt the White Rocking Horse in the least, nor did he chip off any paint. "Here I go! Here I go!" shouted Dick. "Oh, what a ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope
... and tenth centuries—supply us with a portrait which does not appear exaggerated. I know nothing in this sense more terrible than Raoul de Cambrai, and the hero of this old poem would pass for a type of a half-civilized savage. This Raoul was a kind of Sioux or other redskin, who only wanted tattoo and feathers in his hair to be complete. Even a redskin is a believer, or superstitious to some extent, while Raoul defied the Deity himself. The savage respects his mother, as a rule; but Raoul laughed at his mother, who cursed him. Behold him as he invaded the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on Life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards, with solemn round, The ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... in a noiseless tattoo upon the stool, and for a time looked off into space. She wanted to draw him out, to know from what depth this particular enthusiasm had sprung. She was accustomed to his exuberance of spirits, it was one of the many things she loved him for. If this new craze were ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the sudden screams of women and children aroused me from profound torpor! Shrieks were followed by volleys of musketry. Then came a loud tattoo of knocks at my door, and appeals from the negro chief to rise and fly. "The town was besieged:—the head-men were on the point of escaping:—resistance was vain:—they had been betrayed—there were no fighters ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... 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 Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... looked like sparks of living fire. And though he was lounging comfortably back in his chair, without energy, without alertness, and one arm was resting on the table at his side, and his outstretched fingers were indolently drumming out a tattoo on the bare wood, his breath was coming short and fast, in a manner that belied ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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 ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... and they were having tea, for all the world like any ordinary trio, the girl still making talk about sundry songs, the man quizzing them and her, and the boy standing up for one that his sister sang at home, when a metallic tattoo put a dramatic stop ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... nervously to his feet, strode to the further corner of the room and sat down at as great a distance from Vandeman as its dimensions would permit. He turned his face to the small window there, and through all that Vandeman said, kept up a steady, maddening tattoo with his ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... time 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 in upon by sounds of mirth and jollity—merry ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... Bernard were in themselves a well-filled career. The Emperor rode also for many years an Arab horse of rare intelligence, in which he took much pleasure. During the time he was awaiting his rider, it would have been hard to discover in him the least grace; but as soon as he heard the drums beat the tattoo which announced the presence of his Majesty, he reared his head most proudly, tossed his mane, and pawed the ground, and until the very moment the Emperor alighted, was the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... and training, do not venture far from their homes and remain veiled to the eyes. But the children—dark, picturesque, half-naked boys and girls—are nearly free from fear if not from doubt. The tattoo marks on their chins keep them safe from the evil eye; so they do not run much risk from chance encounter with a European. They approach in a constantly shifting group, no detail of the unpacking is ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... worked himself into it, and laid aft in a clean rig when the Old Man called for a hand to the wheel. There he made the most of it, and hung gracefully over the spokes with his wrists turned out to show the tattoo marks. ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... gray-green eyes had a petulant look; her thin, red lips a petulant droop. She was restless; something about her moved always. Either her long slender fingers adjusted her hair or her long slender feet beat a tattoo. And ever her figure shifted from one fluid pose to another. She wore jewels in her elaborately arranged hair, jewels about her neck, on her wrists, on her fingers. Her green draperies were embroidered in beads. She was, in fact, always dressed, costumed is perhaps the most appropriate ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... had said he would be here. "Early you know. Before the others can get down." A quick frown grows upon her forehead, and now that the fingers are quiet, the little foot begins to beat a tattoo upon the ground. Leaning against the table in a graceful attitude, with the lamplight streaming on her pretty white frock, she gives a loose ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... shaggy fell, his choicest tool a flake of stone; His best of orn'aments tattoo'd skin and holes to hang ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... long, and hopping up and down on one short leg. From the other side of the lodge he often made a bound that landed him on the bison skin, which lay over the breast of the sick boy, where he executed a final tattoo that drove the last vestige ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... broken, hanging a trifle to one side. He was short, with great hulking shoulders. His black shirt was open at the neck, and he wore blue navy trousers with the familiar wide bottoms. His brown forearms were covered with tattoo-marks. ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... at the Literary Institute was of unusually short duration, and Mr Ffolliot returned tired and rather cross, just as Ger was enacting the hansom cab accident at the foot of the staircase, by beating a deafening tattoo on the Kitten's ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... course Charles Stuart always explored it all with a fine air of proprietorship. So they scrambled over the silent place with its sweet smell of running water and fresh sawdust. They beat a clamorous tattoo upon the big circular saw, they went down to the lower regions and explored the dark hole where the big water-wheel hung motionless, with only the drip, drip of water from the flume above. They rode on the little car that brought ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... birthmarks," ses the woman, speaking very slow—and I could see she was afraid of making a mistake and losing me—"but he's got tattoo marks. He's got a mermaid tattooed ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... politics, sir, to my own satisfaction; and I make shift to answer people according to their idols. I vow, I am so weary of the words 'honour and honesty' that they beat a tattoo on ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... and my duty, with others, consisted in "licking them into shape". It was drill, drill, from morning till night; and, by early tattoo, I was always glad to crawl into my tent and go to sleep—such sleep as a man can get among scorpions, lizards, and soldier-crabs; for the little islet seemed to have within its boundaries a specimen of every reptile that came safely out of ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... the doctor's minute seemed unending. He shuffled his feet impatiently along the gravel-path, and beat a tattoo with his fingers on the panels of the door, muttering under his breath words betraying an impatient and agitated mind; and when at last the doctor joined him, ready for departure, the strain of suspense was so great that ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... badly bruised knee, a factor which kept him out of the game for the next two days and caused Grafton to throw sarcastic asides in the direction of the bench against which Kenneth's heels beat a disconsolate tattoo. ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... stretched out at full length and he seemed to be caught. In fact he was caught, and the reason for it was that Bunny was a little too big to fit in the stage trough—that is his shoulders were too large. But his legs and feet were free, and with his shoes he was drumming a tattoo on the inside of the tin trough, which was somewhat ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... room, the old familiar furniture, the Passover table—with its white table-cloth and its decanter and wine-glasses, the faces of her father and mother eloquent with the appeal of a thousand memories. The clock ticked on loudly, fiercely, like a summoning drum; the rain beat an impatient tattoo on the window-panes, the wind rattled the doors and casements. "Go forth, go forth," they called, "go forth where your lover waits you, to bear you of into the new and the unknown." And the louder they called ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... never lost in my eyes the legendary light in which I had enveloped it; and when George suggested to me carelessly one spring afternoon that I should stop by his house and have a look at his uncle's classical library, I felt my cheeks burn, while my heart beat an excited tattoo against my ribs. The house I knew by sight, a grave, low-browed mansion, with a fringe of purple wistaria draping the long porch; and it was under a pendulous shower of blossoms that we found the ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... must be approaching the last lump, he thought, and the gold would be gone soon, too. But there was another and greater necessity than either of those driving him on, and, opening the gate, he quickly knocked upon the door. It was low but heavy, a repeated and insistent knock, like the muffled tattoo of a drum, and at last Miss Grayson answered, opening the door a scant four inches and staring ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... of Wellington Barracks the drums and fifes sounding the tattoo shrilled through the open window with a startling clearness like a sharp summons, and diminished as the band marched away across the gravel and again grew loud. Feversham did not change his attitude, but the look upon his face was now that of a man listening, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... But it seemed no use knocking, and Wildney at last, in a fit of impatience, thumped a regular tattoo on ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... for human beings to believe that their regard can be otherwise than flattering to an animal; but I did see one man intelligent enough to receive this impression. He was a decent and a good-tempered young person, and he had beaten a prolonged tattoo on the glass with the handle of his umbrella, murmuring at the same time vague words of cajolery. Then, as the cat remained motionless, absorbed in revery, and seemingly unconscious of his unwarranted attentions, ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... did na know it?" answered Nick, his heart beginning to beat tattoo as he stared through the peep-hole ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... brought from the White Nile, remark: "As to their psychology, what struck us first was the exaggeration of their modesty; not in a single case would the men allow us to examine their genital organs or the women their breasts; we examined the tattoo-marks on the chest of one of the women, and she remained sad and irritable for two days afterward." They add that in sexual and all other respects these people are highly moral. (Lombroso and Carrara, Archivio di Psichiatria, 1896, vol. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... the end of his second year Eric was well up in his class. He had qualified as a corporal in the military drills, he had secured the coveted honor of gunner's mate, and he was even looked upon with favor by "Tattoo Tim," alias Boatswain Egan ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... that his very laudable ambition to obtain 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 ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... 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 ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and knocked sharply. There was no response, and he repeated the summons, but again without effect. Thereupon, with a muttered exclamation, he grasped the knocker a third time and executed a veritable tattoo upon the door. When this had proceeded for about half a ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... but a flimsy barricade against a mob, especially if that mob be led by five-and-twenty stout-bodied seaman. We had shut it merely to gain time, and when the cudgels outside began to play tattoo upon its upper panels I looked for no more than a minute's ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... tattoo was playtime for the garrison. Many smartly dressed soldiers, with passes earned by good behavior, went out to find amusement in the city. Visitors, some of them tourists from America, made the rounds under the guidance of old soldiers. The sergeant followed such a group of sight-seers ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... number of sharp teeth with which the skin is 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 ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... eyes and mouth; and then, lifting up the big fiddle, beat him with it so long and so soundly, that what with the belfry-man being so fat, and the fiddle being so hollow, you would have sworn that there was a regiment of double-bass drummers all beating the devil's tattoo up in the belfry ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Imperial Government is constantly rousing patriotic sentiment. Every day the emperor delights to revive memories of 1813. Yesterday evening a military tattoo went through the streets of Berlin, speeches were delivered in which the present situation was compared to that of a hundred years ago.... It was of course to be expected that national patriotism would be worked up just when fresh sacrifices ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... furiously does the man also scratch his though he takes much more pains over his hair, combing and smoothing it in order to divide it well in front and display the tattoo which distinguishes ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... it can only be by means of continual occupation—no matter with what so long as it is some form of practical or mental activity. You may see that this is so by the way in which people who have no work or nothing to think about, immediately begin to beat the devil's tattoo with their knuckles or a stick or anything that comes handy. The truth is, that our nature is essentially restless in its character: we very soon get tired of having nothing to do; it is intolerable boredom. This impulse to activity should be regulated, and some sort of method introduced into ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... use asking the Injuns to go on the warpath," Gene announced disgustedly, coming out upon the porch where the rest of the boys were foregathered, waiting for the ringing tattoo upon the iron triangle just outside the back door which would be the supper summons. "They're too lazy to take the trouble—and, besides, they're scared of dad. I was talking to Sleeping Turtle just now—met him down there past the Point ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... leaving her to infer that she had good reason for her fears. As they passed the only store which the Valley boasted, Kitty came rushing out, a bright new tin saucepan dangling at her side like a drum. It was tied by a piece of twine, and she was beating a tattoo upon it with a long-handled iron spoon. Keith followed, his ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... attempt to reach the outlaws' refuge, and, at the risk of his life, finding out if Tommy Topsail-tie and Jack Waterwitch were among them. The old trader had told him that one of their number was a very big man, whose legs, back, and neck were tattooed as the Kingsmill Islanders tattoo, and he (Flemming) had formed the idea, since his conversation with the manager of the plantation, that this big man was Binoke—the dear friend of his boyhood's days, the ever-wanted "Tommy Topsail-tie" of his brother and his sister Medora, the man who, with Jack ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... proceeded from a series of irregular wounds. One group of these clustered upon his left temple, another beneath his right eye, and others extended from the chin down to the throat. They were black, almost like tattoo marks, and the entire injured surface was bloated indescribably. His fists were clenched; he was ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... provinces of Camarines in this island of Luzon, and those of Leyte, Samar, Panay, and other neighborhoods, came, I have heard, from the districts of Macasar, where it is said that Indians live who make designs on and tattoo the body, in the manner of our Pintados. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, in the relation which he wrote of the discovery of the Salomon Islands in 1595, says that an island called Madalena was found in ten degrees north latitude, at a distance from Piru of one thousand ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... protracted sounds.] Roll — N. roll &c v.; drumming &c v.; berloque^, bombination^, rumbling; tattoo, drumroll; dingdong; tantara^; rataplan^; whirr; ratatat, ratatat-tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari^, racket; cuckoo; repetition &c 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; reverberation &c 408. [sound of railroad train rolling on rails] clickety-clack. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... went flying up the hill road, beating a tattoo of new life upon the soft, breathing air of ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... 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 illustration ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... grandmother to continue her sententious advice, while she herself sat tapping her feet on the floor, and performing the most rapid variations of that air which is called the Devil's Tattoo, burst out, at length, to the elder lady's surprise, with an outbreak of indignation, a flushing face, and a voice ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... enough to wait. Joe mused an appreciable time, beating his tattoo on the table. "Yes," he finally said, "they've got to give the minority something, and I know one of the members who can get what I want. He's owing me a little favor—see? I needn't figure in the deal ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... an heirloom myself, I can therefore readily sympathise with those who own a similar treasure—such, for example, as the famous, or rather infamous, Drummer of Cortachy Castle, who is invariably heard beating a tattoo before the death of a member ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... to tattoo and circumcise. They determine the days of rest and of ceremony for the pueblo, and all pueblo ceremonies are in their hands; so also are the ceremonies of the ato — only men are "priests," ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... laughing and lazy, sit and rule in his place, Here Tamatea came, and beheld the house on the brook; And Rahero was there by the way and covered an oven to cook. {1c} Naked he was to the loins, but the tattoo covered the lack, And the sun and the shadow of palms dappled his muscular back. Swiftly he lifted his head at the fall of the coming feet, And the water sprang in his mouth with a sudden desire of meat; For he marked the basket carried, covered from flies ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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, ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... he started from incipient slumber; he thought he heard the cow in her stall, clattering her chain. Surprised, he collected his wits. "Of course," he then said to himself, "it is the tattoo. I am a soldier." ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... different—sonorous, tense, elastic; On it you might a tattoo beat, with fingers or with a stick. There's costiveness and atrophy, with features Hippocratic; When these appear, there's much to fear, all safety is erratic. Although a cordial laxative, mix'd up with some carminative, Might be prescribed, with morphia, or hops, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... 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 ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... He's got sense enough to appreciate hunting and fishing and the things that are of importance to men. I guess he'll want to come to Shirley this autumn for his shooting, instead of going down to North Carolina." Norma stopped her tattoo and turned her head slightly; the boy, observing that he had scored a point, proceeded: "Just the minute he gets back from Montana, I'm going to tell him all about Shirley and beg him to come. And if he does, I'm going gunning with him every day, ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... clang, and 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
... myself the butt of all the scandal of the foul-mouthed gossips of your court." The king, suspecting the confidence I was about to repose in him, was sorry he had asked for it, and was silent. He began to play a tattoo with his fingers on the chimney-piece. At this moment mademoiselle Chon came in. The king, delighted at seeing her, instantly inquired into her state of health. She, after a profound reverence, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... in Patagonia are Indians. They have red-brown skin, long black hair, and small eyes. The men are very tall. Some of them are seven feet high. They paint their faces red and black, and tattoo their arms. They do this with a needle. They put the needle into dye, and then prick the skin ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw
... her heat, feeling, not only astonished but worried him a little. She was standing there now beating a tattoo on the window pane. He wondered what she was thinking about. The experience as to Ann revealed Katie to him as having thought about things he would not have dreamed she was thinking about. What in the world did she mean by saying she'd like to be a deserter herself? ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... to understand that under the Spanish regime, when killing and capturing was rife, the tattooing was for the purpose of the identification of a captive. It was customary to change the name of a captive, and as he was sold and resold, the only way to identify him was by his tattoo marks. ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... although the obvious and sensible thing was to go about my business, I wandered on aimlessly, my brain employed with a hundred idle conjectures and the query, "Where have I seen The Stetson Man?" seeming to beat, like a tattoo, in my brain. There was something magnetic about the accursed slipper, for without knowing by what route I had arrived there, I found myself in Great Orchard Street and close under the walls of the British Antiquarian Museum. Then I was ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... grew more oppressive. The air was nauseous with the dank mucky odour that cooked out of the mangrove swamp. Rowelled by the squeaky music to recollection of old-world ports and places, Borckman lay on his face on the hot planking, beat a tattoo with his naked toes, and gutturally muttered an unending monologue of curses. But Van Horn, with Jerry panting under his hand, placidly and philosophically continued to smoke, lighting a fresh cigar when the first ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... herself 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
... Tom Clary, "I belave we can do bist by oursilves. Me afthernoon's lave ixpires at tattoo, but if, as me shuparior officers, ye'll allow me to be out of camp a bit longer, I think we can ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... 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 ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... state would 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 ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... mine—he out of kindness let the women rejoin their husbands; on my part it was policy and stratagem, of war. Hear the sequel! The wives spoiled the husbands, as I guessed they would do, taught them to be too late at reveille, too early at tattoo. They neglected guards and pickets, and when the long nights of winter set in, the men hugged their wives by the firesides instead of their muskets by their watch-fires. Then came destruction upon them! In a blinding storm, amid snow-drifts ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... their 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 and ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Tattoo had gone some time ago. Now the alarm clock told the bunkies that they had just three minutes in which to get undressed and be in bed before taps sounded on ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... whistles sounded distantly; a trench mortar crashed; then the accentless tattoo of machine guns broke ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 |
