"Tap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he in his meditation that he did not hear the light footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his father's advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... One evening, a gentle tap came to my door, and Tom entered. He looked pale and anxious, and there was an uncertainty about his motions which I ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... them, Captain," began Winslow, when with a tap upon the door Squanto himself appeared ushering in a strange Indian whom he fluently presented as a friend of his who had come with great news. Bidden to deliver it, the stranger stated that a great ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... replied in the broadest Scots, which no man in the submarine or in our boat could have understood a word of. "Maister Tammy," I cried, "what for wad ye skail a dacent tinkler lad intil a cauld sea? I'll gie ye your kail through the reek for this ploy the next time I forgaither wi' ye on the tap o' Caerdon." ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... a brown paper parcel, and, as he walked along, the new boots he was wearing creaked, and the tap-tap of hard nail-studded heels rang out on the ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... A tap at the door. It was opened behind him, before he had time to say, "Come in," and Lily walked up to Jimmy, who sat dumb with surprise: a strange Lily, feverish, distraught with passion. At any other time, she would have felt constrained, ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... tap on the door, and an ancient darky entered, with a tall glass of whipped-cream punch, light as a feather, and as delicate as thought. Then, breakfast, in a long, low-ceilinged room on the ground floor, with a blazing fire at each end, a pickaninny gravely watchful ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... and leaf, the action of the frost furrows and splits it, water or slugs gain an entrance, and it disappears, the younger growth taking its place. Especially true is this also of hollyhocks. The larkspurs have different roots and more underground vigour, and all tap-rooted herbs hold their own well, the difficulty being to curb their spreading and undermining ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... I reached up to tap on Pheola's door, it opened in front of me, and a stylishly dressed young lady came out, smiling, with Pheola standing in the doorway ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... gold chain, and her skirt more than filled the width of the corridor. Sophia watched her habitual heavy mounting gesture as she climbed the two steps that gave variety to the corridor. At the gas-jet she paused, and, putting her hand to the tap, gazed ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... kissed him with tenderness. The grave man, being still upset by the manner of his arrival, remained quiescent, and did not reciprocate these demonstrations of affection. The lady then gave him a maternal tap on ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... coming?" quaked the plebe, as he possessed himself of his bucket and started for the nearest tap. ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... hours vivid flashes of orange and black, or black and red, or turquoise blue and green, or white flit across from tree to tree; parrots chatter, crows scream, and the brain-fever bird soothes or irritates you according to your mood, and you tap your fingers on the table in time to the metallic anvil cry of the coppersmith bird, until a tiger-ant or some such voracious ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... wonderful bow, as the Colonel lightly touched the pale cheek of the poetess. Mrs. Blaylock, blushing like a girl, shook her curl and gave the Colonel an arch, reproving tap. Secret of eternal youth—where art thou? Every second the answer comes—"Here, here, here." Listen to thine own heartbeats, O weary seeker after ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... when they were again aroused. This time a tap at a window brought Rowdy to attention and made Jack spring to his feet in alarm. In a ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... by the roots, and by the time they have begun to take hold a little with their radicles in the spots to which they have been successively transplanted up they come again, so that they never get a tap-root anywhere. The Terror suspected the daughter of one of these families of sending certain anonymous articles of not dissimilar character to the one she had just received. But she knew the style of composition common among the young girls, and she could hardly believe that it was one of ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... your paw are you going to give me for a?' and he then gave me a number which I carefully noted down. To my inexpressible pleasure I found that Rolf never forgot the numbers he had given, though I, to this day, must have my notes to hand whenever Rolf wishes to tap out anything. It is also remarkable that on a nearer investigation of his "alphabet" it becomes evident that the letters Rolf requires least are made up of the highest numbers, whereas those to which he has constant recourse have their equivalents among the lower numbers. ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... speak. Hard and shut down and silent within herself, she slipped out one evening to the workshed. She heard the tap-tap-tap of the hammer upon the metal. Her father lifted his head as the door opened. His face was ruddy and bright with instinct, as when he was a youth, his black moustache was cut close over his wide mouth, his black hair was fine and close as ever. But there was about ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... out both her hands. Mabane seized one and bent over it with the air of a courtier. The other was offered to me. Arthur was content to beam upon us all from the background. At that precise moment came a tap at the door. Mrs. ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Europe, down to the agricultural labourers, can read and write and does read newspapers and "get ideas." The explanation of economic and social processes that were mysterious to the elect a hundred years ago are now the commonplaces of the tap-room. What happened then darkly, and often unconsciously, must happen in 1916-26 openly and controllably. The current bankruptcy and liquidation and the coming reconstruction of the economic system of Europe will go on in a quite unprecedented amount of light. We shall see and know what is ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... lightly on the brim of my straw hat; and this blow he continued to repeat at intervals, sometimes brushing instead my arm and shoulder. I have had people try to mesmerise me a dozen times, and never with the least result. But at the first tap—on a quarter no more vital than my hat-brim, and from nothing more virtuous than a switch of palm wielded by a man I could not even see—sleep rushed upon me like an armed man. My sinews fainted, my eyes closed, my brain hummed, with drowsiness. I resisted—at first instinctively, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "A low tap sounded at the door, and then it slowly opened; and to the astonished gaze of the two sitting by the hearth, there appeared the figure of a little child. A snow-white robe draped his slender limbs. In one hand he bore a lighted taper, and in the other ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... at all for him Who used down fetid lanes to slink, And squat in tap-room corners grim, And drown his thoughts in dregs of drink? This much I'll say, that when the flame Of reason reassumed its force, The hell the Christian fears to name, Was heaven to ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... make a fuss about," Dave apologized. "Only a love tap, compliments of Shorty, and some kicks in the slats, ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... Patterson, p. 3, "... the possibility of preserving | | a certain series of time intervals, but of changing in | | various ways the nature of the motions or sensations that | | mark the beats." This may be tested by a simple experiment. | | With the foot or finger tap evenly, regularly, and rather | | rapidly. Without changing the regularity of the tapping, but | | merely by a mental readjustment, the beats may be felt as | | tum-te, tum-te, tum-te (or te-tum, etc.) or as | | tum-te-te, tum-te-te, tum-te-te ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... "Not a tap. He depends upon his dad fer a livin'. See what he did this mornin'. Instead of stayin' home an' lookin' after the hayin', he went to the city. That's what he's always doin'; runnin' away when ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... of, and the second river bed would be also covered o'er, and sae the same game went on and is still progressin'. Sae when the first miners came doon tae this land of Ophir the gold they got by scratchin' the tap of the earth was the latest deposit, and when ye gae doon a few hundred feet ye come on the second river—or rather, I should say, the bed o' the former river-and it is there that the gold is tae be found; and these dried-up rivers ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... just a beginning. Irrigation means constant and increasing effort, and priests and preachers have never prayed, "Give us this day our daily work." Their desire has been to be carried—to float with the tide, and he who floats is being carried downstream. Men who have tried to tap the stream and divert its waters to parched pastures have usually been caught and drowned in its depths. And this ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... it would have been no easy matter to have ascended the smooth slender shaft of a palmyra, rising thirty or forty feet without knot or branch. Of course Ossaroo, as soon as the bamboo was empty, once more climbed up and readjusted it to the "tap," knowing that the sap would continue to run. This it does for many days, only that each day it is necessary to cut a fresh slice from the top of the flower-stalk, so as to keep ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... underbrush and little sunshine in the cool, green redwood forests, each tree rising tall and stately for a hundred feet without branches, while the green tops seem almost to touch the sky as one looks up. Through the woods one hears the blue jay scream and chatter, and the tap, tap of the woodpecker as he drills holes in the bark to fill with ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... that niche," replied Nick. "When he steps inside the very nature of the place will bring his back toward me. I will tap him on the back of the head with my fist and knock him into your arms. You are to grab him with your arms around him, and hold him so that he cannot get at a weapon, and until I can get my fingers on him. That is all. ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... sun, frying the fat, preparing the hide, and greasing our harness. Charley, in riding after the horses, came to some fine lagoons, which were surrounded by a deep green belt of Nelumbiums. This plant grows, with a simple tap root, in the deep soft mud, bearing one large peltate leaf on a leaf stalk, about eight feet high, and from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter, the flower-stalk being of the same length or even ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... the tanneries, the Cremieres kept the mills, the Massins were in trade, and the Levraults continued farmers. Fortunately for the neighbourhood these four stocks threw out suckers instead of depending only on their tap-roots; they scattered cuttings by the expatriation of sons who sought their fortune elsewhere; for instance, there are Minorets who are cutlers at Melun; Levraults at Montargis; Massins at Orleans; and Cremieres of some importance in Paris. Divers are the destinies of these bees from ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... came to fill the empty place. I tried to rest, but could not, with the thought of poor Lucy tugging at my heart, and was soon back at my post again, anxiously hoping that my contraband had not been too hastily spirited away. Just as night fell there came a tap, and opening, I saw Robert literally "clothed and in his right mind." The Doctor had replaced the ragged suit with tidy garments, and no trace of that tempestuous night remained but deeper lines upon the forehead and the docile look of a repentant child. He did not cross the threshold, did not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... silliness, you see, that I would have liked to do something for William, even if it was only going into a convent—to be bricked up alive, perhaps. And then I hears a scratch, scratch, scratching, and 'Drat the mice,' says I; but I didn't take any notice, and then there was a little tap, tapping, like a bird would make with its beak on the window-pane, and I went and opened it, thinking it was a bird that had lost its way and was coming foolish-like, as they will, to the light. So I drew the curtain and opened ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... a cur, and at the first tap of the bell they always, with a united yelp, rushed for the spot, where they formed a ring round the post, each seated on his haunches and brushing the ground with his tail, with a rapid motion, from side to side, nose in the air, eyes ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... plump, juicy female, I am glad to see you, dear tap. So am I to find you so merry, sweet spiggot, replied she. One called a wench, his shovel; she called him, her peal: one named his, my slipper; and she, my foot: another, my boot; she, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... when there came a very low tap at the door. She started up and listened. She had heard no footfall on the stairs, and it was, she thought, impossible that any one should have come up without her hearing the steps. Peter Steinmarc creaked whenever he went along the ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... then were than they are now even alleged to be—how little the Irish people in general have now to gain by rebellion, and how much to lose, it is hard to resist a suspicion that it must be even easier now than it was in 1798 for the Government to tap the secrets of ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... and he was sitting in his room awaiting the usual report from the river, when a quick tap at his door was followed by the entrance of the very man he was thinking about. He rose eagerly to receive him, determined, however, to allow no inconsiderate impulse to drive him into ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... pressing it close to him, "Nay, my daughter, thou needst not be alarmed at what I say, for—for 'twas nothing. Thou knowest in years I do grow apace, and 'twould be small wonder if death did perchance tap me on the shoulder and say, 'Thou art the man!' There, there, little one," he added kissing her, "thou needst not reply; I can read an answer in ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... the next morning, two little naked feet pattered along the passage in Knapwater House, from which Owen Graye's bedroom opened, and a tap was given ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... is well and will soon be back. I see no ducks yet. Hiram is still on his hives and the music of his saw and hammer sounds good in my ears. I shall tap a tree to-day. ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... after Bontems and the lady arrive. Much astonished not to find the key in the door of the King's cabinet, Bontems gently taps at the door several times, but in vain; finally so loudly does he tap that the King hears the sound. Bontems says he is there, and asks his Majesty to open, because the key is not in the door. The King replies that he has just put it there. Bontems looks on the ground for it, the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... moderate meal, but sat up with the landlord, talking about his bad prospects and his long run of ill-luck, and diverging from these topics to the subjects of horse-flesh and racing. Nothing was said either by himself, his host, or the few laborers who strayed into the tap-room, which could, in the slightest degree, excite the very small and very dull imaginative faculty which Isaac ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... voice, at whose behests Trembled a hundred martial breasts, Be heard without a smile Urging astonished Cingalese To tap the tapering rubber trees Upon their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... out-buildings. At the entrance stood an empty cart. The staircase was crooked and shaky, and at the top of it, like a moving candelabrum, stood a waiter with a tallow candle in his hand. To the right was the tap-room, painted from time immemorial to imitate a grove. Tumblers, tea-pots, decanters, three silver and a great number of pewter spoons, adorned the shelves of a cup-board; a couple of lads in chintz shirts, with dirty ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... not uncomfortable little room. A fire was of course burning brightly in the grate, but for a minute or two we all three stood near the door, not venturing further in, for though Uncle Geoff had replied "come in" to Pierson's tap, he did not at once look up when we made our appearance, but went on finishing his letter. Some mornings he had to go out very early, but this was not one of them; but instead of going out, he had a great ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... when the flask had cooled, we transferred the end of the delivery tube to a vessel full of mercury and placed the whole apparatus in an oven at a temperature varying between 25 degrees C. and 30 degrees C. (77 degrees F. and 86 degrees F.) then, after having refilled the small cylindrical tap-funnel with carbonic acid, we passed into it with all necessary precautions 10 cc. (0.35 fl. oz) of a liquid similar to that described, which had been already in active fermentation for several days out of ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... tap at the door, and a call boy offered a card. "It's against orders, I know, ma'am," ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... too much upset even to mention her reason, and who had left the offering inside her desk, said nothing, and only looked unutterably miserable. Matters, therefore, were at rather a deadlock, when there was a tap at the door and Mavis entered bearing the ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... swift; only, as he went, he groaned and shuddered. For about 2500 of Jack's steps we only passed one house—that where the lantern was; and about 1500 of these are in the darkness of the pit. But now the moon is on tap again, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the room, Fandor had just seen Elizabeth Dollon lying unconscious. A tube, detached from a portable gas stove, was between her tightly closed lips! The tap was turned full on. He flung himself on his knees near the poor girl, pulled away the deadly tube, and put his ear ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... temperature has gradually, though slowly, increased, and we believe the time will come when the work will have to be abandoned on account of the heat. We have gone far enough to know that when the fuel on the surface of our globe is all used up we shall only have to tap the center to get all the heat we want." "What a capital idea that will be," I interrupted, "to throw at some of our pessimistic friends ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... lady, and the man who walked beside her with the baby perched high on his shoulder, and who had his other arm around the waist of the baby's mother. A tiny paw reached out of the hamper Captain Smith was carrying, and the dog felt the tap of Hippity-Hop's paw on his ear. He turned at the touch and put his nose to the basket, and then he saw Cheepsie, fluttering in the cage that was gripped by the old ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... simply and naturally. Then a hymn of her own composition was sung in Efik to the tune of "Rothesay Bay," she accompanying it with a tambourine. If the attention of the girls wandered she would lean forward and tap them on ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... more about the man who often stayed out all night to see what animals did. 'One morning, before it was quite light, he heard a tap-tap near him, and saw a rabbit beating on the ground with his hind-feet close to ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... his last copy and was engaged in piling the copy-books neatly, one on top of another, when there came a soft tap at ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... stately room now, silence only broken by the tap-tap of the ivory paper-knife with which M. le Comte was still nervously fidgeting. M. Fourier was wiping the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... midnight when she heard a tap at her window, so light that at first she thought it was made by a large raindrop; but presently her name was softly called by a voice that she recognized. Then she understood it all, and her ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... was different and one arm was shorter than the other. Much depended on the curve, for the thing was made on the model of an old-fashioned but efficient clamp that carpenters sometimes use for fastening work to a bench. A blow or pressure on one part wedged it fast, but a sharp tap on the other enabled it to be lifted off. This was convenient, because as the work progressed, the track along the dam had to be lengthened and the guard fixed across a ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... the end of the kiva. Kwisa The planks set into the floor, to which the lower beam of a blanket loom is fastened. Kaintupha } Terms applied to the main floor; they both mean Kivakani } "the large space." Tapwtci Hewn planks a foot wide and 6 to 8 feet long, set into the floor. Winawtci A plank. Owaphimiata "Stone spread out;" the flagged floor; also designates the slabs covering the hatchway. Yauwiopi. Stones with holes pecked in the ends for holding the loom ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... together, excited their curiosity; and they engaged a peery servant, as they called a footman who was drinking with Kit. the hostler, at the tap-house, to watch all her motions. This fellow reported the following particulars, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... The voices stopped as the tap of his cane announced his approach, but he made a sign for them to continue the same as though he were ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... sixpenny copy of the Story of Bessie Costrell, which some one had evidently read and left open. Perhaps what brought the old times back again more than anything else was the fact that as I came out of the larder the sleeve of my wind clothes caught the tap of the copper and turned it on. When I heard the drip of the water I turned instinctively and turned the tap off, almost expecting to hear Bobs' raucous voice cursing me for my clumsiness. Perhaps what strikes one more forcibly than anything else is the fact that nothing ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the tree in the forest was that it was not sound. It lacked inside strength. Even a slight tap of the ax proved that it was a sort of 'hollow mockery.' It was a good-looking tree on the outside, but its heart was not right. And isn't that exactly the case with a lot of good-looking, well-dressed people? Why, even a boy or a girl can be all wrong at the heart, though ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... who properly belonged to the place were assembled, with Mr. Sharp and Mr. Blunt as guests, when a tap at the door announced another visiter. It was Mr. Dodge, begging to be admitted on a matter of business. Eve smiled, as she bowed assent to old Nanny, who acted as her groom of the chambers, and hastily expressed a belief ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... third, Ned Hunter, remained on guard. At a few minutes after nine the maid, Edith Baxter, carried down to the stables his supper, which consisted of a dish of curried mutton. She took no liquid, as there was a water-tap in the stables, and it was the rule that the lad on duty should drink nothing else. The maid carried a lantern with her, as it was very dark and the path ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... and art, and music, since these are, after all, but dream-voyages in other men's minds—they alone are for me the panacea of pain. Not the cackle of the human tongue—that for ever leaves me cold; not the sympathy which talks and reproves, or turns on the tap of help and courage by the usual trite source—that never helps me to forget. But Work, and Travel, and (for me) Loneliness—these are the three things by which I flee from haunting terrors towards numbness ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... two o'clock came. Mrs. Compton was in her room. There was a faint tap at the door. Beatrice opened it. It was Asgeelo. The Hindu stood with his finger on his lips, and then moved away slowly and stealthily. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... been such a storm in the ten years my grandfather had lived in Nebraska. He said at dinner that we would not try to reach the cattle—they were fat enough to go without their corn for a day or two; but to-morrow we must feed them and thaw out their water-tap so that they could drink. We could not so much as see the corrals, but we knew the steers were over there, huddled together under the north bank. Our ferocious bulls, subdued enough by this time, were probably warming each other's backs. "This'll take the bile out ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... paternal tap," he observes. "For first offenders only. That chap's all right. Soon find out it's no good fussing about your rights as a true-born British elector in ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... he heard the responsive tap-tap of a tail in the dry dust. He climbed out of his clothes, leaving them in a pile in the middle of the floor, tumbled into bed, and pulled the covers high ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... gin per day, he would find a sum expended which would procure for him many comforts, for the want of which he is continually grumbling. If this sum is expended for only two glasses of spirits, what must be the expense to the habitual and daily sot, who constantly haunts the tap-room or the wretched bar? to say nothing of the loss of time, health, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... and gave the order for the repast. As he returned, there was a tap at the door; and he hastened ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... saw nothing more startling than a slumbering cat and the fragments of a broken lamp upon the floor, and his eyes went back to her again. Then, as he marked her attitude of attention, he understood. She was listening for the familiar but ominous "tap, tap" of her father's stick. He too listened. Then, as no sound came to his straining ears, ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... neural flow," explained the little man proudly. "Helps tap the unused eighty per cent. The pre-symptomatic memory is unaffected, due to automatic cerebral lapse in case of overload. I'm afraid it won't do much more than cube his present IQ, and an intelligent idiot ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey
... remarked on them before me. Now Harry Warrington had been floundering for ever so long a time past, and out of his proper element. As soon as he found it, health, strength, spirits, energy, returned to him, and with the tap of the epaulet on his shoulder he sprang up an altered being. He delighted in his new profession; he engaged in all its details, and mastered them with eager quickness. Had I the skill of my friend Lorrequer, I would follow the other Harry into camp, and see him on the march, at the mess, on ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the answer, which was in a low voice and came, he conjectured, from Aunt "Ca'line"; but the gruff voice subsided, and there was the sound of footsteps going out of the room. A tap came on the preacher's door, and he opened it to the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... moment misty and aboriginal time big with portent. There is a ridiculous Scotch story in which one gruesome touch lives. A clergyman's female servant was seated in the kitchen one Saturday night reading the Scriptures, when she was somewhat startled by hearing at the door the tap and voice of her sweetheart. Not expecting him, and the hour being somewhat late, she opened it in astonishment, and was still more astonished to hear him on entering abuse Scripture-reading. He behaved altogether in an unprecedented manner, and in ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... pulled a golden cord, down fell a shower of chocolate creams; if he went to the strawberry ice room, there was a wooden spade for him to dig it out with, and a wheelbarrow in which to bring it away; if he wanted a present, he had only to turn on the present-tap and out came whatever he wished for. So he immediately wished for a six-bladed knife, a real pony, and a gold watch. For all that, he was not a bit happy. The incessant talking around him never ceased for a moment; the air seemed packed with people whom he never saw, but ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... spares The owner the fag of thinking: it's the listeners Who get the headache. And yet, I could talk At one time to some purpose—didn't dribble Like a tap that needs a washer: and, by carties, It's talking I've missed most: I've always been Like an urchin with a withy—must be slashing— Thistles for choice: and not once, since I came, Have I had a real good shindy to warm ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... plunged into the report of the doings at the Bourse, with the eagerness of a man who has an all-sufficient reason for his anxiety in a drawer at home. Having emptied one glass of absinthe, he was about to order a second, when he felt a tap on the shoulder, and on turning round ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... the Hotel of the Golden Lion, and was in my own room arranging plans with the brave Courier, when there came a modest little tap at the door, which opened on an outer gallery surrounding a court-yard; and an intensely shabby little man looked in, to inquire if the gentleman would have a Cicerone to show the town. His face was so very wistful and anxious, in the half-opened doorway, and there ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Boy sat down, but he began to cry. There is no telling what would have happened just then if a soft "tap, tap," had not been ...
— Snubby Nose and Tippy Toes • Laura Rountree Smith
... ill-tempered artifice bore excellent fruit, for before I had nearly finished the piece of plain sewing I had set myself as a sort of penance, there was a tap at the door, and Sara came in, looking very excited, with her bright eyes full ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... men were walking one on the heels of the other. Their burdens, carried on their heads, held them erect. They stepped out freely. But against the wooden chop boxes, the bags of cornmeal potio, the bundles of canvas that made up some of the loads, the long safari sticks went tap, tap, tap, in rhythm. This tapping was a steady undertone to the volume of noise that arose from thirty throats. Every man was singing or shouting at the full strength of his lungs. A little file of Wakamba sung in unison one ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... started to ascend the ladder, a "tap-tap-tap" could be heard from the grain bin. We waited in fear and trembling the result of his mission. Hungry was encouraging him with "Cheero, mate, the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Crane's-Bill).—This hardy perennial alpine is very effective on rock-work, especially in front of dark stones; but provision must be made for its long tap roots. A rich, deep loam suits it well. Its seeds germinate freely when sown in peat and sand. Flowers are borne from May to July. ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... yet important thing is to caution against so fastening the hose to the tap that it pulls ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue
... friend, as savouring of a menial's task work, nor was it a pipe for oral communication, which is undignified, as requiring a man to stoop and put his mouth to it,—but an arrangement by which a light tap was made against the wall so that the inhabitant of the room might know that he was wanted without any process derogatory to his self-respect. The chaplain obeyed the summons, and, lightly knocking at the door, again stood before the lord. He found the Marquis standing upon the hearth-rug, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... There was a tap on the door; it was Ben's. I fell back a step, and he came in. "Will you bring Cassandra to the ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... who, having caught his death of cold by superintending the laying down of three pipes of port, might ever afterwards be heard, upon such interesting occasions, walking about the damp cellars after nightfall in pattens. Hopkins, the oracle of the college "tap," maintained that the frogs were something "off the common;" and strengthened his opinion by reference to a specimen which he had selected—a lank, black, skinny individual, which really looked ugly enough to have come ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... of that mysterious powder, the cartridges of which he concealed upstairs in Mere-Grand's bedroom. Great danger attended this manufacture. The slightest forgetfulness while he was manipulating the ingredients, any delay, too, in turning off a tap, might lead to a terrible explosion, which would annihilate the building and all who might be in it. For this reason he preferred to work when he was alone, so that on the one hand there might be no danger ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... objection will ever catch you napping. It will do you no good to look up the right answer after you leave the prospect. Nothing can be more exasperatingly worthless than an idea of something you "might have said" but could not think of until too late. Have all your facts on tap. And be practiced in making use of them in every imaginable way. Rare indeed will be cases that you are not prepared ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... a feeble shuffle, not a young man's tread. With the sound of uncertain feet came the hard tap-tap of a stick against the door, and the high-pitched voice of eld, "Open, open; let me in!" Again Tyr flung up his head in a ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... little else, being a long vault with a window at one end, and his bedroom was a cave hollowed out at the back of it. In his cellar it was that he dispensed his hospitalities, in no sparing manner, having usually casks of port and sherry on tap, and also a cask of London porter. Glasses were out of use with him. In mugs and jugs were the generous fluids drawn and drank. When Williamson made a man welcome that welcome was sincere. Before I say anything about ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... slight tap was heard at the door. The young girl turned pale, for in her present frame of mind any little matter affected her. Nor were her apprehensions materially allayed by the entrance of Dorothy, who, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the stairs. And now, as he hearkened, it seemed to him that it spoke no more but had taken on a new and more awful sound; for now its slow, rhythmic beat was hatefully like another sound, a soft sound and regular, a small, dull, plashing sound,—the awful tap! tap! tap! of great, slow-falling drops ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... to resist giving publicity to compositions originally intended for the delight of the tap-room, but which continue secretly to sow pollution broadcast in the minds of youth. Indeed, notwithstanding the many exquisite poems of this writer, it is not saying too much to aver that his immoral writings have done far more harm than his purer writings have done good; and that it would ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... is played as follows:—It is agreed by the player and his confederate that one tap on the floor shall represent A, two taps E, three taps I, four taps O, and five taps U, and that the first letter of each remark the confederate makes shall be one of the consonants of the word or sentence ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... was just completed when there was a slight tap on the door, and her father's voice asked if she was ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... so crowded that the people overflowed into all the streets around. In every door and window there was nothing to be seen but heads ranged one above the other; the terraces were covered with people, and curious spectators were observed an the roof of the Duomo and on the tap ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... explained by "Snowball" himself. It appeared that the brandy-cask was without a regular tap, or stopcock, and that the cook was in the habit of drawing the liquor through the bung-hole, by means of an ordinary dipper. Somehow or other—of course through the black's drunken negligence—the burning candle had slipped from his ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... of the company of the women at table, during the whole of our stay at the island, Far, however, from considering themselves neglected, they very good-naturedly chatted with us behind our seats, and flapped away the flies, and by a gentle tap, accidentally or playfully delivered, reminded us occasionally of the honour that was done us.' The women, when the men had finished, sat down ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... though, sir, and the best of wine too; and old Salterne had a good tap of Alicant in old time, old time, old time, sir! and you must drink it now, whether he does or ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... million billion billion billions of ergs to draw on, man will have nothing to worry about for a good many years to come! That represents a flood of power vaster than man could comprehend. Why try to release any more energy? We have more than we can use; we may as well tap that ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... Jack scampered across the dooryard the very first time he tried. They found things just as they had been the day before. They saw Farmer Brown's boy, but he didn't see them. Tommy Tit was just going to tap on the window to let him know they were there, when a door inside opened, and in walked Mrs. Brown. It frightened them so that Tommy Tit flew away without tasting a single nut, and Happy Jack nearly fell as he scrambled back into the tree close by the window. You see, they never had made her acquaintance, ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... to protest again, but she silenced him by a gesture that was almost imperious. "Don't you see that for papa's sake, for my own, as well as yours, I must go? Now let us say good-night as if we were parting unsuspicious of trouble. When I tap at your door, Mr. Graham, you will follow me; and you, papa, try to keep ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... a foot on a side, with a round orifice in the middle of one side, and the side opposite covered with stout cloth stretched tight over a framework. A saucer containing strong ammonia water, and another containing strong hydrochloric acid, will cause dense fumes in the box, and a tap with the hand upon the cloth back will force out a ring from the orifice. These may be made to follow and strike each other, rebounding and vibrating, apparently attracting each other and being attracted ...
— The Machinery of the Universe - Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena • Amos Emerson Dolbear
... and she still remained, without stirring, as though she were unconscious. I had the shamelessness to tap softly at the screen as though to remind her.... She started, sprang up, and flew to seek her kerchief, her hat, her coat, as though making her escape from me.... Two minutes later she came from behind the screen ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... do," muttered the man, impatiently; "and even that is as much as my place is worth. Now, just tap at yonder door, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... a belt of grass of no great extent may be found, for the most part dry and yellow, but in places green and fresh. It is in such spots as these that one may hope to tap an underground reservoir in the rock. To these shallow wells has been given the name of "Soaks." They seldom exceed fifteen feet in depth, though similar subterranean basins have been tapped by a well perhaps a hundred feet deep, sunk some distance from the foot of ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... iron filings upon the paper, I notice a tendency of the filings to arrange themselves in determinate lines. They cannot freely follow this tendency, for they are hampered by the friction against the paper. They are helped by tapping the paper; each tap releasing them for a moment, and enabling them to follow their tendencies. But this is an experiment which can only be seen by myself. To enable you all to see it, I take a pair of small magnets and by a simple optical ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... appear to her and fright her; he himself did suspect the said Amy to be a witch, and charged her with being the cause of his child's illness, and set her in the stocks. Two days after, his daughter Elizabeth was taken with such strange fits, that they could not force open her mouth without a tap; and the younger child being in the same condition, they used to her the same remedy. Both children grievously complained that Amy Duny and another woman, whose habit and looks they described, did appear to them and torment them, and would cry out, 'There stands Amy Duny! There stands Rose Cullender!' ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... hastily called to the breastworks and formed into line, expecting, it may be, to see the enemy drawn up on the distant hills; or dismissed with orders not to leave our company parade, and to lose not an instant in "falling in" at the first tap of the "Assembly," as the signal for regimental muster is called, or at the more ominous and alarming sound of the "Long-Roll;" whether retiring to our tents for the night, ordered to sleep on our arms; or awakened suddenly by the sharp "Halt! Who goes there?" of ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... to cover, with unexpected propriety, a much wider or more momentous experience. The force of experience in any moment—if we abstract from represented values—is emotional; so that for sublime poetry what is required is to tap some reservoir of feeling. If a phrase opens the flood-gates of emotion, it has made itself most deeply significant. Its discursive range and clearness may not be remarkable; its emotional power will quite suffice. For this reason again ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the Hindustani word for fowler, and Takankar is the name of a small occupational offshoot of the Pardhis in Berar, who travel from village to village and roughen the household grinding-mills when they have worn smooth. The word is derived from takna, to tap or chisel. The caste appears to be a mixed group made up of Bawarias or other Rajput outcastes, Gonds and social derelicts from all sources. The Pardhis perhaps belong more especially to the Maratha country, as they ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... in one piece. Here's my plan: We can't hope to get away by running. Sooner or later, before we are clear of the German lines, we are certain to bump into some one. That would settle it. We'll go ahead a little more, then we'll enter one of these tents, tap the occupants on the head with our revolver butts and crawl into their cots. Then when our pursuers have gone by ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... Captain is ogling the chambermaid in the wooden gallery, or bribing her to know who is the pretty young mistress that has come in the coach? The pack-horses are in the great stable, and the drivers and ostlers carousing in the tap. And in Mrs. Landlady's bar, over a glass of strong waters, sits a gentleman of military appearance, who travels with pistols, as all the rest of the world does, and has a rattling grey mare in the stables which will be saddled and away with its owner half an hour before ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... speak. It was almost dark in the study now, and what little light was still filtering in at the window from the grey nightfall was obscured by the figure of the Missioner gazing out at the lantern spire of his new church. There was a tap at the door, and Mrs. Lidderdale snatched up the volume that Mark had let fall upon the floor when he emerged from the curtains, so that when Dora came in to light the gas and say that tea was ready, nothing of the stress of the last few minutes was visible. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... the spoiled fruit; it is lopping off the poisonous branches of the deadly upas tree, which but makes the root more vigorous in sending out new shoots in every direction. A right understanding of physiological law teaches us that the cause must be removed; the tree must be girdled; the tap-root must be severed. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of his connection with two unsavory 'deals,' one of which resulted in an amendment to the pure food law so that manufacturers of a valueless 'consumption cure' could continue to mislead the victims of the 'white plague'; Norton, who had uttered an epigram now celebrated in the tap-rooms of Washington, 'The paths of glory lead but to ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... state enterprises remains bogged down in political controversy, while the country's dynamic private sector is denied both financing and access to markets. Reform of the banking sector is proceeding slowly, raising concerns that the country will be unable to tap sufficient domestic savings to maintain current high levels of growth. Administrative and legal barriers are also causing costly delays for foreign investors and are raising similar doubts about Vietnam's ability to maintain the inflow of foreign capital. ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... plays much on the violin, and rides away into the forest attended by only one groom, and is gone for days together. He has composed an opera, which has not yet been put on the stage. People, when they speak of him, tap their foreheads with one finger. But I don't believe it. The same liberality that induced him, years ago, to restore "William Tell" to the stage has characterized the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... upon wave of exhaustion followed by waves of invigoration. Had he stopped when he first began to tire, he never would have known of his wonderful reserve fund of strength which can be drawn upon only by passing through the feeling of exhaustion. He seems to be able to tap deeper and deeper reservoirs of ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... tap is heard and the door opens. Violet comes in, dressed in clinging white, her eyes heavy, her sweet face ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the round Dick received a sharp tap on his nose that brought the red. Stung, Prescott became only the cooler. For some time he fought for the opening that he wanted, and got it at last, though Dodge's guarding left prevented the blow from landing with quite all the force with which it ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... sir; I ought to have known," said Josh. "It was along of Master Dick, there, calling you by t'other name. As I was saying," he continued hastily, "Will there gives them a tap with the disgorger, and then holds them under his boot, runs this here down till it touches the hook where they've swallowed it, takes a turn or two of the line round the handle and twists ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... the shawl tight over her elbow, her thighs lithe and restless, a panther in a cage. At the back of the stage she turns suddenly, advances; the snapping of her fingers gets loud, insistent; a thrill whirrs through the guitar like a covey of partridges scared in a field. Red heels tap threateningly. ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... now—the uncertain, hesitating clang of a bell-buoy rocked in the tideway—with its melancholy note of warning. Indeed, there are few sounds on sea or land more fraught with lonesomeness and fear. Behind it and beyond it a faint "tap-tap" was now audible. Barebone knew it to be the sound of a caulker's hammer in the Government repairing yard on the south side. They were drifting past the mouth of the ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... down on the top step, with two very shapely, slender, slippered feet displayed on the second below, two dimpled elbows planted on her knees, two flushed, soft, rounded cheeks buried in two long and slender hands. Away over at the stables she could hear the tap, tap, of curry-comb on brush-back, as the First Squadron groomed its fidgety mounts. Away up the valley the voices of the children in the Arapahoe village rose gleefully on the air. Away up among the barracks and quarters at the fort, the band of the Infantry was playing sweet melody. ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... what does not belong to you!" she said, laying down the law with her mite of a forefinger; and, to make her words more impressive, giving him an occasional tap on the nose. He listened dutifully, as if he were the sole transgressor; but interrupted the homily now and then by lapping the hand of his little mistress with his tiny red tongue, as a token of the ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... of school, some compositions were read. One was entitled 'The Magical Ring,' and commenced, 'As I was sitting alone last evening, I heard a gentle tap on the door, and immediately a beautiful fairy appeared before me. She placed a ring on my finger, and left me.' The next began, 'It is my week to write composition, but I do not know what to say. However, I must write ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... the house as if he belonged to it; he served the guests (never taking any part in out-of-doors work), entertained the customers as they dropped in, played a hand at cards occasionally, and was never at a loss in praising a fresh tap. "We've just opened a new cask of wine—only taste, and say if there's not music in wine, and something divine!" Touching every thing that concerned the household, he invariably used the authoritative and familiar we:-"We have a cellar fit for a king;" "Our house lies ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... had no monument. 'Twas a quare world; a poor man had the chance of dying wid a rich man, but was not to be berrid in his company. Well, he supposed it was for the best," and here he hammered the heel-tap out of his pipe on the side of his shoe; "when the last bugle sounded a field-officer would feel uncomfortable like if he had to be looking for his bones in the same ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... passed the August of mine age, When more than half my tap of life was run, Rich by rewards given by your mother sage, For merits past, and service yet undone, I longed to leave this wandering pilgrimage, And in my native soil again to won, To get some seely home I had desire, Loth still to warm me ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... English people turned up, but they were very kind in waiting on us, and after breakfast we got what was better than anything in the shape of a good wash. We had a long wait at Muenster so there was no hurry, and we all got our turn under the stand-pipe and tap that stood in the station. Then on and on and on, and it seemed that we had always been in the train, till at last, late one evening, ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... of the windows, he began to tap with his fingers on the glass, while he thought of the illumination effects, in the event of Rodin's lying in state. At this moment, Rousselet entered, with a large square box under his arm. He placed it on the drawers, and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... laboratory all piled, running down the hall, Locke paused only a second to tap on Eva's door, as she had asked, if anything happened, so that she might be present at the capture. An instant and Eva, too, had ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... up and found myself having coition. I was angry and felt I had been put back in my progress, but a fever of lust now came over me. I would sit under the tap and let the cold water run over me to conquer the fever, but at the end of a week my hopes were frustrated and I even turned against my natural diet, on which I had made flesh. A., as I expected, went through ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... shall abruptly sever my relations with that institution some day—when I am through with it. At present I am milking the Church to the extent of a brimming pail every year; and as long as the udder is full and accessible I shall continue to tap it. I tapped the Presbyterian Church, through Borwell, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... to the boat-landing, the island was densely covered with maples, hemlocks, and cedars. The trees gathered in round the cottage so closely that the slightest wind made the branches scrape the roof and tap the wooden walls. A few moments after sunset the darkness became impenetrable, and ten yards beyond the glare of the lamps that shone through the sitting-room windows—of which there were four—you could not see an inch ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... by the Tap of a Fan on his left Shoulder by Coquetilla, as he was talking carelessly with her in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Buonaparte, afterwards Emperor of the French, stood with his constable's baton as a custoder of order. The troops, which had been called from distances, and were billeted in the suburbs, rapidly concentrated at tap of drum and call of bugle. The Duke of Wellington, having the command, so disposed them that, without appearing through the day, they were ready to act at a moment's notice, wherever their presence might be necessary, and so posted that each detachment could readily render ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... had probably run out on some short errand. She went up the stairs softly. The bedroom door, she knew, would be open. Mrs. Phillips had a feeling against being "shut off," as she called it. She meant to tap lightly and walk straight in, as usual. But what she saw through the opening caused her to pause. Mrs. Phillips was sitting up in bed with her box of cosmetics in front of her. She was sensitive of anyone seeing her make-up; ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... the Good Intent, and the sanded tap-room, with its trestle tables and sprigs of holly stuck under sooty beams reeked with smoke and the steam of hot gin ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... Highness, the Keeper of the Seals, relating to this flaw in our statutes. It is desirable that the government should maintain the interests of landlords. That is the chief question in statecraft. We are the tap-root of taxation." ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... noses close to the deck an' kep' up a pretty fair imitation of a brass band. Suddenly Bob began to dream, or took a nightmare or somethin', for he hit straight out with both fists, givin' the purser a tap on the nob with his left, an' diggin' his right into my bread-basket with such good will that he nearly knocked all the wind out o' me, at the same time he uttered ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... I tap Hotlips on the shoulder. "Hotlips, that is all very well for any bats in the room which maybe can hear what you play, but—" He does not ...
— The Flying Cuspidors • V. R. Francis
... and responded to throughout the years; so often with his little variations of playfulness. Many a time in early summer when out-of-doors she would be reminded of it by hearing some bird sounding its love signal on a piece of dry wood—that tap of heart-beat. Now it crashed close ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... Orford in Suffolk. Among other antiquities, the town possessed Hezekiah's widowed mother, and when there was no very great hurry—the world went slower in those days—the dutiful son used to go ashore in the ship's boat, and after a filial tap at his mother's window, which often startled the old woman considerably, pass on his way to see a young lady to whom he had already proposed five times ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... forest creeps up to it—a curious assembly, since though they scramble and swing and knock their heads against the glass, they seem to have no purpose—something senseless inspires them. One gets tired of watching them, as they amble round the lantern and blindly tap as if for admittance, one large toad being the most besotted of any and shouldering his way through the rest. Ah, but what's that? A terrifying volley of pistol-shots rings out—cracks sharply; ripples spread— silence laps smooth over sound. A tree—a ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... Ann!" Sure enough from the boskages adjacent came the ring and tap of a hammer to the accompaniment of a rich, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... not "put up." He repeated again his order to go forward, and was struck on the nose—not a hard blow; just a preliminary tap, which started blood. He immediately drew his pistol and shot the man, who fell ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... tradesmen had a little club at the Gauntlet, where Cope employed a horrid brazen barmaid who sometimes sang comic songs to the club members. Mrs. Cope felt strongly about the barmaid, and quite took the vicar's side in the dispute the day that Cope came out of the tap-room and was so rude and abusive to the reverend gentleman. Mrs. Cope said she'd be glad if Mr. Norton brought her husband to book before the magistrates and ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... for Planting.—On all land not having a porous subsoil, plow very deep; it gives opportunity for the long tap-root of the plant to penetrate deep, and guard against excessive drought. The usual custom is to lay the ground into beds, elevated a little in the middle, and a depression between them, in which excessive moisture may ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... Thank you!" in the same whisper. Before he could tap at the door, then darkening in the receding light, it opened suddenly, and a big Irish woman bounced out, and then whisked in again, calling to some one in an inner room: "Here he is, Mrs. Mill'r," and then bounced out again, with a "Walk royt in, if you plaze; ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor |
