"Tablecloth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the table, bringing the dishes out of the pantry. The state of that pantry horrified Anne, but she wisely said nothing. Mr. Harrison told her where to find the bread and butter and a can of peaches. Anne adorned the table with a bouquet from the garden and shut her eyes to the stains on the tablecloth. Soon the tea was ready and Anne found herself sitting opposite Mr. Harrison at his own table, pouring his tea for him, and chatting freely to him about her school and friends and plans. She could hardly believe the evidence of ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... been about to butter a piece of toast. The butter, jerked from the knife by the convulsive start which he gave, popped up in a semi-circle and plumped onto the tablecloth. He ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... still,—except that the Madonna was to have a blue dress, and everything else as much gold on it as could be managed,—there was very little advance in notions of colour. Suddenly, Giotto threw aside all the glitter, and all the conventionalism; and declared that he saw the sky blue, the tablecloth white, and angels, when he dreamed of them, rosy. And he simply founded the schools of colour in Italy—Venetian and all, as I will show you to-morrow morning, if it is fine. And what is more, nobody discovered much about colour ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... attention was equally divided between the temperature of the oven and the adornment of the table. A snow-white sheet, one of a dozen she had found in the box, was drafted peremptorily into service, and did duty as a tablecloth. Oh, the innocent and funny makeshifts of poverty, and the goodly distance it can make a little go! Perhaps some of us, as we stand in our rich dining rooms, and gaze with pride at the silver, the ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... thin, stooped man, prematurely old at fifty. The harassed, driven expression that was so habitual to his face had plowed furrows that no lighter mood could now erase. His present mood, however, was not a light one. He sat with his hand shading his eyes, and scowled gloomily at the tablecloth. ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... door. The daughter got possession of this key while the mass was being celebrated, and entered the house. The priest's servant had laid the cloth in advance, so as to be free to attend mass, and the poor daft girl hurriedly removed the tablecloth and napkins and hid them in the manor-house. When mass was over the theft was detected at once, and caused very great surprise, the first thing noticed being that the linen alone had been taken. The priest was unwilling ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... moments. His hands were thrust deep down into the pockets of his overcoat. With eyes fixed upon the tablecloth, he seemed to be thinking deeply, till presently he raised his head ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tacked up a white tablecloth which I had in my trunk, for a curtain; spread my one deer skin rug upon the floor, made up the cot bed with my blankets, opened my trunk, hung up a few garments, and was settled. This is the first spring bed I have slept upon since Mr. H. took the ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... him that mischievous, liquid-brown glance when he was in the act of lifting a level soupspoonful to his lips, he did not, as a man might do under the circumstances, spill the soup upon the tablecloth, or back into the dish; nor did he pause in the work of lifting the liquid ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... of unheard-of fatigues, and of gymnastic exercises that would have been trying to an acrobat, we came to a vast field of ice, which wholly surrounded the bottom of the cone of the volcano. The natives called it the tablecloth, probably from some such reason as the dwellers in the Cape of Good Hope call their mountain Table Mountain, and their roads ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... except when we had abundance of supplies of some kind or other in the mission house, and were thus able to carry over sufficient, with the fish the family supplied, for a hearty meal. So, in her cariole Mrs Young had, not only this liberal supply of food, with plenty of tea and sugar, but a large tablecloth, dishes, knives, forks, spoons, and other essentials. About nine o'clock she was driven over to the home, where, with a certain amount of trepidation, the expectant family were awaiting her coming. They had been at work very early and never did a floor made of well-planed spruce ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... light upon the red panels of the wardrobe. So the room fixed itself for ever on their minds. They noted the crude colour of the Brussels carpet, and even the oilcloth around the toilette-table was remembered. They saw that the round table was covered with a red tablecloth, and that writing materials were there, a pair of stays, a pair of tan gloves, and some withering flowers. They saw the ball-dress that Lady Helen had worn thrown over the arm-chair; the silk stockings, the satin shoes—and a gleam of sunlight that found its way between the blinds fell upon ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... of table linen is incomplete without a damask carving cloth to match each tablecloth, which it protects from spatterings from the platter. This also may be fashioned of plain linen, should be about three-quarters of a yard wide and a yard long, and either hemstitched or scalloped—embroidered, too, if one cares to put that much energy into work which ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... sleeper in the room above. The old man rose, and went down into the kitchen, where he found the two prisoners preparing to search for whatever property they might carry away. Instantly they fell upon their victim, threw him on to the floor, and with a tablecloth, which they found in the room, and which they cut into strips for the purpose, bound the poor old man hand and foot, and struck him so violently about the head that he was killed on the spot, where he was found the following morning. The prisoners failed ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... of imagination and good sense, like you, desert one camp only to join the other; if they cannot keep to the happy medium between two forms of extravagance, we shall always be exposed to the satire of the sophists, who deny all progress, who compare the genius of man to this tablecloth, which, being too short to cover the whole of Signor Giardini's table, decks one end at the expense of ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... almost immediately, and Mom Wallis had done her best to make it appetizing. There was a lamb stew with potatoes, and fresh corn bread with coffee. The men ate with relish, and watched their guest of honor as if she had been an angel come down to abide with them for a season. There was a tablecloth on the old table, too—a white tablecloth. It looked remarkably like an old sheet, to be sure, with a seam through the middle where it had been worn and turned and sewed together; but it was a tablecloth now, and a marvel to the men. And the wonder about Margaret ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... superior should be condemned to pick up such bribes falling from such a hand, what a frightful iniquity! And what social system is this which has for its base disproportion and injustice? Would it not be best to take it by the four corners, and to throw pell-mell to the ceiling the damask tablecloth, and the festival, and the orgies, and the tippling and drunkenness, and the guests, and those with their elbows on the table, and those with their paws under it, and the insolent who give and the idiots who accept, and to spit it all back again in the face ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... want to clear off the table," complained Sister, drawing pictures on the tablecloth with a fork, a practice which ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... the girls flew through their share of clearing-up. It never weighed very heavily upon them; they usually began the process of piling and scraping dishes before they left the table, Rose whisking the tablecloth into its drawer as Norma bumped through the swinging door with the last dishes, and Kate halfway through the washing even then. Chattering and busy, they hustled the hot plates onto their shelves, rattled ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... his life he was unable to fix his attention firmly on the pages of Jarby's Encyclopedia. His eyes insisted on turning to where Miss Sally moved about the cloth spread on the grass; the tablecloth on which green bugs and black bugs and brown bugs were already parading, as bugs always do at a picnic. Occasionally he stroked his sandy-gray whiskers, and whenever she turned her face in his direction he cast his eyes upon his book, but he could ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... iron soul, know that. He was not in the least upset by the news—just surprised. He happened to be raising his glass at the moment, and he registered a certain amount of restrained emotion by snapping the stem in half and shooting the contents over the tablecloth: but that was all. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... in the front room a-pantin' an' a-gaspin' an' a-wond'rin' whether it wuz true. As he wuz thinkin', up comes the girl to get a clean tablecloth out of the clothes-press, an' she left the door ajar as she come in. Bill he gave a sniff, an' his eyes grew more natural-like; he gathered together all the strength he had, an' he raised himself up on one elbow, ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... journey. Day after day they loitered along country roads that led them through many scenes of summer beauty; pausing at old-fashioned inns and wayside farmhouses, or gipsying at noon in some green nook where their four-footed comrades dined off their tablecloth while they made merry over the less simple fare their last hostess had provided for them. When the scenery was uninteresting, as was sometimes the case, for Nature will not disturb her domestic arrangements ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... soon will be with such a fire, and the corn's not done, anyway. Do you think the sun'll get round so as to shine on the table? I see it's creeping this way pretty fast, and they're all so scattered over the woods there's no telling when we will get every one here to eat. I see another tablecloth in your basket, Mrs. Ballard. If you'll be good enough to just hold that corner, we can cover everything up good, so, and then I'll walk about a bit and call them all together." And the kindly lady stepped briskly ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the evenings and on Sundays. His wages had touched thirty shillings, and they had lived in three rooms, first floor, in a quiet neighbourhood, keeping themselves to themselves, as they boasted without undue pride. In their living-room was a flowery tablecloth; a glass shade stood on the mantelpiece; there were a few books in a cupboard. They had thoughts of buying a live indiarubber plant to stand by the window, when unexpectedly the ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... table, till his very breast-bone was over the edge, as though his eyes had been stilettos and he wanted to drive them home into my brain. It was only much later that I understood how near death I had been at that moment. But the knives on the tablecloth were the usual restaurant knives with rounded ends and about as deadly as pieces of hoop-iron. Perhaps in the very gust of his fury he remembered what a French restaurant knife is like and something sane within him made him give up the sudden project of cutting ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... voyage to China. The ham he promptly cut, carrying several slices, together with the coffee, forward to the galley, where Gurney was already busy starting a fire; after which he returned to the cabin and produced a tablecloth, knives and forks, cups and saucers, plates and dishes, and set the table; thus, by the time that Grace was ready, she found all her intentions anticipated. When breakfast was ready, Saunders came and relieved me at the wheel, while I, in company with Gurney and his ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... light, as there were bars and a grating to the window. But it was uncommonly comfortable to look at. The space under the window at the farther end was occupied by a square table covered with a reasonably clean and whole red and blue tablecloth; a hard-seated sofa covered with red stuff occupied one side; and a good stout wooden chair afforded a seat for another boy, so that three could sit and work together. Over the door were a row of hat-pegs, and on each side book-cases ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... good to mortal creature i' the bones or blood of her!" sighed Miss Witherspin, as she put the tablecloth on ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... man in blue, slowly, and with his eyes bent on the tablecloth. "One don't wish to talk ill of the dead, and I don't know as I've got anything to say against Will himself more than this, that of late he seemed to be getting mixed up with them as would ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... in case the fire shovel doesn't burn a hole in the tablecloth and let the sugar run out and catch cold, I'll tell you about the piggies and ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... herself all dressed and powdered up again. After that, she'll do her share of the work: she'll strain her poor back carryin' Dick Lindley's flowers down the back stairs and stickin' 'em in a vase over a hole in the tablecloth that Laura hasn't had time to sew ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... angrily into the closet, returns with a tablecloth and the chimney of the Samovr, and ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... it's passin'," he said, going to the window and peering round as much of the horizon as he could see, "it wasn't nothing but a little shakin' out of the tablecloth after breakfast." ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... her eyes cast down, her hands nervously picking at the edge of the tablecloth. But he was not mistaken in her. She had wherewith to meet him, and her gaze was honest, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... to pieces by shell-fire, in troop trains overcrowded with wounded, in woods and fields pockmarked by the holes of marmites, and in the restaurants of Paris and provincial towns where, with an empty sleeve or one trouser-leg dangling beneath the tablecloth, he told me his experiences of war with a candour in which there was no concealment of truth; and out of all these friendships and revelations of soul the character of the soldiers of France stands before ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... He stepped inside his hallway for an instant, while the others, all except his wife, watched him with great curiosity and some alarm. When he reappeared he was carrying a table on which was some large, heavy article hidden under a tablecloth. "There's a little surprise coming to you and the rest," he resumed. "You did not know, madame, that when I was pressing you with questions as you sat in my dental chair a phonograph was making a record of your answers." He whipped off ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... sudden deaths," said aunt Pullet; "allays the doctor called in. But Tom had the Dodson skin; I said that from the first. And I don't know what you mean to do, sister Glegg, but I mean to give him a tablecloth of all my three biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. I don't say what more I shall do; but that I shall do, and if I should die to-morrow, Mr. Pullet, you'll bear it in mind,—though you'll be blundering with the keys, and never remember as ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... not sorry that Harry was taken off her hands; for she wished to rub up her spoons, and fill her castors afresh, for the sake of the visitor who had come in. The thoughtful Jane soon came down with the keys to get out a clean tablecloth, and order a dish of cutlets, in addition to the dinner, and consult with Susan about some dessert; so that, as the little boys looked up from their play, they saw Agnes sitting alone at ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... little man, who wore his hair long; he minced about his shop and sliced his ham and beef with elaborate wavings of his carving knife and fork. Mavis proving a regular customer, he let her eat her supper in the shop, providing her with knife, fork, tablecloth, and mustard. Although married and henpecked, he affected to admire Mavis; while she ate her humble meal, he would forlornly look in her direction, sigh, and wearily support his shaggy head with his forefinger; but she could not help noticing that, when afflicted with this mood, he ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... been made for breakfast, one of the men acting as cook; and in a short time kegs were stood on end round a beautifully clean white tablecloth spread upon the soft sand; excellent coffee, good bread-and-butter, and fried mackerel were placed before them, and ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... to the assistance of Verinder with one confidential glance of her incredibly deep eyes of velvet. "Of course he's cheeky. How could he be India's cousin and not be that?" she asked with a rippling little laugh. "Come and help me spread the tablecloth, Mr. Verinder." ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... Jewel's father and mother entered the room, and she instantly forgot every other consideration in her interest as to what charming surprise might be bunched up under the tablecloth. ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... my Henny? Dat was her sister's chile rubbin' down de flo'. She come ober dis mawnin' ter help, so many folks here. Wait till I git a basket ob dese yer ole pink rose-water roses. See how I snip 'em short? Know what I'm gwineter do wid 'em? Sprinkle 'em all ober de tablecloth. I lay dey ain't nobody done dat for my mist'ess since I been gone. But, Major,"—here Chad laid down the basket on the garden walk and looked at me with a serious air,—"I done got dat coal lan' business ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the inspection with Bagshaw. The more he thought of it the worse it rankled. She knew he was at home to be with her and she had deliberately walked off and left him.... "Well, how was the Garden Home looking?" No. Not much. He couldn't. He visualised the impossible seven written on the tablecloth. He saw them in script; he saw them in print; he imagined them written by a finger ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... snowy neck, and, as she took her little steps, her white skirt trailed over the carpet behind her with a sort of virginal slyness. As she passed Leo Ulford it brushed gently against him, and he drummed the large fingers of his left hand with sudden violence on the tablecloth, at the same time pursing his chubby lips and then opening his mouth as if he ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... their coffers. They prefer to invest in merchandise, which pays eight or ten per cent, to investing in vines or corn which will return but three. The peasant is not so foolish. From the moment he owns a piece of ground the size of a handkerchief, he wants to make it as large as a tablecloth. He is slow as the oxen he ploughs with, but as patient, as tenacious, and as obstinate. He goes directly to his object, pressing firmly against the yoke; and nothing can stop or turn him aside. He knows that stocks may ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... I should have felt myself, even if I hadn't robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in at an acute angle of the tablecloth, with the table in my chest, and the Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak (I didn't want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... was plucky and energetic. He lofted the bird out of the dish on to the tablecloth twice in the first minute. Stifling a mad inclination to call out 'Fore!' or something to that effect, he laughed a hollow, mirthless laugh, and replaced the errant fowl. When a third attack ended in the same way, Miss Beezley asked permission to try what ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... fulness of their youthful hearts; not one of them had any idea that anything was going to happen. And in the midst of their lightsomeness, Triffitt, who faced a mirror, started, dropped his cigarette, upset his liqueur glass and turned pale. For an instant he clutched the tablecloth, staring straight in front of him; then with a great effort he controlled his emotion and with a cautious hissing of his ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... up in this way for their short stature. They looked with envy at the clean and well-dressed school children, who occupied a place especially assigned to them and whose parents were overjoyed, as they, poor country folk, would see their children eat from a white tablecloth, almost the same as the curate or the alcalde. Thinking of this alone was enough to drive away hunger, and such an event would be recounted from father ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Aleck, "we must get a telegram off to the family in Lynn." He wrote out the address and shoved it across Sallie's red kitchen tablecloth. "And tell them not to think of coming!" adjured Aleck. "We don't want any more of a swarry here than we've got now." Chamberlain undertook to send the message; and since he had contracted ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... discovery," replied Mr. Oakham thoughtfully tapping his nose with his gold-rimmed eye-glasses as he stared at the black pocket-book on the white tablecloth. "Speaking personally, it is proof of what I have thought all along, that a Penreath of Twelvetrees would not commit a robbery. Therefore, on that line of reasoning, one could argue that as Penreath did not commit the robbery, and the Crown hold that the murder ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... Ellen, don't worry. You don't know where I put the best tablecloth after the mending—and there's nothing but cod-roes, and you know well that in cooking your mother beats you. Run away, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... now notice that the dream is the reproduction of a little scene which transpired between my wife and myself when I was secretly courting her. The caressing under cover of the tablecloth was an answer to a wooer's passionate letter. In the dream, however, my wife is replaced by the ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... "Don't wrinkle the tablecloth," she said crossly; "and hang up your bonnet in the entry, where it belongs," taking it from me as she gave the order, and going out to ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... a dozen. I attended a dinner at the Waldorf last year that had cost fifty thousand dollars; and when I ask those people to see me, I have to give them as good as I got. The other day I paid a thousand dollars for a tablecloth!" ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... except those few that are artificially brought up. The sand is most trying. It is so fine that the wind forces it through anything, and one's tables, one's chairs, one's bed are yellow-coated with it. The tablecloth at the hotel, specklessly white when you begin to dine, gets gradually yellower at sight, and by the time you are half through your dinner the waiter has to come with a brush to remove the thick coating of dust ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... room bearing a rod, and along with him another bearing a tablecloth, which, after they have both kneeled three times with the utmost veneration, he spreads upon the table, and after kneeling again they both retire; then come two others, one with the rod again, the other with a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread; when they have kneeled as the others had done, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... chairs furnishing the dining-room were of mahogany. The curtains of red reps had been drawn close by Rosalie, and a hanging lamp of white porcelain within a plain brass ring lighted up the tablecloth, the carefully-arranged plates, and the tureen of steaming soup. Each Tuesday's dinner brought round the same remarks, but on this particular day Dr. Deberle served naturally as a subject of conversation. Abbe Jouve lauded him to the skies, though he knew that he was no church-goer. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... people, who were filled with wonder at the strange appearance of the newcomer, noticed Jocelyn Thew's sudden grip of the tablecloth, the tightening of his frame, the ominous contraction of his eyebrows as for a moment he sat there speechless. Then he was himself again. He shook his ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fond of a bit of candy, or a pickle, yourself. The 'goodies' which we do not get at the school table are 'gifts of the gods.' They are unexpected pleasures. And when eaten after hours, with a blanket for a tablecloth and candles for lights, they become 'forbidden fruit,' which is known to be the ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... such a picnic!" Zara told him. "Papa and I have brought a new tablecloth, and some pretty cups and saucers, and spoons, and knives, and forks—and see! such buns! English buns for you to toast, Mirko mio! You must be the little cook, while ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... saw Celeste come on deck with her second son, both carrying baskets full of plates, dishes, covers, and a tablecloth. You remember I have often told you of an awning stretched at the stern of the flatboat? We found that in fine weather our dining-room was to be under this. There was no table; the cloth was simply spread on the deck, and those who ate had to sit a la Turque or take their plates ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... on directions regarding the laying of the tablecloth. Only remember that it must form a true line through the center of the table (your "silence cloth" had best be of table padding, a doubled cotton flannel or asbestos) and not hang below the table less than nine inches. The usual arrangement ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown
... said Frances and Virginia together. So, as every one seemed willing, the baskets were opened and the goodies spread out on a tablecloth ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson
... question one morning as she came into the dining-room to breakfast, and found Agatha staring out of the window with troubled eyes, and letting the brass kettle boil over on the white tablecloth with the ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... about it. Jim, here, can foight, but do woman's work he can't. That is, and do it good. He mostly gets the tablecloth crooked. No, he's no hand ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... bringing a strange man with him, and both were closeted with Larry. I whisked Pat away before she could be called into the council chamber. The poor child insisted on carrying the "Captain Kidd" box, wrapped in a silk tablecloth from Como! She wanted to place it in the hands of its owner and donor without delay, and Peter and she were to be given some moments alone together, Jack having prepared the mind of P. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... "Here, take this tablecloth," said North Wind, "and, in whatever house you stay, spread it on the table; then wish, and you shall have everything ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... know that those footmen are not disguised bailiffs?—that yonder large-looking butler (really a skeleton) is not the pawnbroker's man? and that there are not skeleton rotis and entrees under every one of the covers? Look at their feet peeping from under the tablecloth. Mind how you stretch out your own lovely little slippers, madam, lest you knock over a rib or two. Remark the death's-head moths fluttering among the flowers. See, the pale winding-sheets gleaming in the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... luncheon hampers were brought out by Elfreda and Miriam. A tablecloth was laid on the grass, and the luncheon was spread forth in all its glory. There were several kinds of toothsome sandwiches, salads, olives and pickles, fruit and plenty of sweets for dessert. There was coffee in two large thermos ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... into the dining room, through the butler's pantry, but he was back again in a wink, his eyes round. "Why, say, mother! You've got out the best dishes, and the silver, and the candles, and all. And the tablecloth with the do-dads ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... Blimber, 'rise for Grace! Cornelia, lift Dombey down'—nothing of whom but his scalp was accordingly seen above the tablecloth. 'Johnson will repeat to me tomorrow morning before breakfast, without book, and from the Greek Testament, the first chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will resume our studies, Mr ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... think of this business?" inquired William Sebastian of the lawyer who was busying himself drawing squares on the tablecloth with a steel fork. "It ought to come in thy line. Thee deals with criminals and knows the deceitfulness of our human hearts. What does ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... sitting-room. It was furnished with a carpet of bright green thrown over a foundation of linoleum, a suite of stamped magenta plush, an overmantel, gilt cornices over the windows, a piano, a table covered with a gaudy tablecloth. On the walls were hung some oleographs. The lighting of the room was of gas with incandescent mantles. There had been, apparently, judging by an odour which still remained, a great deal of beer consumed in the apartment ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... present ones; it was a long and narrow board, sometimes but three feet wide, with no legs attached to it. It was laid on supports or trestles, shaped usually something like a saw-horse. Thus it was literally a board, and was called a table-board, and the linen cover used at meals was not called a tablecloth, but a ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... next moment I was ushered into the kitchen, a room about fourteen feet square, with a well sanded floor, a huge dresser on one side, and over against it a respectable show of pewter dishes in racks against the wall. There was a long stripe of a deal, table in the middle of the room—but no tablecloth—at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather whisky—faced savage, dressed in a shabby great—coat of the hodden grey worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swan down vest, and greasy corduroy breeches, worsted stockings, and well—patched ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... it began to creep up his sleeve slowly, and with an insinuating, snake-like motion; and then disappeared somewhere in the recesses of his blouse. Without betraying the least interest or concern in this phenomenon, Ah Fe still repeated his experiments upon the lock. A moment later the tablecloth of red damask, moved by apparently the same mysterious impulse, slowly gathered itself under Ah Fe's fingers, and sinuously disappeared by the same hidden channel. What further mystery might have followed, I cannot say; for at this ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... is the water coming from!" she shrieked. "Look at it, leaking down through the ceiling and dripping on my clean tablecloth—have the pipes ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... Sylvia continued to sit alone at the table, staring palely down at the tablecloth, her mind full of Mrs. Draper's illuminating comments on life, which had gone through her entire system like a dexterously administered drug. And yet that ingenious lady would have been surprised to know how entirely her attack had failed in the one point which seemed to her important, the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... look at her husband's wounds, the state of which he had refused to permit him to examine. Mrs. Dinmont was used to her husband's broken beads more than to the presence of a captain of dragoons. She therefore glanced at a tablecloth not quite clean, and conned over her proposed supper a minute or two, before, patting her husband on the shoulder, she bade him sit down for "a hard-headed loon, that was aye bringing himself and ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... won't now, even if he lives to be born," she sobbed, and clutched at the dingy tablecloth with her ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... they returned to their camp, it was lunch time and the "gastronomic committee," as Harriet, the "walking dictionary," had dubbed the commissary department, got busy. During the meal, which they ate on a "newspaper tablecloth," picnic-style, the subject of organized self-protection against further depredations ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... defined as "Cases, slip." Can you wonder that the orderly, presented with a bin-full of confused and crumpled objects ready for the wash, and told to count them and enter their numbers in the appointed columns, occasionally made a wrong guess? Then there were eight sorts of "Cloths"—tablecloth, tray-cloth, distinctive cloth, and so forth. (To how many lay minds does "distinctive cloth" convey any meaning?) Counterpanes you would think to be obvious enough; but that remarkable compilation, the Check Book for Hospital Linen ("Printed for H.M. Stationery ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... "meal house," which phrase was a ruse that saved him from a burdensome hospitality. Determined to do it all in the best style, Rolf took Annette to the meal-house table. She was deeply awed by the grandeur of a tablecloth and white plates, but every one ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... There was the tea-pot on the table, and the solitary cup, and the bread and butter, and the nearly naked bone of a cold joint of mutton. And the things were not set after the fashion of a well-to-do gentleman's table, but were put on as they might be in a third-rate London lodging, with a tumbled tablecloth, and dishes, plates, and cups all unlike ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... him, for a moment, and down upon the tablecloth. Von Behrling shook like a man in the throes ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of flour, add pinch of salt and one teaspoon of powdered sugar. Stir in slowly one cup of lukewarm water, and work until dough does not stick to the hands. Flour board, and roll, as thin as possible. Do not tear. Place a tablecloth on table, put the rolled out dough on it, and pull gently with the hands, to get the dough as thin as ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... Around her were the still uncleared tokens of her last meal: tea-slops, bread-crumbs, and an egg-shell crushed to fragments upon a plate, which was one of those trifles that set Willoughby's teeth on edge—whenever his wife ate an egg she persisted in turning the egg-cup upside down upon the tablecloth, and pounding the shell to pieces in her plate with ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... tell you. Put on the tablecloth, and lay the cups and saucers, and make everything ready, and take no orders except ...
— The Drone - A Play in Three Acts • Rutherford Mayne
... out, an' the' was somethin' a-floatin' away up yonder, lookin' like a flyspeck on a new tablecloth. "What is it?" asked Hammy. "Is it a bird?" asked Locals. Under such conditions I never say nothin' until I have somethin' to say, so we stood an' gazed. In about ten minutes we all shouted together, ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... Fausta, just awake, as she declared, from a comfortable night, reading her morning lesson in the Bible, and sure, she said, that I should soon appear. Nor ghost, nor wraith, had visited her. I spread for her a brown paper tablecloth on the table in the vestibule. I laid out her breakfast for her, called her, and wondered at her toilet. How is it that women always make themselves appear as neat and finished as if there were no conflict, dust, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... the little city was a difficult one. To wrest possession of a cafe table for two at the rush hour was an undertaking almost as hazardous as jumping a mining claim, but Calvin Gray succeeded and eventually he and "Bob" found themselves facing each other over a discolored tablecloth, reading a soiled menu card to a perspiring waiter. It was in some ways an ideal retreat for a tete-a-tete, for the bellowed orders, the rattle of crockery, the voice of the hungry food battlers, and the clash of their steel made intimate conversation easy. Gray noted ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... representing the mischievous Hermes, once blew away a poor woman's meal. So her boy went to the North Wind and demanded his rights for the meal his mother had lost. "I have n't got your meal," said the Wind, "but here's a tablecloth which will cover itself with an excellent dinner whenever you tell it to." So the lad took the cloth and started for home. At nightfall he stopped at an inn, spread his cloth on the table, and ordered it to cover itself with good things, and ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... house, and found himself in a handsome saloon with four dais'd recesses, each facing other, and containing closets and raised seats, all bespread with stuffs of silk and brocade; and in the midst was a jetting fountain of costly fashion, on whose margin rested a covered tray of meats, with a leather tablecloth hanging up and gem-encrusted dishes, full of fruits and sweet- scented flowers. Hard by stood drinking vessels and a candlestick with a single wax-candle therein; and the place was full of precious stuffs and was ranged with chests and stools, and on ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... stuck in the throat like Macbeth's amen! I am not surprised, you recollect it! The hens had 'got them to a nunnery,' and objected to lay eggs, and the milk and the holy water stood confounded. But of course we spread the tablecloth, just as you did, over all drawbacks of the sort; and the beef and oil, as I said, and the wine too, were liberal and excellent, and we made our gratitude apparent in Robert's best Tuscan—in spite of which we were turned out ignominiously at the end of five days, having been permitted to overstay ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... which a century ago was the case in most of the French hostelries. In the remotely rural districts the ways of life have changed very slightly in a hundred years. But, if the knife was overlooked, the white napkin and small tablecloth were remembered. While talking with the aubergiste over the coffee—there was really some coffee here that was not made either from acorns or beans—he told me, as an example of the low rate of wages in the district, that a road—mender, who worked in all weathers, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... tuck 'em in yer necks. Don't eat with yer fingers—don't grab no vittles off one 'nother's plates; don't reach out for nothin', but wait till yer asked, 'n' if you never git asked don't git up and grab it.—Don't spill nothin' on the tablecloth, or like's not Mis' Bird'll send yer away from the table—'n' I hope she will if yer do! (Susan! keep your handkerchief in your lap where Peory can borry it if she needs it, 'n' I hope she'll know when she does need ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... from her work at this abrupt onset of her husband, but without changing her own expression of slightly fatigued self-righteousness. Accustomed to these elemental eruptions, she laid her hands from force of habit upon the lifting tablecloth, and then rose submissively to brush together the scattered embers and ashes from the large hearthstone, as she ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... half diverted, half angry with the selfish one, as she handed her the tablecloth, which was put on one-sided, while the bread was cut in chunks. When May came in from the pantry, a butler's room as it used to be in the time of the old marquis, Helen was crying over a bleeding finger, which she had cut in her awkward ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... other country inns (or krcma, or han, as they are locally termed from the Turkish): earthen floor, a bench, a few primitive stools and beds in the only reception-room. The table is invariably rickety, so are the stools; but a tablecloth, knives and forks are always mysteriously produced for guests even in the most ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... last, he proceeded mechanically to arrange his belongings in the room, formerly inhabited by his cousin de Buxieres. He had hardly finished when Zelie made her appearance with some plates and a tablecloth, and began to lay the covers. Seeing the fire had gone out, the little servant uttered an exclamation ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a fair-sized central tent, set beside a great wine sap just coming into bloom. Around it was a space of trodden earth, to one side a cheerful fire and a darky cook, in front a pine table, over which a coloured boy was spreading a very clean tablecloth. Out of the tent came a high, piping voice. "Good-morning, Hamilton! What is it? What is it?—An officer from General Jackson? All right! All right! glad to see him. Tell him to wait—Jim, you black idiot, what have I done with ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Scorn curled the Irishman's broad upper lip. "Navy! This ain't no navy no more. It's a Sunday school, that's what! Phonographs, an' church suppers, an' pool an' dances! It's enough t' turn a fella's stomick. Lot of Sunday school kids don't know a sail from a tablecloth when they see it." ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... should have been in heaps of time. I've got you some jolly fine trout, father. I meant them for your supper. Just look! Aren't they beauties?" and he thrust his basket over the table and held it right under his father's nose. The mud and green slime dripped on tablecloth and silver and on the bread, and even on Dr. Trenire's plate and the food he ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... put matches on the tablecloth"—some red matches which Colonel Requin treasures as a souvenir—"and he illustrated with them the disposition of the troops engaged. For the Forty-second Division he had only half a match, which he moved here and there with his quick, deft ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... played it, and that to perfection. It was no good troubling Zoe, who had vanished—a corner of the table would do quite well. And they pushed back the tablecloth over the dirty plates. But as Mme Maloir was herself going to take the cards out of a drawer in the sideboard, Nana remarked that before she sat down to her game it would be very nice of her if she would write her a letter. It ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... make sandwiches several hours before they are needed. As they dry quickly they must be carefully wrapped or they will be unpalatable. Wring from cold water two ordinary tea towels; put one on top of the other. An old tablecloth will answer the purpose very well. As fast as the sandwiches are made put them on top of the damp towel; when you have the desired quantity, cover the top with moist lettuce leaves; fold over the towels, and put outside of ...
— Sandwiches • Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer
... the twitter and whistle of the birds. Never a song can you hear, only a sweet chirrup, or two or three melodious notes. On the opposite bank of the river there was the welcome sight of several hampers more or less unpacked, and the gleam of a white tablecloth on the moss. Half-a-dozen gentlemen had formed themselves into a commissariat, and were arranging luncheon. We could see the champagne cooling in a sort of little bay, protected by a dam of big stones from being carried down the stream. It all looked very charming and inviting, but the next ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... from their grip, but disarmed physically by his fall, morally by his parole, went to the little eminence, still covered by the cloak which had served as a tablecloth for their breakfast, and sat down. From there he could see the whole combat; not a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... his father's that had been shut up in a cupboard. He accepted it, took it up in his hand, recognized it, smelled it, spoke of its quality in a tone of emotion, filled it with tobacco, and lighted it. Then he set Emile astride on his knee, and made him play the cavalier, while she removed the tablecloth and put the soiled plates at one end of the sideboard in order to wash them as ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... brick walls. Plaster falling off in places. Very old square carpet. Fire burning. No ornaments. Tin box on mantelpiece. A few plates, workbasket and tin boxes on dresser. Shoes, clogs on top of dresser. Old coloured tablecloth on table. Roll of leather, etc., at table behind screen. Three hat pegs on wall above ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... ant-hill looking performances of the Akkas, or the bark huts of the Fan, with no windows, and just an extra broad bit of bark to slip across the hole that serves as a door. On going into an Igalwa house you will see a four-legged table, often covered with a bright-coloured tablecloth, on which stands a water bottle, with two clean glasses, and round about you will see chairs—Windsor chairs. These houses have usually three, sometimes more rooms, and a separate closed-in little kitchen, built apart, wherein you may observe European-made saucepans, in addition to ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... eyes on the tablecloth: fan ready in right hand.) It was very cleverly managed, Pip, and I congratulate you. You swore—you never contented yourself with merely Saying a thing—you swore that, as far as lay in your power, you'd make my wretched life pleasant for ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the floor. The man was left there. Everybody stared. Then—"Well, poor chap, we mustn't sit staring. What a go! Did you hear what she said? By God, he looks a fool! Didn't come up to the scratch, I suppose. All the mustard on the tablecloth. ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... houses, their furniture, their weapons, and their dress. Even in the passage of the old fabliau of the "King and the Hermit" the latter, instead of admitting us to a cottage interior, has a servant to wait on him, brings out a tablecloth, lights two candles, and lays before his disguised guest venison and wine. In most of our own romances, and in the epics of antiquity, we have to be satisfied with vague and splendid generalisations. We do not learn much of the dishes which were on the tables, how they were ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... back the plates and tablecloth, and cleared his end of the table. Mother never budged to stack the plates, or straighten the cloth so it wouldn't be wrinkled. Then father brought his big account book from the black walnut chest in our room, some little books, and ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... the boards with her broad bare feet as she prepared their dinner. She was evidently trying to put on style, for she turned out her toes excessively. She spoke several times about "the toime when she resoided with yer mamma," then at length, "Whayer's the tablecloth, Granny?" ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Garnache's long chin sank on to his breast, and he stood there, his eyes upon the tablecloth, his thoughts with the poor innocent child who waited at Condillac, so full of trust and faith and loyalty to this betrothed of hers who had come home with ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... in her breath. She looked startled, as if she had been on the point of betraying a state secret; then her eyes brightened; she began abstractedly to trace a leaf on the damask tablecloth. "I have thought of just the thing for you," she said, apparently apropos of nothing. "Why don't you buy or hire a mule to carry your luggage, and walk from Switzerland down into Italy, not over the high roads, but do a pass or two, and for the ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... not certain of my duty. Mr. Ranelagh is an injured man. Ask what was said and done at their last dinner here. I can't tell you. I didn't listen and I didn't see what happened, but it was something out of the ordinary. Three broken wineglasses lay on the tablecloth when I went in to clear away. I heard the clatter when they fell and smashed, but I said nothing. I have said nothing since; but I know there was a quarrel, and that Mr. Ranelagh was not in it, for his glass was the only one which remained unbroken. Am I wrong in telling you? I wouldn't ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the air as he might, he was always reproached on his return by the immovable waiter for bringing fog with him, and being out of breath. At the conclusion of the repast, by which time the flying waiter was severely blown, the immovable waiter gathered up the tablecloth under his arm with a grand air, and having sternly (not to say with indignation) looked on at the flying waiter while he set the clean glasses round, directed a valedictory glance towards Mr. Grewgious, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... officers, and I sat next to him, and as it happened to be my turn to treat, I had the satisfaction of pouring drinks down his throat. I told stories about Spanish officers all the time to the rest of the mess, pretending I was telling them something else by making drawings on the tablecloth, so that the unhappy officer on his other side, who was talking Spanish to him, had a hard time not to laugh. I told Zogbaum he ought to draw a picture of him at the mess to show how we treated prisoners, and a companion one of the captain of the Compeliton, ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... had finished pouring out advice, the eight-cent lunch of soup, sandwich, and coffee had been slapped down on a dirty tablecloth by a frantic rabbit of a waitress. The big restaurant was dim, even at midday, because its only windows gave upon a narrow court which separated that part of the building from another part of equal height. It was so dark that ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... Ah Cum shrugged philosophically. His commissions this day would not fill his metal pipe with one wad of tobacco. The spinsters had purchased one grass-linen tablecloth; the girl and the young man had purchased nothing. That she had not bought one piece of linen subtly established in Ah Cum's mind the fact that she had no home, that the instinct was not there, or she would have made ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... that promise Schmucke sprang from one end of the table to the other, sweeping off tablecloth, bottles, and dishes as he went, and hugged Pons to his heart. So might gas rush ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... their unsavoury contents around them. Thus it happened, that when Mr Rokens, feeling confused, and seeking relief in attention to the business then in hand, hit egg Number 5 a smart blow on the top, a large portion of its contents spurted over the fair white tablecloth, a small portion fell on Mr Rokens' vest, and a minute yellow globule thereof alighted on the fair Martha's hand, eliciting from that lady a scream, and as a matter of course, an echo from Jane in ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... us, and, bursting in the centre of the stove, sent his chefs-d'oeuvre of cookery sputtering in all directions. He gave a still deeper groan as another shell crashed into the principal dining-room and knocked the long table, laid out as it was for the marriage-feast, into a chaos of splinters, tablecloth, and knives and forks. The Restauration Kueche on the other side was in flames, so was the stable of the hotel to the left rear. In this pleasing situation of affairs George produced a pack of cards and coolly ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... took the rest of the roses to the dining-room; but she postponed the arrangement of them until the table should be set, just before dinner. She was thoughtful; planning to dry the stems and lay them on the tablecloth like a vine of roses running in a delicate design, if she found that the dozen and a half she had left were enough for that. If they weren't she would ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... umbrella which she invariably carried in the finest weather, upon the clean white tablecloth, and, seating herself with a bump upon a chair, clasped two very hot hands upon her ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... "What a spotless tablecloth! What clean cups and saucers, and plates and dishes! What shining knives and forks! What kind friends!" thought the orphan. "I had no idea such things existed outside of Heaven," she exclaimed aloud in ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... And I swear to you by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, that it is no such thing. Moreover, your supper is like the hidalgo's dinner, very little meat and a great deal of tablecloth. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... utter a good many "nice phrases," which Morgan found pleasing, and did not take seriously. Customers dropped in by ones and twos till at length all the other stalls were filled, everybody instinctively avoiding the stall where a tablecloth gleamed its white warning. When some men, having eaten, began smoking their clays, Lady Thiselton's sharp ear detected some speculative remarks about herself and Morgan, tinged with facetiousness and gore. She thereupon ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... Ozma stood up in her place and attempted to cut the cake. But as soon as the frosting in the center broke under the pressure of the knife there leaped from the cake a tiny monkey three inches high, and he was followed by another and another, until twelve monkeys stood on the tablecloth ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... boar cooked to a turn, busied himself in removing the cover; he placed on the earth, under the trees, a number of large leaves, fresh and green, to serve as a tablecloth. He then picked a large leaf, made four holes at its edge, and passed a creeper through them, and thus formed a species of cup in which he squeezed the juice of a number of lemons which he had picked, and with which he mixed ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... He had been to visit our big sister Elizabeth over Sunday and about eight o'clock Monday morning he came riding down the road, and saw the most dreadful thing. There was not a curl of smoke from the chimneys, not a tablecloth or pillowslip on the line, not a blind raised. Laddie said his heart went—just like mine did when the Something jumped in the creek bed, no doubt. Then he laid ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... glass down without any haste. There followed a moment of silence, during which he sat with his eyes upon the tablecloth, and his hands resting ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... forgotten that your spirits are still subject to the requirements of the body. Last time I dined with you; let me now play the host." "We shall be charmed to dine with you," said Ayrault, "and shall be only too glad of anything that will keep you with us." "Then," said the spirit, "as the tablecloth is laid, we need only to have something on it. Let each please hold a corner," he continued, taking one himself with his left hand, while he passed his right to his brow. Soon flakes as of snow began to form in the air above, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... fun building a campfire and preparing lunch. The boys cut the wood and started the blaze, and even made coffee, while the girls spread a tablecloth that had been brought along, and put out tin plates and tin cups, and the various good things to eat. Then some of the fish were cleaned by the boys and fried by the girls, and all sat down to enjoy what every one declared was better ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... look at Rhoda as she spoke, but kept fingering the tablecloth nervously, with her eyes cast down. For a few seconds Rhoda was silent. Then her voice was very cheerful. "Why, you will be quite close to Ned, Aunt Mary. And the country air will be so good for the boys. I think it is ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... studying an easy bearing, looked again at the breakfast things and then idly lifted the corner of the tablecloth on the ends of his fingers, and regarded it. "Fifteen three," he ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... here and wolf his meals down," she said, picking up her theme in the same troubled key, "just like it didn't amount to nothing to kill a man a day. I looked to see blood on the tablecloth every time his hand ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden |
