"Tail coat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bridegroom arrived—a smart young officer, well thought of at Scotland Yard, well set up, wearing a long tail coat a lilac and white tie, and shaking in every limb. He walked up the aisle accompanied by the best man, and the little old gentleman from Australia watched him genially from behind those gold-rimmed glasses. And, then, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mother: and I feel so vexed with myself because I knew I turned red, which made the two clerks smile. But I must go on telling you what else I saw. The old gentleman seems quite a character—he is nearly bald, has got no whiskers, wears a big white neckcloth and a tail coat, and takes snuff every five minutes out of a silver box. Whether he knows it or not, the clerks are very rude to him: for when he took snuff, one of them sneezed, or pretended to sneeze, every time, and another snuffled, as if ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... which is now their language. They have a peculiar style of dress which they wear among themselves, a close-fitting white shirt with black trousers, and a black frock or upper shirt. The women seem to prefer a dress entirely black. On festivals and state occasions they adopt the swallow-tail coat, chimneypot hat, and their accompaniments, displaying all the absurdity of our European fashionable dress. Though now Protestants, they preserve at feasts and weddings the processions and music of the Catholic Church, curiously mixed up with the ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... his instinctive shrewdness at once told him that this fellow was no servant, nor could he ever be made into one. Though voluble enough in his kitchen, Monsieur Pierre lacked expression when confronted by any problem outside of it. Here was the regulation swallow-tail coat and trousers of green, the striped red vest, and the polished brass buttons; but the man inside was too ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... a two-inch hat with a green ribbon and wore a white bob-tail coat that 'bout reached to the top o' his pants. Looks like he lived on water-crackers and milk, his skin's that white. The She-one had a set o' hoops on her big as a circus tent. Much as I could do to git her in the 'bus—as it was, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Roads, inflicting heavier losses than were suffered in any naval action of the war. It is a story Homeric, almost incredible in its details and so often repeated that it can be only touched upon in this brief chronicle. The leader was a kindly featured man who wore a tall hat, side-whiskers, and a tail coat. His portrait might easily have served for that of a New England deacon of the old school. No trace of the swashbuckler in this Captain Samuel Reid, who had been a thrifty, respected merchant skipper until offered the command ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... to Billy Tuthill, the little lame tailor, for whom she worked faithfully four years, until she had served out her time and was mistress of her trade, even to the recondite mystery of cutting a double-breasted swallow-tail coat by rule and measure. Then, at eighteen, she set up business for herself, going from house to house as her customers required, working by the day. Her services were speedily in great demand, and she was never out of employment. Many a worthy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... all great state entertainments, white knee breeches, and white silk stockings, with low, gold-buckled shoes, in lieu of the blue, black, or white gold-laced trousers that had until then been habitually worn with the gold-embroidered swallow-tail coat, which constitutes the uniform of the German civil service, and of court officialdom. Until that time, the only European court at which knee breeches had been insisted upon at court and state entertainments, was that of Great Britain. They were likewise de rigueur at ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... rather simply up here, Mr. Barnes," said De Soto. "There isn't a dinner jacket or a spike tail coat on the place. It's strictly against the law up here to have such things about one's person. Come as you are, sir. I assure you I speak the truth when I say we don't dress ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... "had a tail coat; he was dressed like an undertaker, sir. Once upon a time there was one like him travelling in Egypt, with a similar coat and a tall hat; and the Arabs pursued him, calling him the 'father of saucepans, with a slit tail.'" This part of his speech was evidently ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... and the feller that opened the door was big and solemn and fine lookin' and had side whiskers. Only this time he wore a tail coat with brass ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... clothes; mourning, weeds; duds; slippers. robe, tunic, paletot^, habit, gown, coat, frock, blouse, toga, smock frock, claw coat, hammer coat, Prince Albert coat^, sack coat, tuxedo coat, frock coat, dress coat, tail coat. cloak, pall, mantle, mantlet mantua^, shawl, pelisse, wrapper; veil; cape, tippet, kirtle^, plaid, muffler, comforter, haik^, huke^, chlamys^, mantilla, tabard, housing, horse cloth, burnoose, burnous, roquelaure^; houppelande ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... overshoes and I to thrill waiting millions from the rostrum with my "Tale of the Broncho Cow." And so it goes with us all. Adown life's rugged pathway some must toil on from daylight to dark to earn their meagre pittance as kings, while others are born to wear a swallow-tail coat every evening and wring tears of ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... biz like mine. Now, Dan, what's the good of college anyhow fur a chap like you? It ain't ez if you were one of these high mug-a-mugs with a rich father to pay yer way through, and set you up in a white choker and swallow-tail coat afterwards. What's the good of a strong, husky fellow fooling along with Latin and Greek, that will never be no use to him? You'd a heap better spiel plain strong English that will bring you in the spondulics. Why, look at me! I never had two years' schooling in ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... needs. He built himself a house, unusual in its style and elegance. It had two windows in each room, and its walls were covered with plastering, something which no one in Jamestown had ever seen before. He was regarded as an aristocrat. He wore a swallow-tail coat of fine blue jeans, instead of the coarse brown native-made cloth. The blue-jeans coat was ornamented with brass buttons and cost one dollar and twenty-five cents a yard, a high price for that locality ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... street door, and made a rapid transit along the street front past the Manchester window, and so into the silkroom door. He could not linger long, but he gathered joy, a swift and fearful joy, from his brief inspection of Parsons' unconscious back. Parsons had his tail coat off and was working with vigour; his habit of pulling his waistcoat straps to the utmost brought out all the agreeable promise of corpulence in his youthful frame. He was blowing excitedly and running his fingers ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... turn-up nose, and a huge straw hat. The other wore a fur cap and a gentleman's swallow-tail coat, with the tails caught up because they were ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... 1860," and preserved among the papers of the late Mr. David Howell of Machynlleth, gives some interesting indication. It is bound in vellum, fitted with a clasp, and adorned within with a series of woodcuts, descriptive of the old-day signalman, clad in tall hat, tail coat and white trousers, explanatory of the hand signal code, with flags, which preceded the more general use of the modern signals, controlled from a signal box. Following the precept, made familiar by the nursery rhymes of our ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... appeared in one of the balconies of the other house a woman wrapped in a flowing gown, with a red flower in her hair. A young man in evening dress, with swallow-tail coat and white vest, clasped ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... caught hold of our legislators in Peking, who, having fallen under the spell of clothes, in solemn conclave decided that the frock coat, with the tall-top hat, should in future be the official uniform; and the swallow-tail coat with a white shirt front the evening dress in China. I need hardly say that this action of the Peking Parliament aroused universal surprise and indignation. How could the scholars and gentry of the interior, where foreign tailors are unknown, ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... in his best rig, with which he was accustomed to outfit himself for the funerals of his old friends. There was a faded tail coat which flapped against baggy gray trousers. A celluloid collar on a flannel shirt propped up his ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... 22d of March last, about ten o'clock in the morning, a thin, spare-looking man, dressed in a black cashmeret suit, swallow-tail coat, loose-cut pants, a straight-breasted vest, with a very extravagant shirt-collar rolling over upon his coat, with a black ribbon tied at the throat, stood at the east corner of Broad and Meeting street, holding a very ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... thought one wintry afternoon, years before I went to the schoolhouse, when he dropped in to ask the pleasure of my company to the farmer of Little Rathie's "bural." As a good Auld Licht, Tammas reserved his swallow-tail coat and "lum hat" (chimney pot) for the kirk and funerals; but the coat would have flapped villainously, to Tammas's eternal ignominy, had he for one rash moment relaxed his hold on the bottom button, and it was only by walking sideways, as horses sometimes try to do, that the hat ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... behind his back under his tail coat, his gold-rimmed pince-nez perched on his nose, looked down ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... from the forge, and laying aside his paper cap and calico gown, close the green door of his shop, cross the brick pavement of the back yard, and ascend the stairs with the spindling bannisters to his dressing room. Here Malachi would have laid out the black swallow-tail coat with the high velvet collar, trousers to match, double-breasted waistcoat with gilt buttons, and ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... however, was not for her brother at that moment. Her eyes were fixed unswervingly upon the figure in the once-white drill trousers and bobbed swallow-tail coat and shuffling boots. She was staring from wide and, Caleb noted, rather horror-stricken eyes at the huge steel trap above the blanket pack. But the boy who must have received her glance full in his face had not faltered a step in his advance. He went forward until he stood at the foot of ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Lord Fawn. He was in appearance and manners very different from the Andy Gowran familiarly known among the braes and crofts of Portray. He had a heavy stiff hat, which he carried in his hand. He wore a black swallow-tail coat and black trousers, and a heavy red waistcoat buttoned up nearly to his throat, round which was tightly tied a dingy black silk handkerchief. At Portray no man was more voluble, no man more self-confident, no man ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... swallow-tail coat of indefinite age, worn only on state occasions^ when its owner was called to figure in his public capacity. Either the Squire had grown too large or the coat ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... correctly for calling, in a swallow-tail coat and white tie. When Sofya Lvovna came in he kissed her hand and expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. Then when they had sat down, he admired ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... in a black tail coat and a yaller vest and lavender pants, comes puffing up. He was the manager, ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... an out-thrust of snub bow and an upcock of square stern, and sag of waist—all of which accurately revealed ripe antiquity, just as a bell-crowned beaver and a swallow-tail coat with brass buttons would identify an old man in the ruck of newer fashions. She had seams like the wrinkles in the parchment skin of extreme old age. She carried a wooden figurehead under her bowsprit, the face and bust of a woman on whom ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... report of a man going ashore dressed as a Bishop with a Bible in his hand to entice the natives away, assumes islands to be in a state where the conventional man in white tie and black- tail coat preaches to the natives. My costume, when I go ashore, is an old Crimean shirt, a very ancient wide-awake. Not a syllable has in all probability ever been written, except in our small note-books, of the language of the island. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge |
