"Tap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has no more idea of marrying you than she has of marrying the Bishop. Won't you fill your glass, old fellow? I know where the tap is if you want another bottle. You may as well give it up, and spend no more money in pink fronts and polished boots on her account. You're a podgy man, you see, and Mrs ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... owned 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 fixed upon the bell, ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... increasingly over Europe and America. Beaconsfield gave a degree of quiet that made it possible, when they were able to be at home, not to be swamped by engagements and to lead a life of their own. Gilbert could go to London when he liked, but he need not always be on tap, so to say, for all the world. Frances could have a garden and indulge her hungry appetite for all that was fruitful. G.K., later, under the title "The Homelessness of Jones"* showed his love for a house rather than a flat, and they gave even to their first little house "Overroads" ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Davis was now spitting in the Presidential spittoon, and scribbling his distiches with the nib of the Presidential goose-quill. We were absolutely in doubt whether a seemingly inoffensive knot of rustics, on a mound without the inclosure, might not, at tap of drum, unmask a battery of giant columbiads, and belch blazes at us, raking ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... at her side, offering gently to relieve her of hood and cloak, and with a tap on his arm drawing Mr. Van Brunt's attention ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... actually going on, one loses all count of time and place; the clock on the mantelpiece seems to leap miraculously forward; while the mind knows exactly when to desist, so that the leaving off is like the turning of a tap, the stream being instantaneously cut off. I do not recollect having ever forced myself to write, except under the stress of illness, nor do I ever recollect its being anything but the purest pleasure from ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... properly commenced, I sat down on a condemned canoe to amuse myself with the hippopotami by peppering their thick skulls with my No. 12 smooth-bore. The Winchester rifle (calibre 44), a present from the Hon. Edward Joy Morris—our minister at Constantinople—did no more than slightly tap them, causing about as much injury as a boy's sling; it was perfect in its accuracy of fire, for ten times in succession I struck the tops of their heads between the ears. One old fellow, with the look of a sage, was tapped close to the ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... over the keyboard set in the control room of the Comet and stared down at the keys. The equation was set and ready. All he had to do was tap that key and they would know, beyond all argument, whether or not they had dipped into the awful heart of material energy; whether, finally, they held in their grasp the key to the release of energy that would give ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... or two, when her husband had gone to the old town on the other side of the island, there came a gentle tap at the door, and the worthy witness of her first marriage made ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... complete, and she had just dismissed her maid, when a tap on her dressing-room door was followed by ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... rang the bell, and when a tap came to the door, went out and gave some orders. When she came back she said to me, "I have some very fine girls, all entirely without prejudices, would you like to have one up? I have them of all ages, from twelve to twenty-five; ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... depriving himself of his daughters, that ceremony must, for a time at least, be postponed. While yet the handkerchief-hunt was in full cry, the professor's ears caught the rattle and flap of the opening gate, and following it the quick, vigorous tap of small boot-heels upon the marble flagstones. Next came a light, rustling spring up the creaking porch-steps, and ere the old gentleman could get his head far enough over his knees to see down the entry, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... office of the chief executive with that of his lieutenant, but this was rarely opened by either, and then only after a formal tap and permission to enter had been given. It was a matter of general knowledge that the Governor and the Lieutenant-Governor were not in sympathy; but few, even among the intimates of either, were aware how deep, and wide, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog—'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on—get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... Those Harvard friends of mine thought it a good joke on me to steal my clothes and take themselves off to the race without waking me up. I don't know what I should have done in my anguish, when, thank goodness, I heard a tap at my door, and went ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... enemy's spies were peering, and the sight of our gallant and seemingly invincible army must have startled and disheartened them. And as I looked along the ordered ranks, the barrels gleaming at a single angle, four thousand feet moving to the drum tap, I realized more deeply than ever that without training and discipline an ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... 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, ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... the tap, tap of a crutch sounded as Aunt Emma approached the door. "Come in out of dat rain, chile, or you sho' will have de pneumony," she said. "Come right on in and set here by my fire. Fire feels mighty good ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... game. But the jeers of the children checked the rising smile and led him to pluck at his forehead. As he gazed at the fool's-cap in his hand a roar of merciless laughter greeted his discovery. Miss Willis had realized the fairy's deed too late to prevent the catastrophe. The sharp tap of her ruler on the desk produced a silence interjected with giggles. The fairy was a successful scholar, and would not have harmed a fly willingly. It was a case of fun—the rough expression of an indisputable fact. Jimmy was such a dunce that he ought really ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... evidently much flattered by this suspicion, bestowed a grotesque leer upon Kate as he passed; and, receiving another tap with the parasol for his wickedness, tottered downstairs to the door, where his sprightly body was hoisted into the carriage by ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... instant there came a tap on the door, and on going to answer it Katherine found Mrs. Seabrook and Miss Williams, ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... frock, and plumped herself dejectedly 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 ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... smoking Mr. Wendover's cigarette, and sipping Mr. Wendover's Apollinaris slightly coloured with brandy—a very modest form of entertainment surely, and yet the cigarettes and the superfine cognac, which were always on tap in Elm Court, made no small appearance in the accounts of tobacconist and wine merchant. 'You would be sorry if anything were to happen to him, no doubt; just as I shall be sorry when the governor bursts up—poor ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... duty; and he went past that lantern steady and swift; only, as he went, he groaned and shuddered. For about 2500 of Jack's steps we only pass 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 ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... boys were tired out from their day of labor and excitement and ten o'clock found them in their rooms ready to go to bed. Tom and Sam had started to take off their shoes when there came a faint tap on the ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... of a most bitter winter,—that season when, to the ecstatic amazement of a whole city-full of children, snow covered the streets ankle-deep,—there came a soft tap on the corridor-door of this pair of rooms. The lady opened it, and beheld a tall, lank, iron-gray man, a total stranger, standing behind—Monsieur George! Both men were weather-beaten, scarred, and tattered. Across 'Sieur George's crown, leaving ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... but I was quite unsteadied by all that had fallen out, and I broke one glass and fouled the tap, and while I was still getting in my own way, I heard a loud fall in the parlor, and, running in, beheld the captain lying full length upon the floor. At the same instant my mother, alarmed by the cries and fighting, came running downstairs to help me. Between ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... day, when the little monkey made us all laugh by stopping the Member of the Haouse in the middle of a speech he was repeating to us,—it was his great effort of the season on a bill for the protection of horn-pout in Little Muddy River,—I caught her making the signs that set him going. At a slight tap of her knife against her plate, he got all ready, and presently I saw her cross her knife and fork upon her plate, and as she did so, pop! went the small piece of artillery. The Member of the Haouse was just saying that this bill hit his constitooents ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... it. The point is that it would be simply ridiculous to attempt that sort of thing now. Suppose, for instance—— I put it to you, padre. Suppose you saw Maitland mounted on one of the transport gee-gees trotting tap to that tin cathedral of yours—on a week-day, mind! I'm not talking about Sundays. Suppose he got down and went inside all by himself, what would you think, padre? There's only one thing you could think, that Maitland had ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... 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 supper-room?" he ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... water tap to be sure, lifted the towel off, and put my good right foot in to feel the temperature—into about three inches of cold water, and that ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... the last tap-room loiterer had slunk away to camp or cabin, and when the echo of the patrol's tread had died out in the fragrant darkness, came one to the door below, hammering the knocker; and I saw his spurs and scabbard shining ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... the table on which the insect is lying on its back. The shock is very slight, not enough to shake the table perceptibly. The whole thing is limited to the inner vibrations of a resilient body which has received a blow. But it is quite enough to disturb the insect's immobility. At each tap the tarsi are flexed and quiver ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... He whipped out his white handkerchief and with a single hand, an old conjuring trick, threw a knot in the centre and dangled it before Mrs. Barraclough's eyes. No message by wire or wireless ever reached its destination in quicker time than that old S. O. S. of school boy fame. He saw her tap out the "received" signal with a forefinger on the front of her cloak, then turned with a wave of the handkerchief ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... the great dramas of Athens, itinerant companies wandered from village to village, carrying their stage furniture in their little carts, and acted in their booths and tents the grand stories of the mythology; so in England the mystery-players haunted the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, tap-rooms, or in the farm-house kitchen, played at saints and angels, and transacted on their petty stage the entire drama of the Christian Faith. We allow ourselves to think of Shakespeare or of Raphael or of Phidias as having accomplished their work by the power of their own individual genius; but ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... no woman took part in the maple-sugar manufacture. The men used first to tap the trees, and then boil the sap over wood fires that they would build in the neighborhood of the sugar bush, as the maple grove ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... described, is to change them, and by changing them at once much trouble, or even a disastrous explosion, may be avoided. Put the feedpipe in through the front head, at the point marked p in Fig. 1, drill and tap a hole the proper size for the feed pipe, cut a long thread on the end of the pipe, and screw the pipe through the head, letting it project through on the inside far enough to put on a coupling, then screw into the coupling a piece of pipe not less than eight or ten feet long, letting it run horizontally ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... a very light tap was heard, the door was opened to the extent of three inches, and a female voice which I readily ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... pass away the time. As soon as she got downstairs, she drew a stool and placed it before the cask, in order that she might not have to stoop, for she thought stooping might in some way injure her back, and give it an undesirable bend. Then she placed the can before her and turned the tap, and while the beer was running, as she did not wish her eyes to be idle, she looked about upon the wall above and below. Presently she perceived, after much peeping into this corner and that corner, a hatchet, which the bricklayers had left behind, sticking out of ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... he had somewhat gathered the wits that had just been rapped out of his head, said, "Now, good fellow, wilt thou change clothes with me, or shall I have to tap thee again? Here are two golden angels if thou wilt give me freely all thy rags and bags and thy cap and things. If thou givest them not freely, I much fear me I shall have to— " and he looked ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... my day with my usual bucket from the tap; there are always early birds to serve me, and my helper this morning said it made him feel virtuous just to souse me. I prefer this to the shower baths, which are much further away. A very few go early to the lake and ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... sit down, and a cloth, large enough to prevent their seeing anything, is put over their heads. Then two other persons tap them on the head with long rolls of paper, which they have in their hands, and ask, in feigned voices, "Who bobs you?" If either of those who have been tapped answers correctly, he changes places with the one who has ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... the gate, which even in the night could be seen to form a little arch in vines and bushes, Officer Cosgrove tapped lightly on the door, which was opened before the echo of his last tap ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... letters of advice and encouragement. If he deigns to make a public appearance there is a throng at the doors which overtaxes the energy and ability of the police. We must be glad that we have a public commentator like Mark Twain always at hand and his wit and wisdom continually on tap. His sound, breezy Mississippi Valley Americanism is a corrective to all sorts of snobbery. He cultivates respect for human rights by always making sure that he has ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... euerie one of them, I did my dutie verie deuoutly, and tolde his alie honor, I had matters of some secrecie to impart vnto him, if it pleased him to grant me priuate audience. With me young Wilton quoth he, marie and shalt: bring vs a pint of syder of a fresh tap into the three cups here, wash the pot, so into a backe roome he lead mee, where after hee had spit on his finger, and pickt off two or three moats of his olde moth eaten veluet cap, and spunged and wrong all the rumatike driuell from his ill fauoured Goates beard, he badde me ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... died so soon that he had no opportunity of seeing whether it would in time get to know him; but a story is told of a tortoise who did take a fancy to one person, and, though he would attend to no one else, would come creeping along at her call, and tap the boot of his favourite with his beak, in token, we may suppose, of his regard. One lady, who had a long-standing acquaintance with a tortoise, having fed him for thirty years, said he would come to her, and to no one else; which looked rather ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... The tap-room was empty when Barbara entered but as she sat down at the table, the door opposite opened, and a short, foreign-looking woman came out. She stepped dead on seeing the girl: Her ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... as this"—pointing to the schooner—"that Indiaman to-day had never shown heels. And more, how think ye my store is replenished? Dost think I tap the rock for wine? Does Milo crush the granite and bring forth meat for thy hungry bellies? Are my treasures kept at high tide by snatching the colors from the sunset? Fools!" she cried, and for a moment passion conquered her calm. "In that schooner are wines that will make thy ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... direction. There was another tap, and another, and then a long row of taps; upon which Sam inquired why ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... business both for state and local purposes. The tax laws of many states have been much modified of late and are still in process of change. It is only in a loose sense that one can speak of the tax "system" of any state, made up as it is of so many diverse elements, each used to tap in some independent way some source of private income for public purposes. Every tax "system" has grown up more or less accidentally, guided by no more of a general principle than the advice of the cynical old statesman—so to pluck the feathers of the goose that it will ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... Boyd's room stood partly open. Louie Howe gave a light tap and marched in with an air that ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... our friend Audley Egerton. You have just had a glimpse of the real being that struggles under the huge copper;—you have heard the hollow sound of the rich man's coffers under the tap of Baron Levy's friendly knuckle—heard the strong man's heart give out its dull warning sound to the scientific ear of Dr. F vanishes the separate existence, lost again in the flame that heats the boiler, and the smoke that curls into air from ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... 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 flat-stones of the ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... music-books, while the fair singers who came to try the critic's piano filled his room with melody. All the time Madame Theophile would evince great pleasure. She was, however, made nervous by certain notes, and at the high la she would tap the singer's mouth with her paw. This was very amusing, and my visitors delighted in making the experiment. It never failed; the dilettante in fun was ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... do, and getting into the old harness of steady routine work and living on the tap of a bell, is not so easy as it sounds, after years of live-as-you-please. But it is good for the constitution and is satisfying to ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... cloak, footman, nurse, child, and dog, in the ante-room among the servants, who are there to announce you;' but in ordinary life, after ascertaining from the concierge, or the cook in the kitchen, that your friend is at home, you only tap at the door, and on hearing 'Entrez,' step in. You advance with grace, bow with dignified respect, seat yourself (if a man who visits a lady) at the lower end of the room, and never quit hat or cane until desired, and not then till la troisieme sommation. The placing this ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... St. Hilda, reading by her fire, heard a tap on her window-pane, and, looking up, saw Jason's pale face outside. She ran to the door, and the boy stumbled wearily toward the threshold and stopped with a look of fear and piteous appeal. She stretched out her arms to him, and, broken at last, the boy sank at her feet, and, with ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... interrupted Mr. Fabian, extending his hand and enforcing his consolation by a love-tap upon Magde's shoulder. In her affliction Magde did not withdraw from this salute, and Mr. Fabian had an opportunity of gazing upon her lovely neck for a full moment, to prolong which he would have given the value of a hundred hares and partridges. ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... quitted his easy-chair, and took up a bundle of papers which lay upon his desk. There was a sharp tap at the door. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we tap that vast reservoir of wisdom and strength—call it efficiency or the fundamental energy if you will—Kindness. And our kindness, thank heaven, is not the placid kindness of angels; it is veined with human blood; it is full of absurdities, irritations, frustrations. A man 100 ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... said, "of explanations of every conceivable difficulty. You have only to tap me and an explanation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... nature of the mains and distributing pipes, which, as I have mentioned, were mere lead plates soldered into a pear-shaped section, incapable of resisting even the most moderate pressure and liable to injury by a common knife, so that any evil-disposed person could tap the main almost wherever he pleased. At a later period, indeed, the Romans appear to have used short clay pipes; lengths of such mains have been discovered, consisting of two-feet spigot and socket pipes carefully laid in and covered with a bed of ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... in the paragon of all pot houses; snug little bar with red curtains; stout old benevolent female in spectacles; barmaid an houri; and for malt the most touching tap ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... 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 ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... on him a little careless caress, singularly like what one would give to a pet dog when he puts himself in the way to receive it. Not that it was so decided a caress either, but only the merest touch, somewhere between a pat and a tap of the finger; it might be a mark of fondness, or perhaps a playful pretence of punishment. At all events, it appeared to afford Donatello exquisite pleasure; insomuch that he danced quite round the wooden railing that fences in ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there hasn't been a conflagration in Homeburg big enough to get into the city papers. The boys may be a little overzealous now and then, but they are always on the job ten minutes after the first tap of the bell, and the way they go after a red tongue of flame on a kitchen roof reminds me of a terrier shaking a rat. They are our real heroes,—the fire-laddies,—for outside of Frank Ericson and Shorty McGrew, who work on the switching-crew, and come sailing down through ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... family may return in pilgrimage; the thoughts of the individuals without any communication with each other must oftentimes meet here. Such a frail memorial then is not without its tendency to keep families together. It feeds also local attachment, which is the tap-root ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... four this morning we caught our bird. The mate, of all men on the ship! They caught him red-handed, as they say, at the Captain's locker, and the doctor laid him out with a neat little tap from a billy, and when he came to we put him through the third degree. And we overhauled his things and found enough information to get him a string of ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... 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
... Johnson, who had been in town .some days, returned, and Mr. Crutchley came also, as well as my father. I did not see the two latter till summoned to dinner; and then Dr. Johnson seizing my hand, while with one of his own he gave me a no very gentle tap on the shoulder, half drolly and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... go To whare the blossomed lilacs grow— To whare the pine-tree, dark an' high, Is pointing its tap at the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Sabbath- schools. I spoke in two of them, and in one meeting. At night I was at Camp Lee Orphanage with Annie Gibbons, the matron, who had an interesting group of little folks. As they gathered around the table, at the tap of the bell, with clasped hands and closed eyes, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... no more, and her husband went away. About half an hour afterwards, as Mrs. Darlington sat in her room, there was a light tap at her door, which was immediately opened, and Mrs. Marion stepped in. Her face was pale, and it was some moments before her quivering ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... back at ten o'clock it was raining steadily. I had refused the offer of a trap. I went through the dark and sodden wood, and lingered and listened. The persistent tap, tap, tap of the rain on the leaves irritated me. How could one hear while that noise was going on? There was no other sound. There was not a breath of wind. Only that perpetual tap, tap, tap, patter, patter, drip, tap, tap. It seemed as if it might ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... bursting heart; and his master, giving him a cheering tap on the shoulder, left him to find his way into the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... from an absolute centre. The mob of the French Revolution is a crowd of devils till their poet arrives and restores these maniacs to manhood. They are misguided brothers, doing what we should do in their place. Genius in every situation takes hold on reality, a tap-root going down to the source. Equilibrium appears in a staggering as well as a standing figure, and is perfectly restored in every fall. The landscape seen in detail is broken and ragged,—here a raw sand-bank, there a crooked butternut-tree, yonder a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... exodus of the day had evidently slipped his memory entirely. I touched him on the shoulder. "She's going to-day!" I said. Edward's carol subsided like a water-tap turned off. "So she is!" he replied, and got down at once off the gate: and we returned to the ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... few minutes we heard the tap of a drum and the relieving Brigade, which had been delayed, came up at a rapid double quick, and deployed to the right of our guns; they had heard the sound of our firing and struck a trot. A few minutes more, and the Brigade that had left, that morning, came rushing up and deployed to ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... the tap. A few moments later the light is switched off with a faintly audible click, and upon a stage in total darkness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... Passage, and while they were bearing down upon her, with the sailor-chap in tow, what should Jack do but out with his knife and slip it into one of the gangers. 'Twas nothing much, a waistcoat wound at most, but the ganger resented the liberty, and swearing that no man should tap his claret for nix, he ups with his cudgel and fetches Jack a clip beside the head that lost him the number of his mess, for soon after he was discharged dead along of having his head broke. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1486—Lieut. Slyford, 24 ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... in one of the hall chairs, but started up again and would have liked to run away when she heard the familiar tap of the crutches on the polished floor. It was silly to feel so embarrassed, she thought; she had meant well, at least, in what she had done, and if she had gone too far she was sorry but it couldn't be helped now. She tried to think only of the game they were playing and said ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... gathered in the back room of the store when Victor turned on the tap and the thick brown stream gurgled forth from the cask. He poured out a tot for each of the train drivers. Then he stood uncertainly and looked over at Jean. The latter had seated himself over against the stove and appeared to take ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... and ostrich-plumes, and the King's kissing Mrs. Adams,—little Mary's blue eyes grew larger and larger, seeing far off on the salt green sea, and her ears heard only the ripple and murmur of those waters that earned her heart away,—till, by-and-by, Miss Prissy gave her a smart little tap, which awakened her to the fact that she was wanted again to try on the dress which Miss Prissy's nimble fingers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... at the boiler-tap, and, as I stood waiting, my thoughts flew back to earlier days at Acacia Road, and to Jane and her energetic manner of smacking the oilcloth. But I suppose my ideas had developed since those times, and certainly I felt ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... wash in!" she snapped crossly. "Why, you must wait until some of them have gone out, then you can go to one of the bedrooms, unless you'd like to wash at the tap, out there," pointing to the scullery; "there's a dipper ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... corner by the bed away from the fire. He was about to rise and move the candles into a clump on the mantelpiece when there was a tap on the door and some one came ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... There is, of course, one tremendous exception; Homer is the one poet of authentic epic who had sufficient genius to make unfailingly, nobly beautiful poetry within the strict and hard conditions of purely auricular art. Compare Homer's ambrosial glory with the descent tap-water of Hesiod; compare his continuous burnished gleam of wrought metal with the sparse grains that lie in the sandy diction of all the "authentic" epics of the other nations. And, by all ancient accounts, the other early Greek epics would not fare much better in the comparison. ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie
... iron, not steel, wire. While the piece of wire is straight, it is laid along a little groove in a block of wood, and there barbed by the stroke of a chisel, slantwise across it. The other end is flattened by a tap of the hammer, or roughened, that it may be held by the whipping; then the point is sharpened by a file, and finished on a stone. The proper curvature is next given, and then the hook is case-hardened (see "Case-hardening"); lastly, the proper temper is given, by heating the hook red-hot, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... currant, called by the natives of Moorunde "eertapko," about the size of No. 2. shot. When ripe it is red, and of an agreeable acid flavour. It grows upon a low creeping tap-rooted plant, of a salsolaceous character, found in the alluvial flats of the Murray, among the polygonum brushes, and in many other places. A single plant will spread over an area of many yards in diameter, covering the dry and arid ground with a close, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the brazen creature tap Davidge's elbow and smile, putting out her hand with coquetry. She saw her debarrass herself of her companion, a French officer whose exquisite horizon-blue uniform was amazingly crossed with the wound and service chevrons of three years' warfaring. Nevertheless, Lady Clifton-Wyatt ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... that, in consequence of an accident at one of their locks, it would be fully a fortnight before any barge could pass through, and he knew that his supply of smithery coal would be exhausted before that date, as he had refrained from purchasing in consequence of high prices. To crown everything a tap came at the door, and in walked his chief man at the foundry to announce that he would shortly leave, as he had obtained a better berth. Mr. Furze by this time was so confused that he said nothing but "Very well," and when the man had gone he leaned his head on his ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... Code to whistle, foghorn, bugle, or trumpet, one short blast indicates a dot and one long blast a dash. With the drum, one tap indicates a dot and two taps in rapid succession a dash. Although these signals can be used with a dot and dash code, they should be so used in connection with a ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... my man and I, My man and I; "King's Stag," "Windwhistle" high and dry, "The Horse" on Hintock Green, The cosy house at Wynyard's Gap, "The Hut" renowned on Bredy Knap, And many another wayside tap Where folk might ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... silvery brightness down the gutter of the humble street. A "helper," rubbing down one of Lady Smigsmag's carriage-horses, even paused in his whistle to listen to the strain. Mr. Tressle's man, who had been professionally occupied, ceased his tap-tap upon the coffin which he was getting in readiness. The greengrocer (there is always a greengrocer in those narrow streets, and he goes out in white Berlin gloves as a supernumerary footman) was standing charmed at his little green gate; the cobbler (there ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... came in upon them at a late hour, as they were wasting their precious time, as was the nightly wont of my lady, with a pack of cards; and so far was she from being pleased to see him, that no sooner did she behold his face, but, like a tap of tow, she kindled upon both him and Kate, and ordered them out of her sight and house. The young folk had discretion: Kate went home to her mother, and the laird came to the manse, and begged us to take him in. He then told me what had happened; ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... were at Yale, on what is known as "Tap Day," you would view in wonderment the solemnity and seriousness of the occasion. An election to a senior society is Yale's highest honor. As you sit on the old Yale fence you realize what it means to Yale men. In the secret life of the campus men yearn most for this honor and the traditional ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... 'tap-tap' from the kitchen; then a sound like the squawk of a hurt or frightened child, and the faces in the room turned quickly in that direction and brightened. But there came a bang and a sound like 'damn!' and hopelessness ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... say, out of time and tune, to the utter discomfiture of his irritable temper, (there is nothing like a false note for throwing your musical man into a perfect tantrum,) and the bringing down on their unlucky heads a smart tap with the bow of his violin, which led the harmony. There they stood with their brown cheeks and white heads, fine specimens of the agricultural interest; each one of them looking as if he could bolt a poor, half-starved factory child at a mouthful—but certainly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... "for myself, I should like some fried eggs, if we could get them. I see they have coffee on tap in these big urns yonder. ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... among them Prince Louis Napoleon 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 support to another, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to his feet with agility that Hal and Chester had not believed him capable of, and struck a small bell upon his desk a sharp tap. Immediately ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... at once, he would be hanged as an assassin and accordingly, and without a word to the women, he went down to the village public-house he had passed an hour before on his way to Edna, entered it from the rear, and confronted the little band of ambiguous roughs, who were drinking in the tap-room and discussing matrimony and Bill's affection in a facetious but envious manner, with a casually held but carefully reloaded revolver, and an invitation to join what he called, I regret to say, a "Vigilance Committee" under ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... she would be lost in her book, perhaps hunting the elephant in India or fighting Nelson's battles over again, and the first news she would have of what she had set herself there to watch for would be the click of the door-lock or a tap on the glass, for the horse was almost always left at the further door. Back then she came, from India or the Nile; down went the book; Ellen had no more thought but for ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... for any one to be stirring, when Miss Vernon heard a little tap on her door, and the next moment beheld a childish face ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... which confirmed the first, but carried me a great deal further. In our little back-garden, my Father had built up a rockery for ferns and mosses and from the water-supply of the house he had drawn a leaden pipe so that it pierced upwards through the rockery and produced, when a tap was turned, a pretty silvery parasol of water. The pipe was exposed somewhere near the foot of the rockery. One day, two workmen, who were doing some repairs, left their tools during the dinner-hour in the ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... talk, friend," broke in Inez, with her familiar tap upon the shoulder. "There are those here who do not think so ill of Jews as you do in your Holy House, but who understand how to apply the mancuerda, and can make a very serviceable rack out of a plank and a pulley or two such as lie in the next room. Cultivate ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... him, your excellency," she ejaculated, gasping after each word. "That Amalia Ludwigovna, ah! Lida, Kolya, hands on your hips, make haste! Glissez, glissez! pas de basque! Tap with your heels, be ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... on the still air came a weird, monotonous sound, rising and falling, as does that of the far-off rapids, borne on the fitful breath of the Chinook winds. Tap, tap, tap, it went, tum, tum, tum, in ever-recurring monotones. As they stopped to listen to it, the girl realised its nature only too well. It was the tuck of the Indian drum, and the Indian was on the war-path. As they walked on they could hear it more plainly, and soon the sound ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie |
