"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into the primitive little houses upon their stilt-like posts, and the ladies had spent some time in watching a quaint little native mother making efforts to at once ply the queer sticks which helped her in a strange sort of mat-weaving, and keep an eye upon a preternaturally solemn-faced infant, who, despite his gravity, seemed capable of quite as much mischief as the average enfant terrible ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... rushed to the bell, but did not ring it, and ran upstairs instead. Outside his wife's room he met his children's old nurse. She was standing on the mat, with her hands to her ears, and the tears ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... lodging-houses, monotonous in their similarity. The same gilt-edged mirrors protected from the dust by green perforated paper; the same jar of wax flowers, standing on a mat which is composed of floral designs in Berlin wool—designs to which you can give any name you like—"You pays your money and you takes your choice." They represent anything, the whole concern hiding its modest head under a glass case; ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... is a mat made of rushes sewn together with twine; the hip-bone soon becomes sore on the hard flat surface, as we are not allowed to make a hole in the floor to receive the prominent part called trochanter by anatomists, as we do when sleeping ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... on board by Captain Houston, and after the Buffalo had visited Tasmania, the New Zealanders were brought to Sydney, where, dressed in the costume of a Chief of his country, Tippahee did homage to Governor King. We are told that this meant laying a mat at Governor King's feet and performing the ceremony of "joining noses." The Governor seems to have developed a great admiration for Tippahee. He allowed the Maori Chief to remain, along with his eldest son, as a guest at Government ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... hands on her bosom, and looked up towards heaven, and then turned mournfully towards me, and beckoned me to approach. I entered the small room, which had been fitted up by the poor girl with some taste; the furniture was better than any I had seen in a Spanish house before, and there was a mat on the floor, and some exquisite miniatures and small landscapes on the walls. It was her boudoir, opening apparently into a bedroom beyond. It was lighted by a large open unglazed window, with a row of wooden balustrades beyond it, forming ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... such "had never been born." You who are created again in Jesus Christ, it most of all concerns you to ask, Why am I made? And why am I redeemed? And to what purpose? It is certainly that ye may glorify your heavenly Father, Mat. v. 16; Ps. lvi. 13. And you shall glorify him if you bring forth much fruit, and continue in his love, John xv. 8, 9. And this you are chosen and ordained unto, ver. 16, and therefore abide in him, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... under their chairs which they would have steadily sipped at intervals, puffing at their pipes during the whole sitting. Their wooden shoes ('Klompen'), scrubbed for the occasion to a brilliant white with the help of a good layer of whitening, might have been seen in a row standing on the door-mat, for no well-educated farmer would ever have dreamed of entering a room with shoes on his feet, and he would have taken his 'pruim,' or quid of tobacco, which every farmer chews even when smoking, out of his mouth and laid it on the window-sill, the usual receptacle for such things, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... Bank," shouted the coast-guard in his face, and turning on his heel, he ran with the same slow, organised haste, leaving the red-faced man finishing a mouthful on the mat. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... not brave. You can retreat till your shoulders touch the mat, but I must stand this side of the line, unable to reach you. And you have the advantage of the mask besides. You are not a ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... by putting layers of various kinds and colors of ice creams into a brick mold. Pack and freeze. At serving time, cut into slices crosswise of the brick, and serve each slice on a paper mat. ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer
... sickly babe she tried to smother Somehow up, with its spotted face, From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place; She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping Already from my own clothes' dropping, Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on: Then, stooping down to take off her pattens, She bore them defiantly, in each hand one, Planted together before her breast And its babe, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Who when a joke occurred to him, however poor and mean, Was absolutely certain that it never had been done at all— How popular at dinners must that humourist have been! Oh, the days when some step-father for a query held a handle out,— The door-mat from the scraper, is it distant very far? And when no one knew where Moses was when Aaron put the candle out, And no one had discovered that a door could be a-jar! But your modern hearers are In their tastes particular, And they sneer if ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... second return from Germany, which was in May 1795, we mat Bonaparte in the Palais Royal, near a shop kept by a man named Girardin. Bonaparte embraced Bourrienne as a friend whom he loved and was glad to see. We went that evening to the Theatre Francais. The performance consisted of a tragedy; and 'Le Sourd, ou l'Auberge pleine'. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... soldiers and their families live have no partitions, to each couple being assigned a space about eight feet square, which is chalk-marked on the floor. The only article of furniture in each of these "apartments" is a bed, which is really a broad, low platform covered with a grass-mat, for in a land where the mercury not infrequently climbs to 120 in the shade, there is no need for bedding. Here they eat and sleep and make their toilets, the women preparing the meals for their men and for themselves in ovens out-of-doors. At night the beds may be separated ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... Basundi, especially beautiful ornamented copper rings; on the Congo, clever wood and tablet carvings; in Loango, ornamented clothes and intricately designed mats; in Mayumbe, clothing of finely woven mat-work; in Kakongo, embroidered hats and also burnt clay pitchers; and among the Bayakas and ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... child," she said, on the day following the Puppy Show that had coincided with Christian's eighth birthday, when, after a long search, she had discovered her youngest daughter, seated, tailor-wise, in one of the kennels, the centre of a mat of hounds. "This is not a not a place for you! You don't know what you may ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... pulled gallantly between the shafts; the cart was swallowed up in the barn, stopped beside the mow, and once again the forks were plunged into the hard-packed hay, raised a thick mat of it with strain of wrist and back, and unloaded it to one side. By the end of the week the hay, well-dried and of excellent colour, was all under cover; the men stretched themselves and took long breaths, knowing the fight ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... grade, he spoke freely, but in a straightforward manner; with officers of a higher, grade he spoke blandly, but precisely; with the prince he was grave, but self-possessed. When eating he did not converse; when in bed he did not speak. If his mat were not straight he did not sit on it. When a friend sent him a present he did not bow; the only present for which he bowed was that of the flesh of sacrifice. He was capable of excessive grief, with all his placidity. When his favorite pupil died, he exclaimed, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... entered the Glen and recognized certain landmarks. It was a somber place now—its aspect weirdly changed since the first days of our coming. Then it had been a riot of summer-time, the cliffs a mat and tangle of green that had shut us in. On this dull December evening, with its vines and shrubs and gaunt trees bare, its pointed cedars and hemlocks the only green, its dark water swirling under overhanging rocks, it had become an ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... joy; those, more profound repose. Yes, my best lord, when labour sent them home And midday suns, when from the social meal The wicker window held the summer heat, Praised have those been who, going unperceived, Opened it wide, that all might see you well: Nor were the children blamed, upon the mat, Hurrying to watch what rush would last arise From your foot's pressure, ere the door was closed, And not yet wondering how they dared to love. Your counsels are more precious now than ever, But are they—pardon if I err—the same? Tarik is ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... reference of all decrees passed by the Tridentine Council to the Pope for interpretation enabled him and his successors to manipulate them as they chose. It therefore happened, as Sarpi says ('Tratt. delle Mat. Ben.' Opere, vol. iv. p. 161), that no reform, with regard to the tenure of benefices, residence, pluralism, etc., which the Council had decided, was adopted without qualifying expedients which neutralized its spirit. If the continuance of benefices in commendam ceased, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... is of the Howard pattern. The hairspring stud is set in the cock like the Elgin three-quarter-plate movement. The richest finish for such a model is frosted plates and bridges. The frosting should not be a fine mat, like a watch movement, but coarse-grained—in fact, the grain of the frosting should be proportionate to the size of the movement. The edges of the bridges and balance cock can be left smooth. The best process ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... mat and rug weaving, spinning and knitting and basket making. Through Grenfell's efforts volunteer teachers went north in summers to teach the people these useful arts. He supplied looms. Every one was eager to learn and today Labrador women are making rugs, baskets ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... Robarts and Gould sat on the two chairs with which the room was supplied, Buller perched himself on the table, Smith on a box—all full of curiosity and expectation. Crawley and Saurin remained standing. The door was closed and a mat placed against it, to prevent ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... minutes to realise that it was all a dream. She was in her own little room in the brown house, and the sun was peeping through the shutters. The holes in the rag carpet, the cheap, cracked mirror, the braided mat in front of her washstand, and the broken pitcher all ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... As soon as they had satisfied themselves, they put out the lights, and each once more sought out a resting-place to his own liking. The donkey laid himself down upon a heap of straw in the yard, the dog stretched himself upon a mat behind the door, the cat rolled herself up on the hearth before the warm ashes, and the cock perched upon a beam on the top of the house; and, as they were all rather tired with their journey, they ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... left—for Barber's beard grew almost to his eyes—his nose, though bent and purplish, was fairly like a nose. But with Monday, again the nose took on that personality; and seemed to be crouching and writhing at the center of its mat ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... head. "It don't seem like the game is that far along yet. The time is coming when we'll go to the mat with them people, but they've got the aige on us now, so what could they gain by putting you away? I don't believe it's them, but whoever it is, you'd better be careful or you'll ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... been 'the other one'; he was rather shy. He sat down on a mat of reeds that was spread beside a corridor near the gateway; and, gazing up at the sky, meditated for some moments in silence. The chrysanthemums in the gardens were in full bloom, whose sweet perfume soothed us with its gentle influence; and round about us the scarlet ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... savages, ranged in very good order, and standing up to their waists in water; they were all armed in the same manner as those that we had seen at the other islands, and one of them carried a piece of mat fastened to the top of a pole which we imagined was an ensign. They made a most hideous and incessant noise, and in a short time many large canoes came down the lake to join them. Our boats were still out, and the people on board them made all the signs of friendship that they could ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Peace, after a pause, "I might earn a little crocheting. Once, long ago, I made a mat out of ends of worsted I found, and it didn't hurt me hardly any; on my good days it wouldn't honestly hurt me at all. It's pretty work, ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... is a very wicked place. There were no less than fourteen large tents set up for gambling, and, in addition, some thirty or forty mat-tents for gambling. I was there three days. The first day people were shy. The second day they were not much afraid. The third day I had quite a lot of patients. We sold a good few books, preached a good deal, and doctored a number of patients. ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... evening, when he saw her re-enter her cell. When he had fully observed the place, he went to one of those houses where they sell a certain hot liquor, and where any person may pass the night, particularly in the great heats, when the people of that country prefer lying on a mat to a bed. About midnight, after the magician had satisfied the master of the house for what little he had called for, he went out, and proceeded directly to the cell of Fatima. He had no difficulty to open the door, which was only fastened with a latch, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... the bazar. The miscellanies of a stall might upon occasion be what is left behind after a house removal. On one table at Batum I observed two moth-eaten rusty fezes, a battered but unopened tin of herrings in tomato-sauce, another tin half-emptied, a guitar with one string, a good hammer, a door-mat worn to holes, the clearing of a book-case, an old saucepan, an old kerosene stove, a broken coffee-grinder, and a rusty spring mattress. Under the stall were two Persian greyhounds, also for sale. The shopmen ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... his people; and the ministers of the seven churches who are upheld by the Lord himself are representative, in one important sense at least, of the entire Christian ministry; for Christ has promised to be with them alway "even unto the end of the world." Mat. 28:20. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... donkey rubbed one hoof after the other on the straw mat before the sill, then advanced into the room. Felicia, who was in Roger's lap, ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... when he stood on the door-mat beside his captor merely added mystery to mystery. Just within the luxuriously furnished hall, where the light of the softly shaded hall lantern served to heighten the artistic effect of her red house-gown, stood a woman—a lady, and evidently the mistress of the Georgian mansion. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... who was with Smith in Virginia has left us this account of what took place when the Powhatan was crowned (p. 42): "In a fair plain field they made a fire before which (we were) sitting upon a mat (when) suddenly amongst the woods was heard ... a hideous noise and shouting. Then presently ... thirty young women came out of the woods ... their bodies painted some white, some red, some black, some particolor, but all differing. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... as he was, cowardly lolling on a mat, whilst his friends believed him slaughtering wild beasts, Tartarin of Tarascon was ashamed of himself, and could have wept had he not ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Smith: John, leave the room." Out went the servant; and the gentleman and Fixem looked at one another till they couldn't look any longer, and then they varied the amusements by looking at me, who had been standing on the mat all this time. "Hundred and fifty pounds, I see," said the gentleman at last. "Hundred and fifty pound," said Fixem, "besides cost of levy, sheriff's poundage, and all other incidental expenses."—"Um," says the gentleman, "I shan't be able to settle ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... never is my time to escape," he said to himself. Creeping out from under his mat, which he left raised up in the centre to appear as if he was still beneath it, he crawled along for some distance on his hands and knees. He stopped, however, every now and then to ascertain if any sentry, who might have been lying down, had risen ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... cover and green manure crop, forming a thick, close mat of herbage which makes a good cover for the soil. It is very quick to start growing and a rapid grower in the spring. It also adds larger quantities of nitrogen. The hairy or winter vetch lives through the hard freezing winters. Summer vetch, although ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... which force a highly conventionalized and specialized society to take her on her own terms. The greater number of diplomatic women as well as ladies-in-waiting that I have run across during my European or Washington episodes have about as much personality as a door-mat. Many of our own women have been admirable helpmates to our ambassadors, but I recall none that has played a great personal role in the world. Not a few have contributed to the gaiety ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... of glass had not sparkled, or there had been loose paper on the ground or moulted feathers on the bricks, she would have discovered this with the victorious satisfaction of finding fault. But orderliness prevailed. No; the mat at the front door had been displaced by Rowan's foot as he had hurried from the house. (The impulse was irresistible: she adjusted it with her toe and planted herself on it with ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... short to allow weather to cut it shorter,' said Pitt, throwing himself down on a mat. 'I think I have observed that you too always have some work in hand ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... I am a fool?" he cried. "Do you think I do not know that if there were not something moving in your brain you would think no more of that clerk, that bourgeois estate agent, than of the door-mat beneath your feet? It is what I always complain about. You make use of me as a tool. There are always things which I do not understand. He comes here, this young man, under a pretext, whether he knows it or not. You talk to him for an hour at a time. There should be ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... experiences which usurp the hours and years. The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitant of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics. The islander may ramble all day at will. At night he may sleep on a mat under the moon, and wherever a wild date-tree grows, nature has, without a prayer even, spread a table for his morning meal. The northerner is perforce a householder. He must brew, bake, salt and preserve his food, and pile wood and coal. But as it happens that not one stroke can labor lay to without ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... received him very kindly, and so did the old lady, whose previous good opinion of him was greatly enhanced by his wiping his boots on the mat. He was then taken into the parlour to be inspected in his new clothes; and then was shown the garden and his little room, and when the old gentleman had said all he had to say in the way of promise and advice, and Kit had said all he had to say in the ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... neat about his premises, this old cook was very particular about them; he had a warm love and affection for his cook-house. In fair weather, he spread the skirt of an old jacket before the door, by way of a mat; and screwed a small ring-bolt into the door for a knocker; and wrote his name, "Mr. Thompson," over it, with a bit ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... he experimented. He daubed it onto his hair with a wisp of cotton. His hair began to mat down, but he found that combing it out as he went along removed the worst of the wax and still left some of the color. It worked better than ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... bed-chamber; for half the front wall, and a portion of one of the sides, were entirely formed of wooden trellice, which admitted, with the utmost freedom, all the winds of heaven, the sun, and also the dust. There was a mat upon the floor, and the apartment was whitewashed to the rafters, which were in good condition; and upon Mohammed's declaration that it was free from rats, I felt an assurance of a share of comfort which I had dared not expect before. There were two neat beds, with ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... time, I judged from the sound of flowing water that we were nearing the camp, and, halting the party, sent the scouts to reconnoitre. They returned with the information that the camp was close at hand, and contained thirteen mat and skin covered tents, or huts, and that the stolen stock and Indian ponies were grazing on a flat just beyond. No ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... eyes were troubled by this writing, and my knees smote one against the other; till majestic Reason, deigning to look downward from her contemplation of eternal causes, spelt backwards for me, with a pitying smile, the homely, harmless inscription on the BATH MAT, which was ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... given to each species. The seeds were sown about the first of May. They germinated well, and the little trees grew thriftily, the catalpa reaching a height of eighteen inches before the Fair closed. A bed of Norway pine showed the plants on half the bed crowded together in a thick mat as if grown from seed sown broadcast; on the other half arranged as if from seed sown in rows across the bed, both methods of sowing seed being followed in actual practice. Four beds were given to two-year-old plants—Norway spruce, white pine, European larch and Scotch pine. These ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... by the junction of the Mat, the Ta, the Po and the Ny rivers, the last being the northernmost of the four. It takes its rise about a mile south and a little east of the Wilderness Tavern. The Po rises south-west of the place, but farther away. Spottsylvania is on the ridge dividing these two streams, and where they ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... welcomed back when his wrongs and wanderings were known. For several days he held regular levees, that curious boys and sympathizing girls might see and pity the changed and curtailed dog. Sancho behaved with dignified affability, and sat upon his mat in the coach-house pensively eying his guests, and patiently submitting to their caresses; while Ben and Thorny took turns to tell the few tragical facts which were not shrouded in the deepest mystery. If the interesting sufferer could only have spoken, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... As much as she was interested in Jerry Sheming, she did not like to think she was stirring up trouble for her school-mate's father. Just then the outer door of the inn opened and a man entered, stamping the snow from his boots upon the wire mat. ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... with the inevitable front-door, south-door, kitchen-and shed-floor, lilacs and altheas before the windows, fennel, tiger-lilies, sweet-brier, and Bargundy rosebushes, with red "pinies" and livid hydrangeas, or now and then a mat of stonecrop and "voilets" along the posy-bed that edged cabbage and potato-plots, while, without the fence, Bouncing-Bets adorned the road-side, or blue sea-pinks from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... the expedition; and he was as good as his word, for, in about half-an-hour afterwards, he descended to the hall, and then Mr. Leek was summoned, who came out of the bar with such a grand rush, that he fell over a mat that was before him, and saluted the baron by digging his head into his stomach, and then falling sprawling at his feet, and laying ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the lamp? Put it on the mat, please. You can't be too careful of lamps. If the oil gets on the cloth, nothing will ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... will be hailed with applause as a bold and legitimate operation of war or universally condemned as a barefaced piece of bath-hoggery. Recently, for example, an extremely courteous, not to say gallant, old gentleman was severely lectured by a lady for digging himself in on the mat and maintaining his position there till she emerged. She stated with, I think, considerable force that she had passed the age when a lady likes to be seen coming out of a bathroom with disordered locks; she also said that he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... were so many shows in town that the supply of college students didn't come up to the demand, and as me and the bunch had sorta turned them down after they went and lost all their money on the Thanksgiving game, so we had an intimation that developed into a hunch that our little 'welcome' mat on the doorstep would not be crowded with an eager throng. We engaged a couple of window tables at the Cafe des Beaux Minks realizing that though we were not in the money we were still on the track. This was last New Year's Eve. New Year's ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... confided the whole story, and very puzzled and unhappy it made him, for he ran between Ger and the door snuffing and whining till the squire came back and turned him out, when he remained upon the mat outside uneasily barking ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... bare arms came out a foot beyond the end of the sleeves. The rest of his costume was even more eccentric, being nothing more or less than a coarse flannel petticoat, and his bare feet rested on the mat ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... standing restlessly near the window. The lodge-keeper's son, with his head bound up (for he was the victim of the explosion, and I suppose, the prosecutor), was standing beside the policeman, cap in hand, on the mat. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... should be covered with a good quality of linoleum. A perforated rubber mat may be placed at the sink, although this is not necessary. In fact, it is a better plan for the woman in the kitchen, as indeed elsewhere, to get rubber heels for her shoes. The Arabs have a proverb that to him who is shod it is as if ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... a large mat woven of "phormium" trimmed with dogskins, was clothed with a pair of cotton drawers, blood-stained from recent combats. From the pendant lobe of his ears hung earrings of green jade, and round his neck a quivering necklace of "pounamous," ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... safe, now, Locke paused, and there for a moment twisted the combination so that he could get his correct position. That done, he noted the place where he had been standing, and removed a mat from the floor in front of the safe. At that place he set in on the floor a fairly large iron plate. To this iron plate he attached a wire, then replaced the rug, but in such a way that a part of the plate was exposed, though it ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... said, squinting down the barrel of the rifle he was lovingly cleaning. "It's going to be a perfect day! I'm going to the game myself. If it rains, you and I'll go to the Orpheum mat., ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... we have nearly ninety men at work. Some of these are skilled workmen who are engaged in carpentry. The particular job they have now in hand is the making of benches for the Salvation Army. Others are engaged in mat-making, some are cobblers, others painters, and so forth. This trial effort has, so far, answered admirably. No one who is taken on comes for a permanency. So long as he is willing to work for his rations he is supplied ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the hand that held the lather brush, turned about like an automaton, tripped over the mat, recovered himself with an effort, and preserving what dignity a man can preserve in pink-striped pyjamas and a sun helmet, stalked majestically back to his quarters. Half-way across he remembered something and came doubling back, ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... The money his mother had put aside to purchase his release had been used up as a result of six months of poor business and by credits given to certain lorettes on the street, who had left the key under their door-mat one fine morning. He had not prospered, in a business way, himself, and his stock in trade had been taken on execution. He had been that day to ask a former employer to advance him the money to purchase a substitute. But the old perfumer had not forgiven him for leaving him and setting up for himself, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... pin-head: shape cylindrical, with obtuse ends: length about twice its diameter. By the quantity we can judge of the number. If the hive is full of combs the lower ends may appear perfect, while the middle or upper part is sometimes a mat of webs! ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... threw them, and knelt on the mat With doves and biddy and dog and cat. And her mother came to the open house-door: "Dear little daughter, I bring you some more. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... confirm me in this Opinion; for the Virginians and Guahutemallians, from ancient Times, worshiped one Madog as an Hero. Concerning the Virginians, See Martyr Decade the VII. chap. 3. concerning the Guahutemallians, Decade VIII. chap. 5. Among them we have Matec Zungam and Mat Jngam, and why this should not be Madog the Cambrian, whom the Monuments in the Country prove to have been in those parts, no reason can be given. As to Antiquity, five Centuries are sufficient, beyond which American ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... (as Master BAKER, after rubbing his forehead, discovers a brickbat under the mat where his head had been). Now, how very odd! He found a brick in exactly the same place when I was here before! Someone must have a grudge against him, poor boy! But he ought to look before he stands on his head, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... department was aflutter like a poultry-yard. Every woman in it, from the little new Swede stock-girl to Gladys Hemingway, who is only working to wear out her old clothes, was standing with her face toward the elevator, and on her face a look that would make the ordinary door-mat marked 'Welcome' seem like an insult. I kind of smoothed my back hair, because I knew that only one thing could bring that look into a woman's face. And down the aisle came a tall, slim, distinguished-looking, wonderfully tailored, ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... in its zenith, beating down on dry Arabia between racing black clouds, when he had finished talking to the local council in the ramshackle old council-house, skin and mat curtained, that faced the sheik's where the main street broadened for a hundred filthy yards into a market-place. All through his argument he had held a pure-white bull terrier between his knees as proof that ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... knocker. We enter a large stone-paved hall, lighted from the back, where a glazed balcony overlooks the teeming canal. You wish to wipe your shoes. Well! do you see this pattern of a small area-railing cut in wood? That is our scraper and door-mat—all in one. ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... est incomparablement plus porte au mat qu'au bien, et il se fait dans le monde incomparablement plus de mauvaises actions que de bonnes—est aussi certaine qu'aucun principe de metaphysique. Il est donc incomparablement plus probable qu'une action faite par un homme, est mauvaise, qu'il n'est ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... matted together and so located as to be bent, like reeds growing on the bottom of a brook, by currents of the liquid filling the canals. In the "vestibule", the central part of the inner ear, the hair-tips of the sense cells are matted together, and in the mat are imbedded little particles of stony matter, called the "otoliths". When the head is inclined in any direction, these heavy particles sag and bend the hairs, so stimulating them; and the same result occurs when ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... lying and trying to deceive him. I do not think I danced a horn but I did step around lively, maybe, a little on tip He said, he thought he had cured me up, that the application he gave would make me well. I crawled into bed very much pleased indeed to think the mat was settled, as far as I was concerned. John S. had crawled into bed while I was paying the penalty. Father excused him because he was so young; he said I was the one to blame, and must stand it all. I thought as all young Americans do that it was rather hard to get such ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... front of a tricycle. There was nothing to be done but to go leisurely home, waiting every now and then to see if the dog was coming, while growing always more and more uneasy at his non-appearance. At last the home was reached—and on the front-door mat sat Daniel! ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... was a beautiful pink sea-shell, lying on a mat made of balls of red-shaded worsted. This shell was greatly coveted by mother, but she was only allowed to play with it when she had been particularly good. Hiram had showed her how to hold it close to her ear and hear the roar of ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... door closed gently enough, and separated Mrs. Pratt from the whole moving mass of animate confusion that reigned in the streets outside. As she stopped, on her way through the narrow passage within, to straighten the rag mat at the door of the front room, she ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... Salmat el-Nahhs; an excellent and intelligent man, who was attached to the service of M. Lacaze. He distinguished himself by picking up antiques, until his weakness, the D el-Faranj, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... looked bright and a little elated, and she disregarded her father's invitation to be seated. She stood on the mat instead, and looked down on him. "Look here, daddy," she said, in a tone of great reasonableness, "I MUST go to that dance, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... this, both boys had progressed so far that they were able to work on a mat, made up of several layers of thick carpet, without the aid of the "mechanic." Of course their act lacked finish. Their movements were more or less clumsy, but they had mastered the principle of the somersault in remarkably ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... straps and hauled back the cab. They fetched a mat from some obscure place of succor, and pushed it carefully under the prostrate thing. From this panting, quivering mass they suddenly and emphatically reconstructed a horse. As each man turned to go his way he delivered some superior ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... bed was soft, Ditte knew that better than any one else. Granny's bedclothes were heavy, and yet warmer than anything else in the whole world, and there was a straw mat against the wall. It had been so cosy and ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a perfect lady, and his three adorable little girls in Rob Roy Macgregor dresses, dancing to the hand organ, performing circus on the floor with startling effects of nudity, and curling up together on a mat to sleep, three sizes, three attitudes, three Rob Roy dresses, and six little clenched fists: the murderer meanwhile brooding and gloating over his chicks, till your whole heart went out to him; and yet his crime on the face of it was dark: ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be insupportable for the snakes. While stopping to look at the conflagration, Mr. —— was accosted by a three parts naked and one part tattered little she slave—black as ebony, where her skin was discoverable through its perfect incrustation of dirt—with a thick mat of frizzly wool upon her skull, which made the sole request she preferred to him irresistibly ludicrous:—'Massa, massa, you please to buy me a comb to tick in my head?' Mr. —— promised her this necessary of life, and I promised myself to give her the luxury ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... whispering of innumerable drops among innumerable leaves, till, as day dawned, he reached a clearing, and descried through the mists a cluster of Huron houses. Faint and bedrenched, he entered the principal one, and was greeted with the monosyllable "Shay!"—"Welcome!" A squaw spread a mat for him by the fire, roasted four ears of Indian corn before the coals, baked two squashes in the embers, ladled from her kettle a dish of sagamite, and offered them to her famished guest. Missionaries seem to have been a novelty at this place; for, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... mow that swale a few days after, Gramp first marvelled, then grumbled repeatedly; for the grass was in a mat. He spoke of it at the dinner table that day, making a covert accusation against Gram, whereupon Theodora and I owned up in the matter, Doad naively adding that we had done it "on the strength of Gram's original permit," but that we had agreed never to do so again. The Old Squire laughed a little ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... did he care how that impish little creature, whom he had always regarded as old Abram's granddaughter, and who glared at him with such savage malignity from her piercing black eye (no figure of speech, for she had but one) when with his foot and cane he gently rolled her off the door-mat, where he found her coiled up asleep on his entrance to the house,—what did he care how that mixture of chimpanzee and evil sprite, to whom were to be attributed nine-tenths of the mischief done in the neighborhood, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... coffee-house?" We "Coffee-housers" adjourned to the Whist Room. Sir Thos. Steele in the chair. I had a long chat with him. He says Music and the Drama have declined dreadfully. The meeting was full of friends. "Mat Irvine" nearly wrung my hand off, and I sat by poor Knollys, who is heart-broken at the death of that dear little soul, Captain Barton. It was a first-rate meeting, mixed military and Aldershot tradesmen—a ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... peas made a fair growth in spite of the dry season, and after the corn was cut they furnished fine pasture for the brood sows, that ate the peas and trampled down the vines. In the spring ploughing this black mat was turned under, and with it went a store of fertility to fatten the land. Cow peas were sowed in all the corn land in 1897, and the rule of the farm is to sow corn-fields with peas, crimson clover, or some other ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... to him. A sound of oars was heard, a boat grinding against the stones, and he appeared, enormous, booted, followed by two drenched dogs of a ruddy color like himself, who lay down on the mat outside the door. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... this morning to an Indian Tamahnous (incantation), to drive away the evil spirits from a sick man. He lay on a mat, surrounded by women, who beat on instruments made by stretching deer-skin over a frame, and accompanied the noise thus produced by a monotonous wail. Once in a while it became quite stirring, and the sick man seemed to be improved by it. Then ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... furnished with a low bed, the curtains of which were of white calico, ornamented with lace, gold, silver, beads, and coloured bits of silk. At the foot of this bed was a platform, raised about half a foot from the ground, on which was spread a spotless white mat, with several bronze trays containing cakes, etc. Whilst we were inspecting this apartment we were startled by the din of voices, followed by the sound of music, which, from its peculiar character, was too near to be agreeable. 'The bride is come,' said Drahman. The crowd was so great that ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... usual dirty white horse, that was brought out and set to gallop round, with a gaudy horse-woman on his back, who jumped through a hoop and did the ordinary feats, the horse's hoofs splashing and possing all the time in the green slush of the ring. An old door-mat was laid down near the entrance for the performers, and as they came out in turn they wiped the mud from their feet before they got up on their horses. A little later the clown came out, to the great delight ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... must learn those on the other side, as well. They are, indeed, of even greater importance in case of pursuit, or for crossing the border unobserved. Hitherto, I have forbidden you to cross the line, but in future Mat Wilson shall go with you. He knows the Scotch passes and defiles, better than any in the band; and so that you don't go near the Bairds' country, you can traverse them safely, so long ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... was a most remarkable day with Thomas Becket, Arch Bishop of Canterbury, as Weever, 201, observes from Mat. Paris: "Mars Secundum Poetas, Deus Belli nuncupatur. Vita Sancti Thomae (secundum illud Job, Vita hominis militia est super terram) tota fuit contra hostem bellicosa, &c". The life of St. Thomas (according to that of Job, the life of a man is a warfare upon earth) was a continual conflict ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... in cold water, and bring it gradually to the boil. Boil hard for 5 minutes, stirring once or twice. Draw it to the side of the stove, where it is comparatively cool, or, if a gas stove is used, put the saucepan on an asbestos mat and turn the gas as low as possible. The water should now gradually steam away, leaving the rice dry and well cooked. Serve plain ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel
... leave your Franks. For seven years you've lingered in this land They have endured much pain and sufferance. Give, Sire, to me the clove, also the wand, I will seek out the Spanish Sarazand, For I believe his thoughts I understand." That Emperour answers intolerant: "Go, sit you down on yonder silken mat; And speak no more, until ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... had read Pilgrim's Progress intensely. Timidly, with shining eyes, she stood one moment upon the red mat outside the parlor door, and then, with sudden courage, turned the knob and entered. At a glance she felt that there was no need of courage; Evangelist was seated comfortably in the horse-hair rocker with his feet to the fire resting on the camp stool; he did not ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... at the angles, and the sharp, broken, broad shadows of the tiled eaves, and the deep ribbed tiles with the doves upon them, and the carved Roman capital built into the wall, and the white and blue stripes of the mattresses stuffed out of the windows, and the flapping corners of the mat blinds. All would have been there; not as such, not like the corn, nor blinds, nor tiles, not to be comprehended nor understood, but a confusion of yellow and black spots and strokes, carried far too fine for the eye to follow, microscopic in its minuteness, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... well. She was always thinking about his health. He was weighed down with flannel, and in the holidays she fed him well with meat, giving him all the gravy from underdone beef so that he should grow strong and tall. She bought him a small mat to sit on at school because the forms were so hard. There were separate bed-rooms for the pupils, and Mme. Mauperin furnished her son's like a man's room. At twelve years of age he had a rosewood dressing-table and chest of drawers ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... through the parlor, and lit the lamp that stood on a yellow crocheted mat in the middle of the table. "Now, we'll go an' have a drink o' that alderberry," she ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... spot to help her, but she never thanked one of them. "They might have come before if their will had been good," she said. She had not a word for anybody during the rest of the day, but sat near the hall fire till evening watching and tending Tartar, who lay all gory, stiff, and swelled on a mat at her feet. She wept furtively over him sometimes, and murmured the softest words of pity and endearment, in tones whose music the old, scarred, canine warrior acknowledged by licking her hand or her sandal alternately with his ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... to her bed, Than let you see her dress her head; In church you hear her, thro' the crowd, Repeat the absolution loud: In church, secure behind her fan, She durst behold that monster man: There practis'd how to place her head, And bite her lips to make them red; Or, on the mat devoutly kneeling, Would lift her eyes up to the ceiling. And heave her bosom unaware, For neighb'ring beaux to see it bare. At length a lucky lover came, And found admittance to the dame, Suppose all parties now agreed, The ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... through and buried itself in the cushions. There were five bullet-holes in its hood. Its flank was scraped by a flying fragment of shell, the same that had tilted its right rear splash-board. Inside, its canvas covers and its rubber mat ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... that Oolichuk not only quivered from head to foot, but gave a little jump and anything but a little yell. Benjy's powers of self-restraint were by that time exhausted. He sent the handle round with a whirr and Oolichuk, tumbling backwards off the mat, rent the air with a shriek of ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... inches by 6 foot 6 inches" was named. This was, I fancy, a floor covering. In the Boston Gazette of November, 1748, "two large Matts for floors" were advertised—an exceptional instance in the use of the word mat. Large floor-carpets were advertised the following year, and in 1755 a "Variety of List Carpets wide & Narrow," and "Scotch Carpets for Stairs." In 1769 came "Persia Carpets 3 yards Wide." In 1772, in the Boston Evening Post, "A very Rich Wilton Carpet ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... rain. The children might have been worse off though there was no window, and no door to close the opening. That mattered the less in the summer weather, and before winter came, Stead thought he could close it with a mat made of the bulrushes that stood up in the brook, lifting their ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tolled awkwardly when I arrived. It was 11 o'clock A.M. I found the front door thrown wide open, with every indication of its being entered by all comers without the least ceremony—not even that of wiping the shoes. There was neither door-bell nor knocker, scraper nor mat; and the floor of the lobby seemed but slightly acquainted with the broom,—to say nothing of the scrubbing-brush. It looked like the floor of a corn or provision warehouse. I had no alternative but to venture in. Immediately after, there entered a young man with a fowling-piece, whom before ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by the side-door, which was fortunately near. Thence a narrow passage led into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the staircase. I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... downward, but ready for instant use. Diagonally across his body ran a cord supporting a quiver, from which the feathered shafts of several arrows projected above his left shoulder. Around his waist looped another cord from which dangled a small loin mat. Otherwise he was totally nude—a ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... just stir — An almanac's aware. Was it the mat winked, Or a nervous star? The moon slides down the ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... and sometimes only once in two days, often even in four; his food was bread with salt, his drink nothing but water. To speak of flesh and wine there is no need, for such a thing is not found among other earnest men. When he slept he was content with a rush-mat: but mostly he lay on the bare ground. He would not anoint himself with oil, saying that it was more fit for young men to be earnest in training, than to seek things which softened the body; and that they must accustom themselves to ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... dimensions of the enclosure, twice as large, says one Spanish observer, as the celebrated square of Salamanca. Here were traders from all parts; the goldsmiths from Azcapozalco, the potters and jewelers of Cholula, the painters of Tezcuco, the stone-cutters, hunters, fishermen, fruiterers, mat and chair makers, florists, etc. The pottery department was a large one; so were the armories for implements of war; razors and mirrors—booths for apothecaries with drugs, roots, and medical preparations. In other places again, blank-books or maps for the hieroglyphics or pictographs were to ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... chiefs, and explained to them the objects of their expedition, expressing their determination to proceed at all risks, and making them some presents. They requested the assistance of two guides, to put them in their way; which request the natives readily granted, returning for their presents a mat, which served them as a bed during the voyage. The next day, being the 10th of June, the two Miamis, their guides, embarked with them in sight of all the inhabitants of the village who looked with astonishment ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... there William Arbuckle there George Thomson barber Alexander Giffin farmer in Dundonald John Rowat shoemaker David Ferguson in Craigie Mary Frances in Irvine Archibald M Ketton shoemaker in Saltcoats Mat. Alerton farmer Galston Alexr. Longmuir portioner in Dreghorn Robt. Creighton in Firmerlaw Samuel Muir weaver Kirkland John Wilson in Titwood Robert Hay quarrier Symington Wm. Hendry farmer Muir mill James Morison do. Riccarton ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... body by refusing to it everything that it loved. They subsisted only on bread and water; many ate but twice a week, some went to the mountains to cut herbs which they ate raw. They dwelt in grottoes, ruins, and tombs, lying on the earth or on a mat of rushes. The most zealous of them added other tortures to mortify, or kill, the body. St. Pachomius for fifteen years slept only in an erect position, leaning against a wall. Macarius remained six months in a morass, the prey of mosquitoes "whose stings would have penetrated the hide of a wild ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... He could not leave things alone. If you took the slippers away from him, he tried to eat the mat. If you put the mat outside the door, he tore the corner of the tablecloth. And when the cloth was folded up, he sharpened his teeth on ...
— Dew Drops Vol. 37. No. 17, April 26, 1914 • Various
... the 'ava cup; how to spill the libation to the gods; how to invoke a proper blessing on the company. She taught him how to say "O susunga, lau susunga fo'i," on entering a strange house; how to pull the mat over his knee to express his fictitious dependence; how to join in the chorus of "Maliu mai, susu mai" when others entered after him; how, indeed, to comport himself everywhere with the finished courtesy of a ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... and I afterwards distinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole. Finally he gave a faint single rap, and Pepper—such was the compromising name of the avenging boy—announced "Mr. Gargery!" I thought he never would have done wiping his feet, and that I must have gone out to lift him off the mat, but at last he ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... I did stay a little longer, but I knew! I knew I was through. I stayed another week, and then I went to the mat. ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... sweet maiden, shore away Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair Which made a silken mat-work for her feet; And out of this she plaited broad and long A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread And crimson in the belt a strange device, A crimson grail within a silver beam; And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... the wrong moment and I came sailing earthward from on high. It seemed to me that, like Milton's Lucifer, "from dawn to eve I fell," M. Huguenin sprinting to intercept my fall; but I landed on a mat and was little the worse for it. I fear the prospective patrons were not persuaded, by my performance, of the expediency of gymnastic training. On the other hand, M. Huguenin managed to dispose to my father of one of his ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Mungo Park declared that he was more affected by this incident than by any other that befel him in the course of his travels. As he lay down to sleep on the mat spread for him on the floor of the hut, his benefactress called to the female part of the family to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued employed far into the night. "They lightened their labour with songs," says the traveller, "one of which was composed ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... despite these favourable conditions, I must confess that I was not a little astonished to see how nimbly those two unwieldy-looking craft moved over the water, and how close to the wind they contrived to lie—this last, of course, being due to the almost absolutely flat set of their mat sails. The weathermost of the two looked as though she might cross our stern, at a distance of not much more than a quarter of a mile. I got up the glass and had a look at them when they were about ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... of Pebbleson Nephew. The Joey Ladle in question. A slow and ponderous man, of the drayman order of human architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of door-mat and rhinoceros-hide. ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... own doors; for there are no kitchens or fireplaces in any of the rooms, and thus we see what each family cooks. The Sephardim (Jews who have lived here for years) eat their meals in the courtyard. They lay a mat on the marble tiles, on which they place a small low table, and they sit on the mat and eat. Two Sephardim families have rooms in the house and they speak Arabic and Spanish, and their ways of living are more like those of the ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... Goulden and I were both at work, each one thinking after his own fashion, and Catherine was laying the cloth. I started to go out to wash my hands at the pump, as I always did before dinner, when I saw an old woman wiping her feet on the straw mat at the foot of the stairs and shaking her skirts which were covered with mud. She had a stout staff, and a large rosary hung from her neck. As I looked at her from the top of the stairs, she began to come up and I recognized her immediately ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... been completed, it was now considered safe to load the precious Monument itself upon the backs of four of the largest Tortoises and send it home to the king's museum, which was done; and when it arrived it was received with enormous Mat and escorted to its future abiding-place by thousands of enthusiastic citizens, King Bullfrog XVI. himself attending and condescending to sit enthroned upon ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from the shores of the Mediterranean, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Her wharfs were counters across which they could swap merchandise. All she asked was to be allowed to change their money. Instead of which, when any two nations of the Near East went to the mat to settle their troubles, Salonika was the mat. If any country within a thousand-mile radius declared war on any other country in any direction whatsoever, the armies of both belligerents clashed at Salonika. They not only used her as a door-mat, but they used her hills to the north of the city ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... murder him, and prepared to do it, he would have raised the whole village upon us; but we quieted him, and rummaging to find provision, which was all we wanted, we by good luck spied best part of a goat hanging up behind a large mat at the farther end of the room. By this time in comes a woman with two children, very small. This was the old man's daughter, of about five-and-twenty. Glanlepze bound her also, and laid her by the old man; but the two children we suffered to lie untied. We then examined her, who told ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... Wisc. Oklahoma Seedling (J. Rupestris, pp. 60 1932 report). Rohwer, from J. Rohwer, Grundy Center, Ia. Grundy, from J. Rohwer, Grundy Center, Ia. Stabler (one lobe), from O. H. Casper, Anna, Ill. Sample package of new method selling black walnuts, sliced shell and meats together. Mat made of cross sections of black walnuts fastened together ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... soodna"—"Aship! aship!" and at the last one—Volinkina (vo-lin'-kin-ah)—where we stopped for a moment to rest our men, we were told that the vessel was now in plain sight from the hills, and that she had anchored near an island known as the Matuga (mat'-oo-gah), about twelve miles distant from the mouth of the river. Assured that it was no false alarm, we pushed on with redoubled speed, and in fifteen minutes more landed at the head of the gulf. Arnold and Robinson, with the Russian pilot, Kerrillof, had already ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... loitered on the mat, Some doubtfle o' the sekle; His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But her'n went ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... the window, dear, and wait till you hear me open the inside door," said she. "I'll run through the house and enter from the living-room. The key is under the mat, you know." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... our rescuer, stamping his wet rubber boots on the braided mat. "Got company come to supper—or breakfast, or whatever you want to call it. This is Mr. Paine from Denboro. This is his wife, Mrs. Paine. They've been cruisin' all the way from Cape Cod to Kamchatky in a motor boat with ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... twelve companies enlisted for State service, but in transferring to Confederate Army only ten were allowed by the army regulations. Two companies were left out, viz.: Captain J.C.S. Brown's, from Newberry, and Captain Mat. Jones', from Laurens. The privates, however, enlisted in the other companies as a general rule, for the companies were allowed a maximum number of 100. The Eighth and Third made no changes in their companies or officers from their first enlistment in the State service until ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... against his teeth, his hands looking like claws; a dreadful cough, which seemed to rack his whole shattered system, a hollow, whispering voice, and an entire inability to move himself. There he lay, upon a mat, on the ground, which was the only floor of the oven, with no medicine, no comforts, and no one to care for or help him but a few Kanakas, who were willing enough, but could do nothing. The sight of ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... 'em was corded. Dey made holes in de sides and foots and haidpieces, and run heavy home-made cords in dem holes. Dey wove 'em crossways in and out of dem holes from one side to another 'til dey had 'em ready to lay de mattress mat on. I'se helped to pull dem cords tight many a time. Our mattress ticks was made of homespun cloth and was stuffed wid wheat straw. 'Fore de mattress tick was put on de bed a stiff mat wove out of white oak splits was laid on top of de cords to pertect ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... and a pair of needles; set up from twenty to forty stitches, more or less, and knit till you are tired. When finished—(the knitting)—draw out the needles and bite off the thread. You will thus have made an elegant lamp-mat, of the same color as the worsted, and the very thing for a Christmas present ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... don't put them on too thick. You don't want more than two inches of leaves. If you do they will mat ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... deal of this allurement resided in the very fact that no one could tell how much was simple, innocent, and unconscious instinct, and how much was intended. An unpleasing note in both women was furnished by the powder. This so liberally covered their faces as to conceal the skin beneath a dead mat white. ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... their upper fronts projecting over the water and supported on piles. There were gigantic poplars wreathed with vines, great mulberry trees hanging their tempting fruit just out of reach, huge planes overarching the water, their dense leafage scraping the mat roof of the boat; filthy ghats thronged with white- robed Moslems performing their scanty religious ablutions; great grain boats heavily thatched, containing not only families, but their sheep and poultry; and all the other sights of a crowded Srinagar waterway, the houses being characteristically ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... the line of flame that was running along the ground, and bore Virginia high above it to the other side. Penn followed, and Dan came close behind. They then had before them a tract of blackened ground which the flames had swept, leaving here and there a dead limb or mat ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... her dairy, and her fowls. She established a series of precautions to prevent dirt, and the precautions themselves became objects to be protected. There was a rough scraper intervening on behalf of the black-leaded scraper; there was a large mat to preserve the mat beyond it: and although a drugget coveted the stair carpet, Mrs. Bellamy would have been sorely vexed if she had found a footmark upon it. If a friend was expected she put some straw outside the garden ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... some stepfather for the query held a handle out, The door-mat from the scraper, is it distant very far? And when no one knew where Moses was when Aaron blew the candle out, And no one had discovered that a door could be a-jar! But your modern hearers are In their tastes particular, And they sneer if you inform ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... affliction by saying: "We are quiet here; we don't get badgered here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors, and bring a man's heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door-mat till he is. Nobody writes threatening letters about money to this place. It's freedom, sir, it's freedom!" One smiles as one reads; and it adds a pathos, I think, to the smile, to find that these are records of actual experience. The Marshalsea prison was to Mr. Dickens ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... playing upon musical instruments made of pipes and small gourds, and at the time of another visit to Werowocomoco Smith was witness to a very charming scene in which Pocahontas was again the leading actor. While the English were sitting upon a mat near a fire they were startled by loud shouts, and a party of Indian girls came out of the woods strangely attired. Their bodies were painted, some red, some white, and some blue. Pocahontas carried a pair of ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... districts (rrethe, singular - rreth); Berat, Dibre, Durres, Elbasan, Fier, Gjirokaster, Gramsh, Kolonje, Korce, Kruje, Kukes, Lezhe, Librazhd, Lushnje, Mat, Mirdite, Permet, Pogradec, Puke, Sarande, Shkoder, Skrapar, Tepelene, Tirane, Tropoje, Vlore; note - some new administrative units may ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... on a slope where pine trees had covered the ground with a glossy mat of bronzed needles; and his companion sank to a sitting position with her back against a trunk. They were outside the influence of the camp meeting, beyond its unnatural excitation. The pine trees were black ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... planted on the short dry grass. In the iron washhand stand were a shining white basin and a jug filled with clear water. There was a cake of remarkable pink soap with a strange and piercing scent; there was a "tooth glass"; there was a straw mat. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... who writes himself Mat Meager, complains, that whereas he constantly used to Breakfast with his Mistress upon Chocolate, going to wait upon her the first of May he found his usual Treat very much changed for the worse, and has been forced to feed ever since upon ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele |
