"Tabby" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... face, rejoicing at once in the odor of sanctity and of a good dinner. The sight of this placidly lazy and provokingly comfortable churchman had upon the man of law the same effect that the sight of a sleek tabby has upon a terrier. In two minutes Master Geoffrey has jostled against the friar and contrived to pick a quarrel with him. Hereupon followed a lively game at single-stick, in which, no doubt, Chaucer's fellow-students ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... stranger, had he been passing, would have watched her with the same uncritical delight that he might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly appeared darting along the pavement. She reached the corner just in time to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some old tabby to settle ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... "An' who'd I hev to write to me, with you goin' 'long? It'll seem terrible nice to hear from somebody. I always did love letters. Sence Cousin Tabby died I ain't ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... of some big puma cub warming itself at a hearth like a common tabby cat, a tame puma thrusting out its claws and turning its yellow eyes up to its owner—tame, but with infinite possibilities of danger. For the information which Nash had given seemed to remove all his distrust ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... other element in his soubriquet is not so easy to say. There is a Cornish (and probably British) word “Tab,” which means turf (“Archæol. Journ.” vol. ii., No. 3, p. 199), and that would suit this dweller on the heath; but it is more likely that “Tab” had a reference to the cat, “Tabby” being the term for a brindled cat. And Bishop Harsnet, in his curious book on “The Superstitions of the Day” (1605), says a witch, or elf, “can take the form of hare, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... salt, paned, dappled, clouded, cymophanous[obs3]. mosaic, tesselated, plaid; tortoise shell &c. n. spotted, spotty; punctated[obs3], powdered; speckled &c. v.; freckled, flea-bitten, studded; flecked, fleckered[obs3]; striated, barred, veined; brinded[obs3], brindled; tabby; watered; grizzled; listed; embroidered &c. v.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... centre table, the hearth had just been swept up, there was a smell of hot bread, and a row of freshly-baked loaves were cooling on the dresser; the firelight shone on the gleaming pewter and brass utensils, and a great tabby cat sat purring on the elbow of Nathaniel's chair. I thought he seemed a little confused at my entrance, for he got up rather awkwardly and shuffled his papers together, so I took pity on his embarrassment, and only ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... his Name, and turning immediately to the Knight, she said, she supposed that was his good Friend, Sir ROGER DE COVERLY: Upon which nothing less could follow than Sir ROGER'S Approach to Salutation, with, Madam the same at your Service. She was dressed in a black Tabby Mantua and Petticoat, without Ribbons; her Linnen striped Muslin, and in the whole in an agreeable Second-Mourning; decent Dresses being often affected by the Creatures of the Town, at once consulting Cheapness ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the souls of the departed who are supposed to be hovering unseen on the day "when autumn to winter resigns the pale year." Witches then speed on their errands of mischief, some sweeping through the air on besoms, others galloping along the roads on tabby-cats, which for that evening are turned into coal-black steeds.[575] The fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely about In South Uist and Eriskay ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... accuse me of flattery. Papa and aunt are continually adducing you as an example for me to shape my actions and behaviour by. Emily and Anne say "they never saw any one they liked so well as Miss Nussey," and Tabby talks a great deal more nonsense about you than I choose to report. You must read this letter, dear Ellen, without thinking of the writing, for I have indited it almost all in the twilight. It is now so dark that, notwithstanding the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... saint. I can't like people I don't like. Some people I love very deeply; others, being of a kindly disposition, I tolerate; others again I simply detest. Now Wellingsford, like every little country town in England, is drab with elderly gentlewomen. As I am a funny old tabby myself, I have to mix with them. If I refuse invitations to take tea with them, they invite themselves to tea with me. "The poor Major," they say, "is so lonely." And they bait their little hooks and angle for gossip of which I am supposed—Heaven knows why—to be a sort of stocked ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... her power again: Now she works with three or four, Like an Indian Conjuror; 30 Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics play'd in the eye Of a thousand Standers-by, Clapping hands with shout and stare, What would little Tabby care For the plaudits of the Crowd? Over happy to be proud, Over wealthy in the treasure Of her ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... returned the crystal tabby, "that I do not eat mice. Being transparent, so anyone can see through me, I'd look nice, wouldn't I, with a common mouse inside me? But the fact is that I haven't any stomach or other machinery that would permit ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... brocades and yellow satin. Old Major Cutts in brown velvet, laced with gold, and a large wig. The parson in his silk cassock, and his helpmate in brown damask. Old General Atkinson in scarlet velvet, and his wife and daughters in white damask. The Governor in black velvet, and his lady in crimson tabby trimmed with silver. The ladies wore bell-hoops, high-heeled shoes, paste buckles, silk stockings, and enormously high head-dresses, with lappets of Brussels lace ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... little Lucie came into the farm-yard crying— oh, she did cry so! "I've lost my pocket-handkin! Three handkins and a pinny! Have you seen them, Tabby Kitten?" ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle • Beatrix Potter
... dark, windy, smoky, creaking, groaning, dismal old house. I shall feel like a younger man when we get into my splendid brick mansion, as, please Heaven, we shall by this time next autumn. You shall have a room on the sunny side, old Tabby, finished and furnished as best may ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Siberia and Alaska we find the remains of animals the elephant and the mastodon—compared to which old Jumbo was but a baby. And imbedded in the asphalt of Southern California is found the remains of the sabre toothed, tiger, by the side of which the royal Bengal is but a tabby cat. But I am getting into deep water, and will leave this question for the naturalist, the geologist and the theorist. And the passing of the "noble red man" to the gentleman in silk gown and ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... expletives were all thrown away; for Catch was only "full of fun and with nobody to play with him," like Peter Mooney's goose, and had only chased pussy in the natural exuberance of his spirits, having no "hard feelings" towards her, or any desire, I know, to injure her soft tabby fur. ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... up their minds to try no longer, and instead they lay on their backs on the grass and grumbled. It was clear that the world was against them, and what is the good of fighting in the face of such opposition? Bertram began the grumbling. 'Old Tabby,' he said,—that being the way in which he spoke of Miss Tabitha, his governess,—'is a beast. She makes me learn heaps of things which nobody ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... Tabby sings on the sill: "Shut your eyes, deary, and sleep in a trice, Then I will stay here, and scare off the ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... look through, I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, Her nose, her hair—her muffled words, And how she'd open her green eyes, As if in some immense surprise, Whenever as we sat at tea, She made ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... thoroughfare, step from tomb to tomb; in the time of the Brontes the village women dried their linen on these graves. Close to the wall which divides the churchyard from the vicarage is a plain stone set by Charlotte Bronte to mark the grave of Tabby, the faithful servant who served the Brontes from their childhood till all but Charlotte were dead. The very ancient church-tower still "rises dark from the stony enclosure of its yard;" the church itself has been remodeled and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... was no more need of them to think of parting, she said, in a more contented tone than he had heard her speak in since it had been settled that he was to be married, "Eh, my lad, I'll be as still as th' ould tabby, an' ne'er want to do aught but th' offal work, as she wonna like t' do. An' then we needna part the platters an' things, as ha' stood on the shelf together sin' afore thee ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... singing, as she knelt in front of the basket where the mother cat lay with her four blind kittens. "You see, Tabby," she said, "people still sing. A lot of them learned to sing in the war, and now they're home, they may as well sing as cry. Oh, Tabby, I wanted to sing, too . . . now look ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... hat-strings are much in use at present: they sell them by the weight. The tabby doublets wt the silk [called wats][232] furring wtin are also in faschion: wery warm in winter, cost 20 franks. Men and women from the least to the greatest, yea not the wery keel wifes and fruit ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... the meanest habitation between Heaven and earth. But it was at Monte Carlo I got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last little nest-egg had been smashed. In other words, I woke up and found myself a beggar, and for a few hours I even thought I'd have to travel home on that Monte Carlo Viaticum fund which so discreetly ships away the stranded adventurer before he musses up the Mediterranean scenery ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... cream satin was the animated heart of another group. His love for scandal and his facility for acquiring the latest tidbit made him the delight of many an old tabby cat. Now his eyes shone with the joy of imparting a ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... a sack—the same he had used to transport Satan's corpse—and from out of it he produced a half-starved tabby, that obviously could harm no one, owing to the fact that its head was tied up in a muslin bag and its ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... photographs, which on being developed turned out well. They had occasion to enter one of the unoccupied huts down there and found a wild cat a little more than half grown, which they caught and carried home with them. He was of the usual tabby colour and by no means fierce, quickly yielding to the coaxing treatment of his captors. He made himself quite at home in the Shack, and we looked forward to a display of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... shoes—of pink leather—are fastened each with a bunch of yellow ribbons puckered up in the shape of a cabbage. In her left hand she has a little heavy Dutch watch; in her right she wields a ladle for the sauerkraut and pork. By her side there stands a fat tabby cat, with a gilt toy-repeater tied to its tail, which "the boys" have there fastened ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... boys into all sorts of scrapes and trouble. One day they would hide poor Jenny's spectacles, and then when search was made the lost treasure would be found in some one else's desk. Or they would tie cotton reels on the four feet and tail of the old tabby cat, and launch her, with a horrid clatter, right into the middle of the room, just as I or one of the others happened to be scampering out. Or they would turn the little boys' forms upside down, and compel them with terrible ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... a deal of it on myself," Mrs. Tugwell began to moan, as soon as he was gone; "for I have cockered Dan up, and there's no denying it, afore Tim, or Tryphena, or Tabby, or Debby, or even little Solomon. Because he were the first, and so like his dear father, afore he got on in the world so. Oh, it all comes of that, all the troubles comes of that, and of laying up of money, apart from your wife, and forgetting almost of her Christian name! And the very same ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... sort called brocade print, very remarkable, the ground dark, with large red roses, and other large and yellow flowers, with blue in some of the flowers, with many green leaves; a pair of womens stays covered with white tabby before, and dove colour'd tabby behind, with two large steel hooks and ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... long enough to give him a good appetite, which made him draw near the table, where the very smell of such viands was agreeable and refreshing. The princess had a curious tabby-cat, for which she had a great kindness. This cat one of the maids of honour held in her arms, saying, "Madam, Bluet is hungry!" With that a chair was presently brought for the cat; for he was a cat of quality, and had a necklace ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... was at him, I can tell you! and she handled the matter shrewdly too. So was Esdras and Silas, and a sort more lads, a-crying, 'Scratch him, Tabby!' and she scraught ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... you suppose I can live my woman's life on the real and practical? What kind of woman do you take me for? An Amelia, a Patient Griselda, a tabby cat?" ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... grave faces was I received. The two antiquities only bowed their tabby heads; making longer faces than ordinary; and all the old lines appearing strong in their furrowed foreheads and fallen cheeks; How do you, Cousin? And how do you, Mr. Lovelace? looking all round at one another, as who should say, do you speak first: and, do you: for they seemed resolved ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... thraldom did not begin until I took the Pretty Lady's mother. We had not been a week in our first house before a handsomely striped tabby, with eyes like beautiful emeralds, who had been the pet and pride of the next-door neighbor for five years, came over and domiciled herself. In due course of time she proudly presented us with five kittens. Educated ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... way, with the care of her numerous family. Many a time have I seen him placidly extended before a fire, while puss used his shaggy body as a sleeping box, and once he was observed to help that anxious tabby-mother with the toilet of her kittens by licking them carefully all over. At every lick of Rufus's huge prehensile tongue a kitten was lifted bodily into the air, only, however, to descend washed and unharmed to the ground. But out of doors, in the society of Flick, Rufus's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... like this can be kept in order by a very inferior cat to yourself; and after all, you are cherished here chiefly because it was Lily's wish. Peggy can easily find another kitten; and you know she has often said that white cats were not to her taste, and she should much prefer a tabby." ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... play a scarcely noticed but undoubtedly beneficial part in the education and life of children. Which of us does not remember powerful but magnanimous dogs, lazy lapdogs, birds dying in captivity, dull-witted but haughty turkeys, mild old tabby cats, who forgave us when we trod on their tails for fun and caused them agonising pain? I even fancy, sometimes, that the patience, the fidelity, the readiness to forgive, and the sincerity which are ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... as if he wanted to get rid of her. The three parted, therefore, not in the best humor all round. Mrs. Hopkins declared she'd see the minister in Jericho before she'd fix herself up as if she was goin' to a weddin' to go and see him again. Why, he did n't make any more of her than if she'd been a tabby-cat. She believed some of these ministers thought women's souls dried up like peas in a pod by the time they was forty year old; anyhow, they did n't seem to care any great about 'em, except while they was green and tender. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... spectral figure which had grown up out of common report. The house negroes stood in mortal dread of Blue Dave, and their dismay was not without its effect upon Mrs. Kendrick and her daughter. Jenny, the house-girl, refused to sleep at the quarters; and when Aunt Tabby, the cook, started for her cabin after dark, she was accompanied by a number of little negroes bearing lightwood torches. All the stories and legends that clustered around Blue Dave's career were brought to the surface again; and, as we have seen, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... said Diana, emerging at last, hugging her parcel, and dragging Spot away from the pursuit of an impudent and provocative tabby cat, with a torn ear, that was spitting ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... a new area in London, appears to me to be obliged to fight till he gains undisturbed possession of it; at least so it has been the case with my cats. A very fine, bold, powerful tabby, did this twice with perfect success; but after repeated combats, although victorious, the struggle made him fierce and occasionally sullen. Another who was a very beautiful creature, but much weaker, used to come ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... little savage severely repent the delight she took in seeing her tabby favourite make cruel sport with a pretty sleek bead- eyed mouse, before she devoured it. Egad, my love, said I to myself, as I sat meditating the scene, I am determined to lie in wait for a fit opportunity to try how thou wilt like to be tost over ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... to tell Tabby how immensely pleased everyone is with her slippers. The men who have stood long in the trenches are in agonies of frost-bite and rheumatism, and now that I can give them these slippers when they arrive ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... tree, by the meadow-brook Reading, and oh, it was too lovely; I never saw such a charming book." The charming book must have pleased her, truly, There's a happy light in her bright young eyes And she hugs the cat with unusual fervor, To staid old Tabby's intense surprise. ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... making a little carpeted chamber between them. Here Allen had the farmer's armchair and a footstool, and with "Foxe's Martyrs" open at a flaming illustration on the little round table before him, appeared to be spending his Sunday as luxuriously as the big tabby cat who shared the hearth ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... liberate Pharaoh's slaves right under his very nose, and to lead them across that great and terrible wilderness. A WILD-CAT AFFAIR, if ever there was one! When were God's schemes otherwise? Look at Jordan, Jericho, Gideon, Goliath, and scores of others. Tame tabby-cat schemes are stamped with another hall mark—that of the Chocolate Brigade! How dearly they love their tabbies yet think themselves wise men! REAL CHRISTIANS REVEL IN DESPERATE VENTURES FOR CHRIST, expecting from God great things and ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... forth they went On sport intent. "Oh, Tom! if we should shoot a hare," Cried one, The elder son, "How father, sure, would stare!" Look there! what's that?" "Why, as I live, a cat," Cried Bill, "'tis mother Tibbs' tabby; Oh! what a lark She loves it like a babby! And ain't a cat's eye, Tom, as good a mark As any bull's eyes?" And straight "Puss! puss!" he cries, When, lo! as Puss approaches, They hear a squall, And see a head and fist above the wall. 'Tis tabby's mistress ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... tongue, too, as the several men who accosted us on our dark way discovered at their first approach to familiarity; and on one occasion, when a drunken sailor leered up to my side, Mrs. Bridget spat at him like an angry tabby-cat. Somehow, I no longer felt afraid under her ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... eyes remained mostly fixed on the back of the seat opposite, and never turned to the window even when a station was reached and called. On the other seat were two or three passengers, one of them a working woman who held a basket on her lap, in which was a tabby kitten. The woman opened the cover now and then, whereupon the kitten would put out its head, and indulge in playful antics. At these the fellow-passengers laughed, except the solitary boy bearing the key and ticket, who, regarding the kitten with his saucer eyes, seemed mutely to say: ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... a lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclin'd, 5 ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... wise as myself. In the middle watch of this night, our two cats—have I told you that we brought two cats from England with us?—as was their wont, were skylarking and cutting capers on the hammock nettings and davits, when tabby the lesser, instead of jumping on something palpable, made a leap on space with the natural result, for he lighted on water and was rapidly whirled astern by the inky waters of the Tartar gulf. Poor pussy, little did we dream, or you either, that ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... her much of the detail of ordering her own clothing, and we find him sending for "A Salmon-colored Tabby of the enclosed pattern, with satin flowers, to be made in a sack," "1 Cap, Handkerchief, Tucker and Ruffles, to be made of Brussels lace or point, proper to wear with the above negligee, to cost L20," "1 pair black, and 1 pair white Satin Shoes, of the smallest," ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... carry him when I went out a-walking. For this reason I hated him, and when we were out of my aunts' hearing I used to pull his tail and his ears and make the poor little thing howl sadly. My Aunt Penelope had a large tabby cat, which I also hated and used ill. I remember once being sent out of the dining-room to carry Shock his dinner, Shock being ill, and laid on a cushion in my aunts' bedroom. As I was going upstairs I was so unfortunate as to break ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... at the elderly lady, 'Law mamma, you are so teazing! We have made up a little conversazione party of our own, and you want to spoil it by taking Mr. Trevor from us! I declare,' continued she, turning her back on the card tables and lowering her voice, 'that old Tabby is never contented but when she is at her honours and her tricks! But let her alone! She never goes away a loser! She ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... I'd be begging to-day, Emma," interrupted a young man from across the stream of water which ran down the centre of Main Street. "I'm sitting on your aunt Tabby's trunk." The girl gave a cry, half of pained remembrance, half of pleasure. "Oh, my dear Aunt Tabby!" she cried, and, rushing across the rivulet, she threw herself across the battered leather trunk—sole surviving relic of Aunt Tabby; but Aunt ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... recluse among books as he is among flowers. No poet of today seems more self-sufficient. Although a lover of humanity, he seems to require no companionship. He is no more lonely than a cat, and has as many resources as Tabby herself. Now when he talks about books, his poetry becomes intimate, and forsakes all objectivity. His humour, a purely intellectual quality ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... and encouragements of the General, the works at St. Simons were carried on with such expedition, that, by the middle of April, the fort, which was a regular work of tabby, a composition of oyster shells and lime, was finished; and thirty-seven palmetto houses were put up, in which all the people might be sheltered till ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... paper that Miss Tabby Cat Thompson is going to read before the 'Arts and Crafts Club' to-morrow," she murmured. "I heard her telling Miss Chester about it yesterday. She said it took her six weeks to prepare it on account of the time she spent in looking up her facts. It will take me less than six minutes ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... EDITOR,—Not long ago I was given a little tabby Persian kitten, about four months old, which I called "Ruffle." We soon became great friends, and when I went out she would follow me like a dog. At the bottom of our park there is a river, in which we have a bathing-place. One morning when I was going ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... deaths in the family above the degree of second cousin; to post letters, and refuse them when they have been insufficiently stamped; and last, and most intolerable, to show a tender solicitude when tabby is out of sorts." The dog, indeed, for the most part, has become as sentimental and conventional a figure in current fiction as the ghost who haunts the ouija board or the idealistic soldier returned from the wars ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... no one who does not look back upon his past and wonder what he should have become in life if this or that crucial event had not occurred to set his destiny. It seems to me that if it had not been for the sudden death of my father I, too, might have found our jungle beast a domestic tabby, and have fed it its prey without realizing what I was about. I should have been a lawyer, I know; for I had had the ambition from my earliest boyhood, and I had been confirmed in it by my success in debating at school. (Once, at Notre Dame, I spoke for a full hour in successful defence ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... occupant of the throne is a large young gray tabby, Oliver by name. Not that in any sense he is a protector, for I doubt whether he has the heart to kill a mouse. However, I saw him catch and eat the first butterfly of the season, and trust that the germ of courage ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... cats," I went on. "How is this, Sally, dear?— 'A handsome orange male Persian cat, also a tabby, immense coat, brushes and frills, is offered in exchange for an electro-plated revolving covered dish ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... folks," said Fido to himself, "for their feather-beds look big and comfortable, and their baskets are all ample and generous,—and see, there goes a bright gilt cage, and there is a plump yellow canary bird in it! Oh, how glad Mrs. Tabby will be to see it,—she so dotes on ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... coleopterae by artful devices of glass traps and scarlet wafers. Such persons will probably form their ideas of Typee's cockroaches from their own domestic opportunities of observation. That were unjust to the crew of the Julia, and would give no adequate idea of their sufferings. As a purring tabby to a roaring jaguar, so is a British black-beetle to a cock-roach of the Southern Seas. We back our assertion by a quotation from our lamented friend Captain Cringle, who in his especially graphic and attractive style thus hits off the peculiarities of this graceful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... up. The dog that is kept on the chain becomes dirty in his habits, unhappy, and savage. His chain is often too short and is not provided with swivels to avert kinks. On a sudden alarm, or on the appearance of a trespassing tabby, he will often bound forward at the risk of dislocating his neck. The yard-dog's chain ought always to be fitted with a stop link spring to counteract the effect of the sudden jerk. The method may be employed ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... obsolete formats which he had bound by Lortic, by Trautz-Bauzonnet or Chambolle, by the successors of Cape, in irreproachable covers of old silk, stamped cow hide, Cape goat skin, in full bindings with compartments and in mosaic designs, protected by tabby or moire watered silk, ecclesiastically ornamented with clasps and corners, and sometimes even enamelled by Gruel Engelmann with silver ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... thwarts and the sternsheets; and most unfortunately Old Vro selected this moment to thrust off from shore with his paddle. The impetus took her at unawares, and she fell forward; her basket struck against the boat's gunwale, its cover flew open, and forth from it, half-demented with fright, sprang her tabby cat, Methuselah. The poor brute lit upon the parrot's cage, which happened to be balanced upon an unstable pile of cooking utensils at the end of Nicky Vro's thwart. Cat, cage and parrot, a gridiron, two cake tins, a bundle of skewers, and a cullender, went overboard in one rattling avalanche, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mint o' money. Bad luck!" he continues, in a tone of spiteful vexation. "A mine o' wealth, an' no chance to work it! Ef we only had the ship by us now, we could put a good thousan' dollars' worth o' thar pelts into it. Jest see how they swarm out yonder! An' tame as pet tabby cats! There's enough of 'em to supply seal-skin jackets fur nigh all the women ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... "From our vixenish tabby herself. The thin and vindictive are usually without a real sense of humour. I rather suspected young Jan Van Dieman's discomfiture. He left, you know, just after Garret arrived," ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... pretty Poll— A monkey too, what work he made! The sister introduced a Beau— My Susan brought a favorite maid. She had a tabby of her own, A snappish mongrel christen'd Gog— What d'ye think of that, my Cat? What d'ye think ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... nestle in every bosom. There's no telling when a man's sins may show themselves, for hares pop out of the ditch just when you are not looking for them. A horse that is weak in the legs may not stumble for a mile or two, but it is in him, and the driver had better hold him up well. The tabby cat is not lapping milk just now, but leave the dairy door open, and see if she is not as bad a thief as the kitten. There's fire in the flint, cool as it looks: wait till the steel gets a knock at it, and you ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... village came to live as servant at the parsonage. She remained there, as a member of the household, for thirty years; and from the length of her faithful service, and the attachment and respect which she inspired, is deserving of mention. Tabby was a thorough specimen of a Yorkshire woman of her class, in dialect, in appearance, and in character. She abounded in strong practical sense and shrewdness. Her words were far from flattery; but she would spare no deeds in the cause ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... a thing she said about men once (in the boarding house now) and often repeated. "They're very fond of saying women are cats," she once said. "Fools! It's men that are the cat tribe: tame cats, tabby cats, wild cats, Cheshire cats, tomcats and stray cats! Aren't they just? And look at them—tame cats are miserable creatures, tabby cats the sloppy creatures, wild cats ferocious creatures, Cheshire cats fool creatures, tomcats disgusting creatures, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... some anecdotes of the sagacity shown by animals with which you are all well acquainted—Cats and Dogs; and if you have been accustomed to watch the proceedings of your dumb companions you will be able to say, "Why, that is just like what Tabby once did;" or, "Our Ponto acted nearly as cleverly ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... Fresh Assortment of Linnen Linings, suitable for Beaver, Beaverett, Castor and Felt Hatts, Tabby ditto, Mohair Lupings, Silk Braid ditto, flatt and round Silk Lace and Frogs for Button Lupes, plain and sash Bands, workt & plain Buttons, black Thread, Gold and Silver Chain, yellow and white Buttons, hard and light Brushes, Velures, Cards, large and small ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... approved fashion, plants himself resolutely under her window and sends Scapin to fetch a guitar; upon which he thrums awkwardly for a while, and then accompanies it with his voice, in an attempt at a Spanish love song, which sounds much like the nocturnal caterwauling of a disconsolate tabby than anything else we can compare it to. A dash of cold water, mischievously thrown down on him by Zerbine under pretext of watering the plants in the balcony, does not extinguish his musical ardour. "A gentle shower from the sweet eyes of my Isabelle, moved to tears by this plaintive ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... I bear you no ill-will: you set me free. I'm a wildcat, all bristling fur and claws: At Krindlesyke, I've been a wildcat, caged: And Michael never twigged! Son, don't you mind The day we came—was I a tabby then? The day we came here, with no thought to bide, Once we had got the plunder; and were trapped Between these four white walls by a dead woman? She held me—forced my feet into her shoes— Held me for your sake. Ay: there seemed some link 'Twixt your ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... children had spent in it! It was very low and dark, and its two windows looked out on the stable-yard; but in the evening, when the fire burned clear and the blinds were drawn, it was a pleasant place. Deborah and Martha used to sit in the brown Windsor chairs knitting, with Puff, the great tabby cat, beside them, and the firelight would play on the red brick ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... let drowsing dogs lie, he'll stir up the tabby sleeping Tom— In fact, he is the model of a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... The Allies were allied only in name; they gnashed their teeth at one another across the council-table in Paris. The lying game of diplomacy had been revived. Poison-notes were being exchanged. The tabby-cat statesmen who had been too old to fight, were busy sowing the seeds of future wars. The politicians who had nailed mankind to the cross, were casting lots for the raiment which had survived the sacrifice. ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... first entering Sir ROGER winked to me, and pointed at something that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that way I found to be an old broomstaff. At the same time he whispered me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney-corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad a report as Moll White herself; for, besides that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, the ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... beauty presented themselves to his sight—or at least damsels dressed like shepherdesses, save that their jerkins and sayas were of fine brocade; that is to say, the sayas were rich farthingales of gold embroidered tabby. Their hair, that in its golden brightness vied with the beams of the sun itself, fell loose upon their shoulders and was crowned with garlands twined with green laurel and red everlasting; and their years to all appearance were not under fifteen ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Jane's nicest kitten. Jane was half-Persian, white with untidy tabby patterns on her. Jerry was black all over. Whatever attitude he took, his tight, short fur kept the outlines of his figure firm and clear, whether he arched his back and jumped sideways, or rolled himself into a cushion, or squatted with haunches spread ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... The estate, the household, the parish, the county: there was no mistaking his interest in these matters. He was interested in the smallest particulars: her broods of young chicks, her pigeons, the tabby cat's kittens, the Rector's baby. He asked searching questions. How many cows were in milk just now; when would Menzies have asparagus fit to eat? The servants—was all well there? Their young men? Nothing escaped him. She was quite ready for him, took a dry tone, showed a slight sense ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... taking umbrage at my supposed disrespect, has contributed not a little towards the confirmation of this opinion, by dropping certain hints to my prejudice among the vulgar, who are also very much scandalised at my entertaining this poor tabby cat with the collar about her neck, which was a favourite of ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... subject for anecdote. Who has not some faithful black Topsy, Tortoise-shell, or Tabby, or rather succession of them, whose biographies would afford many a curious story? Professor Bell[122] has well defended the general character of poor pussy from the oft-repeated calumnies spread about it. Cats certainly get much attached to ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... greatly annoyed by rats, and loaned him the cat. The rats disappeared so rapidly that the Dey wished to buy the cat, but the captain would not sell until a very high price was offered. With the purchase-money was sent a present of valuable pearls for the owner of Tabby. When the ship returned the sailors were greatly astonished to find that the boy owned most of the cargo, for it was part of the bargain that he was to bring back the value of his cat in goods. The London merchant took the boy into partnership; the latter ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... curiosity was aroused. What was there in the mere mention of a laboratory that could so transform a humdrum little rector into a thing of fire? That it was the laboratory, Olive never stopped to question. She was far too sane, too used to the tame-tabby-cat propensities of youthful rectors, to imagine for a moment that the enthusiasm had come out of the chance to escape from her society. Therefore she decided that, for the present, she would keep this particular rector to ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the visitor, "suppose this Mrs. Billings wasn't happy at home? We'll say she and her husband didn't gee worth a cent. They've got incompatibility to burn. The things she likes, Billings wouldn't have as a gift with trading-stamps. It's Tabby and Rover with them all the time. She's an educated woman in science and culture, and she reads things out loud at meetings. Billings is not on. He don't appreciate progress and obelisks and ethics, and things of that sort. Old Billings is simply a blink when it comes to such things. The ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... them see I am not a deserted tabby-cat," she said to herself, "waiting around in the cold until some one opens a door for me." And then this proud little country girl enclosed both notes to her brother and told him he had best inform the Nasons of her intended visit in a matter-of-fact way. "But mind," ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... and fortune served him well, for the tabby flying caterwauling through the air alighted almost exactly in front of Deede Dawson on top of a small bush. For a moment it hung there, quite unhurt, but very frightened, and ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... of the Red Seamouth, including El-Yemen and Cape Guardafui, was made holy by the birth of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Dr. Brugsch-Bey shows that one of the titles of the he-god was Bass, the cat or the leopard (whence our "Puss"); whilst his wife, Bast (the bissat or tabby-cat of modern Arabic), gave her name to Bubastis (Pi-Bast, the city of Bast). From the Osiric term (Bass) the learned Egyptologist would derive Bacchus and his priests, the Bacchoi and the Bacchantes, whose dress was the leopard's ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... men, and I noticed that two of them walked slowly and cautiously. The boat safely out of harbour, one of them produced from his chest a large tabby cat, whilst the other placed a fine cock on the deck. It was a cock with the true Gallic spirit, before the cat had time to consider the situation it had sprung on its back. The cat beat a hasty retreat into the arms of its protector who replaced it under his ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke
... you. So we came about and headed for Denboro. Next thing we had to haul up abreast of that old tumbledown shed at the end of Tabby Crosby's lot there by the meetin'-house while Mr. Phillips hopped out and got a couple of great big satchels he'd left there. Big as trunks they was, pretty nigh, and time he got them stowed in here there wan't no room ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... gang. Pick out the fellows that count, as you go along, and just remember this, if you forget the rest: if you want to put ducks in Tabby's bed or nail down his desk, do it because you want to do it, not because some other fellow wants you to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... cavern. He looked around on every side and exclaimed, "Oh, heavens, where am I?" Then he got up and clambered out of the cave, went into the forest, and thought, "Here I am quite alone and deserted, how shall I obtain a horse now?" Whilst he was thus walking full of thought, he met a small tabby-cat which said quite kindly, "Hans, where are you going?" "Alas, thou canst not help me." "I well know your desire," said the cat. "You wish to have a beautiful horse. Come with me, and be my faithful servant ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... the farmer, gently, as he rose and went to carry the milk-pails into the pantry, calling coaxingly, as he did so, "Kitty! kitty! You had your milk? Don't you joggle, now!" For one eager tabby rose on her hind legs, in purring haste, and hit her nose against ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... kept his face turned toward the spot where the last savage snarl had been heard. He had a vague suspicion that perhaps the beast might try to stalk them, just as he had seen a domestic tabby do a sparrow ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... were playing a sort of "follow-the-leader" in and out of their comfortable box of straw, while Mrs. Tabby Cat sat patiently by, only occasionally glancing at them to make sure that all three ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall
... while thy wanton play, Applauses too thy pains repay: For then, beneath some urchin's hand With modest pride thou takest thy stand, While many a stroke of kindness glides Along thy back and tabby sides. Dilated swells thy glossy fur, And loudly croons thy busy purr, As, timing well the equal sound, Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, And all their harmless claws disclose Like prickles of an early rose, While ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... corner, by which the children were wont to climb up to inspect their kittens. Here Rose was for a moment startled by a glare close to her of what looked like two fiery lamps in the darkness, but the next instant a long, low, growling sound explained it, and the tabby stripes of the cat quickly darted across her lantern's range of light. She heard a slight rustling above, and ventured to call, in ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... basement, and from cellar-stone to eaves was forty-five feet. There were four chimneys and sixteen fireplaces, and twenty rooms above the first floor. The walls at the base were six feet in thickness, and above the ground four feet. They were composed of the material known as "tabby," a mixture of shells, lime and broken stone or gravel with water; which mass, being pressed in a mould of boards, becomes when dry as hard and durable as rock. The walls are now as solid as stone itself. The second story above the terrace contained ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... goodwill (if I have lost it) I care for none of 'em. I hope you are well and hearty. Walk out often on the moors. Sorry am I to hear that Hannah is gone, and that she has left you burdened with the charge of the little girl, her sister. I hope Tabby will continue to stay with you—give my love to her. Regards to the fighting ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast! Thumps, kicks,—no manner of use!—spite of them rolls at last Into the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to view Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too: Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils—snouts that sniffed Sulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame! Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same, Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... as he at dinner sat, Did beckon to his hussar, And bid him bring his tabby cat For charming Nell ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... in his cash memorandum books we come upon such entries as, "By Cash to Mrs. Washington for Pocket Money L4." As a rule, if there were any purchases to be made, she let George do it and, if we may judge from the long list of tabby colored velvet gowns, silk hose, satin shoes, "Fashionable Summer Cloaks & Hatts," and similar articles ordered from the English agents she had no reason to complain that her husband was niggardly or a poor provider. If her "Old Man"—for she sometimes called him that—failed ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... throat open, they walk round the prostrate carcase of their prey, growling and spitting like 'tabby' cats. They begin their operations in earnest, invariably on the buttock. A leopard generally eats the inner portion of the thigh first. A wolf tears open the belly, and eats the intestines first. A vulture, hawk, or kite, begins on the eyes; but a tiger invariably begins on ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... pause. The clatter of teacups in the kitchen warned Elsie that she had trespassed on the old woman's patience long enough. A tabby cat, which had been asleep by the fire, got up, stretched itself, and came ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... of cats, although I admit they are well enough in their place, and I can worry along comfortably with a nice, matronly old tabby who can take care of herself and be of some use in the world. As for Ismay, she ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... got all these ideas from books, and great trouble I found myself in one day for playing at tiger-hunting in the garden at home with Buzzy, my aunt's great tabby tom-cat; and for pretending that Nap was a lion in the African desert. But I'll tell you that in a chapter to itself, for these matters had a good deal to do with the alteration in my mode ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... Fairly" of "The Diary."-ED. (21) Macaulay is mistaken. Fanny did receive the gown, a "lilac tabby," and wore it on the princess royal's birthday, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... in innocent sharpness, had peeped about the waggon to inspect their luggage, and had found to her horror that one of her boxes had burst its fastenings—that very box with her respected mother's watered tabby, and her one lace head on the place of honour on the top. So she and Cambridge had an earnest consultation on the accident, which resulted in their proceeding to tuck up their skirts, empty the receptacle with the greatest care and tenderness, and repack ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... whilst there was a chance of his sitting up with the rest, and his clothes having been found on examination to be quite dry on the removal of the porter's protecting jacket, he was allowed to remain, seated on the hearth-rug in state, and never once leaving hold of the tabby kitten that had indirectly led to his wandering away from home, with Conny and Liz and little Cissy ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... was determined on some kind of storm, but had not yet made up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now the wind roared in the chimney, and started out of her sleep a great tortoise-shell cat, that lay on the rug which Aunt Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened her yellow eyes suddenly, and erected her smellers, but finding it was only the wind and not a mouse that made the noise, she stretched out a great paw and yawned, and then cuddled her head down so as to show her white throat, and ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... the act music. The curtains parted, and revealed the brightly polished miniature gymnasium I had seen at Anastasius's cattery; the row of pussies at the back, each on a velvet stand, some white, some tabby, some long-furred, some short-furred, all sitting with their forepaws doubled demurely under their chests, wagging their tails comically, and blinking with feline indifference at the footlights; a cage in a corner in which I descried the ferocious wild tomcat; and, busily putting the last touches ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... bridegroom were both clothed in white tabby, his suit laced with a very broad gold and silver lace. The bride had on her head a coronet set full of diamonds, with a diamond collar about her neck and shoulders, a diamond girdle of the same fashion, and a rich diamond jewel at her breast, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... Prime Ministers and such as they Grew like asparagus in May, And Dukes were three a penny: Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats, And Bishops in their shovel hats Were plentiful as tabby cats - If possible, too many. On every side Field-Marshals gleamed, Small beer were Lords-Lieutenants deemed, With Admirals the ocean teemed, All round his wide dominions; And Party Leaders you might meet In twos and threes in every street Maintaining, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... exhibited in a magnificent shrine to public admiration. Every knee was bent, every hand strewed flowers or poured incense, and grimalkin was treated in all respects as the god of the day. But on the festival of St. John, poor tom's fate was reversed. A number of the tabby tribe were put into a wicker basket, and thrown alive into the midst of an immense fire kindled in the public square by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were sung, and processions were made by the priests and people in honour ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... great content in all my company, and I did, as I love to do, enjoy myself in my pleasure as being the height of what we take pains for and can hope for in this world, and therefore to be enjoyed while we are young and capable of these joys. My wife extraordinary fine to-day, in her flower tabby suit, bought a year and more ago, before my mother's death put her into mourning, and so not worn till this day: and every body in love with it; and indeed she is very fine and handsome in it. I having paid the reckoning, which ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Though all the day I give and take delight, Doubt not, sufficient will be left at night. 'Tis but a just and rational desire To light a taper at a neighbour's fire. There's danger too, you think, in rich array, 140 And none can long be modest that are gay. The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, The chimney keeps, and sits content within: But once grown sleek, will from her corner run, Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun: She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad To show her ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... imagine what a charming picture you make; the English cottage creeper-covered and smiling; the nurse and child at the threshold equally smiling, yourself a very emblem of spring in your fresh gown, and a domestic tabby to complete the scene." ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... tabby saw the cord, And interposed a happy word: "In every age and clime we see Two of a trade cannot agree; Each deems the other an encroacher, As sportsman thinks another poacher. Beauty with beauty vies ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... manufacturing many sorts of brocades, specified in a collection of designs preserved in the national art library of the Victoria and [v.04 p.0622] Albert Museum, under such trade titles as "brocade lutstring, brocade tabby, brocade tissue, brocade damask, brocade satin, Venetian brocade, and India figured brocade." Brocading in China seems to be of considerable antiquity, and Dr Bushell in his valuable handbook on Chinese art cites ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... thoroughly contented personality is to be found in all Chelsea," observed Jocantha in allusion to herself; "except perhaps Attab," she continued, glancing towards the large tabby-marked cat that lay in considerable ease in a corner of the divan. "He lies there, purring and dreaming, shifting his limbs now and then in an ecstasy of cushioned comfort. He seems the incarnation of everything soft and silky and velvety, without a sharp edge in his composition, a dreamer whose ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame's school. She liked mignonette. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... was over the ladies came to be presented to Lady Rebecca. They did not know what they ought to talk to the stranger about; but one of them in a dull mouse-colored tabby, ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... crouches among dead leaves which have gathered in the fork of a tree, and will construct a web which spans the coconut avenue with its stays. From one aspect its rotund body invites a good-humoured smile, for the marking exactly simulates the features of a tabby cat, well fed, sleepy, and in placid mood. Venom of virulence to kill a bat almost instantly would be severe enough to a human being. This dirty, obese spider deserves little consideration at the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... harmless tabby—a thin, ex-handsome creature struggling to maintain appearances; but I can put up with her. I will go to the Nicaragua. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... to write by return of post and tell me how you are getting on and how you are. Give my kind regards to Tabby and Martha, and—Believe me, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... busily they began their work! They had already chosen the place for their nest, springing up and down in the boughs till they found a branch far out of sight of snakes and hawks and cruel tabby cats, high out of reach of naughty small boys with their sling-shots, and now everything was ready for these small carpenters to begin their building. No hammer and nails were needed, claw and bill were all the tools they used, and yet what ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin |
