"Tablecloth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... idea that anything was going to happen. And in the midst of their lightsomeness, Triffitt, who faced a mirror, started, dropped his cigarette, upset his liqueur glass and turned pale. For an instant he clutched the tablecloth, staring straight in front of him; then with a great effort he controlled his emotion and with a cautious hissing of his ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... flour bread and made Johnny-cake, and although there was no tablecloth, the long board table was roomy and fairly groaned under the good things heaped upon it. The ball of mud, all hard and red now and cracked like a badly burned brick, was rolled out upon the hearth and Enoch broke it with one blow of the axe. The hard shell fell apart and to the burned clay adhered ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... spotless white, the whole effect one of cultivated and restful harmony. The glass and linen on the table were perfect. There was nowhere the slightest evidence of any ostentation. Within a few feet of him, separated only by that little space of tablecloth and a great bowl of pink roses, sat Edith, dressed as he had never seen her before, a most becoming flush upon her cheeks, a new and softer brilliancy in her eyes, which seemed always to be seeking his. They drank champagne, to the taste and effects of which he was as yet unaccustomed. ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... passed quickly by, and there came a summons to luncheon. Under a tall rock, affording an unbroken view of the magnificent landscape outspread below, the tablecloth was laid and secured at the corners by large stones. Pies both savoury and sweet were abundant, bread sufficient, salt scanty, and water absent altogether. Bottles were plentiful—bottles of ale, of ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... the room slapping the boards with her broad bare feet as she prepared their dinner. She was evidently trying to put on style, for she turned out her toes excessively. She spoke several times about "the toime when she resoided with yer mamma," then at length, "Whayer's the tablecloth, Granny?" ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... a piece of double-faced canton flannel underneath the tablecloth. Even coarse napery will present a much better appearance with a sub-cover than if spread directly upon the table. It will likewise lessen noise in changing courses and the likelihood of injury to the table from hot ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... the prevailing tint. The tiny curtains, the long settees into which one sank, the chairs, the shades of the mellow lights—all were of some variety of this delicate golden brown. In the middle of the cabin stood a square table; and on the table, arrayed in an exquisitely white tablecloth, was laid a wondrous meal. The table was laid for two: candles with amber shades made silver shine and glasses glitter. Upon a fruit stand were peaches and nectarines; upon a tray she saw decanters; little dishes crowding the ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... clutch at it, and succeeded in overturning the whole thing,—and the food fell, partly in her lap and partly on the pretty tablecloth. ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... and lower. There was nothing left now of the self-assured, prosperous man of affairs. His shoulders were bent, his face was furrowed with wrinkles. He looked no longer at his wife. His eyes were fixed upon the tablecloth. ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... representing the mischievous Hermes, once blew away a poor woman's meal. So her boy went to the North Wind and demanded his rights for the meal his mother had lost. "I have n't got your meal," said the Wind, "but here's a tablecloth which will cover itself with an excellent dinner whenever you tell it to." So the lad took the cloth and started for home. At nightfall he stopped at an inn, spread his cloth on the table, and ordered it to cover itself with good things, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Doctor could never penetrate. Once, certainly, his persistent geniality won him a rebuff. It was at breakfast, and he was following his custom of endeavoring to trap Smith into conversation. Smith sat opposite him at the table, staring vacantly at the tablecloth. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... leather pocketbook and took an envelope from an inner flap, laying it before them on the tablecloth. His knowledge that they would not have believed him if he had not brought his proof was founded on everyday facts. They would not have doubted his veracity, but the possibility of such delirious good fortune. What ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... tending the roasting apples and potatoes, and the little girls spread their tiny table daintily with a big towel for a tablecloth and rosebud china about as big as ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... boxful of stuff, he spread out upon a tablecloth of newspapers a prettily decorated ham, a couple of cold roast chickens, a fine apple pie, a quantity of mince pies, and a varied assortment of ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... excitements lay in wait for her just outside, when she was wrapped in beauty, fed by delicate food, sensitive to the slim old silver under her hands, that she sometimes felt herself actually carried back to the boarding-house, and she saw the grimy tablecloth, the flaring gas jets, the tired worn faces, the dusty hair of Mrs. Banks and the rubber collar of Mr. Jenkins, and she heard little Miss Stubb uttering platitudes in her attempt to raise the mental atmosphere. There was a great clatter ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... I poured myself out a glass of kvass, and then dropped the decanter, and so stained the tablecloth. ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... glimpse of him, Amelia went soberly about the house, setting it in order. When her dishes were washed and she had fed old Trot, the cat, forgotten all day, she rolled up the fine tablecloth and left it behind the porch-door, where she could take it on her way home. Then she sat down on the front steps and waited for old lady Knowles. Amelia did not think very much about her day. It was still a possession to be laid aside and pondered over all the hours and days until ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... really ill. Her hand trembled so while she poured the breakfast coffee that she spilled some of it on the tablecloth. When Mr. Hamlin spoke to her sharply she burst into tears and left the room, leaving her father ashamed of himself, and the "Automobile Girls" so embarrassed that they ate the rest of their breakfast in painful silence. Ruth did dart one indignant glance at her uncle, which Mr. Hamlin saw, but ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... his position slightly. With his head resting upon his hand, he seemed to be engaged in tracing patterns upon the tablecloth. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the letter's arrival he watched her sobbing and clutching the tablecloth, and reflected. He walked up and down and pondered. There were a lot of things to be ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dark. But outside the town of Ardres upon a make of no man's ground, being neither French nor English, he had espied a hut, and in the dark hut a lighted window hole that sparkled bravely, and, within, a big, fair woman drinking wine between candles with the light in her hair and a white tablecloth. And, feeling goodly, and Calais gate being shut, whether he broke it down one hour or three hours later was all one to him. He had gone into the hut to take by force or for payment a glass of wine from the black jacks, a kiss from ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... the visor of his helmet was broken, and he had like to have lost his senses. Setting his hand to his sword, he cried: "I swear an oath to lead the life which was led by the great Marquis of Mantua when he swore to revenge the death of his nephew Baldwin, which was not to eat off a tablecloth, nor to comb his hair, nor to change his clothes, nor to quit his armour, and other things which, though I cannot now remember, I take as said, until I have had complete revenge on him that hath done ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... mustard-pot had been emptied over the heap, some bananas had been stuck unsteadily here and there to give it feature, and finally, in a last orgie of crime, a cruet of vinegar had been discharged on the whole, and the brown streams were now meandering across the clean tablecloth. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... madman, he became a whimpering, pitiable thing. His chin trembled, the big hands he laid on the tablecloth shook with ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... so changed,' she said; and began drawing with her finger on the tablecloth. He saw that her lips were trembling. A strong impulse worked in him, bidding him go to her again, kiss away her tears, and say—'Hang everything! Come with me to London, and let's sink ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The tablecloth was a very old one, darned in a score places. There was mustard in a teacup, a silver fork ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the tablecloth"—some red matches which Colonel Requin treasures as a souvenir—"and he illustrated with them the disposition of the troops engaged. For the Forty-second Division he had only half a match, which he moved here and there with his quick, ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... Burnside's quarters, we all sat down to a good dinner, embracing roast-turkey. There was a regular dining table, with clean tablecloth, dishes, knives, forks, spoons, etc., etc. I had seen nothing of this kind in my field experience, and could not help exclaiming that I thought "they were starving," etc.; but Burnside explained that Longstreet had at no time ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... d'Iberville's brother, as he tried to force his way into the fort through a rear wall. But the wooden towers could not withstand the bombs, and at length both sides were ready to parley for terms. With the hope that they might save their furs, the English hung out a tablecloth as a flag of truce, and the exhausted fighters seized the opportunity to eat and sleep. The weather had turned bitterly cold. No ship could come from England till spring. Under these conditions, Walsh made the best bargain he could. It was ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... the girl, looking down at the tablecloth, "that I'd rather not have Mr. Hardwick ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... flap in the counter to let her through. The doorway beyond gave entrance to a wide hall, or "entry," between the store and the living-room. The kitchen was in a lean-to at the back. The table in the big room was already spread with a clean red-and-white checked tablecloth and set with heavy chinaware for a meal. A huge caster graced the center of the table, containing glass receptacles for salt, red and black pepper, catsup, vinegar, and oil. Knives, forks, and spoons for two—all ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... a head like a greyhound, a snow-white body, and a feathered stern that would have been a credit to a setter. In between these extremes came several broken-haired Welshmen, some dilapidated 24-inch foxhounds, and a lot of pale-coloured hounds, whose general effect was that of the tablecloth on which we had eaten our breakfast that morning, being dirty white, covered with stains that looked like either tea ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... The white tablecloth was laid; the coffee percolator hummed its contented little song. The broiled chicken was delicious; and the browned potatoes. There was a grape jelly; Sir Peter was ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... of her, till on the fourth evening she broke her admirable silence. She had just removed the tablecloth, shyly, from under the book ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... to do his part of the pantomime. When he turned from the replenished fireplace a cold supper was spread on the desk, the napkin serving as a tablecloth. There were knives, forks and spoons, and a china plate apiece. A pitcher of milk stood at one end, a bottle of claret at the other, with tumblers beside them. In the center of the board was a plate of fried chicken, some young onions, freshly ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... supper, the girls flew through their share of clearing-up. It never weighed very heavily upon them; they usually began the process of piling and scraping dishes before they left the table, Rose whisking the tablecloth into its drawer as Norma bumped through the swinging door with the last dishes, and Kate halfway through the washing even then. Chattering and busy, they hustled the hot plates onto their shelves, rattled the hot plated ware into its ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... half diverted, half angry with the selfish one, as she handed her the tablecloth, which was put on one-sided, while the bread was cut in chunks. When May came in from the pantry, a butler's room as it used to be in the time of the old marquis, Helen was crying over a bleeding finger, which ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... down with the exclamation, "Perjured fiend!" Two glasses, placed on either side of her, carried the word "Apostate!" to her ear; and three knives and forks, rattling more than was necessary, and laid crosswise before her plate, were accompanied with "Tremble, wanton!" Then, as he pulled the tablecloth straight, and ostentatiously concealed a wine-stain with a clean napkin, scarcely whiter than his lips, he articulated under his breath: "Let him beware! he goes not hence alive! I will slice his craven ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to butter a piece of toast. The butter, jerked from the knife by the convulsive start which he gave, popped up in a semi-circle and plumped onto the tablecloth. He ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... and mother entered the room, and she instantly forgot every other consideration in her interest as to what charming surprise might be bunched up under the tablecloth. ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... smoking cinders, gnawing horse bones. The brilliant paintings of the hall, the guards, the richly clad officers, the musicians playing the melodies of Lambert and Lulli in the gallery, the golden goblets, the silver plate, the silken tablecloth, the Venetian glass, the chased epergnes full of rare flowers, the heavy candlesticks—they cannot change, cannot lend a dissimulating charm to the true nature of this unclean charnel-house, where men and women assemble over animal bodies, broken bones and torn meats ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... improved state of things. "Now, Alice," said he cheerfully, "do you and Poopy set about spreading our blanket tablecloth, and getting supper laid out. It is but a poor one,—hard biscuit and water,—but there is plenty of it, and, after all, that is the main thing. Meanwhile, Corrie and I will saunter along shore and talk over our plans. Cheer up, my little girl; we will manage to give these pirates the slip ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... to lose any time in obeying Chris' signals. The little darky had arranged a kind of tablecloth of moss on the ground and had put upon it slabs of clean cut bark for plates, while upon each rude plate reposed a thick, juicy, bear steak, done to a turn. The steak was delicious and tender as chicken and with a taste all ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... way, of course, but not in the highest way. Now, for instance, if he felt all her fineness as—as we do, I don't believe he'd be willing to appear before her just like that." The father of the gods wore a damask tablecloth of a pale golden hue and a classic pattern; his arms were bare, and rather absurdly white; on his feet a pair of lawn- tennis shoes had a very striking effect ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... steps, but just as it had always been natural to him to clean his boots in the evening, and his brothers' into the bargain, to fold his little frock in a square, and to put it at the head of his bed, with his stockings across it, never to make a spot on the tablecloth, and to receive the punishment from his father when the self-same accidents happened to his brothers—so it became just as natural that he should henceforth look after his little sisters, and, with premature ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... hearty laughing. Herr Paumgartner, too, forgot more than was customary with him the dignity of the Councillor, and enjoyed right well the noble liquor and the merry conversation. But when Rose again made her appearance with the neat housekeeper's basket under her arm, out of which she took a tablecloth as dazzling white as fresh-fallen snow,—when she tripped backwards and forwards busy with household matters, laying the cloth, and placing a plentiful supply of appetising dishes on the table,—when, with a winning smile she invited the gentlemen not to despise what had been hurriedly prepared, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... purty! mighty purty!" he agreed, and while he pulled on his congress gaiters, Janice arranged the blossoms in a jar of water and set them in the middle of the breakfast table. Aunt 'Mira kept the table set all the time. The red and white tablecloth was renewed only once a week, and the jar of flowers served to hide the unsightly spot where Marty had spilled the gravy the ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... table stood in the midst of the handsome room whose furnishings were of the costliest. Amid the scattered remains of the feast, napkins lying under the table, upset glasses still dripping their ruby contents down the damask of the tablecloth, broken china, scattered plates and silver, stood a handsome silver bound coffin, within which, pallid and deathlike, lay the handsome form of the bridegroom of the evening. All about the casket in high sconces burned tall tapers casting their ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... floor, on which a smaller child was playing, was bare except for a few rag rugs, but shining. An opening led into a small lean-to kitchen with a range in one corner; in the other a large square table spread with a checked tablecloth was set ready for the next meal, and covered with a mosquito bar. The home, the family, gave one a feeling of coming to anchor in a ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... do is this," continued Thurston. "He sits with his back to the door. I'll pop in first and throw this tablecloth over his head; then, while I hold him down, you chaps upset the things and put out the light. Then we'll rush out all together, and he won't know for certain ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... will!—while she gets herself all dressed and powdered up again. After that, she'll do her share of the work: she'll strain her poor back carryin' Dick Lindley's flowers down the back stairs and stickin' 'em in a vase over a hole in the tablecloth that Laura hasn't had time to sew up. ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... scud flying athwart the face of the heavens from the westward, while the top of Mount Sampson was completely enveloped in mist, which, notwithstanding the gale, clung to the rugged peak and ribs of the mountain very much as the "tablecloth" does to the summit of Table Mountain. There was no fog down where we were, but, what was even worse, we were smothered with blinding and suffocating clouds of dust, for it was a dry gale, and all hands were devoutly praying that the louring sky would dissolve into rain, if ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... formerly tolerated now gave them annoyance. Pecuchet became quite a bore from his mania for putting his handkerchief on the tablecloth. Bouvard never gave up his pipe, and would keep twisting himself about while he was talking. They started disputes about the dishes, or about the quality of the butter; and while they were chatting face to face each was thinking of ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... they find on the snow? We examined their white tablecloth and found a number of small beetles and other insects creeping up through it or crawling around over its surface. Thus Nature spreads her banquet everywhere for her ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... picture of Ary Scheffer's of an old knight, whose son had fled from the battle, cutting the tablecloth in two between himself and the unhappy youth. Like that stern baron's countenance was that with which my mother sat at the head of the dinner-table, and we conversed by jerks about whatever we least cared for, as if we could hide our wretchedness from Peter. When the children appeared ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... or mess-room, as the host styled it, combined dining-room and kitchen, for while in one corner stood a deal table with plates, cups, etcetera, but no tablecloth, in another stood a small stove, heated by an oil-lamp, from which issued puffing and sputtering sounds, and the ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... hand, stripping the skins from her cold potatoes, and cutting them in round slices that dropped hissing one by one into the hot gravy, which, with thin slices of pork, simmered in the frying-pan just taken from the fire, Mary had drawn forth the little cherry wood table, found the tablecloth of birds-eye diaper in one end of the drawer, and the knives and forks in the other, which she proceeded to arrange after the fashion she had ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... known that there is a "tablecloth" at Capetown. Its proper resting-place is Table Mountain. When the flat top of that celebrated hill is clear, (I write of the summer season), the thirty thousand inhabitants of Capetown may go forth in comfort if they can stand the blazing sunshine, but as surely as that pure ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... at last, he proceeded mechanically to arrange his belongings in the room, formerly inhabited by his cousin de Buxieres. He had hardly finished when Zelie made her appearance with some plates and a tablecloth, and began to lay the covers. Seeing the fire had gone out, the little servant uttered an exclamation ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... on the inspection with Bagshaw. The more he thought of it the worse it rankled. She knew he was at home to be with her and she had deliberately walked off and left him.... "Well, how was the Garden Home looking?" No. Not much. He couldn't. He visualised the impossible seven written on the tablecloth. He saw them in script; he saw them in print; he imagined them written by a finger on the wall. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... pain, and on his palette a bitter taste of poison that caused him to suspect that the Sire de Bastarnay had given them all their quietus. Before he had made this discovery Bertha had eaten. Suddenly the monk pulled off the tablecloth and flung everything into the fireplace, telling Bertha his suspicion. Bertha thanked the Virgin that her son had been so taken up with his sport. Retaining his presence of mind, Jehan, who had not forgotten ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... delightfully those little northern towns in the debatable region which from a critic's point of view may be considered Lombard or Venetian, with a tendency to be neither but rather a Transalpine Bavaria. To me also the glow of the Burgundy on the tablecloth brought back strange provincial altarpieces in this territory—marvels in crimson and gold, and a riddle for the connoisseur. Then the talk reached higher latitudes. He mused aloud about that very simple reaction ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... now, even if he lives to be born," she sobbed, and clutched at the dingy tablecloth ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... appearance as battered and neglected finery of any kind; and elegant pitchers with their noses knocked off, cut glass with cracked edges, and fragments of artistic teacups and saucers on a tumbled tablecloth, have a peculiarly dismal appearance. In fact, we had really occasion to wonder at the perfectly weird and bewitched effect which one of our two Hibernian successors to the pretty Alice succeeded in establishing in our table department. Every caprice in the use and employment of dishes, short ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... laid their handkerchiefs on the ground by way of tablecloth. Eatables were produced from greasy papers. Bottles were uncorked and the wine went round; the glasses were rested against tufts of grass, and they fell to upon bits of pork and sausages, with slices of bread ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... blue-and-white plates, the knives and forks, the tablecloth, were all repugnant to her. Yonder behind the counter the Jewess was still sitting, her yellow, regular face unmoved; the almond eyes looked at Billy indifferently, proudly, and patiently, seeming to say, "I endure ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... this rendering young Bob Coggan exhibited one of those anomalies which will afflict little people when other persons are particularly serious: in trying to check his laughter, he pushed down his throat as much of the tablecloth as he could get hold of, when, after continuing hermetically sealed for a short time, his mirth burst out through his nose. Joseph perceived it, and with hectic cheeks of indignation instantly ceased singing. Coggan boxed Bob's ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the dream is the reproduction of a little scene which transpired between my wife and myself when I was secretly courting her. The caressing under cover of the tablecloth was an answer to a wooer's passionate letter. In the dream, however, my wife is replaced ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... alone in the kitchen, where the board had been cleared of all but the tablecloth and his own knife and fork. They cried out together upon his dilatoriness; but while his wife turned to fetch his dinner from the oven, Nuncey took a ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... draughtsman—Titian and Paul Veronese themselves—could do no more than this; and you will soon be able to get some power of doing it in an inferior way, if you once understand the exceeding simplicity of what is to be done. Suppose you have a brown book on a white sheet of paper, on a red tablecloth. You have nothing to do but to put on spaces of red, white, and brown, in the same shape, and gradated from dark to light in the same degrees, and your drawing is done. If you will not look at what you see, if you try to put on brighter or duller colors than ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... said, "Papoose! Papoose!" We had it all put in a paper and other things added, which made Wauk almost bob off her chair in her delight at having such a feast for her little chief. But the condition of my tablecloth made me want to bob up and down ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... said his friend. "I only meant to point out that the best melons these embalmed Greasers raise in their little tablecloth farmin' operations is right down there in the valley at the foot of the Sacramentos. Now, you may have noticed that sometimes a fellow ought to cover up his tracks. What's to hinder you and me just takin' a little pasear down in toward the Sacramentos, on the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... stretched the village street, flat, with bits of dust and dung rising on the breaths of wind and volleying into rooms upon the tablecloth and into pages of books. It was a street of small yellow brick houses, a shapeless church, a convent school—freckled buildings, dingy. Up and down the length of it, it was without one touch of beauty. It gave back dust in the eyes. It sounded with thunder of transports, rattle ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... of his clear-cut face with trim short black whiskers under a cap of curly iron-grey hair was the only warm spot in the dinginess of that room cooled by the cheerless tablecloth. We knew him already by sight as the owner of a little five-ton cutter, which he sailed alone apparently, a fellow yachtsman in the unpretending band of fanatics who cruise at the mouth of the Thames. But the first time he addressed the waiter sharply as 'steward' ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... sallied forth; and though at the moment of putting them on a dim sense of something unfamiliar crossed his mind, it was not until he reached "The Fried Cat" that he became fully aware that he had carried off some one else's shoes. He turned up the soles, privately, underneath the low-hanging tablecloth, and by a brief examination convinced himself that the gaiters did not belong to him. The test was simple: his feet were unaccountably dry, and there were none of those breaks in the lower surface of their leather covering which he had so often ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... after a pause of some minutes, during which he seemed to be groping for words in the salt-cellar, having deliberately turned out its contents upon the tablecloth. "We were hungry after our long walk, and he gave us an ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... full of papers, said nothing, refused to answer all questions, even those asked him by the respected President of the Republic, and, exhausted by his obstinate labours, took a few moments' sleep in his arm-chair in which nothing but the top of his little black head was to be seen above the green tablecloth. ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... orders swept him hither and thither, how he transformed the place, laying down the articles called for upon a crisp red tablecloth that was a glorious full brother to one that belonged to the little Jewish lady who lived upstairs. But Grandpa took little interest in Buckle, though he picked eagerly enough at the viands ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... dinner-time, and, being ushered into a dirty room with a brick floor, dim light and grimy tablecloth, I seated myself at the table with my host, his secretary, the doctor, and a clerk. The dinner was in the usual native style of those days: ribs of beef roasted on the gridiron, beef and pumpkin boiled together, to finish up with "caldo," which is simply the water in which the beef and vegetables ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... sanctified her for the single state; even the colour of her hair was incompatible with matrimony, and her husband, I thought, should be a man of saintly spirit and phantasmal bodily presence. She was ill, poor thing; her soul turned from the viands; the dirty tablecloth shocked her like an impropriety; and the whole strength of her endeavour was bent upon keeping her watch true to Glasgow time till she should reach New York. They had heard reports, her husband and she, of some unwarrantable disparity ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they returned to their camp, it was lunch time and the "gastronomic committee," as Harriet, the "walking dictionary," had dubbed the commissary department, got busy. During the meal, which they ate on a "newspaper tablecloth," picnic-style, the subject of organized self-protection against further ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... course of lumber-camp provender. The deep shadows shifted slowly across the forest floor. Sparkles of sunlight from unexpected quarters touched gently in turn each of the diners, or glittered back from glass or linen. Occasionally a wandering breeze lifted a corner of the tablecloth and let it fall, or scurried erratically across the table itself. Occasionally, too, a pine needle, a twig, a leaf would zigzag down through the air to fall in some one's coffee or glass or plate. Birds flashed across the open ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... move," said one of the Scots Guards officers. The colonel of the battalion came to dinner at our mess, sitting down to a white tablecloth for the last time in his life. They played a game of cards, and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... jumping was a little awkward, for there happened to be a clean white tablecloth! as this was only Monday, it had had no time to get dirty—untidy as the Cook was. And you know Brownie lived in a coal cellar, and his feet were black with running about in coal dust. So wherever he trod, he left the impression behind; ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... they do; look here." He lay down on the tablecloth and pressed his forehead on it, but evidently could make nothing of it. "It's all rough," he said. I gave him a sheet of paper. "That's better;" and he lay down again in the same posture for a few seconds. Then he got up and began rubbing the paper all ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... wine had gone over, and the red gushed out on to the tablecloth, the officer had started up with an oath, and his eyes, bluey like fire, had held those of the confused youth for a moment. It was a shock for the young soldier. He felt some-thing sink deeper, deeper into his soul, where nothing had ever gone before. It left ...
— The Prussian Officer • D. H. Lawrence
... mind floated in a sea of conjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, without being offensive, to remark that, upon the whole, this inquiry must have been pretty trying to him. He darted his arm across the tablecloth, and clutching my hand by the side of my plate, glared fixedly. I was startled. "It must be awfully hard," I stammered, confused by this display of speechless feeling. "It is—hell," he burst out in a ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... tablecloth," said Vic, "and I'll set here to do it—when I go upstairs I'll git yer ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... military men, being much larger than usual. This bachelor repast was made very gay by an officer, who amused the company by imitating in turn the manners and appearance of the directors and a few of their friends. To represent the Director Barras, he draped himself 'a la grecque' with the tablecloth, took off his black cravat, turned down his shirt-collar, and advanced in an affected manner, resting his left arm on the shoulder of the youngest of his comrades, while with his right he pretended to caress his chin. Each person of the company understood ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... first to get the crowd out of the way. Several of the locals, including the one with the staff, joined with them; this quick co-operation delighted Meillard. When they had the lorry down and were all out of it, the dignitary with the staff, his scarlet tablecloth over his yellow robe, began an oration, apparently with every confidence that he was being understood. In spite of his objections at lunch, the telepathy theory was beginning ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... said Yates, looking for a moment at his host, whose eyes were fixed on the tablecloth, and who appeared to be quite content to let his wife run the show. "The road's a little rocky in places, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... fish, her slice of pheasant and her jelly, I do assure you, just the same as hever, Hemily," he related afterward to the lady's maid; "but her face was whiter than the tablecloth, and her eyes had a look in them I'd rather master would face than me. She's one of the 'igh-stepping sort, depend upon it, and quiet as she takes it now, there'll be the deuce and all to pay one ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... only two chairs in the room; the table had to be placed so that the bed could serve for sitting. Tablecloth there was none; when friends did her the honour of coming to tea, Totty spread a newspaper. The tea-service was, to say the least, primitive; four cups there were, but only two saucers survived, and a couple of teaspoons had to be shared harmoniously. No one ever gave ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... Our tablecloth we spread; A grain of rye or wheat Is manchet, which we eat; Pearly drops of dew we drink, In acorn cups, ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... at this, and then she set to work and laid a clean tablecloth in the sitting-room and set us down our meal—breakfast, or whatever it was. It wasn't so bad—corned beef, first-rate potatoes, fresh damper, milk, butter, eggs. Tea, of course, it's the great drink in the bush; and although some doctors say it's no good, what would bushmen ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... to deny that Lord Marshmoreton showed emotion. His mouth opened, and he clutched the tablecloth. But just what the emotion was George was unable to say till, with a sigh that seemed to come from his innermost being, the ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Belgrade were so unpractised in the art of stealing that one of them—a typical case—returned one day to have her leg attended to, and in raising her skirt revealed on the petticoat, which had once been a tablecloth, a large "S.W.H." These felonious ways are in contrast with the usual Serb candour. One afternoon in Belgrade I was searching for a small street in a district which I had not visited before. When at last, after many inquiries, I came to within fifty ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... institution were vested in Mrs. Duke. Tossed about among the rest of the company, however, the High Court did not retain its historical and legal seriousness, but was used somewhat unscrupulously in a riot of domestic detail. If somebody spilt the Worcester Sauce on the tablecloth, he was quite sure it was a rite without which the sittings and findings of the Court would be invalid; or if somebody wanted a window to remain shut, he would suddenly remember that none but the third son of the lord of the manor of Penge had the right ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... is sand. I am on stable-guard for the night (writing this in the guard-room), so when stables were over at four I had to pack hard, and only got up for a glimpse of things at five, then approaching Table Bay, guarded by the splendid Table Mountain, with the tablecloth of white clouds spread on it in the otherwise cloudless sky. I always imagined it a smooth, dull mountain, but in fact it rises in precipitous crags and ravines. A lovely scene as we steamed up through a crowd of shipping—transports, I suppose—and anchored some way from shore. ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... allow the cinders to be raked all over his drawing-room, and a privy to be established in each corner of his dining-room, if he habitually made a dust and refuse heap of his once beautiful garden, never washed his sheets or changed his tablecloth, and made his family sleep five in a bed, he would surely find himself in the claws of a commission de lunatico. But such acts of miserly folly are just what our present society is doing daily under the compulsion ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... because she was a Lee only by courtesy, having been adopted from a distant wagon when both her parents were killed in a thunderstorm. Marda, wearing the trim tailored skirt and waist that were her usual costume, was putting the big red tablecloth of the "big meals" on the boards. Dora went quickly toward the young girl ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... into a clear, plain tumbler. Bel would not have them in the broken vase; she would not have them in a blue vase, at all. She laid a white napkin over the red of the tablecloth, and set them on it. The perfume rose from them and spread ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... dishes and a tablecloth, I suppose," broke in the irrepressible Whopper. "I do love a picnic ground where you can pick napkins off ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... "Upon this dainty cod How bravely I shall sup"— When, whiter than the tablecloth, A GHOST came ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... begabled roof upon the lawns and bright flower-beds below. On one of the terraces a breakfast-table was laid for two, and here its splendour was absolutely dazzling. It gleamed upon the sparkling silver, and the snow-white tablecloth; shone with a delicate softness upon the freshly-gathered fruit and brilliant flowers, and seemed to hover with a gentle burnished light upon the ruddy golden hair of a girl who sat there waiting, with her arm resting lightly upon the stone balustrade, ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... meal was over, Sylvia continued to sit alone at the table, staring palely down at the tablecloth, her mind full of Mrs. Draper's illuminating comments on life, which had gone through her entire system like a dexterously administered drug. And yet that ingenious lady would have been surprised to know how entirely her attack had failed in the one point which seemed ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... was what he was, you can depend on that. He was just set on having things the way he wanted them, and he took a solid comfort in laying his little plans. He had me measure him and take a whole raft of directions; then he had a minister stand up behind a long box with a tablecloth over it and read his funeral sermon, saying 'Angcore, angcore!' at the good places, and making him scratch out every bit of brag about him, and all the hifalutin; and then he made them trot out the choir so's he could help them pick out the tunes for the occasion, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to you by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, that it is no such thing. Moreover, your supper is like the hidalgo's dinner, very little meat and a great deal of tablecloth. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... arranged a number of plates and dishes. The walls were papered with oak paper. On one wall, between two coloured almanacks, hung a tin lamp with a reflector behind the light. In the middle of the room was an oblong deal table with a white tablecloth upon which the tea things were set ready. There were four kitchen chairs, two of which were placed close to the table. Overhead, across the room, about eighteen inches down from the ceiling, were stretched several cords upon which were drying a number of linen or calico undergarments, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... seconding her father's hospitable invitation. And without another word she produced from various hidden receptacles tablecloth, knives and forks, bread, oatcake, butter, cheese, and jam, with the rapidity of a conjurer—as the dazed Bonar thought. Then down came a frying-pan, and she began to cook eggs and ham over ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... tablecloth, one could scarcely look for napkins, but a towel hung handy, upon which one might wipe his fingers after handling a bone. The dishes were far from plentiful and mostly of a sort to stand rough usage. Coffee and milk were drunk from bowls with narrow ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... and thrift are observable everywhere, imparting an Arcadian atmosphere to these surroundings. In the houses which we enter there are found neither chairs, tables, nor bedsteads; the people sit, eat, and sleep upon the floors, which are as clean as a newly laid tablecloth. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... said, rising, "if you don't control this reptile that you have married, if you don't force him to hold his peace, if you allow him to read one word, I'll throw the bread-knife at him and ... and pour my coffee all over the tablecloth." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... epergne in the middle, great dishes of flowers sending their perfumed breath through the room, and bearing their delicate exotic witness to the luxury that reigned in the house. And not they alone. Before each guest's plate a semicircular wreath of flowers stood, seemingly upon the tablecloth; but Lois made the discovery that the stems were safe in water in crescent-shaped glass dishes, like little troughs, which the flowers completely covered up and hid. Her own special wreath was of heliotropes. Miss Caruthers ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... tablecloth, Harry gathered it quickly into a bundle and ran back to the railroad. He hurried down the track west of a curve which was a few hundred feet beyond the washout, and saw the train coming at full speed. ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... two tablecloths aside and separate the other articles into two heaps, the rabbit, the top-hat, the hard-boiled egg, and the handful of nuts being in one heap, and the ribbon, the sponge, the gentleman's watch and the two florins in the other. This being done, you cover each heap with a tablecloth, so that none of the objects beneath is in any way visible. Then you invite any gentleman in the audience to think of a number. Let us suppose he thinks of 38. In that case you ask any lady in the audience to think of an odd number, and she suggests (shall we say?) 29. Then, ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... He was just getting cross about your being late for dinner—you know his way—when it came. He opened it—just off-hand, and then when he saw what it was he hit at the table and sent his soup spoon flying and splashing on to the tablecloth. 'My God!' he said, 'I'll go after them and kill him. I'll go after them and kill him.' For the moment I thought it was ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... for practical purposes. Ignore them and you'll discover yourself in difficulty. Leave your spoon in your cup and your arm will unexpectedly hit it sometime, and over will go everything on to the tablecloth. If I had not ignored certain conventions I wouldn't be crying over ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... farewell forever to the only man I ever had, could or would love—a couriers' dining room, with grease spots on the tablecloth! However, there was no help for it, since I was facing the world with fifty francs, and could not afford to ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson |
