"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who knows her. You do, don't you, Mike?" added Donald, and the dog beat a tattoo on the rug ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... tattoo on the roof, and this, mingling with the drowsy purr of the cat, who was now marching to and fro with tail erect in front of Gethryn, exercised a soothing influence, and presently a snore so shocked the parrot that he felt obliged ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... the drums were beating their first tattoo and reached Webo three hours before midnight. When I stepped through the gate, I could see the sentries asleep in their guard-rooms. They snored so that it sounded like thunder. The camp sentinels were pacing their beats, and I went in through the left entrance ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... man did not shift his attitude, fingers curved to clutch, arms extended, until he heard the tattoo of their horses' ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... been sentenced to receive military punishment, one of the drummers refused to inflict it, saying it was not his duty. "Not your duty, Sirrah!" said the adjutant, "what do you mean?" "I know very well," replied Tattoo, "that it is not my duty; I was present at the court martial, and heard the colonel say he was to receive corporal punishment. I am no corporal, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... side of her cot, from which the gray blanket had been dragged and folded half across her shoulders, where one hand held it, while the other clutched savagely at her throat; with her bare delicate feet beating a tattoo on the white sanded floor, and her thin nostrils dilated in the battle for breath, Iva Le Bougeois moaned in abject terror. The coarse, unbleached "domestic" night-gown that fell to her ankles was streaked across the bosom ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... hydrant water run: He hearkens Father Sebastian cooking and spreading homely themes over an inept-looking clavier confounding the wits of his children and all men's children down to the last generation. He marvels at the paradox, drums his head with the tattoo: how can a thing as small as he shape and maintain an art out of himself universal enough to carry her daily vigil to crystalled immortality? She lets ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... maroon, or pure green; and when a camp-fire was lighted in a grove of such trees the evening effect was a thing to remember for a lifetime. The regimental camps were all alive with diversions of different sorts from the time of the halt at the end of a march till tattoo sounded. Each had its trained pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At a signal one of the dogs would seize a ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... borrow a boat off my father and pull out to the rocks where the Primrose and the Despatch had struck and sunk; and on still days 'twas pretty to hear them out there off the Manacles, the drummer playing his tattoo—for they always took their music with them—and the trumpeter practising calls, and making his trumpet speak like an angel. But if the weather turned roughish, they'd be walking together and talking; leastwise, the youngster listened while the other discoursed about Sir John's campaign in ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... heard that he wished to see her, she thought her heart could beat no faster, but his words made that small organ tattoo against her sides like the flutter of a bird's wing in fright. She could do something for him! Oh, what ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... to attempt to reach the outlaws' refuge, and, at the risk of his life, finding out if Tommy Topsail-tie and Jack Waterwitch were among them. The old trader had told him that one of their number was a very big man, whose legs, back, and neck were tattooed as the Kingsmill Islanders tattoo, and he (Flemming) had formed the idea, since his conversation with the manager of the plantation, that this big man was Binoke—the dear friend of his boyhood's days, the ever-wanted "Tommy Topsail-tie" of his ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... for the search, and all six men began a hunt that was necessarily brutal in its haste, for some indication of identity. They examined the men's pockets, their bloodstained clothes, the machine, the framework. They turned the bodies over and flung them aside. There was not a tattoo mark. . . . Everything was elaborately free of any indication of ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... out of the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man we ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... command; the bright uniforms and novel ways; the sight of the ships and the use of a vocabulary that ever smacks of the sea; the call by drum and trumpet to every act of the day, from bed-rising, prayers, and breakfast, through study, recitation, drill, and recreation hours, to tattoo and taps, when every student is expected to be in bed,—was a transformation wonderful indeed; but the flow of discipline and routine are so regular and imperative that their currents are imperceptibly impressed upon the youthful mind and soon become a part of his nature, as it were, ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... all the neighboring islands. Those islands are inhabited by people, natives of the same islands, called Vicayas; or by another name, Pintados—for the more prominent of the men, from their youth, tattoo their whole bodies, by pricking them wherever they are marked and then throwing certain black powders over the bleeding surface, the figures becoming indelible. But, as the chief seat of the government, and the principal Spanish settlement, was moved to the island of Luzon—the largest island, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... of the Judge, put his foot on the first round of the political ladder as candidate for the legislature. At the same time Janey returned from the school in the East, where she had been "finished," and David's heart beat an inspiring tattoo every time he looked at her, but he was nominated by a speech-loving, speech-demanding district, and he had so many occasions for oratory that only snatches of her companionship were possible ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... up the hill road, beating a tattoo of new life upon the soft, breathing air of the ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... looked her over more carefully. She was closer to twenty than thirty, round-faced, with blue eyes that were about as impossibly bright as her hair was impossibly white. It could have been a corneal tattoo, but somehow I doubted it. Impossibly red lips made up the patriotic triad of colors—but that was lipstick, pure ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... they tattoo a Raindragon, and the character 'Bamboo'—thinking never of the troubles ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... went ruminative and then sad. With a sudden indrawing of breath he freed himself from his reverie, and bending over from his saddle patted a buckskin neck in affectionate tattoo. Tawny ears turned backward in appreciative fellowship, but without any break in a plodding dog-trot. Though the rider's aspect might say with the desert that time was nothing, the pony's expressed a logical purpose. Thus the speed of their machine-like ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... narrow and dome-shaped palate; irregularly placed teeth; prominent parietal bones; two symmetrical depressions on the occiput; congenital flat-footedness; and a sullen facial expression. His arms were covered with tattoo marks. Sense of pain somewhat diminished. Sympathetic reactions could not be elicited. Wassermann reaction with ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... docks we shot Into the screaming night; We steered by lightning's light; The paddles beat a mad tattoo; The gridded walking-beam Pumped up, pumped down, Against the misty gleam; Faster and faster jets the stand-pipes' steam. And the white water whirls Astern in phosphorescent whorls— It swirls And then leads backward green ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... little brain was at work. "Goin' to Angel's mamma,—her goin' to her mamma," suddenly the child broke forth as Norma hurried along the hot streets, and the little hand beat a gleeful tattoo as it ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... buttermilk, vegetables, etc., gun squad drills, dinner, and in fine weather and good condition of the ground in afternoon often, field drill of which battery, with guns, caissons, teams, cannoneers, drivers and all stable call, supper, camp amusements of all kinds, tattoo and finally taps. There were two buglers in the company, Charles M. Donoho was at the company headquarters. He acted as messenger also. The other, Rufus Menander Rosser was in the same mess as the writer. One of his duties was to blow the Reveille call at a certain hour each morning. ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... cage cowered the powerful creature, its broad, snake-like head thrust forward, its tiny golden eyes fixed before it, a curious snarl—like a grin—now and then contorted the immobility of its powerful jaws. The sinewy tail beat a restless tattoo on the floor of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... fearful cry of "Fire! fire!" was raised. He hurried on deck, where Jack and all the officers and crew quickly assembled. The drum beat to quarters. The men flew to their stations. The soldiers, who well knew the meaning of the tattoo, hastened on deck and fell in, according to their ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... Clegg's assistance, I slipped off my evening garments and was pulling on my riding boots when I heard the tattoo of Wildfire's impatient ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... a perpetual tattoo to no purpose. The talking and the interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost license. Everyone esteems himself as good as his neighbor, and puts in his oar, apparently as often for love of riot and confusion as for anything ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... their vessels along the Slave Coast. And in order to prevent any Kruboy being carried off as a slave by mistake, which would have prejudiced these useful allies, the slavers persuaded them always to tattoo a band of basket-work pattern down their foreheads and out on to the tip of their broad noses: this is the most extensive bit of real tattoo that I know of in West Africa, and the Kruboys still keep the fashion. Their next tutors were ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... she was alone, she slipped into the chair, beat a light tattoo with her riding-whip against her teeth, and looked fixedly at the wall again, as if to gaze beyond it, into the dim future. But she saw nothing save that she was young and that the days in Dresden, for all their penury, ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... that is to be, and should not talk lightly of the laws. But still you say reason: give me your arm, sergeant, and lead the way to the east wing; my eyesight is good for nothing in such a dark night. A soldier should always visit his guard before the tattoo beats." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... does feel since you dressed it!" and others looked up and said: "Oh, how you make me think of my mother!" and others said: "Tell the folks at home I died thinking about them;" and another looked up and said: "Miss, won't you sing me a verse of 'Home, Sweet Home,' before I die?" And then the tattoo was sounded, and the hats were off, and the service was read: "I am the resurrection and the life;" and in honor of the departed the muskets were loaded, and the command given: "Take aim—fire!" And there was a shingle set up at the head of the grave, with the epitaph of "Lieutenant ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... laughing!" cried Doughby—"Steward, another glass—d'ye hear, you cursed neger, where are you hidden? Don't you hear when a gentleman speaks to you? D'ye want me to tattoo your black brainpan? You laugh," he continued to Richards and myself, relapsing into his whimpering tones; "but if you only knew—none of the women will have me—this is the seventh ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... of fine form, and the nose is aquiline. They wear the hair in a tuft on the crown, like the Japanese, but their features are similar to the ordinary lowland native. They are fond of music and personal ornaments. They tattoo themselves and black their teeth; and for these, and many other reasons, it is conjectured that they descend from the Japanese shipwrecked crews who, being without means at hand with which to return to their country, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... easily believe he had never known tragedy and shipwreck. More than any one I ever knew, he lived in the present. Most of us are either dreaming of the past or anticipating the future—forever beating the dirge of yesterday or the tattoo of to-morrow. Mark Twain's step was timed to the march of the moment. There were days when he recalled the past and grieved over it, and when he speculated concerning the future; but his greater interest was always of the now, and of the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... bed with every hair standing on end. It was morning. I looked at Virginia's bed. I could see her quite distinctly, parts of her at least. Her head was buried, ostrich-wise, in the blankets, while her feet beat a wild tattoo in the air. Stell woke up and joined the chorus. The cause of it all was a bewildered Navajo buck who stood mutely in the doorway, staring at the havoc he had created. At arm's length he tendered a pair of moccasins for sale. It was the first Reservation Indian in native dress, or rather ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... very well. As you say. But one hundred thousand dollars in gold—bless my soul! I was told nothing about that; the letters barely mention it." Mr. Johnston beat a mad tattoo on the arm of ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... heard upon the road the rhythmic foot-beats of horses, and the rattle of some farmer's wagon rumbling homeward from the village. Then together they screamed for help. But the hoofs went on beating their tattoo till the sound grew faint, and the rattle of the wagon died in the distance. Again and again the sound which told of human nearness woke hope in their hearts only to die in ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... here, when men of understanding and men of action have been making fortunes in every other place of Europe. But here a man comes indifferently off unless he gets a great key to turn," (looking at Sir Edward,) "or can beat tattoo with a hammer on a pewter plate.—Well, sirs, I must make as much haste back on mine errand as if I were a fee'd messenger.—Sir Edward and my lady, I leave my commendations with you—and my good- will with you, Master Heriot—and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... his or her ease when the rapid tattoo of hoofs was heard, and a horse and rider drew up abruptly at the corral. One of the punchers from the rear dining-room went out to meet him and presently appeared sheepishly in the doorway where ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... moment after the closing door of a room overhead had shut them from his ears, he stood there, with puckered brows and pursed-up lips, drumming with his finger-tips a faint tattoo upon the framework of the shattered lid; then he walked over to the skeleton case, and silently regarded ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... floating in from the parade, and, as is always the case, visitors began to arrive. Several ladies and officers dropped in during the evening; they sat on the piazza enjoying the serenade until the shrill piping of the fifes and rattle of the drums sounding tattoo sent the musicians off to bed and numerous pairs of white trousers scurrying towards the cadet barracks. They watched the simultaneous "dousing of the glim" in the long facade as the clock struck ten and ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... he leaned at ease against the cask, drumming upon its head with his fingers. The sunlight, shrinking from floor and wall, had left but a single line of gold. In the half light strange and sombre shapes possessed the room; through the stillness, beneath the sound of the tattoo upon the cask head, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... up the student's lamp and sat down in the swivel chair before his desk. He sat uneasily, beating a tattoo on his knees with his fingers, and looked about him as if he were bored. He glanced at his watch, then absently took from his pocket a bunch of small keys, selected one and looked at it. A contemptuous ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... beaded sheath at his hip. Before him was meat and life. He ran his thumb along the edge of his knife. It was sharp. The point was sharp. He would fling himself upon the bear and kill it. But his heart began its warning thump, thump, thump. Then followed the wild upward leap and tattoo of flutters, the pressing as of an iron band about his forehead, the creeping of the dizziness ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... with nervous fear. A terrific gust of wind roared around the corner, shaking the little brown house from rafter to foundation; the great elm trees tossed and groaned in sympathy, and the leafless vines over the porch beat a mournful tattoo ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... reflections the drub of the muffled telephone beat its insistent tattoo. His dream vanished, and his senses became alert. He leant forward in his chair and picked ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... had turned towards Florent and looked at him; then she looked at Gavard, who was beating a tattoo with his finger-tips on the marble table. She smiled at them, as though inviting ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... baits.[10] Before the lines were properly out, in they had to come again. Flop-flop went the fish on the bottom-boards as we jerked them carelessly off the hooks. Every moment or two one of them would dance up and flip its tail wildly; beat on the bottom-boards a tattoo which spattered us with scales; then sink back among the glistening mass that was fast losing its beauty of colour, its opalescent pinks and steely blues, even as it died ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... words had been a cue, the sounds again burst forth—no longer muffled nor faint. They roared; they seemed to pelt through air and drop upon us; they beat about our ears with thunderous tattoo like covered caverns drummed upon by Titans ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... tattoo, and the beating brought several officers scurrying out of the house. Philemon kissed the girl's hand, and hurried away ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Effecting Scene. "Paris est un Artist." The Guillotine. "Give us Another!" Post Mortem Reflections. Fashionable Criticism. Whiskey Punch and Logic. "Shylock asks for Justice!" "Lorette" and "Grisette." Kissing Day. The Tattoo. The Masked Ball. The Incognita. The Charms of Paris. Changing Horses. A View in Lyons. Avignon—Petrarch and Laura. Our First Ruin. The Unconscious Blessing. A Crash and a Wreck. The Railroad of Life. A Night Adventure. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And glory guards with solemn round The bivouac ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... storm still raged and the old house shook and creaked in the blast. The rain swirled furiously against the windows, and a swift rush of hailstones beat a fierce tattoo on the roof. Built on the summit of a hill and with only a few trees near it, the Judson mansion was but poorly protected from ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... Mrs. Brown afterwards said it was. The little fellows soon get very mirthful on the ginger-wine; keeping up a continual buzz, like a colony of bees, sadly itching to be at something—a wish that is not to be realized at once, for little Miss Newsoince is going to do that eternal tattoo, the "Rataplan:"—yes, there she is, in Tom's felt-hat and polonaise, as "La Vivandiere," thumping upon an empty band-box with two knitting-pins, singing, as some of the mammas say, very prettily; but as the boys, who have heard it many ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... centuries—supply us with a portrait which does not appear exaggerated. I know nothing in this sense more terrible than Raoul de Cambrai, and the hero of this old poem would pass for a type of a half-civilized savage. This Raoul was a kind of Sioux or other redskin, who only wanted tattoo and feathers in his hair to be complete. Even a redskin is a believer, or superstitious to some extent, while Raoul defied the Deity himself. The savage respects his mother, as a rule; but Raoul laughed at his mother, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... feeling that he was in the presence of a superior being. "An' what did you say your dad's name was?" asked Raegen, awkwardly. But this was beyond the baby's patience or knowledge, and she waived the question aside with both arms and began to beat a tattoo gently with her two closed fists on Raegen's chin and throat. "You're mighty strong now, ain't you?" mocked the young giant, laughing. "Perhaps you don't know, Missie," he added, gravely, "that your dad and mar are doing time on the Island, and you won't see 'em again for ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... tattoo with his blackthorn stick on the panels of the door. For five minutes this continued, interspersed with occasional loud calls for Karospina. At last the siege was raised. After preliminary unboltings, unbarrings, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... knocker and knocked sharply. There was no response, and he repeated the summons, but again without effect. Thereupon, with a muttered exclamation, he grasped the knocker a third time and executed a veritable tattoo upon the door. When this had proceeded for about half a minute ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... smashed it up, and there she was dancing the Romalis, and making the bits of broken crockery rattle as well as if they had been ebony and ivory castanets. That girl was good company, I can tell you! Evening fell, and I heard the drums beating tattoo. ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... first time in his life his nerves were beginning to fray. His fingers drummed a tattoo on the leather seat of the cab and, despite the chill of early morning, his brow was ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... this or that direction or from every direction at once. Applause was intermingled with hissing, violent discussions were in progress between individual members of the audience, sticks were brandished threateningly, others beat a tattoo on the floor, and the interrupters were greeted with yells of 'Put him ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... I find it difficult to resist you. But if I yield to the mysterious reality you have assumed I will become too grotesque for my vanity to tolerate. I will remain aware while possessing you that my penis is beating a ludicrous tattoo on a sofa cushion. I choose rather to emulate the pride of St. Anthony, who shrewdly refused to play the whoremonger ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... cannibal-land is considered good form. He could not, however, bring himself to admire Gondebiza, though the Monsieur Worth of Fanland had done his utmost for her. Still, she must have looked really engaging in a thin pattern of tattoo, a gauze work of oil and camwood, a dwarf pigeon tail of fan palm for an apron, and copper bracelets and anklets. The much talked of gorilla Burton found to be a less formidable creature than previous travellers had reported. "The gorilla," he, says, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... be strong like you, Brick," said Goosey. "Some of us kids have been talking about it and one fellow says he's noticed that strong men like sailors and railroad men always have tattoo marks like you got. A brakeman told him that's what made him strong. Some of us want ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... say it is a tattoo mark. It is too indefinite for a gilded device. And I should say further that the tattooing is done in vermilion, as carbon tattooing would ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... penalty of his everlasting wrath—to break down? Forbade you at your peril, to allow your frightened heart to beat the long-roll, or the tattoo?" ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... regiment formed in double column, closed en masse, when our chaplain, Rev. Augustus Woodbury, read a portion of scripture, followed by prayer, the service closing with singing the doxology by the entire regiment, accompanied by the band, with most solemn and impressive effect; tattoo roll-call at 9 P. M., taps at 9.30, when lights were extinguished and every man was supposed to be in his bunk for the night; but on many occasions there was more of supposition than reality. Notwithstanding the ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... boy, and he beat a tattoo on the sides of the horse with his feet. But as Dick had on soft slippers, he did not hurt the White Rocking Horse in the least, nor did he chip off any paint. "Here I go! Here I go!" shouted Dick. "Oh, what ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope
... is a brave heart. He is a rare man who, having brain and heart to guide, follows the heart." He picked up the pipe and began to play a tattoo on the sill. "As for me, I know nothing of women, save what I have read in books, and save that I have been too ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... achote juice. The men wear a strip of this around the loins, and the women a short skirt. On feast-days, or when musquitoes are thick, the men add a little poncho and pantaloons. They do not properly tattoo, but color the skin with achote or anatto. This substance, which serves so many purposes in this part of the world, is the red powder which covers the seeds contained in the prickly bur of the Bixa orellana. The pigment is an article of commerce on the Amazon, and is exported to Europe, where ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... l'audace" was the mainspring of all his actions, and the very sights and sounds of a stricken field were dear to his soul. Nothing had such power to stir his pulses as the rebel yell. "I remember," says a staff-officer, "one night, at tattoo, that this cry broke forth in the camp of the Stonewall Brigade, and was taken up by brigades and divisions until it rang out far over field and woods. The general came hastily and bareheaded from his ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Some landed, and their aeronauts took cover and became energetic infantry soldiers. Others hovered above the fight, their men ever and again firing shots down at some chance exposure below. The firing came in paroxysms; now there would be a watchful lull and now a rapid tattoo of shots, rising to a roar. Once or twice flying machines, as they circled warily, came right overhead, and for a time Bert gave himself ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... protracted sounds.] Roll — N. roll &c v.; drumming &c v.; berloque^, bombination^, rumbling; tattoo, drumroll; dingdong; tantara^; rataplan^; whirr; ratatat, ratatat-tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari^, racket; cuckoo; repetition &c 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; reverberation &c 408. [sound of railroad ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was a-brewing: The day of our vengeance was come! Through scenes of what carnage and ruin Did I beat on the patriot drum! Let's drink to the famed tenth of August: At midnight I beat the tattoo, And woke up the Pikemen of Paris To follow the ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is different—sonorous, tense, elastic; On it you might a tattoo beat, with fingers or with a stick. There's costiveness and atrophy, with features Hippocratic; When these appear, there's much to fear, all safety is erratic. Although a cordial laxative, mix'd up with some carminative, Might be prescribed, with morphia, or hops, to keep the man alive; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... incipient slumber; he thought he heard the cow in her stall, clattering her chain. Surprised, he collected his wits. "Of course," he then said to himself, "it is the tattoo. I ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... behind the convict-hoers in a morning gown and morocco slippers, with a Penang Lawyer hugged close under his right arm, or borne like a royal sceptre before him, plucking at every tuft as he paced about, and drumming such a tattoo upon the shoulders of the unlucky wight, whose ground was not completely chopped, and grass fairly uprooted, as made the whole brush ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... There's gossip for you, thick as mortar," cried the charcoalman, and the mealman's fingers beat a tattoo on his stomach. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the paragraph he glanced quickly at Archie, whose fork was beating a queer tattoo ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... restaurants were brightened with many colored lanterns, quaint carved gilded woodwork, potted plants and dwarf trees. Up and down these narrow streets every hour in the twenty-four you could hear the gentle tattoo, for he seemed never to sleep, never to be in a hurry and always moving. Stop on any corner five minutes and the sight was like a moving picture show. It was hard to make yourself believe that you were not in China, for as near as is ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... excited, George Weston came running down a street in Islington. He knocked at the door of No. 16, and in his impatience, until it was opened, commenced a tattoo with his knuckles upon ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... talk of those who do. Three thousand men embarked yesterday and the day before, and the thirteen thousand others sail as soon as the transports can return. Messieurs d'Allemagne (576) roll their red eyes, stroke up their great beards, and look fierce-you know one loves a review and a tattoo. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... house-door is but a flimsy barricade against a mob, especially if that mob be led by five-and-twenty stout-bodied seaman. We had shut it merely to gain time, and when the cudgels outside began to play tattoo upon its upper panels I looked for no more than a minute's respite ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... occasionally suspend the tails of buffaloes. A third fashion is to weave the hair on pieces of hide in the form of buffalo horns, projecting on either side of the head. The young men twine their hair in the form of a single horn, projecting over their forehead in front. They frequently tattoo their bodies, producing figures in the form of stars. Although their heads are thus elaborately adorned, their bodies are almost destitute ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Suddenly the tattoo sounded,—not loud and shrill, as on ordinary occasions, but in a subdued and cautious manner, as if fearful of being heard by the British, whose white tents might be seen in the distance. Obedient to the signal, the greater part of the soldiers assembled in front of the marquee of the ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... Zealanders surpassed all other people in the art of tattooing, to which their chiefs gave especial attention. Mete Kingi, as our picture shows, was no exception. Tattooing on the face they termed moko. The men tattoo their faces, hips, and thighs; the women their upper lips; for this purpose charcoal made from kauri gum is chiefly used. It has the blue color when pricked into the skin, growing lighter in shade in the course of years. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... under the Spanish regime, when killing and capturing was rife, the tattooing was for the purpose of the identification of a captive. It was customary to change the name of a captive, and as he was sold and resold, the only way to identify him was by his tattoo marks. ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... my ears still whin I felt in the bones of me that Dinah was comin', an' I heard a shout, an' thin I saw a horse an' a tattoo latherin' down the road, hell to shplit, under women. I knew - I knew! Wan was the Tyrone Colonel's wife - ould Beeker's lady - her gray hair flyin' an' her fat round carkiss rowlin' in the saddle, ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... identified with the sleek, glib fellow who had interviewed Kirkwood in the afternoon. His flabby cheeks were ashen and trembling, and upon the back of his chair the fat white fingers were drumming incessantly an inaudible tattoo of shattered nerves. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... pass, eyes and ears open. The white horse took the climb as if it had been level ground, his hoofs ringing a brisk tattoo against ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... The tattoo beats,—the lights are gone, The camp around in slumber lies, The night with solemn pace moves on, The shadows thicken o'er the skies; But sleep my weary eyes hath flown, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... of circles and circlets which composed her personnel had assumed a tremulous and gravitating tendency. She was habited in the height of Fan fashion. Her body was modestly invested in a thin pattern of tattoo, and a gauze-work of oil and camwood; the rest of the toilette was a dwarf pigeon-tail of fan- palm, like that of the men, and a manner of apron, white beads, and tree bark, greasy and reddened: the latter was tucked under and over the five lines of cowries, which acted as cestus to the portly ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... A tattoo on the window, caused by the tree-droppings blowing against it, brought her indecision to a close. She turned the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... she did so her eyes fell upon a tattoo-mark, an anchor inside a true-lover's knot. It was an ordinary enough tattoo-mark, but the sight of it struck at Mollie for she had seen it before. The odd impression of last night, which she had forgotten ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... negroes brought from the White Nile, remark: "As to their psychology, what struck us first was the exaggeration of their modesty; not in a single case would the men allow us to examine their genital organs or the women their breasts; we examined the tattoo-marks on the chest of one of the women, and she remained sad and irritable for two days afterward." They add that in sexual and all other respects these people are highly moral. (Lombroso and Carrara, Archivio di Psichiatria, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... chances had improved or not, he scarcely stopped to question, but that other people regarded them as possibly greater than his own was a fact that sent the mad blood to his head. He tore back through the winter night like a man possessed, with Ina Rose's scoffing warning beating a devil's tattoo in ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... beneath the Baron's Patmos. At a low whistle, he observed the veteran peeping out to reconnoitre, like an old badger with his head out of his hole. 'Ye hae come rather early, my good lad,' said he, descending; 'I question if the red-coats hae beat the tattoo yet, and we're not ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... captain, named M. Minutoli, who, when on guard, always shut the gate he had charge of an hour before the usual time. I was returning home with my two companions, and had got within half a league of the city, when I heard them beat the tattoo; I redouble my pace, I run with my utmost speed, I approach the bridge, see the soldiers already at their posts, I call out to them in a suffocated voice—it is too late; I am twenty paces from the guard, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... minute we eyed each other. Then I took a step forward. The glittering head rose higher. Off in the ferns there beat a warning tattoo—the loud whir of the snake's tail against ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... jerked bear's meat and slept two hours in the canes, waiting on the moonrise. He had bad dreams, for he seemed to hear drums beating the eerie tattoo which he remembered long ago in Border raids. He woke in a sweat, and took the road again in the moonlight. It was not hard to follow, and it seemed to be making north for the Ohio. Dawn came on him in a grassy bottom, beyond which lay low hills that he knew alone separated him from the great ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... such antics, though it had seen gay doings in its time; for of all the boys who had climbed over it, not one had ever stood on his head upon each of the big balls which ornamented the posts, hung by his heels from the arch, gone round and round like a wheel with the bar for an axis, played a tattoo with his toes while holding on by his chin, walked about the wall on his hands, or closed the entertainment by festooning himself in an airy posture over the side of the lantern frame, and kissing ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... each waiting, as it seemed, for the other to reply. My glance travelled between the two, and finally settled upon the secretary, whose long, nervous fingers were beating a silent tattoo upon the table. ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... Greek's wrist, however, and he had to fight for another hold now—in the dark. Presently he captured it, twisted the arm in the terrible hammer-lock, and broke it; then, while the Greek lay writhing in agony, Mr. O'Leary leaped to his feet and commenced to play with his awful boots a devil's tattoo on that portion of his enemy's superstructure so frequently alluded to in pugilistic circles as "the slats." After five or six kicks, however, he paused, due to a difficulty in breathing; so he struck a match and surveyed ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... an outraged little mortal now sat at her window, her heart beating tattoo, her temples throbbing, her cheeks blazing, her eyes flashing, but her hands clenched and icy cold. There she sat until all sounds in the big house were hushed. She was as rigid as though carved from marble, even though her ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Pintados, who inhabit the provinces of Camarines in this island of Luzon, and those of Leyte, Samar, Panay, and other neighborhoods, came, I have heard, from the districts of Macasar, where it is said that Indians live who make designs on and tattoo the body, in the manner of our Pintados. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, in the relation which he wrote of the discovery of the Salomon Islands in 1595, says that an island called Madalena was found in ten degrees north latitude, at a distance from Piru of one ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... observe that if you won't condescend to notice that we're here your front door will run the risk of being severely injured!—She don't care for me any more than if I was nothing at all,—sound another tattoo upon that knocker. Perhaps she's so deaf that nothing short of a cataclysmal uproar will reach ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... he sunned himself in the pine-scented shipyard, amid the tattoo of the mallets; Or he leaned on the rail of the bridge, letting his thoughts flow with the whispering river; He hearkened also to ancient tales, and made them ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... a tattoo with her heels upon the floor, shutting her fists, the thumbs tucked inside. She closed her eyes, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... said Amelia, beating a tattoo of impatience, with one hand, on the door. "You've ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Montana skies, or at the midnight hour by the dim campfire light, the rain beating its tattoo on the tepee above our heads—surrounded by an army of shining tepees, like white ghosts of the plains, while these pathetic figures told the story of their lives. The warrior of other days gave himself up to mirthful tale, to boyhood's transports, to manhood's achievements, to the wild ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... the iron fence with a violence that shook it, and her fists beat a fierce tattoo on his face—white-gloved fists, driven by sound, vigorous, young arms; and then as he cowered, with his arms raised to protect himself from her blows, she stepped back, her anger and contempt ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... a loud tattoo and the trumpeter blew a call that startled the squaws and the children into shrieks; the braves were quicker in hiding their astonishment. Then Smith and Newport walked forward, Newport holding the crown. ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... be beyond doubt that men and women began to ornament, mutilate, paint, and tattoo themselves chiefly in order to make themselves attractive to the opposite sex—that they might court successfully, or ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... with his back to the tea-table. He seemed to have forgotten the woman who sat so rigid behind him. His fingers drummed a careless tattoo upon the table-edge. He was unquestionably master of the situation, and that without ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... suffered not a little from their finery! The eyebrows and eyelids are dyed black while the children are very young, and they frequently paint themselves with dark-blue streaks of a finger's breadth over the eyebrows, and with spots on the forehead. The adult women tattoo their breasts, foreheads, noses, or temples with red, white, or yellow colours, according as they are particularly attached to one or the other deity. Many wear amulets or miniatures hung round their necks, so that I at first thought they were Catholics, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... a perfect tattoo in joy and was quickly answered. Then the thud, thud began again, but this time the pace ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... by tattoo sounded. The major went out with McLean to receive the reports, and when they returned Mr. ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... suggested Jack, and, nothing loath, Mark assented. The two lads broke into a run, but, as they leaped forward, the man also increased his pace, and they could hear his feet pounding out a tattoo on the hard road. ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... and tattoo their faces, hands and wrists, in lines, triangles and circles. On their bodies also stripes of irregular design and varying colors are often used, all having a symbolic meaning originally, now lost, however, at least to ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... and said nothing. The painter, who had taken his place by her side, felt decidedly chilly and embarrassed beside his extraordinary neighbor, who amused herself "so entirely inside." Suddenly he began to beat a tattoo with his knife against his glass, drowning the uproar of the party, and ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... crew, unseamanlike management of a ship laid the crew open to pressing, pipers and fiddlers, etc., impressed, ridiculous reasons given for impressing, unsuspecting passenger in a smuggler declared owner of contraband and pressed, tattoo marks and bandy legs lead to pressing, any eccentricity sufficient to ensure the attention of the press-gang, used by trustees to keep heirs from their money, and by parents to rid them of incorrigible ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... fireplace, his hands deep in his pockets, where his guest could see his long fingers beat a tattoo on his thighs, Newton Winch dangled and swung himself, and threw back his head and laughed. "Well, I must say you take it amazingly!—all the more that to see you again this way is to feel that if, all along, there was a man whose delicacy and confidence ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... called him—a sailor-man. Well-to-do, he seemed; the mate of a merchant vessel he might be. He had known Dicky, I think, long ago at sea, and he'd bring him here 'to yarn with him,' he said, once or twice it might be in this room, but mainly in the parlor up-stairs. He let old Dicky tattoo him a bit, up there, to put him in the way of earning an honest penny by his trade—a queer trade it was. Never more than a pint, or a glass of hot rum and water, would he give the old man. Most considerate and careful, sir, he ever was. Well, last night he brought him in about nine, ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... running from the lower lip to the chin; and he remarks that when a young woman of this tribe is anxious to become a mother she tattoos the figure of a child on her forehead. After they marry Mojave girls tattoo the chin with vertical blue lines; and when an Eskimo wife has her face tattooed with lamp-black she is regarded as a matron in society. The Polynesians have carried this dermal art to an extent which is unequaled by any other people, and it is universally practiced ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... in the spot indicated, and out came the crest and initials exactly as Jack had described them. There was something horribly uncanny and gruesome in finding the tattoo marks of the dead man on the parchment of a Barotse tomtom two hundred miles north of the Zambesi, and for a moment I was too overcome with astonishment to grasp exactly what it meant. Then it came to my mind in a flash that the parchment was ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... fingered the lever with a lover's caress. He knew old "eleven," every foot of her, every tube, bolt, and strap. As they cleared the yards, he threw her wider and wider open until she was lunging and lurching madly. The cinders beat a tattoo upon the cab, and Jim Weeks crowded up into the corner. The fireman, a strapping young fellow, threw in great shovels of coal with the regularity of a machine, pausing only to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand as the heat grew intense. When he opened the furnace door, Jim could see ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... whistling wind, I heard the welcome rain,— A fusillade upon the roof, A tattoo on the pane: The keyhole piped; the chimney-top A warlike trumpet blew; Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife, A softer voice ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... and for several minutes Mary played a tattoo on her machine. Then she keyed down quietly and, setting her transmitter at its maximum, she ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... on his pillows, the hectic passed from either gaunt and sallow cheek, leaving the red and blue tattoo marks visible in most ghastly distinctness, while the sweat poured in drops down his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... they lack patience. Their women, whom they do not confine, will, it is said, do more field-work than the men; indeed, one often finds women at work in the crops when the men are lying down. Like the women of low Hindu castes they tattoo their bodies, a practice disapproved by Musalmans in general. Abul Fazl writes that the Meos were in his time famous runners, and one thousand of them were employed by Akbar as carriers ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... feel my heels leave the floor, and I had emotions that it would take more than language to express proper. So I peels off for it, down to a sleeveless jersey and a pair of flannel pants, and starts in to drum out the devil's tattoo on that pigskin bag. ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... in the morning, the sudden screams of women and children aroused me from profound torpor! Shrieks were followed by volleys of musketry. Then came a loud tattoo of knocks at my door, and appeals from the negro chief to rise and fly. "The town was besieged:—the head-men were on the point of escaping:—resistance was vain:—they had been betrayed—there were no fighters to ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... sir, to my own satisfaction; and I make shift to answer people according to their idols. I vow, I am so weary of the words 'honour and honesty' that they beat a tattoo ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... matter if they are cramped; by and by they will have room. By and by comes the spring, and with it the steamer. Does not the green branch speak of spring and of hope? The policeman on the beat hears their hammers beat a joyous tattoo past midnight, far into Christmas morning. Who shall say its message has not reached even ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... hatred, prejudices and contempt—all were portrayed on de Marmont's mobile face: they glowed in his dark eyes and breathed through his quivering nostrils. Now he rested his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, his nervy fingers played a tattoo against his teeth, clenched together like those of some young feline creature which sees its prey coming along and ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... was roaring like a bull and plunging wildly under my brother's fingers, his clubfoot beating a thunderous tattoo on the parquet floor. In his fall Clubfoot's left arm had been bent under him and was now pinioned to the ground by his great weight. With his free right arm he strove fiercely to force off my brother's fingers as Francis fought to get ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... impossible for them to exchange a single word just then, owing to the riot of sound that came from beyond. The thunder bellowed, the wind roared, trees could be heard at intervals crashing to the ground, and the rain beat a terrible tattoo on the rock that ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... wish I were dead, rather than see myself the butt of all the scandal of the foul-mouthed gossips of your court." The king, suspecting the confidence I was about to repose in him, was sorry he had asked for it, and was silent. He began to play a tattoo with his fingers on the chimney-piece. At this moment mademoiselle Chon came in. The king, delighted at seeing her, instantly inquired into her state of health. She, after a profound reverence, said, "Sire, how can I be well when there is trouble in my family?" "Ah, ! what is ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... birthmarks," ses the woman, speaking very slow—and I could see she was afraid of making a mistake and losing me—"but he's got tattoo marks. He's got a mermaid tattooed ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... on his last journey, they hold their great fans close to the ground to shelter him, because, as one of them explained to a missionary, "His soul is only a little child." People in the Punjaub who tattoo themselves believe that at death the soul, "the little entire man or woman" inside the mortal frame, will go to heaven blazoned with the same tattoo patterns which adorned the body in life. Sometimes, however, as we shall see, the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... a dark, cold, rainy night in November. The wind whistled about the house, the rain beat a tattoo against the window-panes and flooded the sills. The big base-burner, filled with anthracite coal, was illuminating the room through its mica windows, on all sides, and dispensing a warmth that smiled at the storm and cold outside. ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... are under no special social restrictions and have considerable influence. The women's heads are shaved entirely and the men's into fantastic patterns. Yellow and red ochre mixed with grease are coarsely smeared over the bodies, grey in coarse patterns and white in fine patterns resembling tattoo marks. Tattooing is of two distinct varieties. In the south the body is slightly cut by women with small flakes of glass or quartz in zigzag or lineal patterns downwards. In the north it is deeply cut by men with pig-arrows ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of the original book contained a diagram of a tattoo, and another diagram appeared in Chapter XX. Text has been added to substitute for ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... doctor, however, was himself in mellower mood; and they were having tea, for all the world like any ordinary trio, the girl still making talk about sundry songs, the man quizzing them and her, and the boy standing up for one that his sister sang at home, when a metallic tattoo put a dramatic stop ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... tap at his door, and he called "Come in." From her babyhood Lily had had her own peculiar method of signaling that she stood without, a delicate rapid tattoo of finger nails on the panel. He watched smilingly ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... witness the magic effects of a drum in a small village, when the recruiting party, with many-coloured ribbons, rouse it up with a spirit-stirring tattoo? Matrons leave their domestic cares, and run to the cottage door: peeping over their shoulders, the maidens admire and fear. The shuffling clowns raise up their heads gradually, until they stand erect ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... emphasizing with a little tattoo of her teaspoon on the Chippendale tea-tray before ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... whole community being away in the forest peeling bark from the birch trees for the making of canoes. But the same kind of thing had happened before, so Katherine was not at a loss. Picking up a tin pan, she commenced beating a military tattoo upon it with a thick stick; while Phil, with a trumpet improvised from a roll of birchbark, produced an ear-splitting din which must have carried far through the quiet woods. It was not long before their customers arrived on the scene, and then the business of barter began. ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... you speak the truth. Wait till you see me thump the Devil's tattoo with my old flail on your thrashin'-floor! But you look as cheery as an Easter-mornin' sun; you've not much for to complain of, these days, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... slim black shadows across the low adobe buildings and splashed the tip of their shade in the dust-cloud that filled with haze the corral a hundred yards away. Sing Pete stepped from the door and beat a tattoo on the iron triangle suspended by a piece of wire from the lowest branch of a mesquit tree at the corner of the house, announcing by the metallic clamor that the work of the day was finished and supper was ready and waiting. Parker swung back the heavy gate at the corral entrance and the dozen ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... Tiflings sat leaning his head forward and nervously beating a tattoo upon the side of the boat with his long, thin fingers. Occasionally he glanced at the "foolish" Mr. Yard, ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... hand and took his. He was terrifically conscious of the warm smoothness of her fingers playing a soft tattoo on the back of his hand, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... that he has always entertained the idea that Rutherford was one of the men taken when the schooner "Brothers" was attacked at Kennedy Bay in 1815. Bishop Williams sets up the theory that Rutherford was a deserter from a vessel which visited New Zealand, that he induced the Maoris to tattoo him in order that he might escape detection after he had returned to civilization, and that he concocted the story of the capture of the "Agnes" to account for his reappearance amongst Europeans. ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... of contempt indicative also of complete self-satisfaction and unalterable self-belief, shrugged his broad shoulders. His short fat fingers, covered with rings, beat a tattoo upon the ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... your friends," he began tentatively, "in the streets, you know." He paused and looked down at his own hands; he turned one palm up, showing the faint tattoo on the wrist. "I'm only a rough seafaring man," he went on. "They might think it strange—might wonder whom ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... and now, although the obvious and sensible thing was to go about my business, I wandered on aimlessly, my brain employed with a hundred idle conjectures and the query, "Where have I seen The Stetson Man?" seeming to beat, like a tattoo, in my brain. There was something magnetic about the accursed slipper, for without knowing by what route I had arrived there, I found myself in Great Orchard Street and close under the walls of the British Antiquarian Museum. Then I was effectually ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... Tuesday, May 15th.—After we had gone to bed last night,—we in the tent, the Doctor and Pilgrim under the fly, which serves as a porch roof,—the heavenly floodgates lifted; the rain, coming in sheets, beat a fierce tattoo on the tightly-stretched canvas, and visions of a sudden rise in the fickle river were uppermost in our dreams. Everything about us was sopping at daybreak; but the sun rose clear and warm from a bed of eastern clouds, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... and starless night. Tattoo-beat had long been heard, and Hay's Brigade, weary after a long day's march, rested beneath the dewy boughs of gigantic oaks in a dense forest near the placid Rappahannock. No sound broke the stillness of the night. The troops were lying ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... from the box and his fingers trembled as he lit first hers and then his own—he was so terribly afraid of cutting a ridiculous figure. He sat down again and beat a tattoo on the tablecloth. Mrs. Feverel, with some grimly muttered excuse, left the room. She watched him a moment from the other side of the table and then she came over to him. She bent over his chair, leaning ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... all night. The girls scrambled through a half dozen things forgotten at the last minute, and then proceeded to dress with haste. But, sure enough, at a quarter past eight, Ferren, true to his word, emerged immaculate from his bedroom, and commenced beating a tattoo on Kitty's door. ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his bare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... them also the most estimable. This is the rule in Polynesia, with few exceptions; the higher the family, the better the man—better in sense, better in manners, and usually taller and stronger in body. A stranger advances blindfold. He scrapes acquaintance as he can. Save the tattoo in the Marquesas, nothing indicates the difference of rank; and yet almost invariably we found, after we had made them, that our friends were persons of station. I have said "usually taller and stronger." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... State of Deseret! Turning over the yellow leaves of the same copy of "Webster on Witchcraft" which Cotton Mather studied, I thought, "Well, that goblin is laid at last!"—and while I mused the tables were turning, and the chairs beating the devil's tattoo all over Christendom. I have a neighbor who dug down through tough strata of clay to a spring pointed out by a witch-hazel rod in the hands of a seventh son's seventh son, and the water is the sweeter to him for the wonder that is mixed ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell |
