"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... common 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
... his scarlet waistcoat were new George guineas; and the buttons on his coat were of silver, very beautifully chased. His shoes had big silver buckles on them, and there was a silver buckle to the flap of his grey slouch hat. The tattoo marks on his left hand were covered over by broad silver rings, of the sort the Spanish onion-boys used to sell in Dartmouth, after the end of the war. He looked extremely handsome in his fine clothes. I wondered how I could ever ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... efforts to 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 ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... had permitted her grandmother to continue her sententious advice, while she herself sat tapping her feet on the floor, and performing the most rapid variations of that air which is called the Devil's Tattoo, burst out, at length, to the elder lady's surprise, with an outbreak of indignation, a flushing face, and a voice quivering ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at the right of the choir. But he had to look for some time before he could descry at the farthermost side of the church a solitary head bent upon the rail before it. Toward this point the young man slowly made his way, his heart hammering a most unwonted tattoo within his broad breast. ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... expected that every man in a cavalry regiment would be a music teacher, and the calls sounded so much alike to the uncultivated ear, that it was no wonder that everybody got the calls mixed. In camp we got so we could tell "assembly," and "surgeon's call," and "tattoo," and quite a number of others, but the calls of battle were Greek to us. The bugle sounded down in the woods, and the sergeant turned to me and asked, "Fhat the divil is that I dunno?" I was satisfied it was "To horse," but when I saw our fellows come rushing ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... alcoves stood two light iron bedsteads, with a single mattress on each, carefully folded back during the day, and made up only after tattoo. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... Jinnie first 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 joy! ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... perfect tattoo in joy and was quickly answered. Then the thud, thud began again, but this ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... 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 a grip ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... of tattooing practised by the Maoris. See Tattoo. It is not a fact—as popularly supposed—that the "moko" was distinctive in different families; serving, as is sometimes said, the purpose of a coat-of-arms. The "moko" was in fact all made on the same pattern—that of all Maori carvings. Some were more elaborate than others. The sole difference ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... 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
... Churchill said, at the same time kicking a tattoo on the ribs of the snoring Antonsen. "You go back to White Horse. We'll go ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... finally succeeded in doing. Booted for the purpose, I laid myself back, and then commenced beating a tattoo ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... have tattooed immediately above your wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... he fell slowly into a heavy, overpowering sleep, like that of criminals condemned to death, or duellists before the fatal morning. He thought he heard shouts in German, the galloping of horses, a distant sound of tattoo and whistle such as the battalions of the invaders made with their fifes and drums. . . . Then he lost ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... for "bonnie lasses" even among the whites, if divested of their filth and uncouth dress, and rigged out in European habiliments. The women fasten their hair in a knot on the crown of the head, and anoint it with rancid oil in lieu of pomatum; they also tattoo their faces, with the view, no doubt, of enhancing their charms in the estimation of their blubber-eating lovers. Their teeth are remarkably white and regular; the eyes are black, and partake more of the circular than ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... never withdrew his gaze. His bead-like eyes followed the artist; he saw each individual finger rise and fall, and the bow bound over the finger-board, always avoiding, never coming in contact with the middle string. Suddenly the old man beat a tattoo on his cranium and closed his ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... in a loud voice; he lolled in the big walnut rocker, with his arm stretched across the centre table, to the peril of my mother's precious Swiss chalet and the glass dome which protected it; on the family Bible his fingers were beating a tattoo as carelessly as they might have done on the counter of his general store. There was nothing in his appearance to suggest kin to the lean and cadaverous Professor. The Professor always seemed to ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... One night after tattoo the long roll began to beat. Officers and men hurriedly dressed, snatched their arms and accoutrements and formed in the company streets. As soon as a company was ready it started for the color line, ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... reduced to the painful and spectacular expedient of just grazing the heels of your fiery steed with Dick's racer all the way back to Sherrill's and matching up his hoof-beats on the shell-road with a devil's tattoo on the horn." ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... to ask that Mr. Loring should come to see me," railed Nevins. "I have important matters—papers and messages from my wife, and he holds aloof. By God, Gleason! you tell him for me that if he can't treat me decently, and come to see me before tattoo this night, I demand that he hand back those diamonds ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... tattoo for some moments, and then exclaimed, "You may say what you will, but the present system of society is radically wrong:—whatever ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... men had thrown aside their dressing-gowns and the opposing seconds were examining the bandages upon their hands. Clancy wore bright green trunks, which if his name had failed would have betrayed his lineage, and his great chest and arms were covered with designs in tattoo. Jerry wore dark trunks. And as his wonderful arms and torso were exposed to view, a murmur of approval went over the audience. In spite of his training in the open his skin was still very white beside the bronzed figure of his adversary, but the muscles rippled smoothly ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... tables away—and beside him sat a heavy built, clean-shaven man of middle age. That would be Cloran, of course—the man who was to have been lured to his death. And Danglar was nervous and uneasy, she could see. His fingers were drumming a tattoo on the table; his eyes were roving furtively about the room; and he did not seem to be paying any but the most distrait attention to his companion, who was ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... Hecla, but, not expecting a boat so late, lay down to sleep. I soon found my mistake, for a large party came drumming on the side of the tent, and crying out that a 'little ship' was coming, and, in fact, I found the boat nearly on shore. Ooyarra's senior wife now anxiously begged to tattoo a little figure on my arm, which she had no sooner done than the youngest insisted on making the same mark; and while all around were running about and screaming in the greatest confusion, these two poor creatures sat quietly down to embellish me. When the boat landed, a general rush ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... he sunned himself in the pine-scented ship- yard, 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 young ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... 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. The weakness of this theory is that he evidently did not object ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... 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 ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the pick-handles upon the backs, shoulders, sometimes heads of rioters. It was like a systematic tattoo. Coleman's voice was heard directing, here and there, cool and dispassionate. A couple of locomotive headlights threw their glare upon the now disordered gangsters. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... oh—oh, it was hot! So thick and fast the solid shot Upon our iron armor played, It kept, like thunder, a kind of time— Devil's tattoo or gallopade— That, like an awful, awful rhyme, Rang in the ear; And they sent us cheer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... thrust your hand into. Little John stooped and peered through the hole to see what food lay within reach, when crack! went the steward's keys upon his crown, and the worthy danced around him playing a tattoo that made Little John's ears ring. At this he turned upon the steward and gave him such a rap that his back went nigh in two, and over went the fat fellow rolling on ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... this second assault, with windows smashing to right of them and to left of them, with glass falling all around them, and the staves of old ash-barrels playing a devil's tattoo about them, the devoted band of editors, reporters, and copy-readers worked nobly on. They had confidence in their leader that their hour would come. Their first duty was to get out the paper. After that they ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... leaves, stood out tall and bare against the leaden sky, and there was a chill in the air that might betoken snow. Pamela Wolcott stood in the sitting-room window and sighed softly, as she gazed out at the November landscape, letting her fingers beat soft tattoo against the lozenge-shaped pane. ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed; I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous; so I am. And now at the ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... those sisters (and many and many a wife and mother from Callender House to Carrollton), the vast, stealthy, fireless bivouac at fall of night, in ear-shot of the enemy's tattoo, unsheltered from the midnight storm save by raked-up leaves: Saw, just in the bivouac's tortuous front, softly reddening the low wet sky, that huge, rude semicircle of camps in the dark ridged and gullied forests about Shiloh's log meeting-house, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... shift his attitude, fingers curved to clutch, arms extended, until he heard the tattoo of their horses' ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Carrara, examining some Dinka 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, 1896, vol. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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 of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... a wind came sighing from the north, tossing the girl's hair and tugging at the careless folds of her dress, but she heard nothing save the devil's tattoo that rang in her head, and felt nothing beyond the pain at throat and breast, which in time became so bitter that the tears were wrung from her dry eyes, and she began to weep in a pitiful woman fashion, as if her heart ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... birds.[11] In early political society most recognition is guided by such symbols. One cannot make a new king, who may be a boy, in all respects like his predecessor, who may have been an old man. But one can tattoo both of them with the same pattern. It is even more easy and less painful to attach a symbol to a king which is not a part of the man himself, a royal staff for instance, which may be decorated and enlarged until it is useless as a staff, ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... with which the skin is punctured. Into these punctures a preparation made from the kernel of the candle-nut, mixed with cocoa-nut oil, is rubbed, and the mark thus made is indelible. The operation is performed by a class of men whose profession it is, and they tattoo as much at a time as the person on whom they are operating can bear; which is not much, the pain and inflammation caused by tattooing being very great, sometimes causing death. Some of the chiefs were tattooed with ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... river, called Brius, on the borders of the province of Caindu, to the porcelain-making districts of Carazan, governed by Kublai's son, and so to Bengal, "which borders upon India," and where Marco laughs at the tattoo customs of "flesh embroidery for the dyeing ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... more than half expecting to see Rozsi there; but she was not, and he noticed with faint surprise that the window was not open; the plants, too, outside, looked singularly arid. He knocked. No one came. He beat a fierce tattoo. At last the door was opened by a man with a reddish beard, and one of those sardonic faces only to be seen on ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... nightcap, about whom he professed to have such a tender interest. The hypocrite was looking and listening with all his might in the direction of George's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs, beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other signs ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... something being moved beyond the kitchen. Dan sits on the sofa with a jerk, looking before him. His fingers beat a rapid tattoo on the sides of the sofa. He looks at them, rises convulsively and walks round the room, grasping chairs and furniture as he goes round. He returns to the sofa, sits, and begins the tattoo again. With a sudden wild automatic movement he beats his closed fists in rapid ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... began to have their share. But I could not stand, though the blood was returning, warm and tingling, in my legs and hands. She looked at me with a sharp frown puckering her brows a little; beat a hasty tattoo with one of her feet, and cast a startled glance towards the forward door that led on deck. Then she walked to the other side of the table, and sat looking at me in ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... 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 ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... the use by poets of rhythmical beat and verbal assonance is simply the endeavour to captivate what is a primeval and even barbarous instinct. The pleasure which children take in beating their hands upon a table, in rapping out a tattoo with a stick, in putting together unmeaning structures of rhyme, is not necessarily an artistic thing at all; what lies at the root of it is the pleasure of the conscious perception of similarity and regularity. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and the bullets played a very devil's tattoo upon the walls and windows. The enemy were still five to one, and if they could only succeed in rushing in and breaking down the doors, victory would be in their hands. But to do that meant death to ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... wanderers who live in tents, and are regarded with contempt even by the peasantry. Their women tell fortunes, tattoo, {189} and sell small-wares; the men work in iron (quincaillerie). They are all adroit thieves, and noted as such. The men may sometimes be seen going around the country with monkeys; in fact, they appear to be in all ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... Imperial residences; of their maintenance, decoration, and furnishing; of the assignment of rooms, the supply of food, the heating, lights, silver, and livery. He commanded the detachments of the Imperial Guard on duty in the Imperial palaces. He gave orders to beat the reveill and the tattoo, to open and shut the palace gates. When the Emperor was with the army, or travelling, he had to find him quarters. In 1805 the Grand Marshal's budget amounted to 2,338,167 francs. In 1806 it reached the sum of 2,770,841 francs. There were four tables in the palace,—that ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... savages. They found the Huskies, as they always were called, a much more imposing tribe than any of the Indians they had seen. The men were taller and more robust, more fearless and self-respecting, even arrogant in their deportment. The women were a strapping lot. Some of them wore the blue line tattoo on the lower lip, showing them to be married women; others, young girls not uncomely to look upon. All were clad in the fur garments of the North, even though it now was summer-time, the date of their arrival being July 8th. ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... citizens are gathered about the bivouac of the battalion at the water-works while the trumpets are sounding tattoo. A few squares away the familiar notes come floating in through the open windows of a room where Jim Drummond is lying on a most comfortable sofa, which has been rolled close to the casement, where every whiff of the cool lake breeze can fan his face, and where, glancing ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... arriving from England bringing General William Howe, General Henry Clinton, and General John Burgoyne, with several thousand troops to carry on the war. Every morning Miss Newville heard the drums beating the reveille and in the evening the tattoo. Many officers called at the hospitable home of Honorable Theodore Newville to enjoy the society of his charming daughter, who received them with grace ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... of his own predicament. No French inhabitants, however, were allowed to work upon the batteries or fortifications, to walk upon the ramparts, or to frequent the streets after dark without a lantern; and if found abroad after tattoo-beating they were arrested. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... whistling wind, I heard the welcome rain,— A fusillade upon the roof, A tattoo on the pane: The key-hole piped; the chimney-top A warlike trumpet blew; Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife, A ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... said. "The Adelantado drops down the river at eleven. But in passing I'll venture a little prophecy. You're down on your luck now, and a bit hot-hearted in consequence; but some day you will strike it right and come out on top. When you do, you'll be a hard master; tattoo that on your arm somewhere so you'll ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... tattoo on the corrugated iron roof. It dripped into a dozen pools on the soaking floor, it fell in drops which hissed on to the top of the stove. There was no musical instrument of any kind. The tea-tray was cleared away and laid in a ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... and on. Vann Shatrak summoned a robot to furnish him with a cold beer and another cigar. Erskyll was drumming an impatient devil's tattoo with his fingernails on the gold-encrusted table in front of him. Lanze Degbrend began interpolating sarcastic comments. And finally, Pyairr Ravney, who came from Lugaluru, reverted to the idiom of ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... girl with adenoids rocks on her hams. A torrent of song strains at her throat, gurgles, rushes, gouges her blocked pipes. Her feet beat a wild tattoo— head flung back and pelvis lifting to the white body of the sun. Mates now, these two— ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... colonels, generals, all are subject to the orders of their superior officers. All must obey the general in command. You march, drill, eat, sleep, go to bed, and get up by order. At sunrise you hear the reveille, and at nine o'clock in the evening the tattoo. Then the candle, which has been burning in your tent with a bayonet for a candlestick, must be put out. In the dead of night, while sleeping soundly and dreaming of home, you hear the drum-beat. It is the long roll. There is a rattle of musketry. The pickets are ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... same time those Frenchmen lying concealed in front also sprang to do their part of the work. The air was rent with shouts from thousands of throats, though the tattoo of the guns became so insistent that even this sounded faintly, as rain might on ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... interparolad'i, -o; konversacio. tallow : sebo. talon : ungego. tame : dresi; malsovagxa. tan : tan'i, -ilo. tankard : pokalo. tap : krano; frapeti. tape : katunrubando. tar : gudr'o, -umi. tart : torto; acida. task : tasko. taste : gust'o, -umi. tattoo : tatui. tax : imposto. tea : teo. teach : instrui, lernigi. tear : sxiri. tear : larmo. tease : inciteti. tedious : teda, enuiga. tell : rakonti, diri. temper : humoro, karaktero. temperate : sobra, modera. temperature : temperaturo. temple : templo; tempio. tempt : tenti. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... said BULMER to me, while he inserted his thumbs in the arm-openings of his waistcoats, and drummed an approving tattoo upon his shining shirt-front, "my dear boy, I have always been your friend, and nobody knows it better than you. Many a time have I proved it to you, and I can honestly assure you that nothing gives me greater pleasure than to welcome ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... for a rest-cure. Likewise Ratty 'ad got too fa-amous as a timber-scrounger oop th' line, and it was thought that if 'e was left in th' middle of a forest, wheer it didn't matter a dang if he scrounged wood fra' revally to tattoo, it might reform him. But it was deadly dull. We tried a sweepstake f'r th' one as could recognise most Chinks at sight, and a raffle for who could guess how many trees in a circle; but there wasn't much spice in it. So at last Ratty suggested we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... animation, looks much like what he did in the railway-carriage—the same strong-looking man with well-marked cheek-bones, very thick brown hair and bushy brows, a skin rather tanned, and a scar on the bridge of the nose; very strong hands with a tattoo-mark showing on the wrist and an abnormal crop of hair on the back, running on to the fingers, but flawed by a scar or two. Add to this the chief thing you would recollect him by, an Elizabethan beard, and you will have ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... down, when I heard a shot from shore. I straightened up to look. Something struck me on the back of the head, partially stunning me and knocking me to the deck. My first thought was that something had carried away aloft; but even as I went down, and before I struck the deck, I heard the devil's own tattoo of rifles from the boats, and twisting sidewise, I caught a glimpse of the sailor who was standing guard. Two big niggers were holding his arms, and a third nigger from behind was braining ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... to tattoo was playtime for the garrison. Many smartly dressed soldiers, with passes earned by good behavior, went out to find amusement in the city. Visitors, some of them tourists from America, made the rounds under the guidance of old soldiers. The ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... beat a tattoo on the floor: "There is not a soul in the house but you can do the simplest thing. Eyes and no eyes! Fingers and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... was beating a tattoo in the air with his heels. He was occupying a little open space all by himself at ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... neither pity nor mercy in the heart of a setter when he is on the scent of a rabbit, alive or dead—but, Tattine, don't forget they have their good sides, Doctor and Betsy; just think how fond they are of you and me. Why, the very sight of us always makes them beat a tattoo with their tails." ...
— Tattine • Ruth Ogden
... remark, emphasizing with a little tattoo of her teaspoon on the Chippendale tea-tray before her. Manvers studied ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of bed and into his clothes, his teeth beating a tattoo, his knees fighting a boxing-match, and his hands all thumbs with the cold. Then he put on two pairs of trousers, three coats, and an overcoat, two caps, several mufflers, and a pair of heavy mittens over a pair of gloves, ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... third speed, and the motor was taking about all the gasolene it could use. She adjusted the spark to give the best service, and now, as an additional means of inducing speed, she cut out the muffler. The explosions of the motor played a tattoo on the dusty road. ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... O'Grady was silent, and the Misses O'Grady cast fearful sidelong glances at "Pa," whose strange irritation always bespoke his not being in what good people call a "sweet state of mind;" he laid hold of a tea-spoon, and began beating a tattoo on the mantel-piece to a low smothered whistle of some very obscure tune, which was suddenly stopped to ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the quarter-deck beneath the awning, he pulled a large tub from under a boat turned upside down over the deck cabin; and then, while the young monkey had scrambled round to his back, and was beating a tattoo with his tiny fists on his shoulders, Banou caught up a bucket and proceeded to draw water from over the side, which he dashed into the tub. When he had nearly filled the tub he felt around with his black paws as delicately as if he was about to seize ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... noisily for a few minutes, she said she would not be insulted either, and followed her upstairs. Thereupon Mademoiselle Therese's anger knew no bounds, and finding that Marie had taken refuge beside her aunt in the study, she began to beat a lively tattoo upon ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... friend of his Youth and God-Father to his Children. He explained that his Heels were beating a Tattoo on the Ragged Edge of Insolvency, and unless he could raise the Wind, it meant a Receiver over at the Works, his Credit evaporated and ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... the orb of day. The sun has become not only quite sexless to him, but as devoid of personality as it is to any Western materialist. Lesser deities suffered a like unsubstantial transformation. The thunder-god, with his belt of drums, upon which he beats a devil's tattoo until he is black in the face, is no longer even indirectly associated with the storm. As for dryads and nymphs, the beautiful creatures never inhabited Eastern Asia. Anthropoid foxes and raccoons, wholly lacking in those engaging qualities that beget love, ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... a certain jaunty grace, upon her hair, and prepared to dissolve, while he lightly tapped a tattoo upon his leg with the ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... a woman, he leaned forward and asked with satirical politeness, "What will the lady have?" "I wish to speak to the question under discussion," said Miss Anthony calmly, although her heart was beating a tattoo. Turning to the few rows of men in front of him, for the women occupied the back seats, he inquired, "What is the pleasure of the convention?" "I move she shall be heard," said one man; this was seconded by another, and thus was precipitated a debate which lasted half an hour, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... speak in the presence of my lord chief justice 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
... he walked to the telephone, had time to find that his heart was beating a tattoo against his ribs, that his breath was short and fluttery, and that stage fright had suddenly crept over him and claimed him for its own; so it was with no great patience or understanding that he heard Jack tell him in great glee about some tests which Princeman had had made in his own ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... advantage by the suddenness of the meeting, Meldrum gave ground with a muttered oath. The young cattleman nodded to the trio and kept on his way. None of the others knew that his heart was hammering a tattoo against his ribs or that queer little chills chased each ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... to the table on which the paper was symmetrically arranged in a stationery rack, and quickly seating herself, she laid her muff down, half-raised her little veil, and beat a tattoo with her tiny hand on the little black leather blotter before her, then taking off her gloves, she took at random some sheets of paper and some envelopes bearing the address of the establishment on the corners. As she looked around for a pen, Marianne ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... as in a drunken brawl. What had once been the street was now a quarry of broken bricks, with here and there vast circular craters as though a gigantic oak-tree had been torn out of the earth by the roots. And now the weird silence was broken by sounds as of some one playing a lonely tattoo with his fingers upon a hollow wooden board, but the player was invisible, and as we looked at each other the sound ceased as suddenly as it began. Our practised ear told us that somewhere near us a machine-gun was concealed, but these furtive sounds were ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... and, pointing toward the heart near the chest, throw the hand forward and to the right once, twice, or many times, through an arc of about six inches. (Dakota IV.) "Some say they use this sign because these Indians tattoo ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... Indian corn. They dry bluets [75] and raspberries, in which they carry on an extensive traffic with the other tribes, taking in exchange skins, beads, nets, and other articles. Some of these people pierce the nose, and attach beads to it They tattoo their bodies, applying black and other colors. They wear their hair very straight, and grease it, painting it red, as they do also ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... said to be the instigators of this "most bloody business" and the leading lady's photograph warranted the assertion. Her face was tattooed and was curiously like a Red Indian's. I have read in a book that the Chins tattoo their wives' faces to prevent them being stolen for their beauty! I gather this punitive expedition that we have come across unexpectedly, was carried out without a shot being fired, so it won't be in the papers. The wicked chief and his wives awoke one morning to find their village being looked ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... midst of his 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 ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... the stables were lit up like a chandelier; there was a staccato rattle of horseshoes in the stable yard, and the great gates were opening as we skimmed past in the nick of time. In another minute we were skulking in the shadow of the kitchen-garden wall while the high-road rang with the dying tattoo ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... of for years, raising his eyes he had met that person face to face. And a presentiment that he should meet his neighbor under the wistaria arbor grew stronger and stronger, until, as he turned into the broad, southeastern entrance to the Park, his heart began beating an uneasy, expectant tattoo under his ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... of the Welcome Hotel has invented an ingenious system of calling sleepy guests. The other night a man left instructions that he wished to be called early. Next morning he was disturbed by a loud tattoo upon the door. "Well?" he demanded sharply. "I've got a message for you, sir." Yawning until he strained his face, the guest jumped out of bed and unlocked the door. The bellboy handed him an envelope and then went away quickly. The guest opened the envelope, ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... original book contained a diagram of a tattoo, and another diagram appeared in Chapter XX. Text has been added to substitute ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... effect of lowering his spirits. It might well have been the abode of monsters or demons in a child's wonder tale, creatures that only dared to come out under cover of darkness. He groped for the bell-handle, or knocker, and finding neither, he raised his stick and beat a loud tattoo on the door. The sound echoed away in an empty space on the other side and the wind moaned past him between the pillars as if startled at his audacity. But there was no sound of approaching footsteps and no one came to open the door. Again he beat a tattoo, louder ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... tattoo and circumcise. They determine the days of rest and of ceremony for the pueblo, and all pueblo ceremonies are in their hands; so also are the ceremonies of the ato — only men are "priests," except for private ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... and pressed her palms to her eyeballs, so firmly that when she removed them, the room was a blur. Maurice, standing at the window, beat a tattoo on the pane. Then, with his back to her, he began to speak. He blamed himself for what he called the folly of the past weeks. "I gave way when I should have been firm. And this is the result. You have got into a nervous, morbid state. But it's nonsense ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... a drawer of his writing-table, so that he might find it again when necessary, but he did not put it in his breast pocket. And then he sat for some time doing nothing, looking before him, with his legs stretched out and his hand beating a little tattoo upon the table. "Well: well? well!" That was about what he said to himself, but it meant a great deal: it meant a vague but great disappointment, a sort of blank and vacuum expressed by the first of these words—and then it meant a question of great importance ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... could it be? by which I was obligated to put on my big-coat, and, with my hat and staff, go out to enquire. The whole town was aloof, the aged at the doors in clusters, and the bairns following the tattoo, as it was called, and at every doubling beat of the drum, shouting as if they had been in the face of ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... headquarters are at Cortachy Castle, is haunted by the phantasm of a drummer that beats a tattoo before the death of one of the members of the clan. There is no question as to the genuineness of this haunting, its actuality is beyond dispute. All sorts of theories as to the origin of this ghostly drummer ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... 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, and the midnight gale had ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... 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 you to fix ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... heard the first sparrow sing that morning and the first screaming of the circling hawks, and about seven o'clock the first drumming of my little friend. His first notes were uncertain and at long intervals, but by and by he warmed up and beat a lively tattoo. As the season advanced he ceased to lodge in his old quarters. I would rap and find nobody at home. Was he out on a lark, I said, the spring fever working in his blood? After a time his drumming grew less frequent, and finally, in ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... different countries the teeth are stained black, red, blue, etc., and in the Malay Archipelago it is thought shameful to have white teeth "like those of a dog." Not one great country can be named, from the polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves. This practice was followed by the Jews of old, and by the ancient Britons. In Africa some of the natives tattoo themselves, but it is a much more common practice to raise protuberances by rubbing salt into incisions made in various ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... have seemed to them a different race of beings; nor was their wonder at all abated when Miago threw open his shirt, and showed them his breast curiously scarred after their fashion—for this custom of cutting stripes upon the body, as other savages tattoo it, by way of ornament, seems universally to prevail throughout Australia—as a convincing evidence that he, though now the associate of the white man, belonged to the same country as themselves. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... the night were coming apace, The tattoo had beat; the tattoo had beat. The noble one sprang from his dark hiding-place, To make his retreat; to make ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... two little, futile, frenzied fists began to beat a mad tattoo on Jo Hertz's broad back. Jo tried to turn in the crowd, all ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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 firebrand by the unburnt ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... stood waiting for something to happen. The Duke, the oak, and I were silence personified. A dead branch would crack, or the trunks of smaller and ignorant pines would knock together, and the Duke would look around the corner and say "Chut!" in a low voice, thinking I was playing a tattoo ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... a 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 ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 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 of ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... men were busy with the search, was sprawling in one of the big leather-covered chairs, on the arms of which his dirty finger-nails were beating an impatient devil's tattoo. He was at no pains to conceal the intense disappointment which he would experience, were his errand ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... crick, crick, crick, crick, crack, crack. In three seconds ten heads were broken, with a sound just like glass bottles, under the short, deadly truncheon, and there lay half a dozen ruffians writhing on the ground and beating the Devil's tattoo with their heels. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... charms had seen their prime, and the system 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, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... and 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the helmet. Some negresses use false tails as well as false locks, as our belles do, the long flowing curls being preferred by the sooty Nigritian beauties, in spite of such an ornament being unnatural to them. These ladies, however, neither paint nor tattoo their faces, and in general, painting with red and white is not used by the Libyan and Oriental beauties. In Algeria, however, some of the Mooresses have learnt to paint from their new mistresses, as an acquirement of French civilization in Africa. Dr. Shaw is ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... out from under the arm that rested across her forehead, realized how her last night's breach of authority had impressed each one of them. And secretly rejoicing at her triumph, she kept up a brisk tattoo. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... campfires, into which they were throwing everything superfluous, made the eyes smart. It was cold and dark. The officers were hurriedly drinking tea and breakfasting, the soldiers, munching biscuit and beating a tattoo with their feet to warm themselves, gathering round the fires throwing into the flames the remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels, tubs, and everything that they did not want or could not carry away with them. Austrian column guides were moving in and out ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... degeneration, such as asymmetry of the face; large outstanding and flattened ears; 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 blood ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... hospitable officers, and I was one who strolled up to "the store" after dark. There we found the major, and Captain Frazer, and Captain Jennings, and most of the youngsters, but Baker was absent. Of course the talk soon drifted to and settled on "Starlight Ranch," and by tattoo most of the garrison crowd were talking like so many Prussians, all at top-voice and all at once. Every man seemed to have some theory of his own with regard to the peculiar conduct of Mr. Burnham, but no one dissented from the quiet remark ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... with his fingers on the table what they used to call the "devil's tattoo," regarding me with steady, half-shut eyes—a too frequent and not well-mannered way he had, and one I much disliked. He said nothing, nor had he a chance, for I instantly answered the colonel: "My ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... He was one of the sailor boys on Joby's van. You remember their helping us with the luggage at Indian Queens'? He showed me his tattoo ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 hoofs ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... my task with a steady perseverance for nearly an hour, but other things distracted me and I could not succeed with it. I laid one cheek pensively in the palm of my idle hand and with the other, which held my busy pencil, I played a random tattoo on my desk. Before me on my paper was a confused multitude of a's and y's and z's which I had failed to master with any satisfaction, although I had repeated many a patient ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... —Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were Iying becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton. Fellow, the name of Antonio, done that. There he ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... 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 them ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... last resorted to to ease conscience and evade the law. In this case, strange to say, it had its effect. After some parleying, it was agreed to share the booty equally between the guard and ourselves. They helped us cut brush and cover it nicely, and after tattoo all were to return and divide up. We did not know the guards personally, but knew their command. And so we returned to the camp to await the return of our pickets and night. It was soon noised in camp that there was a fine fat porker to be distributed after tattoo, and no little eagerness ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... 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 ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... base-drum; kettle-drum; tabor, taborine. Associated Words: reveille, rappel, chamade, ruff, tattoo, ruffle, roll, rataplan, drummer, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... accord, everybody rushed up-stairs. The sounds seemed to come from Eunice's room. As they opened the door, a cloud of dust poured out, from a mass of plaster that lay on the floor, while from a hole in the ceiling a length of black-stockinged leg kicked wildly. Above, a pair of fists beat a tattoo on the floor, while Cricket ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... for the lady, and felt for my hat too, Improvised on the crown of the latter a tattoo, In lieu of expressing the feelings which lay Quite too deep for words, as Wordsworth would say: Then, without going through the form of a bow, Found myself in the entry,—I hardly knew how,— On doorstep and sidewalk, past lamp-post and square, At home ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Meanwhile the tattoo had sounded in the village square. The people had returned from their work. The herd lowed as in clouds of golden dust it crowded at the village gate. The girls and the women hurried through the streets and yards, turning in their cattle. The sun had ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... The tattoo of hoofbeats was slowing up now, and the cloud of dust was not so heavy. It was gradually blowing away. Tom Swift walked down to the fence that separated the house, grounds and shops from the road. As he got there the sounds of the ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... curbed his blood-thirsty proclivities. Leaving his countryman to beat his devil's tattoo on the submarine commander, Terence leaped to the open scuttle just in time to bang another head as it appeared on a ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... came about in this way. I was anxious to turn in early and get a little sleep if possible, but could not do so, as I had to report "all present and correct" at tattoo. Anyhow, I strolled down to our hut at nine o'clock and found that the poor gunner alluded to already was in great pain, writhing about and groaning horribly. One of his chums who was with him told me he could not find a doctor, and the chaplain, who had looked in, had said that he could not ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... branch of the Malayo-Polynesian family. The New 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. The ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... windows, the girls and women having heavy shocks of unkempt hair shading their great black eyes, high cheek-bones, and disfigured mouths and chins, which last are tattooed in blue dye of some sort. The males tattoo the whole face elaborately, but the women disfigure themselves thus only about the mouth and chin. It is most amusing to see them meet one another and rub noses, which is the Maori mode of salutation. This race has some very peculiar habits: they never ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou |
