"Tat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... husband, for that he did what he did in his shop, and God hath retaliated upon him in this world.' And it is related that the goldsmith, when his wife told him how the water-carrier had used her, said, 'Tit for tat! If I had done more, the water-carrier had done more.' And this became a current byword among ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... apparent dullness and stubbornness. I am always infuriated by stupid people who regret the disappearance of sharp, stern, peremptory punishments, and lament the softness of the rising generation. If punishment must be inflicted, it should be done good-naturedly and robustly as a natural tit-for-tat. Anger should be reserved for things like spitefulness and dishonesty and cruelty. There is nothing more utterly confusing to the childish mind than to have trifling faults treated with wrath and indignation. It ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... such a distressed plight, I forthwith told him over again the tale of the snake, in precisely the same words as I have related it in the first part of this history. After which, I said, "Now, Murtagh, tit for tat; ye will be telling me one of the old stories of Finn-ma-Coul." "Och, Shorsha! I haven't heart enough," said Murtagh. "Thank you for your tale, but it makes me weep; it brings to my mind Dungarvon times of old—I mean the times we were at school together." "Cheer up, man," ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... and we listen to the artillery of both sides and for the rat-tat-tat of the Bolo machine guns when our forces move on the bridgehead. We hurry on. The battle is joined. Pine woods roar and reverberate with roar. By taking a nearer blazed trail we may come out to the railway somewhere ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... something under his breath, and, in a mechanical fashion, began to build little castles with the draughts. He was just about to add to an already swaying structure when a thundering rat-tat- tat at the door dispersed the draughts to the four corners of the room. The servant opened the door, and the next moment ushered ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... slammed the kitchen door behind him when the clatter and stamp of a horse's hoofs were heard Outside, followed by an impatient rat-a-tat-tat on the knocker. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... furnishers of funerals, Mr. Mould and Messrs. Omer and Joram. All the mixed mirth and sadness of the story are skilfully drawn into the handling of this portion of it; and, amid wooings and preparations for weddings and church-ringing bells for baptisms, the steadily-going rat-tat of the hammer on the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... constantly uppermost with him. "Blood for blood", and "life for life", and such like balanced jingles, have passed current in people's mouths, from legislators downwards, until they have been corrupted into "tit for tat", and ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... a rat-tat at the door, the sound of a letter falling on the mat, and Fanning the postman passed on. George leaned back quickly so that he might not see him. Mr Griffith fetched the letter, opened it with trembling hands.... He gave a ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... tomb en route dans une embuscade de voltigeurs corses[2]. Aprs une vigoureuse dfense, il tait parvenu faire sa retraite, vivement poursuivi et tiraillant de rocher en rocher. Mais il avait peu d'avance sur les soldats, et sa blessure le mettait hors d'tat de gagner le ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... the non-pear-bearing peach-tree in the columns of their valuable journal? This is the drift of the fault found with Thackeray. He is not Fenelon, he is not Dickens, he is not Scott; he is not poetical, he is not ideal, he is not humane; he is not Tit, he is not Tat, complain the eminent Dabs and Tabs. Of course he is not, because he is Thackeray—a man who describes what he sees, motives as well as appearances—a man who believes that character is better than talent—that there is a worldly weakness superior to worldly ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... for tat; but he felt bitterly how even his past rose up against him. He had fought and sacrificed everything to improve the conditions in his branch; and the machines were the discouraging answer that the development gave to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... under his breath, and, in a mechanical fashion, began to build little castles with the draughts. He was just about to add to an already swaying structure when a thundering rat-tat-tat at the door dispersed the draughts to the four corners of the room. The servant opened the door, and the next moment ushered in ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... The General Post Office is a vast mechanism for the distribution of tragedy, comedy, melodrama, and farce throughout the country and throughout the world. To whose door has not Destiny come in the disguise of a postman, and slipped its decree, with a double rat-tat, into the letter-box? Whose heart has not sickened as he heard the postman's footstep pass his door without pausing? Whose hand has not trembled as he opened a letter? Whose face has not blanched as he took in its import, almost without reading the words? Why, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... said the boy, 'but they calls me "Tat" for short, because I used to hang about outside Tattersall's and run errands. I picked up most of my education there. There ain't many of 'em as can teach me anything.' He broke off short in his confidences at the sound of a heavy shuffling footstep on the stairs. 'Oh, my!' he cried, 'this ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... willed you money lately, Martha. Either that or keepin' boarders must pay pretty well.' 'Yes,' said I, 'it does. The cost of livin is comin' down all the time.' Oh, I'm havin' a beautiful game of tit-for-tat with Raish." ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... him, smiled inwardly. No Dovenilid could be so obviously superior and still only a lowly student. Well, considering Harrison's qualifications, it might still not be tit for tat. ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... tat," said Dink, "but it wuz a mighty close call fer me. When the bullet whizzed past my ear I thought I was ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... you can be, And undergoes a deal of Misery, To give your wanton Appetites content, [*?] feeding you with Flesh, altho' in Lent: Therefore as the old Woman very Tart Once said, when against Thunder she did Fart, 'Twas only tit for tat, so if the Men Do clap the Whores, and Whores Claps them agen, Tis only tit for tat; tis very true, What's good for Goose is ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... one belonging to a separate salmon of gigantic size fresh run from the sea. The foaming Black Water tumbled headlong over its rocks and down its narrow channel. DONALD, the big keeper, stood industriously upon the bank arranging flies. "I hef been told," he observed, "tat ta English will be coming to Styornoway, and there will be no more Gaelic spoken. But perhaps it iss not true, for they will tell many lies. I am a teffle of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... Articles, Homilies, or Reformers; in the sense that, if they had a right to speak loud, I had the liberty to speak out as well as they, and had the means, by the same or parallel appeals, of giving them tit for tat. I thought that the Anglican Church was tyrannized over by a mere party, and I aimed at bringing into effect the promise contained in the motto to the Lyra, "They shall know the difference now." I only asked to be allowed ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... tat-tat" of the great crimson-crested woodpecker hammering just for noisy fun on the wide cornice of the "mansion," with the summer sun shining in through the window, and the five o'clock bell pealing sharply from Strieby Hall, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 • Various
... grilled undercut before him, when he heard the postman's steps hurrying around the Crescent. He rose with a certain quick deliberateness, and, going out into the hall, opened the front door just in time to avoid the rat-tat-tat. Then, the one letter he had expected duly in his hand, he waited till he had sat down again in front of his still empty plate before he broke the seal and glanced over ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... her; and there came the loud rat-tat of the lawyer at the front door. They ran into the drawing-room and Eglantine opened the window gently. The detective knocked at the back door; the lawyer knocked again, louder. Pollyooly leaned out of the window, ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... sleeping. A night attack was evidently under way, and it is always an eerie sensation. We correctly surmised that the Turks were in retreat from Khan Baghdadi and had run into our outposts. In a few minutes we were replying in volume, and the rat-tat-tats of the machine-guns on either side were continuous. The enemy must have greatly overestimated our numbers, for in a short time small groups started surrendering, and before things had quieted we had twelve hundred prisoners. The cavalry formed a rough prison-camp ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... Hindustanee dada; Latin, atta, tatta; Greek atta, tatta; Albanian, Albania, at, atti; Calabria and Sicily tata; Celtic, Welsh tad; Cornish and Bret tat; Irish, daid; Gaelic daidein; English (according to Skeats of Welsh) dad, daddy; Old Slav, tata otici; Moldavian tata; Wallachian tate; Polish tatus; Bohemian, Servian Croatian otsche; Lithuanian teta; Preuss thetis; Gothic ata; ...
— The Dakotan Languages, and Their Relations to Other Languages • Andrew Woods Williamson
... off, in company with M. Grimod, to visit it. She spent six weeks there, during which she wrote several letters to her husband, and cherished his answers as before. But we shall not follow the example of the Memoire, in repeating all these tit-for-tat endearments, but pursue our own object, which is to trace the style of occupation of people of their rank. And here we must observe, that, as far as we see in this process, the whole occupation of the Grimods ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... lighted a cigar, when he was startled by a stealthy knocking at his door. He was not unaccustomed to late visitors, as he was known to live at his chambers, and to work after office-hours; but the knocking of to-night was not the loud rollicking rat-a-tat of his jolly-good-fellow friends or clients. If he had been a student of light literature, and imbued with the ghostly associations of the season, he would have gone to his door expecting to behold a weird figure clothed in the vestments of the last century; ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Forest he found Drummer the Woodpecker making a great racket on the hollow limb of an old chestnut. Sammy sat down near by and listened. "My, that's fine! I wish I could do that. You must be practising," said Sammy at the end of a long rat-a-tat-tat. ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... dass der Erfinder den Eisenring einfach mit isoliertem Drahte bewickelte und in geeigneter Weise auf der Welle befestigte und so den ganzen Anker vor den Polen des Feldmagneten rotieren liess. In der Tat[6] wurde dadurch dieselbe, von ihm wohl[7] nicht vorhergesehene Wirkung erzielt, als wenn der Eisenkern oder die Drahtspirale fr sich allein rotierten. Durch die Einwirkung der Pole des Feldmagneten werden nmlich[8] auch in dem rotierenden ...
— German Science Reader - An Introduction to Scientific German, for Students of - Physics, Chemistry and Engineering • Charles F. Kroeh
... Richard, who was of the Episcopal Church, for the celebration of Christmas; for many of his persuasion, at that time, regarded "Thanksgiving" pretty much as the Highlander, in Scott's novel, did "ta little government Sunday, tat tey call ta Fast." He was a well-to-do farmer, at a place within easy reach of the town in which we lived, and where very few were at all rich, even according to the former moderate standard of wealth, ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... not be ketting to ta inside of her," returned the seer. "Ah, my poy! where ta light kets in, ta tarkness will pe ketting in too. This now, your whole pody will pe full of tarkness, as ta Piple will say, and Tuncan's pody tat will pe full of ta light." Then with suddenly changed tone he said, "Listen, Malcolm, my son! Shell pe ferry uneasy till you'll ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... at the clock, wondering if it could possibly be the postman already, found it was only ten minutes past four, and dismissed the supposition with a sigh. "I don't—think—I want—" she was beginning slowly, when, of a sudden, there came a tremendous rat-tat-tat on the schoolroom door; the handle was not turned, but burst open; a blast of chilly air blew into the room, and in the doorway stood a tall, handsome youth, with square shoulders, a gracefully poised head, and Peggy Saville's eave-like brows ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... his friend, old Arthur. 'Precisely what made me consider the thing so fair and easy. There is no obligation on either side. You have money, and Miss Madeline has beauty and worth. She has youth, you have money. She has not money, you have not youth. Tit for tat, quits, a match ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... ways. A storm of shells was breaking round certain points in the road and particularly at the entrance to The Wood. I wondered what had become of the audience at the concert. Various sounds, transit of shells, bursting of shells, crashing of near-by cannon, and rat-tat-tat-tat! of mitrailleuses played the treble to a roar formed of echoes and cadences—the roar of battle. The Wood of Death (Le Bois de la ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... did not visit the Priory that day, but on the morrow, after lunch, I took my heavy stick and strode up the gravel path and gave a very important rat-a-tat-tat at the great oak door. The servant who answered my summons informed me, much to my disappointment, that both Mr. Johnson and his son had gone to Liverpool the previous day, the former to see the latter off. Something of importance, the servant thought, had ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... the mallards; On the bare oak the red-robin sings, and the crocuses peep on the prairies, And the bobolink pipes, but he brings, of the blue-eyed, brave White Chief, no tidings. With the waning of winter, alas, waned the life of the aged Tatpsin; Ere the blue pansies peeped from the grass, to the Land of the Spirits he journeyed; Like a babe in its slumber he passed, or the snow from the hill tops in April; And the dark-eyed Winona, at last, stood alone by the graves of her kindred. When their myriad mouths opened the trees to ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... A rat-tat-tat-tat ensued, and the Earl of Harcourt was announced. When he had paid his compliments to Mrs. Cholmondeley, speaking of the lady from whose house he ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... now black puffs appear in its path, the dynamite shells of our guns finding their range. Boom! boom! rat-ta-tat-boom-rat-ta-tat is the music that greets our ears and every hill is a tremble under the shock of ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... pleaseth me, I leave on one side the love I bear my wife and take of the other such pleasure as I may.' 'And I,' quoth another, 'do likewise, for that if I believe that my wife pusheth her fortunes [in my absence,] she doth it, and if I believe it not, still she doth it; wherefore tit for tat be it; an ass still getteth as good as he giveth.'[132] A third, following on, came well nigh to the same conclusion, and in brief all seemed agreed upon this point, that the wives they left behind had no mind ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... parabrahmanukara/h/ smaryate ida/m/ j/n/anam upasritya, &c.—Ke/k/id anuk/ri/tes tasya /k/api smaryate iti /k/a sutradvayam adhikara/n/antara/m/ tam eva bhantam anubhati sarva/m/ tasya bhasa sarvam ida/m/ vibhatity asya/h/ /s/rute/h/ parabrahmaparatvanir/n/ayaya prav/ri/tta/m/ vadanti. Tat tv ad/ris/yatvadigu/n/ako dharmokte/h/ dyubhvadyayatana/m/ sva/s/abdad ity adhi kara/n/advayena tasya prakara/n/asya brahmavishayatvapratipadanat jyoti/sk/ara/n/abhidhanat ity adishu parasya brahma/n/o bharupatvavagates ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... Rat-a-tat-tat. Swaths of dead and dying men rolled in the dust, and, as wheat falls under the reaper's blade, the mob melted away in lines and by battalions. Within thirty seconds the whole terrain was piled with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... where, sitting in a bare passage on a frayed damask sofa surmounted by theatrical posters and faced by a bed with a plum-coloured counterpane, we listened for a while to the jingle of telephones, the rat-tat of typewriters, the steady hum of dictation and the coming and going of hurried despatch-bearers and orderlies. The extension to the permit was presently delivered with the courteous request that we should ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... upon hot-temper: and never would act at all when Ricciarelli, the first man, was to be in dialogue with her.(623) Her fevers grow so high, that the audience caught them, and hissed her more than once: she herself once turned and hissed again—Tit pro tat geminat phoy d'achamiesmeyn—among the treaties which a secretary of state has negotiated this summer, he has contracted for a succedaneum to the Mingotti. In short, there is a woman hired to sing when the other shall be- out ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... familiarity. I jerked my head in hurriedly, and, shutting the window, turned my attention to Little Lottie. It was not long before my tea-kettle was singing merrily. I was about to sit down to the first meal in my new abode, when an insinuating rat-tat sounded on the door. I opened it to find the ill-looking young fellow leaning languidly against the door-jamb, ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... fish, a pair of canoeists could not be thus vulgarly explained away; we were strange and picturesque intruders; and out of people's wonder sprang a sort of light and passing intimacy all along our route. There is nothing but tit- for-tat in this world, though sometimes it be a little difficult to trace: for the scores are older than we ourselves, and there has never yet been a settling-day since things were. You get entertainment pretty much in proportion as you give. ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... behind piles of triplanes and helicopters and following-surface monoplanes which the wizard inventor, C. Ericson, was creating and ruthlessly destroying.... A small boy was squalling in the seat opposite, and Carl took him from his tired mother and lured him into a game of tit-tat-toe. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... developed, completely automated and efficient system, mainly buried cables domestic: nationwide cellular telephone system; buried cable international: 3 channels leased on TAT-6 coaxial submarine ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... whole scene resembled a "stunt on the pictures" rather than modern war. They had made a mistake, though, and if they were seeking dramatic effect it was only short lived. Our men were delighted at the perfect target they presented on the skyline, and rat-tat-tatted merrily in reply to the Hun swish. By this time also "D" company of the Machine Gun battalion had taken up a position and they also joined in the conversation. The enemy then considered the advisability of concealment, and he disappeared from view. Small ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... property on Francoise, you shall sign a deed of partnership with Sechard in two days. I shall not be married for a week after the contract is signed, so we shall both be within the terms of our little agreement, tit for tat. To-night, however, we must keep a close watch over Lucien and Mme. la Comtesse du Chatelet, for the whole business lies in that. . . . If Lucien hopes to succeed through the Countess' influence, I ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... preached. He was so long-winded, I got awful tired, and, anyway, he was talking about things I couldn't understand, so I played tit-tat-x with one of the Markdale boys. It was the day I was sitting ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... interview came at last. Mrs. Ready had been absent on a visit to London; and the moment she heard of the intended emigration of the Lyndsays to Canada, she put on her bonnet and shawl, and rushed to the rescue. The loud, double rat-tat-tat at the door, announced an arrival ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... you are at Saxon's and my wedding supper. We're just goin' to take all your good wishes to heart, we wish you the same back, and when we say it we mean more than you think we mean. Saxon an' I believe in tit for tat. So we're wishin' for the day when the table is turned clear around an' we're sittin' as guests at your weddin' supper. And then, when you come to Sunday dinner, you can both stop Saturday night in the spare bedroom. I guess I was wised up ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... creak of the garden-gate, as he waited for the last post. When at length a step was heard crunching on the gravel, he rushed from the room, and Mrs. Cohn heard the hall-door open. Her ear, disappointed of the rat-tat, morbidly followed every sound; but it seemed a long time before her boy's returning footstep reached her. The strange, slow drag of it worked upon her nerves, and her heart ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Rat-a-tat-tat! Jack hardly comprehended what this new noise meant when it grew in volume. Then a horseman rode into the yard ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... good, I fear I made but an indifferent bad ploughboy when walking, and found a difficulty in dealing with my hands, not knowing how ploughboys are wont to carry them. So I came round in front of the house, and gave a rat-tat on the door, while my pulse beat as loud inside of me as ever did the knocker without. The sound ran round the building, and backwards among the walks, and all was silent as before. I waited a minute, and was for knocking again, thinking there might be no one in the house, and then ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... . . . And now they 'ave it all in shape, and swingin' sweet and clear; And now they're all excited like, but—I am drawin' near; And now they 'ave it loaded up, and now they're takin' aim. . . . Rat-tat-tat-tat! Oh here, says I, is where I join the game. And my right arm it goes swingin', and a bomb it goes a-slingin', And that "typewriter" goes wingin' in a ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... "Tit for tat," exclaimed. Bumpus; "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. After this we'll call it off, fellows, remember. It was give and take, and now ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... knocker of the house-door sounded an unusual summons, a rat-tat, not loud indeed, but distinct from the knocks wont to be ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... louder came the rat-tat-tat. We all gazed expectantly at the closed door. Glancing at Holmes I saw his face turn rigid, and he leaned forward in intense excitement. Then suddenly came a low gurgling, gargling sound and a brisk drumming upon woodwork. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... he ish tet. Dey say he ish oud mid his het, und tat looksh mighty pad. But one ting ish goot; dey cotch ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... commence la digestion de la viande, rsulte de l'action du suc gastrique acide sur le tissu connectif qui se dissout d'abord, et qui, par sa liqufaction, dsagrge les fibrilles. Celles-ci se dissolvent ensuite en grande partie, mais, avant de passer l'tat liquide, elles tendent se briser en petits fragments transversaux. Les 'sarcous elements' de Bowman, qui ne sont autre chose que les produits de cette division transversale des fibrilles lmentaires, peuvent ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... violence that every one expected they would fall in pieces." For an hour together, as the worthy Mr. Mompesson repeated to his wondering neighbours, this infernal drummer "would beat 'Roundheads and Cuckolds,' the 'Tat-too,' and several other points of war, as cleverly as any soldier." When this had lasted long enough, he changed his tactics, and scratched with his iron talons under the children's bed. "On the 5th of November," says the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, "it made ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... hardly spoken when there was a loud rat-tat at the front door, and Jack Glover hastened into the hall to answer. But it was not the policeman he had expected. It was a girl in a big sable coat, muffled up to her eyes. She pushed past Jack, crossed the hall, and ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... charter as settling the true meaning of the corresponding clause of Magna Carta, on the principle tat laws and charters on the same subject are to be construed with reference to each other. See 3 Christin's ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... tat, tat, tat, tat, tat! above our heads. Three Hun aeroplanes right on top of us; Eric drives headlong in a spiral curve at full speed, smoke trailing out behind. The gun! I fumble. Can't ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... for Democracy and People's Livelihood or ADPL [Frederick FUNG Kin-kee, chairman]; Citizens Party [Alex CHAN Kai-chung]; Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong or DAB [MA Lik, chairman]; Democratic Party [LEE Wing-tat, chairman]; Frontier Party [Emily LAU Wai-hing, chairwoman]; Liberal Party [James TIEN Pei-chun, chairman] note: political blocs include: pro-democracy - Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood, Democratic Party, Frontier ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... he started sweeping we would be down like a flash, and wait till Fritz quit. Fat would be in a shell hole almost as soon as the first shot was fired, and would laugh at Bink looking for a hole to hide in. Bink would get sore; all you could hear was the rat-tat-tat of the machine gun and in between "Tee hee, tee hee" from Fat as he lay and watched Bink crawling around looking for a hole. Some of the boys would lie in the hole and wave their legs in the air ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... her pudding, and Poppy had that moment succeeded in inveigling Angela into the cupboard under the stairs and turning the key on her, when footsteps came up the path, a letter dropped in through the letter-box, and a postman's rat-tat sounded to the furthermost corner of the ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that it's en tat de partir, and Bayley's going to take him at his word and have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... you should sigh about that," answered Colonel Faversham. "I mean to be kind to you as long as I live, and I hope that will be a good many years yet. But there's nothing like tit for tat, you know, Bridget. Come, now, my darling, I want you ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... last night when Dan got sick," said Felix maliciously. Felicity had told him at tea that night he was getting fatter than ever. This was his tit-for-tat. "You were pretty glad to leave it ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... position we were able to sustain without loss a brisk fire of explosive missives which continued unchecked for some weeks. Speaking quite candidly, and dropping the language of the Press Bureau for the moment, there has never been a time when the postman's rat-tat ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... anxiously than ever. The tell-tale thump of the oars had ceased. The only sounds in the bayou were the trickle of water from the tidal pools, the wind in the tree-tops, the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker, and the scream of a bob-cat. With a foolish air of chagrin, Trimble Rogers rubbed ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... most famous of the twelve paladins of Charlemagne. To give a "Roland for an Oliver" is to give tit for tat, to give another as good a drubbing as ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the time came to elect Smith's successor, he was turned out-of-doors by Brigham Young with the taunting words, "Brother Sidney says he will tell our secrets, but I would say, ' 'O don't, Brother Sidney! Don't tell our secrets—O don't.' But if he tells our secrets we will tell his. Tit for tat! President Fairchild's argument that several of the original leaders of the fanaticism must have been "adequate to the task" of supplying the doctrinal part of the book, only furnishes additional proof of his ignorance of early Mormon history, and his further assumption that "it is difficult—almost ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... that very minute, "Rat-tat-tat" sounded Grannie's stick on the woodwork of the room where ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Woodpecker was beating his long roll on a hollow tree in the Green Forest. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat! Drummer thought it the most beautiful sound in the world. After each long roll he would stop and listen for a reply. You see, sometimes one of his family in another part of the Green Forest, or over in the Old Orchard, ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet 115 Thet follered once an' now are quiet,— White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o' ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... dependent. As a child it would cut me to the quick; but as I got older and made my visits at Cousin George's, I would retaliate by making game of my older cousin; and no one can abide being made fun of. I tell you I gave her tit for tat and usually came out ahead. But we must stop this whispering. Your mother can't stand any criticism of her sister. Some day we can get together and say all the mean things we've a mind to about old Sarah!" Then the marchioness was transformed ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... Vaishnavas as the three Prasthanas or starting-points of philosophy and he had to show that they supported his views. Hence his interpretation often seems forced and perverse. The most extraordinary instance of this is his explanation of the celebrated phrase in the Chandogya Upanishad Sa atma tat tvam asi. He reads Sa atma atat tvam asi and considers that it means "You are not that God. Why be so conceited as to suppose that you are?"[598] Monotheistic texts have often received a mystical and pantheistic interpretation. The Old Testament and ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... worked, but I studied with a will, too, and passed a score of mates. That was easy enough, for home study was never dreamed of by most of them, and leisure hours in school were passed in marking "tit-tat-to" upon slates or eating apples under the friendly shelter ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... tat. Did you not ask me why I came away? And is it usual for a young lady to say 'Mr.' to the ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... by Dan's ear, and another spurted up the chalk dust a few feet ahead of Dennis, and as the vicious rat-tat of the machine-gun farther down the trench opened, they found themselves at the edge of a deep crump-hole, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... Phxdria, you retort With Pamphila. If ever she suggest, 'Do let us have in Phudria to our revel:' Quoth you, 'And let us call on Pamphila To sing a song.' If she shall praise his looks, Do you praise hers to match them: and, in fine, Give tit for tat, that you may sting ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... child!' but though Stella was eagerly pointing and explaining, 'Tat Tella's boat—tat Tedo's—tat brothers—tat Angel,' and so on, the word foolish was not directed to the little one, but to the gray eyes heavy with unshed tears, that rested wistfully upon a wreck that had caught upon a nail and lay rent ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Tit-tat-toe! My first go; Three jolly butcher boys all in a row! Stick one up, Stick one down, Stick one ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... in the trade and knew how others had fared. I grant, in many cases, it was tit-for-tat, the man injured had done his best to injured others. With few exceptions the entire trade were "birds ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... it. It was tit for tat, I think. That's the way I look at it. At any rate we are living together now, and no one can say we're ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... do now. Look at that little villain, Richards. He has just cleared the table, and done it with all the coolness of a professional marker. The young scoundrel ought to have been in bed two hours ago, for I hear that tat of his is really a good one. Not that it will make any difference to him. That sort of boy would play billiards till the first bugle sounds in the morning, and have a wash and turn out as fresh as paint, but it won't last, Doolan, not in this climate; his cheeks will have ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... the ring. And he remembers Bob killing the cat and tying its tail to the fence to see him kick before he died. He and Bob and a lot of the fellows all together in Smith's field, I think he said. Bob knew Smith. And the way they played tit-tat-too on the window pane on All Hallows' Eve, and they got caught that night too." (At Barking, where my uncles lived as children, there is a field called Smith's field, but my Uncle does not remember the cat incident.) "Aunt Anne wants to know about her sealskin cloak. Who ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... machine gun "rat-tat-tat-tated" close to us, and three rockets, like a flight of startled birds, rose suddenly together on ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... grim, so like a beggar, ne'er had trod that path before. His shirt was torn, his hat was gone, bare and begrimed his knees, Face with blood and dirt disfigured, elbows peeped from out his sleeves. Rat-tat-tat, upon the entrance, brought Aunt Hannah to the door; Parched lips humbly plead for water, as she scanned his misery o'er; Wrathful came the dame's quick answer; made him cower, shame, and start Out of sight, despairing, saddened, hurt and angry to the heart. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... the places where the youth of her allies fell, avenging outrage. Seas, even when calmest, were to become terrible, and men's heart-beats, a bit sluggish with the fatty degeneration of a sluggard peace, to quicken and then to throb with the rat-a-tat-tat, the rat-a-tat-tat of the most peremptory, the most reverberating call to arms in the ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... the painter closed with him at once, ashamed and humbled at this miserable chaffering, glad also to get a little money now and then. But this time he was obstinate, and took to insulting the picture-dealer, who, giving tit for tat, all at once dropped the formal 'you' to assume the glib 'thou,' denied his talent, overwhelmed him with invective, and taxed him with ingratitude. Meanwhile, however, he had taken from his pocket three successive ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... sometimes disturbed the serenity of the Norwegian can readily be conjectured, especially when it is considered that the average Northman is by no means indisposed to have a little brush with his neighbor now and then. But in such an event the Germans usually gave tit for tat, and that with a vengeance. On one occasion they killed a bishop in the presence of the king; at various other times they burned monasteries over the heads of the inmates; and frequently they sheltered criminals, or demolished entire dwellings ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... pulled a quill out of a turkey wing and gave it to me. I told Coons I wanted a knife to make the pen. The same Indian got his scalping knife; he gave it two or three little whets and gave it to me. I then told Coons I wanted some ink. Coons says, "Ink—ink; what is tat? I ton't know what ink is." He had no name for ink in Indian or English. I told him to tell the Indian to get me some gunpowder and water and a spoon and I would make the ink myself. The Indian did so. I knew very well what their drift was; they wanted a proof to know whether I told ...
— Narrative of the Captivity of William Biggs among the Kickapoo Indians in Illinois in 1788 • William Biggs
... minutes the little wireless cabin roared with the undiminishing rat-tat-tat of his spark explosions, and Manila, a navy man of the old school, rattled back a series of ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... clat'ter man'ger ban'ter mar'gin flat'ter quak'er ban'ner ar'dent lat'ter qua'ver hand'y ar'my mat'ter dra'per man'na art'ist pat'ter wa'ger can'cer har'vest tat'ter fa'vor pan'der par'ty rag'ged fla'vor tam'per tar'dy rack'et sa'vor plan'et ar'dor van'ish ma'jor ham'per car'pet gal'lant ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... my ole man, an' husband an' wife am me. Hit didn't turn out bad as I s'posed it would, bress tat ar son-in-law ob mine, but I keeps a tinkin' it all ober, an' I'se 'jected, I is; an' dar's no use ob shoutin' glory wen you doan feel glory." Then she told the whole story, which kept Ella on pins and needles, for, while she felt an honest sympathy for the poor soul, she ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... you out for all you've done,' he muttered to himself, as he lay curled up in the black shadow like a noisome reptile. 'Tit for tat, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... his head and says: 'Ah, so I thought when I was your age.' It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am yours.' And yet the one is as good as the other: pass for pass, tit for tat, a Roland ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... treatment—I won't. I have a pull over you. Ah! I'm not such a fool, after all, perhaps, as you thought. I have it, and hang me, but I'll make use of it! You have blasted my life, and thought it good fun, no doubt. I'll see if I can't give tit-for-tat and spoil your little game, my haughty lady, with your white face and your cursed high-handed airs. Yet, how I loved them—how I loved them! Must I never see a woman again without that queenly beauty coming between me and my share of happiness? What right had you to destroy my whole future? ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... seems Sid Scott was a "mean nigger", [HW: and] everyone was afraid of [HW: him]. He was cut in two by the saw mill and after his funeral whenever anyone pass his house at night that could hear his "hant" going "rat-a-tat-tat-bang, bang, bang" ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... overwhelm every succeeding though successless suggestion. At the critical moment when it appeared perfectly clear to me either that I was fit for nothing or nothing was fit for me, the authoritative "rat-tat" of the general postman closed the argument, and for a brief space distracted the intense contemplations of my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... protracted sounds.] Roll. — N. roll &c. v.; drumming &c. v.; berloque[obs3], bombination[obs3], rumbling; tattoo, drumroll; dingdong; tantara[obs3]; rataplan[obs3]; whirr; ratatat, ratatat- tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari[obs3], racket; cuckoo; repetition &c. 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; reverberation &c. 408. [sound of railroad train rolling on rails] clickety-clack. hum, purr. [animals that hum] hummingbird. [animals that purr] ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... still more deeply, as after a pause, he replied: "Or excommunication and a fitting punishment will fall upon you and the vagabond doctor. Tit for tat. We have grown tender-hearted, and it is long since a Jew has been burned for an example ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... convincing myself that the situation had cleared. Notwithstanding all my effort, I somehow felt that an incentive had vanished, leaving a gap. The affair now had simmered down to plain temper and tit for tat. I ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... adversary suddenly and brutally assaults us, his ferocity springing from the instinct of a lower civilisation—as when a farm-dog leaps upon us in the road—our first instinct is to fall back and meet him on the ground of his own savagery, to give him an exact tit for his tat. But can you not see that, as we do this, and in proportion as we do it, we allow him to impose himself on us and relinquish our main advantage? It is idle to practise a higher moral code, if we abandon it hurriedly as soon as it is challenged ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... but tit for tat," the man said coolly; "he murdered me, body and soul, when he sent me to the hulks. I told him I would be even with him. I did not think I had hit him at the time, for I thought that if I had you would have stopped with him, ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... instant handicapped by their surprise, since they were expecting to monopolize the brutality of the occasion, came to their senses, and had instant recourse to the comforting reinforcement of their locust clubs. The boy went down under a rat-tat of night sticks, which left him as groggy and easy to handle as a ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... d'etat, or 'stroke of policy,' as cruel as it was cowardly. Lord Palmerston's approval of this outrage, without the knowledge of either the Queen or Lord John Russell, procured him his dismissal from the cabinet. Two months later, however, Palmerston 'gave Russell his tit-for-tat,' defeating him over a ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous
... the social self. Whether a man is injured by an assault upon his life or upon his property, he suffers violence, and the first resort of the injured individual or group is to similar violence; but this results in a vicious tit-for-tat reaction whereby the stimulus to violence is reinstated by every fresh act of violence. Within the group this vicious action and reaction is broken up by the intervention of public opinion, either in an informal expression of disapproval, or through ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... was another "Pshaw!" But Mrs. Peck went on: "When you've lived opposite to people like that for a long time you feel as if you had some rights in them—tit for tat! But she didn't take it up today; she didn't speak to me. She knows who I am as well as she ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... move will be," I commented, when the avenger had gone, not too stricken in spirit. "It begins to look as though the enemy would stick at little, and we can't go on giving tit for tat." ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... domestic affairs like a health-officer in a New York tenement. I know I have no right to do this without saying, "By your leave," but item-hunters the world over do likewise, so I feel little squeamishness about it. Moreover, when I come back I find the Indians are playing " tit-for-tat" against me. Not only are they curiously examining the bicycle as a whole, but they have opened the toolbag and are examining the tools, handing them around among themselves. I don't think these Piutes are smart or bold ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... window. Over by the orchard, he could hear a flicker go "Rat-a-tat-tat," boring away at the old apple tree. The sun was shining nice and warm, and he wondered if he couldn't climb up on his seat, and drop out of the open window, and run away ever so far. He was supposed to "do his parents proud"; and if there was anything he ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... might as well have a little talk. And what talks we have had on such occasions, and on what various subjects! and not unfrequently, too, when the room was Mill's, Grote, the historian, would join us, first announcing his advent by a peculiar and ever-welcome rat-tat with his walking-stick on the door. I must not dwell longer over these recollections; but there are two special obligations of my own to Mill which I cannot permit myself to pass over. When, in 1856, he ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... tat. They take the most lively interest in all our sayings and doings. If I were going to be married, they would want to know every possible particular,—where we first met, what we first said to each other, what I wore, and whether he offered ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... back on Broadway. This was but tit for tat, because Broadway had often done the same thing to Miss D'Armande. Still, the "tats" seemed to have it, for the ex-leading lady of the "Reaping the Whirlwind" company had everything to ask of Broadway, while there was ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... athwart his bows as his bowsprit came thrusting in between our fore and main masts, when we lost not a moment in lashing the spar to our main rigging. But, after all, it resolved itself into tit for tat, for the other fellow put his helm hard aport and just managed to drive square athwart our stern, where he raked us most unmercifully for fully five minutes, until he drove clear, bringing down all three of our masts before he left us. Of course we could ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... tossing on my bed, planning every detail of poor Constant's end. The hours dragged slowly and wretchedly on towards the misty dawn. I was racked with suspense. Was I to be disappointed after all? At last the welcome sound came—the rat-tat-tat of murder. The echoes of that knock are yet in my ear. 'Come over and kill him!' I put my night-capped head out of the window and told her to wait for me. I dressed hurriedly, took my razor, and went across to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... answer to his words, came through the woods the sound of a single rifle-shot, followed closely by the increasing rat-tat-tat of the mingled guns. Nearer to the house the sounds gradually came. Soon we heard the beating of the horses' hoofs and the brutish cries of the soldiers. In a moment three of them burst into the house, from off the road where they were being raked now by the Tartars from both directions, ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... was never completed, being interrupted by a thundering rat-tat-tat at the front door, followed by a pealing at the bell, which indicated that the visitor was manfully following the printed injunction to "Ring also." The door was opened and a man's voice was heard in the hall-a loud, confident voice, at the sound of which Mr. Chalk, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... our social duties, and rural leadership and community spirit and lots of things. They told us not to spend our time out of school tatting and making eyelet embroidery, when there were neighborhoods to be awakened and citizens to be made. That suits me fine, for I can't tat anyway. One of the girls tried to show me, but gave it up after three or four tries. She said some could learn, and some ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung |
