"Tick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... left thigh, but no one could notice that, while his opponent had a bleeding nose and a cut lip. The school was amused, but Gordon overheard a Milton man say: "I don't think much of the way these Fernhurst men play the game. Look at that tick of a forward ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... tranquilly along the line of the fragrant shore, the regular dip of the oar marking the passage of the seconds, like the soft, lisping tick of certain pleasant old clocks, the nine-o'clock gun roared its admonition from the deck of the "guardian of the port," and the bells of San Lazzaro jangled sweetly on the night air. And then it was that May roused to the ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... awake that night. His wife watched by his side, giving no sign, lest her wakeful presence should disturb his silent wrestlings. The tall, cherry-wood clock in the entry measured the hours, as they passed, with its slow, dispassionate tick. ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... experiences made Isaiah quick to hear God's call, and willing to respond to it by personal consecration. Take the motive-power of redemption from sin out of Christianity, and you break its mainspring, so that the clock will only tick when it is shaken. It is the Christ who died for our sins to whom men say, 'Command what ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... can live on ten or eleven, so I'll send you five shillings a week. But dad mustn't know it. I'll be home in a month again, and I'll leave you a pound, so that you can get food in. If he thinks about it at all, which ain't likely, you can make out you get it on tick. Well, dad, how are you?" he asked, as Bill Haden entered ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... and quiet the house seemed! Nothing broke the silence but the solemn "tick-tack" of the big clock in the hall, which had been ticking in the same sedate manner since the days when Elsie's grandmother had been a little girl. Feeling her way down the length of the hall, not without ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... uneasy eyes at her face: she would betray all. She kept her fingers thrust in the breast of her wrapper to touch the case of the picture: she could hold herself quiet so. How cold and unmeaning the light was that day to her! and every tick of the clock seemed to beat straight on her brain. So the morning crept by. She grew so sure—without reason—that it was the last day of waiting, that, when the children went out to build their snow-man, she sat down on Jem's chest, shivering and dizzy; when the snow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Carlsbad, or you wouldn't ask. The place is squirming with spies and humbugs. If I had broken the rules one of the prize humbugs laid down for me I should have been spotted in a tick by a spy, and bowled out myself for a spy and a humbug rolled into one. Oh, Bunny, if old man Dante were alive to-day I should commend him to that sink of salubrity for the redraw material of another ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... mustn't look where I put them," and she insisted that not even Nan should know the mystery of the clocks. "This will be a real surprise party," finished Dorothy, having put each of five clocks in its hiding place, and leaving the tick-ticks to think it over, all by ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... platform men in shirt-sleeves prowled backwards and forwards—as the tigers do about feeding time in the Zoo. They, too, had super-hearing. From little funnels that looked like electric light shades they caught the tick of the messages, and chalked the figures of the latest prices as they altered with the dealing on the floor upon a huge blackboard that ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... daresay is better than those which are served at our table (but you never take any notice of these kind of things, Miss Raby), a cake, of course, a bottle of currant wine, jam-pots, and no end of pears in the straw. With this money little Briggs will be able to pay the tick which that impudent child has run up with Mrs. Ruggles; and I shall let Briggs Major pay for the pencil-case which Bullock sold to him.—It will be a lesson to the young ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... marched in and took it. It had been only these few weeks; but already the Germanizing brand of the conqueror was seared deep in the galled flanks of this typically French community. The town-hall clock was made to tick German time, which varied by an even hour from French time. Tacked upon the door of the little cafe where we ate our meals was a card setting forth, with painful German particularity, the tariff which might ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... appears—hundreds of thousands of shares of stock, and bonds in million blocks. The crash has been stayed; the panic is over; stocks are bounding upward again; millions are being made by the mysterious buyers with each tick of the clock, and presently it is common knowledge that all the insurance insiders have cleaned up millions, and—of course, the company has made something, but the biggest profits have been won by the men who, having previously personally ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... and patriotic Wadsworth has gone in the field, also his two sons; one of them, (Tick,) was at Fredericksburgh, and his bravery was remarkable, even among all the heroism of that most glorious and most accursed day. How many such patriots as Wadsworth, can we boast of? Yet the miserable Halleck had the impudence ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... afternoon before it passed away for ever and hurry off to the Park and perhaps be with him there again on a bench. It became for an hour a fantastic vision with her that he might just have gone to sit and wait for her. She could almost hear him, through the tick of the sounder, scatter with his stick, in his impatience, the fallen leaves of October. Why should such a vision seize her at this particular moment with such a shake? There was a time—from four to five—when she could have ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... and a thinner feather cushion tied half-way up the back. After the more active duties of her housekeeping were done, she sat every day in this chair with her knitting or sewing, and let the clock tick the long hours of her life away, with no more apparent impatience of them, or sense of their dulness, than the cat on the braided rug at her feet, or the geraniums in the pots at the sunny window. "Are you pretty well to-day?" ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... to understand his meaning. He proceeded to tick off upon his ringers those particular instances in which he knew her to have had a share, and mentioned the names of the gentlemen. He omitted Drake's, however, and Clarice noticed the omission. For the rest she listened quite patiently until he came to an end. Then she asked ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... Knyghte, just once too often Have you tried that slippery trick; Hearts like mine you cannot soften, Vainly do you ask for tick. Christmas and its bills are coming, Soon will they be showering in; Therefore, once for all, my rum un, I expect you'll ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... it, as he did every thing, very easily. "I don't see why Aunt Selina should make such a fuss. Why need you do anything, Aunt Hilary? Can't we hold out a little longer, and live upon tick till I get into practice? Of course, I shall then take care of you all; I'm the head of the family. How horribly dark ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... has been described being thus finished, our preacher, who was now as round as a tick, pronounced grace, and then ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... disarmed, whatever be the intention of the Eternal, it is by no means certain that nature does not mean kindly by man. Perhaps the pain of the world is but the rough horseplay of great powers that mean but jest—and kill us in it: as though one played at 'tick' with ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... vital and impressive that all her life Cynthia was to recall the setting of the scene. The whiteness of the sunlight streaming into the east windows, the deep red of the wall paper, the tick of the marble clock on the shelf, and the crackle of the cannel coal fire on the hearth. While she waited for the visitor she was unconsciously preparing for the part and the lines of what was to follow. By the time the slow, light steps were at the room door, Cynthia seemed to know ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... uglier than you really were, however plain you might be to begin with. Then there was a mantelboard with maroon plush and wool fringe that did not match the plush; a dreary clock like a black marble tomb—it was silent as the grave too, for it had long since forgotten how to tick. And there were painted glass vases that never had any flowers in, and a painted tambourine that no one ever played, and painted ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... had been all melted together, we heard a strange noise, hin, hin, hin, hin, his, tick, tock, taack, bredelinbrededack, frr, frr, frr, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, track, track, trr, trr, trr, trrr, trrrrrr, on, on, on, on, on, on, ououououon, gog, magog, and I do not know what ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... every thing, and when he shewed me his tank, they were swimming about as merry as a shoal of dace; he fed them with fennel chopped small, and black-pepper corns. 'Come, doctor,' says I, 'I trust no man upon tick; if I don't taste, I won't believe my own eyes, though I can believe my tongue.'" (We looked at each other.) "'That you shall do in a minute,' says he; so he whipped one of them out with a landing net; and when I stuck my ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... taxi was heard to arrive at the other side of the ferry, and the ferryman's voice was heard shouting: "All right, all right, I'll be there in half a tick." ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... not," said Judge Carter flatly. James Holden's eyes widened, and he started to say something but the judge held up his hand, fingers outspread, and began to tick off his points finger by finger as he went on: "Where would we be in the case of enemy attack? Could our policemen aim their guns at a vicious criminal if they were conditioned against killing? Could our butchers ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... backwards and forwards by the lakeside. Encouragement was all very well; but... "Shall I—shall I not? Shall I—shall I not? Shall I—shall I not?" The eternal question went tick-tack, tick-tack, to the rhythm of his march. He glared at vacancy, and tried hard to make up ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... It had a persistent, relentless, remorseless regularity. Tick, tick—tick, tick. Every moment it appeared to be louder and louder. His brow wrinkled and his head bent forward more deeply, while his eyes were set straight before him. Tick, tick—tick, tick. The solemn beat became human as he listened. He could not raise his head—he could not turn his ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... that she was young, and of a fair complexion. Peggotty had been crying. So had little Em'ly. Not a word was spoken when we first went in; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the silence, to tick twice as loud ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... a cit, countrymen, I believe, are generally early risers; but even for a countryman, Anthony, next morning, rose at an unlikely hour. The tall clock in the hall, accenting with its slow sardonic tick the silence of the sleeping house, marked a quarter to five, as he undid the heavy old-fashioned fastenings of the door, the oaken bar, the iron bolts and chains, and ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... door with a little shiver. She blew out the candle, for it was not yet dark enough to justify artificial light to her thrifty mind. She thought the big, empty house, in which she was the only living thing, was very lonely. It was so still, except for the slow tick of the "grandfather's clock" and the soft purr and crackle of the wood in the stove. Josephine ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... recall, carried the mail that winter. 'Twas a thankless task: a matter of thirty miles to Jimmie Tick's Cove and thirty back again. Miles hard with peril and brutal effort—a way of sleet and slush, of toilsome paths, of a swirling mist of snow, of stinging, perverse winds or frosty calm, of lowering days and the haunted dark o' night—to be accomplished, once ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... will tick their Souls on Sin, Tis vain to make about their Ears a din, For that exasperates their will the more, And where in private may in publick Whore; So then the Scandal coming to all Ears, Each Neighbour will not only ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... on the arm, with great seriousness of countenance, "I sees how the knot's tied. Ye know, my functions are turned t' most everything; and it makes a body see through a thing just as straight as—. Pest on't! Ye see, it's mighty likely property,—don't strike such every day. That gal 'll bring a big tick in the market-" ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... able to get upstairs without being heard; there were eight steps in all, and only the two top ones creaked under my tread. Down at the door I took off my shoes, and ascended. It was quiet everywhere. I could hear the slow tick-tack of a clock, and a child crying a little. After that I heard nothing. I found my door, lifted the latch as I was accustomed to do, entered the room, and shut the ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... time for dinner, which was always pulled off on the tick of the clock. On the ranch in camp the cook always calls "Grub pile!" for the hands. In the home ranch he's more particular, and he says, "Come and git it!" when dinner's ready. But here, in our new house, our butler, William, always'd gumshoe in and say it so low you couldn't hardly hear him: "Dinner ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... through which he not only could but would squirt, with or without provocation, the triple compound essence of malaria into veins brought up on oxygen, and on water through which you could see the pebbles at the bottom. A bosom friend of the mosquito, and some say his paramour, was little Miss Tick. Of the two she was considerably the more hellish, and forsook her dwelling-places in the woods for the warm flesh of soldiers where it is rosiest, next the skin. The body, arms, and legs of Miss Tick could be scratched ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... made with several French farmers to bring a quantity of straw to the public square, where the soldiers, later in the afternoon, filled their bed ticks. It was on a tick of straw, thrown on the floor of the old dilapidated, vacated house, that one hundred of the battery spent their nights of sleep in Montmorillon while the other half occupied similar beds on ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... Van Ness avenue and Broadway, I saw a girl well dressed, who had evidently been driven out from there. All she had saved was a bed tick filled with something. As it was very hot, and she was very tired, she had spread it on the pavement, and was watching the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... speechless; each member felt disposed to lay the blame on the others. At length the dial instituted a formal inquiry as to the cause of the stagnation; when hands, wheels, weights, with one voice, protested their innocence. But now a faint tick was heard below, from the pendulum, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... a huge clock in one of the corners, whose loud tick filled up every interval of silence. By this clock it was just ten minutes to eight when two gentlemen—I should say men, and coarse men at that—crossed the open ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... first faint streak of the dawn of June 7 the mines at Hill 60 and St. Yves were exploded. The sight was awe-inspiring, and the ground trembled as if in the throes of an agonizing palsy. On the tick of the appointed time our 'boys' went 'over the top.' It was for this experience that they had worked and waited. They advanced immediately behind the barrage so consistently sustained by the artillery, ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... comin' for fifty miles round, two is comin' up a hundred miles, and you can't—Jinny, you can't do it. I bin sick of answerin' questions all these years 'bout you and Jake, an' I ain't goin' through it again. I've told more lies than there's straws in a tick." ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... look after the boy!" Elof shouted to Karin, "and carry him in. The poor brat's as full as a tick, and can't ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... a blaze upon a tree, not the smoke of a camp fire. Bradleyburg was already obliterated and lost in the depths of the woodland. The silence was incredible,—as vast and infinite as the wilderness itself. It startled her a little, when they paused in their climb, to hear the pronounced tick of her wrist watch, even the whisper of her own breath. It was as if she had gone to an enchanted land, a place that lay in a great sleep that began in the world's young days, and from which the last reaches of time ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... was one of the substantial, old-time kind, with tall pillars in front, a double piazza and wide hall, where stood an ancient clock of solemn tick. There were open fireplaces in parlor and sitting-room, and the wide dooryard was divided by a graveled and flower-bordered walk, where in summer bloomed syringas, sweet williams, peonies and phlox. On either side of the gate were two immense and broad-spreading ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... there fell a silence so utter that Barnabas could distinctly hear the tick of Natty Bell's great watch in his fob; a silence in which Mr. Smivvle stared with wide-eyed dismay, while Barrymaine sat motionless with his glass half-way to his lips. Then Mr. Chichester laughed again, but the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... in the way, I suppose—in the way even of nature study. There are unpleasant, perhaps unnecessary, and evil creatures—snakes!—in the fields and woods, which we must be willing to meet and tolerate for the love within us. Tick-seeds, beggar-needles, mud, mosquitos, rain, heat, hawks, and snakes haunt all our paths, hindering us sometimes, though never ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... then the Cap'n come home from Muldro and they try give you sumpin to make start on like cow and ting. They ain't treat you like a beast. Ain't take no advance o' you. What the Cap'n do he do for you good. I b'long Dr. Ward. I entitle to bring him two string o' bird. Rice bird come like jest as tick as dat (thick as that) ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... sides, some upside down, and one standing upright. The door by which he had entered was at one side, on the other side was another, and between the two stood a sofa, the shape of which was plainly discernible under the sand. Over this was a clock, which had ticked its last tick. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... the hills and brought into the little room faint threads of gold and amethyst that wove a luminous tapestry with the dusk. The clock ticked steadily, and with every cheery tick brought nearer that dear To-Morrow of which he had dreamed so long. He speculated upon the difference made by the slow passage of a few hours. To-morrow, at this time, his bandages would be off—then ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... The hands were perfectly motionless. All who had watches simultaneously drew them from their pockets. The motion of each was suspended; so intense, in turn, was the hush of the breathless crowd, that you could have heard a single tick, but there was ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... consequent advantage to all. The chief obstacle preventing the successful combating of the cotton boll weevil in the South has been the difficulty of securing united action in the necessary cultural measures for its control. Most striking results have been secured in the eradication of the Texas Fever Tick from large areas of the South, although this has been carried on using the county as a unit; for many purposes in the South the county is practically a community. Some of the best community work in this field has been in the West in poisoning ground squirrels and other injurious ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... her home filled with vague alarms. Although on the next day she discovered, through an inquiry made by the town marshal, on what adventure the boys had gone, she could not quiet herself. All through the night she lay awake hearing the clock tick and telling herself that Seth, like his father, would come to a sudden and violent end. So determined was she that the boy should this time feel the weight of her wrath that, although she would not allow the marshal to ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... a tick," said Jacky, over her shoulder. "Here, doctor, you might get a kettle of water—and Bill, see if you can find some bacon or stuff. And you, uncle, came and sit by ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... were all sorts of people there, a moving heap of frayed velvet and shabby plush. Lily passed by with great dignity. Next, she came to the big agent, with offices in Berlin and London ... the ting-ting of telephones, the tick-tack of typewriters all day ... business pure and simple, an exchange for supple loins, swelling biceps, muslin skirts, pigeon's eggs ... a sheaf of stars who, from there, radiated over Australia, America, England, the Eastern ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... don't shoot the fool!" suggests Bengal, as the old man, pleading with his pursuers, winds his body half round the tree. Tick! tick! went the cock of Romescos' rifle; he levelled it to his eye,—a sharp whistling report rung through the air, and the body of the old man, shot through the heart, lumbered to the earth, as a deadly shriek sounds high above the echoes over the distant landscape-"M'as'r in heaven take ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... government; zealots urged revolts against all manner of constituted authority. The point was to gain for the barber, the tailor, the shoemaker and the blacksmith more life, more political experience, more freedom of choice—and right on the next tick of the clock! ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... double its fists up and try to swallow them alternately, and cross its feet and play with its toes. In fact, it was exactly like any of the thousand-and-one babies that are born into the world at every tick of the clock. ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... eyes were brooding over the prisoner's bent, dark head below. He dared not look at her. The court-room was so still that when she paused for a word one could hear the clock on the wall tick. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... disgusted, and sat down to see what we could do. Then Jack piped up, and said he'd show us a place where we could get a plenty. 'Come on,' said we, and after leading us a nice tramp, he brought us out at Morse's greenhouse. So we got a few on tick, as we had but four cents among us, and there you are. Pretty clever of the little ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... paused. "Say, Billy, you said the 'late' Overland Red Summers. You took particular noise to make me hear that word 'late.' Have you got any objections to explainin' that there idea? I been examinin' the works of that word 'late,' and it don't tick right to me. 'Late' ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... his father's bed hung a great silver hunting watch. It ticked loudly. The boy listened to it, and began mechanically to count. Tick—tick—one, two, three, four! He lost count presently, and only ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... below the register of their ear. There are others, far more in number who never hear the shrilling of the pasture insects. Their voices are so thin and shrill that they are above the common register. Indeed they are apt to pass the average person as unnoticed as the tick of a clock in a room where one is accustomed to its presence. I do not know how long they had been at it, the black night chirping crickets which now make up for frozen nights by singing all the warm part of the day, the green day crickets whose note is ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... plain. That clock has not been wound since we come to live here. I don't believe a hand has touched it since the night he was carried feet foremost out of that room. But Mary said she could count the strokes go tick, tick, tick! She listened till she could have counted fifty, for she was struck dumb, and just as plain as the clock before her face she could see the minute-hand and the pendulum, both of 'em dead still. Now, how do ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... semblance of a funeral. God shield us all from evil! there is a cold deathlike chill throughout the house. I heard—(though, my lady, I do not believe in such superstitions,) but I heard the death-watch tick—tick—ticking, as plain as I hear the old clock now chime seven! And I saw—I was wide awake—yet I saw a thin misty countenance, formed as of the white spray of the salt-sea wave, so sparkling, so shadowy, yet so clear, come between me ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Only one family could live in a cabin as the space was so limited. The furnishings of each cabin consisted of a bed and one or two chairs. The beds were well constructed, a great deal better than some of the beds the ex-slave saw during these days. Regarding mattresses she said, "We took some tick and stuffed it with cotton and corn husks, which had been torn into small pieces and when we got through sewing it looked like a mattress that ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... they haven't received more, and then fight over what they have; then they eat too much French candy, and get sick and cross, and the whole house is filled with their noise. So mamma has a headache; and papa longs for his office, and misses the tick-tick of the stock telegraph, and thinks what a confounded nuisance holidays are. That is what Christmas ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... don't die first. But I should have gone on with the horses just the same if there had never been anything to come;—only they wouldn't have given me tick, you know. As far as I'm concerned it's just the same. I like to live whether I've got money or not. And I fear I don't have many scruples about paying. But then I like to let live too. There's Carbury always saying nasty things about poor Miles. He's playing himself without ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Tick, tick, tick, tick, went the little French clock on the mantelpiece. Suddenly it struck her that it was a long while that she had been left alone in this room. She glanced at the clock; it really was almost an hour. All her latent homesickness returned ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... lads were sitting in their cosy office, Teddy lounging back on the divan, Phil in an easy chair at the roll-top desk. The lights shed a soft glow over the room; the bell rope above their heads swayed, tapping its rings with the regularity of the tick of a watch. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... fable of the clock, whose pendulum and wheels stopped one day, appalled by the discovery that they would have to move and tick over three million times a year for many wearisome years, but resumed work again when reminded that they would only have to tick ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... began to hint at its own hideous nature with every convulsive tick of the metre. It hiccuped nickels, and as Win's terrified eyes, instead of taking in New York, watched the spendthrift contrivance yelping for her dollars, she remembered that she owned but two hundred. She had had to be "decent" about tips on board. But forty pounds—two hundred dollars—had ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... be heard now save cautious footfalls, the opening and closing of doors, followed by the stertorous breathing of the dying woman and the tick-tock ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... Eyot's price was chalked up at five to one, and backed him for four pounds. He had to push and elbow his way through a struggling crowd; immediately after the bet was made, Eyot's quotation was reduced by two points in response to signals tick-tacked from the inclosures. This, of course, argued a decided following for Dale's selection, and these eleventh hour movements in the turf market are illuminative. Before he got back to the car there was a mighty shout of "They're ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... to remain below surface narrowed down to ten minutes, then to five. At last, tick by tick, the time wound by until the full hour ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... shop for tea; they need not have grumbled; they had not carried any of the water. And their having to go the second time was only because we forgot to tell them to get some real lemons to put on the bar to show what the drink would be like when you got it. The man at the shop kindly gave us tick for the lemons, and we cashed up out of ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... was heard but the loud tick of the old clock and a mournful whine front Sancho, shut up in the shed lest he should go ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... assortment of influences,—through the order and gravity and solemn monotone of life at home, with the unceasing tick-tack of the clock forever resounding through clean, empty-seeming rooms,—through the sea, ever shining, ever smiling, dimpling, soliciting, like a magical charger who comes saddled and bridled and offers to take you to fairyland,—through acquaintance with all sorts ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... Sylvia sighing, 'what shall that gamester set, who has already played for all he had, and lost it at a cast?' 'O, madam,' replied Antonet,'the young and fair find credit every where, there is still a prospect of a return, and that gamester that plays thus upon the tick is sure to lose but little; and if they win it is all clear gains.' 'I find,' said Sylvia, 'you are a good manager in love; you are for the frugal part of it.' 'Faith, madam,' said Antonet, 'I am indeed ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... grown. And when a wedding day had come, it had rung a joyful peal through the house, and through the years the old hands had travelled on, the hammer had struck off the hours, and another generation had come to look upon it and grow familiar with its constant tick. ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... fumble for your seals, Nor listen where your tick-tick lies,— Nor dare to call in anger down The heavy ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... once more. There was the flowered furniture, and the fire burning red upon the hearth. "Tick-tock! ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... good-sized room with three large beds, one of which the Chancellor assigned to the Duke of Mecklenburg and aide, and another to Count Bismarck-Bohlen and me, reserving the remaining one for himself. Each bed, as is common in Germany and northern France, was provided with a feather tick, but the night being warm, these spreads were thrown off, and discovering that they would make a comfortable shakedown on the floor, I slept there leaving Bismarck-Bohlen unembarrassed by companionship—at least ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... guinea in his pocket, and having left not many in the pockets of his friends whom he might command, had purchased (on tick doubtless) the whole and sole Editorship, Proprietorship, with all the rights and titles (such as they were worth) of the Albion, from one Lovell; of whom we know nothing, save that he had stood in the pillory for a libel ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the big yard of the farm were placed articles to be sold at public auction. It was a miscellaneous collection. A cradle with miniature puffy feather pillows, straw tick and an old patchwork quilt of pink and white calico stood near an old wood-stove which bore the inscription, CONOWINGO FURNACE. Corn-husk shoe-mats, a quilting frame, rocking-chairs, two spinning-wheels, copper kettles, rolls of ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... dear," he went on, seeing that his wife still looked pale, "they could burn down a tick or two, on a windy night in winter and, to satisfy you, I will have an extra sharp lookout kept in that direction, and have a watchdog ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... bell was three minutes late in ringing. Betty knew it was, because she had watched the clock tick out each one with growing impatience. When it did ring at last, she threw her latin book into her desk, banged down the lid, and gave vent to her ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... of Pages come and go. Additions have been made to it—an ell on one side, larger windows and a wide veranda in front. Inside it is much the same, for the open fireplaces remain in parlor and sitting-room and a tall clock of solemn tick stands in the hall where it stood when Paul Revere ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... out his watch and-looking at it ostentatiously). Well, well, we ought to be starting. My watch makes it 11.58. (He holds it to her ear) Hasn't it got a sweet tick? ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... a tick I'll walk as far as the corner with you," he said, quickly. "I'd like to make sure it's ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... corpulent, but has a remarkably fine face; the Grecian character is finely portrayed in it; she excels to admiration in deep tragedy. In Mrs. Beverly, in the play of the 'Gamesters' a few nights ago, she so arrested the attention of the house that you might hear your watch tick in your fob, and, at the close of the play, when she utters an hysteric laugh for joy that her husband was not a murderer, there were different ladies in the boxes who actually went into hysterics and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... doose of a tick at that billiard-room; I shall have that boatman dunnin' me. Why hasn't Milliken got any horses to ride? Hang him! suppose he can't ride—suppose he's a tailor. He ain't MY tailor, though, though I owe him a doosid deal of money. There goes mamma with ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... discipline, as women will bear me witness, and not at all incompatible with beauty, grace, and amiability. But, right or wrong, after all this interval of rest and reflection, in full view of all the circumstances, my only regret is that I did not tick him harder. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he thought of that beastly hymn? It had got hold of him now! The measured tramp of the tune fitted itself to the tick of the clattering little tin clock on ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... glass eyes his fire-weapon which assuredly contains a great fetish and of the red-headed one some of his hair for a fetish also. Of the old man I would have the round box containing the strange god that says by day and by night 'tick-tick'." ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... "You take 'tick too; give 'em whack-whack," cried he, offering Austin another bamboo. "Dey no work proper widout ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... advanced and were furnished, and then silence reigned in the room, broken only by the rapid scratching of pens and the solemn tick of the clock on ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... he placed his hand over her mouth, and rising with a puzzled look, walked to the window and thrust his head into the vines; then drawing his hand over his eyes, he resumed his place, and all was silent again, save the clock with its monotonous tick, tick, beating as calmly as, though human passions were trifles, and the passing away of a soul from earth, only the falling of ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... mean THAT," protested Faith. "The spare room is all torn up. The mice have gnawed a big hole in the feather tick and made a nest in it. We never found it out till Aunt Martha put the Rev. Mr. Fisher from Charlottetown there to sleep last week. HE soon found it out. Then father had to give him his bed and sleep on the study lounge. Aunt Martha hasn't had time to fix the spare room bed up yet, so she ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of Portuguese officials trying to tax calves'-foot jelly; voluble doctors insisting that true typhoid was unknown in the island; nurses who had to be exercised, taken out of themselves, and returned on the tick of change of guard; night slides down glassy, cobbled streets, smelling of sewage and flowers, between walls whose every stone and patch Attley and I knew; vigils in stucco verandahs, watching the curve and descent of great stars or drawing auguries from the break of dawn; insane interludes ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... stick an' mud house de Yankees done give her. It was smoky an' dark kaze dey wuzn' no windows. We didn' have no sheets an' no towels, so when I cried an' said I didn' want to live on no Yankee house, Mammy beat me an' made me go to bed. I laid on de straw tick lookin' up through de cracks in de roof. I could see de stars, an' de sky shinin' through de cracks looked like long blue splinters stretched 'cross de rafters. I lay dare an' cried kaze I wanted to go back to ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... restored the furniture that night had stolen. But when the boy woke he did not even notice the change; his brain traversed the hours it had lost since he lay down as quickly as you may put on a stopped clock, and with his first tick he was thinking of nothing but the deceiver in the back of the bed. He raised his head, but could only see that she had crawled under the coverlet to escape his wrath. His mother was asleep. Tommy sat up and peeped over the edge of the bed, then he let his eyes wander round ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... drawers, boxes, etc., and the cockroaches, ants, or other insects will soon disappear. It is also well to place some between the mattresses, and around the bed. It is also a splendid thing for brushing off that terrible little insect, the seed tick. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... satisfaction they entered into their own at Wakefield's. They were all so glad to be back, to see again the picture of Cain and Abel on the wall, to scramble for the corner seat in the ingle-bench, to hear the well-known creak on the middle landing, to catch the imperturbable tick of the dormitory clock, to see the top of Hawk's Pike looming out, down the valley, clear and sharp in ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... I'll tell you how the misthress Gad bless her, will manage it fwhor you. Take the crathur, sir, an' feed it to-morrow, till its as full as a tick—that's for the fwhat, sir; thin let her give it nothin' at all the next day, but keep it black fwhastin'—that's fwhor the lane (leap). Let her stick to that, sir, keepin' it atin' one day an' fastin' an-odher, for six months, thin put a knife in it, an' ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... the colts with merry tick-tack of the brush and comb, and after the last stroke on their shining limbs, threw his tools in the box and went to ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... dinner if he only had them. Stevie ran into the dining-room and mounted the chair by the sideboard. For a moment he stopped; for it seemed as if some one said, "Don't touch, Stevie!" quite loud in his ear, but only the clock went "Tick, tack, tick, tack!" There was only the little voice of conscience inside Stevie to say "Don't touch;" and he wouldn't listen to that, so he ran away with the pretty case ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... novelist holds his characters in the palm of his hand, as he would his watch; winds them up, regulates, pockets them, is exceedingly handy with them. He may continue some little, pitiful puzzle about them for his readers; but he can see over, under, around them, and can make them stop or go, tick or be silent, altogether at pleasure. To Goethe his characters are as intelligible and as mysterious as Nature herself. He sees them, studies them, and with an eye how penetrating, how subtile and sure! But over, under, and around them he would hold it for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... silence one might have heard a watch tick, Doble leaned forward, his body rigid, danger written large in his burning eyes and ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... no one answered; she heard the tick of the clock; it was the only sound. 'Mother,' she repeated, and she dared to look up, but the bed was empty. There was no mother. Lady Annabel was not in the room. Following an irresistible impulse, Venetia knelt by ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... It was just at the foot of the mountain and no neighbors under half a mile. I say he lived there, but he wasn't there more than a third of the time. The boy will remember how he used to go along the road, full as a tick, and the school children making fun of him and then running before he could get at them. I don't know as he would, though. There never was any harm in him, only he did neglect himself so he was an awful sight. And the only time he was in his little house was ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... afternoon, to form shadowy backgrounds for autumnal reverie, or for silent, solitary listening—listening to the tales told by the soughing wind outside, to the whisper of embers in the fireplace, the slow somber tick of the tall clock telling of ages past and passing, the ghostly murmur of the old house talking softly ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... tree to another, endeavouring, by all possible means, to conceal his approach from the wily cuckoo, which, perched on high, was throwing into space his two dull notes, regular and monotonous as the tick-tick of ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... goes by: and clocks still chime And stars are changing patterns in the dark, And watches tick, and over-puissant Time Benumbs the eager brain. The dogs that bark, The trains that roar and rattle in the night, The very cats that prowl, all quiet find And leave the darkness empty, silent quite: Sleep comes to ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... of securities are hourly known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. Vast transactions are conducted and international exchanges are made by the tick of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately bulletined. The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid transit, are of recent origin and are only made possible by the genius of the ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... Tick the clock with a wooden sound, And fill the hearing with childish glee Of rhyming riddle, or story found In the Robinson Crusoe, leather-bound ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... "Listen to the tick-tick! Aw, I wouldn't bite into it... oh, well, darn it, if nothing else'll do yuh, why, eat ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... fruits, and after a while most of them remove what they can with claws, hoof, or teeth. Many of these plants have no familiar common names, but who has not heard of some of these? enchanter's nightshade, bedstraw, wild liquorice, hound's tongue, beggar-ticks, beggar's lice, stick-tights, pitchforks, tick-trefoil, bush clover, motherwort, sand bur, burdock, cocklebur, sanicle, Avens, Agrimony, carrot, horse nettle, buffalo bur, Russian thistle. Besides these, a very large number of small seeds and fruits are rubbed off and carried away by ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... conquer anything but the body. How could one find God? Had anybody ever found Him? Did anyone really think they had found Him? These were questions that beat in upon his soul day after day as he drilled his men and went through the long hard hours of discipline, or lay upon his straw tick at night while a hundred and fifty other men ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... mahogany:—there's two poets, and a poll parrot, the best images the jew had on his head, over the mantlepiece; and was I to leave you all alone by yourself, isn't there an eight day clock in the corner, that when one's waiting, lonesome like, for any body, keeps going tick-tack, and is ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... gun. Not a breath was drawn in the room. Hands remained frozen in air in the midst of a gesture. Lips which had parted to speak did not close. The steady voice of the clock broke into the silence—a dying space between every tick. For the second time in his life Tex Calder ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... room stood out clearly to his uncaring sight; the snap of the fire, the tick of the clock smote like separate reports upon his hearing; and while he lived he was to recall, when he smelled burning pine, this tense moment. Presently he rose unsteadily and reached out for his coat and hat ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... had stopped, the listener whispered to us when we touched him gently on the leg, so we lay there all three listening for it to start again, the tick-ticking of our wrist-watches and the pulsing of our hearts sounding loud ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... of the clock and began winding the weights that had hung idle for nearly a year. When the swinging pendulum once more began its deep-toned tick-tock, he looked back over his shoulder with ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... shoulder. With calm features he meantime busied himself with the last resource, not allowing a word to fall from his lips. The first application of the leeches proved unsuccessful. The minutes slipped away. The only sound breaking the stillness of the shadowy chamber was the merciless, incessant tick-tack of the timepiece. Hope departed with every second. In the bright disc of light cast by the lamp, Jeanne lay stretched among the disordered bedclothes, with limbs of waxen pallor. Helene, with ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... and Lew took the train back to Oakdale. The entire Wireless Patrol accompanied them to the station, each boy carrying some part of the luggage. Thus divided, the equipment did not seem large; but when it was all assembled, it appeared entirely adequate. There was a good waterproof tent, a strong tick to be stuffed with leaves, blankets, a coil of rope, additional cooking utensils, and generous supplies of food. Charley took a light, high-powered rifle and his revolver with plenty of ammunition. Their comrades piled this luggage in a corner of the car, then hustled back to the ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... lay an English lever watch on several places of it, keeping my ear near to that nodal point where I know will come the inner bout, or D of the violin, consequently the bridge, which I mark with a X. The tick-tack of the watch varies in strength as I get farther from or nearer to a nodal point, as, of course, it was bound to do; but, from experience, it is a fine-toned piece of wood. I detach it from the glass rod, and I try it by my finger ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... come from the direction of Lake Superior on it for weights, and set it running. We were then hauling grain into the barn. Father at this period devoted himself entirely to the Bible and did no farm work whatever. The clock had a good loud tick, and when he heard it strike, one of my sisters told me that he left his study, went to the parlor, got down on his knees and carefully examined the machinery, which was all in plain sight, not being enclosed ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... The groves of the Ohio that had just fallen beneath the axe's stroke 'live in his description,' and the turnips that he transplanted from Botley 'look green' in prose! How well at another time he describes the poor sheep that had got the tick and had bled down in the agonies of death! It is a portrait in the manner of Bewick, with the strength, the simplicity, and feeling of that great naturalist. What havoc be makes, when he pleases, of the curls of Dr. Parr's wig and of the Whig consistency of Mr. (Coleridge?)! His ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... was something round and hard there—a lozenge? No, a shilling, which had remained there ever since I changed my winter clothes in the spring. Now at that time we were reduced to anchovy paste for breakfast, and our bare rations for tea. Money was spent, tick was scarce, stores were exhausted. Faithful to a friendship which has all things in common. I went out to Dell's and bought a pot of apricot jam for tea, the time for which had arrived. As ill-luck would have it, both you fellows were detained at something or another—French, I rather think. I ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... happened to become aware of the plans? Have our men been deprived of the needed element of surprise? But for the thousands of metres behind us, we know that in black battery pits anxious crews are standing beside their loaded pieces waiting to greet the tick of 2:30 with the jerk ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... any need to," Joan answered. "Mrs. Carew, that is my landlady, you know, told me all their family histories while I was making up my mind whether I would come or not. Wait a minute," she paused in her unpacking to tick them off on her fingers. "There is the ground floor lady, who is an artist's model. No need to work just now though, for the last gentleman that painted her took a fancy to her and is paying for her at present. Drawing-room floor, old foreign lady who never seems ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... "The tick of the lock is as well known to the knaves, as the blast of a trumpet to a soldier! lay down the piece—lay down the piece—should the moon touch the barrel, it could not fail to be seen by the devils, whose eyes ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... mademoiselle. Look steadily at me," is his gentle request. He can hear the clock tick as if its beat was the fail of a ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... was so high she had to climb on a chair to get in. She heard Maria's heavy feet go shuffling down the stairs. A door banged. Then it was so still she could hear the clock tick ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to go tick. I don't think I've paid for any of mine I've bought this season. There ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... keep! I call that mean of father,' said Desmond indignantly. 'You can't go tick with a secretary. It means cash. There'll never be anything for you, Pam, and nothing for the garden. The two old fellows that were here last week have been turned ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I work like the slave, and now all going! Eeram, he have the death-tick in him: I hear! And now I no go to have the son, and I go to die in the streets like the others; with no one cents! Ay! ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton |
