"Taps" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would receive. The water can not be pure, and to those who know the facts the idea of drinking it is repulsive. This supply had long been insufficient to the growing city, and in 1835 the well-protected and excellent aqueduct of Ferdinand VII was completed. It taps the Almendares River a few hundred yards above filters mentioned, hence carried by arches to the east El Cerro, and for some distance nearly parallel to the Calzada del Cerro, but finally intersecting this. These works ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... so strange, so unwonted a thing, that he lay there with half-closed eyes while the child brought leaves and flowers and laid them on his face and on his breast, and arranged them with little caressing taps. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... little friend, you are just let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draft from the Town Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life; take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... various "camp calls." The principal calls were "reveille," the getting up or morning roll-call, at sunrise usually; the guard mount, the drill, the meal calls, the "retreat" (evening roll-call), and the "taps," the "turning in" or "lights out" call. The reveille, the retreat, and taps were required to be sounded by each battery, troop, and regiment in consecutive order, commencing at the extreme right. The firing of the morning gun was the signal for the first corps of cavalry ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... the area railing and gave three short, sharp taps on the ground floor window with ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... a third female goes on rattling on the drums with all her might. Offerings of rice, beans, etc., are placed in front of the gods, a candle or two is lighted—and the nun in dark clothing holds a small gong, fastened to the end of a bent stick, and taps on it with a long-handled hammer, first gently and slowly, then quicker and quicker, in a crescendo, till she manages to produce a long shrill sound. The person, for whom these prayers are offered, kneels in front of the particular deity whom she wants to invoke, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... animalcular life; but at length I find myself gazing beyond it into infinitude—using it as a lens through which the Godhead becomes visible to me. I can dissect from one another the muscles and arteries and veins and nerves and vital viscera of the human body, but the little insect that taps a vein upon my hand does it with an instrument and by the operation of machinery which are beyond my scrutiny. They belong to a life and are the servants of instincts which I do not ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... parish of St. George, Colegate, having begun as a workman, and ended as a bourgeois. He was a simple man, of genial company. To the end of his life he used to go of an evening to the public-house as to an informal club. In the privileged bar-parlour, behind the taps and glasses, he sat with his friends and the shopkeepers, talking of local things. But it is not to be supposed that because his life was from end to end a humble one, though prosperous even outwardly ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... staggered to his feet and angrily screamed, 'Stop counting! It's me!' When this feast opened I was proudly expecting to make a speech, but the great men who have preceded me have done all and more than I intended to do. The hour is spent—they are sounding 'taps' at the door. I could not hope to hold your attention. It only remains for me to do my duty in behalf of Meade Post, and do it ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Cha taps and calls, while I take off my shoes upon the worn wooden steps of the temple; and after a minute of waiting, we bear a muffled step approaching and a hollow cough behind the paper screens. They slide open; and an old white-robed priest appears, and motions ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... a hollow log he makes a noise like an Indian at work upon a canoe, and when an Indian taps at a canoe it sounds afar off like the drumming of a partridge, even of Mitchihess. And this comes because that N'karnayoo, of ancient days, the Partridge, was the canoe builder for all the other birds. ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... that almost none of the people in the wagons understood. Martin Tighe's boy, who played the fife, had studied well his part, and on his poor short-winded instrument now sounded taps as well as he could. He had heard it done once in Alton at a soldier's funeral. The plaintive notes called sadly over the fields, and echoed back from the hills. The few veterans could not look at each other; their eyes brimmed up with tears; they could not ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... to him, and don't say a word, but just ask him for your month's salary. Then he will open the door of business himself—safe. I'll drink his health. He's not a bad sort, Cheetham: only he'd sell his soul for money. I hate such rubbish. Here's 'Perdition to the lot; and no heel-taps.'" ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... piece is merely a continuation of the moulding itself; and the other is a cap to connect permanently to the end of the lamp or iron cord, which may be snapped into place in a second. Since there are a great many designs of separable current taps on the market, it is well to select one design and stick to it throughout the house, so that any device can be connected ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... The customary taps (by the occupants of the other cells who discovered his approach and thus telegraphed it along the range) had been (this time) neglected. "What paper is that," said the guard. "Come in and see," said Morgan. "No," said the guard, "you must pass it to me through the bars." "I'll do ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... of clanking chains and rattling bones; but there are certain points on which I do take a firm stand, and this matter of initials is one of them. Not one of these stories is convincing. Mr. O'DONNELL taps you on the chest and whispers hoarsely, "As I stood there my blood congealed, I could scarcely breathe. My scalp bristled;" and you, if you are like me, hide a yawn and say, "No, really?" There is a breezy carelessness, too, about his methods which kills ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... perhaps for the admission of the supply pipes, for which there seems to be no other entrance either in the fan vault or the side walls. Half the width of the lavatory is taken up by a broad, flat ledge or platform against the wall, on which stood a lead cistern or laver, with a row of taps, and in front a hollow trough, originally lined with lead, at which the monks washed their hands and faces. From this the waste water ran away into a recently discovered (1889) tank ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... them down than to give them their own way; and to exercise his vivacity upon them openly, and without reserve. Thus, he made them butts, in a double sense, and while he emptied them with great address, caused them to ring with sundry well-administered taps, for the diversion ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... fixture; to be taken at a valuation, I suppose, part of his personal property being already "brought to the hammer!" the clattering clamour of the wheel precluding him from hearing the careful, but no less effectual taps. I certainly enjoyed the trick, and longed to see the ridiculous issue; but he was so intent upon his sport—so fixed that he did not discover the nature of his ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... the long run, came to a rapid conclusion that the sooner he brought that brute strength to bear the better it would be for him. Accordingly, after three rounds, in which without once breaking the guard of his antagonist he had received a few playful taps on the nose and mouth, he drew back and made a bull-like rush at his foe,—bull-like, for it butted full at him with the powerful down-bent head, and the two fists doing duty as horns. The rush spent, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... archway, still bearing the sign of the Bear and Ragged Staff, Lucas led the way into what must have been one of the courts of offices, for it was surrounded with buildings and sheds of different heights and sizes, and had on one side a deep trough of stone, fed by a series of water-taps, intended for the use of the stables. The doors of one of these buildings was unlocked by Master Hansen, and Ambrose found himself in what had once perhaps been part of a stable, but had been partitioned ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... nation is poised for greatness. The time has come to proceed toward a great new challenge—a second American Revolution of hope and opportunity; a revolution carrying us to new heights of progress by pushing back frontiers of knowledge and space; a revolution of spirit that taps the soul of America, enabling us to summon greater strength than we've ever known; and a revolution that carries beyond our shores the golden promise of human freedom in a world ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... brows and wild eyes, the crimson cheeks, heaving chest, and tumbled hair, into strong light and shade. 'That's a quare un!' she thought, but she found him handsome all the same, and, retreating behind the beer-taps, she eyed him surreptitiously. She was a raw country lass, not yet stript of all her natural shyness, or she would have ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her up-stairs front window sewing carpet rags. Grandma Dudley at her sitting room window is darning her grandchildren's stockings and carefully watching the street. Whenever anybody passes to whom she wants to talk she taps on the window with her thimble. She is a dear entertaining old soul but hard to get away from. Women with bread at home waiting to be put into pans and men hungry for their supper try not to let Grandma Dudley ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... sound having ceased a moment or two, again commences, and the word "There's a place for old mas'r yet, And de Lord will see him dar," are distinctly audible. "How the old man battles for his good master!" returns Harry, as Franconia taps gently on the door. The wooden trap over the grating is closed; bolts hang carelessly from their staples; and yet, though the door is secured with a hook on the inside, disease and death breathe their morbid fumes through the scarce perceptible crevices. A whispering-"Come ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... the intolerable strain by placing an iron-shod crutch under the load. On the march they carry this in the hand, tapping the ground as they go, and all along the road the granite pavement is worn into holes from the taps of centuries. The load, which is fastened to a framework attached to the carrier's back, towers high over his head, and is usually surmounted by his wide-brimmed hat fastened at such an angle as to give him protection against rain and sun. Even Chinese ingenuity has failed to devise ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... say so, but stuck it together wi' yaller soap, and thought I wouldn't see it. Then one of the customers made her laugh, and she let seven pewters fall, and they be battered outrageous. And she has been chuckin' the heel taps to the hog, and made him as drunk as a Christian. She'll drive me out of ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... gets on the square On concert night you'll find me there. I'm right beside Elijah Plumb, Who plays th' cymbals an' bass drum; An' next to him is Henry Dunn, Who taps the little tenor one. I like to hear our town band play, But, best it does, I want to say, Is when they tell a tune's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... an evening party or a ball and it is even worse, for young ladies talk politics, prefer discussion to flirtation, and will rather win a partner over to their political opinions than by their personal charms. If you, as a Tory, happen to stand up in a cotillion with a pretty Whig, she taps you with her fan that she may tap your politics; if you agree, it is "En avant deux," if not, a "chassez croisee." Every thing goes wrong—she may set to you indeed, but hers is the set of defiance, and she shakes her wig against your Tory. To turn your partner is impossible, and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... suspicious," he resumed. "But you are alive, and I am glad enough of it." The punches now smoked upon the table; and as the general drew up his chair beside the secretary, that functionary began to relate the cause of his absence. "I got safe into Baltimore, you see, and having no more fears of the finger-taps of sheriffs, was quietly wending my way for the Gilmore House, and had reached a fine old mansion that stood a little from the street, when my attention was attracted by a voice singing so sweetly that I became like one transfixed, for the strains seemed melting my very heart. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... bar to himself; what company there was—carters and labourers and the small tradesmen of the neighbourhood—was gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the space where the white-haired landlady moved among her taps and bottles. Oleron sat down on a hardwood settee with a perforated seat, drank half his brandy, and then, thinking he might as well drink it as ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... road, and at grey dawn we were entering the city of Cork; the boy sleeping in the car, and the horse led by me. I paid at the custom-gate for my butter, and passed on through the city unnoticed. A few gentle taps brought the gentleman, who undertook to have me conveyed out of the country, to the door. I introduced myself; was admitted, and conducted to a bedroom, where everything was prepared for my reception. Thus I found myself in the very heart of the city of Cork, while the strictest ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... he is considered a very serious case. If this test were put to our license lawmakers, I fear they would have to go to the incurable ward. They have for many years been picking up drunkards from the gutters and opening taps for them to keep on pouring into the streets. Under this system the saloon keepers are playing ten-pins. You know in playing ten-pins there is a long alley, at one end of which stand the pins, while at the other stands the player with a ball in his hand. He rolls the ball down the alley ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... attempts, she managed quite well and found a curious pleasure in the manual labor of fitting stone to stone and properly bedding the whole in cement. She learned to select the right pieces with a rapid glance and to chip an obtrusive corner or face a rock with a few taps of the heavy hammer. It gave her a pleasure akin to her experiments in jewelry, and it must be said the results were better. She used to show her visitors proudly the bit of wall she had laid up herself ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... to kill thee like a slave, That taps men in their cups, and broach[es] their hearts, Ere with a warning-piece they have wak'd their ears; I would not like to powder shoot thee down To a flat grave, ere thou hast thought to frown: I am no coward, but in manly terms ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... flame, as if invoking a benediction, and all the people followed his example in rotation. The dance was very unlike anything I ever saw before. The dancers never crossed their feet, but first gave two taps each with the heel and toe of one foot, then of the other, making a step forward as each foot was tapped on the earth; their bodies all the while stately and erect, and each, with a feather fan,—their universal and indispensable companion,—fanning ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and by night there was what a western man we've got calls a 'blizzard.' Barracks like an ice house, and snowing so you couldn't see across the Campus! 'T was so deadly cold and the lights so dismal that we rather looked forward to taps. Up comes an orderly. 'Mr. Wilson to the Commandant's office!'—Well, old Wilson looked startled, for he hadn't done anything; but off he marches, the rest of us predicting hanging. Well, whom d' ye reckon he found in the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... quite dark, like its neighbors, and yet after a few taps, he heard a movement overhead, a door opening, and a cautious voice asking who was there. The poet named himself in a loud whisper, and waited, not without some trepidation, the result. Nor had he to wait long. A window was suddenly ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... cling to the thorn, Shrivelled and red; The limbs long dead Clutch at a leaf long torn— It taps all day on the spikes As the spume licks over ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... dwelling of Sultan Barkuk, the assassin, we see, issuing from it, a whole band, some twenty in a line, who emerge from the darkness of the abandoned walls, each trotting on his little donkey and each followed by the inevitable Bedouin driver, who taps with his stick upon the rump of the beast. They are returning to Cairo, their visit ended, and exchange in a loud voice, from one ass to another, more or less inept impressions in various European languages. . . . And look! There is even amongst them ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... most eventful one in Falls Church. No such stirring scenes had been witnessed here since the days of the civil war. Troop trains arriving or departing, drills at camp and practice marches through the town, martial music from many bands, reveille and taps, all contributed to impress the town folk with the fact that the country ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart
... try to shake him off. A man precedes it with a spear to teach it to halt when ordered to do so; whilst, as the tame elephants wheel to the right or left, the mahout presses its neck with his knees, and taps it on the head with a small stick, to train it to turn in the required direction. To teach an elephant to kneel it is taken into water about five feet deep when the sun is hot, and, upon being pricked on the back with ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... beind the bar with a lemon-squeezer in his hand, "we'll have no black eyes here that wasn't born so. I am partial to them myself when nature gives them; and I propose the health of Miss Molly Hennessey," with a sly glance at Durgin, who colored, "to be drank at the expense of the house. Name your taps, gentlemen." ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... having secured him, and having got that mind into a hackney-coach, that he could not refrain from often peeping in at Florence through the little window behind the driver, and testifying his delight in smiles, and also in taps upon his forehead, to hint to her that the brain of Bunsby was hard at it' In the meantime, Bunsby, still hugging Miss Nipper (for his friend, the Captain, had not exaggerated the softness of his heart), uniformly preserved ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... lamps at him a minute, and then he says: "Yes, it keeps the decimals out," and he taps the bucket, knowing like. "My own invention, sir. I'd advise you to try it ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... you can't always know beforehand that a certain way is the way misfortune will come by: but there are things misfortune comes after as surely as night comes after day. For instance, if you let all the water boil away, the kettle will have a hole burnt in it. If you leave the bath taps running and the waste-pipe closed, the stairs of your house will, sooner or later, resemble Niagara. If you leave your purse at home, you won't have it with you when you want to pay your tram-fare. And if you throw lighted wax ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... that they consisted of small pipes carried from the lowest part of the siphons up along the side of the valley and above the reservoirs, or, in some instances, of taps fixed at the lowest part of the siphons. The Romans have been blamed for not using inverted siphons in the aqueducts at Rome, and it has been said that this is a sufficient proof that they did not understand ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... discoursing about young ladies, we'll have to illustrate the four states as well. At the end of this recitation, we'll have to drink the 'door cup' over the wine, to sing an original and seasonable ballad, while over the heel taps, to make allusion to some object on the table, and devise something with some old poetical lines or ancient scrolls, from the Four Books or the Five Classics, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... window to window, slily listening for the gipsy's signal. "There it is!" cried he with more joy sparkling in his eyes than had ever enlightened them before. "Come this way, Archer; but don't tell anybody. Hark! do ye hear those three taps at the window? This is the old woman with twelve buns for me. I'll give you one whole one for yourself, if you will ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... looked like sculpture. Behind her there were shelves charged with glasses and bottles, gilt elephants, and obelisks, a hideous decoration; she passed up and down with cups of coffee, she filled glasses from various taps, she ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... said he. "In another minute the little men of the dazio will be tapping our bags as a doctor taps his patient's lungs." ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was afraid she must return home in the evening, because of the children, Lady Lufton declared that there was room enough at Framley Court for baby and nurse, and so settled the matter in her own way, with a couple of nods and three taps of her umbrella. This was on a Tuesday morning, and on the same evening, before dinner, the vicar again seated himself in the same chair before the drawing-room fire, as soon as he had seen his ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... leading up from the drive in front. The cart stopped before a wooden gate, and without a word Prue led the way to the back veranda, where a row of canvas bags hung swinging from the roof. There were taps in the bags, but Prue ignored them. She climbed on to the veranda railing, dipped a tumbler into a bag, and handed it down ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... of the putty having gone 'ard. One knew at a glance that if the turncock was to come, see, and overcome the reluctance of the allotted cock-to-be-turned, the water would burst out at every pore of the service-pipes in that house, except the taps; and would know also that the adept who came to soften their hearts and handles would have to go back for his tools, and would be a ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... refill the buckets at the water taps, continuing to insult each other the while. The initial bucketfuls were so poorly aimed as to scarcely reach their targets, but they soon began to splash each other in earnest. Virginie was the first to receive a bucketful ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... must be in the same chamber with his two fellow-priests, separated from them by the flooring on which he stood. He rapped gently with his foot twice. Two soft taps ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... with a succession of long bounding flights from one tall tree to another. The large woodpecker taps a hollow tree close by, his gorgeous plumage glistening like a mimic rainbow in the sun. A flight of green parrots sweep screaming above your head, the golden oriole or mango bird, the koel, with here and there a red-tufted ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... in a brace which was worn for months. But the foot remained as badly deformed as ever. The surgeons then informed the father that the foot could never be straightened. The father studied the deformed foot for many days, and then had a strange-looking box made with screws, felt taps and iron rods in different parts of it. He had the surgeons to operate again on the boy's foot, cutting the muscles and tendons in different places. The foot was then placed in the strange box; a screw was turned till ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... the moment when the chevalier was putting on his old green-flowered damask dressing-gown, he heard, despite the cotton in his ears, the light step of a young girl who was running up the stairway. Presently three taps were discreetly struck upon the door; then, without waiting for any response, a handsome girl slipped like an eel into the room ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... staccato taps on the west window brought Anne flying in from the yard, eyes shining, cheeks faintly flushed with pink, unbraided hair streaming behind her in a ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... from letter which Ruby holds) "And, my darling Ruby—if your father dies"—there's not much "if" about it. He does. (taps her hair) I've seen ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient
... varies in some measure, still the tirage, as this operation is called, is ordinarily effected as follows:—The wine is emptied from the casks into vats or tuns of varying capacity, whence it flows through pipes into oblong reservoirs, each provided with a row of syphon taps, on to which the bottles are slipped, and from which the wine ceases to flow directly the bottles become filled. Men or lads remove the full bottles, replacing them by empty ones, while other hands convey them to the corkers, whose guillotine ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... the whole party separated, each to find those trifles which had not been shipped already. A few taps of the drum gave the necessary signal to the soldiers, and in a minute ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... "except fly to the moon. But these motors would take you a long way. As for stunts like diving, circling, dipping, playing dead and the like, you never saw the like. I only hope we go out soon. I learn there's a new raid on the taps." ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... raising itself upon its hind legs (see Popular Errors explained, by John Timbs), with the body somewhat inclined, and beating its head with great force and agility upon the plane of position; and its strokes are so powerful as to be heard from some little distance. It usually taps from six to twelve times in succession, then pauses, and then recommences. It is an error to suppose it only ticks in the spring, for I know those who have heard its ticking at other, and indeed, at ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... right—though not by rules—who came upon us unawares, was apt to be credited with rather unofficer-like ideas of what was becoming, and suspected of the not very gentlemanly practice of wearing noiseless rubber shoes. That intimation of his approach was conveyed by us from room to room by concerted taps on the gas-pipes was fair war; nor did our opponents seem to mind what they could not but clearly hear. Indeed, I think most of them were rather glad to find evidences of order and propriety prevailing, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... hands fast locked in his breeches' pocket, and his features as calm as a horse-pond. M. le Brun tells of the debut of the new danseuse, with several kisses on the tips of his fingers, a variety of taps on the left side of his satin waistcoat, and his head engulfed between his two shoulders, like a cock-boat in a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... "in the reserve; that is easy to say. But where is there any room? And this one needs a lot." At last Hermance, after having given a number of little taps to the right and left, succeeded in making a sort of slit, into which I had great difficulty in sliding. Hermance gave me and my neighbors some more little taps to lump us together, and then shut the door. Darkness reigned. I was placed between a blue ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... throats unmasticated. The intelligent foreigner seeing them thus dispose of their food would have understood why England is a great nation. He would have understood why Britons never, never will be slaves. They never stopped except to drink, and then at each gulp they emptied their glass; no heel-taps! And still they ate, and still they drank—but as all things must cease, they stopped at last, and a long sigh of content broke from their ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... chairs and the babies piled out of the way, and the real celebration of the evening begins. Then Tamoszius Kuszleika, after replenishing himself with a pot of beer, returns to his platform, and, standing up, reviews the scene; he taps authoritatively upon the side of his violin, then tucks it carefully under his chin, then waves his bow in an elaborate flourish, and finally smites the sounding strings and closes his eyes, and floats away in spirit upon the wings of a dreamy waltz. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... wild and rough outside, and it was so cruelly dark, and rain fell and wind blew, till the walls of the cottage shook again. There they all sat round the fire, busy with this thing and that. But just then, all at once something gave three taps on the window-pane. Then the father went out to see what was the matter; and, when he got out of doors, what should he see but a great big ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... the vexed, almost aggressive, tone of her voice, Fernanda did not move away, but stood holding the arm of the little friend, who never opened her lips. The rich heiress was evidently very nervous. She gave little taps on the ground with her foot, crushed up her handkerchief in her hand, her lips trembled almost imperceptibly, and round her dark Arab-looking eyes there was a paler circle than usual. The argument evidently ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... first part. Then I hear bare feet running along the alleyway. One of the scalded men comes up behind me and says quite distinctly, "My friend! All is lost!" Then he taps me on the shoulder and I hear him drop down dead.' He panted and wiped ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... on by land, very few people thought about the sea. They took it for granted that the sea was calm; and there was no need, as there is in many houses when the creeper taps on the bedroom windows, for the couples to murmur before they kiss, "Think of the ships to-night," or "Thank Heaven, I'm not the man in the lighthouse!" For all they imagined, the ships when they vanished on the sky-line dissolved, like snow in water. The grown-up view, indeed, was not ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... then, with his hands in his pockets and making an infantile attempt to whistle, strolled right along beyond the end of the wall. There he recalls a number of mean dirty shops, and particularly that of a plumber and decorator with a dusty disorder of earthenware pipes, sheet lead, ball taps, pattern books of wall paper, and tins of enamel. He stood pretending to examine these things, and coveting, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the Locusts. The sixteen years which have passed since Hero followed his little mistress home have brought many changes. He is only a tender memory now. A square, white stone stands on the lawn where "taps" were sounded over him one September day, long ago. But the sight of it no longer brings pain to the Little Colonel. With the sweet ambition in her heart to make life happier for every one she touches, she has grown up into a veritable ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... nights, without perceiving the least object of suspicion; but, on the fourth, the evil stars of our adventurer conducted him to the spot, on his voyage to the apartment of his Dulcinea, with whom he had preconcerted the assignation. Having made the signal, which consisted of two gentle taps on her door, he was immediately admitted; and the Swiss no sooner saw him fairly housed, than he crept softly to the other door, that was left open for the purpose, and gave immediate intimation of what he had perceived. This intelligence, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... across the weary faem, Frae far, outlandish pairts I came. On ilka side o' me I fand Fresh tokens o' my native land. Wi' whatna joy I hailed them a'— The hill-taps standin' raw by raw, The public-house, the Hielan' birks, And a' the bonny U.P. kirks! But maistly thee, the bluid o' Scots, Frae Maidenkirk to John o' Groats! The king o' drinks, as I conceive it, Talisker, Isla, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Old-time hacker David Cargill's theory on the causation of computer glitches. Your typical electric utility draws its line current out of the big generators with a pair of coil taps located near the top of the dynamo. When the normal tap brushes get dirty, they take them off line to clean them up, and use special auxiliary taps on the *bottom* of the coil. Now, this is a problem, because when they do that they get not ordinary or 'thin' electrons, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... in a moment. Ask them to wait. (She taps at the bedroom door. Receiving an answer from within, she opens ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... a gentle rat-tat-tat on the door. It was so gentle that Luther thought his ears were deceiving him, for while he stopped reading, he made no motion to rise, but sat listening. Again they came, three polite taps, seeming to say, "I should like to get in, but ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... says he; "but you can inform your dramatic man down there that if he wants an important piece of news he'd better come and see me," and with that he taps his chest like he was stunnin' ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of these the men-servants hung a curtain to the central row of pillars, making two apartments; the one on the right sacred to Ilderim himself, the other sacred to his horses—his jewels of Solomon—which they led in, and with kisses and love-taps set at liberty. Against the middle pillar they then erected the arms-rack, and filled it with javelins and spears, and bows, arrows, and shields; outside of them hanging the master's sword, modelled after the new moon; and the glitter of its blade rivalled ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... you'll have a good old time. Please don't tell the governor or Rosalind we gave this party. I beg to propose the health of my young sister—good old Jilly. She's a regular brick, and has backed up no end in this do. No heel-taps!" ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... insisted on going home, for I was tired out. Somebody loaned us a victoria, and thus the trip was short. A deep-mouthed bell in the church tower rang out ten slow strokes as I threw back the shutters after putting out my light. The military bugles took up the sound with "taps," and the figure of the sentry on the bridge was a moving patch of ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... itself felt—a long trembling shudder through the wood beneath her hands, followed by a strange sensation of lightness, as if the whole table rose a little from the floor. Then, almost before the movement subsided, a torrent of little taps poured itself out, as delicate and as swift and, it seemed, as perfectly calculated, as the rapping of some minute electric hammer. This was new to her, yet not so unlike other experiences as to seem strange or perturbing ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... a novel's newly printed page We find a maudlin eulogy of sin, And read of ways that harlots wander in, And of sick souls that writhe in helpless rage; Or when Romance, bespectacled and sage, Taps on her desk and bids the class begin To con the problems that have always ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer
... it—the days of the Greeks and Romans. An ancient gem-engraver would to-day be eminent among modern craftsmen. The implements of the Roman surgeons, the proportional compasses used by the Roman architects, the force-pumps and taps used in the Roman houses—all things that could be produced by a man directing his own muscles—were produced in the Rome of Nero as perfectly as they could be produced to-day. To this fact our museums ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... period, is sketched by a writer in Poor Robin's Almanack, for 1723, thus:—"Now comes on old merry plentiful Christmas. The Husbandman lays his great Log behind the fire, and with a few of his neighbours, over a good fire, taps his Christmas beer, cuts his Christmas cheese, and sets forward for a merry Christmas. The Landlord (for we hope there are yet some generous ones left) invites his Tenants and Labourers, and with a good Sirloin of Roast ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... at the mouth of the mine was now intense, and every man who came up from it was besieged by anxious inquiries for the very latest news. What was the meaning of the three taps three times repeated? Did it signify that there were nine persons in the breast, or only three? If only three, where were the others? Who were the three? How many were alive? Were any dead? These and a thousand like questions ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... arrival of the imperial procession the grand-master of ceremonies taps on the floor with his ivory wand of office to attract attention, and the guests thereupon range themselves along the two sides of the hall, the ladies to the right and the gentlemen to the left. Suddenly ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... This man is a private detective. As long as you do the square thing by your wife and child, you'll be let alone. If you try to sneak off, you'll be nabbed. Now, if you aint a scamp down to your heel-taps, get up out of that chair like a man, treat your wife as she deserves for letting you off so easy, and don't make her change her mind by acting as if you, and not her, was ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... the warning cry of "ishra ankra" for a "crank," and could give the pencil taps telegraphing from counter to counter that a notorious "pill" or an "I'll-come-back-again" was bearing down on the department. She seemed to know by instinct when she could offer to send a toy C.O.D. for a stranger without fear of "cold ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... purpose, of something useful to do or desirable to say, and the way in which the suggestions of utility are used up for beauty, can best be shown by a really existing object. Expressed in practical terms the object is humble enough: a little trough with two taps built into a recess in a wall; a place for washing hands and rinsing glasses, as you see the Dominican brothers doing it all day, for I am speaking of the Lavabo by Giovanni della Robbia in the Sacristy of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The whole thing is small, and did not allow of the adjoining ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... deep spring of personal humor which he taps at rare intervals. He remarks that "the coming to Paris and settlement there of his friend Matuszynski must have been very gratifying to Chopin, who felt so much the want of one with whom to sigh." This slanting allusion is matched by his treatment of George Sand. After ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... the scene. The woods resound with the noises incident to a large camp, while in various directions may be heard the monotonous beating of the drum indicating the presence of a number of dancers, or the hard, sharp taps of the mid[-e]/ drum, caused by a priest propitiating and invoking the presence and favor of Ki/tshi Ma/nid[-o] in the service now so near ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... very wide amplification. As with their first radio and the one for their good old friend, Mr. Hooper, they made nearly all the parts themselves, even to the switch arms, contacts, buzzer and binding posts, cutting all threads with a fine set of standard taps and dies. ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... life was led along the east coast in the days of Captain Kidd. Portugal captured the place, but the Arabs drove her out again. Now England is making Mombasa into a mighty big trading center, and as the Uganda Railway taps the Cape-to-Cairo, which is about done, ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... husband, is writing a poem of which a part is given in the first stanza—which is therefore put in italics. The action proper begins with the second stanza. The soul of the dead woman taps at the window in the shape of a night-butterfly or moth—imagining, perhaps, that she has still a voice and can make herself heard by the man that she loves. She tells the story of her wandering in space—privileged ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... donned her hat and tied over her face a heavy lace veil that effectually concealed her features. After a few minutes the bell rang a second time, and the sound of wheels in the courtyard was heard. Then three taps sounded on the door, and in answer to the little maid's clear-voiced "Come in!" a gentleman in promenade toilet entered the room and bowed respectfully. First he satisfied himself that the veil was securely fastened around ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... introduced into the tun (either by means of the mashing machine or separately), the rakes are set going, so that the mash may become thoroughly homogeneous, and after a short time the rakes are stopped and the mash allowed to rest, usually for a period of about two hours. After this, "taps are set"—i.e. communication is established between the mash-tun and the vessel into which the wort runs—and the sparger is started. In this manner the whole of the wort or extract is separated from the grains. The quantity of water ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... and three taps were heard on the wall. Cinderella looked alarmed, but before she could remember to say, "What is dat?" the back of the brown paper fire-place opened like a door, and, with some difficulty, the fairy godmother got herself and her pointed hat ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... willingness to aid others benefited me immensely. This room-mate was Henry W. Slocum, since so signally distinguished in both military and civil capacities as to win for his name a proud place in the annals of his country. After taps—that is, when by the regulations of the Academy all the lights were supposed to be extinguished, and everybody in bed—Slocum and I would hang a blanket over the one window of our room and continue our ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... silence, to the masts, where they stopped and made a concerted clicking with pieces of wood hanging at their sides, simulating perfectly the rattling of dry bones and gnashing of teeth. Twice they went in a circle around the masts, marching in time to low taps on the drums, and then joined in a lugubrious religious chant. Having once more made the concerted rattling of their artificial bones and jaws, they executed some contortions painful to ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... If I could only make some sign—to start you thinking; but I can't depend upon you, I see that.... [Then changing—as though he had an idea.] Ah, yes! There is another way. Now to work. [With renewed activity, he taps in the direction of the office door, although he himself stands three feet away from it. The door opens promptly and JAMES appears on the threshold—pen in hand—as though something had made him rise ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco |
