"Tat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Norwegian can readily be conjectured, especially when it is considered that the average Northman is by no means indisposed to have a little brush with his neighbor now and then. But in such an event the Germans usually gave tit for tat, and that with a vengeance. On one occasion they killed a bishop in the presence of the king; at various other times they burned monasteries over the heads of the inmates; and frequently they sheltered criminals, or demolished entire ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... blood oozing upon the snow. Patrick Carr and Samuel Caldwell, who also had come to put out a fire, were dying, and six others were wounded. The soldiers were reloading their guns, preparing for another volley. Robert heard the rat-a-tat of a drum, and saw the Twenty-Ninth Regiment march into the street from Pudding Lane, the front rank kneeling, the rear rank standing, with guns loaded, bayonets fixed, and ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Dan's ear, and another spurted up the chalk dust a few feet ahead of Dennis, and as the vicious rat-tat of the machine-gun farther down the trench opened, they found themselves at the edge of a deep crump-hole, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... in a New York tenement. I know I have no right to do this without saying, "By your leave," but item-hunters the world over do likewise, so I feel little squeamishness about it. Moreover, when I come back I find the Indians are playing " tit-for-tat" against me. Not only are they curiously examining the bicycle as a whole, but they have opened the toolbag and are examining the tools, handing them around among themselves. I don't think these ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Steel readily. "Tit for tat, Mr. Ware. You did a little business on your own account, and said nothing to ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... down like a flash, and wait till Fritz quit. Fat would be in a shell hole almost as soon as the first shot was fired, and would laugh at Bink looking for a hole to hide in. Bink would get sore; all you could hear was the rat-tat-tat of the machine gun and in between "Tee hee, tee hee" from Fat as he lay and watched Bink crawling around looking for a hole. Some of the boys would lie in the hole and wave their legs in the air hoping to get a bullet through them ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... at my industry. I played as heartily as I worked, but I studied with a will, too, and passed a score of mates. That was easy enough, for home study was never dreamed of by most of them, and leisure hours in school were passed in marking "tit-tat-to" upon slates or eating apples under the friendly shelter of ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... for their dinner beforehand; every body freezes with the chilling sensation of dinner deferred, and "curses, not loud but deep," are imprecated on the Honourable Sniftky. At last, a prolonged rat-tat-tat announces the arrival of the noble beast, the lion of the evening; the Honourable Sniftky, who is a junior clerk in the Foreign Office, is announced by the footman out of livery, (for the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... preferred his club to his place of business? He was not left quite alone in this deathlike dungeon. Attached to his own large room there was a small closet, in which sat the signing-clerk's clerk,—a lad of perhaps seventeen years of age, who spent the greatest part of his time playing tit-tat-to by himself upon official blotting-paper. Had I been Mr Vavasor I should have sworn a bosom friendship with that lad, have told him all my secrets, and joined his ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... catching a rat that's hid in Dick's hat. Dick ran for a bat to knock him down flat, But, crossing the mat the foolish young brat Tripped up and fell flat, He half killed the cat Instead of the rat, Hal cried out that that Was just tit for tat. ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... same channel, requesting the lawyer to inform me, in writing, whether he and his clients had or had not decided on taking my advice. I directed him, with jocose reference to the collision of interests between us, to address his letter: "Tit for Tat, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... 'Tat Savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi, dhiyo yo nah prakodayat.'—Colebrooke, 'Miscellaneous Essays,' i. 30. Many passages bearing on this subject have been collected by Dr. Muir in the third volume of his 'Sanskrit Texts,' ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... my books, I said, to carry them into the other room, where there was a little shelf with a curtain in front on purpose for them, as we only kept our nicest books in the drawing-room, when this rat-a-tat knock came ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... of June in the year '84, he was interrupted whilst equipping himself for dinner abroad, by a thunderous rat-tat-tat. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... off and sat up suddenly to listen. A queer "rat, tat, tat," detached itself from the other night noises. Beppi was sound asleep, and she rolled him gently into the nest of leaves, then she listened ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... her heart with ta one hand while you'll pe clapping her head with ta other," said the piper. "Ton't be taking her into your house to pe telling her she can't see. Is it that old Tuncan is not a man as much as any woman in ta world, tat you'll pe telling her she can't see? I tell you she can see, and more tan you'll pe think. And I will tell it to you, tere iss a pape in this house, and tere was pe none ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... separate. Now, after one and a half hours, the fight seems to be concentrating towards the village opposite. A haze of smoke hangs over the place. The guns thunder. The enemy's Maxim-Nordenfelt goes rat-tat-tat a dozen times with immense rapidity. 'Come in,' says a Tommy of the Grenadiers who has come to our hill for orders; and indeed it sounds exactly like some one knocking at a street door. Now the under-current of rifle fire becomes horrible in its rapidity. ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... game" was often in my mouth, when men of Protestant sentiments appealed to the Articles, Homilies, and Reformers, in the sense that if they had a right to speak loud I had both the liberty and the means of giving them tit for tat. I thought that the Anglican Church had been tyrannised over by a Party, and I aimed at bringing into effect the promise contained in the motto to the Lyra: "They shall know the difference now." I only asked to be allowed ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... tata; Hindustanee dada; Latin, atta, tatta; Greek atta, tatta; Albanian, Albania, at, atti; Calabria and Sicily tata; Celtic, Welsh tad; Cornish and Bret tat; Irish, daid; Gaelic daidein; English (according to Skeats of Welsh) dad, daddy; Old Slav, tata otici; Moldavian tata; Wallachian tate; Polish tatus; Bohemian, Servian Croatian otsche; Lithuanian teta; Preuss thetis; Gothic ...
— The Dakotan Languages, and Their Relations to Other Languages • Andrew Woods Williamson
... he declares, the receipt of his friend's "heart- engendered lines" of congratulation. "No grocer's apprentice, after his first month's permitted riot, was ever sicker of figs and raisins than I of hearing about the Remorse. The endless rat-a-tat-tat at our black-and-blue bruised doors, and my three master-fiends, proof-sheets, letters, and—worse than these—invitations to large dinners, which I cannot refuse without offence and imputation of pride, etc., oppress me so much ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... those in Norfolk-street would have half the house go together. It would be too much for your description therefore: and I suppose, tat when you think fit to declare your marriage, you will hardly be ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... drew up opposite our chambers, and a few moments later a brisk step ascending the stairs heralded a smart rat-tat at our door. Flinging open the latter, I found myself confronted by a well-dressed stranger, who, after a quick glance at me, peered inquisitively over ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... smiled inwardly. No Dovenilid could be so obviously superior and still only a lowly student. Well, considering Harrison's qualifications, it might still not be tit for tat. ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... than five minutes when a soft and elaborate rat-tat from the little brass knocker brought my heart into my mouth. I ran to the door and flung it open, revealing Juliet standing ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... Mary—that's my daughter, Daniel's wife—with her mother to comfort her, an' the firelight goin' dinky-dink round the cups and saucers on the dresser. I pictured the joy of it, too, when Sam or Daniel struck rat-tat and clicked open the latch, or maybe one o' the gals pricked up an ear at the sound of their boots on the cobbles. I 'most hoped the lads hadn't been thoughtful enough to send on a telegram. My mind ran on all this, sir; and then for a moment it ran back to ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Woodpecker was beating his long roll on a hollow tree in the Green Forest. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat! Drummer thought it the most beautiful sound in the world. After each long roll he would stop and listen for a reply. You see, sometimes one of his family in another part of the Green Forest, or over in the Old Orchard, would ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... In England I did the roughest sort of farmwork. I'm stronger than I look. I think I'd rather play one of those rat-tat-tat instruments than—than a ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... TAT - Trans-Atlantic Telephone; any of a number of high-capacity submarine coaxial telephone cables linking ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... those other prigs like Oaks and Rowlands, I couldn't have told you; but now the thing's as easy as pat. They'll find out they haven't cold-shouldered me at every turn and corner for nothing. I'll give them tit for tat, and after Christmas, when I've left this beastly place, I'll write and ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... it, and everybody laughs at her for it; but she can't help it, she always was so from a child, and supposes she always shall be,—with remote and minute particulars. And she ends by saying that perhaps he does not like people to tat, or knit, or embroider, or whatever. And he says, oh, yes, he does; what could make her think such a thing? but for his part he likes boating rather better, or if you're in the woods camping. Then she lets him take up one corner of her work, and perhaps touch her fingers; and that encourages ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... judgment,—sometimes, indeed, he did not hear them at all, especially if he happened to be playing his 'cello at the time. So that this morning he was considerably startled, when, having finished his letter to the Duchess de la Santoisie, a long and persistent rat-tat-tatting echoed noisily through the house, like the smart, quick blows of a carpenter's hammer—a species of knock that was entirely unfamiliar to him, and that, while so emphatic in character, suggested to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... did not visit the Priory that day, but on the morrow, after lunch, I took my heavy stick and strode up the gravel path and gave a very important rat-a-tat-tat at the great oak door. The servant who answered my summons informed me, much to my disappointment, that both Mr. Johnson and his son had gone to Liverpool the previous day, the former to see the latter off. Something of importance, the servant thought, ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... under them when we heard the Lewises giving the recall signal. A good gunner gets so he can play a tune on a Lewis, and the device is frequently used for signals. This time he thumped out the old one—"All policemen have big feet." Rat-a-tat-tat—tat, tat. ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... for machine guns, and about half an hour later they were brought into action at the edge of the wood. Boers on the sky-line at two thousand yards—tat-tat-tat-tat-tat half a dozen times repeated; Boers galloping to cover; one—yes, by Jupiter!—one on his back on the grass; after that no more targets to shoot at; continuous searching of the sky-line, however, on the chance of killing someone, and, in any case, to support the frontal attack. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... at one time. And 'tis you killed my father, who was a soldier of the first Emperor, not to speak of my youngest son, Francois, whom you killed last month near Exreux. I owed this to you, and I've paid you back. 'Tis tit for tat!" ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... "That's tit for tat," said Dink, "but it wuz a mighty close call fer me. When the bullet whizzed past my ear I thought I ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... sound! The greyheaded woodpecker tapping the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag, that fellow. Rat-tat! So man's seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here now's the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... another colloquialism," said Henry, "we fairly reek with prosperity, and we're going to double our business. That is, unless you Leaguers stop all forms of amusement but tit-tat-toe ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... robbed, they have a clear right to Malevole, the chief character in The Malcontent. 'Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo in decimo sexto with them? They taught us a name for our play: we call it: "One for Another."' (That is to say, we give them 'Tit for Tat.') ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... cheese, etc. She takes no exercise whatever. At ten she has a heavy supper, and retires to bed between one and two in the morning. She likes very strong brandy." And in this last sentence we have the true secret of her undoing. The Royal Princess was, even tat this early age, a confirmed dipsomaniac, with her brandy bottle always by her side; and was seldom sober, from rising ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... Rat-tat-tat at the door next afternoon, and little Pansy ran to open it, expecting to see the postman, but the knocking was only a bit of Tom's fun. Frank had left for Hull the evening before to meet him, and here was Tom the sailor, tall and bonny ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... hands.'—Madame Balnokhazy too was jesting when she said to her daughter: 'My dear Melanie, we have fallen up to our necks in the mire, we cannot be very particular about the hand that is to drag us out. Lorand will never come back again, Gyali has deceived us; but only tit for tat,—for we deceived him with that tale of the regained property in which only one man believes,—honorable Sarvoelgyi. If you accept his offer, you will be a lady of position, if not, you can come with me as a wandering actress. We can take our revenge upon them, for they hate ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... starting-points of philosophy and he had to show that they supported his views. Hence his interpretation often seems forced and perverse. The most extraordinary instance of this is his explanation of the celebrated phrase in the Chandogya Upanishad Sa atma tat tvam asi. He reads Sa atma atat tvam asi and considers that it means "You are not that God. Why be so conceited as to suppose that you are?"[598] Monotheistic texts have often received a mystical and pantheistic interpretation. The Old Testament and the Koran ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... found Drummer the Woodpecker making a great racket on the hollow limb of an old chestnut. Sammy sat down near by and listened. "My, that's fine! I wish I could do that. You must be practising," said Sammy at the end of a long rat-a-tat-tat. ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... a sound, and, recognizing the delicate 'rat-tat' of her husband's knock, did not answer, indifferent whether he came in or no. He entered noiselessly. If she did not let him know she was awake, he would not wake her. She lay still and watched him sit down astride of a chair, cross his arms on its back, rest his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at last. Mrs. Ready had been absent on a visit to London; and the moment she heard of the intended emigration of the Lyndsays to Canada, she put on her bonnet and shawl, and rushed to the rescue. The loud, double rat-tat-tat at the door, announced an arrival of more than ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Rose's lofty tone. She thought her more "stuck up" than ever, but did not know how to bring her down, yet longed to do it, for she felt as if she had received a box on the ear, and involuntarily put her hand up to it. The touch of an ear-ring consoled her, and suggested a way of returning tit for tat ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... sea. The foaming Black Water tumbled headlong over its rocks and down its narrow channel. DONALD, the big keeper, stood industriously upon the bank arranging flies. "I hef been told," he observed, "tat ta English will be coming to Styornoway, and there will be no more Gaelic spoken. But perhaps it iss not true, for they will tell many lies. I am a teffle of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... the Highlands they were so rude, As leave them neither clothes nor food, Then burnt their houses to conclude; 'T was tit for tat. How can her nainsell e'er be good, To ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... flight, making probably for Bombay or Karachi. The chances were that such a vessel in these waters was British, so Smith steered towards it, shouting to Rodier that they might perhaps arrange a tit-for-tat ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... said, "is, that my father will make it smooth with me, and not acknowledge her: so that whenever I go to him, I shall have to leave her, and tit for tat—an abominable existence, like a ball on a billiard-table. I won't bear that ignominy. And this I know, I know! she might prevent it at once, if she would only be brave, and face it. You, you, Lady Judith, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... A rat-tat-tat-tat ensued, and the Earl of Harcourt was announced. When he had paid his compliments to Mrs. Cholmondeley, speaking of the lady from whose house he ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... precisely as if we fought them with clumsy knives and old guns. That is the whole strength of our Christian civilisation, that it does fight with its own weapons and not with other people's. It is not true that superiority suggests a tit for tat. It is not true that if a small hooligan puts his tongue out at the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Chief Justice immediately realises that his only chance of maintaining his position is to put his tongue ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... hopeless-looking smash. Myself, I'm certificated twice or three times over; but I can only assure you that I wanted to kick myself when, after I'd spent a day and a sleepless night over the job, I saw the game of tit-tat-toe that Rooum made of it in an hour or two. Certificated or not, a man isn't a fool who can do that sort of thing. And he was one of these fellows, too, who can "find water"—tell you where water is and what amount of getting it is likely to take, by just walking over the place. We aren't ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... four feet wide, and when furnished with ten-inch hack logs, packed in glowing ashes and laid one above another, with a roaring good blaze in front of birch and spruce, that fire would take a lot of beating, as the Boy admitted, "even in the tat-pine ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... he said, "I hope, whenever you feel like karrelling,[A] or being as cross as bears, you will 'member what the Bible says 'bout loving one another. Gipsey fighted my tat to-day, and pulled some of her fur out; but he's only a dog, and I ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... overhead and look'd for all the world like a gallows. Round this shoulder of the house, and into the main yard (that turn'd churlishly toward the hillside), the wind howled like a beast in pain. I climb'd off Molly, and pressing my hat down on my head, struck a loud rat-tat ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... pictures" rather than modern war. They had made a mistake, though, and if they were seeking dramatic effect it was only short lived. Our men were delighted at the perfect target they presented on the skyline, and rat-tat-tatted merrily in reply to the Hun swish. By this time also "D" company of the Machine Gun battalion had taken up a position and they also joined in the conversation. The enemy then considered the advisability of concealment, and ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... automated and efficient system, mainly buried cables domestic: nationwide cellular telephone system; buried cable international: 3 channels leased on TAT-6 coaxial submarine cable (Europe ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a long story for tell dat night On poor leetle Rose Elmire, An' she say she 's sorry about de fight We 're doin' so well down here— But it 's not our fault an' we can't help dat, De law she is made for all, So our duty is wait for de rat-tat-tat Of drum an' ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond
... point in the ground, where there was a windlass and chain, lowered myself down a 'cut'—a small pit sunk perpendicularly to a lower coal-stratum, and here, almost thinking I could hear the perpetual rat-tat of notice once exchanged between the putt-boys below and the windlass-boys above, I proceeded down a dipple to another place like a standing, for in this mine there were six, or perhaps seven, veins: and there immediately I came upon the acme ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... our hits were making such tremendous scores against the enemy that prisoners taken by the Americans declared the destruction wrought by the guns was terrific. On the last day and in the last hour of the war our guns fairly beat a rat-a-tat on the enemy positions. We let them have ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... only game which the trees play at, this tit-for-tat, now this side in the sun, now that, the drama of the day. In deep ravines under the eastern sides of cliffs, Night forwardly plants her foot even at noonday, and as Day retreats she steps into his trenches, skulking from tree to tree, from fence to fence, until at last she sits in his ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... "Tat's ferry pad language, Meester Steve Young, sir. Ton't you try to imitate ta gran' Gaelic tongue, pecause she can never to it. She'd have to pe porn north o' Glasgie to speak ta ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... minutes the little wireless cabin roared with the undiminishing rat-tat-tat of his spark explosions, and Manila, a navy man of the old school, rattled back a series ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Rat-a-tat-tat! Jack hardly comprehended what this new noise meant when it grew in volume. Then a horseman rode into the ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... inaccurate.] "He has the skin also, and the ring. And he remembers Bob killing the cat and tying its tail to the fence to see him kick before he died. He and Bob and a lot of the fellows all together in Smith's field, I think he said. Bob knew Smith. And the way they played tit-tat-too on the window pane on All Hallows' Eve, and they got caught that night too." (At Barking, where my uncles lived as children, there is a field called Smith's field, but my Uncle does not remember the cat incident.) "Aunt Anne wants to know about her sealskin cloak. ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... a frown: "Drunk again?" But this time her eyes seemed to have no power over Khlopov. He could not stand it any longer, and gave tit for tat. "Zhidovka!" he shouted. I looked at Anna: she turned red. Marusya blushed. Khlopov sobered up, and his soul shrank to its usual size. Anna went to her room. The ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... them, the flabby, fat, Sleek little darlings! We gave them tit for tat, Snarlings for snarlings! Squashy pomposities, Shocked at our violence, Let not one tactful ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... will not be ketting to ta inside of her," returned the seer. "Ah, my poy! where ta light kets in, ta tarkness will pe ketting in too. This now, your whole pody will pe full of tarkness, as ta Piple will say, and Tuncan's pody tat will pe full of ta light." Then with suddenly changed tone he said, "Listen, Malcolm, my son! Shell pe ferry uneasy till you'll ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... "Bang! rat-tat-tat! whack!" sounded from the schoolhouse, and the faces of the younger children paled. The noon hour had reached its end, and the schoolmaster was sounding his usual call. No bells summoned the pupils at this rural place of learning, but instead, at recess and at noon time the pedagogue ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... Phxdria, you retort With Pamphila. If ever she suggest, 'Do let us have in Phudria to our revel:' Quoth you, 'And let us call on Pamphila To sing a song.' If she shall praise his looks, Do you praise hers to match them: and, in fine, Give tit for tat, that you ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... he passed a mountain homestead he beat his rat-tat-tat to bring the girls out, and they stood and hung about and gaped after ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... retorted Watt, madly, "as I suppose you have done; but we are only even now. Heifer for filly is only 'tit for tat.'" ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... 'but they calls me "Tat" for short, because I used to hang about outside Tattersall's and run errands. I picked up most of my education there. There ain't many of 'em as can teach me anything.' He broke off short in his confidences at the sound of a heavy shuffling ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Dunkeld in an exhausted condition early in the following morning, he and a few comrades found shelter in the house of a friend. But as they sat, about to fall to on a much needed meal, down the little street came the "rat-tat-tat" of a drum, and past the window swaggered an unkempt Highland drummer, halting at intervals to hurl defiance at all Whigs, and a challenge to them to fight the famous Highland champion, Rory Dhu Mhor. And this is something after the fashion of what Ringan and his weary comrades heard ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... lips curled still more deeply, as after a pause, he replied: "Or excommunication and a fitting punishment will fall upon you and the vagabond doctor. Tit for tat. We have grown tender-hearted, and it is long since a Jew has been burned ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... downstairs, followed by Mannering and the cadie. Mannering could not help admiring the determined stride with which the stranger who preceded them divided the press, shouldering from him, by the mere weight and impetus of his motion, both drunk and sober passengers. "He'll be a Teviotdale tup tat ane," said the chairman, "tat's for keeping ta crown o' ta causeway tat gate—he'll no gang far or he'll get somebody to bell ta ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... over, vainly convincing myself that the situation had cleared. Notwithstanding all my effort, I somehow felt that an incentive had vanished, leaving a gap. The affair now had simmered down to plain temper and tit for tat. I ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... ole man, an' husband an' wife am me. Hit didn't turn out bad as I s'posed it would, bress tat ar son-in-law ob mine, but I keeps a tinkin' it all ober, an' I'se 'jected, I is; an' dar's no use ob shoutin' glory wen you doan feel glory." Then she told the whole story, which kept Ella on pins and needles, for, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... laughed, Lovell looked first at him and then at Caesar. It came to me that Lovell was primed to say something. At any rate, he turned to Caesar, and said slowly, 'Tit for tat. If I do this for you, will you do something for me?' And Caesar spoke up as usual, without a second's hesitation, 'Of course I will.' And then Scaife laughed again, just as Lovell said, 'All right, I'll give Verney his "cap" before tea, and you will make a fourth at bridge with ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... tat!" he thought, and as quickly as it could be done he overturned the cask and the ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... remark was another "Pshaw!" But Mrs. Peck went on: "When you've lived opposite to people like that for a long time you feel as if you had some rights in them—tit for tat! But she didn't take it up today; she didn't speak to me. She knows who I am as well as she knows ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... same Indian went and pulled a quill out of a turkey wing and gave it to me. I told Coons I wanted a knife to make the pen. The same Indian got his scalping knife; he gave it two or three little whets and gave it to me. I then told Coons I wanted some ink. Coons says, "Ink—ink; what is tat? I ton't know what ink is." He had no name for ink in Indian or English. I told him to tell the Indian to get me some gunpowder and water and a spoon and I would make the ink myself. The Indian did so. I knew very well what their drift was; they wanted a proof to ...
— Narrative of the Captivity of William Biggs among the Kickapoo Indians in Illinois in 1788 • William Biggs
... little bell was rung on the quarter-deck by the man at the wheel; and that as soon as it was heard, some one of the sailors forward struck a large bell which hung on the forecastle; and having observed that how many times soever the man astern rang his bell, the man forward struck his—tit for tat,—I inquired of this Floating Chapel sailor, what all this ringing meant; and whether, as the big bell hung right over the scuttle that went down to the place where the watch below were sleeping, such a ringing every little while would not tend to disturb them and beget unpleasant ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... startled by a dull, mysterious pounding on the wall hard by. We paused to listen. It was quite impossible to locate the sound, which ceased almost immediately. Our first thought was that the telephone men were drilling a hole through the wall into my study. Then came the sharp rat-a-ta-tat once more. Even as we looked about us in bewilderment, the portly facade of Ludwig the Red moved out of alignment with a heart-rending squeak and a long thin streak of black appeared at the inner edge of the frame, growing wider,— and blacker if ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... like an answer to his words, came through the woods the sound of a single rifle-shot, followed closely by the increasing rat-tat-tat of the mingled guns. Nearer to the house the sounds gradually came. Soon we heard the beating of the horses' hoofs and the brutish cries of the soldiers. In a moment three of them burst into the ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... footlights.) My name is Tat-Tra-Tartaglia (stammers). From Naples. My mother always maintained that she was the daughter of a Spanish grandee, but I fear she was a fisherman's daughter from Po-Po-Pozzuoli. My father, on the other hand ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... 'somebody must have willed you money lately, Martha. Either that or keepin' boarders must pay pretty well.' 'Yes,' said I, 'it does. The cost of livin is comin' down all the time.' Oh, I'm havin' a beautiful game of tit-for-tat with Raish." ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... against the oak as a warning to malefactors—extended itself in a kind of grim appeal to everybody. It seemed to possess strange fascinations for all seafaring folk; and when there was a man-of-war in port the rat-tat-tat of that knocker would frequently startle the quiet neighborhood long after midnight. There appeared to be an occult understanding between it and the blue-jackets. Years ago there was a young Bilkins, one Pendexter Bilkins—a sad losel, we fear—who ran away to try his ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... taken a personal nature, in which I am not disposed to indulge. I don't think that anything will be gained by such accusations and comparisons. It strikes me that the last speaker is trying to give tit for tat because his candidate lost at the last election; but I am one of those who believe that criminations and recriminations avail nothing, and I move that we proceed ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... that very minute, "Rat-tat-tat" sounded Grannie's stick on the woodwork of the room where the ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... rural leadership and community spirit and lots of things. They told us not to spend our time out of school tatting and making eyelet embroidery, when there were neighborhoods to be awakened and citizens to be made. That suits me fine, for I can't tat anyway. One of the girls tried to show me, but gave it up after three or four tries. She said some could learn, and some couldn't. ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... trudging, up hill and down dale, we got to the allotted spot and began our work. The night was alive with noises—ear-splitting reports of big guns, the shrieks and whistles of shells in transit, and the rat-tat-tat of machine-guns. Now and again the darkness would be illuminated by the glare of star-shells. I think I mentioned to you before the mournful desolation of this war-scarred countryside—land without grass, ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... Russia. The czar took occasion to engage in negotiations not only with Thibet, but with Afghanistan also, at the very moment when England was suffering her most serious disasters and embarrassments of recent history, and is getting tit for tat. Before Colonel Younghusband's expedition was dispatched the British ambassador at St. Petersburg was instructed to inquire if the Russian government had any relations with Thibet or any interests there, and was officially informed that it had not, and hence the etiquette of the situation ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... verse. Anagatam is agama-viruddham. The grammatical construction, as explained by the commentator, is this: tat (tasmin or purvaslokokokte vishaya yat) anagatam tava uktam tat chintakalilam. (Twam tu) samprati iha (loke) tat (maduktam) bhutarthatattwamsarvam avapya bhuta-prabhavat santabuddhi bhava. Bhutarthah is Brahma, and bhutaprabhavat is Brahmaiswaryat. (This is an instance ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... some massing of rebels. The resonant, heavy moaning of massive wheels was like the rumble of a gun carriage. And, too, there was the drumming of many hoofs upon the road. Barlow's ear told him it was the rhythmic beat of cavalry horses, not the erratic rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat of ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... her from his corner and thought: "She is pretty; so much the better. Tit for tat, my comrade. But if they begin again to annoy me with you, it will get somewhat hot at ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... my chilt, Jeannie; but young Malcolm and old Tuncan hasn't made teir prayers yet, and you know fery well tat she won't sell pefore she's made her prayers. Tell your mother tat she'll pe bringin' ta blackin' when she comes to look to ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... to remain in the thick danger, with nobody to protect her, but everybody to covet her, for beauty and position. Here was all the country roused with violent excitement, at the chance of snapping at the Doones; and not only getting tit for tat; but every young man promising his sweetheart a gold chain, and his mother at least a shilling. And here was our own mow-yard, better filled than we could remember, and perhaps every sheaf in it destined to be ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... other away. Well, I dare say we do. Yes, 'come to think of it,' as they say in America, we do. But what shall I tell you? Practically we all know it and allow for it and it's as broad as it's long. What's London life after all? It's tit for tat!" ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... Martin's wrists for so many hours were still dangling from his left arm. He slipped them off, and, with no gentle hand, forced his prisoner's wrists together behind him and ironed them tightly. Tit for tat, thought Martin; and he made certain that Ichi would not wriggle his wrists through the ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... is called sensation. Instinct orders us to do something; Reason (the balance of faculties) directs; and the strongest motive controls. Modern Science, by the discovery of Radiant Matter, a fourth condition, seems to conciliate the two schools. La dcouverte dun quatrime tat de la matire, says a Reviewer, cest la porte ouverte linfini de ses transformations; cest lhomme invisible et impalpable de mme possible sans cesser dtre substantiel; cest le monde des esprits entrant ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... for clean tat," he said, touching Halby's fingers, and then, with a gesture and an au revoir, put his horse to the canter, and soon a surf of snow was rising at two points on the prairie, as the Law trailed south ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... first night at my new billet, about 2 a.m., by the rat-a-tat of a kettle-drum, and two dreary notes continuously repeated by a bugle. It was the alarm for a fire at a farmhouse about half a mile from town. Our men from the hospital helped to get most of the furniture out, and were standing around watching the farmhouse and barns ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... I should saunter into Tat's' like a swell, and ask them if they couldn't find me a raw colt to try my hand on for a wager. Say I had laid a hundred I would quiet down the most vicious quadruped they ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... lad!" he went on. "I had no spite again' him. I didn't want to drownd him. It weer only tit for tat; he chucked me in, and I chucked him in, and it's all on account o' they zammon.—There goes another. Always a-temptin' a man to come and catch 'em—lyin' in the pools as if askin' of ye.—Oh, I say, ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... infuriated by stupid people who regret the disappearance of sharp, stern, peremptory punishments, and lament the softness of the rising generation. If punishment must be inflicted, it should be done good-naturedly and robustly as a natural tit-for-tat. Anger should be reserved for things like spitefulness and dishonesty and cruelty. There is nothing more utterly confusing to the childish mind than to have trifling faults treated with wrath and indignation. It is true that, in the world of nature, punishment seems often wholly ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... got his answer, but not from Peter, and, being a Frenchman, smiled, bowed again, and discreetly left the room; for Elsie, turning to Peter cried: "Did you do it—even the wattle?" and kissed him heartily. He kissed her back, and caught hold of Julie. "Tit for tat," he said to her under his breath, holding her arms; "do you remember our first taxi?" Then, louder: "Julie Is responsible for most of it," and ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... shot she guessed at once that the Prince had been the cause of her annoyance in the past night; so off she ran and told it to the fairies. "If it be he," said the fairies, "we will soon give him tit for tat and as good in return. If this dog has bitten you, we will manage to get a hair from him. He has give you one, we will give him back one and a half. Only get the ogre to make you a pair of slippers covered with little bells, and leave the ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... I could not, no, that I could'nt, refuse any one who asked me so pretty as that lady did you. If she had been angry, and commanded you back, why bad begets bad, and tit for tat you know, and I should not so much have wondered: but, Miss, you should not vex her. No, don't be angry with an old man, I have seen so much of the evils of young folks taking their own way. Look here, young lady," said the weather beaten sailor, as he pointed to ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... into this inlet at and near its head, the largest of which, Tat-lim-in, we ascended about one-eighth of of a mile to rapids, with the canoe, and three miles further on foot, finding a succession of rapids, shoals and log-jambs. Ma-min River, about sixty feet wide and filled with logs to near its mouth, ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... only tit for tat. They take the most lively interest in all our sayings and doings. If I were going to be married, they would want to know every possible particular,—where we first met, what we first said to each other, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... what the next move will be," I commented, when the avenger had gone, not too stricken in spirit. "It begins to look as though the enemy would stick at little, and we can't go on giving tit for tat." ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... girl—scrawled in evident derision of a neighbor student's amatory weakness. There were records of baseball scores. Railroads were drawn obliquely across the pages, bending about in order not to touch the words, with a rare tunnel where some word stood out too long. Here and there were stealthy games of tit-tat-toe, practiced, doubtless, behind the teacher's back. Everything showed boredom with the play. What mattered it which casket was selected! Let Shylock take his pound of flesh! Only let him whet his knife and be quick about it! All's one. It's at best a sad and ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... the impression that all fear of pursuit was at an end, and Reuben was amazing us by an account of the excitement which had been caused in Havant by our disappearance, when through the stillness of the night a dull, muffled rat-tat-tat struck upon my ear. At the same moment Saxon sprang from his horse and listened intently with ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... punishes itself by seeking a human body to enter into, for no other body can receive a human soul, it cannot enter the body of an animal devoid of reason: divine law preserves the human soul from such infamy. Hermes Trismegistus, Book I, Lacle: Hermes to his son Tat.] ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... between a hard day's personal canvassing and another of the innumerable dinners he had to eat his way through. Tossing the reins to the gentleman who sat next him, he jumped out of the wagonette—it was hung with placards of "Vote for Turnham!"—and gave a loud rat-a-tat at the door. ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... but fish, a pair of canoeists could not be thus vulgarly explained away; we were strange and picturesque intruders; and out of people's wonder sprang a sort of light and passing intimacy all along our route. There is nothing but tit-for-tat in this world, though sometimes it be a little difficult to trace: for the scores are older than we ourselves, and there has never yet been a settling-day since things were. You get entertainment pretty much in proportion as you give. As long as we were a sort of odd wanderers, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hour Cochrane was about to fire again. But they heard the hysterical rat-tat-tat of firing. It seemed no nearer, but it could only be ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the good, thoughtful little missionary to the foreigner, Susan. I suppose you wanted to stay at home and tat socks while Bobbie and I dined and wined—not," was the very unappreciative answer that was made to her by ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... all the time. She was dying for a wedding. She had never seen one in her life. She would be a bridesmaid. She described her costume. And she had set her heart on a wedding present—the best of the bunch of Sealyham puppies. Why, certainly they were all hers. Tit and Tat, from whom the rather extensive kennels had originally sprung, were her own private property. They had been given to her when she was six years old. Tat had died. But Tit. I knew Tit? Did I not? No one could spend an hour in Mansfield Court without making the acquaintance of the ancient thing ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... funerals, Mr. Mould and Messrs. Omer and Joram. All the mixed mirth and sadness of the story are skilfully drawn into the handling of this portion of it; and, amid wooings and preparations for weddings and church-ringing bells for baptisms, the steadily-going rat-tat of the hammer ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... from my chair to go and look at him, and with a candle in my hand I leaned over him. Seeing him breathing quietly I felt reassured, when he coughed a third time. It gave me such a shock tat I started backward, just as one does at sight of something horrible, and let my ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... We'd hardly crossed blades before he knew his fate. 'You've got me, sir,' said he, splashing about with his sword. I said nothing. 'Maybe I hadn't ought to ha stuck her,' he gasped. He wasn't whining. He wasn't that sort. He knew he had to have it. 'It was tit for tat: your blood-mare—my old Robin. 'Tain't Christian, but 'tis sweet.' Then as he saw it coming—in a kind of scream—'Through the heart if you're a gentleman, sir.'... So much I permitted him. ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... filed through the village the reflections of star-shells threw weird lights on half-ruined houses; an occasional shell screamed overhead, to burst with a dull, echoing sound within the shattered walls of former cottages; and one could hear the rat-tat-tat of machine-guns. These had a nasty habit of spraying the village with indirect fire, and it was, as always, a relief to enter the recesses of Wood Street without having any one hit. This communication trench dipped into the earth at right angles ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... constant shower of balls around it. In vain he shifted his position. The lump still appeared, and the balls still flew around it, until the Dutchman, losing all patience, raised his head above the gunnel, and in a tone of querulous remonstrance, called out, "Oh, now I git tat nonsense, tere,—will you!" Not a shot was ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... Rat-tat at the door! Rat-tat at the door! Here are valentines one, two, three; There is one for Harry, and one for Will, And a big one for girlie, see! Wildly she flies o'er the nursery floor, Never was girlie so happy before, As she shouts in her baby glee— "Oh! I've got a valentine, all come, look! As ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... Hautoy will settle his property on Francoise, you shall sign a deed of partnership with Sechard in two days. I shall not be married for a week after the contract is signed, so we shall both be within the terms of our little agreement, tit for tat. To-night, however, we must keep a close watch over Lucien and Mme. la Comtesse du Chatelet, for the whole business lies in that. . . . If Lucien hopes to succeed through the Countess' ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... but went all together to the farm of our uncle Richard, who was of the Episcopal Church, for the celebration of Christmas; for many of his persuasion, at that time, regarded "Thanksgiving" pretty much as the Highlander, in Scott's novel, did "ta little government Sunday, tat tey call ta Fast." He was a well-to-do farmer, at a place within easy reach of the town in which we lived, and where very few were at all rich, even according to the former moderate standard of wealth, and most people were poor, or ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... issued against such ruffian warfare by both Van Rensselaer and Brock, the sentries chance shots at each other through the dark. Drums beat reveille at four in the morning, and the rub-a-dub-dub of Queenston Heights is echoed by rat-tat-too of Lewiston, though river mist hides the armies from each other in the morning. Iron baskets filled with oiled bark are used as telegraph signals, and one may guess how, when the light flared up of a night on the Canadian heights, scouts carried word to the officers on the American ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... the big knocker, but the maid was much longer in answering his rat-tat-tat than Jessie's feeble ring; and only a sense that they were not in their own house, and must not take liberties, restrained the children from opening the door themselves. They could not resist running out into the hall to ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... Packthread ty'd; Who's Poxt and Clapt as much as you can be, And undergoes a deal of Misery, To give your wanton Appetites content, [*?] feeding you with Flesh, altho' in Lent: Therefore as the old Woman very Tart Once said, when against Thunder she did Fart, 'Twas only tit for tat, so if the Men Do clap the Whores, and Whores Claps them agen, Tis only tit for tat; tis very true, What's good for Goose ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... Ricciarelli, the first man, was to be in dialogue with her.(623) Her fevers grow so high, that the audience caught them, and hissed her more than once: she herself once turned and hissed again—Tit pro tat geminat phoy d'achamiesmeyn—among the treaties which a secretary of state has negotiated this summer, he has contracted for a succedaneum to the Mingotti. In short, there is a woman hired to sing when the other ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... please! I can get away from here without tearing myself, which is more than you can boast. Any fool can see why you are here. Stop, I take that back, sir! I don't play tit-for-tat with my tongue." ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... comes the postman with his first delivery of letters for the day. Our Terrace is the most toilsome part of his beat, for having to serve both sides of the way, his progress is very like that of a ship at sea sailing against the wind. R'tat he goes on our side, then down he jumps into the road—B'bang on the other side—tacks about again, and serves the terrace—off again, and serves the villas, and so on till he has fairly epistolised both sides of the way, and vanished round the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... Marie, of the tat-Major, Egyptian army, an engineer converted into a geologist and mineralogist; he was under the orders of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton |
