"Tick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... girl of Ad'line's has been too much for her all along," she announced, "she's wild as a hawk, and a perfect torment. One day she'll come strollin' in and beseechin' me for a bunch o' flowers, and the next she'll be here after dark scarin' me out o' my seven senses. She rigged a tick-tack here the other night against the window, and my heart was in my mouth. I thought 'twas a warnin' much as ever I thought anything in my life; the night before my mother died 'twas in that same room and against that same winder there came two or three raps, and my sister ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... air next day. The little Croesuses first cry, because they haven't received more, and then fight over what they have; then they eat too much French candy, and get sick and cross, and the whole house is filled with their noise. So mamma has a headache; and papa longs for his office, and misses the tick-tick of the stock telegraph, and thinks what a confounded nuisance holidays are. That is what Christmas is like ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... as ebony, where her skin was discoverable through its perfect incrustation of dirt—with a thick mat of frizzly wool upon her skull, which made the sole request she preferred to him irresistibly ludicrous:—'Massa, massa, you please to buy me a comb to tick in my head?' Mr. —— promised her this necessary of life, and I promised myself to give her the luxury of one whole garment. Mrs. —— has sent me the best possible consolation for the lost mutton, some lovely flowers, and these will ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... money. Anything left over was held back to be paid when we got to Blighty. Parcels and mail came along with perfect regularity on that hike. It was and is a marvel to me how they do it. A battalion chasing around all over the place gets its stuff from Blighty day after day, right on the tick and without any question. I only hope that whatever the system is, our army will take advantage of it. A shortage of letters and luxury parcels is a ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... hands at four upon the pale gold dial. Then she drew up the worn gold chain that hung around her neck, under her gown, and, with the key that dangled from it, wound the watch. In an hour or so, probably, it would stop, but it was pleasant to hear the cheerful little tick while she waited. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the tick of my watch," he breathed against her ear. "I reckon it has taken ten minutes to collect two dug-outs. Unless we mean to remain all night we must let up on ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... monomania, from our own specially-raised American correspondent:—A gentleman who fancied himself a pendulum always went upon tick, and never discovered his delusion until he was carefully wound up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... life is fine and free, with no one to obey, No sergeants shouting, "Show a leg!" or "Double up!" all day; No buttons to be polished, no army boots to wear, And nobody to tick you off because you grow ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... first faint streak of the dawn of June 7 the mines at Hill 60 and St. Yves were exploded. The sight was awe-inspiring, and the ground trembled as if in the throes of an agonizing palsy. On the tick of the appointed time our 'boys' went 'over the top.' It was for this experience that they had worked and waited. They advanced immediately behind the barrage so consistently sustained by the artillery, and in the ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... black clock stood swaying with its eternal "tick-tock, tick-tock," in the kitchen of the brown house on Orr's Island. There was there that sense of a stillness that can be felt,—such as settles down on a dwelling when any of its inmates have passed through its doors for the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Cap'n come home from Muldro and they try give you sumpin to make start on like cow and ting. They ain't treat you like a beast. Ain't take no advance o' you. What the Cap'n do he do for you good. I b'long Dr. Ward. I entitle to bring him two string o' bird. Rice bird come like jest as tick as dat (thick as that) Sometimes a ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... rural areas or small towns and villages; manifests as fever, headache, and painfully swollen lymph nodes; disease progresses rapidly and without antibiotic treatment leads to pneumonic form with a death rate in excess of 50%. Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever - tick-borne viral disease; infection may also result from exposure to infected animal blood or tissue; geographic distribution includes Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe; sudden onset of fever, headache, and muscle aches followed by hemorrhaging ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... seriousness of countenance, "I sees how the knot's tied. Ye know, my functions are turned t' most everything; and it makes a body see through a thing just as straight as—. Pest on't! Ye see, it's mighty likely property,—don't strike such every day. That gal 'll bring a big tick in the market-" ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... cold and curls, all the choice, all the animal which is the same as a tick, all the animal which is the same as a Hindoo, all the animal which is breakfast and ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... up the colts with merry tick-tack of the brush and comb, and after the last stroke on their shining limbs, threw his tools in the box and ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... see you was doin' some figgerin', friend. Well, fer that matter, so was I. 'Tain't often she comes to spend the night here, an' when she does me an' Eliza give her our room an' bed an' we pull an extry straw tick out here in the room an' make the best of it. Now, as I figger it out, Eliza is usin' that straw tick herself, 'cause she certainly wouldn't ever dream of gettin' into bed with—with—er—her. Not but what she's clean an' all that,—I mean Eliza,—but you see, she used to be a hired girl ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... all the doings of the sun upon the sky—and then there was pushing, and probing, and tossing, and pulling, and thumping, and kneading of knuckles, till the rib of every feather was aching; and then (like dough before the fire) every well-belabored tick was left to yeast itself a while. Winnie, the maid, was as strong as a post, and wore them all out in bed-making. Carroway heard the beginning of this noise, but none of it meddled at all with his comfort; ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... hearing was also exceptionally keen. He could hear a watch tick in the next room, and perceive very high sounds to which ordinary human ears are deaf (this was found out later); and when we played blind-man's-buff on a rainy day, he could, blindfolded, tell every boy he caught hold of—not by feeling him all over ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... he thought of that beastly hymn? It had got hold of him now! The measured tramp of the tune fitted itself to the tick of the clattering little tin clock on ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... stay in that cursed room?" he mutters, striding wildly among the sand-hills. "The very tick of the clock was enough to drive one mad in those long fearful pauses—solemn and silent as death! Can't the fools do anything for her? What is the use of nurses and doctors, and all the humbug of medicine and science? My darling! my darling! It was too cruel to hear you wailing and crying, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... half dozen creditable performers to awaken the soul of it; a good table, good weather, good luck, and positively nothing to do but have a good time for three solid weeks in the wilderness. The pestiferous telephone can not play the earwig on board this ship; the telegraph, with metallic tick, can not once startle us by precipitating town tattle; the postal service is cut off; wars and rumors of wars, the annihilation of a nation, even the swallowing up of a whole continent, are now of less consequence to us than the possibility of a rain-shower this afternoon, ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... boys, And thousands of clever mechanical toys,— Engines and carriages running on rails, Steamers and sailers that carry the mails; Flags of all nations, and ships for all seas— The Red Sea, the Black Sea, or what sea you please— That tick it by clockwork or puff it by steam, Or outsail the weather or go with the stream; Carriages drawn by a couple of bays, 'Buses and hansoms, and waggons and drays, Coaches and curricles, rallis and gigs— All sorts of wheelers, with all ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... saw again the beach, with the girl's figure in the pool. The picture grew hazy; I realized Mercer was trying to picture the bottom of the sea. Then he pictured again the girl lying in the pool, and once again the sea. I was aware of the soft little tick in the center of my brain that announced that the switch had been moved to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... in the small child. Toddie's speech in "Helen's Babies," "Want to shee wheels go wound," is the pilgrim spirit epitomised. We hear of the watch, and we want to see it; we see it, and then we want to hold it; we hear it tick, and we want to open it; and then we would like to "shee wheels go wound" constantly, and if we cannot, we ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Rhode Island a good stock of winter clothing for himself and Eric, a couple of thick blanket rugs, and two empty bed-tick covers—to be afterwards filled with the down they should procure from the sea birds. He bought, too, a strong lamp, with a supply of paraffin oil, and several dozen boxes of matches; so that he ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Ajumba, and before I joined them felt a fearful pricking irritation. Investigation of the affected part showed a tick of terrific size with its head embedded in the flesh; pursuing this interesting subject, I found three more, and had awfully hard work to get them off and painful too for they give one not only a feeling of irritation at their holding-on ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... were not the earth and the sun a little colder? Had not the moon crumbled a little? And had not the eternal warmth, unperceived save of a few, drawn a little nearer—the clock that measures the eternal day ticked one tick more to the hour when the Son of Man will come? But the greed and the fawning did go on unchanged, save it were for the worse, in the shop of Turnbull and Marston, seasoned only with the heavenly salt of ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... tick-tick-tick of a watch or metronome. But such mechanical regularity is comparatively rare, and in general the temporal rhythms are all highly complex composites of sounds and silences. Their highest manifestations are music and language. The rhythm of language, and a ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... had hung round with other idlers, playing marbles all day in the West Park, and going home at night to tell his landlady how he had been seeking for a job. I believe this kind of existence was not unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long continued to enjoy idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let us call him Brown, who grew restive. This fellow was continually threatening to slip his cable for the States, and at last, one Wednesday, Glasgow was left widowed of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had a persistent, relentless, remorseless regularity. Tick, tick—tick, tick. Every moment it appeared to be louder and louder. His brow wrinkled and his head bent forward more deeply, while his eyes were set straight before him. Tick, tick—tick, tick. The solemn beat became human as he listened. He could not ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... time for dinner, which was always pulled off on the tick of the clock. On the ranch in camp the cook always calls "Grub pile!" for the hands. In the home ranch he's more particular, and he says, "Come and git it!" when dinner's ready. But here, in our new house, our butler, ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... new follies; we struggle for wealth that we may flaunt a petty opulence in our fellows' faces and win the envy of fools—and the span of Life but three score and ten, while a thousand years are but as one tick of the horologe of Time! We quarrel about our political creeds and religious cults, as though it made any difference whether we wore white or yellow badges, sacrificed at the shrine of Jupiter or worshiped in the temples of Jehovah. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... houses had not yet been lit up. Dim figures sat in doorways or stood about the alley, and there was an air of peace and rest strangely and uncomfortably in keeping with the conversation to which he had just been listening. He looked in at his own door; the furniture seemed stiffer than usual and the tick of the clock more deliberate. He closed the door again and, taking a deep breath, set off towards the life and bustle ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... person or a carriage moved through the streets. When the hoarse reverberations of the thunder, a hundred times re-echoed, lost themselves in the distance, there was heard the soughing of the wind as it drove the raindrops with a continuous tick-tack against the concha-panes of the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... grip—yes, sir," I said numbly, for I was on the tick of leaving the Honourable George helpless in bed. In a voice that I fear was broken I spoke of clothes for the day's wear which I had laid out for him the night before. He waved a hand bravely at us and sank back into his pillow as my new employer ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... was so still that every tick of the Dresden clock could be distinctly heard. When Miss Gorham, Alora's governess, turned a page of her book, the rustle was appallingly audible. And the clock ticked on, and Miss Gorham turned page after page, and still the child sat bowed upon ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... warned us against sleeping here, the Chapar khaneh being infested with the Meana bug, a species of camel tick, which inflicts a poisonous and sometimes dangerous wound. It is only found in certain districts, and rarely met with south of Teheran. The virus has been known, in some cases, to bring on typhoid fever, and one European is said to have died from its effects. For ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... to have a great idea of our power," whispered Hollis, hopelessly. And then again there was a silence, the feeble plash of water, the steady tick of chronometers. Jackson, with bare arms crossed, leaned his shoulders against the bulkhead of the cabin. He was bending his head under the deck beam; his fair beard spread out magnificently over his chest; he looked colossal, ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... wave, vibratiuncle^, swing, beat, shake, wag, seesaw, dance, lurch, dodge; logan^, loggan^, rocking-stone, vibroscope^. V. oscillate; vibrate, librate^; alternate, undulate, wave; rock, swing; pulsate, beat; wag, waggle; nod, bob, courtesy, curtsy; tick; play; wamble^, wabble^; dangle, swag. fluctuate, dance, curvet, reel, quake; quiver, quaver; shake, flicker; wriggle; roll, toss, pitch; flounder, stagger, totter; move up and down, bob up and down &c adv.; pass and repass, ebb and flow, come and go; vacillate &c 605; teeter [U.S.]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the mire, and makes the very thought of them a dishonour; it snatches from him the bright prospect of the career on which he has set his heart, the gate to which stood wide open but a moment earlier. And all this in the tick of a watch, in the space of time filled by one ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... they can with claws, hoof, or teeth. Many of these plants have no familiar common names, but who has not heard of some of these? enchanter's nightshade, bedstraw, wild liquorice, hound's tongue, beggar-ticks, beggar's lice, stick-tights, pitchforks, tick-trefoil, bush clover, motherwort, sand bur, burdock, cocklebur, sanicle, Avens, Agrimony, carrot, horse nettle, buffalo bur, Russian thistle. Besides these, a very large number of small seeds and ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... the beautiful justice halls which Holland possesses in such profusion, the most interesting of which we saw at Kampen. Kampen's oak seats are not, however, more beautiful than those of Nymwegen; and Kampen has no such clock as stands here, distilling information, tick by tick, of days, and years, and sun, and moon, and stars. The stadhuis has also treasures of tapestry and Spanish leather, and a museum containing a very fine collection of antiquities, including one of the famous wooden petticoats of Nymwegen—a ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... the door, and replacing the spade in its own corner of the cabin. At the same moment Oonah returned, after disposing of her eggs, and handed the three pence she had received for them to her aunt, who dropped them into the deep pocket of blue striped tick which hung at ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... carried me very gently for many, many miles, until we came to a village of houses. Here, at the very top of a high house, the man lived in one little room. It was all littered with tools and bits of wood, and on a broad shelf were several queer things that went 'tick-tock! tick-tock!' every minute. I was thrust, gently enough, into a wooden cage, where I lay upon the bottom more dead than alive because the ticking things at first scared me dreadfully and I was in constant terror lest I should be tortured or killed. But the glass-eyed old man brought ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... served at our table (but you never take any notice of such kind of things, Miss Raby), a cake of course, a bottle of currant-wine, jam-pots, and no end of pears in the straw. With their money little Briggs will be able to pay the tick which that imprudent child has run up with Mrs. Ruggles; and I shall let Briggs Major pay for the pencil-case which Bullock sold to him.—It will be a lesson to the young prodigal for the future. But, I say, what ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... plain chests, rude, low bedsteads, with home-made ticks filled with straw or pine needles. The best room may have had a carved oak chest, brought from England, a tent or field bedstead, with green baize, or white dimity curtains, and generous feather bed. The stout tick for this, the snow-white sheets, the warm flannel blankets, and heavy woollen rugs, woven in checks of black, or red, and white, or the lighter harperlet, were all the products of domestic wheel and loom. There were no carpets. The floors were sprinkled with fine, white sand, which, on particular ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick, said my friend, but thatd mean inquiries for you and for me, and Ive got my hands full these days. Did you say you are travelling back along ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... the warm richness of her tresses his lips pressed her lips, and they ceased to breathe. And up to their ears, pounding through that enveloping shroud of her hair came the tick-tick-tick of ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... in the salle a manger. A piece of furniture, however, from which my eye takes more pleasure is one of those old clocks which reach from the ceiling to the floor, and conceal all the mystery and solemnity of pendulum and weights from the vulgar gaze. It has a very loud and self-asserting tick, and a still more arrogant strike, for such an old clock; but, then, everybody here has a voice that is much stronger than is needed, and it is the habit to scream in ordinary conversation. A clock, therefore, could not make itself heard ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... been a difficult matter. Griselda felt her way as best she could, past the Chinese cabinet and the pot-pourri jar till she got to the ante-room door. It was open, and now, knowing her way better, she hurried in. But what was the use? All was silent, save the tick-tick of the cuckoo clock in the corner. Oh, if only the cuckoo would come out and call the hour as usual, what a weight would ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... tents of wickedness.' 'A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand.' We all know how strangely elastic time is, and have sometimes been amazed when we remembered what an infinity of joy or sorrow we had lived through in one tick of the pendulum. When men are dreaming, they pass through a long series of events in a moment's space. When we are truly awake, we live long in a short time, for life is measured, not by the length of its moments, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... The Front Trenches have about as much use for the Front Benches as a big-game hunter for mosquitoes. The bayonet professor indicates his row of dummies and says to his lads, "Just imagine they are Cabinet Ministers—go!" and in a clock-tick the heavens are raining shreds of sacking and particles of straw. The demon bomber fancies some prominent Parliamentarian is lurking in the opposite sap, grits his teeth, and gets an extra five yards into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... are very conscious of being together, without so much as the tick of a clock to help them. The father clings to his cigar, sticks his knife into it, studies the leaf, tries crossing his legs another way. The son examines the pictures on the walls as if he had never seen them before, and is all the time edging ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... as I. She suffered from tic douloureux of the fifth nerve. She had had most of her teeth drawn before I saw her, and an attempt had been made to wrench out the nerve on the left side by the external scission. But it made no difference: all the clocks in hell tick-tacked in that poor woman's jaw, and it was the mercy of Providence that ever she came across me. My organisation was found to have almost complete, and quite easy, control over hers, and with a few passes ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... of friendliness at this great racketing vagary of their lives. I set up both my own daughters in one when they was married, and there have been feathers enough for another in the house the last twelve months. Now then, neighbours, I think we have laid on enough wax. Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right way outwards, and then I'll begin to shake in ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... quite right on the last guess. It was something. But not even the teacher knew just what. The school room was clammily, reproachfully silent, every tick of the elm clock which told off the time without prejudice, seemed to pile up evidence of ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... were untroubled as a forest pool, his breathing as regular as the tick-tock of the old wooden clock under the stair. Out of doors the rain fell sharply and set the dead leaves singing. The wood fire dwindled to a glow. Tick-tock! tick-tock! drummed the ancient timepiece. The Boy yawned and settled deeper in ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... so vital and impressive that all her life Cynthia was to recall the setting of the scene. The whiteness of the sunlight streaming into the east windows, the deep red of the wall paper, the tick of the marble clock on the shelf, and the crackle of the cannel coal fire on the hearth. While she waited for the visitor she was unconsciously preparing for the part and the lines of what was to follow. By the time the slow, light steps were at the room door, ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... forgotten, but if death ensued, then everything was remembered and rendered significant. Was a dog heard to howl and moan during the night, with his head in the direction of the house where the patient lay; was there heard in the silent watches of the night in the room occupied by the sick person, a tick, ticking as of a watch about the bed or furniture, these were sure signs of approaching death, and adult patients hearing these omens, often made sure that their end was near. Many pious people also improved the circumstance, pointing out that these ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... stairs was drowsy. Its ticks, now lower, now louder, sounded like the breathings of one asleep. Now and then came a distincter tick, which might pass for a little machine-made snore. As striking-time drew near, it roused itself with a quiver and shake. "One, two, three, four, five," it rang in noisy tones, as who should say, "Behold, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... melancholy over the Faubourg, and to the girl the great, still room seemed like a stage set for a drama. She sat on a stool beside the Comtesse's chair, her fingers busy with many-colored skeins of silk, and the soft stir of the fire and the tick of a little clock worked themselves into ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... night; the Year Was passing, and the clock's slow tick Boomed its sad message to my ear And made me pretty sick. "You have been slack," I told myself, "and weak; You have done foolishly, from wilful choice; Sloth and procrastination—" Here my voice ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... take care of your message all right. Don't worry, little woman," he answered, reassuringly. "But I ain't a-goin' ter send a tick till you're thawed out. My missus lives upstairs, an' ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... taxi was heard to arrive at the other side of the ferry, and the ferryman's voice was heard shouting: "All right, all right, I'll be there in half a tick." ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... d'avarice permise que celle du temps.' Here is wealth for want, industry for indolence, distinction for degradation, virtue for vice. It beams clear as the red of morning. Hear it in the whistle of the engine, the roar of the loom, the plowing of the steam-ship through battling waves, the tick of the telegraph, the whirr of the mill wheel, the click of the sewing machine; and he who doubts still may listen to the voice of cannon, the whistling of lances and the clash of swords, and catch ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... went on day after day. Tama began to grow weak and ill. He was haggard with anxiety, spending his days in listening to the regular tick-tick of the watch, and his nights in trying to keep it alive. In vain he sat up with it night after night, holding it in his hands, caressing it, wrapping it in warm clothes, and laying it beside the fire, even, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... lifted from his pillow. "It's as easy as falling off a log. A baby in a perambulator could learn to tick off orders for its bottle. And—on the square—there isn't its equal on the market, Miss Vanderpoel—there isn't." He fumbled beneath his pillow and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... For whom no shepherd sighs in vain; Never did Covent-Garden boast So bright a batter'd strolling toast! No drunken rake to pick her up, No cellar where on tick to sup; Returning at the midnight hour, Four stories climbing to her bower; Then, seated on a three-legg'd chair, Takes off her artificial hair; Now picking out a crystal eye, She wipes it clean, and lays it by. Her eyebrows from a mouse's hide Stuck on with art on either side, Pulls ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... had something to show but Danny. Tommy had his mouse's nest; Patsey had the hawk's nest; Bugsey had a fungus. Danny was the only empty-handed one, but Pearlie cheered him up wonderfully by predicting that he would get the very first wood-tick ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... mouth and ate it thoughtfully. "I'll try," he promised, "if you really think that it would please him, and I can think of anything to say. You don't know how I dread going to the table when everything is always so still that we can hear the clock tick." ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... surmounted by the royal arms—the scarlet cushions of the bench, and the large, circular clock in the gallery, which was embellished with a gilded border and asserted its importance by a loud, aggressive tick. ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... this miscellaneous assortment of influences,—through the order and gravity and solemn monotone of life at home, with the unceasing tick-tack of the clock forever resounding through clean, empty-seeming rooms,—through the sea, ever shining, ever smiling, dimpling, soliciting, like a magical charger who comes saddled and bridled and offers to take you to fairyland,—through acquaintance ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... very weak; I can scarcely keep up the march, though formerly I was always first, and had to hold in my pace not to leave the people altogether. I have a constant singing in the ears, and can scarcely hear the loud tick of the chronometers. The appetite is good, but we have no proper food, chiefly maere meal or beans, or mapemba or ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... He paused, threatening. "If you don't clear out on the tick I'll chuck this cup and saucer down ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... days. And I sit there afeared by the peat fire, and when I've thought too much on it, I get up and go to the half-door. And I look out on the Moyle, wee Shane, and I think: that's been roaring since the first tick of time, and I see the stars so many of them, and the moon that never changed its shape or size, and it comes to me that nothing matters in the long run, that the killed men were no more nor caught trout, and the rent families no more nor birds' nests fallen from a tree.... None of ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... of the maize, hung Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick. Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive, Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English. Now, though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion, Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike. He was ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... the rocky mountains, we've plodded o'er the plain, We've bid a wild defiance to the drizzling, drenching rain; And yielding to the influence of your coquettish weather, We've grilled beneath the sunshine on thy "tick" infected heather. ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... tick infests the small bamboo, and a more hateful insect I never encountered. The traveller cannot avoid these insects coming on his person (sometimes in great numbers) as he brushes through the forest; they get inside his ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of darkness the rattling of the chains and the groaning of the windlasses has ceased, when only the slow step of the deck-watch finds an echo—then it can be heard. Inside the box you can hear a gentle but steady tick, tick, tick. The clock-work is wound up and set to the exact second. Tick, tick, tick it goes. When the ship is far out at sea and the passengers are asleep and the watch calls out: "Lights are burning. All's ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... take the place of the old one. Certainly the new friend had very little to do with all that old life of which the fountain was the door. He belonged, most definitely, to the new one, and everything about him—the delightfully mysterious tick of his gold watch, the solid, firm grasp of his hand, the sure security of his shoulder upon which Ernest Henry now gloriously rode—these things were of this world ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... in a tick," said Jacky, over her shoulder. "Here, doctor, you might get a kettle of water—and Bill, see if you can find some bacon or stuff. And you, uncle, came and sit ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... other brudders worked wid my father on another plantation. De house where I lived wid de white Massa Lewis Northsinge and his Missus, wuz a log house wid just two rooms. I had just a little straw tick and a cot dat de massa made himself and I hed a common quilt dat de missus made ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... carried his industry so far that at night he would do all the washing that was to be done at the ranch house, for which he was paid extra. And here was the boys' chance. Injun was like most other boys when it came to mischief, and Whitey taught him the ancient game of tick-tack. In case you don't know it, I'll tell ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... the peace. In a cramped and dusty office, where, amid the buzzing of innumerable flies, while the temperature climbs above 110 deg. F. every day for five months in the year, the news of Europe and Asia can be heard tick-tacked in code by inserting a little plug. The reports of a war in India, of an active volcano in South America, or of a cricket match in England could be heard at Horseshoe Bend in the centre of the Australian ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... fast as we could straight ahead. The sparks flew up some twenty paces in front of us, and even after the fight we could not tell whether they came from our own guns or from those of the enemy. At intervals we heard the tick-tick-tick of a small Maxim, but owing to the dark we were not mown down. Some of the burghers threw themselves down behind us, and involuntarily one thought of the proverb, 'to hide in another's blood.' Whenever the firing slackened a few of our brave men charged, shouting ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... are the flies in millions, most indefatigable and maddening of pests. And finally, to take home with you, to remind you pleasantly of her hospitalities when you have reached your own room, is the tick! ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... you look much uglier than you really were, however plain you might be to begin with. Then there was a mantelboard with maroon plush and wool fringe that did not match the plush; a dreary clock like a black marble tomb—it was silent as the grave too, for it had long since forgotten how to tick. And there were painted glass vases that never had any flowers in, and a painted tambourine that no one ever played, and painted brackets with ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... the clustering stars, what right has a man to find fault with his surroundings, or lament himself that all things do not go to suit him here below? When it shall be in order for the glow-worm to call the midday sun to account, or for the wood-tick to find fault with the century old oak that protects it; or for the blue-bird to question the haze on a midsummer horizon because, forsooth! it is a little off color with his own wings, then it will be time for man to find ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... precaution, he glided mysteriously from one tree to another, endeavouring, by all possible means, to conceal his approach from the wily cuckoo, which, perched on high, was throwing into space his two dull notes, regular and monotonous as the tick-tick of an ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... our wives will tick their Souls on Sin, Tis vain to make about their Ears a din, For that exasperates their will the more, And where in private may in publick Whore; So then the Scandal coming to all Ears, Each Neighbour will not only fling his Jeers Upon us, but the ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... seventy men were huddled together. Around the sides bunks were framed on pieces of scantling that extended from floor to ceiling, arranged in three tiers, so that a floor space of six feet by four sufficed for six men. My cotton tick was never refilled, and after doing service for many months it became flat and hard. Our quarters and accommodations were such as the Yankees thought good enough for rebels and traitors, but in summer we were uncomfortably and unhealthily crowded, ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... Lammermoor-Lagardy-Opera-etc." The weather was fine, the people were hot, perspiration trickled amid the curls, and handkerchiefs taken from pockets were mopping red foreheads; and now and then a warm wind that blew from the river gently stirred the border of the tick awnings hanging from the doors of the public-houses. A little lower down, however, one was refreshed by a current of icy air that smelt of tallow, leather, and oil. This was an exhalation from the Rue des Charrettes, full of large black warehouses ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... seemed far before us? Do we observe how quickly we shoot by it? Do we mark with what increasing swiftness the line of our life seems reeling off, and how close we are coming to the end? Time never stops! Each tick of the clock echoes our advancing footsteps. The shadow of the dial falls upon it a shorter and shorter tract, which we have yet to pass over. Even if a long life lies before us, let us consider that thirty-five years is high ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... thinking; and there was no sound within doors but the tick of the clock on the stairs, and the quick breathing of Lizzy, partly from her walk and partly from agitation, as she stood close to the wall, not in such complete darkness but that he could discern against its whitewashed surface the ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... are down in the office. Fraulein is after them again. Last night, when the trunks were brought up, Mary and Peggy waited until the lights were out and then they fixed up a tick-tack. They hid in the trunks and worked the thing for almost an hour. It was awfully spooky—nearly scared Fraulein to death. She's just furious at ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... than would otherwise be; more goods are brought to market than they could otherwise sell; and even in the last consumption, how many thousands of families wear out their clothes before they pay for them, and eat their dinner upon tick with the butcher! Nay, how many thousands who could not buy any clothes, if they were to pay for them in ready money, yet buy them at a venture upon their credit, and pay for them ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... she may; as well for the encouragement 180 of the like, which else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her. ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... rapidly, with the little old gentleman in a shuffling run, and the Policeman springing from hand to hand as if he feared pursuit, and swaying his legs from side to side with a tick-tock, tick-tock. The going was easy. Soon the bottom of the slope was reached. Then all ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... epileptic fit, I know not; but I never heard of such a cure for it before. I threw the fellow half a pictareen, as much for the amusement he had afforded me as to get rid of him. "Tanky, massa; now man-of-war man, here de tick for you again to keep off all the dam niggers." So saying, he handed the stick to Swinburne, made a polite bow, and departed. We were, however, soon surrounded by others, particularly some dingy ladies with baskets of fruit, and who, as they said, "sell ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... Tick the clock with a wooden sound, And fill the hearing with childish glee Of rhyming riddle, or story found In the Robinson Crusoe, leather-bound Old book of ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... "Yes, tick. Now, it struck me that this would do for the crackers. We should have to cut it in strips three or four times the width of the cracker. Then we could get Maria to make us some stiff paste; starch would be better, but of course we have none. Then, taking a strip of the ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... the delightful era of the second cigar, and sank a little deeper down, surely, into serenity and peace. Occasional coals dropping into the fender with a hot tick, tick, chirrupped a lullaby to the four happy companions. And the men learnt a fine silence from the fine ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... told the teacher that I did not believe that the little girl was intellectually stupid; that there was probably some physical defect clogging the pathway to her active little brain; and I requested an opportunity to talk to the child at recess, when I found that she could not hear my stop-watch tick until it was within nine inches of her right ear, and eleven inches of her left ear. The average child, under the same local conditions, can hear the same watch tick at a distance of twenty-one feet. How could the poor child answer ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... beyond the case; this structure is supported by 4 feet of a club-like form. So far so good. Now we will raise the structure higher. A case in which the pendulum with its chain is supposed to be hanging and swinging and tick-tacking is formed likewise of bricks of cork: its length is 2-1/2 inches, its breadth is 1 inch. Now as the upper case is smaller, you see, than the lower one, there would be a cavity, and indeed nothing for the higher one to rest upon, so we ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... two innings, but in the third it shrank so sadly as to become hardly visible to the mind's eye. In the fourth inning, however, it began to pick up, and in the seventh it had resumed its normal shape, and in the ninth it was as big as a dinner-plate and we could hear it tick, although hung in Moses Levy's secluded retreat on Dearborn Street, two and one-half miles distant. As we were riding over to the base-ball grounds Cowen's eyes rested on a vision of female loveliness—a girl he knew—standing on the corner ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Duke of Mecklenburg and aide, and another to Count Bismarck-Bohlen and me, reserving the remaining one for himself. Each bed, as is common in Germany and northern France, was provided with a feather tick, but the night being warm, these spreads were thrown off, and discovering that they would make a comfortable shakedown on the floor, I slept there leaving Bismarck-Bohlen unembarrassed by companionship—at least of a ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... money—not much—and transformed Camp One. Every bunk was provided with a tick, which the men could fill with hay, balsam, or hemlock, as suited them. Cheap but attractive curtains on wires at once brightened the room and shut each man's "bedroom" from the main hall. The deacon seat remained ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... is prowling about And his shaky old fingers will soon snuff us out; There's a hint for us all in each pendulum tick, For we're low in the tallow ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... place. When I had taken off my Shuba and goloshes I was ushered into a magnificent room with a high gold clock on the mantlepiece, gilt chairs, heavy dark carpets and large portraits frowning from the grey walls. The whole room was bitterly silent, save for the tick of the clock. There was no fire in the fireplace, but a large gleaming white stove flung out a close scented heat from the further corner of the room. There were two long glass bookcases, some little tables with gilt legs, and a fine Japanese ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... tick. It had a persistent, relentless, remorseless regularity. Tick, tick—tick, tick. Every moment it appeared to be louder and louder. His brow wrinkled and his head bent forward more deeply, while his eyes were set straight before him. Tick, tick—tick, tick. The solemn beat became human as he ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... intimacies will fascinate you, Dr. Morees. But while you are counting blood types and admiring your thermometers, I hope you will be able to devote a little time to a study of the Disans' obnoxious personalities. We must either find out what makes these people tick—or we are going to have to stand by and watch the ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... each other and let go in one tick of the clock, but she had stood a long time seeing his eyes arrested in their rush ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... hanging over the infinitely remote space, a sprawling terror, every point holding millions of worlds, thinking of these all transcendent wonders, and then remembering his own inexpressible littleness, how that the visible existence of his whole race does not occupy a single tick of the great Sidereal Clock, will he not sink under helpless misgivings, will he not utterly despair of immortal notice and support from the King of all this? In a word, how does the solemn greatness of man, the supposed eternal destiny of man, stand affected by the modern knowledge ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... quote; . Rare: prime; glitch; tick; irk; pop; [spark]; <closing single quotation ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... now he takes the open air, Drawes up his wings with tactick care; Whilst th' expert falcon swift doth climbe In subtle mazes serpentine; And to advantage closely twin'd She gets the upper sky and wind, Where she dissembles to invade, And lies a pol'tick ambuscade. ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... the men, they say thay all tick to you like leech. Now dat job settled, I tink we better go ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... next day that my lady's uncle, Sir John Trenyon, came riding into the court. He often came in such wise, to bide for a day or two with his niece. A most courteous gentleman; red of face, blue of eye, and blithe of tongue. He had a jest for each tick o' th' clock, and a kind word ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... dingy hem the inscription in indelible ink: "Hotel du Commerce, Anvers." A tooth-mug of substantial earthenware dropped to the floor with a crash. A slimy soap-dish of the same manufacture slid across the table and into Brentwick's lap. A battered alarm clock with never a tick left in its abused carcass rang vacuously as it fell by the open bag.... The remainder was—oranges: a dozen or more small, round, golden globes of ripe fruit, perhaps a shade overripe, therefore the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... for its preservation, and he had strong faith in prayer. At any rate, at half past eleven o'clock that night he was up and dressed, and routed his two sons out of their beds. At the stroke of midnight, waiting a tick longer perhaps, to be quite sure that Sunday had gone and Monday morning had arrived, he and his sons pushed out ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... dragging even the young birds out of their nests, and devouring them. Not a single plant, not even a lichen, grows on this islet; yet it is inhabited by several insects and spiders. The following list completes, I believe, the terrestrial fauna: a fly (Olfersia) living on the booby, and a tick which must have come here as a parasite on the birds; a small brown moth, belonging to a genus that feeds on feathers; a beetle (Quedius) and a woodlouse from beneath the dung; and lastly, numerous spiders, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... said the old captain, shaking hands warmly with both. "Didn't she come up with me about a month ago, and didn't I direct her to safe lodgings? 'Fraid I was, man, that with her innocent face and her wide tick pocket, she would be robbed or murdered or something. But here you are safe again, little woman. Going home to the ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... pusson ter do is ter p'ramberlate ter de Linkum lines. Ki! I doan wan' what drap outen OUR sogers' pockets. I kin git Virginny leaf widouten runnin' 'mong de spooks arter it. De place fer a big fine is whar de brush is tick and de Linkum men crawl away so dey woan be tromp on. Who knows but I kin fine a place whar a ginral hide hisself? Ob cose if he hab a lot of gole he'd stick it in de bush or kiver it right smart, so dat oders moutn't get it foh he could ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... his heel, without replying, and walked up the siding. The spare man shuffled back to the uneasy group. "Jim's ez full ez a tick, ez ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... eyes sought Dicky like a flash. Without a word, and as quick as the tick of a clock, Dicky tossed over his pistol to the Lost One, who caught it smoothly, turned it in his hand, and levelled ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Gamasus, the Tick who so often soils the ventral amethyst of our Geotrupes. No, life's prizes do not go to the useful. Necrophori and Geotrupes devote themselves to the general health; and these two corporations, so interesting in their hygienic functions, so remarkable for their domestic morals, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... have his own selfish way, Hen, with much grumbling, arranged the coats on two chairs not far from the fire. When he considered the coats dry enough he crawled into his chosen bunk, grumbling at the coarse tick filled only with dried leaves, and was covered by Dick and Greg. Then the other fellows, after replenishing the fire, sat down to ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... played for all he had, and lost it at a cast?' 'O, madam,' replied Antonet,'the young and fair find credit every where, there is still a prospect of a return, and that gamester that plays thus upon the tick is sure to lose but little; and if they win it is all clear gains.' 'I find,' said Sylvia, 'you are a good manager in love; you are for the frugal part of it.' 'Faith, madam,' said Antonet, 'I am indeed of that opinion, that love and interest always do best together, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... waiting minutes Tick on but never ending To eternity. The years do not wait. So stealthily do they move, ...
— Some Broken Twigs • Clara M. Beede
... replied Joe, contemptuously. "Canada, he gat plenty log—too plenty. Tradair tak' ze drapeau, ze viskey, ze tick-tick, but not ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... regular celebration at Pepper hill, north of Verdun, where a battery of Rhode Island artillery rigged a twenty-foot rope to the lanyard of a .155 cannon, and every man in the company, from the captain to the cook, laid hold of it and waited. At the tick of eleven o'clock they gave that rope one mighty yank, all together, and the gun roared out the last ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... hesitated, and murmured something to herself about "an old bald-beaded galoot," but when he told her that to him life without her would be a blasted mockery, and that his income was L50,000 a year, she threw herself on to him and froze there with the tenacity of a tick on a brindled cow, and said, with tears of ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... gushed, stained cheeks, frightened, angry, very miserable. She had stirred Jon up so fearfully, yet nothing definite was promised or arranged! But the more uncertain and hazardous the future, the more "the will to have" worked its tentacles into the flesh of her heart—like some burrowing tick! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I do. With them or—or others. Things is purty tick'lish—you know that, widder. The King ain't treatin' us right, an' his ministers and advisers don't care anything about these colonies, 'ceptin' if we don't make 'em rich. Then they trouble us. And the governors are mostly ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... had made up his mind to instant action, the vicar's brief discourse began to drag itself into supernatural length. Facing the preacher, and immediately beneath Reuben's feet, was a clock of old-fashioned and clumsy structure, and the measured tick, tick of its machinery communicated a faintly perceptible jar to a square foot or so of the gallery flooring. The mechanical rhythm got into Reuben's brain and nerves until every second seemed to hang fire for a phenomenal time, and the twenty minutes' discourse ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... men thought, not to have to stand waiting in the sun. At the tent door—for a tent was usually borrowed from somewhere to give decency and privacy to the rites—an acolyte dabbed a large yellow patch of iodine on the victim's arm. Moving into the superheated shrine, he assisted Sergt. Lyon to tick off his name on the nominal roll, and then approached the M.O. Some doctors were bland and cheerful, others humorous, others strictly businesslike, but they all knew that this was their chance to pay off old scores. By using ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... passed my time as I best could. Stretched on my bed, I either abandoned myself to reflection, or listened to the voices of the birds in the neighbouring garden. Sometimes, as I lay awake at night, I would endeavour to catch the tick of a clock, which methought sounded from some distant ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... a noon-mark in the doorway of the cave, thrown by the shadow of a boulder beside it, even before the Irishman's big nickel watch came with its bustling, authoritative tick to bring the question of time into the mountains. But the two men kept uncertain hours: sometimes they talked more than half the night, the close-cropped, sandy poll and the unshorn crest of Jove-like curls nodding at each other across the fire, ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... admiration from the woman. Sary quickly changed her robe of mourning to a calico house-dress and went out, determined to speak her mind about that awful mattress! She never thought such a rich man's house would have so common a thing as "combin's"—even if it was in the "help's" tick! ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... doesn't count, of course. And now that I've been thrown with so many people—all sorts of people—I realise how few I have known in my life, so far. If I had about twice as many fingers and toes as I have, I believe I might tick off every human being I've ever met as actual acquaintances, ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... dewy eve in the lecture-hall or the library of my inn, and, as soon as the shades of night are falling fast, in returning to my domicilium at Ladbroke Grove with the undeviating punctuality of a tick? ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... said Lucilla. This time when the corners of her mouth began to tick upward, she made no attempt to stop them. (Of course you can, darling. And I can answer you the same ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... standards of a cit, countrymen, I believe, are generally early risers; but even for a countryman, Anthony, next morning, rose at an unlikely hour. The tall clock in the hall, accenting with its slow sardonic tick the silence of the sleeping house, marked a quarter to five, as he undid the heavy old-fashioned fastenings of the door, the oaken bar, the iron bolts and ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland |
