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More "Ticking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... promptly shelters and so kindly soothes the fluttered exile. At Manchester, even more than at Liverpool, we are imagined in the immense railroad station hotel, which is indeed perhaps superorganized and over-convenienced after an American ideal: one does not, for instance, desire a striking, or even a ticking, clock in the transom above one's bedroom door; but the like type of hotel is to be found at every great railroad centre or terminal in England, and it is never to be found quite bad, though of course it is sometimes better and sometimes worse. It is hard to know if it ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... into the thickets, to learn how far the destruction had spread. Wherever he went, he heard the same ticking; scented the same odour; saw the same needle rain. There was no need of his pausing to investigate. He understood it all by these signs. The little caterpillars were everywhere. The whole forest was ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... One evening, the evening of the last Sunday in the month, Mrs. Montgomery was lying in the parlour alone. Ellen had gone to bed some time before; and now in the stillness of the Sabbath evening the ticking of the clock was almost the only sound to be heard. The hands were rapidly approaching ten. Captain Montgomery was abroad; and he had been so—according to custom—or in bed, the whole day. The mother and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... grown very weary, and began to long for a floor on which she might stretch herself; there was not a sound in the house but the ticking of a clock somewhere; and she was now wondering whether everybody had gone to bed, when she heard a step approaching, and presently Castle, who was the only man at home, stood up before her, and, with the ease of perfect ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... He them," said Dunkerley, ticking his way down the page. "Which (tick, tick) was damned hard ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... dining-room in summer, and kitchen dining-room in winter, as clean as aged hands could scrub and dust it, hung about with stray pictures from illustrated papers, and a good old clock in the corner "ticking" life, and youth, and hope away. There was the buttery off that, with its meagre china and crockery, its window looking out on the field of rye, the little orchard of winter apples, and the hedge of cranberry bushes. Upstairs were rooms with no ceilings, where, lying ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he got up and stole out of the room. He was back again in a trice, a flask in one hand, a soda siphon in the other, and a small glass balanced on his thumb. When Burns, at the sound of a clock ticking somewhere, rubbed his eyes with his fists striking in and reluctantly ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... like what I should suppose one of your true lovers to be than you did just now: for, beside your speechless attitude, which was absolutely picturesque and significant, you were positively pale and red, and red and pale, almost as fast as the ticking of my watch. And even yet you are absolutely provoking. I cannot get ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... closed, but in reality they were fixed on a little clock in plain, white porcelain, to match the room, which stood on a glass shelf high on the wall in front of her. "I'm sure that old clock has stopped," she cried petulantly to the masseuse. "Tell me if it's ticking." ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... she stood there, she could hear again the ticking of the clock, and the chock of piles of books taken out of the low cupboard. Then came the faint flap of books on the desks. The children passed in silence, their hands working in unison. They were no longer a pack, but each one separated into a ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... watch-chain; instantly he had plucked forth his watch and held it to his ear. He could hear it ticking. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... any more, and he sat at the table, tapping on it with a pencil. There was no sound in the kitchen but the ticking of the clock and the noise of the water boiling in the kettle and the little tap, tap ... tap, tap ... tap, tap, tap ... of his pencil on the table. Mrs. MacDermott had been hemming a handkerchief when ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... followed, the ticking of the clock in the hall seemed to grow loud; and he turned a little aside to remove the mask. She breathlessly awaited the operation, which was one of some tediousness, watching him one moment, averting her face the next; and ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... an oil lamp burned, turned rather low. Peter sat in a rocking-chair drawn close to his mother's bedside and dozed fitfully, waking to watch the face on the pillow. It was very quiet there in the poor room, with the clock ticking, and the soft ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... sound had died in the house, every sound from garret to cellar, except the ticking of clock, and the tinkling cracks of sinking fires and cooling grates. In the regnant silence she rose, laid aside her book, softly opened the door, and stepped as softly into the narrow passage. A moment or two she listened, then stole ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... entrance. Not daring to display his feelings in the presence of the marchesa, he thrusts his hands into his pockets, and stands behind her, his head partly turned away, leaning against the edge of the marble mantel-piece. There is such absolute silence in the room that the ticking of a clock is distinctly heard. It is the deadly pause before the slaughter of the battle. "You sent for me, my aunt?" Enrica speaks in a timid voice, not moving from the spot where she has entered, near the open ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh this statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the curious lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near thoroughfare, filled up the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... without speaking and motioned me to hand him a chair; but waiving the offered civility, he went up to the side of the bed and laid his fingers quietly on the pulse of his patient. He stood gravely counting the ticking of life's great chronometer, while my mother leaned forward with pale, parted lips, and I gazed upon him as if the issues of life and death were in ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... and the thought of his beloved grandmother, sinking now to rest on the second floor all unconscious of the propinquity of the scorpion, the contiguity of the serpent, filled his expressive eyes with tears. He shut the door, stood in the hall and listened. He heard a chair crack, the ticking of a clock. There was no other sound, and he felt certain that Mr. Ferdinand and Gustavus had heeded his anxious medical directions and gone entirely to bed betimes, leaving the butler's pantry free for the nocturnal operations of the victim of Madame. For ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... Lovelace Peyton, that Mr. Rogers had been in the telegraph office and had telegraphed your father that the experiment night before last was a success. Tony is ambitious as a Scout should always be and has learned to read the ticking of the telegraph. ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... boys and enlisted men it was all a huge joke; nevertheless there were enough of the crew really superstitious for the tale of the clock-ticking sound to interfere with the general morale of the ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... heart as she crept forward round that terrible bend. She heard with an acuteness that made her marvel the long sweet note of the nightingale swelling among the bushes above. She also heard a watch ticking with amazing loudness close to her ear, and was aware of a very firm hand that grasped her shoulder, impelling her forward. There was no resisting that steady pressure. She crept on step by step because she could not do otherwise; and when she had rounded that awful corner at last ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... and quadrant were both unattainable, I did not so quickly renounce all hope of discovering a chronometer, which, if in good order, though at present not ticking, might still be made in some degree serviceable. But no such instrument was to be seen. No: nor to be heard of; ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... ticked merrily on, seeming to hasten its ticking as the hand crept around closer and closer to midnight. The mosaic shade of the lamp mingled reds and blues and greens upon the white ceiling above and poured golden light upon the pages of manuscript strewn about ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... contrast of light and shade. But a night march through the forest is even more depressing, when the soft pat of bare feet, the snapping of a dry twig, a whispered word of warning or advice, the dull deep note of the night-jar, and the ticking of the tree insects alone break the stillness. Nerves become strung to a pitch of intensity which the circumstances hardly seem to warrant, and all the chances of evil, which in the broad light of day a man would ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... The ticking wood-worm mocks thee, man! Thy temples,—creeds themselves grow wan! But there's a dome of nobler span, A temple given Thy faith, that bigots dare not ban,— Its ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Too true! Beneath you on the floor Lay blent in ruin all the obscure things That were the sofa's strength, a scattered store Of tacks and battens and protruded springs. Through the rent ticking they had all been spilt, Mute proofs and mournful of your weight ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... somewhere in the ship, and Bart grabbed ticking as he felt the slow surge. Then a violent sense of pressure popped his ear drums, weight crowded down on him like an elephant sitting on his chest, and there was a horrible squashed sensation dragging his limbs out of shape. It grew ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... weather that has keyed me up this time. It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough ticking to make ten big pillows, and unbleached linen for two dozen slips—I love a big pillow—and I've been saving up wild-duck feathers for weeks, the downiest feathers you ever sank your ear into, Matilda Anne; and if pillows will do it I'm going to make this house ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... glancing nervously at her son, lifting a knife from the table, creeping to the side of the bed and ripping a hole in the ticking, she drew out ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... hadn't heard the story on an average of half a dozen times a week. So Alexia propped herself up against the wall, and began, and presently it was so still that all any one could hear was the turning of the leaves and the ticking of the little ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... silence, heedless of the fateful seconds ticking from the mantelpiece. At the sound of a slow, measured footfall on the cobblestone path outside Miss Pilbeam caught his arm and ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... that fell upon the company at these words, the ticking of the clock under its classic pediment on the mantel was painfully audible, and had the effect of intimating that time now had its innings and eternity was altogether out of it. Several minutes seemed to pass before any one had the courage to ask whether the ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... "Take the news to Paris, fools! Spell it largely! It will amuse the court. Drink, drink, drink!" Wine bubbled and ran about the table; candles sputtered and died; still the sword rose and fell. Then came silence, broken only by heavy breathing and the ticking of the clock in the salon. The Chevalier sat crouched in his chair, his arm and sword resting on the table where ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... example, the ceasing of a clock to tick, although we have not noticed that it was ticking. Another example is the effect upon the pulse or the brain of being spoken ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... could hear, as through the receiver of a telephone, things that were going on among the upper branches; as when the breeze puffed up and they sighed and creaked together. I could hear a squirrel scampering and a woodpecker at work—or so I guessed, though it sounded more like a watch ticking. I made several essays to climb up the hollow, but the knotholes and crevices, and odds and ends of support, were too far removed from each other for the length of my limbs, and, furthermore, my efforts seemed to shake the whole tree and bring down ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... autumns, winters, each with full complement of months, and every month crowded with days. Space, illimitable space, surrounded me—skyless, starless space. And through its terrific silence I heard a clock ticking seconds of time. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... a time of nothing but his deadened pain, his inward comfort, the breathing of old Mr. Valentine, the intermittent raging of the wind without, and the steady ticking of the clock on the mantel,—which delicately framed timepiece had been started within the hour by Sam, who knew Miss Elizabeth's will for having all things in running order. Peyton's drowsiness wrapped him closer and closer. Presently he was remotely aware of the opening of the door, the tread ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... washstand, the dwarf book-case with its store of Edna Lyalls, Elizabeth Gaskells, Thackerays, Charlotte Yonges, Charlotte Brontes, a Thomas Hardy or so, and some old school-books. She looked at the pictures, including a sampler worked by a deceased aunt, at the loud-ticking Swiss clock on the mantelpiece, at the higgledy-piggledy photographs there, at the new Axminster carpet, the piece of linoleum in front of the washstand, and the bad joining of the wallpaper to the left of the door. ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... terror to him, and silence an oppression. In addition to his lamp, therefore, he had now a repeater in his room; the sound was at first too loud, but, after muffling the hammer with cloth, both the ticking and the striking became ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the events he celebrates in his earliest History. In its opening pages, we are made to listen to the feet and chariots of "Dubarrydom" hurrying from the "Armida Palace," where Louis XV. and the ancien regime lay dying; later to the ticking of the clocks in Launay's doomed Bastile; again to the tocsin of the steeples that roused the singers of the Marseillaise to march from "their bright Phocaean city" and grapple with the Swiss guard, last bulwark of the Bourbons. "The Swiss would have won," the historian ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... for some time but the drowsy ticking of the clock, when a noise was heard at the door, and Robert entered the room, bringing the fish ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... moments, the quiet of the room was only broken by the measured ticking of the clock on the mantel and the snapping of the fire on the andirons. At length Mrs. Adams ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... thing, I don't believe that any one should have a lot of money, so that a taxicab could remain ticking away fabulous sums while a charming young lady dines at her ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the cloth depend a great deal upon the mechanic who handles the cloth. Some mechanics like a stiff cloth, but the writer has always used a flexible cloth. The sizes, shape, and methods of folding and breaking in as shown in Fig. 21 below have proved successful. Cloths made of whalebone ticking are inexpensive and make the best for ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... their tongues, admired their sooty faces and began to pull out their bristles, for they all wore their upper lips shaved. Naturally, they confused right and left, and became entirely bewildered. A watch did not impress them; the ticking seemed mysterious and not quite innocent, and they put the instrument away at a safe distance. They asked to see some money, but were much disappointed, having imagined it would look bigger and more imposing. They preferred a little slip of paper, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... these things the woman who sat idly before the library fire was thinking, as the quiet evening wore on, and the purring of the flames and the ticking of the little mantel clock accented rather than disturbed the stillness. She was unhappy with a cold, dry wretchedness that was deeper than any pang of passion or of hate. The people she met, the books she read, the gowns she planned so carefully, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... followed, interrupted only by the slow, regular ticking of the great Rococo clock which stood on the ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... within easy call. He established himself there with a book, returning at short intervals to look at his patient. Selma had resumed her seat. It was dark save for a night lamp. In the stillness the only sounds were the ticking of the clock on the mantel-piece and Wilbur's labored breathing. It seemed as though he were struggling for his life. What should she do if he died? Why was she debarred from tending him? It was cruel. Tears fell on her hand. She stared into the darkness, twisting her fingers, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... entrance of the flat,' the youthful detective replied humbly, looking up to Hugo in the window of the dome. 'I could see through the lacework of the blind; the drawing-room was empty. The French window was open an inch or so, and I could hear a clock ticking as clear as a bell. Then Mr. Tudor toddled up, and I hid in the servants' doorway. Mr. Tudor went in by the other door, and out I popped again to my post. I see my gentleman stamping about and calling "Camilla! Camilla!" fit to burst. No answer. ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... the chiming sounds of Summer, the low ticking of the old clock on the stairs, and the utter quiet within, soothed him to slumber; his head bent forward and rested on the bedside; he fell asleep, and in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... inserted it into the well-oiled lock and entered that citadel of the proprieties! All slept; the gas in the hall had been left faintly burning to light his return; a dreadful stillness reigned, broken by the deep ticking of the eight-day clock. He put the gas out, and sat on a chair in the hall, waiting and counting the minutes, longing for any human countenance. But when at last he heard the alarm spring its rattle in the lower story, and the servants begin to ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Master of Stagholme laid him down to rest in the shadow of a big rock, strong in himself, strong in his faith. And as he slumbered, those who slumber not nor cease their toil by day or night sat with crooked backs over a little ticking, spitting, restless machine that spelt out his name across half the world. While the moon rose over the mountains, and looked placidly down upon this strange man lying there peacefully sleeping in a world ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... Pain Make their own measure of all things that be. No clock's slow ticking marks their deathless strain; The life they own is not the life we see; Love's single ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... to reappear on earth.... I cannot help thinking of their last days, remembering their sufferings, and what they said and did, and how they looked in mortal affliction.... To sit in a lonely room, the clock ticking loud through a still house...." Charlotte could ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... to make you understand how vague the whole thing was—and yet it was there! As he leaned over me, I saw him—saw the indistinct shape—and I heard the sound of a watch ticking. It was not my watch, it was a very faint ticking one, but all else was so still, ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... I'm just as prone to the weakness of the flesh as the rest of you. We're sitting on a ticking bomb and I don't like it. I'll do my job as long as it is necessary, but I'll also be damned glad to see the ships land to pull us out. The only skin that I really feel emotionally concerned about right now is my own. And if you want to be let in on a public secret—the rest ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... be grand to live here,' she thought drowsily, as she lay down in the cool clean sheets and heard the large clock on the wall of the landing ticking slumbrously in a measured activity that deepened the peace. She heard Mrs. Marston slide past in her soft slippers with her characteristic walk, rather like skating. Then Edward came up (evidently in stockinged feet, for he was only heralded by creakings). ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... a few leaves and indulged in a little time of what the Arabs call kayf, or complete relaxation and inner contemplation—a restful trick he had learned many years ago on the coast of Yemen. The ticking of the aluminum-cased chronometer, now marking a little past 2 a.m., soothed him, as did the droning hum of the propellers, the piping whistle of the ship-made hurricane round the fuselage, the cradling swing and rock of the air-liner ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... trimmings or sent as patterns from shops. The more plush and velvet obtainable, the greater the effect produced, while the colouring should be of a vivid tone, but excluding the bright aniline dyes already once referred to as being unsuitable to blend with other shades. A strong piece of ticking is required for the foundation, and on this the pieces are arranged. They should be pinned on while the amalgamation of colouring is being tried, and, when that is settled, basted on to the lining, the edges of soft materials being turned under and secured with the basting lines. ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... reaction, and find continual rewards without excitement. This atmosphere of his father's sterling industry was the best of Archie's education. Assuredly it did not attract him; assuredly it rather rebutted and depressed. Yet it was still present, unobserved like the ticking of a clock, an arid ideal, a tasteless stimulant in ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... houses, 6 for families and one for the girls and the other for the boys. In the quarters we had furniture made by the overseer and colored carpenters; they would make the tables, benches and beds for everybody. Our beds were ticking filled with straw and covers made of anything we ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... table in a corner kept up a monotonous ticking, to which the operator paid no attention. But it was a soothing sound to Prescott, and with the food and the heat and the restful atmosphere he began to feel sleepy. The lank youth said nothing, but watched his guest languidly and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... bowed over it took one of the limp, little hands that lay in Mary Standish's lap. The warmth had gone out of it. It was cold and lifeless. He caressed it gently and held it between his brown, muscular hands, staring at it, and yet seeing nothing in particular. It was only the ticking of Keok's clock that broke the silence for a time. Then he released the hand, and it dropped in the girl's lap again. She had been looking steadily at the streak of gray in his hair. And a light came into her eyes, a light which he did not see, and ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... to time my poor little wife squeezed my hand violently, closing her eyes, but not uttering a cry. The fire sparkled on the hearth. The pendulum of the clock went on with its monotonous ticking, but it seemed to me that all this calm was only apparent, that everything about me must be in a state of expectation like myself and sharing my emotion. In the bedroom beyond, the door of which was ajar, I could see ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... never gave advice to anyone and that I had better do as I thought best. As I thought best!! I remember I did not sleep all night afterwards: I was in agonies of indecision. I was sorry to lose the watch—I had laid it on the little table beside my bed; its ticking was so pleasant and amusing ... but to feel that David despised me (yes, it was useless to deceive myself, he did despise me) ... that seemed to me unbearable. Towards morning a determination had taken shape in me ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... eminent that bed, Where the chintz diamonds with the silken thread, Where rustling curtains call the curious eye, And boast the streaks and paintings of the sky! Of flocks they'd have your milky ticking full: And all this for the benefit of wool! "But where," say they, "shall we bestow these weavers, That spread our streets, and are such piteous cravers?" The silk-worms (brittle beings!) prone to fate, Demand their care, to make their webs complete: These may they tend, their ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... The intervals for a word to pass between them were long, and the ticking of the time-piece fronting the death-bed ruled ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... do not realize its having been stopped at all. A tiny arm holds the wheel firmly, and then lets it escape. Therefore, the fifth wheel and its accompaniments are called the "escapement." This catching and letting go is what makes the ticking. ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... watched with a researcher's interest as the bright purple juice swept across the table towards the busily ticking doster. Momma, of course, wasn't here, or she would have been gruff about it. She'd just gone into ...
— Poppa Needs Shorts • Leigh Richmond
... started up in his chair and now sat scowling at his inquisitor open-mouthed; and in the hush I could hear the ticking of the clock in the corner, and the crackle of the logs upon the hearth. Then, all at once, Cragg's pipe shivered to fragments on the floor and he leapt to his feet. In one stride, as it seemed, he reached the speaker, who occupied the corner opposite mine, but, even as he raised ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... far off, looking into each other's eyes. The clock, ticking away time, seemed a curious toy. "You. In this little room. Oh, Ellen, it is ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... small room, with the great open hearth, where in days long ago the bacon was smoked, and along a passage into the long, old-world dining-room, with its low ceiling with great dark beams, its solemn-ticking, brass-faced grandfather clock, and its ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... the hat of any suburban clerk may be the limbo of a quite separate philosophy. The first man may be a complete Materialist and feel his own body as a horrible machine manufacturing his own mind. He may listen to his thoughts as to the dull ticking of a clock. The man next door may be a Christian Scientist and regard his own body as somehow rather less substantial than his own shadow. He may come almost to regard his own arms and legs as ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... certainly should not. In the evening it was bruited that Graves was sick, and the morrow's Whig diagnosed his malady as influenza. Shelby thanked his practical stars that the ducking had had no such issue for him. By the second evening he was doubly thankful, for the press despatches were ticking out to whom it might concern that the distinguished author of the ode on the "Victory of Samothrace" and other poems ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... was said for some minutes. Outside, Polly, the old parrot, was scolding vociferously, and the tall clock was ticking away for clear life. Hooper, his ear first, and then his eye, glued to the keyhole, was vainly endeavoring to find out what was ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... does pass in the dark, when there are no means of counting the minutes. They could hear their watches ticking, if they listened, but they never listened long enough to know how the seconds went by. And ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... in the single sense of hearing. Sometimes she shut her eyes, straining her ears to listen through space, wishing that she could annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so establish that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her; she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of midnight ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... guns playing a duet, and the score was about equally intelligible to anyone unfamiliar with Arabia's hinterland—which is to say to all except about one person in ten million. It was most of it Greek to me, but Grim listened like an operator to the ticking of the Morse code. It was Hadad who cut it short; Jeremy would have talked all the ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... teams gradually followed their example, the whole party was soon condensed in one, silent, and wondering group. Notwithstanding the impression of a supernatural agency was very general among the travellers, the ticking of gun-locks was heard, and one or two of the bolder youths cast their rifles ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hut. For a long time he stared without consciousness upon the rafters of the ceiling, on which fish and ragged aprons were hung up to dry, and swinging to and fro in the current of air. This monotonous motion, which under other circumstances might have lulled him to sleep like the ticking of a clock, gradually awoke him to entire consciousness. The awful scene, which had just passed over him, came up to his mind in sudden contrast with that bright moment on the deck of the Halcyon in which he had first beheld the coasts of Wales lying in sunshine before him; and his thoughts soon ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... with always the same force and with the same space of time between the ticks, yet we hear tick-tack, tick-tack; we can prove the difference to be in our ear, for it requires but little effort to hear tick-tack or tack-tick, tack-tick. The ticking has not varied in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... air of the room grow stifling. A big clock was ticking on the wall, and it seemed to him the second-beats were minutes apart. His downcast eyes just caught the shape of the hands opposite him, and in fancy he felt them already tightening upon his throat. Like a drowning man, scenes in his past life swarmed through his brain. He saw his mother, his ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... at length, "there's something interesting, the WXY call—Seaville station—from some one on the Lucie only a few minutes ago, sending a message to be relayed by Seaville to the station at Beach Park. It seems impossible, but buzzing and ticking forth is this message from some one off this very houseboat. It reads: "Miss Valerie Fox, Beach Park. I am suspected of the murder of Mrs. Edwards. I appeal to you to help me. You must allow me to tell the truth about the messages I intercepted for Mrs. Edwards ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... completely exhausted with what he had already said. He soon fell into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a candle: which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with a very large and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his pulse, and said he ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... only sound within the cottage was the ticking of a grandfather-clock in a corner, while without the great sound of the breaking seas filled all the world. The storm above had passed. Now the thunder-blast no longer shook the cottage. A faint greyness had begun to show beyond ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... room, and Christine sat on. Though it still wanted fifteen minutes to the hour at which Nicholas had promised to be there, she began to grow impatient. After the accustomed ticking the dead silence was oppressive. But she had not to wait so long as she had expected; steps were heard approaching the door, and there was ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... listened. The silence was so complete that the ticking of a watch sounded like the beat ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... unwelcome, old-fashioned remedy that night. He slipped away early—presumably to bed. Janice was not long in going to her room; but she did not lie down to sleep. When the house was dead-still, all save the mice in the walls and the solemn ticking of the hall clock, the girl arose ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... sense that the moment was not—that what was happening before his eyes had either happened before or was happening in some vacuum in which past, present, future and the ordinary divisions of time had lost their bearings. The great twenty-four-hour clock at the end of the Board Room, ticking on and on while the Secretary read, wore an unfamiliar face. . . . Yes, time had gone wrong, somehow: and the events of the passage home to Falmouth, of the journey up to the doors of the Admiralty, though they ran on a chain, had no intervals to be measured by a clock, ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... feel her heart beating. Clutched against her breast he looked up at the white, beautiful face, the trembling throat, the wide-open blue eyes staring at the one black window between them and the outside night. A lull had come in the storm. It was quiet and ominous stillness, and the ticking of a clock, old and gray like the Missioner himself, filled the room. And Nada, seated on the edge of Father John's bed, no longer looked like the young girl of "seventeen goin' on eighteen." That afternoon, in the hidden jackpine open, with its sweet-scented jasmines, ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... Lieutenant in your Guard! By the device your soldiers bore I know it, Father, who gave me victories for sisters! 'Twas not in vain you wished me to possess The alarm-clock of King Frederick of Prussia, Which you magnificently stole from Potsdam, For here it is! 'Tis ticking in my brain! It is the clock which wakes me every morning, Drives me exhausted by my midnight toil Back to my narrow table, to my toil, To be more fit by night-fall for ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... dropped on the office bench, and while the wondering operator set the wires ticking, strove to get his breath, utterly spent in his mad race across the heather. And when it was got he set out again—to find ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... clouds of smoke from his long clay pipe, and nothing broke the silence save the parrot (in a large gilded cage on a marble pedestal in the third window-niche), uttering from time to time a loud scream, or exclaiming in a sharp voice, "Good-morning!" The ticking of the bronze clock on the mantel-piece at the other end of the room could be distinctly heard. Suddenly the old gentleman struck the window-board so violently with his right hand that the panes rattled, the lady gave a start, and the parrot screeched. "Well, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... into the room, I heard the clock ticking and that caused me to look at it. It sits on the mantelpiece with some layers of paper under one corner where the mantel is warped. When the papers slip out or we move the clock a little as we're dusting, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... rich as yourn, of course," Uncle Henry pursued; "but rich for him—and he won't do it." He waited for her to say something; but she did not speak. There was a pause. Lucia looked out at the baking valley, and off to the far mountains, and the ticking of the clock could be heard like steady rain in a cistern. Then she went over to the table near the alcove, where a few books were scattered about. She opened one, and pretended to read. All the time Uncle Henry's eyes ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... under you; Then the blanketing tickles—you feel like mixed pickles—so terribly sharp is the pricking, And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking. Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle; Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle! Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eye-balls and head ever aching. But your slumbering ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... in the room, broken only by the crackling of the fir logs in the fire and by the ticking of the clock in its tall carved case in the corner. A full hour must elapse before the evening meal, and Greifenstein did not know what to do with his unwelcome guest. At last the latter took out a black South ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... of his footfalls as he mounted the steps; the next instant he was inside the house, his back against the closed door—listening. As usual, he heard nothing except the ticking of a clock somewhere in the house, and as usual he slipped his revolver back into the side pocket of his coat and fitted a key into the door on his left. The room was pitch dark; he lighted a candle and held it up, shading his eyes with ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... not hear it, have no fear— And light the candle and look round The old familiar room; To see the old books upon the wall And lovingly take one down again, And hear—O, strange to those that lay So patiently underground— The ticking of the clock, the sound Of clicking embers ... watch the play Of shadows ... till the implacable call Of morning turn our faces grey; And, or ever we go, we lift and kiss Some idle thing that your hands may touch, Some paper ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... sleepy eye upon the busily ticking little clock on the table. As she looked, her gaze became fixed and she sat up in ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... in a controlled and quiet tone. In the silence that followed the word they could hear the little clock on the mantel ticking monotonously. Noel was trying hard, as they stood thus alone in the stillness and half-darkness, to gather up his suddenly-weakened forces, so that he might tell her, in the hope of giving her comfort, of the resolute purpose he had entered into. But in the moment which ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... confused, the incessant ticking of the little clock sounded farther, and farther away, her head settled to rest upon her folded arms, and she was in the midst of a struggle of some kind, in which a belted cowboy and a suave, sloe-eyed quarter-breed were fighting to gain possession of her mine—or, ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... dancers in London. Was Sissie's tone quite natural? Mr. Prohack could not be sure. Eliza Brating said she must go at once in order not to miss the last tram home. Mr. Prohack, without thinking, said that he would see her home in his taxi, which had been ruthlessly ticking his fortune away for much ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... seemed incomplete, deftly slipped in between the circle of legs and feet, and curled up upon Jinny's lap. Her snoring, a wheezy noise that made Jimbo wonder 'why it didn't scrape her,' was as familiar as the ticking of the clock. Old Mere Riquette knew her rights. And she exacted them. Jinny's lap was one of these. She had a face like an old peasant woman, with a curious snub nose and irregular whiskers that betrayed recklessly the advance of age. Her ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the bed and bounced up and down to test the springs and mattress before she pulled back the covers to examine the quality of filling in the ticking. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... to go through booksellers' catalogues, ticking here and there a possible purchase. Formerly, when I could seldom spare money, I kept catalogues as much as possible out of sight; now I savour them page by page, and make a pleasant virtue of the discretion I must needs impose upon myself. But greater still is the ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... to the midnight wind, And sat beside the dead, And felt those movings of the mind Which own a secret dread. The ticking clock, which told the hour, Had then a sadder chime; And these winds seem'd an unseen pow'r, Which sung the dirge ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... they left Brandon it was as though they had never been; the echo of their voices died away into the ticking of the clock, the movement of plates, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... so powerful that it exaggerated all the noises, confused them and prolonged them, and the powerful, regular ticking of a great clock, the cries of a paroquet kept in one of the lower rooms, the clucking of a hen in search of a lost kernel of corn, were all Monsieur Gardinois could hear when he applied his ear to the tube. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... stiffened to attention when the telegraph began ticking. The New York Herald, the Sun, and the Tribune had been founded only recently and they represented a new type of journalism, swift, fearless, and energetic. The proprietors of these newspapers saw that this new instrument was bound to affect all newspaperdom profoundly. ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... Forsyte, the Rembrandtesque effect of his great head, with its white hair, against the cushion of his high-backed seat, was spoiled by the moustache, which imparted a somewhat military look to his face. An old clock that had been with him since before his marriage forty years ago kept with its ticking a jealous record of the seconds slipping away forever from its ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hall with a hard and sounding step as measured as the ticking of a clock, and placing his skinny hand upon the hilt of an immense long rapier, and stamping with his heel on the floor, he uttered in a horribly disagreeable creaking voice resembling the grating of an engine these words, which ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... spy-glass thing. Then he did it all over again with the other ear; and then he laid down the instruments and pulled out his watch. 'Write on a piece of paper,' says he to the other doctor: 'Do you know that the watch is ticking?' When this was done, he makes signs to little Mary to open her mouth, and puts as much of his watch in as would go between her teeth, while the other doctor holds up the paper before her. When he took the watch ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... head and plaited her hair in the two long ropes which made her nightly coiffure. She was thankful of the employment, thankful of an excuse to hide her face; she listened to the ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece and asked herself what she should do next. The incredible had come to pass, and she, Bridgie, sister, guardian, married woman, mother of a family, was nervous in Pixie's presence! Not for ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... following. He counted the different footprints, and announced to the horsemen that seven dingoes had followed the trail they were following at that moment. "Five and two," the black-fellow called it, ticking the number off on the fingers of one hand. He explained that these dingoes, led by the "blurry big warrigal" aforesaid, must have been terribly badly in want of food; and that he did not think much of the chances of the man ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... greater the effect produced, while the colouring should be of a vivid tone, but excluding the bright aniline dyes already once referred to as being unsuitable to blend with other shades. A strong piece of ticking is required for the foundation, and on this the pieces are arranged. They should be pinned on while the amalgamation of colouring is being tried, and, when that is settled, basted on to the lining, the edges of soft materials being turned under and secured ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... again, but mildly shake it in the hope that something will happen to set it going, we are merely fumbling. But if, on moving the clock gently so as to set the pendulum in motion, we hear it wobbling about irregularly, and at the same time observe that there is no ticking of any kind, we come to the conclusion that the pendulum has somehow or other escaped the little catch that connects it with the mechanism, we have been really thinking. From the fact that the pendulum wobbles irregularly, we infer that it has lost its proper catch. From the fact that ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... Peter could feel her heart beating. Clutched against her breast he looked up at the white, beautiful face, the trembling throat, the wide-open blue eyes staring at the one black window between them and the outside night. A lull had come in the storm. It was quiet and ominous stillness, and the ticking of a clock, old and gray like the Missioner himself, filled the room. And Nada, seated on the edge of Father John's bed, no longer looked like the young girl of "seventeen goin' on eighteen." That afternoon, in the hidden jackpine open, with its sweet-scented jasmines, its ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... said T. B. drawing up a chair to the table, and ticking off his fact on the first finger of his hand, "is that Gregory Farrington is alive. The man whose body was picked up in the Thames is undoubtedly the gentleman who was shot in the raid upon the Custom House. The inference is, that Gregory ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... sang the man, "This song I hear. It first began Before the hurrying race Of ticking, and of tearing pages Deafened the breathless ages: It is the happy singing Of wind among the rigging Of ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... Newfoundland dog at some stray passer by; and, at length, even that had ceased; Mona's needle was laid aside, the domestics, obedient to the early habits of country life, were abed, Mona herself had now retired, and Amanda being left alone, nothing was heard but the measured ticking of the old clock on the corner of the stairs. The lamp had been taken away by the departing Mona, and in the obscurity, the moonbeams fell in grey streaks adown the damask curtains; and after a brief meditation on the subject of ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... sound? I declare, I'd think it was one of those death-watch beetles had got in here. Sounds like a big watch ticking. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... detail, the sound the gears made changing, the feel of the seat, the way the hood went up. And, above all, the little clock, ticking its warning by day, regular and relentless, while at night its bright prying eyes reminded her of all the things she wanted to forget. "It is my conscience," she would say, "and fate and mortality. It symbolises all the limitations of life. It is ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... did not come, so the two went in, leaving the fire to flare itself out. Neither did Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow return. It was quiet anxious work, sitting there by the log-fire, hearkening to the ticking of the old clock, waiting for someone who did not come—someone up to mischief, as Mrs. Grant said. Out she went again, with her apron over ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... faint light that filtered through the windows. Seemingly, he was in luck. There was absolutely nothing to make him doubt that he was alone in the house. Everything was still. There was not even the ticking of a clock, the one sound he might reasonably have expected to hear even in a temporarily deserted house. But he waited for quite a minute, to make sure that no one was about. He felt certain that, had anyone been there, he would have heard breathing, no matter how anxious ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... that he could go no farther. I did not even remember to bid him farewell when I went on my way alone through the darkness and sand. Just after midnight I sank down by a tamarisk. The stars twinkled as usual, and not a sound was audible. Only the beat of my heart and the ticking of my watch broke the awful silence. Then I heard a rustling sound in the sand. "Is that you, Kasim?" I asked. "Yes, sir," he whispered back. "Let us go a little farther," I said, and he followed me with ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... in a heart that for an enemy was black with hate, red with revenge, though for the stranger, white and kind; that in an eagle's isolation had kept strung hard and fast to God, country, home; that ticking clock- like for a century without hurry or pause was beginning to quicken at last to the march-rhythm of the world—the heart of the Southern hills. Now the prophecy from the flaming tongue of that red-headed orator was coming ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... this afternoon," she said, "and I was lying here, eyes wide open, seeming to feel the bed sway like the ship, I fell to counting the ticking of the stair-clock below, and thinking how each second was recording the eternity of my love for you. And as I lay a-listening and thinking, came one by the window singing 'John O'Bail', and I heard voices in the tap-room and the clatter of pewter flagons. ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... noiselessly to the head of the steps and listened. Everything was so quiet that they heard the ticking of the clock on the ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... course was mapped out. "Why, it's nearly twelve o'clock," he said. "And mother has not come to bid me 'Good-night.' I wonder why." He left the room, and found that the house was in absolute silence. All the lights were turned out; the ticking of an eight-day clock in the hall sounded clearly in the silence of the night. "I'll go up into her room," he said. Forthwith he went noiselessly up the thickly carpeted stairway, and knocked at her bedroom door. There was no answer. "Mother," he said, ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... over as everything of that sort in Winnipeg is so fearfully dear I do not like buying anything there. We sent for some unbleached calico the other day, worth twopence-halfpenny; was charged twelve cents or sixpence a yard. Besides the four yards of calico there were ten of bed-ticking, also ten of American cloth; and the bill was six dollars seventy cents, nearly seven-and-twenty shillings. Everything is equally dear, the demand is so much greater than the supply. Beef is tenpence to thirteenpence a pound, mutton about the same, bacon tenpence, pork tenpence, chickens four ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... through expectation, the return each evening a delight through memory. The vestibule in which he waited his lord's pleasure, with its marble pavement and its painted walls, a few cane chairs and tables, and a great clock ticking steadily, became the entrance-hall of paradise. Of nights the thought of sitting there next morning caused his pulse to quicken. The sons of Musa and the negro doorkeeper shared in the radiance of ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... saw a slit in the wall that had been shoved in. Kennedy was busy adjusting the apparatus, and paused only to remark that the boxes contained two sensitive selenium surfaces balanced against two carbon resistances. There was also in the box a clockwork mechanism which Craig wound up and set ticking ever so softly. Then he moved a rod that seemed to cover the slit, until the apparatus was adjusted to his satisfaction, a delicate operation, judging by the care he took. Several of these boxes were installed, and by that time it ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... this exciting period that attention was at once transferred from Ireland to the Continent of Europe. There it seemed that every moment was ticking to drive us towards the greatest war that the world ever saw. And though matters grew hourly more serious, it did not then occur to the writer, a stranger then of only six weeks in London, that after seeing the capital of the Empire under conditions of peace, he ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... on duty lay down on their trestle-beds to sleep, and I sat at the desk reading the reports of recent fires. The place was very quiet—the sounds of the great city were hushed—the night was calm, and nothing was heard but the soft breathing of the sleepers and the ticking of the clock as I sat there waiting for a fire. I often looked at the telegraph needles and, (I am half ashamed to say it), longed for them to move and give us "a call." At last, when I had begun to ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... thoughts were loud as the clock which ticked out the last minutes she was to remain at home, and trying not to hear them, she turned to the Monna Lisa, wondering what Owen meant when he had said that the hesitating smile in the picture was like her smile. Her thoughts ran on ticking in her brain like the clock in the corner of a room, and though she would have given anything to stop thinking, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... heart was left in the wretched little brute, holding on to him for bare life, with my arms and legs straight out in front of me. The gray wall and the blinding road rushed by me like a river—I scarcely knew what happened—I couldn't think of anything but the ticking of the clock that I was somehow trying to count, till there came the bang of a pistol over ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... by those who have thus struggled upward to success is not their only, or indeed their chief reward. When, after years of toil, of opposition, of ridicule, of repeated failure, Cyrus W. Field placed his hand upon the telegraph instrument ticking a message under the sea, think you that the electric thrill passed no further than the tips of his fingers? When Thomas A. Edison demonstrated in Menlo Park that the electric light had at last been ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... demented; men thought the judgment had come. The earth opened in thousands of places, the roads in Hilo cracked open; horses and their riders, and people afoot, were thrown violently to the ground. At Kilauea the shocks were as frequent as the ticking of a watch. In Kau, south of Hilo, 300 shocks were counted during the day. An avalanche of red earth, supposed to be lava, burst from the mountain side, throwing rocks high into the air, swallowing up houses, trees, men and animals, and traveling three miles ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... air of cheerfulness and home-comfort to their new dwelling-place. Adolphus whitewashed, according to promise; Pauline scrubbed, according to nature; they arranged and rearranged their little stock of furniture,—set the loud-ticking day-clock on the mantel-shelf, and displayed around it the china cups, the flower-vase, and the little picture of their native town which Adolphus cut from a sheet of letter-paper some old friend ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... the back and begging him repeatedly to brace up and not behave like that, I did nothing. At last his sobs ceased and he was silent. I had risen from my chair and now I stood there with a hand on his shoulder; the ticking of the ancient eight-sided clock on the wall ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... paid so much simply because they are women; they are having tea too. They seem to be very fond of shrimp-paste, which they spread on their bread-and-butter instead of jam. In every room there is always a loud noise like the wash of waves; that is made up of hundreds of busy little instruments ticking away hard all at once. It seems wonderfully quiet when we leave it behind, and step out into the street again where the lamps are ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... sound, for any sound, the creaking of a board, the snapping of a twig, the ticking of an insect—there was none—the silence was the silence of stone. I thought of worms; I imagined countless legions of them making their way to me from the surrounding mouldering coffins. Every now and then I uttered a shriek as something cold and slimy touched my skin, and my stomach heaved ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... to do all you can for your mother," said he, while he held her in his lap, and Doctor Sennar counted her mother's pulse by the ticking ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... inaptitude, I know not, certain it is that my young friend could never be induced to any further essays in this kind. He affirmed that it was to him like writing in a foreign tongue,—that Mr. Pope's versification was like the regular ticking of one of Willard's clocks, in which one could fancy, after long listening, a certain kind of rhythm or tune, but which yet was only a poverty-stricken tick, tick after all,—and that he had never seen a sweet-water on ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... heard her tongue ticking away, like the little clock she was; she had her Bohm, she had her nautical costume and her Remsen cooler. These, with the lunch that would come in ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... pale, composed face turned towards Mr. Tredgold. Her eyes were scornful and her lips slightly parted. Before these signs his courage flickered out and left him speechless. Even commonplace statements of fact were denied him. At last in sheer desperation he referred to the loudness of the clock's ticking. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... of small square panes, its black fireplace, lifeless without the flames, and its dark, grim mahogany bar stretching halfway across the south side of the room. The white floor, well sanded and polished, seemed only to accentuate the general gloom, and the great clock, ticking solemnly behind the bar, seemed to be marking time for a funeral dirge. But suddenly all changed to brightness when Betty entered. Pickering was talking to me, standing between me and the girl, so that she did not see me when she ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... minutes more she stood and contemplated her kitchen, with the fire shining on the round oaken stand in the centre, and the large wooden-bottomed chairs, and the loud-ticking clock, with its tall case, the inside of which, with its pendulum and weights, had been a perpetual mystery and delight, first to Hilary's and then to Ascott's childhood. Then there was the sofa, large ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... tense silence while they waited for Langham to speak. Moxlow heard the ticking of ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... of the horses beat the night away as regularly as the ticking of a clock. It grew darker as the night wore on, and sometimes a coyote would yelp from the fringe of willows that bordered a creek in a way that made Mary recall tales of banshees. And once, when the first pale streak of dawn ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... through Caldew's head there was silence in the room, broken only by the clock on the mantelpiece ticking loudly, with pert indifference to human affairs. Merrington, after dragging the hidden and forgotten tragedy to light, remained quiet, watchfully noting the effect on mother and daughter. The mother stood without a word or gesture, her hand stiffened in arrested protest, like ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... to her that the most curious little silence followed this speech of hers, and yet she knew that in actual time it was nothing, and felt that it existed probably only in her own heart. She heard the clock on the mantelpiece across the room ticking; far off, the rattle of a taxicab. The air coming through the open window bore the damp, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... few old, damaged, straw-seated chairs mended with bits of rope. The great business had been to close two of the three windows with boards, whilst the third one and the door were screened with some old mattress ticking studded with stains ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... other actors in the morning's drama—leaned far back in his chair. The room was suddenly deathly still. The faint ticking of the desk clock was loud and rasping. There was heavy breathing audible in the room beyond. The last noonday chime had ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... heels, not at all to his liking, The terrible clock keeps on ticking and striking, Till, exhausted and sore, He can't run any more, But falls as he reaches Miss Davis's door, And screams when they rush out, alarm'd at his knock, "Oh! Look at the Clock!—Do!—Look at ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... interval, he was informed that a visitor was asking for him in the parlour; the news filled him with delight, for he was very young and still counted on the possibilities of the unknown. In the parlour he found Monsieur Tudesco, wearing his waistcoat of ticking and holding a peaked ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork, lean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just within the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and trousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral darkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length of its wick (still burning) has doubled over ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... miserable chamber, Dim with flick'ring candlelight, Lies a man on bed of sickness. Fiercely but a moment past Did he wage with Death the battle; Worn he sinks back into sleep. Save the clock's persistent ticking Not a sound invades the room, Where the gruesome quiet warns us Of the neighborhood of Death. O'er the pale, distended features Plays a melancholy smile. Is he dreaming at life's border Of his childhood ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... planes on September the 11th were trained in Afghanistan's camps, and so were tens of thousands of others. Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... another breaking up, in which Europe will be involved; now for the conscription, Joseph, the abolition of all permits and all the other things that we read of in the gazettes. In the place of quiet, we must be plunged in confusion; instead of listening to the ticking of clocks, we must hear the thunder of cannon; instead of talking of convents, we must talk of arsenals; instead of smelling flowers and incense, we must smell powder. Great God! will this never come ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... Moneta, since you will go, I must tell you a secret; for you remember I have seen the world, and know all about it. Mortals are a higher race than ourselves, it is true; but that is only because they live atop o' the earth, while we are under their feet. They make a great parade about their little ticking jewel they call Conscience; but, after all, they will any of them sell it for one of our ear-rings! I assure you they love money better than their own souls; and I would advise you, as a friend that has seen the world, ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... they roared with laughter, put out their tongues, admired their sooty faces and began to pull out their bristles, for they all wore their upper lips shaved. Naturally, they confused right and left, and became entirely bewildered. A watch did not impress them; the ticking seemed mysterious and not quite innocent, and they put the instrument away at a safe distance. They asked to see some money, but were much disappointed, having imagined it would look bigger and more imposing. They preferred a ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... of her feet in the grass, the rustle of her skirts, became prominent sounds. She missed the company of her watch; she wound it up and got it to ticking; anything to ward off the solitude. The thought of camping out she did not like to entertain; but thoughts are unavoidable. Once she stood quite still to make a little trial of it, but her pause was not long; she soon got her feet to going ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... said in France that no German could resist a clock, and that the dearth of clocks after the war is quite noticeable. To prove the contrary, and to applaud the officers who had lived in Petit Val (and there had been many hundreds of them), my clock was ticking away as of ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... reason, but this bridal has to me the semblance of a funeral. God shield us all from evil! there is a cold deathlike chill throughout the house. I heard—(though, my lady, I do not believe in such superstitions,) but I heard the death-watch tick—tick—ticking, as plain as I hear the old clock now chime seven! And I saw—I was wide awake—yet I saw a thin misty countenance, formed as of the white spray of the salt-sea wave, so sparkling, so shadowy, yet so clear, come between me and the moonbeams, and raise ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... liberty, and a great dash of that fear with which honest people regard serious interests, kept himself back from the straightforward course of life among certain selected activities. And now, all of a sudden, he is unhorsed, like St. Paul, from his infidel affectation. His heart, which has been ticking accurate seconds for the last year, gives a bound and begins to beat high and irregularly in his breast. It seems as if he had never heard or felt or seen until that moment; and by the report of his memory, he must have lived his past life between sleep and waking, or with the preoccupied ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... silence that could be felt in the little kitchen; a silence only broken by the ticking of the tall clock and the beating of Rebecca's heart, which, it seemed to her, almost drowned the voice of the clock. The rain ceased, a sudden rosy light filled the room, and through the window a rainbow arch ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... married Blair Maitland.... Take it like a man, and be thankful you are rid of her." He wheeled about and stood with his back to his niece's lover. He had guided the inevitable sword, but he could not witness the agony of the wound. There was complete stillness in the room; the ticking of the clock suddenly hammered in Robert Ferguson's ears; a cinder fell softly from the grate. Then ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... but it is safe to dwell Where ordered duties are; No doubt the cherubs earn their wage Who wind each ticking star; ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... hand, and they walked cautiously down the hall. At the top of the stairs Highboy paused and leaned over the bannisters. Somebody was walking to and fro in the hall beneath with soft regular footfalls like the ticking of a clock. ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... throbbing quiet of her room she heard the fingers of the prying rain busy at her windows; the ticking of the small French clock, very dull, very far away—or was it her heart? And, faintly ringing in the receiver pressed against her ear, millions of tiny stirrings, sounds like instruments of an elfin orchestra tuning, echoes ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... superstitious terror through every fiber. He heard the stir of the mouse in the pile of walnuts, the hissing of the flame above the embers, and the sudden breaking of the smoked chimney of the lamp. Then as he leaned down he heard something else—the steady ticking of the big silver watch ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... man, with an exaggerated sense of the ridiculous, would see nothing ridiculous in ticking off a number of different objects as they were successively achieved. If for example it was part of his scheme to learn various foreign languages, he would know that he could only succeed by regular application of the brain, by concentration of thought daily; he would also know that he could never ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... which followed, the ticking of the clock in the hall seemed to grow loud; and he turned a little aside to remove the mask. She breathlessly awaited the operation, which was one of some tediousness, watching him one moment, averting her face the next; and when it was done she shut her eyes at the hideous ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... throughout the house, all, with the exception of Sir Jasper, had retired to rest, and there was no sound, save the ticking of the old-fashioned time-piece, with its monotonous and never varying tick, tick, and the scratching noise made by the quill as it traced its inky characters on the yet incomplete codicil the Baronet was preparing. The candles had burned low in their sockets, and the fire ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... power and anatomical skill. Each jaw was furnished with a row of diamonds, and two rubies flashed from the deep eye-sockets. On the forehead was engraved, Ruit Hora; and on the occiput Tibi, Hippolyta. It opened like a box, the hinging being almost imperceptible, and the ticking inside lent an indescribable air of life to the diminutive skull. This sepulchral jewel, the offering of some unknown artist to his mistress, had doubtless marked many an hour of rapture, and served as a warning ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... evening meal, an incident occurs which causes considerable amusement. Everything being unusually quiet, one sharp-eared youth happens to hear the obtrusive ticking of my Waterbury, and strikes a listening attitude, at which everybody else likewise begins listening; the tick, tick is plainly discernible to everybody in the compartment and they become highly interested and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... he felt a thump against the side of the car, but the impression faded before it was fully born. In a remote corner of his mind the ticking of his watch sounded as a cold, measured rhythm, a metronome with delusions of syncopation. He sat motionless, his forearm resting on the steering wheel, the spray of blossoms caressing his cheek, his ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... effect of these timed impulses ever described was that observed by a watchmaker, named Ellicott, in the year 1741. He left two clocks leaning against the same rail; one of them, which we may call A, was set going; the other, B, not. Some time afterwards he found, to his surprise, that B was ticking also. The pendulums being of the same length, the shocks imparted by the ticking of A to the rail against which both clocks rested were propagated to B, and were so timed as to set B going. Other curious effects were ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... could hear a far-off house-dog barking, and the nearer clanking of the chains by which the cows were fastened to their mangers, and the loud ticking of the old clock in the kitchen below. It would very soon be midnight. She felt the chill of the keen air, and she shivered as she huddled her shawl closer about her; but it was not the cold that made her lips tremble and her ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton
... The hours seemed as if they would never creep by. The very ticking of the clock became irksome. At length the stillness of the house was interrupted by the ringing of a bell. Shortly after, I heard the voice of a waiter at the bar: "The stout gentleman in No. 13 wants his breakfast. Tea and bread and butter ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... stopped ticking, and outside, in mysterious accord, the pigeons rose with a great fluttering of wings, and flew off'. Mr. Treffry made a startled, heavy movement. He tried to get on to his feet and reach the bell, but could not, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "Ticking tuppences away like the very dickens, too!" returned Nan, emerging from her room dressed for ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the Cottage in a state of hurry and excitement; but the empty kitchen seemed to act on it like a sort of emotional cold douche. The varnished walls, the neatly set chairs, the clock ticking so loudly above the mantel-shelf, all seemed somehow unnatural, with the unnaturalness of empty houses where steps go echoing—echoing—though ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... the clocks' ticking was like the voice of many ripples washing the shore of the Infinite. A new life had begun for Trove, and they were cutting it into seconds. He looked up at them and rose quickly and stood a moment, his thumb on the door-latch. Outside they could hear the ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... the machine steadily ticking. He would not give up hoping that Harvey was there, although his heart beat fast with nervous anxiety. So far, he had not thought that his family might be frightened about him. He knew he was ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... which all could hear the ticking of the clock on the table, and the three pairs eyes were fixed on Jewel with such varying expressions of amazement and disapproval that the child's breath ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... disclosed an elderly, narrow-faced man seated at a large table and surrounded by manuscripts and books. The sunlight flowing through curtains of Turkey red fell sanguinely upon the bust of dead-eyed Pericles on the mantle. A little clock was ticking, hidden somewhere among the countless leaves of writing, the maps and broad heavy tomes that swarmed ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Norman were dining with one of their county acquaintance, and Dr. May had undertaken to admit them on their return. The fire shone red and bright, as it sank calmly away, and the timepiece and clock on the stairs had begun their nightly duet of ticking, the crickets chirped in the kitchen, and the doctor sat alone. His book lay with unturned pages, as he sat musing, with eyes fixed on the fire, living over again his own life, the easy bright days of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... bedroom. Vassily cautiously sat down by Olga, kissed and chafed her hands, comforted her in whispers. She listened to him, and silently, faintly, shuddered. In the doorway stood Palashka, stealthily wiping her eyes. In the next room they heard the heavy, even ticking of the clock, and the breathing of some one asleep. Olga Ivanovna's numbness dissolved at last into tears and stifled sobs. Tears are like a storm; after them one is always calmer. When Olga Ivanovna had quieted down a little, and only sobbed convulsively at intervals, like a child, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... removed the coffee things and placed whisky and soda, although there was no one to want it. His quiet step, the ticking of the buhl clock, the very roses on the Aubusson carpet gave her gross suspicions ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... into the car, and attempted to look like a rug. In the silence, while the sentry evidently examined a passport and flashed a lantern over the chauffeur, Nikky cursed the ticking of his watch, the beating of ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... be the sole cause of the stoppage; and I am willing, for the general satisfaction, to assign my 15 reasons. The truth is, that I am tired of ticking." Upon hearing this the old clock became so enraged that it was on ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... choked her utterance. For once Lady Winsleigh's conscience smote her—for once she felt ashamed, and dared not offer consolation to the innocent soul she had so wantonly stricken. For a minute or two there was silence—broken only by the monotonous ticking of the clock and the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... The loud ticking of the clock, and the lamentations of the hound without, were not the only sounds that disturbed the night. Before the empty fireplace, in a high-backed, cane-bottomed chair, slept an old negress, with head bowed, moaning and muttering ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... drawing near for our departure and at last word was sent round that General Hughes wished to meet all the chaplains on the verandah of his bungalow. The time set was the cheerful hour of five a.m. I lay awake all night with a loud ticking alarm clock beside me, till about half an hour before the wretched thing was to go off. With great expedition I rose and shaved and making myself as smart as possible in the private's uniform, hurried off to the General's camp home. There the other chaplains ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... realize its having been stopped at all. A tiny arm holds the wheel firmly, and then lets it escape. Therefore, the fifth wheel and its accompaniments are called the "escapement." This catching and letting go is what makes the ticking. ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... ensuing hours of that summer evening, seated in the arm-chair, barely moving, listening to the ticking of the clock, and the thunder of the streets, and at times hearkening to the sounds in the inner chamber, the wanderings feebler and more rare, but the fearful convulsions more frequent, seeming, as it were, to be tearing away the last remnant of life. These moments of horror-struck suspense were ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... impenetrably dark, and the Northern Lights were flashing like aerial searchlights in the sky. The five of them were singularly quiet, deep in their own thoughts. Bill heard his watch ticking loudly ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... Peacock, That sat on a wall. Q was the Quarrel 'Tween Pompey and Pug. R is the Rose In our small china jug. S stands for Syllabub, T for my Toys. U my kind Uncle, Who loves good girls and boys. V is the Vulture, Whom little birds dread. W a Watch That hangs ticking o'erhead. X you may make By two keys when they're crossed. Y is a Youth Whose time should not be lost. The Alphabet now I nearly have said, Zoological Gardens begin with ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... before me. I could imagine Miss Jackson writing her letters, reading her book, eating her small meals, making the same humble and grateful remarks, entertaining her old friends. Year after year it had gone on, just the same, the clock ticking loud in the hall, the sun creeping round the old rooms, the birds singing in the garden, the faint footsteps in the road. It had begun, that gentle routine, long before I had been born into the world; and it was strange to me to think that, as I passed ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... illuminated missals, dinner services of silver and gold, Dresden and Sevres, and even Royal Worcester; splendid crystal cases of spoons and jewellery; watches old and new; weapons of many countries, and an astonishing array of clocks, all ticking, and pointing to different hours. But the inner room, which only the intimate friends of Sidi Mohammed ever saw, was littered with no such incongruous collection. On the walls were a few fine pictures by ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the windows, ticking and crying in the rooms, was the same message; till, in a terror of the walls, she would flee into the wider prison of the woods, and oppressed by them in turn, would escape with a beating heart into the honest daylight of the ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... baggage truck under the awning, and as Beryl peeped into the telegraph office, she heard the snoring of the operator, whose head rested upon the table close to the silent instrument. She listened to the ticking of a clock in the ticket office, but could not see its face; wondered how late it was, and how long she had been absent. Feeling very lonely and restless she closed the door, and sat down in the deserted waiting-room, glad of the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... watch kept ticking on; just like God's will, that never changes or alters, you may do ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... hum rose, somewhere in the ship, and Bart grabbed ticking as he felt the slow surge. Then a violent sense of pressure popped his ear drums, weight crowded down on him like an elephant sitting on his chest, and there was a horrible squashed sensation dragging his limbs out of shape. It grew and grew. Bart lay still and sweated, trying to ease ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... ticking off the telegram upon his machine. "It will go in the morning at eight," ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... and ideas amid which he lives. Now, in a living machine, the machine and the maker are one. The watch is perpetually self-wound and self-regulated and self-repaired. It is made up of millions of other little watches, the cells, all working together for one common end and ticking out the seconds and minutes of life with unfailing regularity. Unlike the watch we carry in our pockets, if we take it apart so as to stop its ticking, it can never be put together again. It has not merely stopped; ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... Rogers had been in the telegraph office and had telegraphed your father that the experiment night before last was a success. Tony is ambitious as a Scout should always be and has learned to read the ticking of ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... pulse-beats of its second century. The featured moon on its dial had lifted one eye, as if to watch the child, as it had watched so many generations of children, while the swinging pendulum ticked them along into youth, maturity, gray hairs, deathbeds,—ticking through the prayer at the funeral, ticking without grief through all the still or noisy woe of mourning,—ticking without joy when the smiles and gayety of comforted heirs had come back again. She looked at herself in the tall, bevelled mirror in the best chamber. ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... only sound the drone of the bandage-machine as Sidney steadily turned it, Dr. Max passed the door on his way to the surgical ward beyond, and gave her a cheery greeting. At these times Sidney's heart beat almost in time with the ticking ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sufficient to keep off the excess of cold or heat. The roofs of all the buildings shed from the front, except two of which are of gable shape. The roofs are to be made of solid, close-fitting planks, covered with fine ticking and coated with the patent indestructible fire-proof paint, and applications which our citizens have just begun to use here, and which ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... not speak; there was no sound in the caravan but the ticking of the little clock which was fastened to a nail in the corner, and the occasional falling of the cinders in the ashpan. Augustus' reflections were not pleasant as he sat by his wife's dying bed. For the doctor had told him ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... don't believe that any one should have a lot of money, so that a taxicab could remain ticking away fabulous sums while a charming young lady dines at her ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his mouth. Presently he got up and stole out of the room. He was back again in a trice, a flask in one hand, a soda siphon in the other, and a small glass balanced on his thumb. When Burns, at the sound of a clock ticking somewhere, rubbed his eyes with his fists striking in and reluctantly opened them, ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... Adrian. Nothing is to be heard save the carol of a bird, the rippling of a clear stream flowing swiftly through the valley, and at intervals the distinct notes of the little bells and cymbals upon the clocks which his Majesty brought with him. Even their ticking is often audible. At certain hours the ringing of the monastery bells blends solemnly and softly with the silence. The Hieronymites in the monastery are pious monks. His Majesty sometimes listens to their choir. Its music is very ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... remarkably tremendous about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very quiet life, blushed very much and was quite as embarrassed and uncertain what she ought to say or do, as Kit could possibly be. When he had sat for some little time, attentive to the ticking of the sober clock, he ventured to glance curiously at the dresser, and there, among the plates and dishes, were Barbara's little work-box with a sliding lid to shut in the balls of cotton, and Barbara's prayer-book, and Barbara's hymn-book, and Barbara's Bible. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a good quiet game for the schoolroom. A loud ticking clock is necessary for the game. All of the pupils are sent from the room. One of their number is selected to hide the clock. The others, upon coming back, try to locate it by its ticking. The one succeeding has the privilege of next ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... Jackson and make sure," said Sam, and led the way to the telegraph office. The telegraph receiver was ticking away at a lively rate, and Jackson, who had charge of the office, was taking down a message on ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... upon the busily ticking little clock on the table. As she looked, her gaze became fixed and she sat up in ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... to touch it, and afraid to touch the book. He felt that he had obtruded an unwelcome presence upon these two mute evidences of passion which seemed now to be drawn momentarily apart for breath before re-engaging in the fray. In this strained expectancy the measured ticking of the old clock in the corner was startlingly loud. One might have counted a hundred, and then, as quietly as he came, he tiptoed out, crossed the porch and passed on ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... a "waker," as the country-people call it. Between the hours at which the last toss-pot went by and the first sparrow shook himself, the silence in Casterbridge—barring the rare sound of the watchman—was broken in Elizabeth's ear only by the time-piece in the bedroom ticking frantically against the clock on the stairs; ticking harder and harder till it seemed to clang like a gong; and all this while the subtle-souled girl asking herself why she was born, why sitting in a room, and blinking at the candle; why things ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... enough for what I want—to talk to you. After that, I will be as quiet as you like, for as long as you like. Only I have been keeping myself for this all these last few days that I have lain here like a log, listening to the ticking of that merciless clock. They thought I was sleeping, unconscious, very likely. I have been collecting myself, thinking immensely, waiting ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... between its forepaws in the posture assumed by the domestic cat when in a state of semi-watchfulness, approaching to a doze. The senses of the matron were strung to an almost painful acuteness. The moonlight streaming in at the window was to her eyes like the glare of the sun at noonday: the ticking of the clock on the wall fell on her ears, each tick like a sharply pointed hammer seeming to bruise the nerve. A keen thrill ran like a knife through her tense frame when the infant stirred and moaned ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... the school thought the days quite long enough, and in fact some happy souls had already counted up the number of hours until the holidays began and were ticking them off ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... hear the clicking Of the pencil and the pen, And the solemn, ceaseless ticking Of the timepiece ticking then; And we note the watchful master, As he waves the warning rod, With our own heart beating faster Than the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... other teachers know a good deal of English, and we chat together sometimes between classes. But more often no one speaks. All are tired after the teaching hour, and prefer to smoke in silence. At such times the only sounds within the room are the ticking of the clock, and the sharp clang of the little pipes being rapped upon the edges of the hibachi to empty ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
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