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Tails   /teɪlz/   Listen
Tails

noun
1.
Formalwear consisting of full evening dress for men.  Synonyms: dress suit, full dress, tail coat, tailcoat, white tie, white tie and tails.



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"Tails" Quotes from Famous Books



... replied Mrs. Mainwaring, after having glanced over the note, "you are right; it is a party; and we are both asked; but I wonder, above all things, that Miss Fletcher should never cross her t's; then the tails of her letters are so long that they go into the line below them, which looks so slovenly, and shows that her writing must have bean very much neglected. I also know another fair neighbor of ours who actually puts 'for' before the infinitive mood, and flourishes her large letters like copperplate ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... allied variety still exists in Northern Africa; for Mr. E. Vernon Harcourt[10] states that the Arab boar-hound is "an eccentric hieroglyphic animal, such as Cheops once hunted with, somewhat resembling the rough Scotch deer-hound; their tails are curled tight round on their backs, {18} and their ears stick out at right angles." With this most ancient ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... dogs," says the Berliner Tageblatt, "cannot content themselves much longer with merely showing their teeth." This is obviously unfair to TIRPITZ'S tars, most of whom have not hesitated to show their tails also. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various

... those in England; a sort of birds about the bigness of a blackbird, and smaller birds many. The sea and rivers have plenty of fish; we saw abundance, though we caught but few, and these were cavallies, yellow-tails ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... The evening is coming with a determination to rival in dull heat the early part of the day. The sheep in great white snowy patches lie panting in the distant corners of the adjoining fields; the cows, tired of whisking their foolish tails in an unsuccessful war with the insatiable flies, are all huddled together, and give way to mournful lows that reproach the ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... the grand army under the command of the intrepid veteran Sir Hugh Gough, one of the noblest soldiers that ever served in the British army. General Sir Charles Napier, in his own eccentric way, said of him that he was "as brave as ten lions, each with two tails and two sets of teeth." Sir Charles rivalled Mr. Roebuck, the radical English commoner, in the scantiness of his commendations; his droll eulogy of Sir Hugh Gough will therefore be appreciated. On the 8th of February, Sir ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... pair of raskles talkin about HONOR. I declare I could have found it in my heart to warn young Dawkins of the precious way in which these chaps were going to serve him. But if THEY didn't know what honor was, I did; and never, never did I tell tails about my masters when in their sarvice—OUT, in cors, the hobligation is no ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... anything about comets, down here. If you want to see comets that ARE comets, you've got to go outside of our solar system— where there's room for them, you understand. My friend, I've seen comets out there that couldn't even lay down inside the ORBITS of our noblest comets without their tails ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain

... as instantaneous signals, annunciators, and alarms in many different ways. An outbreak of fire can be announced by causing the undue rise of temperature to melt a piece of tallow or fusible metal, and thus release a weight, which tails on a press-button, and closes the circuit of an electric bell. Or, the rising temperature may expand the mercury in a tube like that of a thermometer until it connects two platinum wires fused through the glass and in circuit with a bell. Some employ a curving bi-metallic ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... said the professor, placing one arm under his coat tails and extending the other in an oratorical attitude, "this evening completes the course of lessons which I have had the honor and pleasure of giving you. I have endeavored to impart to you an easy and graceful penmanship, such as may be a recommendation to you in after life. It gives ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... plainly, and they looked like agile, shaggy-haired bundles jumping from rock to rock, sending the loose pebbles rolling from under their hands and feet and showing, as they fled, the inflamed protuberances under their stiff tails. ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... clean tidy over the pincushion. On the walls she hung three old-fashioned pictures, which she ventured to borrow from the garret till better could be found. One a mourning piece, with a very tall lady weeping on an urn in a grove of willows, and two small boys in knee breeches and funny little square tails to their coats, looking like cherubs in large frills. The other was as good as a bonfire, being an eruption of Vesuvius, and very lurid indeed, for the Bay of Naples was boiling like a pot, the red sky raining rocks, and a few distracted people lying flat ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... his voice roll out a long itinerary for the dogs, so that you saw at last the use of that great wealth of names for every knowe and howe upon the hillside; and the dogs, having hearkened with lowered tails and raised faces, would run up their flags again to the masthead and spread themselves upon the indicated circuit. It used to fill me with wonder how they could follow and retain so long a story. But John denied these creatures all intelligence; they were the constant butt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... screamed or sang or chattered over the girl's head as she tripped along. Squirrels peeped at her, barked, and then whisked their tails in rapid flight. Through the cool, dark depths where the forest monarchs had been untouched by the woodsmen, great moths winged their lazy flight. Nan knew not half of the creatures or the wonderful plants ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... to bless, In her magnificent comeliness, Is an English girl of eleven stone two, And five foot ten in her dancing shoe! She follows the hounds, and on she pounds - The "field" tails off and the muffs diminish - Over the hedges and brooks she bounds - Straight as a crow, from find to finish. At cricket, her kin will lose or win - She and her maids, on grass and clover, Eleven maids out - eleven maids in - (And perhaps ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... a chip tied to two spools was hitched up with two corn-stalk oxen, their feather tails standing ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Corinthian Church, to whom St. Paul wrote, that if they looked their numbers over, they would not find many wise, nor powerful, nor well- born people among them. Dog-fanciers tell us that performing dogs never carry their tails; such dogs have eaten of the tree of knowledge, and are convinced of sin accordingly—they know that they know things, in respect of which, therefore, they are no longer under grace, but under the law, and they have yet so much grace left as to be ashamed. So with the human clever dog; he may ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... the water, hung in wet rats' tails on her slim white shoulders, which were just flushed with the nip of the sea. The clear drops sparkled on her pretty brown face like pearls and diamonds, and seemed loth to fall. Her little pink toes curled up out of the creamy ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... whole, was not unfriendly. The two white cats, to be sure, fluffed their tails a little, drew back from the circle, and went off to curl up in the sun and sleep off their aversion to a stranger. James Edward, too, his curiosity satisfied, haughtily withdrew. But Stumpy, as acknowledged dean of the Family, wagged ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... career towards the spot where the two have pulled up— along a line parallel to the trend of the cliff, at some distance from its edge. Neighing, snorting, with tossed manes, and streaming tails, they tear past, and are soon wide away on the ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... was found for the sledges, but once on the salt-water ice we moved along rapidly. The prospect of reaching home the next day was very exhilarating, and the dogs seemed to catch the infection from their masters. The poor, jaded beasts coiled their tails over their backs and ran along barking until we halted for the night, within about twenty miles of our destination. We still knew nothing concerning Hudson's Bay since we left a year before, Tsedluk having seen no one since ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... a maiden such as she, and moreover my sister, bestowing her without my consent? They could have offered no greater insult to me than this," said he. And thereupon he rushed under the horses and cut off their lips at the teeth, and their ears close to their heads, and their tails close to their backs, and wherever he could clutch their eyelids, he cut them to the very bone, and he disfigured the horses ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... inside, over the beds, and over the cattle in the outhouses, were placed branches of withered palm, that had been consecrated by the priest on Palm Sunday; and when the cows happened to calve, this good woman tied, with her own hands, a woollen thread about their tails, to prevent them from being overlooked by evil eyes, or elf-shot* by the fairies, who seem to possess a peculiar power over females of every species during the period of parturition. It is unnecessary to mention the variety of charms which she possessed for that obsolete malady the colic, ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... rain-traps; the only improvement they are capable of is one not yet patented, namely, the appending of neat flexible spouts, say of Macintosh cloth, from each corner, so as to convey the water in pleasant meanderings over the back and coat-tails. In dry weather these spouts might be tied up, and would form graceful curves either before, behind, or on one side of the cocked flaps, while in a shower they would add dignity to utility, as they hung all adown the back of the wearer. One kind of utility, however, the old cocked hat ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... harvest. A neighbour housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch of which were assembled near an hundred, most of which were taken; and some I saw. I measured them; and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inches and a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of them in a scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about a third of an ounce avoirdupois: so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full- grown mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... to be supposed to possess a malignant spirit. It catches one man's arm, and pulls it off; seizes another by the coat-tails, and almost grapples him bodily; catches a girl by the hair, and scalps her; and finally draws in a man, and crushes him ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... her that she'd been talking like a silly goat—he could have put it politely, of course—and that he wasn't going to pay any attention to her. You might have thought I had suggested his walking into a den of lions and pulling all their tails. I don't know what Robin has done to him, but he seems quite frightened of her. I had to promise that I would talk to her. He'd better have done it himself. I only told her just what he said, and off she ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... vortex, which we shall still term ether, is neither more nor less than the electric fluid,—the mighty energising principle of space,—the source of motion,—the cause of magnetism, galvanism, light, heat, gravity, of the aurora, the lightning, the zodiacal light, of the tails and nebulosities of comets, of the great currents of our atmosphere, of the samiel, the hurricane, and the earthquake. It will be perceived that we treat it as any other fluid, in relation to its law of motion and condensation. ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... out of Manassas. But Mr. Beauregard was not inclined to accommodate George with a fight at that particular point, where his elbows were so exposed, and stepped quietly out by the back door before George got there. In short, all George saw of Mr. Beauregard and his men was the tails of their coats and the heels of their boots, away in the shadowy distance. People said Mr. Beauregard did not do the clean thing to slip away in such a manner. And there were those who scolded General George for letting him get off in ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams

... little boy pigs, Pigling Bland and Alexander went to market. We brushed their coats, we curled their tails and washed their little faces, and wished them good bye ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter

... furrowed into an intense frown. "Gentlemen ... as I call you from force of habit ... we've been finding dead cities of the Outsiders for centuries. They were all over God knows how many galaxies before your ancestors or mine had stopped playing with their tails; as far as we can tell they had a civilization as tightly-knit as our own, and probably stronger. And sometime about forty thousand years ago they started pulling out. They left absolutely nothing behind but empty buildings and a few crumbling bits ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr

... Mr. Bundercombe look more cheerful than when, at his urgent summons, I left Eve in the drawing-room and made my way into the study. He was standing on the hearthrug, with the tails of his morning coat drooping over his arms and an expression on his face that I can only describe as cherubic. Seated on chairs, a yard or so away from him, were two visitors of whom at first glance I formed a most unfavorable opinion. ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of all. The victim was stripped and stretched against a pillar, or bent over a low post, his hands being tied, so that he had no means of defending himself. The instrument of torture was a sort of knout or cat-o'-nine-tails, with bits of iron or bone attached to the ends of the thongs. Not only did the blows cut the skin and draw blood, but not infrequently the victim died in the midst of the operation. Some have supposed that Pilate, out of consideration for Jesus, may have moderated either the number or the ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... the Sun's for warmth and light— And so was never free from blight. But seek me now, and you will find Me on some soft green bank reclined; Watching the stately deer close by, That in a great deep hollow lie Shaking their tails with all the ease That lambs can. First, look for the trees, Then, if you seek me, find me quick. Seek me no more where men are thick, But in green lanes where I can walk A mile, and still no human folk Tread on my shadow. Seek ...
— Foliage • William H. Davies

... lady came to see her, and brought her a picture-book; but still she hid her face, and cried, "Oh, do let me go home!" The lady tried to please her by showing her a stuffed squirrel, and telling stories about how she had seen the merry little creatures, with their bright eyes and red bushy tails, running about in the beech-woods, eating nuts. But no, nothing that she could do or say would win a smile or a bright look. At last she noticed a little Testament lying upon the tray across her bed, beside the toys which had been given her to play with, ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks are ribbed with light, When the downward-dipping tails are dank and drear, Comes a breathing hard behind thee, snuffle-snuffle through the night— It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear! On thy knees and draw the bow; bid the shrilling arrow go; In the empty mocking ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... then the twins, with their arms tight around each other's necks, as usual; then old Billy, shambling along, his gaunt figure a little bent forward, and his hands clasped behind his back, under his coat tails, as he generally walked. Last of all came George W., stepping daintily along, his tail arching high over his back, his head cocked a little on one side, like a dog's, and his ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow

... — we were comin' home with a good mess o' fine fish, and when we were just about in the middle of the river, comin' over, — the fish had been jumping all along the afternoon, shewing their heads and tails more than common; and I'd been sayin' to Archie it was a sign o' rain — 'tis, you know, — and just as we were in the deepest of the river, about half way over, one of 'em came up and put himself ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... illustration of this may be found in the question of the airscrew. The early French biplanes of the Voisin and Farman type were what would now be called 'pusher' machines; their airscrews operated behind the main planes, and their tails were supported by an open structure of wood or metal which left room for the play of the screw. In this ugly arrangement the loss of efficiency is easy to see. The screw works in a disturbed medium, and the complicated metal-work presents a large resistance to the passage of the ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... garlands of green and gold, like the illuminations on the margins of old missals or twined among the initial letters. Birds, flowers, and festoons appeared intermingled in seeming confusion. Close by, on the grass, stood a group of peacocks, with radiant tails outspread to the sun. The prince touched them, and found, to his surprise, that they were not really birds, but the leaves of the burdock tree, which shone with the colors of a peacock's tail. The lion and the tiger, gentle and tame, were springing about ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... the sorrowful story Told as the twilight fails, While the monkeys are walking together, Holding each other's tails!" ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... dirty; and burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to sneak up the chimney again and hide; and upset the fender and threw the fire-irons down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand mad dogs' tails. ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... and beating of wings began again, and down the aisle went Uncle Bentley, the long tails of that coat fairly floating like a cloud behind him. There was further uproar outside, and Uncle Bentley was back in his place, this time turning around and whispering hoarsely, "I fixed 'em!" But such was not the case, for twice more the very same ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... tell what he had seen in the wood of Bondy. Little did the travelling party think how much faster the mounted messengers were going than they: and on they lumbered, the eleven horses whisking their tails, and the king taking his time in walking up the hills, while the alarm ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau

... to be performed till eight, and it was not more than halfpast seven. There was the promise of a very awkward half hour, so I was glad of a diversion caused by my appearing in a blue coat with gilt buttons, and pockets in the tails,—a coat I had not brought out for twenty years, but as good as new, I give you my honour. Jim was very funny about that coat, and I encouraged him by defending it, and so we got through ten minutes, and kept Sam amused. Then one of the grooms, a lad I mentioned ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... away from his feet mile after mile to the timber, and beyond that to the prismatic mountains. The variegated lodges of the Chis-chis-chash village dotted the plain near the sparse woods of the creek-bottom; pony herds stood quietly waving their tails against the flies or were driven hither and yon by the herdboys—giving variety to the tremendous sweep of the ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington

... dead hand;[37] and many of our recent classics, Carlyle, Newman, Froude, were persuaded that there is no progress justifying the ways of God to man, and that the mere consolidation of liberty is like the motion of creatures whose advance is in the direction of their tails. They deem that anxious precaution against bad government is an obstruction to good, and degrades morality and mind by placing the capable at the mercy of the incapable, dethroning enlightened virtue for the benefit of the average man. They hold that great ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton

... times, but now I was not allowed to perform the necessary ablutions of their hands and faces, however greasy or dirty they might be made by their food; the girl's hair was not to be put into pig-tails, and everything was neglected; Takkeelikkeeta was not to go sealing until the summer. With the exception of an occasional sigh from the man, there were no more signs of grief; our mourners ate, drank, and were merry, and ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... hostess, Knock their evil beads together, Wring their necks and hurl their bodies To the black-dogs of the forest. "Should this prove of little value, Hover like the bird of battle, O'er the dwellings of the master, Scare the horses from the mangers, From the troughs affright the cattle, Twist their tails, and horns, and forelocks, Hurl their carcasses to Lempo. "If some scourge the winds have sent me, Sent me on the air of spring-tide, Brought me by the frosts of winter, Quickly journey whence thou camest, On the air-path of the heavens, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... buzz, and rush Became a harvest sound, Or monsters trailed their tails of spikes, Or ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... hear from Mr. Spencer that conscience, so far from being the voice of God, is but "the capitalised instinct of the tribe," an empirical fact established by heredity, just like fan-tails in pigeons; when Mr. Clifford popularises this teaching in St. George's Hall by announcing that conscience is the voice "of man bidding us to live for man," and Mr. Leslie Stephen tells us that the Socratic conception of conscience "is part of an ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... the ruts again. Elliott pulled the gate shut, in her haste leaving herself outside. There, too spent to climb over, she flattened her slender form against the gray boards, while, driven by Prince, the whole herd, horns tossing, tails switching, flanks heaving, thudded its ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... marvellously quiet, and unmindful of strange sights and sounds, and of being hurled against each other when the locomotive jerked on or came to a stop. They were in good condition, but their eyes were sad and their tails were woefully rubbed. After seeing Kroonstadt Railway-station, I realized that the work of a Staff officer on the lines of communication was ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... drawled, without the least hesitation, "I'm figgerin' you oughter know by this time. Ther's things born to live on liquid, an' they've mostly growed tails. Guess I ain't growed that—yet. Mebbe I'll git down at Doc. Osler's. An' I'll git on agin right ther'," he added, ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... turning in a frenzy. My pencil flew one way and my notebook another. And then, as I looked down into the valley, an extraordinary sight met my eyes. The hunt was streaming down it. The fox I could not see, but the dogs were in full cry, their noses down, their tails up, so close together that they might have been one great yellow and white moving carpet. And behind them rode the horsemen—my faith, what a sight! Consider every type which a great army could show: some in hunting dress, but the most in uniforms; blue dragoons, red dragoons, ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... although I only saw one of the latter who was very young, and all those whom I saw were young men, none more than thirty years of age. They were very well built with very handsome bodies, and very good faces. Their hair was almost as coarse as horses' tails, and short, and they wear it over the eyebrows, except a small quantity behind, which they wear long and never cut. Some paint themselves blackish, and they are of the colour of the inhabitants of the Canaries, neither black nor white, and some ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... move, and their trembling limbs, as their head and hands, quake without leave from their soul and their soul with all its power cannot prevent their members from trembling. The same thing happens in falling sickness, or in parts that have been cut off, as in the tails of lizards. The idea or imagination is the helm and guiding-rein of the senses, because the thing conceived of moves the sense. Pre-imagining, is imagining the things that are to be. Post-imagining, is imagining the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... to the absurd supposition that the Americans could not make their own cloth, because American sheep had little wool, and that little of poor quality: "Dear sir, do not let us suffer ourselves to be amused with such groundless objections. The very tails of the American sheep are so laden with wool that each has a little car or wagon on four little wheels to support and keep it from trailing on the ground. Would they caulk their ships, would they even litter their horses, with wool, if it ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... present time the Chinese horses are plump, large-headed, hairy, and with bushy tails and manes; and the Japanese, elegant and enduring, similar to the Arabian. Good Manila horses are of the latter type, and are much prized by the Europeans ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... crease, Eyes a-battin', teeth a-shinin', haih breshed back ez slick ez grease; Sku'ts all tucked an' puffed an' ruffled, evah blessed seam an' stitch; Ef you 'd seen 'em wif deir mistus, could n't swahed to which was which. Men all dressed up in Prince Alberts, swaller-tails 'u'd tek yo' bref! I cain't tell you nothin' 'bout it, y' ought to seen it fu' yo'se'f. Who was dah? Now who you askin'? How you 'spect I gwine to know? You mus' think I stood an' counted evahbody at de do.' Ole man Babah's house-boy Isaac, brung dat gal, ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... the water will not leak in; the bird then sails the boat. The monkeys want a ride, and the bird lets forty-one of them in. When the boat is out in the ocean and begins to roll, the bird advises the monkeys to tie their tails together two and two and sit on the edge of the boat to steady it. Then the bird flies away, the tortoise drops out of the hole, and the boat sinks. All the monkeys are drowned ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... full blown rose, one leaf rising above another until it covered his whole breast.... The belts of the guards behind his chair were cased in gold, and covered with small jaw-bones of the same metal; the elephants' tails, waving like a small cloud before him, were spangled with gold, and large plumes of feathers were flourished among them. His eunuch presided over these attendants, wearing only one massive piece of gold about his neck; the royal stool, entirely cased ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... made of whales' sinews. The man who accompanied us, descended, and soon returned with a pail full of lizards, confined by a similar net over them. He then took them out one by one, and pulled their tails, which were immediately left in his hand. He then notched the stump, and threw the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... minutes. When he took them off her stomach, they were full of blood. He put them in the basin in some water and sprinkled some powder on them, and in about ten minutes more, he made me get them and they were full of clear water and there was a lot of little things that looked like wiggle tails swimming ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... me, Tol' me in the evenin', "Down by the bend where the cat-tails grow." Wait there, child; ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... heavy Ropes. And though thus beaten, they will keep a long time, if you put them into Pease straw, so thrust in as to keep them from all air, and that they touch not one another, but have straw enough between every fish. When you will make the best dish of them, take only the tails, and tye up half a dozen or eight of them with White-thred. First, they must be laid to soak over night in cold water. About an hour and half, (or a little more) before they are to be eaten, put ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... March wind scatters king's ransoms over the fields. These are the marsh marigolds: there were two places where she gathered them, one beside the streamlet flowing through the 'Mash,' a meadow which was almost a water-meadow; and the other inside a withy-bed. She pulled the 'cat's-tails,' as she learned to call the horse-tails, to see the stem part at the joints; and when the mowing-grass began to grow long, picked the cuckoo-flowers and nibbled the stalk and leaflets to essay the cress-like ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... and the manes and tails are decorated with ribands which would furnish me with sashes for a whole life," thought Marguerite; but she avoided giving utterance to her feeling, lest Dumiger should interpret it into an expression of regret at having given up ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... the route are dogs. Indeed, routes are distinguished by their dogs. Mean routes are those that have terraces and mean dogs; good routes—where the houses are close together and the dogs run out and wag their tails. Though Stubby's greater difficulty came through the wagging tails; he carried in a collie neighbourhood, and all collies seemed consumed with mighty ambitions to have routes. If you spoke to them—and how could you help speaking to a collie when he came bounding out to you that way?—you ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... sometimes come down rather heavy upon me in his remarks, but it has done me good. It is partly through his home-thrusts that I have come to write this new book, for he thought I was idle; perhaps I am, and perhaps I am not. Will forgets that I have other fish to fry and tails to butter; and he does not recollect that a ploughman's mind wants to lie fallow a little, and can't give a crop every year. It is hard to make rope when your hemp is all used up, or pancakes without batter, or rook pie without the birds; and so I found it ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... "Where is that damsel who was here just now?"—They brought her instantly before him. "Well," said he to her, "thou hast been a second mother to me, and now thou shalt be my second wife!" So he lived with her and was happy, but he caused his first wife to be tied to the tails of wild horses and torn to ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous

... making that kettle work like a horse; and men might (perhaps did) smile at James Watt then, but do men smile at James Watt now?—now that thousands of iron kettles are dashing like dreadful comets over the length and breadth of the land, not to mention the sea, with long tails of men and ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... and forward under the forecastle they have their bed among the shavings—a very cozy corner, where 'Kvik' lies stretched out like a lioness in all her majesty. There they tumble over each other in a heap round her, sleep, yawn, eat, and pull each other's tails. It is a picture of home and peace here near the Pole which one could watch by ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... you's to go right in, Mas' Robert. Mr. Clendenning is with him jest now, but he'll be out in a turkey's call of time. Jest walk in, sir, and you, the young marster," and with a bow that almost allowed that the tails of the long gray coat swept the floor, the old black man opened the door and motioned us into the room of the Gouverneur of ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... dismay when he followed his companions into the inclosure. He had pictured to himself so many lovely flowing-maned creatures of Arab descent, large-eyed, wide of nostril, and with arched necks, and tails that swept the ground. He expected to see them toss up their heads and snort, and dash off wildly, but on the contrary the dozen horses that were in the inclosure went quietly on with their grazing in the ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn

... is observed, that, to the end they may get far from the Sea, either to Spawne or to possess the pleasure that they then and there find, they will force themselves over the tops of Weirs, or Hedges, or stops in the water, by taking their tails into their mouthes, and leaping over those places, even to a height beyond common belief: and sometimes by forcing themselves against the streame through Sluces and Floud-gates, beyond common credit. And 'tis observed by Gesner, that there is none ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton

... the utmost which our modern poetical imagination has been able to invent, is a row of gas-lamps. It has, indeed, farther suggested itself to our minds as appropriate to gas-lamps set beside a river, that the gas should come out of fishes' tails; but we have not ingenuity enough to cast so much as a smelt or a sprat for ourselves; so we borrow the shape of a Neapolitan marble, which has been the refuse of the plate and candlestick shops in every capital of Europe for the last fifty years. We cast that badly, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... people as they took their seats. Very different from one another were those who entered. The men took their seats with a deal of looking round and lifting of coat-tails. They finally settled down, drawing a deep breath as they did so, as if the act of ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... where it was collected and fashioned into enormous queues, which, when permitted to hang down, reached to the small of their backs, and gave them the appearance of Chinese mandarins, or Turkish pachas of a single tail. These tails were their pets the only ornaments about their persons for which they manifested any interest. This pride in their queues was the weak point in their characters. Every Sunday they performed on each other the operation of manipulating the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... sell, Jones went into the house and Bones went with him. After enough had been sold to pay the debt, and while the mob was still laughing and shouting, suddenly the back door of the house opened and out rushed Jones, now quite drunk, a gun in his hand and Bones hanging on to his coat-tails. I was talking to the auctioneer at the moment, and my belief is that the brute thought that I was Johnson. At any rate, before anything could be done he lifted the gun and fired, at me, as I think. The charge, however, passed my head and hit poor Johnson full in the face, killing ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... their work and taking to the woods, at sight of the gun-boats; then coming to peer out like startled deer, and scudding away like the wind at the sound of the steam-whistle. "Well," said one old negro, "Mas'r said de Yankees had horns and tails, but I nebber beliebed it till now." But the word was passed along by the mysterious telegraphic communication existing among these simple people, that these were "Lincoln's gun-boats come to set them free." In vain, then, ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford

... returned Captain Hull. "Those baloenopters have formidable tails, which must not be approached without distrust. The strongest pirogue would not resist a well-given blow. But, then, the profit is ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... stand on guard about the safe little daisies and wild hyacinths and wild crocuses; flowers of the sloping meadows that go down to the streams of Spring. And all along the streams the twigs are budding; the yellow "lambs' tails" swing in the breeze, as if answering to the white lambs' tails that are wagging in the fields. The thrush sings in the copse, and in his piercing sweet note is the sound ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... delight to us Americans here—always so willing to help when there's anything to be done, and so interesting to talk to." When I suggested that her ideas of the navy must have been derived from Pinafore she laughed. "I can't imagine using a cat-o'-nine-tails on them!" she exclaimed—and neither could I. I heard many similar comments. They are indubitably American, these sailors, youngsters with the stamp of our environment on their features, keen and self-reliant. I am not speaking now only of those ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Miss Mosk. 'I'd give him the cat-o-nine tails if I had my way. Don't you trouble about him, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... day. A man could never lie down comfortably with it on, and if from sheer exhaustion he fell asleep he awoke with his back aching tortures. The meat and cabbage was varied twice by steamed fish served in its scales, tails, fins, heads, and entrails complete. All that they got which was really eatable was a small bun served in the morning, and ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... and pulled him back by the coat-tails into the centre of the room. Then she locked the door and sat down. "We won't be disturbed," she said, wiping her face upon which the perspiration stood, "what ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... well fed and light of heart. With sturdy close-locked ranks they splashed their way through mud and puddle, with many a rough country joke and many a lusty stave from song or hymn. Sir Gervas rode at the head of his musqueteers, whose befloured tails hung limp and lank with the water dripping from them. Lockarby's pikemen and my own company of scythesmen were mostly labourers from the country, who were hardened against all weathers, and plodded patiently ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... they grow. With them, youth and beauty are truly inseparable terms. The better they are, the worse they look. After they are three weeks old, every day detracts from their comeliness. They lose their plump roundness, their fascinating, soft down, and put out the most ridiculous little wings and tails and hard-looking feathers, and are no longer dear, tender chicks, but small hens,—a very uninteresting Young America. It is said, that, if you give chickens rum, they will not grow, but retain always their juvenile size and appearance. Under our present laws it is somewhat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... sparrows, while others surpassed in stretch of wing the largest birds of the present day. They may be divided into two groups. The earliest group comprises genera with jaws set with teeth, and with long tails sometimes provided with a rudderlike expansion at the end. In their successors of the later group the tail had become short, and in some of the genera the teeth had disappeared. Among the latest of the flying reptiles was ORNITHOSTOMA ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... and we are shaking hands, at a rate altogether furious, with Mormon and Gentile. Among the former are Brothers Stenhouse, Caine, Clawson and Townsend; among the latter are Harry Riccard, the big-hearted English mountaineer (though once he wore white kids and swallow-tails in Regent Street, and in boyhood went to school with Miss Edgeworth, the novelist), the daring explorer Rood, from Wisconsin; th e Rev. James McCormick, missionary, who distributes pasteboard tracts among the Bannock ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne

... Parliamentary idling is transacted, saw little of him; cigars, of which he was a great consumer, were for periods of leisure, and he was at the House for business. He might be seen in the passages, going by with coat-tails streaming behind him, most often in the members' lobby on his way to the first corridor, where was his locker—marvellously stuffed with papers, yet kept in a methodical order that made it a general centre of reference for himself and his colleagues, who consulted him on all subjects; ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... but, you see, the rain's turned out a few, and some on 'em, folks says, was buried with lots o' goold platted up in their pig-tails. I know o' one man that dug up two or three to git their teeth, (to sell to the tooth-doctors, you know,) and when he took hold o' the pig-tail to lift the head by, the hair come off in his hand, and out rattled ten good goolden ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... buttercup field we came to land And every passenger lent a hand To unload our food and spread it out, While the cows stood flapping their tails about. And Peggy as waitress played her part, And John fell into the gooseberry tart. I can't explain, though I wish I could, Why everything tasted twice as good? As it does at home in the cheerful gloom Of the old familiar dining-room. Every picnicky thing was there, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 27, 1914 • Various

... monotony and weariness inseparable from an excursion: travelers have been known to yawn even on the Rhine. It was a gray day, the country began to show the approach of autumn, and the view from the landing at Caldwell's, the head of the lake, was never more pleasing. In the marshes the cat-tails and the faint flush of color on the alders and soft maples gave a character to the low shore, and the gentle rise of the hills from the water's edge combined to make ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... impossible to pass through that tangle of horns and tails and plunging hoofs, and so indeed it was, but Dunn took another way, and with one leap, cleared the first beast clean and alighted on the back ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon

... the universe, and it fulfils its mission when it provides for the maximum of freedom to the instincts with the minimum of friction. It argues with the instincts. It takes them on one side and points out the unwisdom of certain performances. It catches them by the coat-tails when they are about to make fools of themselves. 'Don't drink all that iced champagne at a draught,' it says to one instinct; 'we may die of it.' 'Don't catch that rude fellow one in the eye,' it says to another instinct; 'he is more powerful than us.' It ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett

... opponent's "self-contradictions," and disposing of Socialism with stupendous self-satisfaction in all the magazines. He disposes of Socialism quite in the spirit of the young mediaeval scholar returning home to prove beyond dispute that "my cat has ten tails" and, given a yard's start, that a tortoise can always keep ahead of a running man. The essential fallacy is always to declare that either a thing is A or it is not A; either a thing is green or it is not green; either a thing is heavy or it is not heavy. Unthinking people, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... strange animal, with the head and ears of the pig, sometimes hanging on the limb of a tree, and occasionally swinging like the monkey by the tail. Around that prehensile appendage a dozen sharp-nosed, sleek-headed young had entwined their own tails, and were sitting on the mother's back. The astonished traveller approaches this extraordinary compound of an animal, and touches it cautiously with a stick. Instantly it seems to be struck with some mortal disease: its eyes close, it falls ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... to bring her back. The little word "moderate," you see, is the saving clause for the wife, and would doubtless be overstepped should her offended husband administer his correction with the "cat-o'-nine-tails," or ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... failed to attract so much interest. The stout gentleman was in his glory. He appeared with a hockey-stick of his own manufacture, and in garments which, if not graceful, precluded any of the youngsters from catching hold of his tails. There were the same sides as on the previous day, with several additional players; but none of them were very good, nor did they add much to the relative strength of each party. Ernest was the first to place the ball on the ice to strike it. The instant his stick descended, and the ball went ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... quartering of our shield,' said Ivinghoe. 'Of course it is the Clipp bearing. Or, two lions azure, regardant combatant, their tails couped.' ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wife heard this, she said, "Who knows, husband, but this may be a lizard with two tails, that will make our fortune? Who knows but this lizard may put an end to all our miseries? How often, when we should have an eagle's sight to discern the good luck that is running to meet us, we have a cloth ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... formally shut up and discharged by all the belligerents when this war is over. It is quite true that ill-bred and swinish nations can be roused to a serious consideration of their position and their destiny only by earthquakes, pestilences, famines, comets' tails, Titanic shipwrecks, and devastating wars, just as it is true that African chiefs cannot make themselves respected unless they bury virgins alive beneath the doorposts of their hut-palaces, and Tartar Khans find that the exhibition of a pyramid of chopped-off heads is a ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... the age, too, was the caricature now drawn into the service of the intense party struggles of the Reformation. To depict the pope or Luther or the Huguenots in their true form their enemies drew them with claws and hoofs and ass's heads, and devil's tails, drinking and blaspheming. Even kings were caricatured,—doubly ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... for, besides the said three hundred twenty-two thousand paces, there are two more provinces in that part which lies toward the west, which I did not visit; one of these the Indians call Anan, whose inhabitants are born with tails. They extend to one hundred eighty miles in length, as I have learned from those Indians I have with me, who are all acquainted with these islands. But the circumference of Hispana is still greater than all Spain from Colonia to Fontarabia[13]. This is easily proved, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... climbing up from the sunset into a sullen sky, thrown up in spreading mares' tails by a hundred contrary gusts of wind, as if there were explosive matter in the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... dam over which I am driving now! This dam that erstwhile was a very blasphemy, an obscenity flung on the marshy meadows with their reeds, their cat-tails, and their wide-leaved swamp-dock clusters! It had been used by the winds as a veritable dumping ground for obnoxious weeds which grew and thrived on the marly clay while every other plant despised it! Not that I mean to decry weeds—far be it from me. When the goldenrod flings its velvet cushions ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... the monsters of the uttermost ocean go heaving by; and the long lithe brutes that are toothed to their tails: and below, where gloom dipped down on gloom, vast, livid tangles that coiled and uncoiled, and lapsed down steeps and hells of the sea where even ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... students at public lectures to guy the speaker, even Charles Sumner having been a victim. Powell had been warned of this practice. As he advanced in evening dress a voice called out "How are your coat tails?"—a greeting which was repeated from all parts of the house. During a momentary lull he exclaimed with the peculiar squinting of the eyes and the half-laugh his friends so well remember: "Your greeting reminds me of Dave Larkins's reply when ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... only growled, "Paws off! What have I done that I have not done a score of times before with no fine folk to watch me? I shot to please my master and for the honour of Suffolk, not for you, and because some dogs keep their tails too ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... shakes him heartily by the hand, tosses him on his foot and gives him a "ride-a-cock-horse." Oh, you English sticklers for etiquette! What would you say if Mr. Labouchere came in on all fours with his little child pulling his coat-tails and whacking him with a stick, or if Sir William Harcourt played at leapfrog with Lulu round the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... wronged ones took their stand On the right of all to a resting-place In a tinfoil fatherland; Yes, each one, knowing he fought for home, Cast craven fear to the gales, And the oil was whipped to a creamy foam By the lashing of frenzied tails. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various

... monkeys, grimacing under their red and blue masks, had invaded the arena, and with their hair hanging down on to their bare shoulders, looking very funny with their long tails, their gray skin tights and their velvet breeches, these female dancers twisted, jumped, hopped and drew their lascivious and voluptuous circle more closely round Chocolat, who shook the red skirts of his coat, rolled his eyes, and showed his large, white ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... too zealous, does it?" he said at the close of the story. "Here, old fellow, come back here." He made a dash at old Nathan who was now retreating within his own doorway. Ben pulled him back by his coat-tails. "We aren't through with this yet," he went on as the man turned upon him with a few smothered words. "That isn't a pretty way to talk. You have something of a case, I admit, but you happened to overreach yourself this time. No, you're ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard

... seconds the three aircraft were close enough to the B- 25 to be clearly seen. They were not F-86's. They were three bright silver, delta wing craft with no tails and no pilot's canopies. The only thing that broke the sharply defined, clean upper surface of the triangular wing was a definite ridge that ran from the nose ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... mortal fear of dogs myself. I always had. No reasoning, no scolding, ever had the slightest effect upon me. I never passed one on my way to church with my prayer-book in my hand, without quaking. If they wag their tails, I look around for aid. If they bark, I immediately give myself up for lost. I have died a thousand deaths from the mere accident of meeting dogs in the street. I never did meet one without believing that it was his destiny to give my children a step-mother. In point of fact, I would like ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... and cry of the chase. A heavy-horned buck sprang into the road and vanished like a flash into the timber on the other side. Shortly afterward, in a compact bunch, with heads downbent and stiffened tails, the pack, a howling, discordant mass, swept across ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... horrible hat to the astonished Moody, laid himself flat on the top of the bank, and deliberately rolled down it, exactly as he might have done when he was a boy. The tails of his long gray coat flew madly in the wind: the dog pursued him, jumping over him, and barking with delight; he shouted and screamed in answer to the dog as he rolled over and over faster and faster; and, when he got up, on ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins

... ask the like Question concerning Light, which is not only to be found in the Kindl'd Sulphur of mixt Bodis [Transcriber's Note: Bodies], but (not to mention those sorts of rotten Woods, and rotten Fish that shine in the Dark) in the tails of living Glow-wormes, and in the Vast bodies of the Sun and Stars. I would gladly also know, in which of the three Principles the Quality, we call Sound, resides as in its proper Subject; since either Oyl falling upon Oyle, or Spirit upon Spirit, ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... replied the cuckoo. "They might have been here once and have left their tails behind them, like Bopeep's sheep, you know; and some day they might be coming to find them again, you know. That would do ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... she peeped over the buttercup's drowsy head, and saw what seemed a tiny cock of hay. She had no time to feel disappointed, for the haycock began to stir, and, looking nearer, she beheld two silvery gray mites, who wagged wee tails, and stretched themselves as if they had just waked up. Nelly knew that they were young field-mice, and rejoiced over them, feeling rather relieved that no fairy had appeared, though she still believed them to have had a hand in ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... details as to personal appearance may be of interest. Among the ornaments used are very large combs, decorated with pigs' tails. Pigs' tails also are stuck into the hair and ears. The hair is worn very long, rolled into little curls and plentifully oiled. A most peculiar deformation is applied to the nose and results in extreme ugliness: the septum is perforated, and instead of merely inserting a stick, a springy ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... such little velvet paws With such cunning little claws, And blue eyes, just like the sky! (Must they turn green, by and by?) Two are striped like tigers, three Are as black as black can be, And they run so fast and play With their tails, and are so gay, Is it not a pity that Each ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein

... shoulder, and, on its curve into the arm, observed the red and blue marking, plainly defined on the white skin. A circle formed of twisted snakes, head to head and with tails intertwined, enclosed a monogram, apparently, but the letters were not English in character, and so intermingled that none of the three could ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... after it; but nothing could have exceeded our mortification at being punched with it in full sight of the girls'-school gallery opposite, we having our kid gloves on at the time, and in some instances coats with tails, like men. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... tinkled among the mountain ridges; for the cows had straggled apart in search of water, and the dogs and herd-boys were vainly striving to drive them together. The cows came galloping along with the most absurd antics and involuntary plunges, and with short, mad bellowing, their tails held aloft, they rushed down into the water, where they came to a stand; every time they moved their heads the tinkling of their bells was heard across the lake. The dogs drank a little, but stayed behind on firm land; ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... his black-visored cap pushed back on his head, and a cocky smirk of good humor on his mouth. Reckless Ramos, who went tearing around the country in an ancient motor scooter, decorated with squirrel tails and gaudy bosses, would hardly be disturbed by any risky thing he wanted to do. The thumbtacked pictures of the systems of far, cold Jupiter and Saturn—Saturn still unapproached, except by small, instrumented rockets—would be the things to ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... shakin' your legs in the hair if you was to persevere long enough, but that would only prove you a fool fit for a circus or a lunatic asylum. You never see the hanimals smokin'. They knows better. Just fancy! what would you think if you saw the cab 'osses all a-settin' on their tails in the rank smokin' pipes an' cigars! What would you think of a 'oss w'en 'is cabby cried, "Gee-up, there's a fare a 'owlin' for us," an' that 'oss would say, "Hall right, cabby, just 'old on, hold man, till I finish my pipe"? No, Mr ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... nobody with me but this 'ere ol' Marier Jane [his rifle] the hull trip to the Swegache country. Gol' ding my pictur'! It seemed as if the wind were a-tryin' fer to rub it off the slate. It were a pesky wind that kep' a-cuffin' me an' whistlin' in the briers on my face an' crackin' my coat-tails. I were lonesome—lonesomer'n a he-bear—an' the cold grabbin' holt o' all ends o' me so as I had to stop an' argue 'bout whar my bound'ry-lines was located like I were York State. Cat's blood an' gun-powder! I ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... valley! Over the mountains swept jagged, gray, angry, sprawling clouds, sending a freezing, thin drizzle of rain, as they passed, upon a man following a plow. The horses had a sullen and weary look, and their manes and tails streamed sidewise in the blast. The plowman clad in a ragged gray coat, with uncouth, muddy boots upon his feet, walked with his head inclined t ward the sleet, to shield his face from the cold and sting of it. The soil rolled away, black and sticky and with a dull sheen ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... the big, glistening, black creatures, as they crawled over one another, sometimes giving flips with their tails and opening their mouths. And though Bunny was a brave little chap he knew it would never do for him to go anywhere near the alligators. As it was, he and his sister were some distance back from the shore, up near the center of the little island. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... our infantry and cavalry were surrounded by the enemy on the south bank of the Shenandoah River, which was so high as to be unfordable. As a last resort the cavalrymen plunged into the stream, swimming their horses, and towing across the infantrymen, who clung to the animals' tails! ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... away. My frends, we can't all be Washingtons but we kin all be patrits & behave ourselves in a human and a Christian manner. When we see a brother goin down hill to Ruin let us not give him a push, but let us seeze rite hold of his coat tails and draw ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne

... sparkling stream which came murmuring by, half overgrown with bushes, so that its pleasant sound alone showed its locality; and its deep pool, where the trout loved to lie; and the cattle in the green meadow, seeking for shade under the tall elms, or with lazy strokes of their tails whisking off the flies; and the boys whistling in the fields; and the men, with long white smocks and gay handkerchiefs worked in front, tending the plough or harrow, or driving the lightly-laden waggon or cart ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... bottom of the bowl lay a dozen little tails, and I was forced to believe that the stronger tadpoles had taken their weaker ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews

... colour and scaly texture of his elephantine visage. At his side was the grim tall Laniboire with purple apoplectic veins and a crooked mouth. His uniform was covered by an overcoat whose insufficient length left visible the end of his sword and the tails of the frock, and gave him an appearance certainly much less dignified than that of the marshal with his black rod, who walked before. Those that followed, such as Astier-Rehu and Desminieres, were ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... fountain in the big patio. Bert Wainwright, variously advised and commanded by his sister, Rita, and by Paula and her sisters, Lute and Ernestine, was striving with a dip-net to catch a particularly gorgeous flower of a fish whose size and color and multiplicity of fins and tails had led Paula to decide to segregate him for the special breeding tank in the fountain of her own secret patio. Amid high excitement, and much squealing and laughter, the deed was accomplished, the big fish deposited in a can and carried away by ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... went upstairs very quietly, and crept into the very best human bed. But unfortunately that bed had been got ready for a human uncle to sleep in; and when he found the cats there he turned them out, not gently, and threw boots at them till they fled, pale with fright to the ends of their pretty tails. And next morning he told the Mistress of the house that horrid CATS had been in his bed, and he vowed that he would never pass another night under a roof where such things were possible. Mrs. Tabby White was very glad—because no lady can wish for the visits of a person who throws boots at her. ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit

... foxes with their bushy tails, I hate to see them crawl Round Micon's homestead and purloin his ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... Pope!" This was from the foreman, who, at the same moment, reached out an enormous hairy hand with which he grabbed the cobbler's coat-tails and brought him into a sitting posture with a thump that shook ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... in England. Gipsy life may find favour in the East, but in the West the system cannot thrive. A real Englishman hates the man who will not work, scorns the man who would tell him a lie, and would give the thief who puts his hands into his pocket the cat-o'-nine-tails most unmercifully. The persecutions of the Gipsies in this country from time to time has been brought about, to a great extent, by themselves. John Bull dislikes keeping the idle, bastard children of other nations. He readily ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... writing! There may have been a thousand errors but my ears heard none of them. The breathless bits about the moments when death was near; the humorous bits about patching the tent with the tails of their shirts when an overturned lamp burnt a hole in the canvas—this was all I was conscious of until I was startled by the sound of a sepulchral voice, groaning out "Oh Lord a-massy me!" and by the sight of a Glengarry cap over the top of the fuchsia ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine



Words linked to "Tails" :   eveningwear, swallow-tailed coat, evening dress, evening clothes, morning coat, formalwear, swallowtail



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