"Tap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... without tap of drum the small, battle-worn battalions filed out of their bivouacs into the highway, ordered arms and waited for the word to march. With a dull rumble the field-pieces trundled slowly after, and halted in rear of the infantry. The cavalry trotted off circuitously through the fields, ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... past year and a half. This thought was in his mind when he tapped the Missioner on the end of his ruddy nose. They squared away in the moonlight, eight inches deep in the snow, and there was a joyous and eager light in Father Roland's eyes. The tap on his nose did not dim it. His teeth gleamed, even as David's gloves went plunk, plunk, against his nose again. Mukoki, still grinning like a carven thing, chuckled audibly. David pranced carelessly ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... you calmer, love; not till then;" and the tender-hearted man could himself have wept to see the heroic efforts of that delicate nature to control itself and put his fears to rest. He still was soothing her, when, with a tap at the door, entered James, followed by Susan, who hurriedly announced that 'Toinette was not to be heard of at any of the neighbors, and asked where ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... destruction of their traps, he practically made that boyish pastime a thing of the past in Hillsboro. Somehow, though the boys talked mightily about how they'd have the law of dirty, hot-tempered old Jombatiste, nobody cared really to face him. He had on tap a stream of red-hot vituperation astonishingly varied for a man of his evident lack of early education. Perhaps it came from his incessant reading and absorption ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... Tigress awoke, and as she felt the warm little thing nestling beside her, she chuckled to herself. Then she gave him one tap with her mighty paw; crack! went his neck, and his dancing days were over; the Tigress gobbled him up, skin, bones, and teeth. It was pitch dark, you know, and she could not see that she was eating her own cub. "One less of the brood now," thought ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... said Tippy. "Let's tap on the window and beckon him to come in and warm himself before he starts ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... over the keyboard set in the control room of the Comet and stared down at the keys. The equation was set and ready. All he had to do was tap that key and they would know, beyond all argument, whether or not they had dipped into the awful heart of material energy; whether, finally, they held in their grasp the key to the release of energy that would give ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... books, and art, and music, since these are, after all, but dream-voyages in other men's minds—they alone are for me the panacea of pain. Not the cackle of the human tongue—that for ever leaves me cold; not the sympathy which talks and reproves, or turns on the tap of help and courage by the usual trite source—that never helps me to forget. But Work, and Travel, and (for me) Loneliness—these are the three things by which I flee from haunting terrors towards numbness and indifference. Each one, of course, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... the afternoon in the garden moving some of the Eucalyptus plants. Several are over a foot high and have very long tap-roots. We cannot plant them in any other garden, as the people say they would infect the soil with the white mould which is all over this garden. This mould has already rotted the roots of one or two. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... a tap sounded on the door. Cummings stood by while I opened it to Barbara, and a slender, veiled woman, taller by half a head in spite of bent shoulders and the droop of weakness which made the girl's ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... were told in country inns when Turpin rode to Rippleside! Puck tuned the fiddle-strings, and country maids grew coy, Tavern doors grew magical when Colonel Jack might tap at them, The gay Golden Farmer ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... and fury broke from the others, and for a few minutes there was no thought of the Indians, whose bullets were still falling in the water, for the most part short of the boats. A sharp tap on the side of Harry's canoe, followed by a jet of ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... wash in these little places, because the cars shake so; and when you have got both your hands and half your head in the basin, and are unable to protect yourself, the sides of the room, and the water-tap and the soap-dish, and other cowardly things, take a mean advantage of your helplessness to punch you as hard as ever they can; and when you back away from these, the door swings open and slaps you ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... A half-hesitating tap at the door prefaced the entrance of a woman—the sort of woman who is seen in those streets by the score—a tallish, thinnish woman, old before her time, perpetually harassed, always anxious, always looking ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... practised the manipulation of the whip all their lives. They could flick a square inch of ice at thirty feet with its tip. It was capable of a gentle tap, or the force of a pistol shot, at its wielder's discretion. The whip was the terror of the team, for even at his distance Tinker, the leader, could be brought to account if he failed to do his duty ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... they consider essentials, and what, from them, children are learning to consider essentials. The "knowingness" of some of our children on subjects connected with dress is simply appalling. A girl of eight or ten summers will take you in at a glance, from topmost plume to boot-tap, by items and collectively, analytically and synthetically. She discourses, in technical terms, of the fall of your drapery,—the propriety of your trimmings, and the effect of this, that, or the other. She has a proper appreciation of what is French in your attire, and a proper scorn ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... tap-room loiterer had slunk away to camp or cabin, and when the echo of the patrol's tread had died out in the fragrant darkness, came one to the door below, hammering the knocker; and I saw his spurs and scabbard shining in the luster of the stars, and in my heart a still voice repeated, "This ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... order to set this mishap to rights, darted upon the cat like an unchained lion, and in his haste he left the tap of the barrel running. And after chasing the cat through every hole and corner of the house, he recovered the hen; but the cask had meanwhile all run out; and when Vardiello returned, and saw the wine running about, he let the cask of his soul empty itself through the tap-holes of his eyes. ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... here there was plenty to have taken their attention for a day: there was an ant-hill, swarming with those great black ants found in the woods, whose hill looks one lightly shovelled-up collection of earth: then, close at hand, they heard the regular "tip-tap" of the great green woodpecker; the harsh "pee-pee-peen" of the wryneck; while, from far off, floating upon the soft breeze, came the sweet bell-tones of the cuckoo. Directly after, came again the harsh cry of the jay, ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... proposals for the inspection and control of arms. . .and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce. Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah. . .to "undo the heavy burdens. . . let ...
— Kennedy's Inaugural Address
... tap, tap! went the drums, and then the bass drum joined in, and the two companies moved off. Soon the fifers struck up a lively air, and away went the cadets, down the road, around grounds, and to the mess hall ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... heard the warning tap of the conductor's baton; the applause was hushed as though by a charm, and the orchestra broke into the overture to 'Zampa.' She could not understand, she could not think. As she tripped tragically to the artists'-room in her new yellow dress she said to ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... on the plaza I took a look into a gambling saloon. I saw a Greaser that had been betting against Monte all night, and had had wonderful luck. He announced that he would tap the bank for $1,800, which was more money than he ever had before, or could ever expect to have again, which meant that he would bet that amount for whatever sum the dealer could show to meet it on the turn of one card. He lost, and the dealer showed $1,800 in the ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... the woodpecker began a tap-tapping soft and insistent somewhere out of sight, a small noise yet disturbing, that followed them wheresoever they went. Thus they wandered, close entwined, but ever the wood grew darker until they ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Before I could move she had caught my two hands in hers, and turned the palms up. Indeed, they were only scorched, not burned deep, though they stung smartly enough; but black they were, and the skin beginning to puff into blisters. But now came the tap of a stick on the stone, and Mme. de Lalange came hobbling out. "What is this?" she cried, seeing me standing so, pale, it may be, with the young lady holding my ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... a chair, folded his arms on the back of it, and looked Vi over with a professional eye. She was posed for a painter, not for a sculptor, but even so he found her worth looking at. A woman can't sit on one foot, tap the floor with the other, and lean back, without showing the lines of ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... possession of the most promising parts of the continent—the Nile valley and temperate South Africa. But France has also gained a huge extent of country covering almost the whole of North-West Africa. While much of this is merely desert, there are caravan routes which tap the basin of the Niger and conduct its products to Algeria, conquered by France early in the century, and to Tunis, more recently appropriated. The West African provinces of France have, at any rate, this advantage, that they are nearer to the mother-country than ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... room, Fandor had just seen Elizabeth Dollon lying unconscious. A tube, detached from a portable gas stove, was between her tightly closed lips! The tap was turned full on. He flung himself on his knees near the poor girl, pulled away the deadly tube, and put his ear ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... multitude was called to order. There followed a solemn prayer of thanksgiving. The laurel tie was placed, amidst ringing cheers. The golden spike was set. The trans-American telegraph wire was adjusted. Amid breathless silence the silver hammer was lifted, poised, dropped, giving the gentle tap that ticked the news to all the world! Then, blow on blow, Governor Stanford sent the spike to place! A storm of wild huzzas burst forth; desert rock and sand, plain and mountain, echoed the conquest of their terrors. The two engines moved up, touched noses; and each ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... Andreevitch kept all his money in a great wrought-iron coffer, which stood under the head of his bed. The key of this coffer was intrusted to Yuditch. Every evening as he went to bed Ivan Andreevitch used to bid him open the coffer in his presence, used to tap in turn each of the tightly filled bags with a stick, and every Saturday he would untie the bags with Yuditch, and carefully count over the money. Vassily heard of all these doings, and burned with eagerness to overhaul the sacred coffer. In the course of five or six days ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... demanded, hotly. "I'll do it if you say the word! But not a strange woman. You, Beatrice—you!! I'll dare you!!! We'll go to the 'Little Church Around the Corner.' I dare you! I dare you, Beatrice! They always have a wedding ceremony on tap, there; if you've got the sand, come on. It offers a solution of everything. Come on, ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... Presidential spittoon, and scribbling his distiches with the nib of the Presidential goose-quill. We were absolutely in doubt whether a seemingly inoffensive knot of rustics, on a mound without the inclosure, might not, at tap of drum, unmask a battery of giant columbiads, and belch blazes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... now run into the filters, which are always constructed on the vacuum principle. They are iron boxes, in which a bed is made of bricks, above them gravel, and over this sand, covered on the top by iron grids. The space below the sieve thus formed is connected by means of an outlet tap with a closed tank, and this again communicates with a vacuum pump. By this means the filtration is quickened by the atmospheric pressure, and goes on very rapidly, as also does the subsequent washing. The filtered caustic liquor passes to the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... formed part of a jostling caravan along the Castrovillari-Morano track—how different from the last time I had traversed this route, when nothing broke the silence save a chaffinch piping among the branches or the distant tap of some woodpecker! ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... fancy himself with these friends that same King of Babylon who thrills in the lover of his poem. I used to think that for him all the drama of Admiral Guinea, one of the plays he wrote with Stevenson, was concentrated in the tap-tap of the blind man's stick. In his Hospital Verses, his London Voluntaries, his every Rhyme and Rhythm, the outward sign is the expression of the emotion, the thought that is in him. And coming down to more ordinary matters—ordinary, ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Tap! tap! Gentle little Samaritan—she had the oil, if not the wine; and when he bade her enter, she saw that she had indeed to bind up his wounds. He stood with his arm bare to the elbow—a poor scorched arm, from ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... sat very erect on Buster, her beaver cap on the back of her head, her wide gray eyes brilliant. She looked at Scott. His hard handsome face was expressionless. Douglas ran across the yard and reached up to tap ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... you, Angelique!" said Le Gardeur, kissing her. He departed suddenly, leaving a gift in the hand of Lizette, who courtesied low to him with a smile of pleasure as he passed out, while Angelique leaned out of the window listening to his horse's hoofs until the last tap of them died ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... half-past ten chimed from the Dresden clock on the mantelpiece, there was a gentle tap at the door, and Francis ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... is all. I tried to get mine, too. I lost what I meant to put back after I had used it. They are after me now, or soon will be—the crooks! And here I am, momentarily expecting some one to walk up quietly behind me, tap me on the shoulder ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... that all evil, multiform as it seems, is at bottom one. It is a great weltering coil, but wilderness and tangle as it appears, there is a tap root from which it all comes, like a close-clinging mass of ivy which is choking the life out of an elm-tree. If that root were grubbed up, all would fall. It is like some huge sea monster 'floating many a rood,' but ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... spread for them outside my window, and at this season they eat leisurely and with good appetite, for there are no hungry babies pestering to be fed. Very early in the morning I hear the whirr and rustle of eager wings, and the tap, tap, of little beaks upon the stone. The sound carries me back, for it was the first to greet me when I rose to draw water and gather kindling in my roadmender days; and if I slip back another decade they survey me, reproving my laziness, from the foot ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under his right, in such wise, that the inside of her hand rested upon the back of his—she raised her fingers, and let them fall—it could scarce be call'd a tap; or if it was a tap—'twould have puzzled a casuist to say, whether 'twas a tap of remonstrance, or a tap of confession: my father, who was all sensibilities from head to foot, class'd it right—Conscience redoubled her blow—he turn'd his face suddenly the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Sens, at the descent to the bridge of Montereau, while the eight horses, lashed to a gallop, were bearing the carriage rapidly along (the First Consul already traveled like a king), the tap of one of the front wheels came off. The inhabitants who lined the route, witnessing this accident, and foreseeing what would be the result, used every effort to stop the postilions, but did not succeed, and the carriage was ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... reader wished to ring a door-bell so as to produce as much sound as possible he would probably pull it as far back as he could and then let it go. But if he would in letting it go simply give it a tap with his forefinger he would ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... might be attended by more serious loss to the trade than that which is incurred in its retention, Undoubtedly the Saskatchewan, if abandoned by the Hudson Bay Company, would be speedily occupied by traders from the Missouri, who would also tap the trade of the richer fur-producing districts of Lesser Slave Lake and the North. The products-of the Saskatchewan proper principally consists of provisions, including pemmican and dry meat, buffalo robes and leather, linx, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... light of another door at the further end of the large and barn-like apartment, showed the stooping figure. Tap, tap, tap! went the stick; and the old man had disappeared around ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... silvery brightness down the gutter of the humble street. A "helper," rubbing down one of Lady Smigsmag's carriage-horses, even paused in his whistle to listen to the strain. Mr. Tressle's man, who had been professionally occupied, ceased his tap-tap upon the coffin which he was getting in readiness. The greengrocer (there is always a greengrocer in those narrow streets, and he goes out in white Berlin gloves as a supernumerary footman) was ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to have an affinity for some one else's wife; but, by Jove," said Douglas, "if I were married, and caught a fellow hanging about my wife, I'd just want to handle one of Vulcan's heaviest, and tap him on ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... me—an endless rush of questions, and all about Ballingall. How did I know he was dying? When you put your fingers on their wrist, what is it you count? which is the place where the lungs are? when you tap their chest what do you listen for? are they not dying as long as they can rise now and then, and dress and go out? when they are really dying do they always know it themselves? If they don't know it, is that ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... know not if that be not the commoner fault of the twain. He calls, and calls, and they come not; and such sheep find many a sharp tap from the rod ere they will walk, never say run. Our Shepherd is human, therefore He can feel for us; He is Divine, therefore can He have patience with us. Let ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... of a scrape, he said—some sort of poaching radical foster-brother of his, who had been in gaol, and deserved it too, I'll be bound. And he couldn't go down quietly into the village and put up at the public, where I might have set in the tap, and not run the chance of having my skin blown over my ears, and my teeth down my throat, on this cursed look-out place, because he's too well known there. What does that mean? Upon my soul, it looks bad. They may be lynching ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... aunt, as soon as he came in after dinner, and leaning over her with his arm on the mantelpiece, or drawing a chair beside her, would laugh and talk with endless spirit and amusement. When he talked of the people in the neighbourhood who afforded scope for satire, she would tap him with her fan and say, "Why do I not see these originals? bring them to see me," to Lucy's wonder and often dismay. "They would not amuse you at all," Sir Tom would reply, upon which the lady would turn and call Lucy to her. "My little angel! he pretends that it is he that is so clever, that ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... find that on the whole the fault is ours. The first, and least important, of the three passages—that of the blow—seems to me the most doubtful. I confess that, do what I will, I cannot reconcile myself with it. It seems certain that the blow is by no means a tap on the shoulder with a roll of paper, as some actors, feeling the repulsiveness of the passage, have made it. It must occur, too, on the open stage. And there is not, I think, a sufficiently overwhelming tragic feeling in ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... offensive. But the most charming part of the book by far (for its women are mere lay figures) is to be found in the convivial scenes. Headlong Hall contains, besides other occasional verse of merit, two drinking-songs—"Hail to the Headlong," and the still better "A Heel-tap! a heel-tap! I never could bear it"—songs not quite so good as those in the subsequent books, but good enough to make any reader think with a gentle sigh of the departure of good fellowship from the earth. Undergraduates and Scotchmen (and even in ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... not help exclaiming aloud—"Yes, Alice, I will win thee nobly!" The words had scarce escaped his lips, when he heard at the door of his apartment, which the servant had left ajar, a sound like a deep sigh, which was instantly succeeded by a gentle tap—"Come in," replied Julian, somewhat ashamed of his exclamation, and not a little afraid that it had been caught up by some eavesdropper—"Come in," he again repeated; but his command was not obeyed; on the contrary, the knock was repeated somewhat louder. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Central African Republic tap water is not potable; poaching has diminished the country's reputation as one of the last great wildlife ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... I could have touched him with my finger. A few moments later I could distinguish the almost imperceptible sound of footsteps on the carpet; this faint sound rang violently in my head. All at once my breathing and my heart both stopped together; there was a tap at the door. The tapping was discreet, full of entreaty and delicacy. I wanted to reply, "Come in," but I had no longer any voice; and, besides, was it becoming to answer like that, so curtly and plainly? I thought "Come in" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... person, Sir,' repeated O'Flaherty, 'by striking, kicking, or whipping any part or mimber of his body; or offering a milder assault, such as a pull by the chin, or a finger-tap upon the nose. It is usual, Sir, for the purpose of avoiding ungentlemanlike noise, inconvenience, and confusion, that one gentleman should request of another to suppose himself affronted in the manner, whatever it may ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... ambassador, but he made light of the matter and the interpreter's suspicions that treachery was intended, and when night came on he was soon asleep in peace and quiet. But not so with the vigilant interpreter, who kept awake and had his guns near at hand. About midnight a tap was heard at the door and his name, in the Shawnee language, was called. He found Tecumseh at the door. He had called to warn him of impending assassination by the queen and squaws, who had held a council and determined on their death in spite of the protests of ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... and responded to throughout the years; so often with his little variations of playfulness. Many a time in early summer when out-of-doors she would be reminded of it by hearing some bird sounding its love signal on a piece of dry wood—that tap of heart-beat. Now it crashed close to ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... it, and tolerate it," the other went on savagely, "if you succeeded at it. You've never earned a cent in your life, nor done a tap of man's work." ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... without moving, exactly as he had stood before. There he remained for ten minutes, but the time went by very slowly. When about noon some circumstance told him what was the hour, he was astonished to find that the day had not nearly passed away. And then another tap was struck on the door—a sound which he well recognized—and his wife crept silently into the room. She came close up to him before she spoke, and put ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... that land of curiosities, may be seen oaks, chestnuts, pines, and cedars growing in flowerpots, and fifty years old, but not twelve inches high! They take the young plant, cut off its tap-root, and place it in a basin of good soil kept well watered. Should it grow too rapidly, they dig down and shorten in several roots. Year by year the leaves grow smaller, and in course of time the trees become little dwarfs, and are made pets of ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... amount of atmospheric air. The arrangement under consideration, patented abroad, has this object specially in view. The main gas pipe of the machine is shown at A, being a copper pipe closed at one end and having a tap at the other. On this pipe the vertical pipes, C, are screwed at stated intervals, each being in its turn provided with a tap near its base. On the top of each vertical table the burner, IJ, is placed, whose upper end spreads ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... friend Donkey Perkins, the fighting man, curses me with perfect affability and I am on easy terms with about one hundred costermongers. If a "gentleman" went among them he could learn nothing. Observe the hush that falls on the babble of a tap-room if any well-dressed person goes in; listen to the hum of warning, and then notice the laboured hypocrisy of the talk that goes on so long as the stranger is there. I have seen that odd change scores of times, ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... homoeopathic magic, inanimate things, as well as plants and animals, may diffuse blessing or bane around them, according to their own intrinsic nature and the skill of the wizard to tap or dam, as the case may be, the stream of weal or woe. In Samaracand women give a baby sugar candy to suck and put glue in the palm of its hand, in order that, when the child grows up, his words may be sweet and precious things may stick to his hands as if they were glued. The ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... to become conscious of it before the final interview—I don't know the reason for that. But the memory is available now. On tap, so to speak. They'll give you a cue, ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... and some squatting on the floor. Rachel Moseley, the owner of the long dark pigtail, seemed in a position of command, for she motioned Irene to a vacant chair, then rapped on the table with a ruler to ensure silence. She had to tap not once but several times, and ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... furnace, whose flames have a temperature of more than a thousand degrees, you do not guess its presence save when its great doors open to let out a steel monster. And the monster is handled by only three or four workmen, who now here, now there, open a tap causing immense cranes to move one way or another by the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... Universal shouting of the French on their opposite hillside; caps raised on bayonets; and a sound as of Republique; Vive la Republique borne dubious on the winds!—On the morrow morning, so to speak, Brunswick slings his knapsacks before day, lights any fires he has; and marches without tap of drum. Dumouriez finds ghastly symptoms in that camp; 'latrines full of blood!' (1st October, 1792; Dumouriez, iii. 73.) The chivalrous King of Prussia, for he as we saw is here in person, may long rue the day; may look colder than ever on these dulled-bright Seigneurs, and French Princes ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... little group stood Ruth Nelson, red-lipped, bright-eyed, eager, her slender white-clad figure on tiptoe with buoyant expectancy. The crimson rose caught in her hair kept impatient time to the tap of her restless high-heeled slipper, and she swayed and sang with the music in a way to ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... her dressing gown and ran along her little passage—and stooped to the key-hole just as another tap, discreet but insistent, rang ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... or currant, called by the natives of Moorunde "eertapko," about the size of No. 2. shot. When ripe it is red, and of an agreeable acid flavour. It grows upon a low creeping tap-rooted plant, of a salsolaceous character, found in the alluvial flats of the Murray, among the polygonum brushes, and in many other places. A single plant will spread over an area of many yards in diameter, covering the dry and arid ground with a close, soft, and velvety carpet ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... his last copy and was engaged in piling the copy-books neatly, one on top of another, when there came a soft tap ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... key into his pocket, and holding the shovel and the trap he ran down to the gate to open it for her. He stood looking after her as she went on down the street, her staff striking the bricks sharply, tap! tap! tap! Her back was certainly exactly ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... remained on guard. At a few minutes after nine the maid, Edith Baxter, carried down to the stables his supper, which consisted of a dish of curried mutton. She took no liquid, as there was a water-tap in the stables, and it was the rule that the lad on duty should drink nothing else. The maid carried a lantern with her, as it was very dark and the path ran ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... censure by venturing, without his wife's authority, to lean forward and tap on the door-frame with the butt of his whip. At the sound, a shrill voice called instantly from the region of the stove pipe, "Clem! Clementina? Go to the front dooa! The'e's somebody knockin'." The sound ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Mrs. Adams,—little Mary's blue eyes grew larger and larger, seeing far off on the salt green sea, and her ears heard only the ripple and murmur of those waters that earned her heart away,—till, by-and-by, Miss Prissy gave her a smart little tap, which awakened her to the fact that she was wanted again to try on the dress which Miss Prissy's nimble ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... but at last, seeing that Ralph really wished it, he went out for an hour, and returned full of the rumors he had picked up of the terrible losses of the British, and the utter rout of the French army. The next morning Ralph had a great surprise; for just as he had finished his breakfast there was a tap at the door, and a lady entered. Ralph could hardly believe his eyes as his mother ran forward to the bed. But the pressure of her arms and her kisses soon showed him that it was ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... later St. Hilda, reading by her fire, heard a tap on her window-pane, and, looking up, saw Jason's pale face outside. She ran to the door, and the boy stumbled wearily toward the threshold and stopped with a look of fear and piteous appeal. She stretched out her arms to him, and, broken at last, the boy sank at her feet, and, ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... a bursting heart; and his master, giving him a cheering tap on the shoulder, left him to find his way into the streets ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mountains and streams and coasts in a cleanly and decent condition—whether primitive or adapted in one way or another to man's use—together with the communities of wild creatures that belong there, is quite as practical and urgent as their right to usable tap water or to a share in the Gross National Product. For upon the retention of these ancient realities future human sanity ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... whatever territory, by reason of the potential fertility of its soil or for other causes, has held out promise of some day becoming populated. Along the railway the population has then flowed. In forcing its way westward each company in its course has sought to tap with its lines the richest strips of territory: all alike endeavoured to obtain a share of the traffic originating from a point where a thriving town was already established or topographical conditions pointed out a promising site. As the American laws impose practically ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... Woodpecker started to drill another hole, but he was still so full of giggles that he could not get his mouth closed, and every time just as he went to tap the tree with his bill he would give ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... are bob—she's a kinchin crack, [13] And I hopes as how she'll never back; For she never lushes dog's-soup or lap, [14] But she loves my cousin the bluffer's tap. [15] She's wide-awake, and her prating cheat, [16 ] For humming a cove was never beat; [17] But because she lately nimm'd some tin, [18] They have sent her to lodge at ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... n. Old-time hacker David Cargill's theory on the causation of computer glitches. Your typical electric utility draws its line current out of the big generators with a pair of coil taps located near the top of the dynamo. When the normal tap brushes get dirty, they take them off line to clean up, and use special auxiliary taps on the *bottom* of the coil. Now, this is a problem, because when they do that they get not ordinary or 'thin' electrons, but ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... barrels surrounded by flaming torches were tapped, and two servant maids were kept busy rinsing glasses and bowls in order to refill them at the tap whence flowed the red wine, or at the tap of the cider barrel. On the table were bread, sausages and cheese. Every one swallowed a mouthful from time to time, and beneath the roof of illuminated foliage this wholesome ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Odin in his battles; when a Kiawaqu', or Jotun, rises to the clouds to oppose him, Glooskap's head touches the stars, and scorning to slay so mean a foe like an equal, he kills him contemptuously with a light tap of his bow. But in the family circle he is the most benevolent of gentle heroes, and has his oft-repeated little standard jokes. Yet he never, like the Manobozho-Hiawatha of the Chippewas, becomes silly, cruel, or fantastic. He has his roaring revel with a brother giant, even as Thor went ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... back the rays on to Hilda's bed, giving her for a few moments the illusion of direct sunlight. The hour was eleven o'clock. On the night-table lay a tea-tray in disorder, and on the turned-down sheet some crumbs of toast. A low, nervous tap at the door caused Hilda to stir in the bed. Sarah Gailey entered hurriedly. In her bony yellowed hand she held a collection ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... proved to be of delicate flavor when broiled over the coals. Just above them was a boiling hot spring, and Albert used the water from this for cooking purposes. "Hot and cold water whenever you please," he said to Dick. "Nothing to do but to turn the tap." ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... a meal much accounted of. It was reckoned effeminate to require more than two meals a day, though, just as in the verdurer's lodge at home, there was a barrel of ale on tap with drinking horns beside it in the hall, and on a small round table in the window a loaf of bread, to which city luxury added a cheese, and a jug containing sack, with some silver cups beside it, and a pitcher of fair ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... honest toil. "Dick's information is only hearsay. He's got a good spring there at the corral and he told me there was considerable water in the lower workings of the old mine up in the range. We'll dig till we reach water if we have to tap Hades. And the Lord send that we don't have to waste much time on a ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... that projected from the old Cunzie Neuk, the crippled laddie could see only the shadowy tombs and the long gray wall of the two kirks, through the sunny haze. But he dropped his crutches over, and climbed out onto the vault. Never before had Bobby failed to hear that well-known tap-tap-tapping on the graveled path, nor failed to trot down to meet it with friskings of welcome. But now he lay very still, even when a pair of frail arms tried to lift his dead weight to a heaving breast, and Tammy's cry of woe rang through the kirkyard. In a moment Ailie ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... The screams halted, as if a tap was turned off: whoever was inside was all ears. She rapped again. And now a scuffling; and Maria opened the door, and six pairs of astonished eyes gloated on the stranger. And no less did hers on the party within; for there ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... of white farmers. Yet the grasses grow luxuriantly and nothing but custom or something else accounts for their absence; the something else is cotton. The adaptability of cotton to the Negro is almost providential. It has a long tap root and is able to stand neglect and yet produce a reasonable crop. The grains, corn and cane, with their surface roots, will ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... issues: tap water is not potable; poaching has diminished the country's reputation as one of the last ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... say?" the Englishman asked in a tone of astonishment, and his query was emphasized with a firm tap of his cane on ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... tap and one at bottom?" repeated Mr. Bishopriggs, in high disdain. "De'il a bit of it! Baith yer chairs as close together as chairs can be. Hech! hech!—haven't I caught 'em, after goodness knows hoo many ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... train, after quarter of an hour's indecision between thoughts of Holly, his morning paper, the look of the bright day, and his dim memory of Newmarket, Val plunged into the recesses of a small square book, all names, pedigrees, tap-roots, and notes about the make and shape of horses. The Forsyte in him was bent on the acquisition of a certain strain of blood, and he was subduing resolutely as yet the Dartie hankering for a Nutter. On getting back to England, after the profitable sale ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... seemed to lose heart. I guess I got too much imagination. There was a formality and publicness about it that kind of weakened my nerve. I never won a fight in the ring. Light-weights and all kinds of scrubs used to sign up with my manager and then walk up and tap me on the wrist and see me fall. The minute I seen the crowd and a lot of gents in evening clothes down in front, and seen a professional come inside the ropes, I got ...
— Options • O. Henry
... with Miriam and Dr. Woods, talking of Harry and wishing he would come. "You want Harry!" the doctor repeated after me; "you had better learn to live without him." "What an absurdity!" I said and wondered when he would come. Still later, Miriam, father, and I were in the parlor, when there was a tap on the window, just above his head, and I saw a hand, for an instant. Father hurried out, and we heard several voices; and then steps going away. Mother came down and asked who had been there, but we only knew that, whoever it was, father had afterward gone with them. Mother went on: "There ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Elinor, the days are past when benevolent fairies arrive just at the important moment, and by a tap of the wand or a phial of elixir, change the coarsest features, the most unfavourable complexion, into a dazzling image of everything most lovely, most beautiful. Nor had she the good luck of certain young ladies ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... good-natured race in the world, and the most personally independent and intelligent, and the least fitted to submit to the irksomeness and exasperation of regimental discipline, sprang, at the first tap of the drum, to arms—not for gain, nor even glory, nor to repel invasion—but for an emblem, a mere abstraction—for the life, the safety of the flag. We have seen the unequal'd docility and obedience of these soldiers. We have seen them tried long and long by hopelessness, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... a sparrow," said they; but they, nevertheless, did not let her fly, but took her home with them, and every time she cried they gave her a tap ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... By-and-by a slight tap was heard without, and the apprentice cautiously admitted Gregory Swindlehurst and his comrade. The latter was habited like the other watchman, in a blue night-rail, and was armed with a halberd. He appeared much stouter, much older, and, so far as could be discovered of his ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... single-headed pick, and watching him, Moussa Isa saw that, in a quarter of an hour or so, he might plausibly and legitimately pass within a yard or two of this his enemy, as he went to and fro between the water-tap and the strip of flower-border that he was sprinkling.... Would they hang him if he killed the Brahmin, or would they feebly flog him again and give him a longer sentence (that he be supported, fed, lodged, clothed and cared for) than the ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... on yon hill-tap, The dew sits on the gowan; Deep murmurs through her glens the Spey, Around Kinrara rowan. Where art thou, fairest, kindest lass? Alas! wert thou but near me, Thy gentle soul, thy melting eye, Would ever, ever ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of self-approval, tinged with a philosophy which appears to have been always kept on tap, closes this chapter of his remarkable career. ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... neither in a building or a villager of Cagnes. There is a Parisienne—" And I told him about Mademoiselle Simone. He was silent, and his fingers drummed upon the table, tipity-tap, tipity-tap. "Show me your sketches," ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... use to tap maples less than a foot across. They hain't no sugar in 'em,' said Zack, among his other practical hints. 'The older the tree, the richer the sap. This 'ere sugar bush is as fine as I'd wish to tap: mostly hard maple, an' the right age. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... the pony's hind feet and with them Tad Butler. The pony came down as quickly as it had gone up, but Tap kept on going. He had been near the wire corral when he was jerked against ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... freezing point; and it does not freeze in winter if conveyed in proper pipes. The reservoirs are covered; a leaf cannot blow into them, and no surface contamination can reach the water. It passes direct from the main into the house tap; no cisterns are employed, and the supply is always fresh and pure. This is the kind of water which is supplied to the fortunate people of Tring, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall |
