|
|
|
More "Tabby" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and betrayed the fact that in reality she was both vigorous and alert. When he first caught sight of her she was knitting in a low chair against the sunlight of the wall, and something at once made him see her as a great tabby cat, dozing, yet awake, heavily sleepy, and yet at the same time prepared for instantaneous action. A great mouser on the watch occurred ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the grassplot and up and down the stems of the cherry-trees, ceased their gambols and lay still, crouching in the grass, and watching her graceful motions, as if taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure as if the butter she held in her hand would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... for hares pop out of the ditch just when you are not looking for them. A horse that is weak in the legs may not stumble for a mile or two, but it is in him, and the driver had better hold him up well. The tabby cat is not lapping milk just now, but leave the dairy door open, and see if she is not as bad a thief as the kitten. There's fire in the flint, cool as it looks: wait till the steel gets a knock at it, and you will see. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... cat, which (seeing its master come home from the hunt with a string of birds, and displaying, with much pride and satisfaction, the results of his prowess), conceived the idea that it would also be a fine thing for her to go forth and kill the canary. But to tabby's surprise, her ability was rewarded with chastisement; whereupon she pondered the question over and over: "How can it be, that what is virtue in man is vice ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... of the case, a young woman of fine appearance, and high standing in society, the pride of her husband, and the mother of an infant daughter, only a few miles from us, ay, in D- County, too, was actually beating in the skull of a slave-woman called Tabby; and not content with that, had her tied up and whipped, after her skull was broken, and she died hanging to the bedstead, to which she had been fastened. When informed that Tabby was dead, she answered, 'I am glad of it, for she has worried my life out ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... them was an attractive-looking object. The old woman was very old, having a face all over minute wrinkles, a pair of red eyes much sunken, and the semblance of a beard under her chin. The cat, a dark tabby, looked as if he had been in the wars, and had played his part valiantly. His coat, however, was less dilapidated than the old woman's garments, which seemed to be composed mainly of disconnected rags of all colours and shapes. She sat on a three-legged stool, beside a tiny hearth, on which burned ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... could be a violent tongue, too, as the several men who accosted us on our dark way discovered at their first approach to familiarity; and on one occasion, when a drunken sailor leered up to my side, Mrs. Bridget spat at him like an angry tabby-cat. Somehow, I no longer felt afraid under her protection ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... other boys into all sorts of scrapes and trouble. One day they would hide poor Jenny's spectacles, and then when search was made the lost treasure would be found in some one else's desk. Or they would tie cotton reels on the four feet and tail of the old tabby cat, and launch her, with a horrid clatter, right into the middle of the room, just as I or one of the others happened to be scampering out. Or they would turn the little boys' forms upside down, and compel them with terrible ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... notwithstanding this "possession" (as it were), those who survive, of her daily and household companions, are clear in their testimony, that never was the claim of any duty, never was the call of another for help, neglected for an instant. It had become necessary to give Tabby—now nearly eighty years of age—the assistance of a girl. Tabby relinquished any of her work with jealous reluctance, and could not bear to be reminded, though ever so delicately, that the acuteness of her senses was dulled by age. The other servant might not interfere with what she chose ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... present occupant of the throne is a large young gray tabby, Oliver by name. Not that in any sense he is a protector, for I doubt whether he has the heart to kill a mouse. However, I saw him catch and eat the first butterfly of the season, and trust that the germ ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... delightful uncouthness of visage which is Chum's chief charm, all that fascinating ferocity which makes him a thing of ugliness and a joy for ever, had vanished—refined away, idealised into a demureness as of domestic tabby, a platitudinarian peacefulness—nay, a sort of beauty! The camera had been so accustomed to actresses that it could ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... noticed but undoubtedly beneficial part in the education and life of children. Which of us does not remember powerful but magnanimous dogs, lazy lapdogs, birds dying in captivity, dull-witted but haughty turkeys, mild old tabby cats, who forgave us when we trod on their tails for fun and caused them agonising pain? I even fancy, sometimes, that the patience, the fidelity, the readiness to forgive, and the sincerity which are characteristic of our domestic animals have a far stronger ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... I did, Mrs. Goodwin might box my ears for the impertinence; she has boxed them before. I grew up around here, remember. The first acquaintance I made with this house was when I shied an apple at the family tabby as it sat sunning itself on the well-curb, and bowled it in. Naturally, I hadn't meant to hit it; the beast stepped forward just as I fired. I nearly fell in, myself, trying to get it out, but the well was deep and I couldn't raise a meow or a whisker. It was a fine November ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... close the outer door softly behind her, the girl's heart throbbed in response to the old woman's sorrow. While she sat on the bench to lace her shoes the cat, old Tabby, came rubbing and purring about her skirts. Muffled, as though from a great distance, a rooster vented a questioning crow as though he doubted that it was yet time to announce the birth of ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... was about to shut my window, when suddenly I perceived, in a spot of sunshine on my right, the shadow of two pricked-up ears; then a paw advanced, then the head of a tabby-cat showed itself at the corner of the gutter. The cunning fellow was lying there in wait, hoping the crumbs ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... peevish old Tabby, and of course I scratch now and then, and see in the dark. I dare say Silas is sorry, but I don't think he is in sackcloth and ashes. He has reason to be sorry and anxious, and I say I think he is both; and you ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... domestic cats coloured nearly like F. chaus, but not resembling that species in shape, abound in {45} Bengal; he adds, "such a colouration is utterly unknown in European cats, and the proper tabby markings (pale streaks on a black ground, peculiarly and symmetrically disposed), so common in English cats, are never seen in those of India." Dr. D. Short has assured Mr. Blyth[92] that at Hansi hybrids between the common cat and F. ornata (or torquata) occur, "and ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... was exhibited in a magnificent shrine to public admiration. Every knee was bent, every hand strewed flowers or poured incense, and grimalkin was treated in all respects as the god of the day. But on the festival of St. John, poor tom's fate was reversed. A number of the tabby tribe were put into a wicker basket, and thrown alive into the midst of an immense fire kindled in the public square by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were sung, and processions were made by the priests and people ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... quilt now, her chair drawn up as usual to face the sunny garden, and on the footstool at her feet her favorite tabby cat was curled. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... greened you. She's turned into a flea, and you still want to eat her, and it never occurred to you, you green old grampus of a Griffin, that fleas like CATS. I suppose the Princess flea wouldn't jump on to a tabby kitten, and you couldn't swallow the kitten—oh dear, no—of course not ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... thy wanton play, Applauses too thy pains repay: For then, beneath some urchin's hand With modest pride thou takest thy stand, While many a stroke of kindness glides Along thy back and tabby sides. Dilated swells thy glossy fur, And loudly croons thy busy purr, As, timing well the equal sound, Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, And all their harmless claws disclose Like prickles of an early rose, While softly from thy whiskered cheek Thy half-closed eyes ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... pictures, the floor covered with a soft carpet, where all kinds of bright-colored flowers seemed to be growing, and, in the sunniest corner, lying in an arm-chair piled with cushions, a large tabby cat. ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... singing, as she knelt in front of the basket where the mother cat lay with her four blind kittens. "You see, Tabby," she said, "people still sing. A lot of them learned to sing in the war, and now they're home, they may as well sing as cry. Oh, Tabby, I wanted to sing, too . . . now look ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... bed," said Snowdrop and Thistledown, the youngest children of Tabby, the cat, "till we have once more looked at Baby Ray? He lets us play with his blocks and ball, and laughs when we climb on the table. It is bedtime now for kitties and dogs and babies. Perhaps we shall find him asleep." And this is what ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... woman's assurance that we would find him by pounding hard on the gateway leading to the Avenue de la Gare, we hastened away, leaving her to babble her imprecations to a lazy tabby cat who lay sunning itself in ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... work-box and mending-basket were on the centre table, the hearth had just been swept up, there was a smell of hot bread, and a row of freshly-baked loaves were cooling on the dresser; the firelight shone on the gleaming pewter and brass utensils, and a great tabby cat sat purring on the elbow of Nathaniel's chair. I thought he seemed a little confused at my entrance, for he got up rather awkwardly and shuffled his papers together, so I took pity on his embarrassment, and only spoke ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... lay a deal of it on myself," Mrs. Tugwell began to moan, as soon as he was gone; "for I have cockered Dan up, and there's no denying it, afore Tim, or Tryphena, or Tabby, or Debby, or even little Solomon. Because he were the first, and so like his dear father, afore he got on in the world so. Oh, it all comes of that, all the troubles comes of that, and of laying up of money, apart from your wife, and forgetting ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... which struggle and gurgle in their own blood; when pretty Fridoline, with her rosy little mouth and her long fair hair, leans out of her window to tend the honeysuckle, and over her head the neighbour's tabby cat is gently swaying her tail and watching, with her cunning green eyes, the swallow circling in the deepening purple—I do assure you that a man must be utterly devoid of taste for the picturesque ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... for a bit. I'll find the money somehow. I won't have you baited by all the old tabby-cats ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... hat-strings are much in use at present: they sell them by the weight. The tabby doublets wt the silk [called wats][232] furring wtin are also in faschion: wery warm in winter, cost 20 franks. Men and women from the least to the greatest, yea not the wery keel wifes and fruit wifes, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... by his Name, and turning immediately to the Knight, she said, she supposed that was his good Friend, Sir ROGER DE COVERLY: Upon which nothing less could follow than Sir ROGER'S Approach to Salutation, with, Madam the same at your Service. She was dressed in a black Tabby Mantua and Petticoat, without Ribbons; her Linnen striped Muslin, and in the whole in an agreeable Second-Mourning; decent Dresses being often affected by the Creatures of the Town, at once consulting Cheapness and the Pretensions to Modesty. She went on with a familiar easie Air. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... rained, then snowed again, seeming as if the weather was determined on some kind of storm, but had not yet made up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now the wind roared in the chimney, and started out of her sleep a great tortoise-shell cat, that lay on the rug which Aunt Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened her yellow eyes suddenly, and erected her smellers, but finding it was only the wind and not a mouse that made the noise, she stretched out a great paw and yawned, and then cuddled her head down so as to show her white throat, and went to ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... the window, dreamily stroking a tabby kitten, who, purring and blinking, nestled on her lap, and with great satisfaction held up her little nose into the rather hot spring sunshine. Olga Ivanovna was wearing a white morning gown, with short sleeves; her bare, pale-pink, girlish shoulders and arms ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... his best bow, and advanced to Mrs Lambert's chair, unhappily treading as he did so on the paw of a tabby cat, who resisted the indignity by a very prolonged yell and an angry spit at ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... his past and wonder what he should have become in life if this or that crucial event had not occurred to set his destiny. It seems to me that if it had not been for the sudden death of my father I, too, might have found our jungle beast a domestic tabby, and have fed it its prey without realizing what I was about. I should have been a lawyer, I know; for I had had the ambition from my earliest boyhood, and I had been confirmed in it by my success in debating at school. (Once, at Notre Dame, ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... liberate Pharaoh's slaves right under his very nose, and to lead them across that great and terrible wilderness. A WILD-CAT AFFAIR, if ever there was one! When were God's schemes otherwise? Look at Jordan, Jericho, Gideon, Goliath, and scores of others. Tame tabby-cat schemes are stamped with another hall mark—that of the Chocolate Brigade! How dearly they love their tabbies yet think themselves wise men! REAL CHRISTIANS REVEL IN DESPERATE VENTURES FOR CHRIST, expecting from God great things and attempting the same with exhilaration. History cannot match ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... as he at dinner sat, Did beckon to his hussar, And bid him bring his tabby cat For charming ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... with no better result; and a third time, full of wrath and chagrin, he guzzled at its contents, but found that the liquor still foamed near to the brim. He gave back the horn in disgust. Then Utgard-Loki proposed to him the childish exercise of lifting his cat. Thor put his hands under Tabby's belly, and, lifting with all his might, could only raise one foot from the floor. He was a very Gulliver in Brobdignag. As a last resort, he proposed to retrieve his tarnished reputation by wrestling with some Utgardian; whereupon the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... the stable-yard; but in the evening, when the fire burned clear and the blinds were drawn, it was a pleasant place. Deborah and Martha used to sit in the brown Windsor chairs knitting, with Puff, the great tabby cat, beside them, and the firelight would play on the red brick floor ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... little Lucie came into the farm-yard crying— oh, she did cry so! "I've lost my pocket-handkin! Three handkins and a pinny! Have you seen them, Tabby Kitten?" ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle • Beatrix Potter
... a charming picture you make; the English cottage creeper-covered and smiling; the nurse and child at the threshold equally smiling, yourself a very emblem of spring in your fresh gown, and a domestic tabby to complete ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... When "tabby" is well on the wires I close the switch and she goes the length of the fence in bounds, often coming back to see what the trouble is, thus receiving another shock. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... gangway trooped the men, and I noticed that two of them walked slowly and cautiously. The boat safely out of harbour, one of them produced from his chest a large tabby cat, whilst the other placed a fine cock on the deck. It was a cock with the true Gallic spirit, before the cat had time to consider the situation it had sprung on its back. The cat beat a hasty retreat into the arms of its protector who replaced it under his coat. ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke
... Spitalfields was busy as a competitor with Lyons in manufacturing many sorts of brocades, specified in a collection of designs preserved in the national art library of the Victoria and [v.04 p.0622] Albert Museum, under such trade titles as "brocade lutstring, brocade tabby, brocade tissue, brocade damask, brocade satin, Venetian brocade, and India figured brocade." Brocading in China seems to be of considerable antiquity, and Dr Bushell in his valuable handbook on Chinese art cites a notice of five rolls ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... calamity! Why? Read, and you will be as wise as myself. In the middle watch of this night, our two cats—have I told you that we brought two cats from England with us?—as was their wont, were skylarking and cutting capers on the hammock nettings and davits, when tabby the lesser, instead of jumping on something palpable, made a leap on space with the natural result, for he lighted on water and was rapidly whirled astern by the inky waters of the Tartar gulf. Poor pussy, little did ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... I bear you no ill-will: you set me free. I'm a wildcat, all bristling fur and claws: At Krindlesyke, I've been a wildcat, caged: And Michael never twigged! Son, don't you mind The day we came—was I a tabby then? The day we came here, with no thought to bide, Once we had got the plunder; and were trapped Between these four white walls by a dead woman? She held me—forced my feet into her shoes— Held ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... will probably form their ideas of Typee's cockroaches from their own domestic opportunities of observation. That were unjust to the crew of the Julia, and would give no adequate idea of their sufferings. As a purring tabby to a roaring jaguar, so is a British black-beetle to a cock-roach of the Southern Seas. We back our assertion by a quotation from our lamented friend Captain Cringle, who in his especially graphic and attractive style thus hits off the peculiarities of this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... must be nice folks," said Fido to himself, "for their feather-beds look big and comfortable, and their baskets are all ample and generous,—and see, there goes a bright gilt cage, and there is a plump yellow canary bird in it! Oh, how glad Mrs. Tabby will be to see it,—she so dotes ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... batchy Mary semplar virginy, batchy Mickletoe Archy Angelo, batchy Johnny Bartisty, sanctris postlis—Petrum hit Paulum omnium sanctris, et tabby pasture, quay a pixavit minus coglety ashy hony verbum et offer him smaxy quilia smaxy quilta—sniaxy ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... step and shining, rosy face, rejoicing at once in the odor of sanctity and of a good dinner. The sight of this placidly lazy and provokingly comfortable churchman had upon the man of law the same effect that the sight of a sleek tabby has upon a terrier. In two minutes Master Geoffrey has jostled against the friar and contrived to pick a quarrel with him. Hereupon followed a lively game at single-stick, in which, no doubt, Chaucer's fellow-students backed loudly the law against the church. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... his face turned toward the spot where the last savage snarl had been heard. He had a vague suspicion that perhaps the beast might try to stalk them, just as he had seen a domestic tabby do a ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... is another lump. Miss Leigh, may I ask you to reach me a very pretty book of coloured animals I saw behind you? Now, Emma, there is a tabby cat, just ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... circumstances any one of the five might face a peril greater than that which now confronts him. Conceivably he might flop into a swollen river to save a drowning puppy; might dive into a burning building after some stranger's pet tabby cat. But this prospect which lies before him of ambling across a field with death singing about his ears, is a thing which tears with clawing fingers at the tuggs and toggles of his imagination until his flesh revolts to the point where it refuses the dare. It ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... that you felt as if you'd like to bear a hand, too, in the work of demolition! But I never shall forget Liszt's look as he so lazily proposed to "pitch everything out of the window." It reminded me of the expression of a big tabby-cat as it sits by the fire and purrs away, blinking its eyes and seemingly half-asleep, when suddenly—!—! out it strikes with both its claws, and woe to whatever ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... any views that way, it would be better for her to go elsewhere. This declaration, which must be admitted to have been more remarkable for frankness than civility, made, however, no ill impression on Mrs. Sally. To the farmer's she went, and at his house she lives still, with her little maid, her tabby cat, a decrepit sheep-dog, and much of the lumber of Court Farm, which she could not find in her heart to part from. There she follows her old ways and her old hours, untempted by matrimony, and unassailed (as far as I hear) ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... all those fellows were," Ruth said afterwards, in some contempt. "Just a chorus! They were a lot of tabby-cats—afraid to wet their precious feet. If it hadn't been for Tom, Miss Gray would have been drowned before the eyes of that mean director and those other imitation men. Ugh! I ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... mostly fixed on the back of the seat opposite, and never turned to the window even when a station was reached and called. On the other seat were two or three passengers, one of them a working woman who held a basket on her lap, in which was a tabby kitten. The woman opened the cover now and then, whereupon the kitten would put out its head, and indulge in playful antics. At these the fellow-passengers laughed, except the solitary boy bearing the key and ticket, who, regarding the kitten with his saucer eyes, seemed mutely to say: "All laughing ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... him, I can tell you! and she handled the matter shrewdly too. So was Esdras and Silas, and a sort more lads, a-crying, 'Scratch him, Tabby!' and she ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... photographs, which on being developed turned out well. They had occasion to enter one of the unoccupied huts down there and found a wild cat a little more than half grown, which they caught and carried home with them. He was of the usual tabby colour and by no means fierce, quickly yielding to the coaxing treatment of his captors. He made himself quite at home in the Shack, and we looked forward to a display of his prowess ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Griffin nodded. "Tabby March, you know. The young woman who paints pussies. Used to go here three years ago, before she'd arrived. She was a wild one, I can ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... beauty presented themselves to his sight—or at least damsels dressed like shepherdesses, save that their jerkins and sayas were of fine brocade; that is to say, the sayas were rich farthingales of gold embroidered tabby. Their hair, that in its golden brightness vied with the beams of the sun itself, fell loose upon their shoulders and was crowned with garlands twined with green laurel and red everlasting; and their years to all appearance were not under ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and masculinity are expressions of the interplay of all the internal secretions. It used to be said by smart cats and accepted by the tabby cats, that a woman was a woman because of her ovaries alone. It is being said by some great discoverers of the day that man is a man because of his testes alone. Neither of these dogmas is true. There are individuals with ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... a pretty Poll— A monkey too, what work he made! The sister introduced a Beau— My Susan brought a favorite maid. She had a tabby of her own, A snappish mongrel christen'd Gog— What d'ye think of that, my Cat? What d'ye think ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... dusting in the morning. Then some necessary lessons said to their aunt upstairs; then, in the evening, while Mr. Bronte wrote his sermons in the study and Miss Branwell sat in her bedroom, the four children, alone in the parlour, or sitting by the kitchen fire, while Tabby, the servant, moved briskly about, would write their magazines or make ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... never know when they are well off. It is a complaint which afflicts cats, you may have noticed, and gets them into much trouble that their contemptuous temper might otherwise leave them free from. The silver tabby would have done better if she had remained asleep upon Miss Somebody's arm-chair, instead of squatting, still as marble, out in a damp field on a damp night, watching a rabbits' "stop"—which is ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... pause, during which you could have heard the proverbial pin fall, and then something sprang upon me and dug its claws in my knees. I looked down, and to my horror and distress, perceived, standing on its hind-legs, pawing my clothes, a large, tabby cat, without a head—the neck terminating in a mangled stump. The sight so appalled me that I don't know what happened, but nurse and the children came in and found me lying on the floor in hysterics. Can't we leave ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... screen the pigeons lighted, the bees wandered, and under a beam of yellow light might be seen the calm and handsome profile of Madame Vedrine, nursing her youngest, while the eldest threw stones at the numerous cats, grey, black, yellow, and tabby, which might be called the tigers of ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... too. A cat! 'cat, puss, tit, grimalkin, tabby, brindle; whoosh!' was he fond of Dickens, a Pink-nosed Pearl? She is no more sick than you are, Beloved. She has been, no doubt, and now she has forgotten how to be anything else, but she is liable to find out. Your Aunt, beloved, proposes to put this lady through a Course ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... of the General, the works at St. Simons were carried on with such expedition, that, by the middle of April, the fort, which was a regular work of tabby, a composition of oyster shells and lime, was finished; and thirty-seven palmetto houses were put up, in which all the people might be sheltered till they ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... meadow-brook Reading, and oh, it was too lovely; I never saw such a charming book." The charming book must have pleased her, truly, There's a happy light in her bright young eyes And she hugs the cat with unusual fervor, To staid old Tabby's intense surprise. ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... delight, Doubt not, sufficient will be left at night. 'Tis but a just and rational desire To light a taper at a neighbour's fire. There's danger too, you think, in rich array, 140 And none can long be modest that are gay. The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, The chimney keeps, and sits content within: But once grown sleek, will from her corner run, Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun: She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad To show her fur, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... money. Bad luck!" he continues, in a tone of spiteful vexation. "A mine o' wealth, an' no chance to work it! Ef we only had the ship by us now, we could put a good thousan' dollars' worth o' thar pelts into it. Jest see how they swarm out yonder! An' tame as pet tabby cats! There's enough of 'em to supply seal-skin jackets fur nigh all the ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... a lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclin'd, 5 Gaz'd ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... chained up. The dog that is kept on the chain becomes dirty in his habits, unhappy, and savage. His chain is often too short and is not provided with swivels to avert kinks. On a sudden alarm, or on the appearance of a trespassing tabby, he will often bound forward at the risk of dislocating his neck. The yard-dog's chain ought always to be fitted with a stop link spring to counteract the effect of the sudden jerk. The method may be employed with advantage in the garden for several dogs, a separate rope ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... this money she gave to me one day on my return from school, and sent me to Mr. Blodget, the grocer, to purchase some supplies. After giving my order to one of the clerks I immediately turned my attention to renewing my acquaintance with Tabby, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... after I arrived, and has not re- appeared: but I must wait some time longer for him. Thank Miss Barton much for the kit; if it is but a kit: my old woman is a great lover of cats, and hers has just kitted, and a wretched little blind puling tabby lizard of a thing was to be saved from the pail for me: but if Miss Barton's is a kit, I will gladly have it: and my old lady's shall be disposed of—not to the pail. Oh rus, quando te aspiciam? Construe that, Mr. Barton.—I am going ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... loved not wisely but too well." And they all poured out happily into the corridor—that is, all of them except Caput and the two ladies, who remained seated upon their bench gazing fiercely and disdainfully at each other like two tabby cats on a fence. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly appeared darting along the pavement. She reached the corner just in time to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some old tabby to settle himself and ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... the throat open, they walk round the prostrate carcase of their prey, growling and spitting like 'tabby' cats. They begin their operations in earnest, invariably on the buttock. A leopard generally eats the inner portion of the thigh first. A wolf tears open the belly, and eats the intestines first. A vulture, hawk, or kite, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... good too; there was style for you if you wanted it. The champion of the blushing cheek and the gushing eye showed that he too could handle the weapons of the enemy if he cared to trouble himself with such things. Lucian leant back and roared with indecent laughter till the tabby tom-cat who had succeeded to the poor dead beasts looked up reproachfully from his sunny corner, with a face like the reviewer's, innocent and round and whiskered. At last he turned to his parcel and drew out some half-dozen sheets of manuscript, ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... shot, And proudly forth they went On sport intent. "Oh, Tom! if we should shoot a hare," Cried one, The elder son, "How father, sure, would stare!" Look there! what's that?" "Why, as I live, a cat," Cried Bill, "'tis mother Tibbs' tabby; Oh! what a lark She loves it like a babby! And ain't a cat's eye, Tom, as good a mark As any bull's eyes?" And straight "Puss! puss!" he cries, When, lo! as Puss approaches, They hear a squall, And see a head and fist above the wall. 'Tis tabby's mistress Who in great ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... honeysuckle all over the house right up to the thatch, which is quite a yard thick. I have a water-colour of her, sitting outside her door, with the Royal Arms and Georgius Rex just showing over her cap, and a fat tabby cat asleep on the threshold. It was late summer when I did it, and the air was warm gold with purple shadows. I know it is a detestable trick to talk painter's shop, but I can't help it sometimes. I am reminded of this by the experiences I've had recently ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... biting the tails of the Pretty Pink Pigeons again; and Brownie was chasing the rabbits; and the Geese were flapping their wings and crying, "hiss, hiss!"; and the Pigeons were flying back to their home on the roof; and Rover had his mouth full of White Geese feathers; and Tabby was swallowing the ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... looks like, speakin' mod'rate, he quits winner. He travels back to Sni-a-bar as tame as tabby cats in persooance with Enright's commands, an', once thar, old man Parks an' the rest of 'em whistles him through the marital chute a heap successful. When he shows up among us, his blushin' Peggy bride on his arm, he's wearin' all the brands an' y'ear ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of her calling you a hideous cat! Doesn't that show how angry she is? People should not get angry—should they, Pussy? She will box our ears next. I really think we had better go, my darling tabby." ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... said, in a tense, vibratory tone. "Speak to me!"—and she glowered upon him. "I am no kitten, like Amy. I am no tame tabby, like Carolyn, sending out written invitations. Throw a few ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... elegantly painted, with about twenty-seven flourishes, the words, "For Willie," to his lips, and took a long drink of milk, staring over the top of it at the cat the whole time, but the blinking old tabby only dozed away with one eye opened, and slapped her tail on the carpet as if to say, "you'll find no spell in me," so Willie put his mug down, and drawing a long breath, lisped again, ...
— Baby Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... yacht never dream that in anything but duckpond weather the ordinary yacht at sea is about the meanest habitation between Heaven and earth. But it was at Monte Carlo I got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last little nest-egg had been smashed. In other words, I woke up and found myself a beggar, and for a few hours I even thought I'd have to travel home on that Monte Carlo Viaticum fund which so discreetly ships away the stranded adventurer before ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... of those lively cheerful individuals on whom amiability had set its unmistakable stamp, and, like most of his kind, his soul's peace depended in large measure on the unstinted approval of his fellows. In hunting to death a small tabby cat he had done a thing of which he scarcely approved himself, and he was glad when the gardener had hidden the body in its hastily dug grave under a lone oak-tree in the meadow, the same tree that the hunted quarry had climbed as a last effort towards safety. It had been ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... silk of Bagdad, manufactured in the Attabieh quarter (named after Attab, a contemporary of the Prophet), that the place-name passed over into Spanish, Italian, French and finally into English in the form of "tabby," as the designation of a rich-coloured watered silk. Depending on coloured tiles and gorgeous fabrics for their rich effects, nothing of the buildings of the times of Harun al-Rashid or Mamun, once counted so magnificent, have come down to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the act music. The curtains parted, and revealed the brightly polished miniature gymnasium I had seen at Anastasius's cattery; the row of pussies at the back, each on a velvet stand, some white, some tabby, some long-furred, some short-furred, all sitting with their forepaws doubled demurely under their chests, wagging their tails comically, and blinking with feline indifference at the footlights; a cage in a corner in which I ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... the picture little worth looking at, but could not forbear smiling, to see that a very plump and comfortable tabby-cat—whom we ourselves have often observed haunting the Pantheon—had established herself on the altar, in the genial sunbeam, and was fast asleep among the holy tapers. Their footsteps disturbing her, she awoke, raised herself, and sat blinking in the sun, yet with a ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his mother that Hetty was willing they should all live together and there was no more need of them to think of parting, she said, in a more contented tone than he had heard her speak in since it had been settled that he was to be married, "Eh, my lad, I'll be as still as th' ould tabby, an' ne'er want to do aught but th' offal work, as she wonna like t' do. An' then we needna part the platters an' things, as ha' stood on the shelf together sin' afore thee ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... blue eyes and sleek fair hair; and as weak physically as he was strong mentally. In his neat clerical garb, with a slight stoop and meek smile, he looked a harmless, commonplace young curate of the tabby cat kind. No one could be more tactful and ingratiating than Mr Cargrim, and he was greatly admired by the old ladies and young girls of Beorminster; but the men, one and all—even his clerical brethren—disliked and distrusted him, although there was no apparent reason ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... cream satin was the animated heart of another group. His love for scandal and his facility for acquiring the latest tidbit made him the delight of many an old tabby cat. Now his eyes shone with the joy of imparting a ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... on the other breeds. The rancor that manifested itself in Boone's treatment of the Misses Perley was not imitated by them. They never alluded to their affluent neighbor, never suffered gossip concerning the Boones in what Olympia humorously called the "Orphic adytum," the "tabby-shop," as Wesley named the Perley parlors. Young Dick, however, had none of the scruples that kept his aunts silent. One dreadful day, when he had been nagged to fisticuffs with Wesley, whose dudish dignity exacted a certain restraint with the hot-headed youngster, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... ROGER winked to me, and pointed at something that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that way I found to be an old broomstaff. At the same time he whispered me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney-corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad a report as Moll White herself; for, besides that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, the ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... who'd I hev to write to me, with you goin' 'long? It'll seem terrible nice to hear from somebody. I always did love letters. Sence Cousin Tabby ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... she said about men once (in the boarding house now) and often repeated. "They're very fond of saying women are cats," she once said. "Fools! It's men that are the cat tribe: tame cats, tabby cats, wild cats, Cheshire cats, tomcats and stray cats! Aren't they just? And look at them—tame cats are miserable creatures, tabby cats the sloppy creatures, wild cats ferocious creatures, Cheshire cats fool creatures, tomcats disgusting creatures, stray cats—on ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... sparrows were busy washing, sending up tiny iridescent jets and fountains from their swiftly fluttering wings. It was delicious to Dominic. He felt very safe, very gay. Only a heavy ill- favoured tabby cat came from nowhere. It had designs upon the sparrows. Twice it climbed stealthily up the broken bricks and gas clinkers. Twice the little boy drove it away. It was not a nice cat. It had a broad ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... glad I am, that the ould craythur is fairly off—for divil a bit of comfort did she give the laste of us with her time-saving orderly ways. And it's not an owld maid ye must ever be, darlint Miss Enna, or ye'll favor the troublesome aunty with her tabby notions." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... stuffe, of eating of sack posset and slabbering themselves, and mirth fit for clownes; the prologue but poor, and the epilogue little in it but the extraordinariness of it, it being sung by Harris and another in the form of a ballet. My wife extraordinary fine to-day in her flower tabby suit, bought a year and more ago, before my mother's death put her into mourning, and so not worn till this day: and every body in love with it; and indeed she is very fine and handsome in it. Home in a coach round by the wall; where we met so many stops by the watches, that it cost ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... a new area in London, appears to me to be obliged to fight till he gains undisturbed possession of it; at least so it has been the case with my cats. A very fine, bold, powerful tabby, did this twice with perfect success; but after repeated combats, although victorious, the struggle made him fierce and occasionally sullen. Another who was a very beautiful creature, but much weaker, used to come in with ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... on her that they had played on other dairymaids who were rough and rude. And when she had done, and was going to get up from her stool, she found sitting round her a whole circle of cats, black and white, tabby and tortoise- shell, who all cried ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... in which I shall dance with you at the party at Green Spring which the governor is to give in your honor—if you ask me, sir. Oh, I take it for granted that you will, so spare us your protestations. 'Tis to have a petticoat of blue tabby and an overdress of white satin trimmed with yards and yards of Venice point. The stockings are blue silk, and come from the French house in Covent Garden, as doth the scarf of striped gauze and the shoes, gallooned with silver. Then there ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... greatly annoyed by rats, and loaned him the cat. The rats disappeared so rapidly that the Dey wished to buy the cat, but the captain would not sell until a very high price was offered. With the purchase-money was sent a present of valuable pearls for the owner of Tabby. When the ship returned the sailors were greatly astonished to find that the boy owned most of the cargo, for it was part of the bargain that he was to bring back the value of his cat in goods. The London merchant took the boy into partnership; the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... to know who was there, and what everybody wore and said. I was told that Lady Caroline Lamb was there, enveloped in the folds of an ermine cloak, which she called a 'cat-skin,' and that she talked a great deal about a periodical she wished to get up, to be called 'Tabby's Magazine'; and with her was an exceedingly haughty, brilliant, and beautiful girl, Rosina Wheeler,—since well known as Lady Bulwer Lytton,—and who sat rather impatiently at the feet of her eccentric 'Gamaliel.' Miss Emma Roberts was one of the favored ladies, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... figure which had grown up out of common report. The house negroes stood in mortal dread of Blue Dave, and their dismay was not without its effect upon Mrs. Kendrick and her daughter. Jenny, the house-girl, refused to sleep at the quarters; and when Aunt Tabby, the cook, started for her cabin after dark, she was accompanied by a number of little negroes bearing lightwood torches. All the stories and legends that clustered around Blue Dave's career were brought to the surface ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... vine, The sunbeams came a flittin'; An' sort of danced upon the floor, Chas'd by the tabby kitten; Losh! to see the critter's big surprise, When them beams ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... of her. The three parted, therefore, not in the best humor all round. Mrs. Hopkins declared she'd see the minister in Jericho before she'd fix herself up as if she was goin' to a weddin' to go and see him again. Why, he did n't make any more of her than if she'd been a tabby-cat. She believed some of these ministers thought women's souls dried up like peas in a pod by the time they was forty year old; anyhow, they did n't seem to care any great about 'em, except while they was green ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... down the path, waving his tail. He was an ordinary tabby with white paws, a slender young gentleman. A crouching, fluffy, brownish-grey cat was stealing up the side of the fence. The Mino walked statelily up to her, with manly nonchalance. She crouched before him and pressed herself on the ground in humility, a fluffy soft outcast, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... their native deserts. Let it once become a fashion for sovereigns and other great men to keep and to caress them, we shall see camels as variegated as cats, which in the woods are all of the uniformly-streaked tabby—the males inclining to the brown shade—the females to blue among them;—but being bred down, become tortoise-shell, and red, and every variety of colour, which domestication ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... to write by return of post and tell me how you are getting on and how you are. Give my kind regards to Tabby and Martha, and—Believe me, dear papa, your ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... and that his wife, "poor wretch," was used to make the fire while Samuel lay abed, and that she washed his "foul clothes"—that by degrees he came to be wealthy and rode in his own yellow coach—that his wife went abroad in society "in a flowered tabby gown"—that Pepys forsook his habits of poverty and exchanged his twelve-penny seat in the theatre gallery for a place in the pit—and that on a rare occasion (doubtless when he was alone and there was but one seat to buy) he arose to the ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... memory I look through, I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, Her nose, her hair—her muffled words, And how she'd open her green eyes, As if in some immense surprise, Whenever as we sat at tea, She made some small remark ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... ear to ear, so as to display a set of jagged and fang-like teeth, and, throwing back his head, laughed long, loudly, wickedly, and uproariously, while the black dog, crouching down upon his haunches, joined lustily in the chorus, and the tabby cat, flying off at a tangent, stood up on end, and shrieked in the farthest corner ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... haste or hesitation, deliberately ambled out of the nursery, along the corridor, down the stairs, across the hall, through the door, and so round to the back garden and to the very identical spot where poor Tabby had been deposited! ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... declaration, which must be admitted to have been more remarkable for frankness than civility, made, however, no ill impression on Mrs. Sally. To the farmer's she went, and at his house she lives still, with her little maid, her tabby cat, a decrepit sheep-dog, and much of the lumber of Court Farm, which she could not find in her heart to part from. There she follows her old ways and her old hours, untempted by matrimony, and unassailed ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... wall. No-one. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame's school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis's. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... boulevardier feels the need of a bath he hangs a musk bag round his neck—and then, as the saying is, the warmer the sweeter. His companion of the gentler sex apparently has the same idea of performing daily ablutions that a tabby cat has. You recall the tabby-cat system, do you not?—two swipes over the brow with the moistened paw, one forward swipe over each ear, a kind of circular rubbing effect across the face—and call it a day! Drowning must ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... journey long enough to give him a good appetite, which made him draw near the table, where the very smell of such viands was agreeable and refreshing. The princess had a curious tabby-cat, for which she had a great kindness. This cat one of the maids of honor held in her arms, saying, "Madam, Bluet is hungry!" With that a chair was presently brought for the cat; for he was a cat of quality, and had a necklace of pearl about his neck. He was served on a golden ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... three new frocks, and Margaret Shippen four, but mine is the prettiest, and by tight lacing (though no tighter than theirs) I make my waist an ell smaller than either. In addition, I have a nabob of gray tabby silk trimmed with the same fur, which has such a sweet and modish air that I could cry at having to remove it but for what it would conceal. I intend to ask Peggy if 't would be citified and a ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... in the world that pleases an eagle better at dinner-time than a prime piece of cat. Charley tells me that, upon the whole, he prefers a good, plump, mouse-fed tabby; he adds that he never yet heard of a tame eagle being kept at a sausage shop, though he would like a situation of that sort himself, very much. The stoop of a free eagle as it takes a living victim is, no doubt, a fine thing, except for the victim; but the grabbing of cut-up food here in captivity ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... postures, that even a pair of frisky kittens, that had been chasing each other round the grassplot and up and down the stems of the cherry-trees, ceased their gambols and lay still, crouching in the grass, and watching her graceful motions, as if taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Tabby and Eliza Fortlock, sisters, and single women, had been deriving years of leisure, comfort, and money from the sweat of Edward's brow. The maiden ladies owned about eighteen head of this kind of ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... grave faces was I received. The two antiquities only bowed their tabby heads; making longer faces than ordinary; and all the old lines appearing strong in their furrowed foreheads and fallen cheeks; How do you, Cousin? And how do you, Mr. Lovelace? looking all round at one another, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... stood in a solitary corner under the side of the wood. Upon our first entering Sir ROGER winked to me, and pointed at something that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that way I found to be an old broomstaff. At the same time he whispered me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney-corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad a report as Moll White herself; for, besides that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, the cat is reported to have spoken twice or thrice ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... think so, too. A cat! 'cat, puss, tit, grimalkin, tabby, brindle; whoosh!' was he fond of Dickens, a Pink-nosed Pearl? She is no more sick than you are, Beloved. She has been, no doubt, and now she has forgotten how to be anything else, but she is liable to find out. Your Aunt, beloved, proposes to put this lady through a Course of Sprouts. Tu-whit! ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... the same, pore wurkhus ijets as me an' Bart are, not bein' able to make you an' Miss Sylvia 'appy. Miss Sylvia Krill an' Norman both," ended Deborah with emphasis, "whatever that smooth cat with the grin and the clawses may say, drat her fur a slimy tabby—yah!" ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... Tuesday I'd be begging to-day, Emma," interrupted a young man from across the stream of water which ran down the centre of Main Street. "I'm sitting on your aunt Tabby's trunk." The girl gave a cry, half of pained remembrance, half of pleasure. "Oh, my dear Aunt Tabby!" she cried, and, rushing across the rivulet, she threw herself across the battered leather trunk—sole ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Peter Goldthwaite. "I am tired to death of living in this cold, dark, windy, smoky, creaking, groaning, dismal old house. I shall feel like a younger man when we get into my splendid brick mansion, as, please Heaven, we shall by this time next autumn. You shall have a room on the sunny side, old Tabby, finished and furnished as best may ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a scarlet tabby negligee,—a sort of undress, or sack, then much in vogue,—which suited her to admiration, and upon her head had what was called a fly-cap, with richly-laced lappets. Mrs. Maggot was equipped in a light blue riding-habit, trimmed with silver, a hunting-cap and ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with arched back and purring like a contented tabby, rubbed his sides against the ape-man, and then at a word from the latter sprang lightly to his former place in the bow of ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Vro selected this moment to thrust off from shore with his paddle. The impetus took her at unawares, and she fell forward; her basket struck against the boat's gunwale, its cover flew open, and forth from it, half-demented with fright, sprang her tabby cat, Methuselah. The poor brute lit upon the parrot's cage, which happened to be balanced upon an unstable pile of cooking utensils at the end of Nicky Vro's thwart. Cat, cage and parrot, a gridiron, two cake tins, a bundle of skewers, and a cullender, went overboard in one rattling avalanche, and ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tell Tabby how immensely pleased everyone is with her slippers. The men who have stood long in the trenches are in agonies of frost-bite and rheumatism, and now that I can give them these slippers when they arrive at the station, they are able to take off their wet ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... all were glad to see again the sojourner in foreign lands, even down to the ladylike tabby, who was all purr and warmth towards him except when she was all claws and nippers. But had the prime sentiment of the meeting shown itself it would have been the unqualified surprise of Christopher at seeing how much Picotee's face had grown to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... stars are invested by the Primum Mobile. Look on this globe of earth, you will find it to be a very complete and fashionable dress. What is that which some call land but a fine coat faced with green, or the sea but a waistcoat of water-tabby? Proceed to the particular works of the creation, you will find how curious journeyman Nature hath been to trim up the vegetable beaux; observe how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of a beech, and what a fine doublet ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... anecdote. Who has not some faithful black Topsy, Tortoise-shell, or Tabby, or rather succession of them, whose biographies would afford many a curious story? Professor Bell[122] has well defended the general character of poor pussy from the oft-repeated calumnies spread about it. Cats certainly get much attached to individuals, as well as to houses and articles in ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... Under other circumstances any one of the five might face a peril greater than that which now confronts him. Conceivably he might flop into a swollen river to save a drowning puppy; might dive into a burning building after some stranger's pet tabby cat. But this prospect which lies before him of ambling across a field with death singing about his ears, is a thing which tears with clawing fingers at the tuggs and toggles of his imagination until his flesh revolts ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... skin of 'em worth a mint o' money. Bad luck!" he continues, in a tone of spiteful vexation. "A mine o' wealth, an' no chance to work it! Ef we only had the ship by us now, we could put a good thousan' dollars' worth o' thar pelts into it. Jest see how they swarm out yonder! An' tame as pet tabby cats! There's enough of 'em to supply seal-skin jackets fur nigh all ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... women acquainted. Fifteen years ago the Norwegian women were even more than the women of other lands votaries of the old-fashioned ideal of femininity, "the domestic angel," the "gentle and refining influence" sort of thing. Now these sedentary fireside tabby-cats of Norway have been trained, they say, by the snow-shoes into lithe and audacious creatures, for whom no night is too dark or height too giddy, and who are not only saying good-bye to the traditional ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... doubt, and with the Governor's ear. He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear away this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me my Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchretiens, and get on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; then leave him ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... that the ould craythur is fairly off—for divil a bit of comfort did she give the laste of us with her time-saving orderly ways. And it's not an owld maid ye must ever be, darlint Miss Enna, or ye'll favor the troublesome aunty with her tabby notions." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Doubt not, sufficient will be left at night. 'Tis but a just and rational desire To light a taper at a neighbour's fire. There's danger too, you think, in rich array, 140 And none can long be modest that are gay. The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, The chimney keeps, and sits content within: But once grown sleek, will from her corner run, Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun: She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad To show her fur, and ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... edge, cleans the fish, or cuts the necks of hens, ducks, or geese which struggle and gurgle in their own blood; when pretty Fridoline, with her rosy little mouth and her long fair hair, leans out of her window to tend the honeysuckle, and over her head the neighbour's tabby cat is gently swaying her tail and watching, with her cunning green eyes, the swallow circling in the deepening purple—I do assure you that a man must be utterly devoid of taste for the picturesque ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... made a charming little savage severely repent the delight she took in seeing her tabby favourite make cruel sport with a pretty sleek bead- eyed mouse, before she devoured it. Egad, my love, said I to myself, as I sat meditating the scene, I am determined to lie in wait for a fit opportunity to try how thou ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... a dangerous man. He was thin and pale, with light blue eyes and sleek fair hair; and as weak physically as he was strong mentally. In his neat clerical garb, with a slight stoop and meek smile, he looked a harmless, commonplace young curate of the tabby cat kind. No one could be more tactful and ingratiating than Mr Cargrim, and he was greatly admired by the old ladies and young girls of Beorminster; but the men, one and all—even his clerical brethren—disliked ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the hunt with a string of birds, and displaying, with much pride and satisfaction, the results of his prowess), conceived the idea that it would also be a fine thing for her to go forth and kill the canary. But to tabby's surprise, her ability was rewarded with chastisement; whereupon she pondered the question over and over: "How can it be, that what is virtue in man is vice in ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... walking about or idling the time away; town-bred puppies, with insolent stare, were lounging at every turn, their delicate paws proving how little they were used to labour. On one side Bruin observed a gracefully-proportioned white cat, veiled, gliding demurely along, whilst a strong tabby, her nurse, purred behind, with three little kittens in her arms, mewing to their hearts' content; and on the other several huge mastiffs, stalking gravely in a row, like policemen in our London streets going to their beats, ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... cash memorandum books we come upon such entries as, "By Cash to Mrs. Washington for Pocket Money L4." As a rule, if there were any purchases to be made, she let George do it and, if we may judge from the long list of tabby colored velvet gowns, silk hose, satin shoes, "Fashionable Summer Cloaks & Hatts," and similar articles ordered from the English agents she had no reason to complain that her husband was niggardly or a poor provider. If her "Old Man"—for she ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... on a lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclin'd, 5 ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... never before seen one in her own house, had not a minute to spare for her, being far too much engrossed in observing the habits of the animal. These certainly were peculiar, since she insisted on a waltz round the room with the tabby cat, and ascended a step-ladder, merrily spurning Jasper's protection, to insert the circle of tapers on the crowning chandelier. There was nothing left for Dolores to do but to sit by in the window-seat, philosophizing on the remarkable effects of ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... may lay a deal of it on myself," Mrs. Tugwell began to moan, as soon as he was gone; "for I have cockered Dan up, and there's no denying it, afore Tim, or Tryphena, or Tabby, or Debby, or even little Solomon. Because he were the first, and so like his dear father, afore he got on in the world so. Oh, it all comes of that, all the troubles comes of that, and of laying up of money, apart from your wife, and forgetting ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... you?" "Under the tree, by the meadow-brook Reading, and oh, it was too lovely; I never saw such a charming book." The charming book must have pleased her, truly, There's a happy light in her bright young eyes And she hugs the cat with unusual fervor, To staid old Tabby's intense surprise. ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... powder, horn, and shot, And proudly forth they went On sport intent. "Oh, Tom! if we should shoot a hare," Cried one, The elder son, "How father, sure, would stare!" Look there! what's that?" "Why, as I live, a cat," Cried Bill, "'tis mother Tibbs' tabby; Oh! what a lark She loves it like a babby! And ain't a cat's eye, Tom, as good a mark As any bull's eyes?" And straight "Puss! puss!" he cries, When, lo! as Puss approaches, They hear a squall, And ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... storm, but had not yet made up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now the wind roared in the chimney, and started out of her sleep a great tortoise-shell cat, that lay on the rug which Aunt Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened her yellow eyes suddenly, and erected her smellers, but finding it was only the wind and not a mouse that made the noise, she stretched out a great paw and yawned, and then cuddled her head down so as to show her white throat, ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... testifying great disapproval of Arthur, though when her master took her on his finger, she drew herself up and elevated her pretty little feathery horns with satisfaction, and did not even object to his holding her to a great tabby cat belonging to the landlady, but which was most at home on the hearth-rug of ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... papa. Good Rollo!" as the dignified animal rose from the hearthrug to greet her, waving his handsome tail, and calmly expelled a large tabby cat from the easy- chair, to make room for his friends. "Well done, old Roll! Fancy a ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... anything but duckpond weather the ordinary yacht at sea is about the meanest habitation between Heaven and earth. But it was at Monte Carlo I got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last little nest-egg had been smashed. In other words, I woke up and found myself a beggar, and for a few hours I even thought I'd have to travel home on that Monte Carlo Viaticum fund which so discreetly ships away the stranded adventurer before he musses up the Mediterranean scenery by ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... Pete," as if she were worried. It is no wonder that she was anxious about Sandy and Peter and Pan, for, to begin with, she had had four fine children, and the very first night they were out of their nest, the darlings, a terrible prowling animal named Tom or Tabby had killed one ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... at him, I can tell you! and she handled the matter shrewdly too. So was Esdras and Silas, and a sort more lads, a-crying, 'Scratch him, Tabby!' and she scraught ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... at the window, dreamily stroking a tabby kitten, who, purring and blinking, nestled on her lap, and with great satisfaction held up her little nose into the rather hot spring sunshine. Olga Ivanovna was wearing a white morning gown, with short sleeves; her bare, pale-pink, girlish shoulders and arms were a picture ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... therefore less scruple in dilating on the elegance of my figure, and the taste of my toilette, as, when speaking of them, I seem to be referring to another individual Puss, with whom the actual snuffy old Tabby ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... uncritical delight that he might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly appeared darting along the pavement. She reached the corner just in time to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some old tabby to settle himself and ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... absurd to waste time analyzing, every word I came across—noun, genitive, singular, feminine—when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it—order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby. But as I got deeper into the subject, I became more interested, and the beauty of the language delighted me. I often amused myself by reading Latin passages, picking up words I understood and trying to make sense. I have never ceased to ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... be nice folks," said Fido to himself, "for their feather-beds look big and comfortable, and their baskets are all ample and generous,—and see, there goes a bright gilt cage, and there is a plump yellow canary bird in it! Oh, how glad Mrs. Tabby will be to see it,—she so dotes on dear ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... into the hands of his lawyers the solid pieces of real estate that his frugality had enabled him to accumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One month after his dishabilitation a saloon-keeper plucked him by the neck from his free-lunch counter as a tabby plucks a strange kitten from her nest, and cast him asphaltward. This seems low enough. But after that he acquired a pair of cloth top, button Congress gaiters and wrote complaining letters to the newspapers. And then he fought the attendant at the Municipal Lodging House who ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... the souls of the departed who are supposed to be hovering unseen on the day "when autumn to winter resigns the pale year." Witches then speed on their errands of mischief, some sweeping through the air on besoms, others galloping along the roads on tabby-cats, which for that evening are turned into coal-black steeds. The fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... before, of having been well acquainted with her in former years, slowly settled in my mind, and, although I could never remember the time when I had not detested cats, I was almost convinced that my relations with this Antwerp tabby had once been intimate if not cordial. I looked more closely at the animal. Then an idea struck me—an idea which persisted and took definite shape in spite of me. I strove to escape from it, to evade it, to stifle and smother ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... [TABBY, tambourine in one hand and apple in the other, smiles stolidly. He sets her down on the ladder, and stands, holding her level ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... bear you no ill-will: you set me free. I'm a wildcat, all bristling fur and claws: At Krindlesyke, I've been a wildcat, caged: And Michael never twigged! Son, don't you mind The day we came—was I a tabby then? The day we came here, with no thought to bide, Once we had got the plunder; and were trapped Between these four white walls by a dead woman? She held me—forced my feet into her shoes— Held me for your sake. Ay: there ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... not begin until I took the Pretty Lady's mother. We had not been a week in our first house before a handsomely striped tabby, with eyes like beautiful emeralds, who had been the pet and pride of the next-door neighbor for five years, came over and domiciled herself. In due course of time she proudly presented us with five kittens. Educated in the belief that one cat was all that was compatible ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... this Mrs. Billings wasn't happy at home? We'll say she and her husband didn't gee worth a cent. They've got incompatibility to burn. The things she likes, Billings wouldn't have as a gift with trading-stamps. It's Tabby and Rover with them all the time. She's an educated woman in science and culture, and she reads things out loud at meetings. Billings is not on. He don't appreciate progress and obelisks and ethics, and things of that sort. Old Billings is simply a blink ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... you?—and what do you want of the old man?" asked Tabby, bounding out through one of ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... lobsters from his basket for Tania's entertainment while he talked to Madge. Tania was watching him, breathless with admiration and terror. The captain would take hold of one of the great, crawling things, rub it softly on its horned head as one would rub a tabby cat to make it purr. He would then set the lobster up on its hind claws and the funny crustacean would fall quietly asleep, as though it were nodding ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... youth shimmering in cream satin was the animated heart of another group. His love for scandal and his facility for acquiring the latest tidbit made him the delight of many an old tabby cat. Now his eyes shone with the joy of imparting a ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... the fork of a tree, and will construct a web which spans the coconut avenue with its stays. From one aspect its rotund body invites a good-humoured smile, for the marking exactly simulates the features of a tabby cat, well fed, sleepy, and in placid mood. Venom of virulence to kill a bat almost instantly would be severe enough to a human being. This dirty, obese spider deserves little consideration ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... mother tells the coroner—but her own breast invariably. None of us can teach her anything as to washing her kitten, or keeping it warm. She can even play with it and so educate it, in so far as it needs education. There are mothers in all classes of the community who should be ashamed to look a tabby cat in ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... is so in their native deserts. Let it once become a fashion for sovereigns and other great men to keep and to caress them, we shall see camels as variegated as cats, which in the woods are all of the uniformly-streaked tabby—the males inclining to the brown shade—the females to blue among them;—but being bred down, become tortoise-shell, and red, and every variety of colour, which domestication ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... cream; and she often made me carry him when I went out a-walking. For this reason I hated him, and when we were out of my aunts' hearing I used to pull his tail and his ears and make the poor little thing howl sadly. My Aunt Penelope had a large tabby cat, which I also hated and used ill. I remember once being sent out of the dining-room to carry Shock his dinner, Shock being ill, and laid on a cushion in my aunts' bedroom. As I was going upstairs I was so unfortunate as to break the plate, which was fine blue china. I gathered ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... the chain becomes dirty in his habits, unhappy, and savage. His chain is often too short and is not provided with swivels to avert kinks. On a sudden alarm, or on the appearance of a trespassing tabby, he will often bound forward at the risk of dislocating his neck. The yard-dog's chain ought always to be fitted with a stop link spring to counteract the effect of the sudden jerk. The method may be employed with advantage in the garden for ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... from the road, with rose-trees on each side of a narrow, flagged path, and honeysuckle all over the house right up to the thatch, which is quite a yard thick. I have a water-colour of her, sitting outside her door, with the Royal Arms and Georgius Rex just showing over her cap, and a fat tabby cat asleep on the threshold. It was late summer when I did it, and the air was warm gold with purple shadows. I know it is a detestable trick to talk painter's shop, but I can't help it sometimes. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... specially interested. The most important, and the one to whom I felt the place belonged by right of appreciating it, was a personage of dignified manners, and evidently of rank in his own world, a magnificent silver tabby, the beauty of the neighborhood. Next in interest was a white-and-black cat for whom I had sincere respect because she lived most amicably with two canaries whose cages were always within reach and never disturbed. The third was to my eyes anything but attractive, being a ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... it," replied he. "What is it? and whom threatens it? The red cow or the tabby cat? Poor puss!" and he stooped down and stroked her as she lay ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... lighting of the quiet face, and her curiosity was aroused. What was there in the mere mention of a laboratory that could so transform a humdrum little rector into a thing of fire? That it was the laboratory, Olive never stopped to question. She was far too sane, too used to the tame-tabby-cat propensities of youthful rectors, to imagine for a moment that the enthusiasm had come out of the chance to escape from her society. Therefore she decided that, for the present, she would keep this particular rector to herself, on the off-chance of discovering the real source ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... your visitors, Mrs. Sharpe, if that be your name," said the irascible patient. "You're all a set of old tabby cats together, and if you don't clear out, I'll fling ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... began their work! They had already chosen the place for their nest, springing up and down in the boughs till they found a branch far out of sight of snakes and hawks and cruel tabby cats, high out of reach of naughty small boys with their sling-shots, and now everything was ready for these small carpenters to begin their building. No hammer and nails were needed, claw and bill were all the tools they used, and yet what ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was soon seated in a large cushioned chair, a fat tabby cat on her lap, and while Sir Edward was occupied with his keeper she was making fast friends ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... all, you are cherished here chiefly because it was Lily's wish. Peggy can easily find another kitten; and you know she has often said that white cats were not to her taste, and she should much prefer a tabby." ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... night, too, for the stone basin was full of water, in which the sparrows were busy washing, sending up tiny iridescent jets and fountains from their swiftly fluttering wings. It was delicious to Dominic. He felt very safe, very gay. Only a heavy ill- favoured tabby cat came from nowhere. It had designs upon the sparrows. Twice it climbed stealthily up the broken bricks and gas clinkers. Twice the little boy drove it away. It was not a nice cat. It had a broad white face, deceitful little eyes, and grey whiskers. It declared it only caught ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... and fortune served him well, for the tabby flying caterwauling through the air alighted almost exactly in front of Deede Dawson on top of a small bush. For a moment it hung there, quite unhurt, but very frightened, and emitted ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... the Red Seamouth, including El-Yemen and Cape Guardafui, was made holy by the birth of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Dr. Brugsch-Bey shows that one of the titles of the he-god was Bass, the cat or the leopard (whence our "Puss"); whilst his wife, Bast (the bissat or tabby-cat of modern Arabic), gave her name to Bubastis (Pi-Bast, the city of Bast). From the Osiric term (Bass) the learned Egyptologist would derive Bacchus and his priests, the Bacchoi and the Bacchantes, whose dress was the leopard's skin. Could ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... case, a young woman of fine appearance, and high standing in society, the pride of her husband, and the mother of an infant daughter, only a few miles from us, ay, in D- County, too, was actually beating in the skull of a slave-woman called Tabby; and not content with that, had her tied up and whipped, after her skull was broken, and she died hanging to the bedstead, to which she had been fastened. When informed that Tabby was dead, she answered, 'I am glad of it, for she has worried my life out of me.' But Tabby's highest good was ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... directions and encouragements of the General, the works at St. Simons were carried on with such expedition, that, by the middle of April, the fort, which was a regular work of tabby, a composition of oyster shells and lime, was finished; and thirty-seven palmetto houses were put up, in which all the people might be sheltered ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... to bed," said Snowdrop and Thistledown, the youngest children of Tabby, the cat, "till we have once more looked at Baby Ray? He lets us play with his blocks and ball, and laughs when we climb on the table. It is bedtime now for kitties and dogs and babies. Perhaps we shall find him asleep." And this ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... up and, laying the skein and the ball of wool on the window-sill, I went into the drawing-room and stood still, hesitating. In the middle of the room, a tabby kitten was lying with outstretched paws; Zinaida was on her knees before it, cautiously lifting up its little face. Near the old princess, and filling up almost the whole space between the two windows, was a flaxen curly-headed young man, a hussar, with ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... disrespect, has contributed not a little towards the confirmation of this opinion, by dropping certain hints to my prejudice among the vulgar, who are also very much scandalised at my entertaining this poor tabby cat with the collar about her neck, which was a favourite of my ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... to the type I have created with my pencil—what the public calls the 'Carden Girl.' And now you see that your discovery of this living type comes rather late. In two days I must be legally married if I want my Aunt Tabby's legacy; and to-day for the first time I hear of a girl who, you assure me, compares favorably to my copyrighted type, but who has a mission and an aversion to men. So you see, Mr. Keen, that the ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... at Glen-Dimity Castle, after Lunch. Mr. Belamy Tabby is singing "Hi tiddley hi ti, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... lines with, at times, a certain grace in deformity. Here at least is downright belief in the invisible, here is genuine conviction driven home by the Spirit of God and the terror of hell-fire. Black Ned and the slut Tabby as yet may not seem the most suitable additions to the company of ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... teazing! We have made up a little conversazione party of our own, and you want to spoil it by taking Mr. Trevor from us! I declare,' continued she, turning her back on the card tables and lowering her voice, 'that old Tabby is never contented but when she is at her honours and her tricks! But let her alone! She never goes away a loser! She has more tricks ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... graceful shadows, approaching circuitously, and halting occasionally to reconnoitre—tortoiseshell, tabby, and black, all domestic cats, but all transformed for the nonce into their natural state. No longer are they the hypocritical, meek creatures who an hour ago were cadging for fish and milk. They are now ruffling, swaggering blades ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... thrushes' nest, Smut never came into that path again all the summer through. Smut's a deal too particular," added the gardener; "but I have heard of another cat that was almost as bad. The house-maid told me that in one of her places there was a fine tabby cat, or rather a good-sized kitten, which would never eat anything in the kitchen, and was so particular in his ways that he was called 'Sir Thomas.' At dinner time he had a trick of jumping up as quick as lightning just when any one was going to put his food into his mouth with his ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... pretty little kitten, My name is Tabby Gray, I live out in the country, Some twenty miles away. My eyes are black and hazel, My skin is soft as silk; I'm fed each night and morning With a ...
— The Nursery, May 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... Jane's nicest kitten. Jane was half-Persian, white with untidy tabby patterns on her. Jerry was black all over. Whatever attitude he took, his tight, short fur kept the outlines of his figure firm and clear, whether he arched his back and jumped sideways, or rolled himself into a cushion, or squatted with haunches spread and paws doubled in under ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... hares pop out of the ditch just when you are not looking for them. A horse that is weak in the legs may not stumble for a mile or two, but it is in him, and the driver had better hold him up well. The tabby cat is not lapping milk just now, but leave the dairy door open, and see if she is not as bad a thief as the kitten. There's fire in the flint, cool as it looks: wait till the steel gets a knock at it, and you will see. Every body can read that ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... old woman's assurance that we would find him by pounding hard on the gateway leading to the Avenue de la Gare, we hastened away, leaving her to babble her imprecations to a lazy tabby cat who lay sunning itself in a ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... 'Twas on a lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow, Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclined, Gazed on ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... pretty Poll— A monkey too, what work he made! The sister introduced a Beau— My Susan brought a favorite maid. She had a tabby of her own, A snappish mongrel christen'd Gog— What d'ye think of that, my Cat? What d'ye think of ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... flat against the knife-blade. The boy then began to manipulate the knife with extreme caution as he kept on making a soft purring noise, ah-h-h-h-ha! full of triumphant satisfaction, while a big curled-up tabby tom-cat, which had taken possession of the fellow chair to that occupied by Aleck, twitched one ear, opened one eye, and then seeing that the purring sound was only a feeble imitation, went off ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... her power again: Now she works with three or four, Like an Indian conjuror; Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics played in the eye Of a thousand standers-by, Clapping hands with shouts and stare, What would little Tabby care For the plaudits of the crowd? Over happy to be proud, Over wealthy in the treasure Of ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... the bantams—very choice. My poor little Henry had them given to him when he was six years old—the old ones I mean—and I've never parted with them. 'Take them all,' he said—so good; but, oh dear. Tit! Tit! Tittie! He was playing with her just now. Has anyone seen a tabby cat? Bless me, there it goes! So dreadful! It takes one's breath away, and all my things. Oh! ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boys into all sorts of scrapes and trouble. One day they would hide poor Jenny's spectacles, and then when search was made the lost treasure would be found in some one else's desk. Or they would tie cotton reels on the four feet and tail of the old tabby cat, and launch her, with a horrid clatter, right into the middle of the room, just as I or one of the others happened to be scampering out. Or they would turn the little boys' forms upside down, and compel them with terrible ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... vexation. "A mine o' wealth, an' no chance to work it! Ef we only had the ship by us now, we could put a good thousan' dollars' worth o' thar pelts into it. Jest see how they swarm out yonder! An' tame as pet tabby cats! There's enough of 'em to supply seal-skin jackets fur nigh all ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... a champagne-glass, bottle in hand, and was priming the successor to it. He cocked his eye at Mr. Redworth's quick stare. 'Malkin!' And now we'll see whether the interior of him is grey, or black, or tabby, or tortoise-shell, or any other colour of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on. "How is this, Sally, dear?— 'A handsome orange male Persian cat, also a tabby, immense coat, brushes and frills, is offered in exchange for an electro-plated revolving covered dish or an Allen's ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... hurry!" said Diana, emerging at last, hugging her parcel, and dragging Spot away from the pursuit of an impudent and provocative tabby cat, with a torn ear, that was spitting at him ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... once, at a turn in the rock. Upon a projecting crag near it stood one of the celebrated dogs, baying at our advance, as if to give notice of strangers. These dogs are of a large size, particularly high upon the legs, and generally of a milk white, or of a tabby colour. They are most extraordinary creatures, if all the stories the monks tell of them are true. They are used for the purpose of searching for travellers who may be buried in the snow; and many persons are rescued annually from death by their means. During the ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... temperature, should wear light colours. Light colours are far the best for sporting purposes, as they are usually much less conspicuous than black or rifle-green. Almost all wild beasts are tawny or fawn-coloured, or tabby, or of some nondescript hue and pattern: if an animal were born with a more decided colour, he would soon perish for want of ability ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... dawned, the shower of kittens began. Some were white and some were tabby, and all were about the same loathsome age. Three were on his hearth-rug, three in his bath-room, and the other six turned up at intervals among the visitors who came to see the prophecy break down. Never was a more satisfactory ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... act music. The curtains parted, and revealed the brightly polished miniature gymnasium I had seen at Anastasius's cattery; the row of pussies at the back, each on a velvet stand, some white, some tabby, some long-furred, some short-furred, all sitting with their forepaws doubled demurely under their chests, wagging their tails comically, and blinking with feline indifference at the footlights; a cage in a corner in which I descried the ferocious wild tomcat; and, busily putting ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... old gentleman. 'Puss, Kit, Tit, Grimalkin, Tabby, Brindle! Whoosh!' with which last sound, uttered in a hissing manner between his teeth, the old gentleman swung his arms violently round and round, and at the same time alternately advanced on Mrs Nickleby, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... best humor all round. Mrs. Hopkins declared she'd see the minister in Jericho before she'd fix herself up as if she was goin' to a weddin' to go and see him again. Why, he did n't make any more of her than if she'd been a tabby-cat. She believed some of these ministers thought women's souls dried up like peas in a pod by the time they was forty year old; anyhow, they did n't seem to care any great about 'em, except while they was green and tender. It ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the branches of a banyan tree, we sat down and had a cup of tea. While we waited, a hawker came and sat near us. He was peddling live cats. In one of his two baskets was a cat that bore a curious resemblance to a tortoise-shell tabby, that till a week ago had been a pet in the Inland Mission. It had disappeared mysteriously; it had died, the Chinese servant said; and here it ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... returned the judge good-naturedly. "Your client seems to have loved not wisely but too well." And they all poured out happily into the corridor—that is, all of them except Caput and the two ladies, who remained seated upon their bench gazing fiercely and disdainfully at each other like two tabby cats ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Dimnipotenmti batchy Mary semplar virginy, batchy Mickletoe Archy Angelo, batchy Johnny Bartisty, sanctris postlis—Petrum hit Paulum omnium sanctris, et tabby pasture, quay a pixavit minus coglety ashy hony verbum et offer him smaxy quilia ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... generalisation, as that 'Most metals are whitish,' or 'Most domestic cats are tabbies' (but this probably is the ancestral colouring). We may then resort to statistics for greater definiteness, and find that in Hampshire (say) 90 per cent. of the domestic cats are tabby. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... got all these ideas from books, and great trouble I found myself in one day for playing at tiger-hunting in the garden at home with Buzzy, my aunt's great tabby tom-cat; and for pretending that Nap was a lion in the African desert. But I'll tell you that in a chapter to itself, for these matters had a good deal to do with the alteration in ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... invariably of the planets or the stars. "Good morning, the sun's very low at this time o' year—did you see the lunar halo last night?—a fine lot o' shootin' stars towards four o'clock, look for 'em again to-morrow in the nor'-west—you can get your breakfast by moonlight this week—Old Tabby [Orion] looks well to-night—you'd better have a look at Sirius afore the moon arises, I never see him so clear as he is now"—these were the greetings which Snarley offered "to them as could understand" from behind the hedge or ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... to make the kitchen a bit more homey. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy said a red cushion for the rocker, and Elizabeth said a white cat to lie on the hearth. Mrs. Holt said, "Yes, I do need 'em both,—only it must be an old stray tabby cat. This house is going to be the ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... squalid kitchen, and tried not to notice the general untidiness of her surroundings, while the woman hastily cleared the table and set out a teacup and saucer, a huge loaf, butter, and a pot of tea. The dog had made friends, and crept up to Honor, snuggling his nose into her hand; and a tabby cat, interested in the preparations, came purring eagerly to join the feast. Honor did not know whether to call it late breakfast, dinner, or tea, but she told Janie afterwards she thought she must have eaten enough to combine the three, though she only paid sixpence ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... spent in it! It was very low and dark, and its two windows looked out on the stable-yard; but in the evening, when the fire burned clear and the blinds were drawn, it was a pleasant place. Deborah and Martha used to sit in the brown Windsor chairs knitting, with Puff, the great tabby cat, beside them, and the firelight would play on the red brick ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of green stockings to cover them. Her shoes—of pink leather—are fastened each with a bunch of yellow ribbons puckered up in the shape of a cabbage. In her left hand she has a little heavy Dutch watch; in her right she wields a ladle for the sauerkraut and pork. By her side there stands a fat tabby cat, with a gilt toy-repeater tied to its tail, which "the boys" have there fastened by way ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... give me skim-milk at breakfast, but she gave Shock cream; and she often made me carry him when I went out a-walking. For this reason I hated him, and when we were out of my aunts' hearing I used to pull his tail and his ears and make the poor little thing howl sadly. My Aunt Penelope had a large tabby cat, which I also hated and used ill. I remember once being sent out of the dining-room to carry Shock his dinner, Shock being ill, and laid on a cushion in my aunts' bedroom. As I was going upstairs I was so unfortunate as ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... a journey long enough to give him a good appetite, which made him draw near the table, where the very smell of such viands was agreeable and refreshing. The princess had a curious tabby-cat, for which she had a great kindness. This cat one of the maids of honour held in her arms, saying, "Madam, Bluet is hungry!" With that a chair was presently brought for the cat; for he was a cat of quality, and ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... for anecdote. Who has not some faithful black Topsy, Tortoise-shell, or Tabby, or rather succession of them, whose biographies would afford many a curious story? Professor Bell[122] has well defended the general character of poor pussy from the oft-repeated calumnies spread about it. Cats certainly get ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... to Brighton the night after I arrived, and has not re- appeared: but I must wait some time longer for him. Thank Miss Barton much for the kit; if it is but a kit: my old woman is a great lover of cats, and hers has just kitted, and a wretched little blind puling tabby lizard of a thing was to be saved from the pail for me: but if Miss Barton's is a kit, I will gladly have it: and my old lady's shall be disposed of—not to the pail. Oh rus, quando te aspiciam? Construe that, Mr. Barton.—I am going to send down my pictures to Boulge, if I can ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... it rather hard for me?" I demanded, trying to hold myself in, but feeling the bob-cat getting the better of the purring tabby. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... as he rose and went to carry the milk-pails into the pantry, calling coaxingly, as he did so, "Kitty! kitty! You had your milk? Don't you joggle, now!" For one eager tabby rose on her hind legs, in purring haste, and hit her nose ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... under his very nose, and to lead them across that great and terrible wilderness. A WILD-CAT AFFAIR, if ever there was one! When were God's schemes otherwise? Look at Jordan, Jericho, Gideon, Goliath, and scores of others. Tame tabby-cat schemes are stamped with another hall mark—that of the Chocolate Brigade! How dearly they love their tabbies yet think themselves wise men! REAL CHRISTIANS REVEL IN DESPERATE VENTURES FOR CHRIST, expecting from God great things and attempting the same with ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... A sister tabby saw the cord, And interposed a happy word: "In every age and clime we see Two of a trade cannot agree; Each deems the other an encroacher, As sportsman thinks another poacher. Beauty with beauty vies in charms, And king with king in warfare's arms: But let us limit our desires, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... a harmless tabby—a thin, ex-handsome creature struggling to maintain appearances; but I can put up with her. I will go to the Nicaragua. I'll go ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... Mrs. Hopkins declared she'd see the minister in Jericho before she'd fix herself up as if she was goin' to a weddin' to go and see him again. Why, he did n't make any more of her than if she'd been a tabby-cat. She believed some of these ministers thought women's souls dried up like peas in a pod by the time they was forty year old; anyhow, they did n't seem to care any great about 'em, except while they was green and tender. It was all Miss Se-usan, Miss ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... him to her mother, and ran off in search of the cat, returning in a few minutes with a very playful-looking tabby. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... knee was bent, every hand strewed flowers or poured incense, and grimalkin was treated in all respects as the god of the day. But on the festival of St. John, poor tom's fate was reversed. A number of the tabby tribe were put into a wicker basket, and thrown alive into the midst of an immense fire kindled in the public square by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were sung, and processions were made by the priests and people in honour of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... he at dinner sat, Did beckon to his hussar, And bid him bring his tabby cat For charming Nell ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Snookers and that gang. Pick out the fellows that count, as you go along, and just remember this, if you forget the rest: if you want to put ducks in Tabby's bed or nail down his desk, do it because you want to do it, not because some other fellow wants you ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... not be expected to show, in painful precocity, feelings which ought never to be experienced till they come at the proper age. Our kittens play at cat-sports, little Tom and Tabby together; but little Tabby does not ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... were earnestly discussing the probabilities of the case, a young woman of fine appearance, and high standing in society, the pride of her husband, and the mother of an infant daughter, only a few miles from us, ay, in D- County, too, was actually beating in the skull of a slave-woman called Tabby; and not content with that, had her tied up and whipped, after her skull was broken, and she died hanging to the bedstead, to which she had been fastened. When informed that Tabby was dead, she answered, 'I am glad of it, for she has worried ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... throne is a large, young, grey Tabby—Oliver by name. Not that he is in any sense a protector, for I doubt whether he has the heart to kill a mouse. However, I saw him catch and eat the first butterfly of the season, and trust that this germ of courage, thus manifested, may develop ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... approved fashion, plants himself resolutely under her window and sends Scapin to fetch a guitar; upon which he thrums awkwardly for a while, and then accompanies it with his voice, in an attempt at a Spanish love song, which sounds much like the nocturnal caterwauling of a disconsolate tabby than anything else we can compare it to. A dash of cold water, mischievously thrown down on him by Zerbine under pretext of watering the plants in the balcony, does not extinguish his musical ardour. "A gentle shower from the sweet eyes of my Isabelle, moved to tears ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the seat opposite, and never turned to the window even when a station was reached and called. On the other seat were two or three passengers, one of them a working woman who held a basket on her lap, in which was a tabby kitten. The woman opened the cover now and then, whereupon the kitten would put out its head, and indulge in playful antics. At these the fellow-passengers laughed, except the solitary boy bearing the key and ticket, who, regarding the kitten with ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... one of those lively cheerful individuals on whom amiability had set its unmistakable stamp, and, like most of his kind, his soul's peace depended in large measure on the unstinted approval of his fellows. In hunting to death a small tabby cat he had done a thing of which he scarcely approved himself, and he was glad when the gardener had hidden the body in its hastily dug grave under a lone oak-tree in the meadow, the same tree that the hunted quarry had climbed ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... brocade print, very remarkable, the ground dark, with large red roses, and other large and yellow flowers, with blue in some of the flowers, with many green leaves; a pair of womens stays covered with white tabby before, and dove colour'd tabby behind, with two large steel hooks ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... not at home. The door to the Little House was wide open, as it always is when cold or rain does not close it, and huge old Tabby with one eye purred on the doorstep in the sun. A bird was nesting in the wisteria vine above the door and her soft whirring bespoke an interesting domestic event as near at hand. It did not in the least disturb Tab, and I wondered at the harmony between traditional enemies that I ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... mastiff accosted her favourite cat; erected his bristles, looked at her with savage bloodshot eyes, showed his teeth, and vented a sound something between a snarl and a growl; whilst she, (like the fourfooted tabby,) set up her back and ...
— Aunt Deborah • Mary Russell Mitford
... report. The house negroes stood in mortal dread of Blue Dave, and their dismay was not without its effect upon Mrs. Kendrick and her daughter. Jenny, the house-girl, refused to sleep at the quarters; and when Aunt Tabby, the cook, started for her cabin after dark, she was accompanied by a number of little negroes bearing lightwood torches. All the stories and legends that clustered around Blue Dave's career were brought to the surface again; and, as we have ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... inspect their kittens. Here Rose was for a moment startled by a glare close to her of what looked like two fiery lamps in the darkness, but the next instant a long, low, growling sound explained it, and the tabby stripes of the cat quickly darted across her lantern's range of light. She heard a slight rustling above, and ventured to call, in ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Almanack of years— The prim old maid, and, by her side, her Niece, Full of bewitching beauty, health, and love. See, how the tabby watches Laura's eyes, Lest they should smile upon some pleasing spark, And violate grim prudery's tyrant ties. With icy finger, she her charge directs, To view the faithful dial of the sun, Whose moral tells how ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... analyzing, every word I came across—noun, genitive, singular, feminine—when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it—order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby. But as I got deeper into the subject, I became more interested, and the beauty of the language delighted me. I often amused myself by reading Latin passages, picking up words I understood and trying to make sense. I have never ceased ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... herself on the sofa, curled up among the pillows like a plump little tabby cat. She ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... away; town-bred puppies, with insolent stare, were lounging at every turn, their delicate paws proving how little they were used to labour. On one side Bruin observed a gracefully-proportioned white cat, veiled, gliding demurely along, whilst a strong tabby, her nurse, purred behind, with three little kittens in her arms, mewing to their hearts' content; and on the other several huge mastiffs, stalking gravely in a row, like policemen in our London streets going to their ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... won't let drowsing dogs lie, he'll stir up the tabby sleeping Tom— In fact, he is the model of a modern ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... lived in a world of blacks and whites, of heroes and heroines, of villains and adventuresses, until the grateful discovery of the realistic school of fiction permitted him to believe that men and women were for the most part neither good nor bad, but tabby. Moreover, the leisurely reading of many sentences had given him some understanding of the elements of style. He perceived that some combinations of words were illogical, and that others were unlovely to the ear; ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... other round the grassplot and up and down the stems of the cherry-trees, ceased their gambols and lay still, crouching in the grass, and watching her graceful motions, as if taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... brief pause. The clatter of teacups in the kitchen warned Elsie that she had trespassed on the old woman's patience long enough. A tabby cat, which had been asleep by the fire, got up, stretched itself, and came ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... once found some chestnuts, which he put on the hot coals of a fire to roast. He was puzzled, however, as to how he should get them again without burning himself. Seeing a nice tabby cat in a corner, he thus accosted her: "Please come and sit with me awhile, for I am lonely." Puss took a seat at the monkey's side, without thinking of harm, when he jumped on her back. Seizing both her paws, he made her pull ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... to bear a hand, too, in the work of demolition! But I never shall forget Liszt's look as he so lazily proposed to "pitch everything out of the window." It reminded me of the expression of a big tabby-cat as it sits by the fire and purrs away, blinking its eyes and seemingly half-asleep, when suddenly—!—! out it strikes with both its claws, and woe to whatever is ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... winter! Peggy has three new frocks, and Margaret Shippen four, but mine is the prettiest, and by tight lacing (though no tighter than theirs) I make my waist an ell smaller than either. In addition, I have a nabob of gray tabby silk trimmed with the same fur, which has such a sweet and modish air that I could cry at having to remove it but for what it would conceal. I intend to ask Peggy if 't would be citified and a la mode to keep it on for a little while after entering the box by the plea that the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... are expressions of the interplay of all the internal secretions. It used to be said by smart cats and accepted by the tabby cats, that a woman was a woman because of her ovaries alone. It is being said by some great discoverers of the day that man is a man because of his testes alone. Neither of these dogmas is true. There are individuals ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... let you know," answered the Captain, "she hit my fancy mightily; I never took so much to an old tabby before." ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... hovering unseen on the day "when autumn to winter resigns the pale year." Witches then speed on their errands of mischief, some sweeping through the air on besoms, others galloping along the roads on tabby-cats, which for that evening are turned into coal-black steeds.[575] The fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely about In South Uist and Eriskay there is ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... does Tabby do? Have you weaned her yet? Don't she ever feel sorry, now I am away, that she used to nurse so much more than her share? She needs to have you cuff her ears now and then, that Tabby. She never had any sisterly affection for me, although one of my eyes was a week longer getting ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... dark, and its two windows looked out on the stable-yard; but in the evening, when the fire burned clear and the blinds were drawn, it was a pleasant place. Deborah and Martha used to sit in the brown Windsor chairs knitting, with Puff, the great tabby cat, beside them, and the firelight would play on the red brick floor and ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... food and shelter from her birth, Who joined in all her harmless youthful mirth; But, when they went for holidays to roam, Shut-to the door of what had been her home, And thoughtless left to die upon the mat, Their faithful but forgotten Tabby-cat." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... Have you weaned her yet? Don't she ever feel sorry, now I am away, that she used to nurse so much more than her share? She needs to have you cuff her ears now and then, that Tabby. She never had any sisterly affection for me, although one of my eyes was a week longer getting open than hers. I shan't forget it in a hurry. I often think it over, as I lie here on the hearth-rug, listening to the everlasting click, click of Miss Nipper's knitting-needles. Oh, it's a very hard ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... mittens of faded silk, and a very small close bonnet of the same colour. She had small brass buckles in her shoes; a cane, like those borne by running footmen, in one hand, and upon the other arm a small basket, rolled up within which lay a tabby cat, with which she held a conversation in what sounded to me like broken ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... speakin' mod'rate, he quits winner. He travels back to Sni-a-bar as tame as tabby cats in persooance with Enright's commands, an', once thar, old man Parks an' the rest of 'em whistles him through the marital chute a heap successful. When he shows up among us, his blushin' Peggy bride on his ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Art, and are managed by Wheels, and Engines, and Springs, that were devised by Humane wit. To this end, he hath made a very curious Survey of all kinds of bodies, beginning with the Point of a Needle, and proceeding to the Microscopical view of the Edges of Rasors, Fine Lawn, Tabby, Watered Silks, Glass-canes, Glass-drops, Fiery Sparks, Fantastical Colours, Metalline Colours, the Figures of Sand, Gravel in Urine, Diamonds in Flints, Frozen Figures, the Kettering Stone, Charcoal, Wood and other Bodies petrified, the Pores of Cork, and of other ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... exasperated to tears. Sally could tell this from the sniffs and nose-rubbings that became more and more frequent. Miss Summers's eye-rims were quite pink, and her funny eyes were moist. She looked more than ever like a disconsolate tabby, and her hands were restless and clumsy. She had to ask Sally to thread her needle, and even to finish work that she was doing badly ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... any one of the five might face a peril greater than that which now confronts him. Conceivably he might flop into a swollen river to save a drowning puppy; might dive into a burning building after some stranger's pet tabby cat. But this prospect which lies before him of ambling across a field with death singing about his ears, is a thing which tears with clawing fingers at the tuggs and toggles of his imagination until his flesh revolts ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... back upon his past and wonder what he should have become in life if this or that crucial event had not occurred to set his destiny. It seems to me that if it had not been for the sudden death of my father I, too, might have found our jungle beast a domestic tabby, and have fed it its prey without realizing what I was about. I should have been a lawyer, I know; for I had had the ambition from my earliest boyhood, and I had been confirmed in it by my success ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... his family outlived all the people who lived before the flood. 10. Solomon was wiser than all men. 11. This State exports more cotton than all the states. 12. A cowboy is the most picturesque of any men. 13. Tabby has the worst temper of any cat I know. 14. He thinks Gettysburg has the prettiest girls of any town of its size. 15. The proposed method of Mr. F.G. Jackson, the English arctic explorer, appears to be the most practical and business-like of any yet ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... gathered in all her self-possession. The estate, the household, the parish, the county: there was no mistaking his interest in these matters. He was interested in the smallest particulars: her broods of young chicks, her pigeons, the tabby cat's kittens, the Rector's baby. He asked searching questions. How many cows were in milk just now; when would Menzies have asparagus fit to eat? The servants—was all well there? Their young men? Nothing escaped ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... against the knife-blade. The boy then began to manipulate the knife with extreme caution as he kept on making a soft purring noise, ah-h-h-h-ha! full of triumphant satisfaction, while a big curled-up tabby tom-cat, which had taken possession of the fellow chair to that occupied by Aleck, twitched one ear, opened one eye, and then seeing that the purring sound was only a feeble imitation, went off to ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... folks," said Fido to himself, "for their feather-beds look big and comfortable, and their baskets are all ample and generous,—and see, there goes a bright gilt cage, and there is a plump yellow canary bird in it! Oh, how glad Mrs. Tabby will be to see it,—she so dotes on ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... "It's dreadfully tabby and small-towny," thought Carol, while she soothed, "I don't believe it quite goes ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... other element in his soubriquet is not so easy to say. There is a Cornish (and probably British) word “Tab,” which means turf (“Archæol. Journ.” vol. ii., No. 3, p. 199), and that would suit this dweller on the heath; but it is more likely that “Tab” had a reference to the cat, “Tabby” being the term for a brindled cat. And Bishop Harsnet, in his curious book on “The Superstitions of the Day” (1605), says a witch, or elf, “can take the form of ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... worth a mint o' money. Bad luck!" he continues, in a tone of spiteful vexation. "A mine o' wealth, an' no chance to work it! Ef we only had the ship by us now, we could put a good thousan' dollars' worth o' thar pelts into it. Jest see how they swarm out yonder! An' tame as pet tabby cats! There's enough of 'em to supply seal-skin jackets fur nigh all the women o' ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... ribbings; and you'd have thought, as I graivly laid the volloms down before him, and as he berried his head in his nicely brushed hat, before service began, that such a pious, proper morl, young nobleman was not to be found in the whole of the peeridge. It was a comfort to look at him. Efry old tabby and dowyger at my Lord Bobtail's turned up the wights of their i's when they spoke of him, and vowed they had never seen such a dear, daliteful, exlent young man. What a good son he must be, they said; and oh, what a good son-in-law! He had the pick of all the English gals at ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tiny little rabbit strayed from home away; Far from woodland haunts she wandered, little rabbit gray. Our old Tabby cat, whilst sitting at the kitchen door, Thought she saw her long-lost kitten home ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... counteracted the bulk of her body, and betrayed the fact that in reality she was both vigorous and alert. When he first caught sight of her she was knitting in a low chair against the sunlight of the wall, and something at once made him see her as a great tabby cat, dozing, yet awake, heavily sleepy, and yet at the same time prepared for instantaneous action. A great mouser on the watch ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... through, I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, Her nose, her hair—her muffled words, And how she'd open her green eyes, As if in some immense surprise, Whenever as we sat at tea, She made some small remark ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... inhabitant appeared; it was the Burnells' cat Florrie, sitting on the gatepost, far too early as usual, looking for their milk-girl. When she saw the old sheep-dog she sprang up quickly, arched her back, drew in her tabby head, and seemed to give a little fastidious shiver. "Ugh! What a coarse, revolting creature!" said Florrie. But the old sheep-dog, not looking up, waggled past, flinging out his legs from side to side. Only one of his ears twitched to prove ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... as she knelt in front of the basket where the mother cat lay with her four blind kittens. "You see, Tabby," she said, "people still sing. A lot of them learned to sing in the war, and now they're home, they may as well sing as cry. Oh, Tabby, I wanted to sing, too . . . now ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... time. A member of the Council, too, no doubt, and with the Governor's ear. He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear away this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me my Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchretiens, and get on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; then leave ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... last Tuesday I'd be begging to-day, Emma," interrupted a young man from across the stream of water which ran down the centre of Main Street. "I'm sitting on your aunt Tabby's trunk." The girl gave a cry, half of pained remembrance, half of pleasure. "Oh, my dear Aunt Tabby!" she cried, and, rushing across the rivulet, she threw herself across the battered leather trunk—sole surviving relic of Aunt Tabby; but Aunt Tabby and the finding thereof was a light ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... string of birds, and displaying, with much pride and satisfaction, the results of his prowess), conceived the idea that it would also be a fine thing for her to go forth and kill the canary. But to tabby's surprise, her ability was rewarded with chastisement; whereupon she pondered the question over and over: "How can it be, that what is virtue in man is vice ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame's school. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... again: Now she works with three or four, Like an Indian Conjuror; 30 Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics play'd in the eye Of a thousand Standers-by, Clapping hands with shout and stare, What would little Tabby care For the plaudits of the Crowd? Over happy to be proud, Over wealthy in the treasure Of her own ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... the cat. The rats disappeared so rapidly that the Dey wished to buy the cat, but the captain would not sell until a very high price was offered. With the purchase-money was sent a present of valuable pearls for the owner of Tabby. When the ship returned the sailors were greatly astonished to find that the boy owned most of the cargo, for it was part of the bargain that he was to bring back the value of his cat in goods. The London merchant took the boy into ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... cuts the necks of hens, ducks, or geese which struggle and gurgle in their own blood; when pretty Fridoline, with her rosy little mouth and her long fair hair, leans out of her window to tend the honeysuckle, and over her head the neighbour's tabby cat is gently swaying her tail and watching, with her cunning green eyes, the swallow circling in the deepening purple—I do assure you that a man must be utterly devoid of taste for the picturesque not to stop and contemplate in ecstasy and listen ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... wanted her to do. However, as she was a good, kindhearted girl, she set to work to pick up the little kittens which tumbled about on the floor, she patched up quarrels, and nursed on her lap a big tabby—the oldest of the community—which had a lame paw. All these kindnesses could hardly fail to make a favourable impression on the cats, and it was even better after a while, when she had had time to grow accustomed to their strange ways. Never had the house ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... horn, and shot, And proudly forth they went On sport intent. "Oh, Tom! if we should shoot a hare," Cried one, The elder son, "How father, sure, would stare!" Look there! what's that?" "Why, as I live, a cat," Cried Bill, "'tis mother Tibbs' tabby; Oh! what a lark She loves it like a babby! And ain't a cat's eye, Tom, as good a mark As any bull's eyes?" And straight "Puss! puss!" he cries, When, lo! as Puss approaches, They hear a squall, And see a head and fist above the wall. 'Tis tabby's mistress Who in ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... wore a scarlet tabby negligee,—a sort of undress, or sack, then much in vogue,—which suited her to admiration, and upon her head had what was called a fly-cap, with richly-laced lappets. Mrs. Maggot was equipped in a light blue riding-habit, trimmed with silver, a hunting-cap and a flaxen peruke, and, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... determined on some kind of storm, but had not yet made up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now the wind roared in the chimney, and started out of her sleep a great tortoise-shell cat, that lay on the rug which Aunt Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened her yellow eyes suddenly, and erected her smellers, but finding it was only the wind and not a mouse that made the noise, she stretched out a great paw and yawned, and then cuddled her head down so as to show her white throat, and ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... debated what more was needed to make the kitchen a bit more homey. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy said a red cushion for the rocker, and Elizabeth said a white cat to lie on the hearth. Mrs. Holt said, "Yes, I do need 'em both,—only it must be an old stray tabby cat. This house is going to be the ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... no wonder that she was anxious about Sandy and Peter and Pan, for, to begin with, she had had four fine children, and the very first night they were out of their nest, the darlings, a terrible prowling animal named Tom or Tabby had killed ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... society queen full of tyrannical whims and capricious demands. When this was commented on as surprising, he explained that after playing with a squirrel one likes to take a cat in his lap. Really, it is so restful that the building suggests a big yellow tabby purring sleepily in the sunshine. I sat on the veranda, or piazza, taking a sun-bath, in a happy dream or doze, until the condition of nirvana was almost attained. What day of the week was it? And the season? Who could tell? And who cares? ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast! Thumps, kicks,—no manner of use!—spite of them rolls at last Into the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to view Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too: Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils—snouts that sniffed Sulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame! Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same, Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... washing into the hands of his lawyers the solid pieces of real estate that his frugality had enabled him to accumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One month after his dishabilitation a saloon-keeper plucked him by the neck from his free-lunch counter as a tabby plucks a strange kitten from her nest, and cast him asphaltward. This seems low enough. But after that he acquired a pair of cloth top, button Congress gaiters and wrote complaining letters to the newspapers. And then he ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... or house sparrows. If you really value the birds that have been reared in the house you have built you may need to get up early more than one morning when the youngsters leave the nest to protect them from the highly respectable (?) tabby that lives possibly next door if not at your own house. It often comes to a choice between cats and birds: and the cats may be disposed of in two ways—the right kind of box traps for the homeless and unknown robbers, and an air rifle with sufficient "sting" for the trespasser from ...
— Bird Houses Boys Can Build • Albert F. Siepert
... discovery. It was ringed hair. The gray appearance was due, not to the usual mingling of white and dark hairs, but to the fact that each separate hair was marked by alternate rings of black and white. Now, variegated hairs are common enough in the lower animals which have a pattern on the fur. The tabby cat furnishes a familiar example. But in man the condition is infinitely rare; whence it was obvious that, with these hairs and the finger-prints, I had the means of infallible identification. But identification involves possession of the ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... write by return of post and tell me how you are getting on and how you are. Give my kind regards to Tabby and Martha, and—Believe me, dear papa, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Mary semplar virginy, batchy Mickletoe Archy Angelo, batchy Johnny Bartisty, sanctris postlis—Petrum hit Paulum omnium sanctris, et tabby pasture, quay a pixavit minus coglety ashy hony verbum et offer him smaxy quilia ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... soon makes insanitary. In the open it crouches among dead leaves which have gathered in the fork of a tree, and will construct a web which spans the coconut avenue with its stays. From one aspect its rotund body invites a good-humoured smile, for the marking exactly simulates the features of a tabby cat, well fed, sleepy, and in placid mood. Venom of virulence to kill a bat almost instantly would be severe enough to a human being. This dirty, obese spider deserves little consideration at ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... did not play any of the tricks on her that they had played on other dairymaids who were rough and rude. And when she had done, and was going to get up from her stool, she found sitting round her a whole circle of cats, black and white, tabby and tortoise-shell, who ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... I am, that the ould craythur is fairly off—for divil a bit of comfort did she give the laste of us with her time-saving orderly ways. And it's not an owld maid ye must ever be, darlint Miss Enna, or ye'll favor the troublesome aunty with her tabby notions." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... butler, do you? He was really quite the nicest person in the play, y' know. Most of it was gorgeously rotten. It used to be a French farce, but they sent it to Sunday-school and gave it a nice fresh frock. It seemed that a gentleman-tabby had been trying to make a match between his nephew and his ward. The ward arted. Personally I think it was by tonsorial art. But, anyway, the uncle knew that nothing brings people together so well as hating the same person. You know, like hating ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... to think of the church appearance of the Puritan goodmen and goodwives. Priscilla Alden in a Quakeress' drab gown would doubtless have been pleasant to behold, but Priscilla garbed in a "blew Mohere peticote," a "tabby bodeys with red livery cote," and an "immoderate great rayle" with "Slashes," with a laced neckcloth or cross cloth around her fair neck, and a scarlet "whittle" over all this motley finery; with a "outwork quoyf or ciffer" (New England French ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... were four chimneys and sixteen fireplaces, and twenty rooms above the first floor. The walls at the base were six feet in thickness, and above the ground four feet. They were composed of the material known as "tabby," a mixture of shells, lime and broken stone or gravel with water; which mass, being pressed in a mould of boards, becomes when dry as hard and durable as rock. The walls are now as solid as stone itself. The second story above the terrace contained the principal rooms: the room ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... them see I am not a deserted tabby-cat," she said to herself, "waiting around in the cold until some one opens a door for me." And then this proud little country girl enclosed both notes to her brother and told him he had best inform the Nasons of her intended visit in a matter-of-fact way. ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... supposed disrespect, has contributed not a little towards the confirmation of this opinion, by dropping certain hints to my prejudice among the vulgar, who are also very much scandalised at my entertaining this poor tabby cat with the collar about her neck, which was a favourite ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... tragiques histoires plebeiennes. But the happy instinct has at last come to him, and we are permitted to watch the humours of that delicious pair of sinners saved, "Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too," as a relief to the less pleasant and profitable spectacle of His Majesty Napoleon III., or of even the two poets of Croisic. All the poems in the volume (with the exception of a notable and noble protest against vivisection, in the form of a touching little ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... hear it," replied he. "What is it? and whom threatens it? The red cow or the tabby cat? Poor puss!" and he stooped down and stroked her as ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... eagerly—with an eagerness greater even than that with which he had bent his ear to Valentin de Bellegarde's last words. Every now and then, as his companion looked up at him, she reminded him of an ancient tabby cat, protracting the enjoyment of a dish of milk. Even her triumph was measured and decorous; the faculty of exultation had been chilled by disuse. She presently continued. "Late one night I was sitting by ...
— The American • Henry James
... most an approximate generalisation, as that 'Most metals are whitish,' or 'Most domestic cats are tabbies' (but this probably is the ancestral colouring). We may then resort to statistics for greater definiteness, and find that in Hampshire (say) 90 per cent. of the domestic cats are tabby. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... to tell Tabby how immensely pleased everyone is with her slippers. The men who have stood long in the trenches are in agonies of frost-bite and rheumatism, and now that I can give them these slippers when they arrive at the station, they are able to take off ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... Mrs. Goodwin might box my ears for the impertinence; she has boxed them before. I grew up around here, remember. The first acquaintance I made with this house was when I shied an apple at the family tabby as it sat sunning itself on the well-curb, and bowled it in. Naturally, I hadn't meant to hit it; the beast stepped forward just as I fired. I nearly fell in, myself, trying to get it out, but the well was deep and I couldn't raise a meow or a whisker. It was a fine November ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... this "possession" (as it were), those who survive, of her daily and household companions, are clear in their testimony, that never was the claim of any duty, never was the call of another for help, neglected for an instant. It had become necessary to give Tabby—now nearly eighty years of age—the assistance of a girl. Tabby relinquished any of her work with jealous reluctance, and could not bear to be reminded, though ever so delicately, that the acuteness of her senses was dulled by age. The other servant ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the sharper bark of the coyote swells a chorus from the cliffs, and the rich note of the night-storm is accentuated by the long screech of the puma prowling on the heights. In daylight his brother, the wild-cat, reminds one of Tabby at home by the fireside. There is the lynx, too, among the rocks; and on the higher planes the deer, elk, and bear have their homes. In Green River Valley once roamed thousands of bison. The more arid districts have the fewest large animals, and conversely the more ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... There must have been rain in the night, too, for the stone basin was full of water, in which the sparrows were busy washing, sending up tiny iridescent jets and fountains from their swiftly fluttering wings. It was delicious to Dominic. He felt very safe, very gay. Only a heavy ill- favoured tabby cat came from nowhere. It had designs upon the sparrows. Twice it climbed stealthily up the broken bricks and gas clinkers. Twice the little boy drove it away. It was not a nice cat. It had a broad white face, deceitful little eyes, and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... ladies rode in on pillions, and the planters themselves, in gold-embroidered waistcoats and plush breeches and new-powdered wigs, leaned on the tombstones, and exchanged snuffmulls and gossip. In the old ramshackle graveyard you would see such a parade of satin bodices and tabby petticoats and lace headgear as made it blossom like the rose. I went to church one Sunday in my second summer, and, being late, went up the aisle looking for a place. The men at the seat-ends would not stir to accommodate me, and I had to find rest in the cock-loft. I thought nothing ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... But her tone was flat and hesitating. Her ever-present fear was very little comforted by prayer. But she found comfort in Mrs. Grayson. She liked to stay on in the old kitchen, watching Mrs. Grayson's household ways, making friends with the stolid tabby cat, or listening to stories of Jim as a child. Sometimes she would read parts of George's letters to this new friend. Bridget never cared to hear them; and she was more completely at ease with the farmer's wife even than ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... left the blood trickling down, so cleverly, that one did not feel it—till afterwards. We did feel the mosquitoes, and fought with them as well as we could, whilst Dennis O'Moore, defending his own face with a big bunch of jack-in-pulpits striped like tabby cats, ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in noting how the draught pumped the fire into violence, shaking the stove till it puffed and roared. I was so filled, that moment, with the domestic spirit that I thought a steaming kettle on the little stove would give me a tabby-like comfort. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... bridegroom were both clothed in white tabby, his suit laced with a very broad gold and silver lace. The bride had on her head a coronet set full of diamonds, with a diamond collar about her neck and shoulders, a diamond girdle of the same fashion, and a rich diamond jewel at her ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... watched her with the same uncritical delight that he might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly appeared darting along the pavement. She reached the corner just in time to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some old tabby to settle himself ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... what a charming picture you make; the English cottage creeper-covered and smiling; the nurse and child at the threshold equally smiling, yourself a very emblem of spring in your fresh gown, and a domestic tabby to complete ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... brocades of Damietta, Alexandria, Tinnis, and Cairo, cotton from Ba'lbekk, silk from Baghd[a]d, atlas satin from Ma'din in Armenia; and she introduced to Europe not only the products of the East, but their very names. Sarcenet is Saracen stuff; tabby is named after a street in Baghd[a]d where watered silk was made; Baldacchini are simply "Baldac," i.e., Baghd[a]d, canopies; samite is Sh[a]m[i], "Syrian," fabric; the very coat of the Egyptian, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... play a scarcely noticed but undoubtedly beneficial part in the education and life of children. Which of us does not remember powerful but magnanimous dogs, lazy lapdogs, birds dying in captivity, dull-witted but haughty turkeys, mild old tabby cats, who forgave us when we trod on their tails for fun and caused them agonising pain? I even fancy, sometimes, that the patience, the fidelity, the readiness to forgive, and the sincerity which are characteristic of our domestic ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... woman inferior to the type I have created with my pencil—what the public calls the 'Carden Girl.' And now you see that your discovery of this living type comes rather late. In two days I must be legally married if I want my Aunt Tabby's legacy; and to-day for the first time I hear of a girl who, you assure me, compares favorably to my copyrighted type, but who has a mission and an aversion to men. So you see, Mr. Keen, that the matter ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... was overtaken by a great light, and retired under the trees of Marble Hall to see what it should be. There came a long procession of Prince Lobkowitz's footmen in very rich new liveries, the two last bearing torches; and after them the Prince himself', in a new sky-blue watered tabby Coat, with gold buttonholes and a magnificent gold waistcoat fringed, leading Madame ambassadrice de Venise in a green sack with a straw hat, attended by my Lady Tyrawley, Wall, the private Spanish agent, the two Miss Molyneux's, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... obsolete formats which he had bound by Lortic, by Trautz-Bauzonnet or Chambolle, by the successors of Cape, in irreproachable covers of old silk, stamped cow hide, Cape goat skin, in full bindings with compartments and in mosaic designs, protected by tabby or moire watered silk, ecclesiastically ornamented with clasps and corners, and sometimes even enamelled by Gruel Engelmann with ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... I was about to shut my window, when suddenly I perceived, in a spot of sunshine on my right, the shadow of two pricked-up ears; then a paw advanced, then the head of a tabby-cat showed itself at the corner of the gutter. The cunning fellow was lying there in wait, hoping the crumbs would bring ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... I must beg your ladyship e'en to have the honour to trust you but for your gown, for the sake of that last jest, flowered sattin, wrought tabby, silver upon any grounds; I shall run mad if I may ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... given, Milly was soon seated in a large cushioned chair, a fat tabby cat on her lap, and while Sir Edward was occupied with his keeper she was making fast friends ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... was at him, I can tell you! and she handled the matter shrewdly too. So was Esdras and Silas, and a sort more lads, a-crying, 'Scratch him, Tabby!' and she ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... me that ribbon—I was playing out in the yard— She said to me most expressly: "Here's a ribbon for Hildegarde." And I went and put it on Tabby, and Hildegarde saw me do it; But I said to myself, "Oh, never mind, I ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... solitary corner under the side of the wood. Upon our first entering Sir ROGER winked to me, and pointed at something that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that way I found to be an old broomstaff. At the same time he whispered me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney-corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad a report as Moll White herself; for, besides that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, the cat is ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... us to hear it," replied he. "What is it? and whom threatens it? The red cow or the tabby cat? Poor puss!" and he stooped down and stroked her as she lay ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... mamma gave me that ribbon—I was playing out in the yard— She said to me most expressly: "Here's a ribbon for Hildegarde." And I went and put it on Tabby, and Hildegarde saw me do it; But I said to myself, "Oh, never mind, I don't believe she ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... make me. At all events, I am not going to marry any woman inferior to the type I have created with my pencil—what the public calls the 'Carden Girl.' And now you see that your discovery of this living type comes rather late. In two days I must be legally married if I want my Aunt Tabby's legacy; and to-day for the first time I hear of a girl who, you assure me, compares favorably to my copyrighted type, but who has a mission and an aversion to men. So you see, Mr. Keen, that ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... kind enough to write by return of post and tell me how you are getting on and how you are. Give my kind regards to Tabby and Martha, and—Believe me, dear ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... the bees wandered, and under a beam of yellow light might be seen the calm and handsome profile of Madame Vedrine, nursing her youngest, while the eldest threw stones at the numerous cats, grey, black, yellow, and tabby, which might be called the ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... no doubt, and with the Governor's ear. He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear away this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me my Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchretiens, and get on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... as she had gone, the old man looked all about him, and called "Tabby, Tabby," very softly. Tabby came out from under the roots of a tree and bounded on his shoulder, and told him how sorry the cow was, and how she was waiting in a thicket ready to carry him home, if he wanted ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... tabby and small-towny," thought Carol, while she soothed, "I don't believe it quite goes ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... exhibited in a magnificent shrine to public admiration. Every knee was bent, every hand strewed flowers or poured incense, and grimalkin was treated in all respects as the god of the day. But on the festival of St. John, poor tom's fate was reversed. A number of the tabby tribe were put into a wicker basket, and thrown alive into the midst of an immense fire kindled in the public square by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were sung, and processions were made by the priests and people in honour ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... vase's side Where China's gayest art had dy'd The azure flowers, that blow; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima reclin'd Gazed ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... scarcely noticed but undoubtedly beneficial part in the education and life of children. Which of us does not remember powerful but magnanimous dogs, lazy lapdogs, birds dying in captivity, dull-witted but haughty turkeys, mild old tabby cats, who forgave us when we trod on their tails for fun and caused them agonising pain? I even fancy, sometimes, that the patience, the fidelity, the readiness to forgive, and the sincerity which are ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the Knight, she said, she supposed that was his good Friend, Sir ROGER DE COVERLY: Upon which nothing less could follow than Sir ROGER'S Approach to Salutation, with, Madam the same at your Service. She was dressed in a black Tabby Mantua and Petticoat, without Ribbons; her Linnen striped Muslin, and in the whole in an agreeable Second-Mourning; decent Dresses being often affected by the Creatures of the Town, at once consulting Cheapness ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... crouches among dead leaves which have gathered in the fork of a tree, and will construct a web which spans the coconut avenue with its stays. From one aspect its rotund body invites a good-humoured smile, for the marking exactly simulates the features of a tabby cat, well fed, sleepy, and in placid mood. Venom of virulence to kill a bat almost instantly would be severe enough to a human being. This dirty, obese spider deserves little consideration ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow, Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclined, Gazed on the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... sister tabby saw the cord, And interposed a happy word: "In every age and clime we see Two of a trade cannot agree; Each deems the other an encroacher, As sportsman thinks another poacher. Beauty with beauty vies in charms, And king with king ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... hotter under any other circumstances. Consequently a person who aims at equable temperature, should wear light colours. Light colours are far the best for sporting purposes, as they are usually much less conspicuous than black or rifle-green. Almost all wild beasts are tawny or fawn-coloured, or tabby, or of some nondescript hue and pattern: if an animal were born with a more decided colour, he would soon perish for want of ability ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... both clothed in white tabby, his suit laced with a very broad gold and silver lace. The bride had on her head a coronet set full of diamonds, with a diamond collar about her neck and shoulders, a diamond girdle of the same fashion, and a rich diamond jewel at her breast, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... brown velvet, laced with gold, and a large wig. The parson in his silk cassock, and his helpmate in brown damask. Old General Atkinson in scarlet velvet, and his wife and daughters in white damask. The Governor in black velvet, and his lady in crimson tabby trimmed with silver. The ladies wore bell-hoops, high-heeled shoes, paste buckles, silk stockings, and enormously high head-dresses, with lappets of Brussels lace hanging thence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... best bow, and advanced to Mrs Lambert's chair, unhappily treading as he did so on the paw of a tabby cat, who resisted the indignity by a very prolonged yell and an angry ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... tight to the elbows, met by black mittens of faded silk, and a very small close bonnet of the same colour. She had small brass buckles in her shoes; a cane, like those borne by running footmen, in one hand, and upon the other arm a small basket, rolled up within which lay a tabby cat, with which she held a conversation in what sounded to me like broken French ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... drowsing dogs lie, he'll stir up the tabby sleeping Tom— In fact, he is the model of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... and Steve kept his face turned toward the spot where the last savage snarl had been heard. He had a vague suspicion that perhaps the beast might try to stalk them, just as he had seen a domestic tabby do a sparrow ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... broken loose. Strikes were pending. The Allies were allied only in name; they gnashed their teeth at one another across the council-table in Paris. The lying game of diplomacy had been revived. Poison-notes were being exchanged. The tabby-cat statesmen who had been too old to fight, were busy sowing the seeds of future wars. The politicians who had nailed mankind to the cross, were casting lots for the raiment which had survived the sacrifice. No one asked, ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... pieces of real estate that his frugality had enabled him to accumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One month after his dishabilitation a saloon-keeper plucked him by the neck from his free-lunch counter as a tabby plucks a strange kitten from her nest, and cast him asphaltward. This seems low enough. But after that he acquired a pair of cloth top, button Congress gaiters and wrote complaining letters to the newspapers. And then he fought the attendant at the Municipal Lodging House ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... he was Jane's nicest kitten. Jane was half-Persian, white with untidy tabby patterns on her. Jerry was black all over. Whatever attitude he took, his tight, short fur kept the outlines of his figure firm and clear, whether he arched his back and jumped sideways, or rolled himself into a cushion, ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... mending-basket were on the centre table, the hearth had just been swept up, there was a smell of hot bread, and a row of freshly-baked loaves were cooling on the dresser; the firelight shone on the gleaming pewter and brass utensils, and a great tabby cat sat purring on the elbow of Nathaniel's chair. I thought he seemed a little confused at my entrance, for he got up rather awkwardly and shuffled his papers together, so I took pity on his embarrassment, and only ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Mexican would pass in hearing of the yells and screams and strange songs without crossing himself and begging the captain to give the rock a wide berth. But the noise is all the noise of cats. A shipwrecked tabby peopled the place many years ago, and her numerous progeny live there on dead fish and on the eggs and chicks ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... they began their work! They had already chosen the place for their nest, springing up and down in the boughs till they found a branch far out of sight of snakes and hawks and cruel tabby cats, high out of reach of naughty small boys with their sling-shots, and now everything was ready for these small carpenters to begin their building. No hammer and nails were needed, claw and bill were all the tools they ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... some chestnuts, which he put on the hot coals of a fire to roast. He was puzzled, however, as to how he should get them again without burning himself. Seeing a nice tabby cat in a corner, he thus accosted her: "Please come and sit with me awhile, for I am lonely." Puss took a seat at the monkey's side, without thinking of harm, when he jumped on her back. Seizing both her paws, he made her pull the nuts from the fire, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... years ago the Norwegian women were even more than the women of other lands votaries of the old-fashioned ideal of femininity, 'the domestic angel,' the 'gentle and refining influence' sort of thing. Now these sedentary fireside tabby-cats of Norway have been trained, they say, by the snow-shoes into lithe and audacious creatures, for whom no night is too dark or height too giddy, and who are not only saying good-bye to the traditional feminine ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... said Diana, emerging at last, hugging her parcel, and dragging Spot away from the pursuit of an impudent and provocative tabby cat, with a torn ear, that was spitting at him from ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... I'm a pretty little kitten, My name is Tabby Gray, I live out in the country, Some twenty miles away. My eyes are black and hazel, My skin is soft as silk; I'm fed each night and morning With a saucer full ...
— The Nursery, May 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... that thin old half-crown was coaxed well into sight and forced flat against the knife-blade. The boy then began to manipulate the knife with extreme caution as he kept on making a soft purring noise, ah-h-h-h-ha! full of triumphant satisfaction, while a big curled-up tabby tom-cat, which had taken possession of the fellow chair to that occupied by Aleck, twitched one ear, opened one eye, and then seeing that the purring sound was only a feeble imitation, went ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... with a pink nose and pink lips and pink pads under her paws. Her tabby hood came down in a peak between her green eyes. Her tabby cape went on along the back of her tail, tapering to the tip. Sarah crouched against the fireguard, her haunches raised, her head sunk back on her shoulders, ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... gang. Pick out the fellows that count, as you go along, and just remember this, if you forget the rest: if you want to put ducks in Tabby's bed or nail down his desk, do it because you want to do it, not because some other fellow wants you to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... of a Tub," has a ludicrous passage in this style: "Look on this globe of earth, you will find it to be a very complete and fashionable dress. What is that which some call land, but a fine coat faced with green? or the sea, but a waistcoat of water-tabby? Proceed to the particular works of creation, you will find how curious journeyman Nature has been to trim up the vegetable beaux; observe how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of a beech, and what a fine doublet of white satin is worn ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... sideways at the window, dreamily stroking a tabby kitten, who, purring and blinking, nestled on her lap, and with great satisfaction held up her little nose into the rather hot spring sunshine. Olga Ivanovna was wearing a white morning gown, with short sleeves; her bare, pale-pink, girlish shoulders and arms ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... thought they must feel, because I had once buried a cat who had no friends. It was a poor half-starved old thing, for the people it belonged to had left it, and I used to see it slinking up to the back door and looking at Tabby, who was very fat and sleek, and at the scraps on the unwashed dishes after dinner. Mrs. Jones kicked it out every time, and what happened to it before I found it lying draggled and dead at the bottom of the Ha-ha, with the top of a kettle still fastened to its scraggy tail, I never knew, ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... sternsheets; and most unfortunately Old Vro selected this moment to thrust off from shore with his paddle. The impetus took her at unawares, and she fell forward; her basket struck against the boat's gunwale, its cover flew open, and forth from it, half-demented with fright, sprang her tabby cat, Methuselah. The poor brute lit upon the parrot's cage, which happened to be balanced upon an unstable pile of cooking utensils at the end of Nicky Vro's thwart. Cat, cage and parrot, a gridiron, two cake ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Who has not some faithful black Topsy, Tortoise-shell, or Tabby, or rather succession of them, whose biographies would afford many a curious story? Professor Bell[122] has well defended the general character of poor pussy from the oft-repeated calumnies spread about it. Cats certainly ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... or your visitors, Mrs. Sharpe, if that be your name," said the irascible patient. "You're all a set of old tabby cats together, and if you don't clear out, I'll fling something ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... dimity and other cloths and silks and brocades of Damietta, Alexandria, Tinnis, and Cairo, cotton from Ba'lbekk, silk from Baghd[a]d, atlas satin from Ma'din in Armenia; and she introduced to Europe not only the products of the East, but their very names. Sarcenet is Saracen stuff; tabby is named after a street in Baghd[a]d where watered silk was made; Baldacchini are simply "Baldac," i.e., Baghd[a]d, canopies; samite is Sh[a]m[i], "Syrian," fabric; the very coat of the Egyptian, the jubba, is preserved in giuppa, jupe.[19] ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... my graphic companion. The figure, seen in the frontispiece of the third volume of this work, is that of the Fille de chambre at our hotel, who was habited in her Sunday attire; and it displays in particular the riband head-dress—which was of black water-tabby sarsenet. But as these ribands are of different colours, and many of them gay and gorgeous, their appearance, in the open air—and where a great number of people is collected, and in constant motion—is that, as it were, of so many moving suns. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Seamouth, including El-Yemen and Cape Guardafui, was made holy by the birth of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Dr. Brugsch-Bey shows that one of the titles of the he-god was Bass, the cat or the leopard (whence our "Puss"); whilst his wife, Bast (the bissat or tabby-cat of modern Arabic), gave her name to Bubastis (Pi-Bast, the city of Bast). From the Osiric term (Bass) the learned Egyptologist would derive Bacchus and his priests, the Bacchoi and the Bacchantes, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... open, they walk round the prostrate carcase of their prey, growling and spitting like 'tabby' cats. They begin their operations in earnest, invariably on the buttock. A leopard generally eats the inner portion of the thigh first. A wolf tears open the belly, and eats the intestines first. A vulture, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... a sack—the same he had used to transport Satan's corpse—and from out of it he produced a half-starved tabby, that obviously could harm no one, owing to the fact that its head was tied up in a muslin bag and its four ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... its fullest extent a mouth from ear to ear, so as to display a set of jagged and fang-like teeth, and, throwing back his head, laughed long, loudly, wickedly, and uproariously, while the black dog, crouching down upon his haunches, joined lustily in the chorus, and the tabby cat, flying off at a tangent, stood up on end, and shrieked in the farthest ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... five in chips of fire-wood, and to seven in mutton bones; to howl for all deaths in the family above the degree of second cousin; to post letters, and refuse them when they have been insufficiently stamped; and last, and most intolerable, to show a tender solicitude when tabby is out of sorts." The dog, indeed, for the most part, has become as sentimental and conventional a figure in current fiction as the ghost who haunts the ouija board or the idealistic soldier returned from the wars to reconstruct his ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... kind of storm, but had not yet made up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now the wind roared in the chimney, and started out of her sleep a great tortoise-shell cat, that lay on the rug which Aunt Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened her yellow eyes suddenly, and erected her smellers, but finding it was only the wind and not a mouse that made the noise, she stretched out a great paw and yawned, and then cuddled her head down so as to show her white throat, and ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... dark hairs, but to the fact that each separate hair was marked by alternate rings of black and white. Now, variegated hairs are common enough in the lower animals which have a pattern on the fur. The tabby cat furnishes a familiar example. But in man the condition is infinitely rare; whence it was obvious that, with these hairs and the finger-prints, I had the means of infallible identification. But identification involves ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... way, it would be better for her to go elsewhere. This declaration, which must be admitted to have been more remarkable for frankness than civility, made, however, no ill impression on Mrs. Sally. To the farmer's she went, and at his house she lives still, with her little maid, her tabby cat, a decrepit sheep-dog, and much of the lumber of Court Farm, which she could not find in her heart to part from. There she follows her old ways and her old hours, untempted by matrimony, and unassailed (as far as I hear) by love or by scandal, with no other grievance than an occasional dearth ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... the kitchen side, And see what fortune can betide Poor Streak, who there is gone; Where by a blazing fire there sat A glossy, well-fed tabby cat, Half ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown
... day dawned, the shower of kittens began. Some were white and some were tabby, and all were about the same loathsome age. Three were on his hearthrug, three in his bathroom, and the other six turned up at intervals among the visitors who came to see the prophecy break down. Never was a more satisfactory ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... flirtation with a brilliant society queen full of tyrannical whims and capricious demands. When this was commented on as surprising, he explained that after playing with a squirrel one likes to take a cat in his lap. Really, it is so restful that the building suggests a big yellow tabby purring sleepily in the sunshine. I sat on the veranda, or piazza, taking a sun-bath, in a happy dream or doze, until the condition of nirvana was almost attained. What day of the week was it? And the season? Who could tell? And who cares? ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... from which long-haired Persian cats, the burak, are brought down to the Gulf, and from there to India, but the Kerman cats are said by the Persians themselves to be the best. The white ones are the most appreciated by the Persians; then the blue (grey) ones with differently coloured eyes, and the tabby ones. Mine were, one ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of glass traps and scarlet wafers. Such persons will probably form their ideas of Typee's cockroaches from their own domestic opportunities of observation. That were unjust to the crew of the Julia, and would give no adequate idea of their sufferings. As a purring tabby to a roaring jaguar, so is a British black-beetle to a cock-roach of the Southern Seas. We back our assertion by a quotation from our lamented friend Captain Cringle, who in his especially graphic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... weather the ordinary yacht at sea is about the meanest habitation between Heaven and earth. But it was at Monte Carlo I got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last little nest-egg had been smashed. In other words, I woke up and found myself a beggar, and for a few hours I even thought I'd have to travel home on that Monte Carlo Viaticum fund which so discreetly ships away the stranded adventurer before he musses up the Mediterranean scenery by ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... used to make the fire while Samuel lay abed, and that she washed his "foul clothes"—that by degrees he came to be wealthy and rode in his own yellow coach—that his wife went abroad in society "in a flowered tabby gown"—that Pepys forsook his habits of poverty and exchanged his twelve-penny seat in the theatre gallery for a place in the pit—and that on a rare occasion (doubtless when he was alone and there was but one seat to buy) he arose to the extravagance ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... its master come home from the hunt with a string of birds, and displaying, with much pride and satisfaction, the results of his prowess), conceived the idea that it would also be a fine thing for her to go forth and kill the canary. But to tabby's surprise, her ability was rewarded with chastisement; whereupon she pondered the question over and over: "How can it be, that what is virtue in man ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... mug, on which was elegantly painted, with about twenty-seven flourishes, the words, "For Willie," to his lips, and took a long drink of milk, staring over the top of it at the cat the whole time, but the blinking old tabby only dozed away with one eye opened, and slapped her tail on the carpet as if to say, "you'll find no spell in me," so Willie put his mug down, and drawing a long breath, lisped again, "But ...
— Baby Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... arched back and purring like a contented tabby, rubbed his sides against the ape-man, and then at a word from the latter sprang lightly to his former place in the bow ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... knickerbocker "sissies" who were foolish enough to cross them. Dress, Mrs. McArdle declared, was now a real trial. The girls had to be "in trim all the time," and the boys were as violently in contrast to their fellows as a litter of brindle barn-kits beside a well-groomed tabby-cat's family. "I'm clean worn out with it, Mart," she confessed. "We've been here two weeks the day, and the children howlin' the whole time to go back and McArdle workin' himself to the figger of a spoon with a mind to polish the lawn and get ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Mrs. Whitney's a harmless tabby—a thin, ex-handsome creature struggling to maintain appearances; but I can put up with her. I will go to the ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... her birth, Who joined in all her harmless youthful mirth; But, when they went for holidays to roam, Shut-to the door of what had been her home, And thoughtless left to die upon the mat, Their faithful but forgotten Tabby-cat." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... as myself. In the middle watch of this night, our two cats—have I told you that we brought two cats from England with us?—as was their wont, were skylarking and cutting capers on the hammock nettings and davits, when tabby the lesser, instead of jumping on something palpable, made a leap on space with the natural result, for he lighted on water and was rapidly whirled astern by the inky waters of the Tartar gulf. Poor pussy, little did we dream, or you either, that Siberian waters ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... like hay, Prime Ministers and such as they Grew like asparagus in May, And Dukes were three a penny. Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats. And Bishops in their shovel hats Were plentiful as tabby cats— If possible, too many. On every side Field-Marshals gleamed, Small beer were Lords Lieutenant deemed With Admirals the ocean teemed All round his wide dominions; And Party Leaders you might meet ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... to gravity. The Count himself kept his composure admirably, only glancing coldly at Akulina, and then looking at his cigarette. Akulina is a broad, fat woman, with a flattened Tartar face, small eyes, good but short teeth, full lips and a dark complexion. She reminds one of an over-fed tabby cat, of doubtful temper, and her voice seems to reach utterance after traversing some thick, soft medium, which lends it an odd sort of guttural richness. She moves quietly but heavily and has an Asiatic second sight in the matter ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... cymophanous[obs3]. mosaic, tesselated, plaid; tortoise shell &c. n. spotted, spotty; punctated[obs3], powdered; speckled &c. v.; freckled, flea-bitten, studded; flecked, fleckered[obs3]; striated, barred, veined; brinded[obs3], brindled; tabby; watered; grizzled; listed; embroidered &c. v.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... far as Bumpus could tell, still he felt far from satisfied about it. What if the sly old cat was at that very moment creeping up on them? For all they knew, it might be close by just then, "inching" its way along, just as he had watched a tame Tabby do at home, when trying to steal upon a sparrow it wanted ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... matter with you?—and what do you want of the old man?" asked Tabby, bounding out through one ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... there was no more need of them to think of parting, she said, in a more contented tone than he had heard her speak in since it had been settled that he was to be married, "Eh, my lad, I'll be as still as th' ould tabby, an' ne'er want to do aught but th' offal work, as she wonna like t' do. An' then we needna part the platters an' things, as ha' stood on the shelf together ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the Boche breeds cats in enormous numbers. Yet, in order to carry out to the limit his idea that nothing of value should fall into our hands, he had killed every cat in the village. In every house three or four of these poor little creatures lay around with their heads chopped off. Tabby cats, black cats, white cats, and little kittens, all dead. Farther on, over a well at the corner of the main square was posted a sign which read: "This well is poisoned. Do not ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... did it seem thy tabby grace, The woes of London streets to face, Cold glances, or a kick for thy fur, And none to list to thy murmuring purr. ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... its two windows looked out on the stable-yard; but in the evening, when the fire burned clear and the blinds were drawn, it was a pleasant place. Deborah and Martha used to sit in the brown Windsor chairs knitting, with Puff, the great tabby cat, beside them, and the firelight would play on the red brick floor and snug ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... treatment of the Misses Perley was not imitated by them. They never alluded to their affluent neighbor, never suffered gossip concerning the Boones in what Olympia humorously called the "Orphic adytum," the "tabby-shop," as Wesley named the Perley parlors. Young Dick, however, had none of the scruples that kept his aunts silent. One dreadful day, when he had been nagged to fisticuffs with Wesley, whose dudish dignity exacted a certain restraint with the hot-headed youngster, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... expected to show, in painful precocity, feelings which ought never to be experienced till they come at the proper age. Our kittens play at cat-sports, little Tom and Tabby together; but little Tabby does not play ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... inoffensive giant. He adored the house-cat, and used to help her, in a ponderous way, with the care of her numerous family. Many a time have I seen him placidly extended before a fire, while puss used his shaggy body as a sleeping box, and once he was observed to help that anxious tabby-mother with the toilet of her kittens by licking them carefully all over. At every lick of Rufus's huge prehensile tongue a kitten was lifted bodily into the air, only, however, to descend washed and unharmed to the ground. But out of doors, in the society of Flick, Rufus's whole ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... yourself; and after all, you are cherished here chiefly because it was Lily's wish. Peggy can easily find another kitten; and you know she has often said that white cats were not to her taste, and she should much prefer a tabby." ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... spectral figure which had grown up out of common report. The house negroes stood in mortal dread of Blue Dave, and their dismay was not without its effect upon Mrs. Kendrick and her daughter. Jenny, the house-girl, refused to sleep at the quarters; and when Aunt Tabby, the cook, started for her cabin after dark, she was accompanied by a number of little negroes bearing lightwood torches. All the stories and legends that clustered around Blue Dave's career were brought to the surface again; and, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... villagers, for whom the yard is a thoroughfare, step from tomb to tomb; in the time of the Brontes the village women dried their linen on these graves. Close to the wall which divides the churchyard from the vicarage is a plain stone set by Charlotte Bronte to mark the grave of Tabby, the faithful servant who served the Brontes from their childhood till all but Charlotte were dead. The very ancient church-tower still "rises dark from the stony enclosure of its yard;" the church itself has been remodeled and much of its romantic interest destroyed. No interments have been made ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... Prime Ministers and such as they Grew like asparagus in May, And Dukes were three a penny: Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats, And Bishops in their shovel hats Were plentiful as tabby cats - If possible, too many. On every side Field-Marshals gleamed, Small beer were Lords-Lieutenants deemed, With Admirals the ocean teemed, All round his wide dominions; And Party Leaders you might ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... called. Where were you?" "Under the tree, by the meadow-brook Reading, and oh, it was too lovely; I never saw such a charming book." The charming book must have pleased her, truly, There's a happy light in her bright young eyes And she hugs the cat with unusual fervor, To staid old Tabby's ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... at dinner sat, Did beckon to his hussar, And bid him bring his tabby cat For charming ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... English "surprisingly well." In the next year, 1781, Raspe's absolute command of the two languages encouraged him to publish two moderately good prose-translations, one of Lessing's "Nathan the Wise," and the other of Zachariae's Mock-heroic, "Tabby in Elysium." The erratic character of the punctuation may be said, with perfect impartiality, to be the only distinguishing feature of the style of the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... mod'rate, he quits winner. He travels back to Sni-a-bar as tame as tabby cats in persooance with Enright's commands, an', once thar, old man Parks an' the rest of 'em whistles him through the marital chute a heap successful. When he shows up among us, his blushin' Peggy bride ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... her calling you a hideous cat! Doesn't that show how angry she is? People should not get angry—should they, Pussy? She will box our ears next. I really think we had better go, my darling tabby." ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... vivacious eyes that counteracted the bulk of her body, and betrayed the fact that in reality she was both vigorous and alert. When he first caught sight of her she was knitting in a low chair against the sunlight of the wall, and something at once made him see her as a great tabby cat, dozing, yet awake, heavily sleepy, and yet at the same time prepared for instantaneous action. A great mouser on the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the old tabby cat, "Go catch us some mice, and be sure that they're fat. There's one family lives in the carpenter's barn; They've made them a nest of the old lady's yarn. But the carpenter has a young cat of his own That is healthy and proud ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... understand their language, and often she did not know what they wanted her to do. However, as she was a good, kindhearted girl, she set to work to pick up the little kittens which tumbled about on the floor, she patched up quarrels, and nursed on her lap a big tabby—the oldest of the community—which had a lame paw. All these kindnesses could hardly fail to make a favourable impression on the cats, and it was even better after a while, when she had had time to grow accustomed to their strange ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... prey, Lets it go as fast, and then Has it in her power again: Now she works with three or four, Like an Indian conjuror; Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics played in the eye Of a thousand standers-by, Clapping hands with shouts and stare, What would little Tabby care For the plaudits of the crowd? Over happy to be proud, Over wealthy in the treasure Of her ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... be introduced into the world, or, probably, that the kitten had attained an age when it could protect itself, she took advantage of a dark and silent night, when cat-worrying dogs and boys were reposing, to convey it safely to Truro, where tabby and her ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... with music, a sewing bag thrown down upon a cretonned window seat, and the generous fireplace was flanked by two huge baskets, one heaped with magazines, the other a perfectly round mound of yellow fur, which suddenly took form and life as a yellow tabby cat fastened hopeful topaz eyes upon them, blinked away a brief disappointment, and then yawned ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... when they are well off. It is a complaint which afflicts cats, you may have noticed, and gets them into much trouble that their contemptuous temper might otherwise leave them free from. The silver tabby would have done better if she had remained asleep upon Miss Somebody's arm-chair, instead of squatting, still as marble, out in a damp field on a damp night, watching a rabbits' "stop"—which is vernacular for a bunnies' nursery—and thinking how nice raw, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... entered the living-room. To his great surprise it was dark and cheerless, and his blind mother sat alone in the midst of it shivering with cold. By way of warming herself, she had taken the sleek tabby cat into her lap and folded her chilled hands over pussy's warm fur. The whole scene sent a pang through the ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... with such enjoyment that you felt as if you'd like to bear a hand, too, in the work of demolition! But I never shall forget Liszt's look as he so lazily proposed to "pitch everything out of the window." It reminded me of the expression of a big tabby-cat as it sits by the fire and purrs away, blinking its eyes and seemingly half-asleep, when suddenly—!—! out it strikes with both its claws, and woe to whatever is within ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... my old tabby that I set such store by? She died along in March, and I buried her under the sugar-maple side of the barn. The maples didn't do as ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... they put on the pretty kirtle or vasquin of pure silk camlet: above that went the taffety or tabby farthingale, of white, red, tawny, grey, or of any other colour. Above this taffety petticoat they had another of cloth of tissue or brocade, embroidered with fine gold and interlaced with needlework, or as they thought good, and according to the temperature and disposition of the weather had ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... assurance, consented to propound the idea to her seven beautiful companions. It occurring to me, in the course of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and good- natured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house, and had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose face there was always more or less black-lead, I slipped into Miss Bule's hand after supper, a little note to that effect; dwelling on the ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... deal of it on myself," Mrs. Tugwell began to moan, as soon as he was gone; "for I have cockered Dan up, and there's no denying it, afore Tim, or Tryphena, or Tabby, or Debby, or even little Solomon. Because he were the first, and so like his dear father, afore he got on in the world so. Oh, it all comes of that, all the troubles comes of that, and of laying up of money, apart from your wife, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... to slip out of bed at once and investigate. I didn't. I knew a trick worth two of that. I sat up and listened. It might be a wandering tabby that had blundered into a piece of furniture; perhaps the window had creaked; it might be any one of half a hundred things. If there was an intruder in the house I felt certain that presently I would hear something more. ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... and took some geological and biological photographs, which on being developed turned out well. They had occasion to enter one of the unoccupied huts down there and found a wild cat a little more than half grown, which they caught and carried home with them. He was of the usual tabby colour and by no means fierce, quickly yielding to the coaxing treatment of his captors. He made himself quite at home in the Shack, and we looked forward to a display of his ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the farmer, gently, as he rose and went to carry the milk-pails into the pantry, calling coaxingly, as he did so, "Kitty! kitty! You had your milk? Don't you joggle, now!" For one eager tabby rose on her hind legs, in purring haste, and hit her ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Though all the day I give and take delight, Doubt not, sufficient will be left at night. 'Tis but a just and rational desire To light a taper at a neighbour's fire. There's danger too, you think, in rich array, 140 And none can long be modest that are gay. The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, The chimney keeps, and sits content within: But once grown sleek, will from her corner run, Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun: She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad To show her ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... One is a little black dog named Aristotle. We call him Tot for short. I have a little kitty named Malty, and an old cat named Tabby. They play very pretty together. I have two nice dolls. One is very handsome. My papa brought her from Paris, and I called her Rosa Bell. The ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... them, and did not play any of the tricks on her that they had played on other dairymaids who were rough and rude. And when she had done, and was going to get up from her stool, she found sitting round her a whole circle of cats, black and white, tabby and tortoise- shell, who all cried with ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... Dulcie being a practical woman, a needle in innocent sharpness, had peeped about the waggon to inspect their luggage, and had found to her horror that one of her boxes had burst its fastenings—that very box with her respected mother's watered tabby, and her one lace head on the place of honour on the top. So she and Cambridge had an earnest consultation on the accident, which resulted in their proceeding to tuck up their skirts, empty the receptacle with the greatest care ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... into all sorts of scrapes and trouble. One day they would hide poor Jenny's spectacles, and then when search was made the lost treasure would be found in some one else's desk. Or they would tie cotton reels on the four feet and tail of the old tabby cat, and launch her, with a horrid clatter, right into the middle of the room, just as I or one of the others happened to be scampering out. Or they would turn the little boys' forms upside down, and compel them with terrible threats to sit on the iron feet, and then in the middle of the ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Joshua was a farmer's son, And a pondering he sat One night when the fagots crackling burned, And purred the tabby cat. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... impartial stranger, had he been passing, would have watched her with the same uncritical delight that he might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly appeared darting along the pavement. She reached the corner just in time to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some old tabby to ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... another lump. Miss Leigh, may I ask you to reach me a very pretty book of coloured animals I saw behind you? Now, Emma, there is a tabby cat, just like you ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... said about men once (in the boarding house now) and often repeated. "They're very fond of saying women are cats," she once said. "Fools! It's men that are the cat tribe: tame cats, tabby cats, wild cats, Cheshire cats, tomcats and stray cats! Aren't they just? And look at them—tame cats are miserable creatures, tabby cats the sloppy creatures, wild cats ferocious creatures, Cheshire cats fool creatures, tomcats disgusting creatures, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... out to the limit his idea that nothing of value should fall into our hands, he had killed every cat in the village. In every house three or four of these poor little creatures lay around with their heads chopped off. Tabby cats, black cats, white cats, and little kittens, all dead. Farther on, over a well at the corner of the main square was posted a sign which read: "This well is poisoned. Do ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... remedied. A house like this can be kept in order by a very inferior cat to yourself; and after all, you are cherished here chiefly because it was Lily's wish. Peggy can easily find another kitten; and you know she has often said that white cats were not to her taste, and she should much prefer a tabby." ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... in the best humor all round. Mrs. Hopkins declared she'd see the minister in Jericho before she'd fix herself up as if she was goin' to a weddin' to go and see him again. Why, he did n't make any more of her than if she'd been a tabby-cat. She believed some of these ministers thought women's souls dried up like peas in a pod by the time they was forty year old; anyhow, they did n't seem to care any great about 'em, except while ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... coleopterae by artful devices of glass traps and scarlet wafers. Such persons will probably form their ideas of Typee's cockroaches from their own domestic opportunities of observation. That were unjust to the crew of the Julia, and would give no adequate idea of their sufferings. As a purring tabby to a roaring jaguar, so is a British black-beetle to a cock-roach of the Southern Seas. We back our assertion by a quotation from our lamented friend Captain Cringle, who in his especially graphic and attractive style thus hits off the peculiarities of this graceful insect. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... tricks on her that they had played on other dairymaids who were rough and rude. And when she had done, and was going to get up from her stool, she found sitting round her a whole circle of cats, black and white, tabby and tortoise- shell, who all cried ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... gently, as he rose and went to carry the milk-pails into the pantry, calling coaxingly, as he did so, "Kitty! kitty! You had your milk? Don't you joggle, now!" For one eager tabby rose on her hind legs, in purring haste, and hit her nose against ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... you know why the rabbits are caught in the snare Or the tabby cat's shot on the tiles? Why the tigers and lions creep out of their lair? Why an ostrich will travel for miles? Do you know why a sane man will whimper and cry And weep o'er a ribbon or glove? Why a cook will put sugar for salt in a pie? Do you know? ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... crown'd in death his father's fun'ral pile. The loss of whom, in order to supply With true-born English nobility, Six bastard dukes survive his luscious reign, The labours of Italian Castlemain, French Portsmouth, Tabby Scott, and Cambrian; Besides the num'rous bright and virgin throng, Whose female glories shade them from my song. This offspring if our age they multiply, May half the house with English peers supply: There with true English pride they ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... are so teazing! We have made up a little conversazione party of our own, and you want to spoil it by taking Mr. Trevor from us! I declare,' continued she, turning her back on the card tables and lowering her voice, 'that old Tabby is never contented but when she is at her honours and her tricks! But let her alone! She never goes away a loser! She has ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... rather hard for me?" I demanded, trying to hold myself in, but feeling the bob-cat getting the better of the purring tabby. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... fellows were," Ruth said afterwards, in some contempt. "Just a chorus! They were a lot of tabby-cats—afraid to wet their precious feet. If it hadn't been for Tom, Miss Gray would have been drowned before the eyes of that mean director and those other imitation men. Ugh! I ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... they are well off. It is a complaint which afflicts cats, you may have noticed, and gets them into much trouble that their contemptuous temper might otherwise leave them free from. The silver tabby would have done better if she had remained asleep upon Miss Somebody's arm-chair, instead of squatting, still as marble, out in a damp field on a damp night, watching a rabbits' "stop"—which is vernacular for a bunnies' nursery—and ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... they would hide poor Jenny's spectacles, and then when search was made the lost treasure would be found in some one else's desk. Or they would tie cotton reels on the four feet and tail of the old tabby cat, and launch her, with a horrid clatter, right into the middle of the room, just as I or one of the others happened to be scampering out. Or they would turn the little boys' forms upside down, and compel them with terrible threats to sit on ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... before him, and as he berried his head in his nicely brushed hat, before service began, that such a pious, proper morl, young nobleman was not to be found in the whole of the peeridge. It was a comfort to look at him. Efry old tabby and dowyger at my Lord Bobtail's turned up the wights of their i's when they spoke of him, and vowed they had never seen such a dear, daliteful, exlent young man. What a good son he must be, they said; and oh, what a good son-in-law! ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats, And Bishops in their shovel hats Were plentiful as tabby cats— In point of fact, too many. Ambassadors cropped up like hay, Prime Ministers and such as they Grew like asparagus in May, And Dukes were three a penny. On every side Field-Marshals gleamed, Small beer were Lords-Lieutenant deemed, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... house sparrows. If you really value the birds that have been reared in the house you have built you may need to get up early more than one morning when the youngsters leave the nest to protect them from the highly respectable (?) tabby that lives possibly next door if not at your own house. It often comes to a choice between cats and birds: and the cats may be disposed of in two ways—the right kind of box traps for the homeless ...
— Bird Houses Boys Can Build • Albert F. Siepert
... invariably the same, though I doubt not but it is so in their native deserts. Let it once become a fashion for sovereigns and other great men to keep and to caress them, we shall see camels as variegated as cats, which in the woods are all of the uniformly-streaked tabby—the males inclining to the brown shade—the females to blue among them;—but being bred down, become tortoise-shell, and red, and every variety of colour, which domestication alone ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... both sexes, has made the women acquainted. Fifteen years ago the Norwegian women were even more than the women of other lands votaries of the old-fashioned ideal of femininity, 'the domestic angel,' the 'gentle and refining influence' sort of thing. Now these sedentary fireside tabby-cats of Norway have been trained, they say, by the snow-shoes into lithe and audacious creatures, for whom no night is too dark or height too giddy, and who are not only saying good-bye to the traditional feminine ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... Lorna so; if I let those black-soul'd villains work their pleasure on my love; if the heart that clave to mine could find no vigour in it—then let maidens cease from men, and rest their faith in tabby-cats. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... negroes stood in mortal dread of Blue Dave, and their dismay was not without its effect upon Mrs. Kendrick and her daughter. Jenny, the house-girl, refused to sleep at the quarters; and when Aunt Tabby, the cook, started for her cabin after dark, she was accompanied by a number of little negroes bearing lightwood torches. All the stories and legends that clustered around Blue Dave's career were brought to the ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... the victory again, till that thin old half-crown was coaxed well into sight and forced flat against the knife-blade. The boy then began to manipulate the knife with extreme caution as he kept on making a soft purring noise, ah-h-h-h-ha! full of triumphant satisfaction, while a big curled-up tabby tom-cat, which had taken possession of the fellow chair to that occupied by Aleck, twitched one ear, opened one eye, and then seeing that the purring sound was only a feeble imitation, ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... fast, and then Has it in her power again: Now she works with three or four, Like an Indian conjuror; Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics played in the eye Of a thousand standers-by, Clapping hands with shouts and stare, What would little Tabby care For the plaudits of the crowd? Over happy to be proud, Over wealthy in the treasure Of her own ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... traveled a journey long enough to give him a good appetite, which made him draw near the table, where the very smell of such viands was agreeable and refreshing. The princess had a curious tabby-cat, for which she had a great kindness. This cat one of the maids of honor held in her arms, saying, "Madam, Bluet is hungry!" With that a chair was presently brought for the cat; for he was a cat of quality, and had a necklace of pearl about ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... king, as he at dinner sat, Did beckon to his hussar, And bid him bring his tabby cat For charming Nell ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... "My Tabby's caught a mouse, and father's just come back from the Centre and he's brought the cloth for a new dress for you'n me, 'n I picked holes in the bundles, an' one's blue an' one's red an' which do you s'pose is mine? And Aunt Prudence is comin' to see us next ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... charming little savage severely repent the delight she took in seeing her tabby favourite make cruel sport with a pretty sleek bead- eyed mouse, before she devoured it. Egad, my love, said I to myself, as I sat meditating the scene, I am determined to lie in wait for a fit opportunity to try how thou wilt like to be tost over my head, and be caught ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... expressions of the interplay of all the internal secretions. It used to be said by smart cats and accepted by the tabby cats, that a woman was a woman because of her ovaries alone. It is being said by some great discoverers of the day that man is a man because of his testes alone. Neither of these dogmas is true. There are individuals with ovaries who show every deviation ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... man. He was thin and pale, with light blue eyes and sleek fair hair; and as weak physically as he was strong mentally. In his neat clerical garb, with a slight stoop and meek smile, he looked a harmless, commonplace young curate of the tabby cat kind. No one could be more tactful and ingratiating than Mr Cargrim, and he was greatly admired by the old ladies and young girls of Beorminster; but the men, one and all—even his clerical brethren—disliked ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... children were wont to climb up to inspect their kittens. Here Rose was for a moment startled by a glare close to her of what looked like two fiery lamps in the darkness, but the next instant a long, low, growling sound explained it, and the tabby stripes of the cat quickly darted across her lantern's range of light. She heard a slight rustling above, and ventured to call, in a ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... some geological and biological photographs, which on being developed turned out well. They had occasion to enter one of the unoccupied huts down there and found a wild cat a little more than half grown, which they caught and carried home with them. He was of the usual tabby colour and by no means fierce, quickly yielding to the coaxing treatment of his captors. He made himself quite at home in the Shack, and we looked forward to a display of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... child, was exhibited in a magnificent shrine to public admiration. Every knee was bent, every hand strewed flowers or poured incense, and grimalkin was treated in all respects as the god of the day. But on the festival of St. John, poor tom's fate was reversed. A number of the tabby tribe were put into a wicker basket, and thrown alive into the midst of an immense fire kindled in the public square by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were sung, and processions were made by the priests and people in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... "peculiar" child hereupon got upon his fat legs, and, without either haste or hesitation, deliberately ambled out of the nursery, along the corridor, down the stairs, across the hall, through the door, and so round to the back garden and to the very identical spot where poor Tabby had been deposited! ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... that the letterpress is not unworthy of the humour and fidelity of the illustrations. The various Weasels, Rabbits, and Foxes, are brought into one little tale; the Wonderful Hare-Hunt into another; the Tea-Party of Kittens, and the Marten and Tabby, into a third; the Duel of the Dormice, and the Frogs, form two separate and ingenious anecdotes; and the story of Reynard the Fox is quaintly related in prose so far as was necessary to explain the six ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... in this cold, dark, windy, smoky, creaking, groaning, dismal old house. I shall feel like a younger man when we get into my splendid brick mansion, as, please Heaven, we shall by this time next autumn. You shall have a room on the sunny side, old Tabby, finished and furnished as best may ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with a huge black-headed pin thrust through it, clung to a bag, smiled with amiable patronage as she emerged, and at once, without reason, began to address Amedeo and the porters in fluent, incorrect, and too carefully pronounced Italian. Amedeo knew her—the Tabby who haunts Swiss and Italian hotels, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... was lighted. I had a boy's delight in noting how the draught pumped the fire into violence, shaking the stove till it puffed and roared. I was so filled, that moment, with the domestic spirit that I thought a steaming kettle on the little stove would give me a tabby-like comfort. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in procuring unique books, adopting obsolete formats which he had bound by Lortic, by Trautz-Bauzonnet or Chambolle, by the successors of Cape, in irreproachable covers of old silk, stamped cow hide, Cape goat skin, in full bindings with compartments and in mosaic designs, protected by tabby or moire watered silk, ecclesiastically ornamented with clasps and corners, and sometimes even enamelled by Gruel Engelmann with silver oxide and ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... it was time that the object of her solicitude should be introduced into the world, or, probably, that the kitten had attained an age when it could protect itself, she took advantage of a dark and silent night, when cat-worrying dogs and boys were reposing, to convey it safely to Truro, where tabby and her kitten found a ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... example of the cat, which (seeing its master come home from the hunt with a string of birds, and displaying, with much pride and satisfaction, the results of his prowess), conceived the idea that it would also be a fine thing for her to go forth and kill the canary. But to tabby's surprise, her ability was rewarded with chastisement; whereupon she pondered the question over and over: "How can it be, that what is virtue in man ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... tone was flat and hesitating. Her ever-present fear was very little comforted by prayer. But she found comfort in Mrs. Grayson. She liked to stay on in the old kitchen, watching Mrs. Grayson's household ways, making friends with the stolid tabby cat, or listening to stories of Jim as a child. Sometimes she would read parts of George's letters to this new friend. Bridget never cared to hear them; and she was more completely at ease with the farmer's wife ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have to hurry!" said Diana, emerging at last, hugging her parcel, and dragging Spot away from the pursuit of an impudent and provocative tabby cat, with a torn ear, that was spitting ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... there is no railed-in run attached he must needs be chained up. The dog that is kept on the chain becomes dirty in his habits, unhappy, and savage. His chain is often too short and is not provided with swivels to avert kinks. On a sudden alarm, or on the appearance of a trespassing tabby, he will often bound forward at the risk of dislocating his neck. The yard-dog's chain ought always to be fitted with a stop link spring to counteract the effect of the sudden jerk. The method may be employed with advantage in the garden for several dogs, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... rabbit strayed from home away; Far from woodland haunts she wandered, little rabbit gray. Our old Tabby cat, whilst sitting at the kitchen door, Thought she saw her long-lost kitten home returned ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Linnen Linings, suitable for Beaver, Beaverett, Castor and Felt Hatts, Tabby ditto, Mohair Lupings, Silk Braid ditto, flatt and round Silk Lace and Frogs for Button Lupes, plain and sash Bands, workt & plain Buttons, black Thread, Gold and Silver Chain, yellow and white Buttons, hard and light Brushes, Velures, Cards, large and small Bowstrings, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... with pictures, the floor covered with a soft carpet, where all kinds of bright-colored flowers seemed to be growing, and, in the sunniest corner, lying in an arm-chair piled with cushions, a large tabby cat. ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... more need of them to think of parting, she said, in a more contented tone than he had heard her speak in since it had been settled that he was to be married, "Eh, my lad, I'll be as still as th' ould tabby, an' ne'er want to do aught but th' offal work, as she wonna like t' do. An' then we needna part the platters an' things, as ha' stood on the shelf together sin' ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... will be as wise as myself. In the middle watch of this night, our two cats—have I told you that we brought two cats from England with us?—as was their wont, were skylarking and cutting capers on the hammock nettings and davits, when tabby the lesser, instead of jumping on something palpable, made a leap on space with the natural result, for he lighted on water and was rapidly whirled astern by the inky waters of the Tartar gulf. Poor ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... for it is to serve for the whole winter! Peggy has three new frocks, and Margaret Shippen four, but mine is the prettiest, and by tight lacing (though no tighter than theirs) I make my waist an ell smaller than either. In addition, I have a nabob of gray tabby silk trimmed with the same fur, which has such a sweet and modish air that I could cry at having to remove it but for what it would conceal. I intend to ask Peggy if 't would be citified and a la mode to keep it on for a little while after entering the box by the plea that the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... difficulty of finding such among what Leon Cladel has called tragiques histoires plebeiennes. But the happy instinct has at last come to him, and we are permitted to watch the humours of that delicious pair of sinners saved, "Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too," as a relief to the less pleasant and profitable spectacle of His Majesty Napoleon III., or of even the two poets of Croisic. All the poems in the volume (with the exception of a notable and noble protest against vivisection, in the form of a touching little true tale of ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... "possession" (as it were), those who survive, of her daily and household companions, are clear in their testimony, that never was the claim of any duty, never was the call of another for help, neglected for an instant. It had become necessary to give Tabby—now nearly eighty years of age—the assistance of a girl. Tabby relinquished any of her work with jealous reluctance, and could not bear to be reminded, though ever so delicately, that the acuteness of her senses was dulled by ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... servant at the parsonage. She remained there, as a member of the household, for thirty years; and from the length of her faithful service, and the attachment and respect which she inspired, is deserving of mention. Tabby was a thorough specimen of a Yorkshire woman of her class, in dialect, in appearance, and in character. She abounded in strong practical sense and shrewdness. Her words were far from flattery; but she would spare no deeds in the cause of those whom she ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... testimony I venture the assertion that when a boulevardier feels the need of a bath he hangs a musk bag round his neck—and then, as the saying is, the warmer the sweeter. His companion of the gentler sex apparently has the same idea of performing daily ablutions that a tabby cat has. You recall the tabby-cat system, do you not?—two swipes over the brow with the moistened paw, one forward swipe over each ear, a kind of circular rubbing effect across the face—and call it a day! Drowning must be the most frightful ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... flowered silk tabby sacque, on band days,' said Toole, who had an eye and a corner in his memory for female costume, 'a fine showy—I ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the old gentleman. 'Puss, Kit, Tit, Grimalkin, Tabby, Brindle! Whoosh!' with which last sound, uttered in a hissing manner between his teeth, the old gentleman swung his arms violently round and round, and at the same time alternately advanced on Mrs Nickleby, and retreated from her, in that species of savage dance with which boys on market-days ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the other dead, it is usually the latter that is the handsomest. Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you do not think me so ill-bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all my interest in the survivor; Oh no! I would rather seem to mistake, and to be sure it must be the tabby one that had met with this sad accident. Till this affair is a little better determined, you will excuse me if I do not ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... knees.] I must beg your ladyship e'en to have the honour to trust you but for your gown, for the sake of that last jest, flowered sattin, wrought tabby, silver upon any grounds; I shall run mad if I may not ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... had drained a champagne-glass, bottle in hand, and was priming the successor to it. He cocked his eye at Mr. Redworth's quick stare. 'Malkin!' And now we'll see whether the interior of him is grey, or black, or tabby, or tortoise-shell, or any other ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... insolent stare, were lounging at every turn, their delicate paws proving how little they were used to labour. On one side Bruin observed a gracefully-proportioned white cat, veiled, gliding demurely along, whilst a strong tabby, her nurse, purred behind, with three little kittens in her arms, mewing to their hearts' content; and on the other several huge mastiffs, stalking gravely in a row, like policemen in our London streets going to their beats, the animals to which they have been compared ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... frontispiece of the third volume of this work, is that of the Fille de chambre at our hotel, who was habited in her Sunday attire; and it displays in particular the riband head-dress—which was of black water-tabby sarsenet. But as these ribands are of different colours, and many of them gay and gorgeous, their appearance, in the open air—and where a great number of people is collected, and in constant motion—is that, as it were, of so many moving suns. In general, the Nurembergeoises ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Abner singing, as she knelt in front of the basket where the mother cat lay with her four blind kittens. "You see, Tabby," she said, "people still sing. A lot of them learned to sing in the war, and now they're home, they may as well sing as cry. Oh, Tabby, I wanted to sing, too . . . now ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... it. Now and then in his cash memorandum books we come upon such entries as, "By Cash to Mrs. Washington for Pocket Money L4." As a rule, if there were any purchases to be made, she let George do it and, if we may judge from the long list of tabby colored velvet gowns, silk hose, satin shoes, "Fashionable Summer Cloaks & Hatts," and similar articles ordered from the English agents she had no reason to complain that her husband was niggardly or a poor provider. If her "Old Man"—for she sometimes called him that—failed in ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... she seemed to fairly overreach all the innocent young flowery beauties of the spring with one rich trill of colour, like a high note of a bird above a wide chorus of others. Mistress Mary that morning wore a tabby petticoat of a crimson colour, and a crimson satin bodice shining over her arms and shoulders like the plumage of a bird, and down her back streamed her curls, shining like gold under her gauze love-hood. I knew well ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... let drowsing dogs lie, he'll stir up the tabby sleeping Tom— In fact, he is the model of a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... never dream that in anything but duckpond weather the ordinary yacht at sea is about the meanest habitation between Heaven and earth. But it was at Monte Carlo I got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last little nest-egg had been smashed. In other words, I woke up and found myself a beggar, and for a few hours I even thought I'd have to travel home on that Monte Carlo Viaticum fund which so discreetly ships away the stranded adventurer ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... making a little carpeted chamber between them. Here Allen had the farmer's armchair and a footstool, and with "Foxe's Martyrs" open at a flaming illustration on the little round table before him, appeared to be spending his Sunday as luxuriously as the big tabby cat who ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she were worried. It is no wonder that she was anxious about Sandy and Peter and Pan, for, to begin with, she had had four fine children, and the very first night they were out of their nest, the darlings, a terrible prowling animal named Tom or Tabby had ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... of the blushing cheek and the gushing eye showed that he too could handle the weapons of the enemy if he cared to trouble himself with such things. Lucian leant back and roared with indecent laughter till the tabby tom-cat who had succeeded to the poor dead beasts looked up reproachfully from his sunny corner, with a face like the reviewer's, innocent and round and whiskered. At last he turned to his parcel and drew out some half-dozen sheets of manuscript, and began ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... Miss Milray triumphed. "I always knew that she was a dreadful old tabby. I wish you were safely out of her clutches. Come and live with me, my dear, when Mrs. Lander gets tired of you. But she'll never get tired of you. You're just the kind of helpless mouse that such an old tabby would make her natural prey. But ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... supposed that was his good Friend, Sir ROGER DE COVERLY: Upon which nothing less could follow than Sir ROGER'S Approach to Salutation, with, Madam the same at your Service. She was dressed in a black Tabby Mantua and Petticoat, without Ribbons; her Linnen striped Muslin, and in the whole in an agreeable Second-Mourning; decent Dresses being often affected by the Creatures of the Town, at once consulting Cheapness and the Pretensions to Modesty. She went on with a familiar easie Air. Your ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... go to bed," said Snowdrop and Thistledown, the youngest children of Tabby, the cat, "till we have once more looked at Baby Ray? He lets us play with his blocks and ball, and laughs when we climb on the table. It is bedtime now for kitties and dogs and babies. Perhaps we shall find him asleep." And this ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... Sandoz, who seemed ubiquitous, kept on pouring fresh supplies of hot water into the teapot. From the neighbourhood, now asleep, one now only heard the miawing of an amorous tabby. They all talked at random, intoxicated by their own words, hoarse with shouting, their eyes scorched, and when at last they made up their minds to go, Sandoz took the lamp to show them a light over the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... about took tiny bits out of our cheek, and left the blood trickling down, so cleverly, that one did not feel it—till afterwards. We did feel the mosquitoes, and fought with them as well as we could, whilst Dennis O'Moore, defending his own face with a big bunch of jack-in-pulpits striped like tabby cats, ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... heroines, of villains and adventuresses, until the grateful discovery of the realistic school of fiction permitted him to believe that men and women were for the most part neither good nor bad, but tabby. Moreover, the leisurely reading of many sentences had given him some understanding of the elements of style. He perceived that some combinations of words were illogical, and that others were unlovely to the ear; and ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... "No amber-eyed tabby may laze And purr at my feet, But here in the blue summer days The seal-people meet. They bask on my ledges and romp In the swirl of the tides, Old bulls in their whiskers and pomp And sleek little brides. Yet others come visiting me Than grey seal or bird; Men come in the night from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... gliding, graceful shadows, approaching circuitously, and halting occasionally to reconnoitre—tortoiseshell, tabby, and black, all domestic cats, but all transformed for the nonce into their natural state. No longer are they the hypocritical, meek creatures who an hour ago were cadging for fish and milk. They ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... double cape, a womans gown, of printed cotton of the sort called brocade print, very remarkable, the ground dark, with large red roses, and other large and yellow flowers, with blue in some of the flowers, with many green leaves; a pair of womens stays covered with white tabby before, and dove colour'd tabby behind, with two large steel hooks and sundry other ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... this here one at school; 'see, if y' all can guess it: 'Tabby had four kittens but Stillshee ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow, Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclined, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... no longer, and instead they lay on their backs on the grass and grumbled. It was clear that the world was against them, and what is the good of fighting in the face of such opposition? Bertram began the grumbling. 'Old Tabby,' he said,—that being the way in which he spoke of Miss Tabitha, his governess,—'is a beast. She makes me learn heaps of things which nobody ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... bow, and advanced to Mrs Lambert's chair, unhappily treading as he did so on the paw of a tabby cat, who resisted the indignity by a very prolonged yell and an angry ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... drab moreen. Sir George's servant had brought her back; he was the rogue in the play; it was Lady Harriet Wentworth and footman Sturgeon over again. She had come back in a Flemish hat and a white cloth Joseph with black facings; she had come back in her night-rail; she had come back in a tabby gauze, with a lace head and lappets. Nor were there wanting other rumours, of an after-dinner Wilkes-and-Lord-Sandwich flavour, which we refrain from detailing; but which the Castle Inn, after the mode of the eighteenth century, discussed with ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Lord Dudley's at Hindley, was kept in my family as a favourite. The animal was a female, quite white, and perfectly deaf. She produced, at various times, many litters of kittens, of which, generally, some were quite white, others more or less mottled, tabby, &c. But the extraordinary circumstance is, that of the offspring produced at one and the same birth, such as, like the mother, were entirely white, were, like her, invariably deaf; while those that had the least speck of colour on their fur, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... board. 'Eaven knows what we'll live on all the same, pore wurkhus ijets as me an' Bart are, not bein' able to make you an' Miss Sylvia 'appy. Miss Sylvia Krill an' Norman both," ended Deborah with emphasis, "whatever that smooth cat with the grin and the clawses may say, drat her fur a slimy tabby—yah!" ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... the quiet face, and her curiosity was aroused. What was there in the mere mention of a laboratory that could so transform a humdrum little rector into a thing of fire? That it was the laboratory, Olive never stopped to question. She was far too sane, too used to the tame-tabby-cat propensities of youthful rectors, to imagine for a moment that the enthusiasm had come out of the chance to escape from her society. Therefore she decided that, for the present, she would keep this ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... kept his face turned toward the spot where the last savage snarl had been heard. He had a vague suspicion that perhaps the beast might try to stalk them, just as he had seen a domestic tabby do a sparrow ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... easy step and shining, rosy face, rejoicing at once in the odor of sanctity and of a good dinner. The sight of this placidly lazy and provokingly comfortable churchman had upon the man of law the same effect that the sight of a sleek tabby has upon a terrier. In two minutes Master Geoffrey has jostled against the friar and contrived to pick a quarrel with him. Hereupon followed a lively game at single-stick, in which, no doubt, Chaucer's fellow-students backed loudly the law against the church. At first the friar showed himself no ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... his or her place a beautiful fragrant pair of gloves, in Spanish leather, on the back of which was once more embroidered, in all her tabby charms, the cat's face. Therewith began a lengthy meal; and Malcolm Stewart rejoiced at finding himself seated next to the Lady Esclairmonde, but he grudged her attention to her companion, a slender, dark, thoughtful representative of the Goldsmiths' Company, to whom ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shrine, they found the picture little worth looking at, but could not forbear smiling, to see that a very plump and comfortable tabby-cat—whom we ourselves have often observed haunting the Pantheon—had established herself on the altar, in the genial sunbeam, and was fast asleep among the holy tapers. Their footsteps disturbing her, she awoke, raised herself, and sat blinking in the sun, yet with a certain dignity and self-possession, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com
|
|
|
