"Tablecloth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dressed the next morning. Having made my appearance as decent as possible, I walked across some fields to a small church. On the way home to dinner I noticed a stream which looked extremely tempting. Mrs. Riddles had spread a clean but much-darned tablecloth, and the roast pork was ready. During the meal, the rain, which had been threatening since yesterday, began to fall, but when it ceased at half-past three I borrowed a towel, and ran across the damp fields to the river and soon ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... must secure a physical object in addition to the sense-data, is that we want the same object for different people. When ten people are sitting round a dinner-table, it seems preposterous to maintain that they are not seeing the same tablecloth, the same knives and forks and spoons and glasses. But the sense-data are private to each separate person; what is immediately present to the sight of one is not immediately present to the sight of another: they all see things from slightly different points ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... respected President of the Republic, and, exhausted by his obstinate labours, took a few moments' sleep in his arm-chair in which nothing but the top of his little black head was to be seen above the green tablecloth. ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... pie-dish, a teapot, brown sugar in a basin, and, side by side a little jug of cold blue milk and a half-empty bottle of red vinegar. Close to one plate a bunch of stocks and gilly flowers reposed on the dirty tablecloth, as though dropped and forgotten by the God of Love. Their faint perfume stole through the other odours. The old butler ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... precautionary glance at the ends of his baseball fingers and then allowed them to come to rest on the tablecloth. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... was equally divided between the temperature of the oven and the adornment of the table. A snow-white sheet, one of a dozen she had found in the box, was drafted peremptorily into service, and did duty as a tablecloth. Oh, the innocent and funny makeshifts of poverty, and the goodly distance it can make a little go! Perhaps some of us, as we stand in our rich dining rooms, and gaze with pride at the silver, the gold, the cut ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... the Captain? How do you know that those footmen are not disguised bailiffs?—that yonder large-looking butler (really a skeleton) is not the pawnbroker's man? and that there are not skeleton rotis and entrees under every one of the covers? Look at their feet peeping from under the tablecloth. Mind how you stretch out your own lovely little slippers, madam, lest you knock over a rib or two. Remark the death's-head moths fluttering among the flowers. See, the pale winding-sheets gleaming in the wax-candles! I know it is an old story, and especially ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... referred to is a melancholy reproach to the housekeeping capabilities of many. To read an account of a highland breakfast, in contradistinction to this paucity of comestibles, is to make one almost pensive. The description of the snowy tablecloth, the generously loaded table, the delicious smell of the scones and honey, the marmalade, the different cakes, the fish, the bacon, and the toast, is enough to create a desire to dwell there for a very prolonged period. However, REVENONS A NOS MOUTONS; this has been adverted to, ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... To-day we began to work at the tablecloth for Father's Christmas present. Of course Inspee bagged the right side because that's easier to work at and I had to take the left side and then one has the whole caboodle on one's hand. For Mother I'm making an embroidered leather book cover, embroidered with silk and ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... now notice that the dream is the reproduction of a little scene which transpired between my wife and myself when I was secretly courting her. The caressing under cover of the tablecloth was an answer to a wooer's passionate letter. In the dream, however, my wife is ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... down her knife and fork. She looked at her husband in vague alarm, while her fingers moved restlessly about over the tablecloth. ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... the contents of two of the lunch packages were arranged on a little tablecloth at the foot of a great oak. The hungry young folks gathered around it and in a short time nothing remained of the lunch excepting the packages reserved ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... sorry that Harry was taken off her hands; for she wished to rub up her spoons, and fill her castors afresh, for the sake of the visitor who had come in. The thoughtful Jane soon came down with the keys to get out a clean tablecloth, and order a dish of cutlets, in addition to the dinner, and consult with Susan about some dessert; so that, as the little boys looked up from their play, they saw Agnes sitting alone at work upon ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... and over-modelled, still a piece of painting that one would like to possess. Mr. Hornell's celebrated "Midsummer", the detestation of aldermen, was there too. Imagine the picture cards, the ten of diamonds, and the eight of hearts shuffled rapidly upon a table covered with a Persian tablecloth. To ignore what are known as values seems to be the first principle of the Glasgow school. Hence a crude and discordant coloration without depth or richness. Hence an absence of light and the mystery of aerial perspective. But I have spoken ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... way, Chamberlain," said Aleck, "we must get a telegram off to the family in Lynn." He wrote out the address and shoved it across Sallie's red kitchen tablecloth. "And tell them not to think of coming!" adjured Aleck. "We don't want any more of a swarry here than we've got now." Chamberlain undertook to send the message; and since he had contracted to catch the criminal of the Jeanne ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... bystanders laughed heartily, and then the hounds were given their dinner according to the usage, which was this:—A number of oak and birch trees were felled, and over every two and two there was spread a tablecloth—that is, the warm skin of a deer or wild-boar; into this, as into a wooden trencher, was poured the warm blood of the wild animals, which the hounds lapped up, while forty huntsmen played a march with drums and trumpets, which was re-echoed from the neighbouring wood, to the great delight of all ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... after the mad idea had entered Tommy's head the three boys stood in a dark corner of the drive with their booty, consisting of table silver, some valuable miniatures, and a collection of gold coins, securely tied up in a gaudy gold-embroidered Indian tablecloth that Tommy had taken from the drawing-room. ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... day they loitered along country roads that led them through many scenes of summer beauty; pausing at old-fashioned inns and wayside farmhouses, or gipsying at noon in some green nook where their four-footed comrades dined off their tablecloth while they made merry over the less simple fare their last hostess had provided for them. When the scenery was uninteresting, as was sometimes the case, for Nature will not disturb her domestic arrangements for any bridal pair, one or the other read aloud, or both sang, while ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... to their camp, it was lunch time and the "gastronomic committee," as Harriet, the "walking dictionary," had dubbed the commissary department, got busy. During the meal, which they ate on a "newspaper tablecloth," picnic-style, the subject of organized self-protection ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... Hardcastle, stooping to sip. The three heads came closer together across the faded tablecloth. "There was no sign of him at seven; he ought to have been with us before six. We had done our best to make it an occasion, and it seemed that the dinner would be spoilt. So at seven young Evans, my store-keeper, went off at a gallop to meet him, and at twenty-five past he came ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... lusted after water and bathed daily: he was an unnatural brute and died ultimately of the head staggers. Children are nearly as wise as cats. It is true that they will utilize water in a variety of ways, for instance, the destruction of a tablecloth or a pinafore, and I have observed them greasing a ladder with soap, showing in the process a great knowledge of the properties of ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... there. Everybody stared. Then—"Well, poor chap, we mustn't sit staring. What a go! Did you hear what she said? By God, he looks a fool! Didn't come up to the scratch, I suppose. All the mustard on the tablecloth. The waiters laughing." ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... village there was the hoarse barking of dogs. I felt melancholy... but it was with a genuine sense of comfort that I walked into the dining-room. The shutters were closed; on a round table, covered with a tablecloth of dazzling whiteness, amid cut-glass decanters of red wine, there were eight lighted candles in silver candlesticks; a fire glowed cheerfully on the hearth, and an old and very stately-looking butler, with a huge bald head, wearing an English dress, stood before another table on which was ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... we all sat down to a good dinner, embracing roast-turkey. There was a regular dining table, with clean tablecloth, dishes, knives, forks, spoons, etc., etc. I had seen nothing of this kind in my field experience, and could not help exclaiming that I thought "they were starving," etc.; but Burnside explained that Longstreet had at ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... She come ober dis mawnin' ter help, so many folks here. Wait till I git a basket ob dese yer ole pink rose-water roses. See how I snip 'em short? Know what I'm gwineter do wid 'em? Sprinkle 'em all ober de tablecloth. I lay dey ain't nobody done dat for my mist'ess since I been gone. But, Major,"—here Chad laid down the basket on the garden walk and looked at me with a serious air,—"I done got dat coal lan' business down to a fine ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of Ary Scheffer's of an old knight, whose son had fled from the battle, cutting the tablecloth in two between himself and the unhappy youth. Like that stern baron's countenance was that with which my mother sat at the head of the dinner-table, and we conversed by jerks about whatever we least cared for, as if we could ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who could say, but all at once there was a sudden start, and Uncle Paul's hand came down with a thump upon the tablecloth after he had knocked over one of the candlesticks, making so much noise that, wide awake now, Rodd made a dash and stood the candlestick up again, before snatching the candle from where it lay singeing the lavender ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... being of the artistic temperament for otherwise he wouldn't have been so sympathetic nor would he have minded, as he so passionately did mind, his Uncle Charles's teapot dribbling on to the tablecloth—was sometimes swept by brief but tempestuous revulsions of feeling, and though he loved the Twinklers he did at this moment describe them mentally and without knowing it in the very words of Uncle Arthur, as those accursed twins. It was quite unjust, he ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... I tell from what vile hole he had been coming? Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer. — I shan't sleep with him. I'll try the bench here. just as you please; i'm sorry i cant spare ye a tablecloth for a mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here —feeling of the knots and notches. But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've .. got a carpenter's plane there in the bar —wait, I say, and I'll make ye snug enough. So saying he procured ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... With no tablecloth, one could scarcely look for napkins, but a towel hung handy, upon which one might wipe his fingers after handling a bone. The dishes were far from plentiful and mostly of a sort to stand rough usage. Coffee and milk were drunk from bowls with narrow bottoms ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... and damnation! Well, what am I? that is, what do they think I am?—a most sober, abstemious, patient, mild-hearted, virtuous, gentlemanly philosopher, the picture of good works, the treasure-house of righteous thought. Cards are shuffled under the tablecloth, glasses are thrust into the cupboard, if I enter the room. I take neither spirit, wine, nor malt liquors. I dress in black, and smile like a saint or martyr. Every lady says, 'What a good young gentleman is the Postlethwaites' tutor.' This is fact, as I am a living soul, and ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... a little scream as she saw her, and felt such a "turn" that she dropped the large gravy-spoon into the dish, with the most serious results to the tablecloth. For Kezia had not betrayed the reason of Maggie's refusal to come down, not liking to give her mistress a shock in the moment of carving, and Mrs. Tulliver thought there was nothing worse in question than a fit of perverseness, which was inflicting its ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Mr. Oakham thoughtfully tapping his nose with his gold-rimmed eye-glasses as he stared at the black pocket-book on the white tablecloth. "Speaking personally, it is proof of what I have thought all along, that a Penreath of Twelvetrees would not commit a robbery. Therefore, on that line of reasoning, one could argue that as Penreath did not commit the robbery, and the Crown hold that ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... Mrs. Ralston said, "Now, I'm going to spread that tablecloth carelessly over the table. We will be going before daylight, probably, and in the hurry of getting off I hope that Mr. and Mrs. Joseph will not notice the difference till ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... boy. Put the crow down and the griddle on, Nancy," said Grannie. "We'll have cakes. Cakes? Coorse I said cakes. Get me the cloth and I'll lay it myself. The cloth, I'm saying, woman. Did you never hear of a tablecloth? Where is it? Aw, dear knows where it is now! It's in the parlour; no, it's in the chest on the landing; no, it's under the sheets of my own ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... all, the voice of Peter was the most insistent. Leaping from a wreck of plates and glasses, his clothing splashed with claret, with coffee, with salad dressing, with the tablecloth wound like a kilt about his legs, he jumped at Roddy and Roddy retreated before him. Raging, and in the name of profane places, Peter demanded ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... needin' help from any one; but getting married is awful. Ma saved the lilacs she had when she was married, and put them in a gem-jar, and I've often heard her tell what a comfort they were to her when she came home all tired and couldn't get the stains out of some one's tablecloth. She had a piece of the cake, too, sealed up in a vaseline jar, and the very maddest I ever saw Ma was when she found Danny eatin' it—he et her clove apple the same day, and we couldn't do a thing to him because ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... standing—one would think we had had a sewing circle here—there, go back to your places,—that looks a little better; now these curtains must come down, and I may as well shut the shutters too—and now this tablecloth must be content to hang straight, and mamma's box and the books must lie in their places and not all helter-skelter. Now, I wish mamma would wake up; I should think she might. I don't believe she is asleep, she don't ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... said one of the Scots Guards officers. The colonel of the battalion came to dinner at our mess, sitting down to a white tablecloth for the last time in his life. They played a game of cards, and went ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... he became a whimpering, pitiable thing. His chin trembled, the big hands he laid on the tablecloth ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... sense, like you, desert one camp only to join the other; if they cannot keep to the happy medium between two forms of extravagance, we shall always be exposed to the satire of the sophists, who deny all progress, who compare the genius of man to this tablecloth, which, being too short to cover the whole of Signor Giardini's table, decks one end at the expense of ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact, answered the same purpose as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... kidding us, are you?" etc., etc! By way of information permit me to here observe that these boys had been sleeping in fields then for two weeks. They had not seen the inside of an honest-to-goodness home, nor sat at a dining-table with real tablecloth, napkins or plates, since they landed in France. Neither had they heard a piano, nor been the guest of any lady, young or old—well—since they left Camp Merritt. Their over-flowing cup of joy, at this alluring prospect, ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... contrasted the red-and-green ingrain carpet of the sitting room with the worn and ugly rag carpet of her mother's house; as she set the table she reflected that no other house of that community boasted a dining room, and certainly no other young wife could say she had napkins and a white tablecloth every day in the week; and there was yet a larger item than these for which the girl was thankful: no girl she had ever known had married so cultured a man. Elizabeth looked across the table as she served the pie at dinner and in spite of every snub was humbly ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... smiling. What happened then happened in an instant Lord Dunseverick struck the German full on the mouth with his fist Von Edelstein's head went back. His hands clutched convulsively at the tablecloth. Before he had recovered, Lord Dunseverick hit him again, beat him down on the cabin sofa, and struck blow after blow at ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... going into the kitchen one day, found Helene eating her soup at one end of the table, while Francoise dealt with hers at the other extreme. He told Helene that in future she was to serve the repast in common, on a tablecloth, and that it was to include dessert from his table. This order seemed to vex Helene extremely. "That girl seems to live without eating,'' she said, "and she never seems ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... alone in the kitchen, where the board had been cleared of all but the tablecloth and his own knife and fork. They cried out together upon his dilatoriness; but while his wife turned to fetch his dinner from the oven, Nuncey took a step forward, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... windows there was a sideboard with a marble top, and, above it, a looking-glass in a gilt frame. The semicircular couch round the stern had cushions of crimson plush. The table was covered with a black Indian tablecloth embroidered in vivid colours. Between the beams of the poop-deck were fitted racks for muskets, the barrels of which glinted in the light. There were twenty-four of them between the four beams. As many sword-bayonets of an old pattern encircled ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... "if you don't control this reptile that you have married, if you don't force him to hold his peace, if you allow him to read one word, I'll throw the bread-knife at him and ... and pour my coffee all over the tablecloth." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... in that box in the hall, Colonel Jinks?" he asked in an embarrassed voice at supper, as he fingered the edge of the tablecloth and ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... apple tart with cream. With elation, then, and eke with a mind at rest, she added her shrill protests of delight to Darden's more moderate assurances, and, leaving Audrey to set chairs in the shade of a great apple-tree, hurried into the house to unearth her damask tablecloth and silver spoons, and to plan for the morrow a visit to the Widow Constance, and a casual remark that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had dined with the minister the day before. Audrey, her task done, went after ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... been impossible to deny that Lord Marshmoreton showed emotion. His mouth opened, and he clutched the tablecloth. But just what the emotion was George was unable to say till, with a sigh that seemed to come from his innermost being, ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and that to perfection. It was no good troubling Zoe, who had vanished—a corner of the table would do quite well. And they pushed back the tablecloth over the dirty plates. But as Mme Maloir was herself going to take the cards out of a drawer in the sideboard, Nana remarked that before she sat down to her game it would be very nice of her if she would write her a letter. It ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... Alexandra persisted eagerly. "But Fanny never had to answer the door, and Grandma used to let her leave the tablecloth on between meals—Grandma told me so herself!—and no fussing with doilies, or service plates under the soup plates, or glass saucers for dessert. And Grandma herself used to help wipe dishes, or sometimes set the table, and make the beds, if there ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... such an unusual event and in watching the results. "Yes, Heidi did it," she explained, "but quite by accident; she must on no account be punished; she jumped up in such violent haste to get away that she dragged the tablecloth along with her, and so everything went over. There were a number of vehicles passing, that is why she rushed off like that; perhaps she has never seen ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... accuracy which delighted the old scholar. Sometimes, of an evening, he would keep her with him long after school hours, and one winter he took it into his head that she must learn to dance. He tied an inky tablecloth to her shoulders to serve as a sweeping garment. It was infinitely droll to see the two, mincing, bowing, and pirouetting in front of the mirror. 'You must see yourself curtsey,' he said, 'if you would learn the real movement.' He taught her the gavotte, the pavane, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... their coffers. They prefer to invest in merchandise, which pays eight or ten per cent, to investing in vines or corn which will return but three. The peasant is not so foolish. From the moment he owns a piece of ground the size of a handkerchief, he wants to make it as large as a tablecloth. He is slow as the oxen he ploughs with, but as patient, as tenacious, and as obstinate. He goes directly to his object, pressing firmly against the yoke; and nothing can stop or turn him aside. He knows ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... Tabs suggested. The next minute he felt Terry's warm little hand clinging to his own beneath the tablecloth. ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... only one noticeable change in the appearance of the bedroom since he had last seen it. The dressing-table was drawn near to the fire, and on it were a cup and saucer, a few plates, some knives, forks, and spoons, and a folded tablecloth. A kettle and a saucepan stood on the fender. Her bread and butter Mrs. Mutimer kept in a drawer. All the appointments of the chamber were as clean and orderly ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... her hand the tablecloth she had just folded. Her eyes were downcast, and the glint of sunshine had leapt ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... table it protects the table underneath; being white, like the cloth itself, it does not spoil the looks of the table. When soiled the oilcloth is slipped out and wiped off with a damp cloth, and the linen case goes with the tablecloth and napkin. Several of these cases will be needed, for the ordinary enterprising baby, but one piece of oilcloth will be sufficient for ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Aubrey could feel himself drowned in her steady, honest gaze. He was tortured by the bliss of being so near her, and alone. The rest of the world seemed to shred away and leave them standing in that little island of light where the tablecloth ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... devoured it, which was to all appearance his method of studying. 'He knows how to read better than any one (said Mrs. Knowles;) he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears out the heart of it.' He kept it wrapt up in the tablecloth in his lap during the time of dinner, from an avidity to have one entertainment in readiness when he should have finished another; resembling (if I may use so coarse a simile) a dog who holds a bone in his paws in reserve, while he eats something else which has been ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... moment the constraint was painful. Meryl had grown as white as the tablecloth, and Mr. Pym looked thoroughly worried. Diana, however, had quickly recovered herself, and was now the most composed of any. She gave a little sniff and glanced defiantly at van Hert. His eyes roved round the table and finally fixed themselves ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... 6 ounces finely cut citron with 1/2 pound finely chopped almonds and add 1 cup of sugar, the juice of 3 lemons and the grated rind of 1; let this stand for 1 hour; prepare a strudel paste as directed, pull it out on a table over floured board or tablecloth, brush over with butter, put on the lemon mixture and roll it up; lay the strudel in a buttered pan, twist it around, brush over with water and sprinkle as much sugar over till it lays dry on top; then bake. This strudel is eaten cold and ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... Garnache's long chin sank on to his breast, and he stood there, his eyes upon the tablecloth, his thoughts with the poor innocent child who waited at Condillac, so full of trust and faith and loyalty to this betrothed of hers who had come home with ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... on pieces of old tablecloth. Wesley led Billy to the cistern, pumped cold water into the tub, poured in a kettle of hot, and beginning at the head scoured him. The boy shut his little teeth, and said never a word though he twisted occasionally when the soap struck a raw spot. Margaret watched the process from the window ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... was congealed into a solid substance by the wind, that it might serve as a table for the heaven-descending gold. [100] But, that no insects or vermin might settle on the manna, the frozen dew formed not only a tablecloth, but also a cover for the manna, so that it lay enclosed there as in a casket, protected from soiling ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... is this," continued Thurston. "He sits with his back to the door. I'll pop in first and throw this tablecloth over his head; then, while I hold him down, you chaps upset the things and put out the light. Then we'll rush out all together, and he won't know for certain ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... at last, he proceeded mechanically to arrange his belongings in the room, formerly inhabited by his cousin de Buxieres. He had hardly finished when Zelie made her appearance with some plates and a tablecloth, and began to lay the covers. Seeing the fire had gone out, the little servant uttered an ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... his dinner. The butlers and lackeys wanted to keep them out, but the merry monarch gave orders to let them in at once. He made the owl perch over the mantel piece, but told Puck to stand upon the dinner table and walk over the tablecloth. The pepper box was put away, so that he should not sneeze and the King carefully removed the mustard pot, for fear the little fairy fellow might fall in it and be ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... she exclaimed. "John 's be'n in the house an hour, and ain't had nothin' to eat yet! Go in the kitchen an' spread a clean tablecloth, an' git out that 'tater pone, an' a pitcher o' that las' kag o' persimmon beer, an' let John take a ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... an exclamation of delight as he entered the dining-room. "A white tablecloth in the Bad Lands! Joe, did you ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... to have. Now are you satisfied? Mr. Steventon, come and lend a hand (as you say at sea) with the hamper—Clara won't help me. William, don't stand there doing nothing. This hamper holds a great deal; we must have a division of labor. Your division shall be laying the tablecloth. Don't handle it in that clumsy way! You unfold a table-cloth as if you were unfurling a sail. Put the knives on the right, and the forks on the left, and the napkin and the bread between them. Clara, if you are not hungry in this fine air, you ought to be. Come ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... after luncheon I poured myself out a glass of kvass, and then dropped the decanter, and so stained the tablecloth. ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... "lately Susan seemed to be getting sort o' crazy-headed;" that she seemed not to have any "faculty" for any thing; that she had made gingerbread twice, and forgot the ginger one time, and put in mustard the other; that she shook the saltcellar out in the tablecloth, and let the cat into the pantry half a dozen times; and that when scolded for these sins of omission or commission, she had a fit of crying, and did a little worse than before. Silence was of opinion that Susan was getting to be "weakly and naarvy," and actually concocted ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... knife in your pocket, which a century ago was the case in most of the French hostelries. In the remotely rural districts the ways of life have changed very slightly in a hundred years. But, if the knife was overlooked, the white napkin and small tablecloth were remembered. While talking with the aubergiste over the coffee—there was really some coffee here that was not made either from acorns or beans—he told me, as an example of the low rate of wages in the district, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... was a single, long room with a low ceiling occupied by two large tables on which loaves of bread, large chunks of Brie cheese and bottles of wine were set out. They ate informally, without a tablecloth. Near the stove at the back the undertaker's helpers ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... and absurd, but most of them are made for practical purposes. Ignore them and you'll discover yourself in difficulty. Leave your spoon in your cup and your arm will unexpectedly hit it sometime, and over will go everything on to the tablecloth. If I had not ignored certain conventions I wouldn't be crying over spilled ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... behaving with a quiet propriety which most children might imitate with advantage. At the first stroke of the bell she would appear, and when I came into the dining room she would be at her post, upright in her chair, her fore paws on the edge of the tablecloth, and she would present her smooth forehead to be kissed, like a well-bred little girl who was affectionately polite to relatives and old people. When we had friends to dine with us, Eponine always knew that company was expected. She would look at her place, and if ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... riders on the world. The great St. Columba himself, the builder of many of the old ruins in the valley, climbed the mountains on one notable day to get near heaven with his prayers. Rosses is a little sea-dividing, sandy plain, covered with short grass, like a green tablecloth, and lying in the foam midway between the round cairn-headed Knocknarea and "Ben ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... in her eyes seemed to promise a greater meed than all the gold in the Mono claim. He was aware of a movement of her hand in her lap next to his. Under the screen of the tablecloth he thrust his own hand across and met a firm grip of woman's fingers that sent another wave of warmth ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... of Verinder with one confidential glance of her incredibly deep eyes of velvet. "Of course he's cheeky. How could he be India's cousin and not be that?" she asked with a rippling little laugh. "Come and help me spread the tablecloth, Mr. Verinder." ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... my mind to you and your type of politics it is not wholly and solely through that trick of abstraction by which in moments of sorrow a man finds himself staring at a blot on the tablecloth or an insect on the ground. I do, of course, realise, with that sort of dull clarity, that you are in practise a blot on the English landscape, and that the political men who made you are the creeping things of the earth. But I am, in all sincerity, less ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the language as fluently as she, understood it very well and eavesdropped at every possible opportunity in order, they said, to improve their accents. "She's a tree. A plant. And plants are just vegetables." She stabbed her needle energetically through the tablecloth she ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... little awkward, for there happened to be a clean white tablecloth! as this was only Monday, it had had no time to get dirty—untidy as the Cook was. And you know Brownie lived in a coal cellar, and his feet were black with running about in coal dust. So wherever he trod, he left the impression ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... overcast and louring, with great rags of dirty grey scud flying athwart the face of the heavens from the westward, while the top of Mount Sampson was completely enveloped in mist, which, notwithstanding the gale, clung to the rugged peak and ribs of the mountain very much as the "tablecloth" does to the summit of Table Mountain. There was no fog down where we were, but, what was even worse, we were smothered with blinding and suffocating clouds of dust, for it was a dry gale, and all hands were devoutly praying that the louring sky would dissolve into rain, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... sun'll get round so as to shine on the table? I see it's creeping this way pretty fast, and they're all so scattered over the woods there's no telling when we will get every one here to eat. I see another tablecloth in your basket, Mrs. Ballard. If you'll be good enough to just hold that corner, we can cover everything up good, so, and then I'll walk about a bit and call them all together." And the kindly lady stepped briskly ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... last few moments Gagniere had been absorbed in contemplating his glass, the wine in which cast a ruddy reflection on the white tablecloth. He started: ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... who entertained him in the French language in a dark parlour smelling of onions. And oh! issuing from the adjoining dining-room (where was a dingy vision of a feast and pewter pots upon a darkling tablecloth), could that lean, scraggy, old, beetle-browed yellow face, who cried, "Ou es tu donc, maman?" with such a shrill nasal voice—could that elderly vixen be that blooming and divine Saltarelli? Clive drew her picture as she was, and a likeness of Madame Rogomme, her mamma; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not waste time on directions regarding the laying of the tablecloth. Only remember that it must form a true line through the center of the table (your "silence cloth" had best be of table padding, a doubled cotton flannel or asbestos) and not hang below the table less than nine inches. The usual arrangement ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown
... her on the inspection with Bagshaw. The more he thought of it the worse it rankled. She knew he was at home to be with her and she had deliberately walked off and left him.... "Well, how was the Garden Home looking?" No. Not much. He couldn't. He visualised the impossible seven written on the tablecloth. He saw them in script; he saw them in print; he imagined them written by a finger on the ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... noise as to arouse the sleeper in the room above. The old man rose, and went down into the kitchen, where he found the two prisoners preparing to search for whatever property they might carry away. Instantly they fell upon their victim, threw him on to the floor, and with a tablecloth, which they found in the room, and which they cut into strips for the purpose, bound the poor old man hand and foot, and struck him so violently about the head that he was killed on the spot, where ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... of his heavy gold watch and chain, and rolling out gold and silver from his pockets, and pulling one or two handsome rings from his fingers, and laying them all upon the tablecloth before him with an ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... was an easy landing on the hard sand, and a comfortable carry to a level opening in the willows, where we have a model camp with a great round sycamore block for a table; an Evansville newspaper does duty as a tablecloth, and two logs rolled alongside make seats. Four miles below, the smoke of Shawneetown (848 miles) rises lazily above the dark level line of woods; while across the river, in Kentucky, there is an unbroken forest fringe, without sign of life as far as the eye can reach. ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... tablecloth," she said crossly; "and hang up your bonnet in the entry, where it belongs," taking it from me as she gave the order, and going out to hang ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... May, one morning in May—she had long ago lost count of her days—when Sheila stepped across her sill and saw the ground. Just a patch it was, no bigger than a tablecloth, but it made her catch her breath. She knelt down and ran her hands across it, sifted some gravel through her fingers. How strange and various and colorful were the atoms of stone, rare as jewels to her eyes so long used to the white and violet ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... after a pause of some minutes, during which he seemed to be groping for words in the salt-cellar, having deliberately turned out its contents upon the tablecloth. "We were hungry after our long walk, and he gave ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... the sitting-room. The Indian rugs have come in most usefully; one does as a tablecloth, and the other as a cover for boxes, making a table in the part of the sitting-room we have screened off. They give such a cheerful look to the room. Two or three of the young girls come in every evening of their own accord to help Ellen to wash up. The boys often help in the garden. Ned and little ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... animal, stag, or hart, or hind, I forget which. But I shall never forget how spacious and how eminently comfortable it looked as we drew near.... A rattle of many dishes came to our ears; we sighted a great field of tablecloth; the kitchen glowed like a forge and smelt like a garden of ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... in a sea of conjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, without being offensive, to remark that, upon the whole, this inquiry must have been pretty trying to him. He darted his arm across the tablecloth, and clutching my hand by the side of my plate, glared fixedly. I was startled. "It must be awfully hard," I stammered, confused by this display of speechless feeling. "It is—hell," he burst out ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... come here either for money, for adventure, or to make a career." She marked each on the tablecloth with the end of ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... Ellen, don't worry. You don't know where I put the best tablecloth after the mending—and there's nothing but cod-roes, and you know well that in cooking your mother beats you. Run away, dear—you'll make ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... there in the front room a-pantin' an' a-gaspin', an' a wond'rin' whether it wuz true. As he wuz thinkin', up comes the girl to git a clean tablecloth out of the clothespress, an' she left the door ajar as she come in. Bill he gave a sniff, an' his eyes grew more natural like; he gathered together all the strength he had, an' he raised himself up on one ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... the image of a medicated bandage but not so tasty as one. And then I paid the check, which was of august proportions, and we came sadly away, realizing that another happy dream of youth had been shattered to bits. Only the tablecloth had been as advertised. It was coarse, but white like snow—like snow three days old ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... so the front door was bolted, and the grass grew up to it. One by one, as Hyacinth's education required, the Latin and Greek books were removed from the forsaken study, and took their places among the diminishing array of plates and cups on the kitchen dresser. The spreading and removal of a tablecloth for every meal came to be regarded as foolish toil. When room was required on the table for plates, the books and papers were swept on one side. A pile of potatoes, and the pan, with bacon or a fish perhaps still frizzling in it, was set in the ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... found Fausta, just awake, as she declared, from a comfortable night, reading her morning lesson in the Bible, and sure, she said, that I should soon appear. Nor ghost, nor wraith, had visited her. I spread for her a brown paper tablecloth on the table in the vestibule. I laid out her breakfast for her, called her, and wondered at her toilet. How is it that women always make themselves appear as neat and finished as if there were no conflict, dust, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... to clear off the table," complained Sister, drawing pictures on the tablecloth with a fork, a practice which Molly had ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... done, youngster," said the lieutenant; "it has been a barren search, but I shall give up for to-day. Maybe I shall look you up again. Meantime I hope you'll keep your ears open, and if you can pick up anything worth having hoist a white tablecloth or sheet on your boat's mast on the top of the cliff, if it's by day, and if it's night, burn one of the blue lights I'll leave with you. Neither of these things will be fighting against your neighbours the smugglers, but only helping us to find our midshipman and ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... not look at Rhoda as she spoke, but kept fingering the tablecloth nervously, with her eyes cast down. For a few seconds Rhoda was silent. Then her voice was very cheerful. "Why, you will be quite close to Ned, Aunt Mary. And the country air will be so good for the boys. I think it is ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... covered with a pure white counterpane. At the foot of the bedstead was a large heavy chest, which served as bureau, sofa and dressing case. In the center of the room stood a big walnut table, on the top of which rested a nest of wooden trays, flanked, on one side, by a nicely folded tablecloth, and on the other by a butcher knife and a Bible. In a corner was a cupboard consisting of a set of shelves set into the logs, and on these shelves were the blue-edged plates and yellow-figured teacups and blue teapot that Mrs. Ware had received long ago from her mother. The furniture in the remainder ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... presence—one never thought of Chinese servants as men—seemed ever to have disturbed with a recurring, habitual foot its almost cloistral quietude. Now with memories of his own home fresh in his mind, dinner in the kitchen, the soiled tablecloth, the sizzling pans on the stove, he felt he had no place there and was an impostor. Their greeting increased his discomfort. They were so kind, so hospitable, making him come into the dining room and take a cup of coffee. It was an uprush of that angry loyalty, that determination ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... linen of the tablecloth with genuine discomfort. "You two can go. I'll help you get ready," she ventured at last. "I'm sorry, but I promised Mr. Sidwell last night I'd visit the art gallery with him this afternoon. He says they've some new canvases hung lately, one of them by a particular friend ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... instant McTeague was stupefied, his eyes bulging. Then an enormous laugh shook him. He roared and shouted, swaying in his chair, slapping his knee. What a josher was this Marcus! Sure, you never could tell what he would do next. Marcus slipped the ball out, wiped it on the tablecloth, and passed ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... to hate you once!" said Esther; "one can hardly understand it now. Do you remember how on Sunday afternoons you would insist on playing at church, and how, with a tablecloth for a surplice, you used to be the minister? How you used to storm if we poor things missed any of ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... stretch of tablecloth, and the deadly missiles glanced against the glass bottles and rattled among the pencils and penholders. Two men fell without a cry, and lay motionless with their ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... sense of discrimination: she would show a traveling hawker into the drawing-room, and leave the clergyman standing on the doorstep, took the best serviettes to wipe the china, scoured the silver with Monkey Brand Soap, and systematically bespattered the kitchen tablecloth with ink. Her love of music was a terrible trial to the medical student of the family on Saturday morning, when he was endeavoring to read ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Arcadian atmosphere to these surroundings. In the houses which we enter there are found neither chairs, tables, nor bedsteads; the people sit, eat, and sleep upon the floors, which are as clean as a newly laid tablecloth. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... continued the vrouw in a business-like tone; 'I only want the tablecloth so that I ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... almonds are placed on the table in small dishes. Sometimes the guests are asked to help themselves, but at formal dinners they are passed around after the fish. Celery is eaten with the fingers and dipped in a little salt placed on the tablecloth or on the edge of your plate. It is also served as an entree raw, the stalks stuffed with Parmesan cheese. It should then be eaten ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... talk to-night when he wanted him to? . . . on other nights he was ready enough to chatter. And such dull nonsense too! And Willems, trying hard to repress his own senseless rage, looked fixedly through the thick tobacco-smoke at the stained tablecloth. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... houses, their furniture, their weapons, and their dress. Even in the passage of the old fabliau of the "King and the Hermit" the latter, instead of admitting us to a cottage interior, has a servant to wait on him, brings out a tablecloth, lights two candles, and lays before his disguised guest venison and wine. In most of our own romances, and in the epics of antiquity, we have to be satisfied with vague and splendid generalisations. We do not learn much of the dishes which ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... with Admiral Wemyss. Such a lunch as a lost voyager may dream of in the desert. Like roses blooming in a snowdrift, so puffs and pies and kickshaws of all rarest sorts appeared upon a dazzling white tablecloth, and then—disappeared. We too had to disappear and sail back to Mudros West again. Horses were waiting and I rode to No. 18 Stationary Hospital and made a thorough overhaul of it from end to end; then tea with the Officers of No. 1. In No. 3 Australian General ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... the tablecloth was a little the worse for wear, and reflecting for a moment, concluded that 'people' in step-mother language probably meant himself. On lifting his eyes he found that Mrs. Day had vanished again upstairs, ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... was what passed: I took advantage of the intoxicated condition of Asanov, who had carelessly dropped the letters on the champagne-stained tablecloth (my own head was dizzy enough too), and hurriedly ran my eyes ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... know. The rest's all piffle after that. It was like coming out of fog and darkness into a split in the open heavens, my statue was so transfigured; and I'll bet if you'd been there you'd have clapped your hands, as I did, and chucked the tablecloth over the Benlian on the floor till they should come to cart that empty shell away, and patted the statue's foot and cried: "Is ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... the little sitting-room. It was furnished with a carpet of bright green thrown over a foundation of linoleum, a suite of stamped magenta plush, an overmantel, gilt cornices over the windows, a piano, a table covered with a gaudy tablecloth. On the walls were hung some oleographs. The lighting of the room was of gas with incandescent mantles. There had been, apparently, judging by an odour which still remained, a great deal of beer consumed in the apartment at ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Was it for old man Slauson y'u dug up all them togs, Slim? He'll ce'tainly admire to see y'u in that silk tablecloth y'u got ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... or two after that Hazel came into the kitchen and found Bill piling towels, napkins, and a great quantity of other soiled articles on an outspread tablecloth. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... instruction, but he and I were told with very surprising promptitude that we should, without loss of time, give a breakfast to the Balliol Eight. We did so, and never before had I seen on any one matutinal tablecloth provisions which weighed so much, or disappeared ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... swallow the food on his plate, but the muscles of his throat refused to act. He gulped down something to drink and lit a cigarette. He was trembling in every part. He did not speak. He waited for her to move, but she sat in silence, staring at the white tablecloth. If they had been alone he would have flung his arms round her and kissed her passionately; he fancied the throwing back of her long white throat as he pressed upon her mouth with his lips. They passed an hour without speaking, and at last Philip thought the waiter began to stare at them ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... case the fire shovel doesn't burn a hole in the tablecloth and let the sugar run out and catch cold, I'll tell you about the piggies ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... minutes, then rub it till quite dry with another cloth. This must be done every day for several months, when you will find your mahogany acquire a permanent and beautiful lustre, unattainable by any other means, and equal to the finest French polish; and if the table is covered with the tablecloth only, the hottest dishes will make no impression upon it: and when once this polish is produced, it will only require dry rubbing with a linen cloth for about ten minutes twice in a week, to preserve it in the highest perfection; which never fails ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... "Papoose! Papoose!" We had it all put in a paper and other things added, which made Wauk almost bob off her chair in her delight at having such a feast for her little chief. But the condition of my tablecloth made me want to bob up and down for other feelings ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... and see—that the nine people opposite have all got New York Heralds in their hands. One dear little lady, whom I knew, and who sat opposite, gave a pretty blush, and popped her paper under the tablecloth. I told her I had had my whipping already in my own private room, and begged her to continue her reading. I may have undergone agonies, you see, but every man who has been bred at an English public school comes away from a private interview ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... attempted to cut the cake. But as soon as the frosting in the center broke under the pressure of the knife there leaped from the cake a tiny monkey three inches high, and he was followed by another and another, until twelve monkeys stood on the tablecloth ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... she screamed as he helped himself to the meat and gravy, leaving a little brown river on her fresh white tablecloth. "Wait until I ask a blessing; then I will help ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... repents, with equal earnestness, and accompanied by the usual conventional forms, which consist of the old gentleman looking anxiously up into the clouds, as if to see whether it rains, and then spreading an imaginary tablecloth in the air over the young lady's head—soft music playing all the while. Upon these, and other points of a similar kind, the theatrical young gentleman is a great critic indeed. He is likewise very acute in judging of natural expressions of the passions, and knows ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens |
