"Tat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heard the Lewises giving the recall signal. A good gunner gets so he can play a tune on a Lewis, and the device is frequently used for signals. This time he thumped out the old one—"All policemen have big feet." Rat-a-tat-tat—tat, tat. ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... was of the Episcopal Church, for the celebration of Christmas; for many of his persuasion, at that time, regarded "Thanksgiving" pretty much as the Highlander, in Scott's novel, did "ta little government Sunday, tat tey call ta Fast." He was a well-to-do farmer, at a place within easy reach of the town in which we lived, and where very few were at all rich, even according to the former moderate standard of wealth, and most people were poor, or at least depended on their daily ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... this shot she guessed at once that the Prince had been the cause of her annoyance in the past night; so off she ran and told it to the fairies. "If it be he," said the fairies, "we will soon give him tit for tat and as good in return. If this dog has bitten you, we will manage to get a hair from him. He has give you one, we will give him back one and a half. Only get the ogre to make you a pair of slippers covered with ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... "TAT. Oh, madam, you make my heart bound within me: I'll warrant you, madam, I'll manage them all; and indeed, madam, the men are really very silly creatures, 'tis no such hard matter—they rulers! they governors! I ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... sweeping low across the roof, with strange scrapings and bamboo mutterings. But they hardly ever broke and fell. In the evening, however, and in the night, after a terrific storm, a sharp, unexpected rat-tat-tat-tat, exactly like a machine-gun, would smash in on the silence, and two or three of the great grasses, which perhaps sheltered Dutchmen generations ago, would snap and fall. But the Indians and Bovianders who lived nearby, knew this was no wind, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... pierced by lust, wrath, etc. Asuyate is equivalent to dhikkaroti. Janah is explained by the commentator as parikshakah but it would be better to take it as standing for people generally. Tasya is an instance of the genitive for the accusative. Tat refers to nindyam karma, sarvatah means sarvashu yonishu. Janayati Janena dadati. The object of the verse is to show that sinful acts produce ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... been cut off at the wrist, and nailed against the oak as a warning to malefactors—extended itself in a kind of grim appeal to everybody. It seemed to possess strange fascinations for all seafaring folk; and when there was a man-of-war in port the rat-tat-tat of that knocker would frequently startle the quiet neighborhood long after midnight. There appeared to be an occult understanding between it and the blue-jackets. Years ago there was a young Bilkins, one Pendexter Bilkins—a ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... chance to rub it in on me that I was in a measure a dependent. As a child it would cut me to the quick; but as I got older and made my visits at Cousin George's, I would retaliate by making game of my older cousin; and no one can abide being made fun of. I tell you I gave her tit for tat and usually came out ahead. But we must stop this whispering. Your mother can't stand any criticism of her sister. Some day we can get together and say all the mean things we've a mind to about old Sarah!" Then ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... amatory weakness. There were records of baseball scores. Railroads were drawn obliquely across the pages, bending about in order not to touch the words, with a rare tunnel where some word stood out too long. Here and there were stealthy games of tit-tat-toe, practiced, doubtless, behind the teacher's back. Everything showed boredom with the play. What mattered it which casket was selected! Let Shylock take his pound of flesh! Only let him whet his knife and be quick about it! All's one. It's at best a sad ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... Norfolk-street would have half the house go together. It would be too much for your description therefore: and I suppose, tat when you think fit to declare your marriage, you will hardly be ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Age of betty tit for tat, An Age of busy gabble: An Age that's like a brewer's vat, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... tat," the philosophical Gibney reminded him. "We can't expect to get away with everything, Scraggsy, old kiddo." The words were scarcely out of his mouth before the Maggie's mainmast and about ten feet ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Green Forest he found Drummer the Woodpecker making a great racket on the hollow limb of an old chestnut. Sammy sat down near by and listened. "My, that's fine! I wish I could do that. You must be practising," said Sammy at the end of a long rat-a-tat-tat. ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... ti me catw elcet' a:.mousoi; Ouc' umn eoeponoun, tos de m' eoepistamenois Eis eoemoioe anqrwpos trismurioi oi d' aoenariqmoi Ouoedeis tat' ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... A rat-tat-tat-tat ensued, and the Earl of Harcourt was announced. When he had paid his compliments to Mrs. Cholmondeley, speaking of the lady from whose house he was just come, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet Thet follered once an' now are quiet,— White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... time. She was dying for a wedding. She had never seen one in her life. She would be a bridesmaid. She described her costume. And she had set her heart on a wedding present—the best of the bunch of Sealyham puppies. Why, certainly they were all hers. Tit and Tat, from whom the rather extensive kennels had originally sprung, were her own private property. They had been given to her when she was six years old. Tat had died. But Tit. I knew Tit? Did I not? No one could ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... 230,000 telephones; highly developed, completely automated and efficient system, mainly buried cables; nationwide mobile phone system local: NA intercity: buried cable international: 3 channels leased on TAT-6 coaxial submarine cable ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... tympanum, and the cymbals. The formula of an Attis initiate was "I have eaten from the tympanum, I have drunk from the cymbals." As I have remarked above, the food thus partaken of was a Food of Life—"Die Attis-Diener in der Tat eine magische Speise des Lebens aus ihren Kult-Geraten zu ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... for the tat of the 'Cheshire cat,'" laughed Madame Lafarge, a French-American Corinne with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... the Highlands they were so rude, As leave them neither clothes nor food, Then burnt their houses to conclude; 'T was tit for tat. How can her nainsell e'er be good, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Vavasor preferred his club to his place of business? He was not left quite alone in this deathlike dungeon. Attached to his own large room there was a small closet, in which sat the signing-clerk's clerk,—a lad of perhaps seventeen years of age, who spent the greatest part of his time playing tit-tat-to by himself upon official blotting-paper. Had I been Mr Vavasor I should have sworn a bosom friendship with that lad, have told him all my secrets, and ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... a cheery hail came from outside, with a sharp rat-tat at the window. Robert stepped out and threw open the door to admit a tall young man, whose black frieze jacket was all mottled and glistening with snow crystals. Laughing loudly he shook himself like a Newfoundland ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... knock—these things agitated me and disturbed my rest. I lay tossing on my bed, planning every detail of poor Constant's end. The hours dragged slowly and wretchedly on towards the misty dawn. I was racked with suspense. Was I to be disappointed after all? At last the welcome sound came—the rat-tat-tat of murder. The echoes of that knock are yet in my ear. 'Come over and kill him!' I put my night-capped head out of the window and told her to wait for me. I dressed hurriedly, took my razor, and went across to 11 Glover Street. As I broke open the door of the bedroom in ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... sound, and, recognizing the delicate 'rat-tat' of her husband's knock, did not answer, indifferent whether he came in or no. He entered noiselessly. If she did not let him know she was awake, he would not wake her. She lay still and watched him sit down astride of a chair, cross his arms ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... June in the year '84, he was interrupted whilst equipping himself for dinner abroad, by a thunderous rat-tat-tat. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... their bedsteads with so much violence that every one expected they would fall in pieces." For an hour together, as the worthy Mr. Mompesson repeated to his wondering neighbours, this infernal drummer "would beat 'Roundheads and Cuckolds,' the 'Tat-too,' and several other points of war, as cleverly as any soldier." When this had lasted long enough, he changed his tactics, and scratched with his iron talons under the children's bed. "On the 5th of November," says the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... I fear I made but an indifferent bad ploughboy when walking, and found a difficulty in dealing with my hands, not knowing how ploughboys are wont to carry them. So I came round in front of the house, and gave a rat-tat on the door, while my pulse beat as loud inside of me as ever did the knocker without. The sound ran round the building, and backwards among the walks, and all was silent as before. I waited a minute, and was for knocking again, thinking there might ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... a-goin' to slip somepin over on somebody. He didn't take me with him after that, but two or three times when he come into the field he'd swoop down on that there square target he made and put over in the corner and I'd hear the ratti-tat-tat of that machine gun a-goin'. I ast him what was he goin' to do with it an' he said: 'We're a-goin' out one of these nights ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... his head and says: "Ah, so I thought when I was your age." It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: "My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am yours." And yet the one is as good as the other: pass for pass, tit for tat, a Roland for ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gentle rat-tat-tat on the door. It was so gentle that Luther thought his ears were deceiving him, for while he stopped reading, he made no motion to rise, but sat listening. Again they came, three polite taps, seeming to say, "I should like to get in, but ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... of laughter. This was exactly the sort of "tit-for-tat" humor that appeals to a Yankee crowd. The motion was seconded half a dozen times. Moderator Knowles ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Certain courtiers, thinking to put Hugh in the way of obliging the king, suggested that a vacant prebend at Lincoln should be given to one of themselves. The king sent a letter to that effect, which he did with some curiosity, suggesting this tit for tat. The messengers jingled through Oxford from Woodstock and found the bishop at Dorchester touring round his weedy diocese, who addressed the expectant prebendary and his friends with these words: "Benefices are not for courtiers but for ecclesiastics. Their ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... affairs like a health-officer in a New York tenement. I know I have no right to do this without saying, "By your leave," but item-hunters the world over do likewise, so I feel little squeamishness about it. Moreover, when I come back I find the Indians are playing " tit-for-tat" against me. Not only are they curiously examining the bicycle as a whole, but they have opened the toolbag and are examining the tools, handing them around among themselves. I don't think these Piutes ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... he had written. "How could you be so hard upon the poor man?" "Perhaps the lady may think that I have been hard upon her," Sir Francis had replied. "Perhaps she will know the meaning of tit for tat. Perhaps she will understand now that one good turn deserves another. It was not that I cared so much for her," he said. "I'd got to feel that she was far too virtuous for me, too stuck up, you'll understand. I wasn't at all disappointed when she played me that trick. ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... dare say we do. Yes, 'come to think of it,' as they say in America, we do. But what shall I tell you? Practically we all know it and allow for it and it's as broad as it's long. What's London life after all? It's tit for tat!" ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... door of the pen where Dr. Pigg and his wife and Buddy and Brighteyes lived one day. "Rat-a-tat-tat," went ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... down do te boddom tere vill pe von lesh drue shentleman in de vorlt, zir. Ant tat ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... "Rat-a-tat!" came a knock on the door of the hollow stump bungalow, where Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, lived in the woods with Nurse Jane Fuzzy ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... move will be," I commented, when the avenger had gone, not too stricken in spirit. "It begins to look as though the enemy would stick at little, and we can't go on giving tit for tat." ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... story for tell dat night On poor leetle Rose Elmire, An' she say she 's sorry about de fight We 're doin' so well down here— But it 's not our fault an' we can't help dat, De law she is made for all, So our duty is wait for de rat-tat-tat Of ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond
... an' Mary, here you are at Saxon's and my wedding supper. We're just goin' to take all your good wishes to heart, we wish you the same back, and when we say it we mean more than you think we mean. Saxon an' I believe in tit for tat. So we're wishin' for the day when the table is turned clear around an' we're sittin' as guests at your weddin' supper. And then, when you come to Sunday dinner, you can both stop Saturday night in the spare bedroom. I guess I was wised up ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... interview came at last. Mrs. Ready had been absent on a visit to London; and the moment she heard of the intended emigration of the Lyndsays to Canada, she put on her bonnet and shawl, and rushed to the rescue. The loud, double rat-tat-tat at the door, announced an arrival of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... only tit for tat; but he felt bitterly how even his past rose up against him. He had fought and sacrificed everything to improve the conditions in his branch; and the machines were the discouraging answer that the development gave to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... an hour Cochrane was about to fire again. But they heard the hysterical rat-tat-tat of firing. It seemed no nearer, but it could only be ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... was to wait for the 2nd of August to come, and that was hard to do. Finally it came. That afternoon when the two-coached train rolled up to the little red station at Dobbinsville, Jake Benton stood on the depot platform. His heart beat a rat-a-tat-tat against his chest. As the train slowed up and Jake saw through its window the face of a man corresponding to the picture he had seen in his holiness paper, his emotions refused to yield to control. He jumped high in the air, and shouted at the ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... before tat day!" sharply bolted out M'Nab, "and was spoken since tat day by a bigger nation tan England ever was, or ever will be! Tak tat, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... though he did not open his mouth. The handcuffs which had chafed Martin's wrists for so many hours were still dangling from his left arm. He slipped them off, and, with no gentle hand, forced his prisoner's wrists together behind him and ironed them tightly. Tit for tat, thought Martin; and he made certain that Ichi would not wriggle his wrists through ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... honeymoon, which would have astonished as to honey all the bees of Hymettus. And in the midst of these phantasmagoria, which composed what Frank fondly styled, "making up his mind," there came a single man's elegant rat-tat-tat at the street door. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... came a traveller over the dusty highroad. He was thirsty and tired. He saw the well, and he went up to the door of the tumble-down house and knocked, rat-tat-tat! ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... echoes were startled by a loud knocking on the door: rat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, ratta, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... their enemies had lost his rifle and need not be counted. Another had fled from flames and might be ignored for some moments, anyhow. But a blast-bolt struck the ship's metal hull only feet from Calhoun, and he whipped around to the other side and let loose a staccato rat-tat-tat of fire which emptied the ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... afternoon, about our social duties, and rural leadership and community spirit and lots of things. They told us not to spend our time out of school tatting and making eyelet embroidery, when there were neighborhoods to be awakened and citizens to be made. That suits me fine, for I can't tat anyway. One of the girls tried to show me, but gave it up after three or four tries. She said some could learn, and some couldn't. It ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... At that moment Gladwin made a quick, slight signal. Immediately from the passage with out came the sound of grounding arms, and the rat-tat of a drum. Pontiac stood rigid, as one turned to stone. Then after a moment's deathly ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... bit of it! I should saunter into Tat's' like a swell, and ask them if they couldn't find me a raw colt to try my hand on for a wager. Say I had laid a hundred I would quiet down the most vicious quadruped they ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... up opposite our chambers, and a few moments later a brisk step ascending the stairs heralded a smart rat-tat at our door. Flinging open the latter, I found myself confronted by a well-dressed stranger, who, after a quick glance at me, peered inquisitively over my shoulder ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... Tit for tat is logic all the world over. By the way, what has become of the rest of the maxim: we never hear it {122} now. When I was a boy, in some parts of the country ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... the slant beams of the setting sun shot their golden arrows through the healthy purple clusters of lilacs that veiled the windows. There had been a shower that filled them with drops of rain, which every now and then tattooed, with a slender rat-tat, on the window-sill, as a breeze would shake the leaves and bear in perfume on its wings. Sweet, fragrance-laden airs tripped stirringly to and fro about the study-table, making gentle confusions, fluttering papers on moral ability, agitating treatises on the great end of creation, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Colonel had been silent also—for what could he say?—but suddenly all four started in their saddles, and Sadie gave a sharp cry of dismay. In the hush of the night there had come from behind them the petulant crack of a rifle, then another, then several together, with a brisk rat-tat-tat, and then after an ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... little wireless cabin roared with the undiminishing rat-tat-tat of his spark explosions, and Manila, a navy man of the old school, rattled back a series ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... TAT - Trans-Atlantic Telephone; any of a number of high-capacity submarine coaxial telephone cables linking Europe ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... in the columns of their valuable journal? This is the drift of the fault found with Thackeray. He is not Fenelon, he is not Dickens, he is not Scott; he is not poetical, he is not ideal, he is not humane; he is not Tit, he is not Tat, complain the eminent Dabs and Tabs. Of course he is not, because he is Thackeray—a man who describes what he sees, motives as well as appearances—a man who believes that character is better than talent—that there ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... no, that I could'nt, refuse any one who asked me so pretty as that lady did you. If she had been angry, and commanded you back, why bad begets bad, and tit for tat you know, and I should not so much have wondered: but, Miss, you should not vex her. No, don't be angry with an old man, I have seen so much of the evils of young folks taking their own way. Look here, young lady," said the weather beaten sailor, as ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... behaved like a Cretan.' Cf. the English saying 'to give tit for tat'. Erasmus means that he gave the messenger full ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus
... when on a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon toward the end of April, I sat mooning disconsolately in my private room and a timid rat-tat at the outer door of the apartment roused Theodore from his brutish slumbers. I heard him shuffling up to the door, and I hurriedly put my necktie straight and smoothed my hair, which had become disordered despite the fact that I had only indulged in ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a rough, common cumlee. All traces of his former self seemed to have disappeared. They asked him if he did not remember he had been a Rajah once, and about his journey to Panch-Phul Ranee's country. But he said, No, he remembered nothing but how to beat the drum—Rub-a-dub! tat-tat! tom-tum! tom-tum! He thought he must have ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... you've only this resource. When she names Phaedria, name you Pamphila. If she should say, "come! let's have Phaedria To dinner with us!"—"aye, and Pamphila To sing to us!"—if she praise Phaedria's person, Praise you the girl's! so give her tit for tat, And gall her in ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... said the boy, 'but they calls me "Tat" for short, because I used to hang about outside Tattersall's and run errands. I picked up most of my education there. There ain't many of 'em as can teach me anything.' He broke off short in his confidences ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... for tat. Did you not ask me why I came away? And is it usual for a young lady to say 'Mr.' to the man she means ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... insolent familiarity. I jerked my head in hurriedly, and, shutting the window, turned my attention to Little Lottie. It was not long before my tea-kettle was singing merrily. I was about to sit down to the first meal in my new abode, when an insinuating rat-tat sounded on the door. I opened it to find the ill-looking young fellow leaning languidly against the door-jamb, a cigarette between ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... sich zweifelsohne mit uns erfreuen, dass der kleine Printz (PRINZ) Fritz nuhnmero (NUNMEHR) 6 Zehne (ZAHNE) hat und ohne die geringste incommoditet (-TAT). Daraus kann man auch die PREDESTINATION sehen, dass alle seine Bruder haben daran sterben mussen, dieser aber bekommt sie ohne Muhe wie seine Schwester. Gott erhalte ihn uns noch lange zum trohst (TROST), in dessen Schutz ich ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... heart with ta one hand while you'll pe clapping her head with ta other," said the piper. "Ton't be taking her into your house to pe telling her she can't see. Is it that old Tuncan is not a man as much as any woman in ta world, tat you'll pe telling her she can't see? I tell you she can see, and more tan you'll pe think. And I will tell it to you, tere iss a pape in this house, and tere was pe none when Tuncan ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... the flats, in a huge semi-circle, lights are rising and falling. They are very brilliant, going up for a few seconds and then dying down. Sometimes a dozen are in the air at one time. There are the dull thuds of explosions and an occasional rat-tat-tat. I have seen nothing like it, but the nearest comparison would be an enormous ten-mile railway station in full swing at night, with signals winking, lamps waving, engines hissing and carriages bumping. It is a terrible place down yonder, a place which will ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of this remark was another "Pshaw!" But Mrs. Peck went on: "When you've lived opposite to people like that for a long time you feel as if you had some rights in them—tit for tat! But she didn't take it up today; she didn't speak to me. She knows who I am as well as ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... The same Indian went and pulled a quill out of a turkey wing and gave it to me. I told Coons I wanted a knife to make the pen. The same Indian got his scalping knife; he gave it two or three little whets and gave it to me. I then told Coons I wanted some ink. Coons says, "Ink—ink; what is tat? I ton't know what ink is." He had no name for ink in Indian or English. I told him to tell the Indian to get me some gunpowder and water and a spoon and I would make the ink myself. The Indian did so. I knew very well what their drift was; they wanted a proof to know whether I told them ...
— Narrative of the Captivity of William Biggs among the Kickapoo Indians in Illinois in 1788 • William Biggs
... Rat-tat-tat at the house door. Arthurine put up her finger to enjoin silence, and listened. Another loud knock. "A visit!" exclaimed she with sparkling eyes. "Ha! ladies; I hear the rustle of their gowns." And ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... very first night at my new billet, about 2 a.m., by the rat-a-tat of a kettle-drum, and two dreary notes continuously repeated by a bugle. It was the alarm for a fire at a farmhouse about half a mile from town. Our men from the hospital helped to get most of the furniture out, and were standing around ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... the whole scene resembled a "stunt on the pictures" rather than modern war. They had made a mistake, though, and if they were seeking dramatic effect it was only short lived. Our men were delighted at the perfect target they presented on the skyline, and rat-tat-tatted merrily in reply to the Hun swish. By this time also "D" company of the Machine Gun battalion had taken up a position and they also joined in the conversation. The enemy then considered the advisability ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... above one night in three, from a fever upon hot-temper: and never would act at all when Ricciarelli, the first man, was to be in dialogue with her.(623) Her fevers grow so high, that the audience caught them, and hissed her more than once: she herself once turned and hissed again—Tit pro tat geminat phoy d'achamiesmeyn—among the treaties which a secretary of state has negotiated this summer, he has contracted for a succedaneum to the Mingotti. In short, there is a woman hired to sing when the other shall be- ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... inlet at and near its head, the largest of which, Tat-lim-in, we ascended about one-eighth of of a mile to rapids, with the canoe, and three miles further on foot, finding a succession of rapids, shoals and log-jambs. Ma-min River, about sixty feet wide and filled with logs to near its mouth, empties into the south-eastern part of the inlet. ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... a fellow an intentional injury in my life. You would have been the last I should single out for it. I have had many ups and downs, Lionel, but somehow I have hitherto always managed to alight on my legs; and I believe it's because I let other folks get along—tit for tat, you see. A fellow who is for ever putting his hindering spoke in the wheel of others, is safe to get hindering spokes put into his. I am not a pattern model," comically added John Massingbird; "but I have never done wilful injury to others, and my worst enemy (if I possess ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... repeating to his terrified mistress, 'You are lying! you are lying!' When he shakes her, interrupts her while she is speaking, and says such hard things to her that at last she flies into a rage, has enough of it, becomes hard and mad, and thinks of nothing but of giving him tit for tat and of paying him out in his own coin; does not care a straw about destroying his happiness, sends everything to the devil, and talks a lot of bosh which she certainly does not believe. And then, because there is nothing so stupid and so obstinate in the whole ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... first explorers being two members of the French Alpine Club, the Cite du Diable is already bringing in a revenue. French tourists, who first came by twos and threes, may now be counted by the hundred a month during the holiday season. Alert to the unmistakable rat-tat-tat of Dame Fortune at their front-doors, the good folks are preparing for the welcome invasions to come. The auberge is being transformed into an inn, roads are improving, a regular service of guides has been ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... as that then? Oh well, there are other girls just as pretty as Arline; and you've always been a great favorite with them, Paul; but hold on, why not let me try to straighten this thing out? You've helped me all right; and tit for tat is fair play." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... I know, that on the morrow as he wended his way to the piazza, the boy would have been puzzled to say, whether of the twain, the wife or the husband, had had the most of his company during the night. But this I would say to you, dear my ladies, that whoso gives you tit, why, just give him tat; and if you cannot do it at once, why, bear it in mind until you can, that even as the ass gives, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of my mouth afore they did ring, and if they 'ad been selling muffins they couldn't ha' kept it up harder. And all the time the umberella was doing rat-a-tat tats on the gate, while a voice— much too loud for the potman's—started calling ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... to lerne frenche quickely, ye must turne the sayd conjugation iiii maners of wayes, tat is to say affirmatyve, and interrogatyve, and negatyve, and interrogatyve, as it hath ben ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous
... I like," quod Archibold, "Be ye ghaist or deevil or quhat!" "Tak tent, lord Archie, gien ye be wise— The tit winna even the tat!" ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... I grant, to betray you, Rody," said Hanlon; "an' if I was in your place, I'd give him tit for tat. An', by the way, talkin' of the Prophet—not that I say it was he betrayed you—for indeed now it wasn't—bad cess to me if it was—I think you wanst said you knew more about him than ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... their escape by the door which opened on the stairs; but, alas! it was locked on the outside, and it was evident, from the soliloquy of Mr Bristles, that their retreat was cut off through the front room. A knock—the well-known rat, tat, tat, of the owner of the mansion—now completed their perplexity; and, in a moment more, they heard the steps of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... smiled inwardly. No Dovenilid could be so obviously superior and still only a lowly student. Well, considering Harrison's qualifications, it might still not be tit for tat. ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... eight o'clock, or more, for the twilight had come down, and my books and little pictures were looking misty, when a rat-tat-tat rang at the door. I didn't hear the car, for the road was muddy, I suppose; but I straightened myself up in my arm-chair, and drew my breviary towards me. I had read my Matins and Lauds for the following day, before dinner; I always do, to keep up the old tradition amongst ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... last moved on, descending the hill. The fog that was dispersing on the hill lay still more densely below, where they were descending. In front in the fog a shot was heard and then another, at first irregularly at varying intervals—trata... tat—and then more and more regularly and rapidly, and the action at ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... slammed the kitchen door behind him when the clatter and stamp of a horse's hoofs were heard Outside, followed by an impatient rat-a-tat-tat on the knocker. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... du sage Mardoche. Tu sais combien je dois ses heureux secours. 45 La mort m'avait ravi les auteurs de mes jours; Mais lui, voyant en moi la fille de son frre, Me tint lieu, chre lise, et de pre et de mre. Du triste tat des Juifs jour et nuit agit, Il me tira du sein de mon obscurit; 50 Et sur mes faibles mains fondant leur dlivrance, Il me fit d'un empire accepter l'esprance. A ses desseins secrets tremblante j'obis. Je vins. Mais je cachai ma race et mon pays. Qui pourrait cependant t'exprimer ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... clouds and the sea quiet and peaceful. He began to take observations with the [v]sextant, which shook in his trembling hand. Presently a loud buzzing was heard in the sky, followed by the measured crackling of a machine gun; from the hull of the boat came a sharp rat-a-tat, as if some one was throwing dry peas on it. A hydroplane was ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Rat-a-tat-tat! Jack hardly comprehended what this new noise meant when it grew in volume. Then a horseman rode into ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... sir," said the woman hastily just as there was a little rat-tat at the brass knocker of the ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... was a slight rat-tat, That put their Joys to rout; Out ran the City Rat; His guest, ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... day. I met the gallant officer, who is, as all the world knows, one of the safest and best shots of the day, in Pall Mall. He had just stepped out of his Club—the luxurious and splendid Tatterdemalion, or, as it is familiarly called, "the Tat"—where, to use his own graphic language, he had been "killing the worm with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... not visit the Priory that day, but on the morrow, after lunch, I took my heavy stick and strode up the gravel path and gave a very important rat-a-tat-tat at the great oak door. The servant who answered my summons informed me, much to my disappointment, that both Mr. Johnson and his son had gone to Liverpool the previous day, the former to see the latter off. Something of importance, the servant thought, had caused him to ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... were a buck, you would not break mine, I warrant, unless it were tit for tat," said my grandfather; thereby putting me to more confusion than Dolly, who ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... it sir," said Disco. "It's lucky you have always carried the physic in your pockets, 'cause you'll need it, an' it's lucky, too, that I am here and well enough to return tit for tat and nurse you, 'cause you'll have that 'ere pain in your spine creep up your back and round your ribs till it lays hold of yer shoulders, where it'll stick as if it had made up its mind to stay there for ever an' a day. Arter that ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... two we debated on our tactics. We had no muskets, though swords were rife enough in Dalness, so a stand and a defence by weapons was out of the question. M'Iver struck on a more pleasing and cleanly plan. It was to give the MacDonalds tit for tat, and decoy them into the house as their friends had decoyed us into it, and leave them there in durance while we went on our ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Bumps had dedicated fifteen years of practice until expert proficiency had made eyes unnecessary. She tatted while she read, tatted while she taught, tatted while she watched the potatoes boiling for dinner. Some even asserted that they had seen her tat on horseback with all the diligence attributed to Bertha the beautiful queen of old Helvetia, who spun from a distaff fastened to the ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... without further delay. But in the wide waste barrens, illy clothed, with deep snow to wallow through, it seemed to me absolutely certain that such an attempt would end in exhaustion and death, so we restrained our impatience and waited. On scraps of paper we played tit-tat-toe; we improvised a checkerboard and played checkers. These pastimes broke the monotony of waiting somewhat. No matter what we talked about, our conversation always drifted to something to eat. We planned sumptuous banquets we were to have at that uncertain period "when ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... the two most famous of the twelve paladins of Charlemagne. To give a "Roland for an Oliver" is to give tit for tat, to give another as good ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... and the spots of future attack. He views the woods; and wherever a monarch tree crowns the leafy level, he finds his way, and blazes a path. Not all trees are worthy of the axe. Miles of lesser timber remain untouched. A Maine forest after a lumber-campaign is like France after a coup d'tat: the bourgeoisie are prosperous as ever, but the great men ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... assaults us, his ferocity springing from the instinct of a lower civilisation—as when a farm-dog leaps upon us in the road—our first instinct is to fall back and meet him on the ground of his own savagery, to give him an exact tit for his tat. But can you not see that, as we do this, and in proportion as we do it, we allow him to impose himself on us and relinquish our main advantage? It is idle to practise a higher moral code, if we abandon it hurriedly as soon as it is ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... anger, but his orators and temple-keepers stood speechless, having nothing but a few weak and rotten shreds of argument in reply. But the king's son rejoiced in spirit and with glad countenance magnified the Lord, who had made a path, where no path was, for them tat trusted in him, who by the mouth of a foeman and enemy was establishing the truth; and the leader of error had proved a defender of ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... very good for you to know what it feels like to be left behind," rubbed in Diana. "You never told us about that gipsy trail dodge. Tit for tat's my motto." ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... A sharp rat-a-tat-tat had reverberated through the house. While she spoke, it was repeated. Her over-strung nerves gave way. As Tabs rose, she clung to him beseechingly. "Don't let him in. I'm not ready for him. Don't let him in. Go outside and send him away. Tell him anything. But ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... under his breath, and, in a mechanical fashion, began to build little castles with the draughts. He was just about to add to an already swaying structure when a thundering rat-tat- tat at the door dispersed the draughts to the four corners of the room. The servant opened the door, and the next moment ushered in ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... of the house, and into the main yard (that turn'd churlishly toward the hillside), the wind howled like a beast in pain. I climb'd off Molly, and pressing my hat down on my head, struck a loud rat-tat ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... the Porte-Cocher at the Hotel d'Hollande had not received their morning opening, when a tremendous loud, long, protracted rat-tat-tat-tat-tan, sounded like thunder throughout the extensive square, and brought numerous nightcapped heads to the windows, to see whether the hotel was on fire, or another revolution had broken out. The maitre d'hotel screamed, the porter ran, the chef de cuisine looked out ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... old law of tit-for-tat! And I will persevere till I have attained my end, unless you should become extremely ugly.—I shall succeed; and I will tell you why," he went on, resuming his attitude, and looking at Madame Hulot. "You will not meet with such an old man, or such a young lover," he said ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... when the time came to elect Smith's successor, he was turned out-of-doors by Brigham Young with the taunting words, "Brother Sidney says he will tell our secrets, but I would say, ' 'O don't, Brother Sidney! Don't tell our secrets—O don't.' But if he tells our secrets we will tell his. Tit for tat! President Fairchild's argument that several of the original leaders of the fanaticism must have been "adequate to the task" of supplying the doctrinal part of the book, only furnishes additional proof of his ignorance of early Mormon history, and his ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... Noggin, with Mr. Chrome, who had a new flag, walked out upon the parade-ground. The musicians struck up Yankee-Doodle. How it stirred the hearts of everybody,—the sharp, shrill notes of the fife,—the roll, the rattle, and the rat-a-tat-tat of the drum, and the clanging of the bell, and the sight of that flag, its crimson folds and fadeless stars waving in the evening breeze! Never had it looked so beautiful. The little boys swung their caps and cheered, the women ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... off to the House until three or four in the morning; then home to a hot supper for two or three hours more, to talk over what was to be done next day:—and wine, and wine. Scarcely up next morning, when 'tat-tat-tat,' twenty or thirty people one after another, and the horses walking before the door from two till sunset, waiting for him. It was enough to kill a ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of all the other cards now. It is a dreadful game. I thought that I should have brain fever while learning it. They went on playing it for hours; there never seemed any end to it; they counted in the weirdest way, making ciphers and tit-tat-toes on the green baize table with chalk, and wiped out with a little brush. Every trick of the adversary was deducted, and all the heads met over the chalk-marks to find ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... never completed, being interrupted by a thundering rat-tat-tat at the front door, followed by a pealing at the bell, which indicated that the visitor was manfully following the printed injunction to "Ring also." The door was opened and a man's voice was heard in the hall-a ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... my industry. I played as heartily as I worked, but I studied with a will, too, and passed a score of mates. That was easy enough, for home study was never dreamed of by most of them, and leisure hours in school were passed in marking "tit-tat-to" upon slates or eating apples under the ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... more than five minutes when a soft and elaborate rat-tat from the little brass knocker brought my heart into my mouth. I ran to the door and flung it open, revealing Juliet standing on ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... fast, while her fingers wandered aimlessly about among the stitches. Mrs. Rosenberg detected the cheat at once; and, as she was needing the money for the socks, she scolded Mandoline soundly, and pelted her pretty little hands, rat, tat, tat, ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... minute neither spoke. Sophie lay back in her chair, eyes half closed, fingers beating a slow rat-a-tat ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... hardly spoken when there was a loud rat-tat at the front door, and Jack Glover hastened into the hall to answer. But it was not the policeman he had expected. It was a girl in a big sable coat, muffled up to her eyes. She pushed past Jack, crossed the hall, and ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... There was a rat-tat at the door, the sound of a letter falling on the mat, and Fanning the postman passed on. George leaned back quickly so that he might not see him. Mr Griffith fetched the letter, opened it with trembling hands.... He gave ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... not a better, more willing animal than she is. But she has naturally a more irritable constitution than the black horse; flies tease her more; anything wrong in her harness frets her more; and if she were ill-used or unfairly treated she would not be unlikely to give tit for tat. You know that many high-mettled horses ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... his corner and thought: "She is pretty; so much the better. Tit for tat, my comrade. But if they begin again to annoy me with you, it will get somewhat hot ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... her side, and taking leave of the king, carried it to Constantine. When the brothers saw the food over which Constantine exulted, they asked him to share it with them; but he refused, rendering them tit for tat. On which account there arose between them great envy, that continually gnawed their hearts. Now Constantine, although handsome in his face, nevertheless, from the privation he had suffered, was covered with scabs and scurf, which caused him great annoyance. ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... Ah! I'm not such a fool, after all, perhaps, as you thought. I have it, and hang me, but I'll make use of it! You have blasted my life, and thought it good fun, no doubt. I'll see if I can't give tit-for-tat and spoil your little game, my haughty lady, with your white face and your cursed high-handed airs. Yet, how I loved them—how I loved them! Must I never see a woman again without that queenly beauty coming between me and my share of happiness? What right had you to destroy my ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... and directly he started sweeping we would be down like a flash, and wait till Fritz quit. Fat would be in a shell hole almost as soon as the first shot was fired, and would laugh at Bink looking for a hole to hide in. Bink would get sore; all you could hear was the rat-tat-tat of the machine gun and in between "Tee hee, tee hee" from Fat as he lay and watched Bink crawling around looking for a hole. Some of the boys would lie in the hole and wave their legs in the air hoping to get a ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... Gazette. Who plied the typographic trade Ably in Bytown's first decade. And taught the art of Caxton well, And thoroughly to John George Bell, Who in our village made a racket, In the old columns of the Packet, Where every one got "tit for tat" From dear departed "Old White Hat!" Who thought Reformers could not err, And laid the lash on Dawson Kerr, Whom he in bitter hues did paint A sinner, and called him "the saint." A journal of more modern date Than the Gazette, who's early fate, Was Phoenix-like ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... from an act of reflection. Now, laughter is simply the result of a mechanism set up in us by nature or, what is almost the same thing, by our long acquaintance with social life. It goes off spontaneously and returns tit for tat. It has no time to look where it hits. Laughter punishes certain failing's somewhat as disease punishes certain forms of excess, striking down some who are innocent and sparing some who are guilty, aiming at a general result and incapable ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson |
