The Tiger in the House

Front Cover
W. Heinemann, 1921 - Pets - 367 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 160 - But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman ; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.
Page 253 - The horse-shoe's nail'd (each threshold's guard) ; The stunted broom the wenches hide, For fear that I should up and ride ; They stick with pins my bleeding seat, And bid me shew my secret teat.
Page 197 - A CAT came fiddling out of a barn, With a pair of bag-pipes under her arm; She could sing nothing but fiddle cum fee. The mouse has married the humble bee ; Pipe cat, dance mouse, We'll have a wedding at our good house.
Page 300 - He knew as well as any one what was in the house, and would refuse beef if turkey was to be had ; and if there were oysters, he would wait over the turkey to see if the oysters would not be forthcoming. And yet he was not a gross gourmand ; he would eat bread if he saw me eating it, and thought he was not being imposed on*. His habits of feeding, also, were refined ; he never used a knife, and he would put up his hand and draw the fork down to his mouth as gracefully as a grown person. Unless necessity...
Page 250 - Thanne wolde the cat wel dwellen in his in. And if the cattes skyn be slyk and gay, She wol nat dwelle in house half a day, But forth she wole, er any day be dawed, To shewe hir skyn, and goon a caterwawed.
Page 76 - ... he would be called Long Tom. He is a cat of fine disposition, the most irreproachable morals I ever saw thrown away in a cat, and a splendid hunter. He spends his nights, not in social dissipation, but in gathering in rats, mice, flyingsquirrels, and also birds. When he first brought me a bird, I told him that it was wrong, and tried to convince him, while he was eating it, that he was doing wrong ; for he is a reasonable cat, and understands pretty much everything except the binomial theorem...
Page 80 - I like little Pussy, Her coat is so warm; And if I don't hurt her She'll do me no harm. So I'll not pull her tail, Nor drive her away, But Pussy and I Very gently will play...
Page 275 - Mothe le Vayer, the author of the Dialogues : Puss passer-by, within this simple tomb Lies one whose life fell Atropos hath shred; The happiest cat on earth hath heard her doom, And sleeps for ever in a marble bed. Alas ! what long delicious days I've seen ! O cats of Egypt, my illustrious sires, You. who on altars, bound with garlands green, Have melted hearts, and kindled fond desires, — Hymns in your praise were paid, and offerings too, But I'm not jealous of those rights divine. Since Ludovisa...
Page 60 - Some men there are love not a gaping pig; Some, that are mad if they behold a cat; And others, when the bagpipe sings i...
Page 27 - to season it." All about Duke were these usual and reassuring environs of his daily life, and yet it was his fate to behold, right in the midst of them, and in ghastly juxtaposition to his face, a thing of nightmare and lunacy. Gipsy had seized the fishbone by the middle. Out from one side of his head, and mingling with his whiskers, projected the long, spiked spine of the big fish: down from the other side of that ferocious head dangled the fish's tail, and from above the remarkable effect thus...

Bibliographic information