Tab

“ Ribby and Tabitha looked at one another.
"A rolling-pin and butter! Oh, my poor son Thomas!" exclaimed Tabitha, wringing her paws.
"A rolling-pin?" said Ribby. "Did we not hear a roly-poly noise in the attic when we were looking into that chest?" ”

“ I recognized with an uncomfortable shock that the driver was no other than the Tabors' former chauffeur, the unworthy Thomas who had deserted Lady and myself at the crisis of our midnight adventure; and I thought that under his mask of the impassive servant he recognized me somewhat uncomfortably. I glanced back to see if Mrs. Tabor had seen him also. She was leaning against the door of the house, clutching at the handle as if [Pg 257] for support, or in a desperate anxiety to enter; every line of her face and figure writhing and agonized with unmistakable terror. ”

“ There is a much greater variety of tables, whose importance is no way inferior, which are, however, of a more special nature: Such are, for example, tables of interest, discount, and exchange, tables of annuities, and other tables necessary in life insurances; tables of rates of various kinds necessary in general commerce. But the science in which, above all others, the most extensive and accurate tables are indispensable, is Astronomy; with the improvement and perfection of which is inseparably connected that of the kindred art of Navigation. ”

“ That something is nothing more nor less than a puzzle, a plaything made to amuse some young savage, or perhaps an older one, as we know they are easily amused.
This tablet, of which figures 1 and 2 show the obverse and reverse, is made of slate with the usual countersunk perforations common to all perforated tablets, and is marked on its edge with twenty-four tally or record marks. These have become nearly obliterated by time and weather. ”

“ For example, suppose that we are using the tabulator to make a table showing for each city the number of males and the number of females. In the table we shall have three columns: first, city; second, males; third, females. Suppose that each punch card in columns 30 to 36 shows the total of males or females in a city. Suppose that, if and only if the card is for females, it has an X punch (or 11 punch) in column 79. What do we want to have happen? ”

“ As figures are ascending letters, occupying two thirds of the height of the body, the bunching of many of them in a paragraph spots the page and produces the effect of the overbold display of many capital letters. Yet it often happens that neatness must be subordinated to clearness. Figures are more quickly read, are more compact, and are decidedly indispensable for tabular work that is intended to present contrasts or comparisons of amounts or values. ”

“ Tablets in the rooms describe how many human beings used to be crowded into them, and the horrible conditions of their lives. The worst about it is that the facts are all taken from historical records, and are absolutely true. ”

“ Smooth and Atall at a table.
Smooth. I saw it this morning on the breakfast-table at Lord A's; it is an admirable article, and I was told is yours.
Atall. (Decliningly.) These things, you know, are always supposed to be anonymous. But I am not sorry that you liked the paper. Did his lordship speak of it?
Smooth. The book was open at the article upon the table. It does you honour. Hits just the happy point,—hints probable intentions, without giving any pledge,—enough to please the Liberals,—and full room for explanation, if any change becomes expedient. ”

“ To take an example, the impressions of roundness, angularity, smoothness, roughness, colour, etc., of a table contain, all told, nothing that could assure us of the existence of the object 'table' as the real content of an external world. ”

“ Then we enter one room, so big that it almost startles you, and see, seated at rows and rows of tables, many men, and nearly all of them are working away at the telegraph instrument before them—tick, tick, tick, tack; they cannot hear what you say, even though you talk quite close to them, for all their attention is taken up by their work. ”

“ Have mercy on yourselves and on those beneath you, and judge ye between them according to the precepts prescribed by God in His most holy and exalted Tablet, a Tablet wherein He hath assigned to each and every thing its settled measure, in which He hath given, with distinctness, an explanation of all things, and which is in itself a monition unto them that believe in Him. ”

“ By gesticulating a little with the tube, in announcing what you are about to do, so that the audience may, little by little, become less certain as to which end you have just opened, and by carelessly transferring the tube from the one hand to the other just as you lay it on the table, you may make the change with scarcely a chance of detection, even by the keenest observer. ”

“ One wanted, she thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to be on a level with ordinary experience, to feel simply that’s a chair, that’s a table, and yet at the same time, It’s a miracle, it’s an ecstasy. ”

“ The third plane followed when an ineluctable I was added to the throbbing sky-scene. As if this was carrying cosmic anagrams too far, military aircraft undertook to break up the phenomenon—also according to plan.
Four-letter words, so called, are one of the great American taboos. In this connotation, nuts and crap are not considered precisely forbidden, though each has a special reference which is impermissible. All people know all the four-letter words, of course, since they are scribbled everywhere and commonly used by lower caste persons when under duress. ”

“ Respecting the tabulation, devised for the purpose of exhibiting social phenomena in a convenient way, I may explain that the primary aim has been so to present them that their relations of simultaneity and succession may be seen at one view. As used for delineating uncivilized societies, concerning which we have no records, the tabular form serves only to display the various social traits as they are found to co-exist. ”

“ It is to be remarked that there is an inner part of the tablet, supposed to correspond to the inner man, while the sense organs are on the outer tablet, and the breath on the pencil touches all into life.
When the writing is finished the scholar throws the pen over his shoulder. It is caught and used to paint the sores of smallpox: they will then not run together. ”

“ Clearly, then, the table of which you are directly and immediately conscious when your eyes are open is always this mental duplicate, this aggregate of color, form, size and touch impressions; while the real table, the physical table, may be something other than the one of which you are directly aware. ”

“ Tabu-word, used by fishermen at sea. Of fairly mod. origin.; L.G., Da. and No. tamp, sb., a piece of a rope. Fær. dampur, m., end of a long-line (Svabo) , is certainly a word borrowed from Shetl.
†damp [da‘mp] , vb., to wear off the end of a fishing hand-line or long-line; de line is dampet (dampet op) , the end has been torn off the hand-line. Sometimes in a wider sense: to break or tear off the end of anything; to break asunder, to d. de pipe (Esh., Nmw.) . Tabu-word used at sea. ”

“ As a rule the tablet bears two names—those of husband and wife—so that each human soul is not necessarily supposed to have a tablet to itself. Just as the bodies of husband and wife share a single grave, so do their spirits (according to the theory accepted in Weihaiwei) share a single tablet, and the prayers and sacrifices that are offered to the one are intended in equal measure for the other. ”

“ At the end of a few minutes, the table often seems to be agitated. If we are experimenting with spiritists or with people accustomed to spiritistic proceedings, the table, raising itself, will be seen to strike the floor with one of its legs. I advise asking the table if it wishes to speak, and to arrange that two raps will mean ‘no,’ and three raps ‘yes.’ Of course any other numbers or signs will do equally well. The table, thus consulted, generally replies ‘yes.’ It can then be asked, if the sitters are well placed: if it indicates any other arrangement it is well to heed its advice. ”

“ Music-box continues playing when it is touched contrary to tabu. C922. Death by smothering for breaking tabu. N113. Casket with Good Luck in it given to men by Zeus.
C321.1. Tabu: opening too much of magic box at a time. A priest gives a prince a sealed packet which he is to open in time of distress. He must open only one portion at a time. ”

“ A couple of wax tapers in silver or brass holders, placed on the centre table, gives a fine effect to the whole. The amateur must take care that there are no bright lights behind his tables, or worse still a mirror. ”

“ The tablets record the long family titles, and the offices and honors, perhaps the numberless virtues of the dead. They read like chapters of heraldry more than like epitaphs. It is a relief to get into the outer alleys, and see how poverty and simple feeling express what should be the same thing. ”

“ She went into the hall and examined the white tablet, at the top of which was printed in gold the word "Engagements."
"I'll engage them!" she said to herself, giving the tablet an unnecessary rub. "Oh, I wish a customer would come!" she sighed. "A broken leg wud be fine!" ”

“ He pointed to a row of metal magnetic tabs clinging to the wall nearest the corridor that led to the airlock. "When you go out, take one of those tabs and touch it on your suit. There are exactly six tabs. If none are there, don't go out. ”

“ My notion of a table, for example, is that of an object possessing certain qualities, as form, size, weight, color, hardness, each of which qualities is known to me by a distinct act of perception, if not by a distinct sense, and each of which is capable, accordingly, of being distinctly, and by itself, an object of thought or conception. ”

“ For, as we were once passing by an iron door on the lower floor, he stopped, and for some minutes stood listening with a leer most keen and cunning. Presently the cry “Hark!” escaped him; and he then turned to me and wrote on the tablet: “Did you not hear?” ”

“ Meanwhile I had opened the tablet; it was bound in plain red leather, with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus:
On all that it can reach within these walls, sentient or inanimate, living or dead, as moves the needle, so works my will! Accursed be the house, and restless the dwellers therein.
We found no more. Mr. J—— burned the tablet and its anathema. ”

“ After all, there was evidently a message in those blank pages: the last one used had been hastily and carelessly rent from the binding gum, as the saw-tooth particles of paper yet adhering to the tablet, in this one instance, affirmed. ”

“ A sheet of paper, a pen, or any other light body, being placed upon a table, if the young girl approaches her left hand, even before she touches it, the object is driven to a distance as by a gust of wind. The table itself is overthrown the moment it is touched by her hand, or even by a thread which she may hold in it. ”

“ Here followed the table of dots and figures.
Then came the explanation of the document itself. Beautrelet read, in a broken voice:
As will be seen, this table, even after we have changed the figures into vowels, affords no light. One might say that, in order to decipher the puzzle, we must first know it. It is, at most, a clue given to those who know the paths of the labyrinth. ”

“ Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
Daily Chronicle.—“We take pleasure in commending the book because of its freshness and genuine excellence. Mr Taber has undoubtedly struck what is a virgin soil so far as fiction is concerned. The local colour of the story is novel—so novel, in fact, as to give quite an unusual interest and value to the book.”
Umpire (Book of the Week) .—“Mr Taber has the gift of story-telling, and he has the peculiar satisfaction of being first in an entirely new field. ”

“ These verses date from about the middle of the ninth century of the Hegira. I shall extract one or two verses:—
“The all-powerful God has produced from the soil of our country a plant, the true name of which is tabgha. ”

“ Where large quantities of a particular tablet have to be stamped, one of the many automatic mechanical stampers in existence may be employed, the tablets being conveyed to and from the dies by means of endless belts. ”

“ In sending copies of Tablets, kindly see in so far as possible that together with each is given: (1) Full name of recipient (2) present address, mentioning street number, city or town, and state, (3) on or about date translation, (4) name of translator, (5) clearly state whether or not permission to publish all or only a portion of same is granted. Should there be any doubt as to whether or not a copy of any certain Tablet is already in the archives, you may be assured in knowing that every Tablet received has been acknowledged on a special printed form, signed by the Librarian. ”

“ The tablet which I think to be the eighth appears to give the Creation and Fall of Man, and is followed by several other tablets giving apparently the war between the gods and the powers of evil, but all of these are very mutilated, and no number can be positively proved beyond the fifth tablet. ”

“ The other piece of paper, when torn into two strips, has both edges rough, and upon these [83] pieces are written the names of living persons. When you feel the paper on your head has no smooth edge, both edges being rough, it must contain the name of a living person.
The Baffling Card. Take an ordinary visiting card and bend down the ends at right angles to the card, about a quarter of an inch, then laying it on a smooth table, ends down, ask any person to blow it over. ”

“ When the glasses are filled, at the word of command they are rubbed on the table; at the word of command they are raised and emptied; and again at the word of command every man rubs his glass on the table, the second time raises it and brings it down with a crash. ”