Tael

“ Ten taels per head for common men, and twenty taels for superiors of the yellow badge. I deal in all sorts of charms against death by bullets or fire. Cash paid for all heads ten days after delivery. Note given for the same on receipt. I am a reliable man.
"HO PIN MOKH."
"Hear! Hear! Hear!
"Listen, all ye who burn with desire to avenge the insult offered to our beautiful city. All of you unite with me to purchase the (fresh) heads of Fanquis brought, by our brave soldiers. Five taels for each blue devil's (sailor's) head. Ten for each red devil's (soldier's) head. ”

“ The tail, the point in which man is inferior to the brute, what a delicate index of the mind it is! how it expresses the passions of love and hate, how nicely it gives token of the feelings of joy or fear which animate the soul! But Lord Monboddo did not consider that what the tail is to the brute, that the eye is to man; the lack of one member is supplied by the other. I can tell a proud man by his eye just as truly as if he stalked past one with erect tail, and anger is as plainly depicted in the human eye as in the bottle-brush tail of a cat. ”

“ The Tail of the Sphinx
A Dog of a taciturn disposition said to his Tail:
“Whenever I am angry, you rise and bristle; when I am pleased, you wag; when I am alarmed, you tuck yourself in out of danger. You are too mercurial—you disclose all my emotions. My notion is that tails are given to conceal thought. It is my dearest ambition to be as impassive as the Sphinx.”
“My friend, you must recognise the laws and limitations of your being,” replied the Tail, with flexions appropriate to the sentiments uttered, “and try to be great some other way. ”

“ He hasn’t had time to run around the end of Black Ravine.”
“But he’ll be here soon,” whined Young Black Buck.
“Then we must be going. We can’t stay here. You must run on three legs. You can do it.”
“Not so fast as Timber Wolf or Puma can run on four legs. Oh, you won’t leave me, White Tail, will you? I shall die of fear if you do. I’ve always been your friend.”
“I won’t leave you yet,” replied White Tail. “Lie down in the bushes, and I will run back and see if I can find Timber or Puma. ”

“ White Tail Jumps Stepping Stone Brook White Tail grew rapidly in size and strength, his long, clean limbs showing taut muscles and great springing power; and his neck grew thick and short, which is well for a buck, who must use it in savage thrusts when the head is a battering ram. His horns were short and bony, but they protruded in front like knobs against which it would be unpleasant to fall.
But his antlers were his pride. They spread out fan-shape on his head, crowning it with a glory that made Mother Deer supremely happy. ”

“ So he hastened to cut out a belt, and he stitched it, and put on it in large capitals "Seven at one blow!"
"——The town, did I say!" said the little tailor; "the whole world shall know it!" And his heart quivered with joy, like a lamb's tail.
The tailor fastened the belt round him, and began to think of going out into the world, for his workshop seemed too small for his worship. So he looked about in all the house for something that it would be useful to take with him, but he found nothing but an old cheese, which he put in his pocket. ”

“ White Tail was so alarmed that he retraced his footsteps, calling every little while for Father Buck. It was a dangerous thing to do, for in calling he might attract Puma or Timber Wolf. But his anxiety for his father made him forget all caution.
He found him a long way back on the trail, lying in the bushes, panting with exhaustion. 22As soon as he discovered him, White Tail ran up to him with a little bleat of joy.
“Oh, I thought something terrible had happened to you!” he exclaimed. “What is it? Did you stumble? You haven’t broken a leg, have you?” ”

“ Before he reached the embankment, White Tail jumped to the edge, and quick as a wink stretched forth his head, caught Young Black Buck by a prong of his antlers. He got a good hold with his teeth, and then as the leaping buck’s hind feet slipped down and his body began to sway backward, White Tail braced his feet, and jerked backward with all his strength.
It was enough to overcome the balance of the frightened jumper. Instead of falling backward into the chasm, he stumbled forward, and then catching his hind hoofs on the edge he managed to climb up the embankment. ”

“ If you have you could never fail to tell when it managed to get a good juicy root or a snail by the happy way it would wiggle its tail. Sometimes when they are very happy they can wiggle their tails so fast that all the eye can catch is a sort of hazy blur. At other times, when they are attending to their toilet and rubbing themselves down with the backs of their heads, they will give their tails a little flirt that is just as proud as proud. ”

“ To prove the truth of his father’s words, Young Black Buck turned a complete circle, suddenly reared, and brought his head down in another terrific blow. White Tail received it, and for a time their horns and antlers became locked. They pulled and jerked, pushed and twisted all over the open space to free their heads. With a sudden snap, the antlers loosened, and they were free once more.
The battle grew more vigorous now that the two combatants were warmed to the fray. They began to put more speed in their motions, and more force in their blows. ”

“ My folks thought those great tails were handsome, especially our young people, who would walk about waving them and practise carrying them in new positions, and about once a week would do up the long, thick fur on them in little knots, tied with tough, twisted grass, which would make the hair curl and look very showy indeed. Even some of my ancestors who happened to get old acted in that foolish way, and when the fur got thin would wear some kind of false stuff, though any one but a blind person could always tell it. ”

“ Then White Tail did a magnanimous thing. He couldn’t bear to leave his companion behind to be pulled down by the dogs, while he escaped. No, no, that would never do for 86one who some day expected to be leader of the herd!
“Young Black Buck,” he said, running along by the side of the panting creature, “you run straight on as hard as you can. I’m going to stop here until the dogs see me. Then I’ll lead them off to the left. So long as they can see me they’ll follow me and forget the scent. When I get them far enough away I’ll run faster, and get away from them. ”

“ Oh, that tail—that awful, writhing, lashing tail! I can stand Indians, bears, wolves, anything but that tail, and a rattler is all tail, except its head. If that tail touches me I shall let go. It did touch me, I did not let go. Pride held me there, for I heard the sound of galloping hoofs. Whiskers' empty saddle had alarmed the rest of the party. ”

“ It may be remembered that Lord Monboddo, a Scotch judge of last century, and a philosopher of some repute, though of great eccentricity, stoutly maintained the theory that man ought to have a tail, that the tail is a desideratum, and that the abrupt termination of the spine without caudal elongation is a sad blemish in the origination of man. The tail, the point in which man is inferior to the brute, what a delicate index of the mind it is! ”

“ White Tail Made Leader of the Herd By defeating Young Black Buck in combat, White Tail was, according to the law of the herd, chosen leader until another should grow up and displace him. The decision on the battlefield could not be changed or altered. ”

“ So, when the tailor returned with the water, the giant sent him to fetch a couple of bundles of faggots from the forest, and bring them home. “Why not the whole forest at one stroke, every tree, young and old, knotty and smooth?” asked the tailor, and went away. “What! the whole forest, and the well, too, and its spring!” murmured the frightened giant in his beard; and he began to be still more afraid, and believed that the tailor was too great a man for him, and not fit for his servant. ”

“ Yō' tail is shō a pretty white;
You takes it fer 'way out'n sight.
"Molly! Molly! Molly Bright!"
Ole Molly Cottontail,
You sets up on a rotten rail!
You tears through de graveyard!
You makes dem ugly [3] hants wail.
Ole Molly Cottontail,
Won't you be shore not to fail
[4] To give me yō' right hīn' foot?
My luck, it won't be fer sale.
[2] Leg bail = to run away.
[3] Hants = ghosts or spirits.
[4] This embraces the old superstition that carrying in one's pocket the right hind foot of a rabbit, which has habitually lived about a cemetery, brings good luck to its possessor. ”

“ Nature, and she is no fool, has thought good to reproduce the tailor type in bird and insect: then why does man contemn the tailor? Because he sits cross-legged? Then is there not a whole man in Persia. Why should our children be taught in the nursery rhyme, how “nine-and-twenty tailors went out to kill a snail, but not a single one of them dared to touch his tail”? Or why should the world exult over the tailor, whom the elephant, as we learn from Mrs. ”

“ We are all of us, the good and the bad, looking for tails—for one tail, or for more than one; we do so too often by ways that are mean enough: but perhaps there is no tail-seeker more mean, more sneakingly mean, than he who looks out to adorn his bare back with a tail by marriage.
The doctor was up very early the next morning, long before Mary was ready with her teacups. ”

“ A friend of mine thinks it a pity that we have lost our tails. He argues it would be so helpful if, like the dog, we possessed a tail that wagged when we were pleased, that stuck out straight when we were feeling mad. ”

“ The Bibliothéque Nationale possesses a manuscript, [349] which is ascribed by experts to the fourteenth century, and in which the legend of St. Augustine and the tails—no longer those of ray-fish, however—supplies materials for a quaint satire against the inhabitants of Rochester. It begins with a mock-serious discussion as to the species of animals to which they belong. That they are not men is quite clear, for they have tails, and Aristotle has conclusively established that men have no tails. And yet those strange animals have something human about them, too—they reason and have laws. ”

“ The tail resembles a seal’s tail, being thick and short: his fat is like hog’s lard. He lies commonly upon the ice shoals, and can live a good while on shore, till hunger drives him back into the seas; his nourishment being both herbs and fishes: he snores very loud, when he sleeps; and when he is provoked to anger, he roars like a mad bull. ”

“ I can no longer spring across Stepping Stone brook. I am not fit to be leader of the herd.”
Father Buck’s proud head drooped, and something like a tear gleamed in his eyes. It was hard to acknowledge that he was failing, and that in a few seasons he would be looked upon as a useless old buck who would have to 19take orders from another much younger than he. But it was the law of the herd—and the law of life.
“I can’t believe it!” exclaimed White Tail. “I won’t believe it! I know you can leap across the brook. You must try it again. What I can do you can do!” ”

“ Lo! the comet appeareth in the south! yea, it appeareth exceedingly. Ah poor deluded Christians! Ah blind brethren! think not that this baleful dog-star only shaketh his tail at you in waggery; no, it shaketh it as a rod. It is not a sporting tail, but a fiery tail, even as the tail of a harlot; yea such a tail as may reach, and be told, to all posterity.
I am the porter, that was barbarously slain in Fleet street: by the Mohocks and Hawcubites, was I slain, when they laid violent hands upon me. ”

“ He would scarcely venture to write that novel of his; he might as well call it Lady Tal at once. It was doubtless this discovery which made him grow suddenly very red and feel an intolerable desire to say he knew not what.
They continued walking up and down that little orchard, the brown maize leaves all around, the bright green and vermilion enamel of the pomegranate trees, the Japanese pattern, red and yellow, of the peach branches, against the blue sky above. ”

“ The tail is never entirely composed of the hair of the wearer. Sometimes it is almost wholly artificial, a completely new tail being fixed to a worn-out stump, and, as a general rule, the last eighteen inches are almost entirely made of black silk. Besides being a mark of fashion, the tail is often utilized. A sailor, for example, will tie his hat to his head with his tail when the wind rises, and a schoolmaster sometimes uses his tail in lieu of a cane. ”

“ He was looking down at his boots at this moment, though he was really thinking of that famous novel, his, not Lady Tal's; so Lady Tal may have perhaps thought it was the boots that made him frown, and speak in a short, cross little way. Apparently she thought so, for she took no notice of his looks, his intonation, or his speech.
"Yes," she continued musing, striking the ground with her umbrella, "he's a good little thing. It's good to bring us all to Torcello, with all that food and those guitars, and banjos and things, particularly as we none of us throw a word at him in return. ”

“ White Tail Escapes The moment Great Horn the Owl flew out of the open camp to tell Puma of White Tail’s hiding place, Bumper hopped from his place in the corner, and Rusty jumped to a perch on one of the buck’s antlers. ”

“ Never again will the herd follow me. What must come to all of us at some time has befallen me. There is nothing to regret. One and all must face it sooner or later. Why should we not accept it complacently?”
111White Tail was surprised, and yet pleased, by the quiet acceptance Father Buck took of his downfall. It softened the load that he was carrying in his own heart.
“I prepared you for it, you remember White Tail,” the old leader continued. “Well, tomorrow they will choose a new leader. They will demand that I step aside. But until then I’m leader, and no one shall dispute that right.” ”