Tenderloin

“ Now I'll tell you about tenderflops, because I'm the only one that goes to Temple Camp who knows how to make them. I guess you know what a tenderfoot is; it's a new scout. He's supposed to be tender, see? So a tenderflop is a flip-flop that's named after a tenderfoot, because it's supposed to be tender. There are no such things as tough scouts, so of course, there can't be any such things as tough tenderflops. That's what you call logic.
Now the way that you make tenderflops is with flour and salt and water and cinnamon. You can use eggs if you want to, but you don't have to. ”

“ But Dorion, mentioning him in his list among the lake and river fish, writes thus: "A scaly fish, whom some people call the cyprinus."
83. There is also the tench. "The tench is very juicy," as Icesius says, "exceedingly attractive to the palate, very easily secreted, not very nutritious, nor is the juice which they give very wholesome. But, in delicacy of flavour, the white kind is superior to the black. But the flesh of the green tench is more dry, and devoid of fat; and they give a much smaller quantity of juice, and what they do give is thinner. ”

“ Others, like those of the passion-flower, will occasionally become discouraged and curl up all by themselves, in which case, the other tip being free, the curl is perfect and continuous and without the reverse loop, which is now unnecessary. But the function of the tendril is to clasp and hold. Its growth is not complete until thus quickened by the new responsibility. Tendrils on duty become tough and sinewy in comparison to their idling neighbors. How firm and rigid are these swollen coils upon the grape-vine! ”

“ Those whom screams affect in one way sprang from bed; those whom they affect in another hid under the bedclothes. Mr. Tennant himself, a man of sharp temper and implacable courage, dashed from his room in a suit of blue-and-white pajamas, and overturned a Chippendale cabinet worth a thousand dollars; young Mr. Tennant barked both shins on a wood-box and dropped a loaded Colt revolver into the well of the stair; Mrs. Tennant was longer in appearing, having tarried to try the effect upon her nerves and color sense of three divers wrappers. ”

“ He walked away, swinging his dinner pail, down across the meadow to the lower woods, and Raven, after the fringe of birches had closed upon him, hurried off to the hut. He did not expect to find her. The pail in Tenney's hand was sufficient evidence, even if the man's going to his work were not. Tenney would never have abandoned his search or his waiting for her, and if he had, he would not have delayed to pack a dinner pail. The hut was empty of human life, but the bricks were warm. She could not have left until the early morning. Mechanically he piled kindling near the hearth. ”

“ They very seldom fish for themselves; if they see a Common or Arctic Tern with a fish in their bills, they pounce upon it just the same as a Hawk will upon a small bird, and take the fish clean out of their bills; they are very quick. I have even seen them take a fish out of a young Tern's bill that has been in the nest. I can tell a Roseate Tern amongst a thousand Common Terns. When they are flying they seem to be longer in the body and longer in the wings than any other Tern, and they have a very hoarse cry, quite different to any other Tern's. ”

“ Setting aside those which are but occasional visitors to the British Islands, six species of terns may be regarded as indigenous, though of them one has ceased from ordinarily breeding in the United Kingdom, while a second has become so rare and regularly appears in so few places that mention of them must for prudence sake be avoided. This last is the beautiful roseate tern, Sterna dougalli; the other is the black tern, Hydrochelidon nigra, belonging to a genus in which the toes are only half-webbed, of small size and dark leaden-grey plumage. ”

“ It spawns in May and June. The flesh of the tench is somewhat coarse and insipid. The tench is a member of the carp family, and is frequently placed in ponds with carp.
672.—TENCH, MATELOT OF. (Fr.—Tanche en Matelote.)
Ingredients.—3 tench, 12 sauce oysters, 1 pint of good stock, 1⁄4 of a pint of port wine or claret, 1 oz. of butter, 1 oz. of flour, 1 tablespoonful of finely-chopped onion, 12 button mushrooms, a bouquet-garni (parsley, thyme, bay-leaf) , 2 cloves, 1 blade of mace, 1 teaspoonful of anchovy-essence, 1 dessertspoonful of lemon-juice, salt and pepper, cayenne. ”

“ A beefsteak suffices for Carry, her buxom sister; but Tender-eyes! delicate, tender Jacintha! can pick her food only from the breast of the plumpest of pigeons. Tender-eyes is said to be highly intellectual. She talks shilling manuals about ferns and shells, and primary and tertiary formations; she is great on the one primeval language, and can lisp Ruskinism on art; while her poor soft mother smiles, and bids laughing Carry fetch her sister a stool for her feet. My blood freezes with horror to think of Tender-eyes meeting me on a certain merry morning at church. ”

“ Formerly the rough track to the Bay led over a lonely bit of common called the Warren, where furze grew, and short brown-tasselled rushes marked the course of a hardly visible stream. The Warren Farm lies on the landward edge of the Warren, and there on a sunny 6th of August 1855, a third birthday was being solemnized with tea and a tent. It was a blue tent on the top of a haystack, and under it between her baby boy and girl, sat a blue-eyed mother, with the bloom of youth and the freshness of the sea on her beauty. ”

“ Trenton suggested. “There’s a boarding house in a coal mining town in Southern Colorado where a woman sets out the best ham and eggs I ever ate. I ought to know; I ate ’em three times a day for two months!”
“You’re an ostrich! If you don’t swear this is the finest turkey you ever ate I’ll tell Jerry to serve you ham and eggs and I’ll make you eat ’em.”
Grace eyed her champagne glass with the same [64] hesitancy with which she had regarded the cocktail. She had never before seen champagne. ”

“ She caught up the child from the couch and stood breathless, listening. It seemed as if the robin knew, and somehow, like Martin, felt like laughing at her.
Tenney was there, at a few minutes after twelve, but dinner was not on time. He came in, washed his hands at the sink and glanced about him. The table was set, and Tira, at the stove, the child on her hip, was trying the potatoes. She did not look at him. If he looked strange, it seemed to her she might not be able to go on. ”

“ Tennelly tried to finish his sentence in lighter vein, but the feeling was in his voice yet.
Courtland gripped his hand and looked his yearning with a sudden light of joy and hope: "If you only would, Nelly! It's been the thing I've longed for—!"
"Not yet!" said Tennelly, almost pulling his hand away from the detaining grasp. "Some time, perhaps, but not now! I've too much else on hand! I must beat it now! Man alive! Do you know what time it is? See you soon again!" Tennelly was off in a whirl of words. ”

“ A large colony inhabits the Farne Islands. They breed as far north as the Findhorn. Upon this coast it is called par excellence 'The Tern', all the other species passing under the general name of 'Sea Swallows'. Its habits are so like those of the Common Tern, to be described hereafter, that, to avoid repetition, I purposely omit all account of its mode of fishing, and content myself with quoting, on the authority of Audubon and Meyer, incidents in its biography which I have not noticed in the Common Tern. ”

“ Her heart stilled, and she began to dress the child, with her mother's deftness. "He comes a little early to fodder, 'fore he does his own."
"I dunno," said Tenney, irritably because he had to wear out his spleen, "why you can't fodder the cows when anybody's laid up. There's women that do it all the time if their folks are called away."
"Why, I could," said Tira, with a clear glance at him, "only he won't let me."
"What's he got to do with it," said Tenney, in surprise. "Won't let ye? Jerry Slate won't let ye? Jerry ain't one to meddle nor make. ”

“ Yet Landerneau is a flourishing place of some ten thousand inhabitants, with extensive manufactories, saw mills, and large timber yards. Vessels come up the river and load and unload; and, on bright days when the sunshine pours upon the flashing water, and warms the wood lying about in huge stacks, and a delicious pine-scent goes forth upon the air, it is a very pleasant scene, and a very fitting spot for a short sojourn.
It also deals extensively in strawberries, exporting to England many thousand boxes of the delicious fruit that grows so largely in the neighbourhood. ”

“ He was certain that he knew the face of the wine-bibber. Yet in all his wide acquaintance, he had never met a man named Peter Firkins. It was strange; Tenney might see a man and not know his name, yet if the name were mentioned Tenney would always know where to place it. Likewise, if a name were mentioned, and a little later Tenney should see its owner, even the lapse of many years would not cause him hesitation in applying the name to the man. ”

“ Discussing, however, the properties of such shrubs as I did know, we at length reached Tentholm. Everything was safe, and we set to work to collect what we wanted. I opened the butter cask, from which my wife filled her pot. Fritz saw after the ammunition, and Jack and Ernest ran down to the beach to capture the geese and ducks. This they found no easy matter, for the birds, left so long alone, were shy, and nothing would induce them to come on shore and be caught. Ernest at length hit upon an ingenious plan. ”

“ Tenterden type. They amuse men for a time, and very often take them captive, but in nineteen cases out of twenty the prisoner escapes. In other words, they are not the women who men care to marry. Fancy your Jack, for instance, preferring a rusée garrison hack, like Mrs. Tenterden, to your own sweet self. It is absolutely ridiculous.
Do nothing and say nothing. Don't worry yourself and all will come right. The temporary infatuation will pass away, and Mr. Vivian will love you all the better afterwards. You will see if I am not right.
So be comforted, darling Rose. ”

“ When visiting the Terns' breeding haunts near Killala on June 13th, I found, as usual, the Common Terns confining themselves to the gravelly "Inch," about thirty pairs having nests on it, and perhaps eight or ten pairs of the Lesser Tern; while the Arctic Terns were scattered all over the Ross sands for over half a mile along with the majority of the Lesser, laying their eggs on the bare sand and gravel. The numbers of the Common Terns have diminished, while there has been a great increase in those of the Arctic Tern. ”

“ No town that ever I was in gave me less the impression of being a watering-place where invalids congregate, for not even a Bath-chair did I see, nor was there a soul at the Spa. I take it that, up to the present, Tenbury is more famous for its fishing than for its waters; if the latter were only more pronounced, or more distasteful in flavour, possibly Tenbury might become renowned. "They ought to do me good," once I heard a visitor at Harrogate remark, "for the waters are nasty enough." ”

“ The wood-vine has climbed, instinctively, to the top of the stub, and now, finding their support gone, half a dozen long tendrils are reaching out toward a tall young birch six or eight feet away. One tendril, stronger and older than the others, has reached and clasped the nearest branch. ”

“ It is doubtless owing to their similarity that the two species associate freely together at all times, and are often to be found breeding side by side. But while the arctic tern is most common in the north, from the Shetlands, Orkneys, and Hebrides, to the coast of Northumberland on the one side of the country, and of Lancashire on the other, the common tern is common only on the coasts south of these two points. The nest is a slight depression, sometimes with a little dry grass for lining, placed on the shingle of the beach ”

“ They sleep almost constantly during the day, while they are very active during the night; and what has been here said of the Tràndraka as to habits, food, etc., may be taken as representing what might be said of most of the Centetidæ. The striped tenrec is about the size of a [168] mole, and is streaked with black and yellow, as are indeed the young of other species. The spiny tenrec is much like our European hedgehog, as it is covered with strong spines, and can roll itself up into a ball when attacked. Another species, called Sòra by the natives, is about five inches long. ”

“ You say nothing about that shadowy and sinister figure, the gardener. You are keeping him in the background, Murch. Play the game. Out with him–or I report you to the Rules Committee.'
'The garden is attended to by a man in the village, who comes twice a week. I've talked to him. He was here last on Friday.'
'Then I suspect him all the more,' said Trent. 'And now as to the house itself. What I propose to do, to begin with, is to sniff about a little in this room, where I am told Manderson spent a great deal of his time, and in his bedroom; especially the bedroom. ”

“ At this stage the little terns look like ducklings when on the water, and, as they run along the water’s edge, may easily be mistaken, at a little distance, for sandpipers.
When a young tern is surprised by some enemy, his natural instinct is to crouch down, half buried in the sand, and to remain there quite motionless until the danger has passed. The colouring of his down is such as to cause him to assimilate more closely to the sandy [115] environment than the eggs do. If one picks up such a crouching ternlet, the bird will probably not struggle at all ”