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Drummer   Listen
noun
Drummer  n.  
1.
One whose office is to best the drum, as in military exercises and marching.
2.
One who solicits custom; a commercial traveler. (Colloq. U.S.)
3.
(Zool.) A fish that makes a sound when caught; as:
(a)
The squeteague.
(b)
A California sculpin.
4.
(Zool.) A large West Indian cockroach (Blatta gigantea) which drums on woodwork, as a sexual call.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Drummer" Quotes from Famous Books



... little boy was still inclined to refer to Mr. Benjamin Ram and his fiddle; but Uncle Remus was not, by any means, willing that such an ancient vagabond as Mr. Ram should figure as a hero, and he said that, while it was possible that Brother Rabbit was no great hand with the fiddle, he was a drummer, and a capital singer to boot. Furthermore, Uncle Remus declared that Brother Rabbit could perform upon the quills,[16] an accomplishment to which none of the other animals could lay claim. There ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... over his depth with that beefy Mrs. Claymore and takes me motoring to pour his love (of her) into my aural labyrinths. I don't object to playing second fiddle, but when it comes to holding the triangle for the drummer, I pass blind. Never mind, while he isn't watching some day he'll get stung, for I'm really fond of him. You say that you are so much stronger willed than I am—did you ever look at yourself in the mirror? Carlton has eyes that I adore—they are the deeply sad sort that would make one think that ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... He did avoid the chance of making her acquainted with any of the folk with whom his daily routine threw him into contact, with a care which might suggest a fear of some sort of contagion for her. But not all the members of the orchestra resented it. The drummer (who also played the triangle and tambourine when need was, imitated railway noises with shrewd implements, pumped an auto-horn when motor-cars were supposed to be approaching or departing "off-stage" and made ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... an aide is to awake the drummer and have him ready by the fire to beat the reveille, when all at once the attack begins. A sentinel, standing on the bank of Burnet's Creek near the northwestern angle of the camp, sees an object crawling on the ground. He fires and runs toward the line—the ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... roaming preachers of a jehad whose meaning they have forgotten. They seem to be invariably of the short, dark type. The larger, fair- haired, long-headed men are common in business, but not in 'drumming.' The drummer's eyes have a hard, rapt expression. He is not interested in the romance of the road, like an English commercial traveller; only in its ever-changing end. These people are for ever sending off and receiving ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... acquaintance, all of whom avoided them, and passed by on the other side; but a severer trial awaited their constancy when they had descended the hill, and drew near the pine-built and undecorated house of prayer. Around the door, from which the drummer still sent forth his thundering summons, was drawn up a formidable phalanx, including several of the oldest members of the congregation, many of the middle aged, and nearly all the younger males. Pearson found it difficult ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... anxious and hesitating, he heard the drum taps. The rhythmical beats proceeded from some distance off. The unseen drummer seemed to be marching through the forest, away ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... 'd a drummer be doin' here this time o' year? That's the feller that's ousted Chet Timson, an' I'll bet ye the drinks on't. Name's Linx or Lenx, or somethin' like that. ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... they passed, they were yielded to with the utmost respect, and they were whispering in the crowd: "There are my soldiers! there are our defenders!" I envy them, I thought, it's a beautiful thing to be a grenadier! And I approached the division, and having taken the place beside the drummer, I marched in the grenadiers' step, singling out the commander, to whom I immediately ...
— My First Battle • Adam Mickiewicz

... laid it out in 1638. It is still the largest public square in the heart of any city in the United States. In the middle of the Green they built the first "meeting-house." It was fifty feet square, made of rough timbers, with a small tower on top where the drummer stood on Sundays to "drum" the people to church; for at first there were no bells. Each person had a seat carefully assigned to him, or her, in the meeting-house. Sometimes the boys sat with the soldiers near the door. We ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton

... press to outdistance its old rivals, the pulpit and the platform, and thus become the chief ally of public opinion. It has also economized business by bringing the producer and consumer into more direct contact, and in many cases has actually abolished the middle man and drummer. ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt

... sat on his door-step watching Drummer the Woodpecker building a new home in the old apple-tree. Drummer's red head flew back and forth, back and forth, and his sharp bill cut out tiny bits of wood. It was slow work; it was hard work. But Drummer seemed happy, very happy indeed. It was watching Drummer that started Johnny Chuck ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess

... was jolly and all went well, except that Philip would tell stories,—Western stories about "commercial gents" and "drummer hotels" and such things. He tells a story very well; but he also tells it very long. With the tact upon which I justly pride myself, I tried to shut him up or draw him off; but each time Winifred would bring him right back, with "What was it you were just going ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... ham and eggs to a commercial drummer, was amazed by this familiarity and stopped and showed that amazement. He was more astonished by what he overheard. Mr. Orne was saying, "As your ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... every side of him.—"Let those arms be stacked; it will be time to use them when I proclaim the need. And you, fellows, who have been so bold as to lift a pike without an order have a care they do not burn your hands."—A dozen staves fell upon the deck together.—"Is there a drummer in this ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... dismal spot, and the horses, tired and sweaty, toiled almost painfully up the short stretch of rising ground. There were seven people in the stage: Mr. Mills, superintendent of the Royal Victoria mine; a travelling man (or drummer) from Chicago, one Pryor, an invalid tenderfoot, and four miners returning from a round-up at Denver. Steve Barclay was the only person outside. As the stage reached the summit of the little hill ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... thong, the pompous poltroons! If you only knew how they behaved to me! By Jove, sir, they hooted me going to the House of Lords, and nearly pulled me off my horse. The ruffians would have massacred me if they could; and then they all ran away from a drummer-boy and a couple of grenadiers, who were going the rounds to change guard. Was not that good? Fine, eh? A brutish mob in a fit of morality about to immolate a gentleman, and then scampering off from a sentry. I call ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... the Earl of Airlie, has for many years past been famous for its mysterious drummer, for whenever the sound of his drum is heard it is regarded as the sure indication of the approaching death of a member of the Ogilvie family. There is a tragic origin given to this curious phenomenon, the story generally told being to the effect that ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... appeared before Athlone, and summoned it to surrender. The veteran commandant, Colonel Richard Grace, a Confederate of 1641, having destroyed the bridge, and the suburbs on the Leinster side of the Shannon, replied by discharging his pistol over the head of the drummer who delivered the message. Douglas attempted to cross the river at Lanesborough, but found the ford strongly guarded by one of Grace's outposts; after a week's ineffectual bombardment, he withdrew from before Athlone, and proceeded to Limerick, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... house was beset with 500 of these rascal routers," notes the indomitable little prelate. He had received notice in time to secure the house, and after two hours of useless shouting the mob rolled away. Laud had his revenge; a drummer who had joined in the attack was racked mercilessly, and then hanged and quartered. But retaliation like this was useless. The gathering of the Long Parliament sounded the knell of the sturdy little minister who had ridden England ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... tabor, taborine. Associated Words: reveille, rappel, chamade, ruff, tattoo, ruffle, roll, rataplan, drummer, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... around and noted a drummer sitting in the seat across the aisle, staring curiously at him. With an effort Perry assumed an inscrutable expression and determined to stare the other out of countenance. Reluctantly the man glanced away, and after ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... Mpongwe, Mwaka alias Captain Merrick, a model sluggard; and Messrs. Smoke, Joe Williams, and Tom Whistle- -Kru-men, called Kru-boys. This is not upon the principle, as some suppose, of the grey-headed post-boy and drummer-boy: all the Kraoh tribes end their names in bo, e.g. Worebo, from "wore," to capsize a canoe; Grebo, from the monkey "gre" or "gle;" and many others. Bo became "boy," even as Sipahi (Sepoy) became Sea- pie, and Sukhani ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... old and young—to looking on from the outside. In the daytime the wagons and tents presented a dreary appearance, sunk in snow, the dogs shivering between the wheels, and but little other sign of life visible. When dusk came the lights were lit, and the drummer and fifer from the booth of tumblers were sent into the town to entice an audience. They marched quickly through the nipping, windy streets, and then returned with two or three score of men, women, and children, plunging through the snow or mud at their heavy ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... of November, said that the stars shot over in the form of a bow, and seemed to drop into the lake. Such a display, he added, was never before seen. He says that the Chippewa Indians called the Wolverine "Gween-guh-auga," which means underground drummer. This animal is a great digger ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... all like a drummer," said Miss Allison in prompt defence of her new protector. "In fact, I don't think he talked ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... sound of battle has died away following the departure of Washington and his army, put on the tableau of "The Spirit of '76." The fifer, the drummer, and the little boy should be good musicians playing patriotic music of the Revolution. Their wounded and ragged comrades are seen in ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... himself from the saddle and closed his gauntleted hand with force on the arm of a drummer boy. "Beat the rally!" ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... For a drummer to check his trunk, is an omen of advancement and comfort. If he finds that his trunk is too small for his wares, he will soon hear of his promotion, and his desires will reach gratification. For a young woman to dream that she tries to unlock her trunk and can't, signifies that ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... manners, Lempriere held out his arms, and Le Gallais fell upon his breast. Meanwhile a drummer from the Castle was seen to ascend the bill, bearing a white pennon at the end of a lance, which he planted on the ground when he came within sight, and beat ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... Athlete*** Bee-Keeper Bird Hunter Bugler Business Women*** Canner Child Nurse Citizen*** Cook Craftsman Cyclist Dairy Maid Dancer Dressmaker Drummer Economist Electrician Farmer First Aide*** Flower Finder Gardener Handy Woman Health Guardian*** Health Winner Home Maker Home Nurse*** Horsewoman Hostess Interpreter Journalist**** Laundress Milliner Motorist**** Musician Needlewoman ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... imposes and collects taxes; he has boundary walls torn down; he goes in person to the houses of cultivators and makes requisitions for grain; he seizes the convoys which have not deposited their quote in his own richly stored granaries. One day, preceded by a drummer, he marches outside the walls, makes proclamation of "his agrarian laws," and proceeds at once to the partition of the territory, and, by virtue of the ancient communal or church property rights, to assign ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... widow's arrival in town, with a drummer beating before her, whose cap was bedecked with ostrich feathers; a bowman walking on foot at the head of her horse; a train behind, armed with bows, swords, and spears. She rode a-straddle on a fine horse, whose trappings were of the first order for this country. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various

... his prospects, I had some of his friends interviewed, and managed to learn that the friend on whom Maroney principally relied to furnish bail, was one whom he had met in the South when he was a drummer, but who had now become ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... know she almost lives on acids and small whey— laces herself by pulleys and often in the hottest noon of summer you may see her on a little squat Pony, with her hair plaited up behind like a Drummer's and puffing round the Ring ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... to judge from the prim front of her squares, the cordial grasp of hand-in-hand with which they form to resist all masculine charges, no one would imagine the ruthless severity with which woman was breaking some poor drummer-boy inside. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... lodge returning Kindly greeting found the hunter, Fire to warm and food to nourish, Golden trout from Gitchee Gumee, Caught by Kk-kh-g—the Raven. With a snare he caught the rabbit— Caught Wabse, the furry footed, [7] Caught Peny, the forest drummer; [7] Sometimes with his bow and arrows, Shot the red deer in the forest. Shot the squirrel in the pine top, Shot Ne-k, the wild goose, flying. Proud as Waub-Ojeeg, the warrior, To the lodge he bore his trophies So when homeward turned ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... arrived at the battery and being provided with all needful materials, the gunner and his assistants take their places, and the drummer is to beat a roll. The gunner cleans the piece carefully with a dry rammer, and in pulling out the said rammer gives a dab or two to the mouth of the piece to remove any dirt adhering." (At this point it was customary to make the sign of the cross ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy

... for sea, on Sunday the 20th two subalterns, three sergeants, three corporals, one drummer, and sixty privates, of the New South Wales corps, were embarked, for the purpose of relieving the detachment from that corps now on duty at Norfolk Island under the command of a captain, who received orders to return to ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... Adolphus Montier, drummer to the regiment, jailer to the prisoner, father of Elizabeth,—loving man, whichever way you looked at him. He had his French horn in his hands, and was about to raise it to his lips; in a moment more a blast would have rung through the house, for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... to decry our living romancers, and certainly not to criticise them. If any man choose to maintain that there is more poetry in Tess than in the entire Barsetshire series, that Dickens could not have bettered the Two Drummer Boys of Rudyard Kipling, that Treasure Island has a realism as vivid as Robinson Crusoe, that Mrs. Wood's Village Tragedy may rank with Silas Marner, that Howells and Besant, Ouida and Rhoda Broughton, Henry James and Mrs. Burnett, are as good reading as ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... found," laughed Loring. After a few rebuffs they picked up a drummer, and adjourned to the smoker, buying a deck from the train boy. The little dark man and Steve played against the other two, a suitcase on their knees serving as a table. They played a rubber. Steve verified his statements as to his style ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... industries, the overstimulation of others, for speculative purposes; the assignments and bank failures, the crises and panics, the deserted towns and the starving populations! Consider the energies wasted in the seeking of markets, the sterile trades, such as drummer, solicitor, bill-poster, advertising agent. Consider the wastes incidental to the crowding into cities, made necessary by competition and by monopoly railroad rates; consider the slums, the bad air, the disease and the waste of vital energies; consider the office buildings, the waste ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... devil's roar burst upon our ears there was not a man, down to the drummer boys, who did not understand what it meant. It was Napoleon's last great effort to crush us. There were but two more hours of light, and if we could hold our own for those all would be well. Starved and weary and spent, we prayed that ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... account for the commotion among the horses, and slipping the knife into his pocket, entered the saloon from which he emerged unobserved while the boisterous crowd was refilling its glasses at the solicitation of a white goods drummer who had been among the first to accept ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... pursued and ready to drop with fatigue, they found a cask of wine, and a drummer, knocking off its head, stooped down to drink, when he was pierced with a bullet, and his blood mingled with the liquor, which was, nevertheless, greedily swallowed by the famishing soldiery.—Jacob's Campaign of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... dancers break rank, seeking rest. They collect in groups or mingle with the bystanders, chatting, laughing, panting. Their violent exercise has played sad havoc with the paint upon their faces and bodies, rendering them less fantastic but more ludicrous. The drummer occasionally raps his instrument to satisfy himself that it is in order, otherwise there is a lull of which all avail themselves to take part in the general conversation. Children resume their sports ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... voice-tube to tell them below to 'stand by,' as probably we would want steam up in a very short time; directing also the coxswains of the boats alongside to make ready, as well as passing the word forward for the boatswain's mates and the drummer and bugler to be handy ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... a farmer's son who was off to Moen for the annual manoeuvres. He was to be the drummer, and his way lay right across the mountains. There he could practise his drumming at his ease, and beat his tattoos again and again without making folks laugh, or having a parcel of small boys dangling about him like so ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... shall be Grenadoes, We'll bounce about the Bravado's By huffing and puffing, and snuffing and cuffing the French Boys, Whose Brows have been dy'd in a Trench Boys; Well got Fame is a Warriour's Wife, The Drawer shall be the Drummer, We'll be Colonels all next Summer By hiking and tilting, and pointing and jointing like brave Boys, We shall have Gold or a Grave, Boys, And there's an end of ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various

... it; and, with all my desire and with every intention to encourage native talent, I was compelled to turn away, "more in sorrow than in anger," (SHAKSPEARE again—Hamlet's Ghost, I think,) when the pipe-and-drummer man came to me for a contribution. Not a penny in my pocket. "I will reimburse thee nobly," said I, "on my return from the Mine-land." He quoted some line or other, which I did not catch, and gave the name of the writer, one "WALKER," as his authority. WALKER is associated in my mind with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various

... affianced. Here, take these ducats, which I give you to keep you in a fitting garb. As for you, Sir Oudart, be sure you make your personal appearance there in your fine surplice and stole, not forgetting your holy water, as if you were to wed them. Be you there also, Trudon, said he to his drummer, with your pipe and tabor. The form of matrimony must be read, and the bride kissed; then all of you, as the witnesses used to do in this country, shall give one another the remembrance of the wedding, which you know is to be a blow with ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... up by running away with a drummer ... she hadn't been gone long when her ma got word from her asking her to forgive her ... that she'd run off with a man she loved, and was to be married to him pretty soon.... Phoebe gave no address, but the letter had ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... chair on which he sat slightly back from the table, and dropped himself, standing, to the floor,—his head being only a little above the level of the table, as he stood. With pain and labor, lifting one foot over the other, as a drummer handles his sticks, he took a few steps from his place,—his motions and the deadbeat of the misshapen boots announcing to my practised eye and ear the malformation which is called in learned language talipes ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... in the crowd, the lingerie drummer, getting the grim humor of the situation, laughed—and the laugh came like a challenge, taunting the quick-tempered, turbulent soul of ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... gilded cage containing a startled canary. At intervals she was aroused by the flitting figure of a small boy on the way to the cooler of iced water. From the rear of the car came the amiable drawl of the conductor as he discussed the affairs of the State with a local drummer, whose feet rested upon ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... had some of her men slain. After this, as Mr Davey writes, the fight continued an hour and a half, during which five men were killed in the Swan, viz. Mr Sophonie Cozocke, merchant, who was driven to pieces by a cannon-ball, Robert Morton, quartermaster and drummer, Christopher Droope, Edward Murtkin, and a Bantianese passenger from Wayre. Three others were maimed, having lost arms or legs, with very little hopes of recovery; and eight others were wounded, most of them mortally. During the engagement, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... paint factory drummer who has never had the opportunities you have enjoyed; but so long as we're up here in the wilds the only thing that counts is that we're men with the same weaknesses and feelings. Because that's so, and you're hard up against it, my partner and I ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... said to his servant, "go and get me my clothes. Wait, no! my wife can help me. There is no time to be lost. You run to Bolton, the drummer, you know, and tell him from me to beat the alarm instantly all over town. Then you run to Capt. Parenteau's, and explain to him what you have heard. Ask him to get the keys of the engine-house.—Wait!—when you have done that, come back and put the horse in.—Fire at Valpinson! ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... off! S'help me, 'e COULDN'T fall off," blubbered a drummer-boy. "Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's anywhere, an' maybe those Pathans have got 'im. For the love o' Gawd don't look for 'im in the nullahs! Let's ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... is called "A blow at modern Sadducism; or Philosophical considerations touching the being of Witches and Witchcraft; with an account of the Demon of Tedworth." Lond. 1666, 4to. There are other editions in folio and 8vo. in 1667 and 1668. Addison founded his comedy of "The Drummer, or the Haunted House," on this occurrence. ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... have gone forth with the blessing of popes; a nation invokes its God before beginning a campaign of murder, rape and pillage. The ruthless exploitation of India becomes the civilizing fulfilment of the "white man's burden"; not infrequently the missionary, drummer, and prospector are embodied in one man. In the nineteenth century church, press and university devoted no inconsiderable part of their time to proving the high moral and scientific justice of child labor and human sweating. It is a matter of ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... the world, and, amongst other things, a perjured villain. Old Fulcher, before he left the town with his son,—and here it will be well to say that he and his son left it in a kind of triumph, the base drummer of a militia regiment, to whom they had given half-a-crown, beating his drum before them—Old Fulcher, I say, asked me to go and visit him, telling me where, at such a time, I might find him and his caravan and family; offering, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... perhaps to prove that Greek noise could do nothing which the modern cannot operate as effectually: and Dr. Willis in particular tells us of a lady who could hear only while a drum was beating, in so much that her husband, the account says, hired a drummer as her servant, in order to enjoy the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... soldier, with a thousand leagues of ocean betwixt him and responsibility, grew harsh, domineering, and violent beyond endurance. None could question or oppose him without peril of death. He hanged with his own hands a drummer who had fallen under his displeasure, and banished a soldier, named La Chore, to a solitary island, three leagues from the fort, where he left him to starve. For a time his comrades chafed in smothered fury. The crisis came at length. A few of the fiercer spirits ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... ratified by the approval of the Dean. The desolate boy with the warm heart, bright intellect, and noble aspirations, was carried home by his friend, at holiday times, into the Lichfield Deanery, where, Steele wrote afterwards to Congreve in a Dedication of the 'Drummer', ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... delay, and for a long while I watched the peculiar bearing of the patriots as they marched out. I noticed in particular a Vogtland regiment, whose marching step was fairly orthodox, following the beat of a drummer who tried to vary the monotony of his instrument in an artistic manner by hitting the wooden frame alternately with the drumhead. The unpleasant rattling tone thus produced reminded me in ghostly fashion of the rattling of the skeletons' ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... bosom of a heavenly nymph: For I will use it as my writing paper; And so reduce him, from a scolding drum, To be the herald, and dear counsel-bearer, Betwixt a goddess and a mighty king. Go, bid the drummer learn to touch the lute, Or hang him in the braces of his drum; For now we think it an uncivil thing To trouble heaven with such harsh resounds. Away! [Exit Lodowick. The quarrel that I have requires ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... they are never to be satisfied!—Generous and just declaimers! To this, and to this only, amount the whole of your arguments, when stript of their sophistry. Those personages remind me of a story of a certain drummer, who, being called upon in the course of duty to administer punishment to a friend tied to the halberts, was requested to flog high, he did—to flog low, he did—to flog in the middle, he did,—high, low, down ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Lichtenstein, Major-General of the Austrian army. A heavy rain fell without cessation, and the prisoners were amazed to see the Emperor, who had not taken off his boots for a week, wet through, covered with mud, and more tired than the humblest drummer. When some one spoke of it, he said to Prince Lichtenstein: "Your Emperor wanted to remind me that I was a soldier. I hope he will acknowledge that the throne and the Imperial purple have not made me forget my old ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... disappointed me, for faces that looked merry and good in the light, grew bad and sly when the shadows came; and though they made no confidences in words, I read their lives, leaving them to wonder at the change of manner this midnight magic wrought in their nurse. A few talked busily; one drummer boy sang sweetly, though no persuasions could win a note from him by day; and several depended on being told what they had talked of in the morning. Even my constitutionals in the chilly halls, possessed a certain charm, for the house ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott

... solve. For a moment I do assure ye that we bethought us that it might be a judgment upon us for our attention to such carnal follies. Then it crossed my mind that it might be the doing of some malicious sprite, as the Drummer of Tedworth, or those who occasioned the disturbances no very long time since at the old Gast House at Little Burton here in Somersetshire. (Note F. Appendix.) With this thought we hallooed to the coachman, and told him what had occurred to us. The fellow came down from his perch, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "Le Chant du Depart," the famous song of the revolution. The scene was a little country village. The principals were the officer, the soldier, the wife, the mother, the daughter, and the drummer boy. There was a magnificent soldier chorus and the fanfare of drums and trumpets. The audience then became honestly enthusiastic. I concluded that the best Chenal could do with the "Marseillaise," which was next on the programme, would be ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... fished out from under his bed one of the singular Cree drums, a shallow, one-sided circle of bent wood covered with tightly stretched moose skin. He showed them how the Indian drummer held this, straining it tight with thongs stretched from finger to thumb, and making the music by drumming with the ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough

... P. H. Humphrey, mineralogist; Lieutenant Fosbrook, deputy-commissary-general; G. P. Harris, deputy-surveyor; John Clarke and William Patterson, superintendents of convicts; Lieutenants W. Sladen, J. M. Johnson, and Edward Lord; 39 marines, 3 sergeants, 1 drummer, 1 fifer; and 367 ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... received with laughter. Not a year had passed, before his master, conscious of growing infirmities, took him for a partner. He proposed again; he was accepted; led two years of troubled married life; and awoke one morning to find his wife had run away with a dashing drummer, and had left him heavily in debt. The debt, and not the drummer, was supposed to be the cause of this hegira; she had concealed her liabilities, they were on the point of bursting forth, she was weary of Bellairs; and she took ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... colour; whether it be his first or fifth marriage, he is always decorated with this mark of virginity, be his age what it may. The day of the marriage ceremony, he causes a camel to be slain for the entertainment of his guests. The women and children, without any distinction, assemble round the drummer; while he, set upon the ground, beats with his hand upon the instrument, and sounding through the other hand like a trumpet, he adds to this horrid noise the beating of his drum, and an iron chain which he moves with his arm. One person ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... saw a drummer, who had been among the crew of the shipwrecked vessels, washed upon the shore upon his drum, which lie had used as a raft. The poor fellow had his thigh broken, and had remained more than twenty ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... stateroom, occupying the upper berth, was a little round-bodied, red-faced Canadian drummer, "traveling" in harvest-machines. The name of the machine, its price, and the terms of purchase were his universe; he knew them in several languages; beyond them, nothing. He was good-natured, conceding anything to save trouble. "D'ye mind the light for a bit while I read ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... from the flag-ship, and then on board all the boats there was a shrill whistle. It was the boatswain piping all hands to quarters. The drummer beat his roll, and the marines seized their muskets. The sailors threw open the ports, ran out the guns, brought up shot and shells, stowed away furniture, took down rammers and sponges, seized their handspikes, stripped off their coats, ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... were written with powers truly comic, with nice discrimination of characters, and accurate observation of natural or accidental deviations from propriety; but it was not supposed that he had tried a comedy on the stage, till Steele after his death declared him the author of The Drummer. This, however, Steele did not know to be true by any direct testimony, for when Addison put the play into his hands, he only told him it was the work of a "gentleman in the company;" and when it was received, as is confessed, with cold disapprobation, he was probably less ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... was very impartial, and distributed her kind looks to everybody. She had not the slightest prejudice against color, and did not care in the least whether her particular friends were black or white. Her especial favorites, I think, were the little drummer-boys, who were not my favorites by any means, for they were a roguish set of little scamps, and gave more trouble than all the grown men in the regiment. I think Annie liked them because they were small, and made a noise, and had red caps like her hood, and red facings on their jackets, and also ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... route step,—i.e., every man marches and carries his gun as he pleases). The fifes and the snare-drums promptly obeyed, but the big bass drum was silent. The men fell into cadence step in fine shape, including the bass drummer, but his big shell gave forth no sound. The colonel called out, "What's the matter with the bass drum?" Still no response. A second ejaculation from head-quarters, a little more emphatic, fared no better. Patience now exhausted, the colonel yelled, "What in ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... king. Dunbar, however, who was on shore engaged in the business of the surrender, was held as a prisoner. The Whigs were not much nearer taking the Bass. On September 3 they sent a sergeant and a drummer to offer a free pardon to the Cavaliers. They were allowed to land on the rock, but Middleton merely laughed at the promise of a free pardon, and he kept the sergeant and drummer, whom he afterwards released. A Danish ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... the smoking-room filled. The drummer with the large ears let his companion introduce "Mr. Marsh" to him, and was presently so pleased with the easy, open, and thoroughly informed way in which this wealthy young man discussed cigars and horses ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... twists himself like a corkscrew, and all the while beats time, accompanying his notes with cries and howls, reminding one of the Apache Indian when engaged in a war dance. It is astonishing to witness to what a degree of excitement this negro drummer will work himself up, often fairly frothing at the mouth. A buxom wench and her mate step forward and perform a wild, sensuous combination of movements, a sort of negro can-can, like those dancing girls one sees in India, striving to express sentiments of love, jealousy, and passion by their ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... distant thunder, and the wind of Hughes, the fifer, is inexhaustible; he can blow five miles at a stretch. The members of the band are in good pluck, and when not playing, either sing, tell stories, or indulge in reminiscences of a personal character. Russia has been badgering William Heney, a drummer. He says that while at Elkwater Heney sparked one of Esquire Stalnaker's daughters, and that the lady's little sister going into the room quite suddenly one evening called back to the father, "Dad, dad, William Heney has got his arm around Susan Jane!" Heney affirms that the story is ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... kind and mushy, but this goodness with a glad look and bounding heart, goodness with an iron hand, we have not had before. It is Mr. Roosevelt's goodness that has made him interesting in Cairo, Paris, Rome, and Berlin. He has been conducting a grand tour of goodness. He has been a colossal drummer of goodness, conducting an advertising campaign. He has proved himself a master salesman for moral values. And he has put the American character, its hope, its energy, on the markets and on the ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... whatever the enactment, it did not apply to natives, or else that he was a very fearless man, willing to take the risk from which he would save me—a sort of commercial philanthropist. However, by that time I had other things to think of, being a drummer and a very ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... is green, Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen, And Betty's a lady, and wears a gold ring, And Johnny's a drummer, and drums for ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous

... position, and completely routed him. The Invaders lost ten thousand in killed and wounded, and nine hundred prisoners. Twenty pieces of artillery were captured. This blow will crush the Spanish brigands, and make certain the independence of the island. Our loss was trifling—only a drummer-boy or two. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various

... It was the pride of his store. He always kept it well dusted and dressed. The delicate wrappings and fancy labels always had a strong fascination for him. Then there were the curative possibilities of the contents of the inviting packages as set forth by the insistent "drummer" who sold them ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... an awful thing. That child had lived in the house with her father and mother two years before. They had come—or the father had—from a real good family. He had a good situation: he was a drummer for a big leather house in the city, and they lived real pretty, with plenty to do with. But the mother was a real wicked woman. She was as handsome as a picture, and they said she came from good sort of people enough in Boston, but she was bad clean through, though she was real ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

... that hungry look. There was a lady drummer here last winter, and she had the same expression. She was so dead sick of eating her supper and then going up to her ugly room and reading and sewing all evening that it was a wonder she'd stayed good. She said it was ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... he must go, and he was cast in due form and replaced by a washy, bay beast as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck, rat-tail, and cow- hocks. The Drummer detested that animal, and the best of the Band-horses put back their ears and showed the whites of their eyes at the very sight of him. They knew him for an upstart and no gentleman. I fancy that the Colonel's ideas of smartness extended ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... "the lives of two young gentlemen of about eighteen years of age, as well as of three others, the fifer, the drummer, and the trumpeter; and I caused Jean Ribaut with all the rest to be passed under the knife, judging this to be expedient for the service of God our Lord, and of your Majesty. And I consider it great good fortune that he (Jean Ribaut) should be dead, for the King of France could ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... the car glanced at them several times as did the drummer who occupied the seat forward. They met in the smoking compartment and the drummer ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... in extreme misery, and they were grateful for any attention or assistance. One of them was taken into our institution as a servant. He had been in the army eighteen years, fifteen of which he had served as drummer. He had been in some of the severest battles, had gone through the Russian campaign, and was among the few of his regiment who survived the carnage of Waterloo. And yet this man, who had been familiar with death more than half his life, and who at times talked as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... The drummer, who had the upper berth, had retreated at the first sign of trouble to the safety of the smoking-room, and was apparently trying more completely to hide himself in clouds of obscuring cigar smoke. The passengers ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... pilothouse fell like a pack of cards on the deck before they had gone three miles and a half. Then the indomitable Sherman disembarked, a lighted candle in his hand, and led a stiff march through thicket and swamp and breast-deep backwater, where the little drummer boys carried their drums on their heads. At length, when they were come to some Indian mounds, they found a picket of three, companies of the force which had reached the flat the day before, and had been sent down to prevent ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonor done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the moat." In strictness this woman could hardly be termed a Banshee. The motive for the haunting is akin to that in the tale of the Scotch "Drummer of Cortachy," where the spirit of the murdered man haunts the family out of revenge, ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... to look at, you say. A common, middle-aged, pie-faced, golf-playing high-brow, that you wouldn't keep out of a Sunday school. A touch of the drummer, too, to show he has no dealings with your effete aristocracy. A languishing silver-tongue that adores the sound of his own voice. As mild, you'd say, as ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... following stratagem for routing the "skedaddlers." There was no lack of drums in the neighborhood, for in those days the boys, who were not old enough to volunteer, had fond dreams of going to the War as drummer-boys. Adney went about privately next morning with Sam Murch and induced three or four young fellows to take drums and go with him into the woods that afternoon. Under Sam's lead the little party arrived ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... weight of a man in that position, and when he is straining every nerve to resist the accomplishment of your object it becomes altogether impracticable. The excitement in the crowd was intense. The very drummer—I ought to call him a tom-tomer—had ceased to beat his tom-tom. Pat's lips were firmly pressed together, and K. was trembling with suppressed excitement. The heaving chests and profuse perspiration bedewing the bodies of both combatants, told how severe had ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... wakens the dormant savage in the breasts of men, soon fell into quarrels. Albert, a rude soldier, with a thousand leagues of ocean betwixt him and responsibility, grew harsh, domineering, and violent beyond endurance. None could question or oppose him without peril of death. He hanged a drummer who had fallen under his displeasure, and banished La Chere, a soldier, to a solitary island, three leagues from the fort, where he left him to starve. For a time his comrades chafed in smothered fury. The crisis came at length. A few of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... some women, the wife of a Sergeant-Major Martens, who had followed the army, and a Mrs. Basler, who was always active, preparing some food while her husband with others was lying exhausted at the camp fire, and who seldom spoke, never complained. This poor woman lost a son, a drummer boy, who had been wounded at Smolensk. She as well as ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... good to my mother. And they help her even after freedom. Charlie Adams and Mack Adams of Malvern, Arkansas. John was the sheriff and ran a store. Mack was a drummer for the Penzl Grocery. When my mother was ill, he used to bring her thirty dollars at a time. Every two months she had to go down to Malvern when she was well and carry an empty trunk and when she would come back it would be ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... know," Mary boasted with quiet petulance. "My father stayed behind to fight in the Civil War. He was a drummer-boy. That's why he didn't come to California ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... band of music passed down the street. Roma, who loved bands of music, asked Rossi to lift her up that she might look at it. A little drummer boy was marching at the head of a procession, ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... of all good things. This will I affirm for truth, upon my word, and pawn my faith and credit both upon it. As for the rest, I will be no less joyful, frolic, glad, cheerful, merry, jolly, and gamesome, than a well-bended tabor in the hands of a good drummer at a nuptial feast, still making a noise, still rolling, still buzzing and cracking. Believe me, sir, in that consisteth none of my least good fortunes. And my wife will be jocund, feat, compt, neat, quaint, dainty, trim, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... music. In the enclosure set apart for the orchestra the massed musicians earned their living violently in the midst of the gaily dressed idlers, who heard them with indifference, and saw them as wound-up marionettes. The drummer hammered on his blatant instrument with all the crude skill of his tribe, producing occasional terrific noises with darting fists, while his face remained as immovable as that of a Punchinello. A flautist piped romantically an Arcadian measure, while his prominent eyes stared ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... officers, except five, were either dead or captured. Three thousand combatants had been massacred in that barn. A sergeant of the English Guards, the foremost boxer in England, reputed invulnerable by his companions, had been killed there by a little French drummer-boy. Baring had been dislodged, Alten put to the sword. Many flags had been lost, one from Alten's division, and one from the battalion of Lunenburg, carried by a prince of the house of Deux-Ponts. The Scotch Grays no longer existed; Ponsonby's great dragoons ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... escape and landing was received by the gallant —th with a fiery delight and enthusiasm, which everybody can understand who knows that famous corps. From the colonel to the smallest drummer in the regiment, all were filled with hope and ambition and patriotic fury; and thanked the French Emperor as for a personal kindness in coming to disturb the peace of Europe. Now was the time the —th had so long panted for, to show their comrades in arms that they could fight as well as ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... man, I will avouch the deed," answered Endicott. "Beat a flourish, drummer!—shout, soldiers and people!—in honor of the ensign of New England. Neither Pope nor Tyrant hath ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... forget that the editor—whether you believe it or not—is just as "human" as you are, and quick to respond to the best that there is in you. Shake off the delusion that you need to play the "good fellow" to him, like the old-fashioned type of drummer in a small town. Simply and sincerely and straight from the shoulder—also briefly, because he is a busy man—state your case, leave your literary goods for inspection and go ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing

... Hinnissy, they begun shootin' at th' bystanders. I'll tell ye what th' pa-apers said about it. Th' two antagonists was in perfect form an' well sustained th' reputation iv th' state f'r acc'rate workmanship. Colonel Derringer's first shot caught a boot an' shoe drummer fr'm Chicago square in th' back amid consid'rable applause. Major Lyddite tied th' scoor be nailin' a scrubwoman on th' top iv a ladder. Th' man at th' traps sprung a bell boy whom th' Colonel on'y winged, thus goin' back wan, but his second barrel brought down a book-canvasser ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne

... refused to go through the freezing water. Clark could not per-suade them to cross the river. He called to him a tall sol-dier. He was the very tallest man in Clark's little army. Clark said to him, "Take the little drummer boy ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston

... paralyzed, and dead to every feeling save the most abject, pitiful terror. A number of officers could be distinguished amid the tumult, performing, with violent gesticulations, the pantomimic accompaniments of shouting incoherent commands, mingled with threats and entreaties. There was a little drummer boy, I remember, too, standing in his shirt sleeves and pounding his drum furiously, though to what purpose we could none of us divine. Men were there in every stage of partial uniform and equipment; many were hatless and coatless, and few still retained ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... at Preobrajensk messengers came almost daily to Moscow for powder, lead, and shot; small brass and iron cannon were supplied the boy, and drummer-boys, selected from the different regiments, were sent to him. Thus he was allowed to play at soldier to his ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... barrels in his eyes made him start in mid career; and having had quite enough into his head, he turned to us his tail. These animals show a great antipathy to Europeans, probably from not having been accustomed to their dress. Red, of course, makes them furious, and, thanks to his jacket, a drummer of one of the regiments was killed by these animals. Towards evening we felt it quite impossible to wade any further; and although nightfall is considered the best time for shooting ducks, we thought it was the best ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... action in releasing Fire Bear on the agent's promise to produce the prisoner in court was the cause of considerable criticism. The two women, the ranchman, and one of the drummers had voted that too much leniency was shown. The other drummer appealed to the stage-driver to support his contention that the court's action was ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... that waked us from our martial dreams. The drum of the infantry, the bugles of the cavalry and artillery would begin; some early riser would rouse up his regiment; then another would take it up; until the call had gone through every corps. The old staid rub-a-dub of the English drummer is giving place to the stirring French rat-a-plan. And there was one band that generally led off in a splendid style. They did beat their drums lively and sharply. Not being obliged to be up with the sun and cook our own breakfast, we generally contrived to get a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... quarters after death, stretched on a drum, and beaten night after night round the streets of every garrison town in Europe. And up the heights of Alma and Spicheren, and wherever death has his red flag a-flying, and sounds his own potent tuck upon the cannons, there also must the drummer-boy, hurrying with white face over fallen comrades, batter and bemaul this slip of skin from the loins of ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a drive of over thirty miles, only to be done by a merciful man between sunrise and sunset. Mr. and Mrs. Jardine started at five o'clock, breakfasted and lunched on the road, and brought their faithful steed, Drummer Boy, up to the Wimperfield portico at seven in the evening, with not a hair turned. Ida was waiting ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... Castle. The Miraculous Conformist. The Restoration and Scepticism. Experimental Proof of Spiritual Existence. Glanvill. Boyle. More. The Gentleman's Butler. 'Levitation.' Witchcraft. Movements of Objects. The Drummer of Tedworth. Haunted Houses. Rerrick. Glenluce. Ghosts. 'Spectral Evidence.' Continuity and Uniformity of Stories. St. Joseph of Cupertino, his Flights. Modern Instances. Theory of Induced Hallucination. Ibn Batuta. Animated Furniture. From China to Peru. Rapping Spirit at Lyons. ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... fortune. Never judge me, and try to understand my meaning. You ask who Raoul de Frescas is? I will explain to you; he will soon have an income of twelve hundred thousand francs. He will be a prince. And I picked him up when he was begging on the high road, and ready to become a drummer-boy; in his twelfth year he had neither name nor family; he came from Sardinia, where he must have got into some trouble, for he was a ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... girl settin' on the pianner stool, another in a chair, and a nice shiny Jew drummer danglin' his feet from a table. They looked up when they see me come in, and ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... of time, but sitting down again in confusion under the contemptuous scowls and pluckings of the rest),—where the emperor dashed by, and reined up to ask an officer what regiment that was that had broken, and who was that drummer that had been promoted to ensign;—they all knew how, on the grand review afterwards, the Sergeant, beating his drum with one hand (while the other, which had been broken by a bullet, was in a sling), had marched with ...
— "A Soldier Of The Empire" - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page

... show the sword, the bow, and some the spear Which their great ancestor, forsooth, did wear. These in the herald's register remain, Their noble mean extraction to explain, Yet who the hero was no man can tell, Whether a drummer or colonel; The silent record blushes to reveal Their ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... of his masters. At the rectory gatherings on Christmas night Will was one of the principal singers, his chef-d'oeuvre "Oh! silver [query Sylvia] is a charming thing," and "The Helmingham Wolunteers." That famous corps was raised by Lord Dysart to repel "Bony's" threatened invasion; its drummer was John Noble, afterwards the wheelwright in Monk Soham. Once after drill Lord Dysart said to him: "You played that very well, John Noble;" and "I know't, my lord, I know't," was John's answer—an answer that has passed into a Suffolk proverb, ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome

... being in the midst of five hundred drums. At a given moment every drummer beats his drum with ever-increasing force without a fraction of a moment's respite. Add to this the most soul-splitting crash you have ever heard and the sound as of a gale of wind shrieking through ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... for travel so excellent, that large numbers of solicitors and agents traverse the country. Good personal address, a thorough understanding of the business, a knowledge of human nature, together with social qualities, constitute a good drummer. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... occupied. I'll put you down, Mr.——" and he glanced at the signature. "Four dollars and four bits, please. Show the gentleman to Number Six, Shorty. That drummer's gone, ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... nor greatcoats, and are compelled to attach, our scanty accoutrements to our persons with ingenious contrivances of string, we boast a fully equipped and highly efficient pipe band, complete with pipers, big drummer, side drummers, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... the Quai de la Monnaie. At the Pont Neuf we pass a band of men armed with pikes, axes and rifles, headed by a drummer, and led by a man brandishing a sabre and wearing a long coat of the King's livery. It is the coat of the coachman who has just been killed in the Rue Saint Thomas ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... the same drummer briskly. "So these young men, who are a credit to their profession and to their home towns, are ordered to leave here? Boys, I guess ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock

... selecting the hostages necessary for the proposed negotiations, they became less ardent and were all disposed to recede. At last, after much discussion, the matter was settled, and before nightfall a drummer was set upon the external parapet of the Porcupine, who forthwith began to beat vigorously for a parley. The rattle was a welcome sound in the ears of the weary besiegers, just drawn up in column for a desperate ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... agreement with Mazzini for the amicable reception of the French, and who, losing his temper, revealed more than he was meant to reveal. His last words, 'Les Italiens ne se battent pas,' unquestionably expressed the belief of the whole French force, from the general-in-chief to the youngest drummer. They were soon going to have a chance ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... was spotted, speckled and striped in gay colors, and on each of his hands was a round piece of brass. These pieces of brass were called "cymbals," and the Calico Clown could bang them together as the drummer bangs his cymbals in ...
— The Story of Calico Clown • Laura Lee Hope

... violin repairer. Phaff, the flute and clarinet man was another. Others were Senor Nojica, maker of guitars, harps in the Italian quarter of Kearny street, Charles Morrill, of banjos, Tall Dan Delaney, drummer at Maguire's Theater (who wouldn't learn a note of music and played as he pleased) who repaired drums, and C.C. Keene, maker of accordeons, in former days much played, Professor Wm. T. Ferrer, the guitarist, lately deceased, came ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... in a minute or two, I should think, Lieutenant (now Admiral Sir P.H.) Durham ordered the drummer to be called to beat to "right ship." The drummer was called in a moment, and the ship was then just beginning to sink. I jumped off the gangway as soon as the drummer was called. There was no time for him to beat his drum, and I do not know that he ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... drummer who was stopping at the Rye House for a day or so, "I thought Cowpens was a battle fought between the United States and the English back ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... York bar. There was abundant evidence of moral delinquency on the part of both parties to the suit, but the verdict was in favor of Mrs. Forrest. She was the daughter of John Sinclair, formerly a drummer in the English army and subsequently a professional singer. James Gordon Bennett said of her in the Herald that "being born and schooled in turmoil and dissipation and reared in constant excitement she could ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... mentions the case of a person who could only hear when a drum was beaten near her; and we are told of a woman who could not hear a word except when the sound of a drum was near, in which case she could hear perfectly well. When she married, her husband hired a drummer for his servant. In instances of this kind the noise probably excites the action of the torpid muscles, which then put the apparatus in ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... contact with a circle of friends that rather astonished me by its catholicity. It included, for instance, and quite naively, real estate dealers, clerks, a bank cashier or two, some man who had a leather shop or cigar factory in the downtown section, a drummer, a printer, two or three newspaper artists and reporters—a list too long to catalogue here and seemingly not interesting, at least not inspiring to look at or live in contact with. Yet his relations with all ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... of it; and it seemed to him that a "printer's devil" came to him in his chamber to ask for "more copy" of the important narrative. The imp disturbed him, and he awoke to find a man in his room; but it was only a half-tipsy "drummer" from the city, who had got into the wrong chamber when he went ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... forcing a passage through lounging unmilitary buckras with an air of, "Out of de way, Ole Dan Tucker!" We glanced at the yet unfinished ditch, half full of water, and walked on to the gateway. A grinning, skipping negro drummer was showing a new pair of shoes to the tobacco-chewing, jovial youth who stood, or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... great drum brought here, and to hear it beaten. It has led the people of Zinder to the razzia during the time of twelve sultans. The drummer, when he beats the drum in leading on the people to the razzia, repeats the perpetual chorus of Jatau chi geri—"The red (Sultan) eats up the country." He is afraid to mention the name of the Sultan, and so repeats the word red, as distinguishing royalty; but whether ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... thunder-clap, a vivid flash that lighted up the whole area of barracks, and an explosion that rattled the plaster in the guard-house chimneys. One thing the commandant wouldn't stand was disorder after "taps," and, in accordance with strict instructions, Lieutenant Lawrence sent a drummer-boy at once to find the colonel and tell him what had taken place, while he himself stirred up the cadet officer of the day and began an investigation. Half the corps by this time were up and chuckling with glee at their ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... replied, "I was but fifteen years old at that time. I didn't do much good or harm, for I was but a snare drummer the first two years of my soldiering, and the last year I was detailed as mounted orderly at brigade headquarters. But just see the people! Give them some messages! We shall be out of 'Yankee ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... triumph rose from the Highlanders, responded to by a cry of vengeance from the French, and the same moment the head of a column was seen descending the narrow causeway to the bridge, while an officer with a whole blaze of decorations and crosses sprang from his horse and took the lead. The little drummer, a child of scarcely ten years old, tripped gayly on, beating his little pas des charge, seeming rather like the play of infancy than the summons to death and carnage, as the heavy guns of the French opened a volume of fire and flame to cover the attacking ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever



Words linked to "Drummer" :   drum, Richard Starkey, Ringo Starr, tympanist, Starkey, percussionist, Starr, timpanist



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