Chapter T. to Tailors of T by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Tacket (Tibb), the wife of old Martin the shepherd of Julian Avenel of Avenel Castle.—Sir W. Scott: The Monastery (time, Elizabeth).

Tackleton, a toy merchant, called Gruff and Tackleton, because at one time Gruff had been his partner; he had, however, been bought out long ago. Tackleton was a stern, sordid, grinding man; ugly in looks, and uglier in his nature; cold and callous, selfish and unfeeling; his look was sarcastic and malicious; one eye was always wide open, and one nearly shut. He ought to have been a money-lender, a sheriff’s officer, or a broker, for he hated children and hated playthings. It was his greatest delight to make toys which scared children, and you could not please him better than to say that a toy from his warehouse had made a child miserable the whole Christmas holidays, and had been a nightmare to it for half its childlife. This amiable creature was about to marry May Fielding, when her old sweetheart Edward Plummer, thought to be dead, returned from South America, and married her. Tackleton was reformed by Peerybingle, the carrier, bore his disappointment manfully, sent the bride and bridegroom his own wedding-cake, and joined the festivities of the marriage banquet.—Dickens: The Cricket on the Hearth (1845).

Tactus, a character in the play called The Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senses, by Antony Brewer (1580), in which the tongue claims to be the Sixth Sense. When the play, says Chetwood, was performed at Cambridge in 1607, Oliver Cromwell took the part of Tactus, in which occur these words—

Roses and bays, pack hence! This crown and robe
My brows and body circles and invests.
How gallantly it fits me!

(The quotation affords a good hunting-ground for our Priscians.)

Taffril (Lieutenant), of H.M. gunbrig Search. He is in love with Jenny Caxton the milliner.—Sir W. Scott: The Antiquary (time, George III.).

Taffy, a Welshman. The word is simply Davy (David) pronounced with aspiration. David is the most common Welsh name; Sawney (Alexander), the most common Scotch; Pat (Patrick), the most common Irish; and John (John Bull), the most common English. So we have cousin Michael for a German, Micaire for a Frenchman, Colin Tampon for a Swiss, and brother Jonathan in the United States of North America.

Taffy, that is, Talbot Wynne, of Yorkshire, an admirable character in Trilby, a novel by Du Maurier (1895). He marries Miss Bagot, “Little Billee’s” sister.

Taffy in the Sedan chair, referred to in Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World (1759), is this: One stormy night, when the streets (which were neither paved nor swept) were knee-deep in mud, Taffy was going in full fig (pumps and white silk stockings) to an evening party. So he hired a Sedan chair, but as it had neither seat nor bottom, he was obliged to slump through the dirty streets, wholly unable to pick his way, and at every step he took the bottom ledge of the Sedan knocked against his heels and made them bleed. On arriving at his friend’s house, covered with blood and dirt, he was asked how he liked his accommodation. “Well,” said Taffy, “I think it was almost as bad as walking.”

Tag, wife of Puff, and lady’s-maid to Miss Biddy Bellair.—Garrick: Miss in Her Teens (1753).

Tahmuras, a king of Persia, whose exploits in Fairy-land among the peris and deevs are fully set forth by Richardson in his Dissertation.

Tail made Woman (Man’s). According to North American legend, God in anger cut off man’s tail, and out of it made woman.

Tail (Men with). (1) The Niam-niams, an African race between the gulf of Benin and Abyssinia, are said to have tails. Mons. de Castlenau (1851) tells us that the Niam-niams “have tails forty centimetres long, and between two and three centimetres in diameter.” Dr. Hubsch, physician to the hospitals of Constantinople, says, in 1853, that he carefully examined a Niam-niam negress, and that her tail was two inches long.