Cap Hat Quotes

Annabeth hesitated. "Then we'll all go." "No," I said. "It's too dangerous. If they got hold of Nico, or Rachel for that matter, Kronos could use them.You stay here and guard them." What I didn't say: I was also worried about Annabeth. I didn't trust what she would do if she saw Luke again. He had fooled her and manipulated her too many times before. "Percy, don't," Rachel said. "Don't go up there alone." "I'll be quick," I promised. "I won't do anything stupid." Annabeth took her Yankees cap out of her pocket. "At least take this. And be carful." "Thanks." I remembered the last time Annabeth and I had parted ways, when she'd given me a kiss for luck in Mount St. Helens. This time, all I got was the hat.

Oh,you may not think I'm pretty, But don't judge on what you see, I'll eat myself if you can find A smarter hat than me. You can keep your bowlers black, Your tops hats sleek and tall, For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat And I can cap them all. There's nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat can't see, So try me on and I will tell you Where you ought to be. Y ou might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell brave of heart, Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart; You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil; Or yet wise old Ravenclaw, If you've a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind; Or perhaps in Slytherin You'll make your real friends, Those cunning folk use any means To achive their ends. So put me on! Don't be afraid! And you won't get in a flap! You're safe in my hands(though I have none) For I'm a Thinking Cap!!

Percy: Put your cap back on... get out! Annabeth: What? No! I'm not leaving you. Percy: I've got a plan. I'll distract them. You can use the metal spider... maybe it'll lead you back to Hephaestus. You have to tell him what's going on. Annabeth: But you'll be killed! Percy: I'll be fine. Besides, we've got no choice. Annabeth glared at me like she was going to punch me, and then she did something that surprised me even more she kissed me. Annabeth Be careful, Seaweed Brain. Percy: she put on her hat and vanished.

Mr. Normal stepped forward and offered him a Scotch bottle. "You look like you could use some." Yeah, you think? Butch took a swig. "Thanks." "So can we kill him now?" said the one with the goatee and the baseball hat. Beth's man spoke harshly. "Back off, V." "Why? He's just a human." "And my shellan is half-human. The man doesn't die just because he's not one of us." "Jesus, you've changed your tune." "So you need to catch up, brother." Butch got to his feet. If his death was going to be debated, he wanted in on the discussion. "I appreciate the support," he said to Beth's boy. "But I don't need it." He went over to the guy with the hat, discreetly switching his grip on the bottle's neck in case he had to crack the damn thing over a head. He moved in tight, so their noses were almost touching. He could feel the vampire heating up, priming for a fight. "I'm happy to take you on, asshole," Butch said. "I'll probably end up losing, but I fight dirty, so I'll make you hurt while you kill me." Then he eyed the guy's hat. "Though I hate clocking the shit out of another Red Sox fan." There was a shout of laughter from behind him. Someone said, "This is gonna be fun to watch." The guy in front of Butch narrowed his eyes into slits. "You true about the Sox?" "Born and raised in Southie. Haven't stopped grinning since '04." There was a long pause. The vampire snorted. "I don't like humans." "Yeah, well, I'm not too crazy about you bloodsuckers." Another stretch of silence. The guy stroked his goatee. "What do you call twenty guys watching the World Series?" "The New York Yankees," Butch replied. The vampire laughed in a loud burst, whipped the baseball cap off his head, and slapped it on his thigh. Just like that, the tension was broken.

Lassiter skidded in from the billiards room, the fallen angel glowing from his black-and-blond hair and white eyes, all the way down to his shitkickers. Then again, maybe the illumination wasn’t his nature, but that gold he insisted on wearing. He looked like a living, breathing jewelry tree. “I’m here. Where’s my chauffeur hat?” “Here, use mine,” Butch said, outing a B Sox cap and throwing it over. “It’ll help that hair of yours.” The angel caught the thing on the fly and stared at the red S. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” “Do not tell me you’re a Yankees fan,” V drawled. “I’ll have to kill you, and frankly, tonight we need all the wingmen we’ve got.” Lassiter tossed the cap back. Whistled. Looked casual. “Are you serious?” Butch said. Like the guy had maybe volunteered for a lobotomy. Or a limb amputation. Or a pedicure. “No fucking way,” V echoed. “When and where did you become a friend of the enemy—” The angel held up his palms. “It’s not my fault you guys suck—” Tohr actually stepped in front of Lassiter, like he was worried that something a lot more than smack talk was going to start flying. And the sad thing was, he was right to be concerned. Apart from their shellans, V and Butch loved the Sox above almost everything else—including sanity.

I was having dinner…in London…when eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about “Your country’s never been invaded.” And so I said, “Let me tell you who those bad guys are. They’re us. WE BE BAD. We’re the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars. We’re the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d’Antibes. And we’ve got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go. You say our country’s never been invaded? You’re right, little buddy. Because I’d like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who’d have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying 'Cheerio.' Hell can’t hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch.

Knock it off, you two.’ Annabeth handed her scroll to Sadie. ‘Carter, let’s trade. I’ll try your khopesh ; you try my Yankees cap.’ She tossed him the hat. ‘I’m usually more of a basketball guy, but …’ Carter put on the cap and disappeared. ‘Wow, okay. I’m invisible, aren’t I?’ Sadie applauded. ‘You’ve never looked better, brother dear.’ ‘Very funny.’ ‘If you can sneak up on Setne,’ Annabeth suggested, ‘you might be able to take him by surprise, get the crown away from him.’ ‘But you told us Setne saw right through your invisibility,’ Carter said. ‘That was me ,’ Annabeth said, ‘a Greek using a Greek magic item. For you, maybe it’ll work better – or differently, at least.’ ‘Carter, give it a shot,’ I said. ‘The only thing better than a giant chicken man is a giant invisible chicken man.

Screw guys in backward ball caps and gray sweatpants. Men in hard hats and work boots are my new kink, thanks to Construction Ken standing in front of me with muscular arms and killer cheekbones.

We are against the glorification of “the People,” as we are against snobbery. It is not necessary to be an outcast bohemian, to be unkempt or poor, any more than it is necessary to be rich or handsome, to be an artist. Art is nothing to do with the coat you wear. A top-hat can well hold the Sixtine. A cheap cap could hide the image of Kephren.

I am locked in a very expensive suit old elegant and enduring Only my hair has been able to get free but someone has been leaving their dandruff in it Now I will tell you all there is to know about optimism Each day in hub cap mirror in soup reflection in other people's spectacles I check my hair for an army of alpinists for Indian rope trick masters for tangled aviators for dove and albatross for insect suicides for abominable snowmen I check my hair for aerialists of every kind Dedicated as an automatic elevator I comb my hair for possibilities I stick my neck out I lean illegally from locomotive windows and only for the barber do I wear a hat

Many colorful characters like Paul Hawken, and Michael Laton, who always wears a Russian astrakhan hat, and Jack the Fluke, who is a laughing grizzly Irishman with a beard like an Airedale and a cab driver’s cap and flapping tweeds bought from the Slightly Soiled Shop … all of them sitting around the great parlor, bare but a glory of old carved wood, fourteen-foot ceilings … Jack the Fluke tells about his girlfriend Sandra,

He’s got a backwards hat on, dark-rimmed glasses, and a toddler in his arms with a matching cap for goodness’ sake.

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes be content with less?

Excuse me while I throw this down, I’m old and cranky and tired of hearing the idiocy repeated by people who ought to know better. Real women do not have curves. Real women do not look like just one thing. Real women have curves, and not. They are tall, and not. They are brown-skinned, and olive-skinned, and not. They have small breasts, and big ones, and no breasts whatsoever. Real women start their lives as baby girls. And as baby boys. And as babies of indeterminate biological sex whose bodies terrify their doctors and families into making all kinds of very sudden decisions. Real women have big hands and small hands and long elegant fingers and short stubby fingers and manicures and broken nails with dirt under them. Real women have armpit hair and leg hair and pubic hair and facial hair and chest hair and sexy moustaches and full, luxuriant beards. Real women have none of these things, spontaneously or as the result of intentional change. Real women are bald as eggs, by chance and by choice and by chemo. Real women have hair so long they can sit on it. Real women wear wigs and weaves and extensions and kufi and do-rags and hairnets and hijab and headscarves and hats and yarmulkes and textured rubber swim caps with the plastic flowers on the sides. Real women wear high heels and skirts. Or not. Real women are feminine and smell good and they are masculine and smell good and they are androgynous and smell good, except when they don’t smell so good, but that can be changed if desired because real women change stuff when they want to. Real women have ovaries. Unless they don’t, and sometimes they don’t because they were born that way and sometimes they don’t because they had to have their ovaries removed. Real women have uteruses, unless they don’t, see above. Real women have vaginas and clitorises and XX sex chromosomes and high estrogen levels, they ovulate and menstruate and can get pregnant and have babies. Except sometimes not, for a rather spectacular array of reasons both spontaneous and induced. Real women are fat. And thin. And both, and neither, and otherwise. Doesn’t make them any less real. There is a phrase I wish I could engrave upon the hearts of every single person, everywhere in the world, and it is this sentence which comes from the genius lips of the grand and eloquent Mr. Glenn Marla: There is no wrong way to have a body. I’m going to say it again because it’s important: There is no wrong way to have a body. And if your moral compass points in any way, shape, or form to equality, you need to get this through your thick skull and stop with the “real women are like such-and-so” crap. You are not the authority on what “real” human beings are, and who qualifies as “real” and on what basis. All human beings are real. Yes, I know you’re tired of feeling disenfranchised. It is a tiresome and loathsome thing to be and to feel. But the tit-for-tat disenfranchisement of others is not going to solve that problem. Solidarity has to start somewhere and it might as well be with you and me

Hat forward. Cute.” Her free hand mimics grabbing the brim of a cap and turning it backward. “Hat backward? Game on. It’s like a switch.

He jammed the sodden cap back on. The lumps of cloth clung to his skull like an overweight cat afraid of heights, and ruined the image of dignity.

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown!

I’m here. Where’s my chauffeur hat?” “Here, use mine,” Butch said, outing a B Sox cap and throwing it over. “It’ll help that hair of yours.” The angel caught the thing on the fly and stared at the red S. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” “Do not tell me you’re a Yankees fan,” V drawled. “I’ll have to kill you, and frankly, tonight we need all the wingmen we’ve got.” Lassiter tossed the cap back. Whistled. Looked casual.

Luster returned, wearing a stiff new straw hat with a colored band and carrying a cloth cap. The hat seemed to isolate Luster's skull, in the beholder's eye as a spotlight would, in all its individual planes and angles. So peculiarly individual was its shape that at first glance the hat appeared to be on the head of someone standing immediately behind Luster.

Oh, you may not think I’m pretty, But don’t judge on what you see, I’ll eat myself if you can find A smarter hat than me. You can keep your bowlers black, Your top hats sleek and tall, For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat And I can cap them all.

With my rags I ought to wear a cap, any sort of old pancake, but not this grotesque thing. Nobody wears such a hat, it would be noticed a mile off, it would be remembered… . What matters is that people would remember it, and that would give them a clue

What are you doing?” Tiffany sked. Holding the cap, I faced her. “I have to wear the cap to get a discounted price on the barbecue.” She snatched the cap from between my fingers. “You’re not ruining my creation with a baseball hat. Pay full price. Beauty isn’t cheap.

I grin, and he beams with pride. “So what kind of hat is that?” I ask, unable to resist. He’s adorable when he’s showing off his wardrobe—like a puppy doing tricks. Although I remain cautious, knowing in the blink of an eye he can become a wolf again. “My Peregrination Cap,” he answers. “Huh?” His smile widens—baring white teeth. “Peregrination. An excursion … a journey.” “So, why don’t you just call it your traveling cap?” “Then it wouldn’t be much of a conversation starter, would it?” I raise an eyebrow. “Um, the fact that it’s made of living moths might give you something to talk about.” Morpheus laughs. For once our relationship feels comfortable, friendly.

6. Before the Memorial Cup final, Gord Wasden—the father of one of the Medicine Hat Tigers—stood by the side of the ice, talking about his son Scott. He was wearing a Medicine Hat baseball cap and a black Medicine Hat T-shirt. “When he was four and five years old,” Wasden

When we got home to Carlisle, I put my Mets hat in my closet, ignoring Lou's endearing request that we wear the hats to match. I didn't want to look exactly like Lou. Two more Asian kids in New York baseball caps. It's how they already saw us- we just had to look at the movies.

When we entered a classroom we always tossed our caps on the floor, to free our hands; as soon as we crossed the threshold we would throw them under the bench so hard that they struck the wall and raised a cloud of dust; this was "the way it should be done." But the new boy either failed to notice this maneuver or was too shy to perform it himself, for he was still holding his cap on his lap at the end of the prayer. It was a head-gear of composite nature, combining elements of the busby, the lancer cap, the round hat, the otter-skin cap and the cotton nightcap--one of those wretched things whose mute ugliness has great depths of expression, like an idiot's face. Egg-shaped and stiffened by whalebone, it began with three rounded bands, followed by alternating diamond-shaped patches of velvet and rabbit fur separated by a red stripe, and finally there was a kind of bag terminating in a cardboard-lined polygon covered with complicated braid. A network of gold wire was attached to the top of this polygon by a long, extremely thin cord, forming a kind of tassel. The cap was new; its visor was shiny. "Stand up," said the teacher. He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. He bent down and picked it up. A boy beside him knocked it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once again. "Will you please put your helmet away?" said the teacher, a witty man.

There are several ways to wear a hat or a cap. A man may express himself in the pitch or tilt of a hat, but not with a helmet. It won't go on any other way. It sits level on the head, low over eyes and ears, low on the back of the neck. With your helmet on you are a mushroom in a bed of mushrooms.

   Two men appeared.    One came from the Bastille, the other from the Jardin des Plantes. The taller of the two, in a linen costume, walked with his hat pushed back, waistcoat undone and cravat in hand. The smaller one, whose body was enveloped in a brown frock-coat, had a peaked cap on his bent head.    When they came to the middle of the boulevard they both sat down at the same moment on the same seat.    Each took off his hat to mop his brow and put it beside him; and the smaller man noticed, written inside his neighbour's hat, Bouvard; while the latter easily made out the word Pécuchet, in the cap belonging to the individual in the frock-coat.

She had more work to do on the class-action suit, but she was taking a break to knit a stocking cap for her father, who often complained that his head felt cold. When she was through, it would have gold and crimson stripes and a green pom-pom. It was not the kind of hat anybody would want to die in, but maybe that was the point.

She climbed down the cliffs after tying her sweater loosely around her waist. Down below she could see nothing but jagged rocks and waves. She was creful, but I watched her feet more than the view she saw- I worried about her slipping. My mother's desire to reach those waves, touch her feet to another ocean on the other side of the country, was all she was thinking of- the pure baptismal goal of it. Whoosh and you can start over again. Or was life more like the horrible game in gym that has you running from one side of an enclosed space to another, picking up and setting down wooden blocks without end? She was thinking reach the waves, the waves, the waves, and I was watching her navigate the rocks, and when we heard her we did so together- looking up in shock. It was a baby on the beach. In among the rocks was a sandy cove, my mother now saw, and crawling across the sand on a blanket was a baby in knitted pink cap and singlet and boots. She was alone on the blanket with a stuffed white toy- my mother thought a lamb. With their backs to my mother as she descended were a group of adults-very official and frantic-looking- wearing black and navy with cool slants to their hats and boots. Then my wildlife photographer's eye saw the tripods and silver circles rimmed by wire, which, when a young man moved them left or right, bounced light off or on the baby on her blanket. My mother started laughing, but only one assistant turned to notice her up among the rocks; everyone else was too busy. This was an ad for something. I imagined, but what? New fresh infant girls to replace your own? As my mother laughed and I watched her face light up, I also saw it fall into strange lines. She saw the waves behind the girl child and how both beautiful and intoxicating they were- they could sweep up so softly and remove this gril from the beach. All the stylish people could chase after her, but she would drown in a moment- no one, not even a mother who had every nerve attuned to anticipate disaster, could have saved her if the waves leapt up, if life went on as usual and freak accidents peppered a calm shore.

I’m wearing one of Clara’s hats, which are much smarter than mine, close and brimless like a cap. Isn’t it funny, how a smart new hat gives you moral strength?

A brick could replace the cardboard bill on a baseball cap. On a windy day, no gust will knock your hat off.


Keys parachuted down into one of the exact seats he purchased that he and his father sat in as season ticket holders in the Old Barn on Grand River Avenue. Keys slipped his arm around the empty chair dressed with his father’s withering Tiger’s baseball cap, secured to the seat with a quarter inch drywall screw. Keys reflected upon his father, who chauffeured Keys and other players, every weekend, to a hockey tournament somewhere, “You know pop…every kid you gave a ride too game or practice, came to your funeral. When this hat falls away, no more screws, pop. I’m gonna branch out…make new friends. Soon as these gypsy moths get a hold of your precious, Old English “D”, here--turn your glory years, Kaline and Mclain into tree threads.

Jewish immigrants like the Floms and the Borgenichts and the Janklows were not like the other immigrants who came to America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Irish and the Italians were peasants, tenant farmers from the impoverished countryside of Europe. Not so the Jews. For centuries in Europe, they had been forbidden to own land, so they had clustered in cities and towns, taking up urban trades and professions. Seventy percent of the Eastern European Jews who came through Ellis Island in the thirty years or so before the First World War had some kind of occupational skill. They had owned small groceries or jewelry stores. They had been bookbinders or watchmakers. Overwhelmingly, though, their experience lay in the clothing trade. They were tailors and dressmakers, hat and cap makers, and furriers and tanners.

The favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold filigrane. Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour studded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap parsemé with pearls. Henry II. wore jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with twelve rubies and fifty-two great orients. The ducal hat of Charles the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with pear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires.

A clever, blond-haired fourth-grader named Damen McDermott got Sidney as his shopping pal. They picked out boots, a coat, ski gloves, and a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey. Crosby suggested he also pick up a toque. McDermott didn’t know what he was talking about. “What the heck’s a too-k?” he asked. “You know, a toque, a winter hat,” Sidney said, dangling the wool cap in front of the puzzled nine-year-old. “That’s a tossle cap,” Damen said matter-of-factly, lecturing Crosby on the Pennsylvania word for toque.

And, swearing that he'd let no English passers-by tell him what HE was going to wear, he stalked toward Piccadilly and into a hat-shop he remembered having seen. He'd just glance in there. Certainly they couldn't SELL him anything! English people couldn't sell like Americans! So he entered the shop and came out with a new gray felt hat for town, a new brown one for the country, a bowler, a silk evening hat, and a cap, and he was proud of himself for having begun the Europeanization which he wasn't going to begin.

“My Peregrination Cap,” he grumbles, straightening his tie and vest while wavering on wobbly legs. I gesture to the layer of moths crawling around on Gizmo’s roof. “We lost a few of them to the wind. Sorry.” “Brilliant.” Scowling, Morpheus walks over and sweeps his hand across the insects, coaxing them to form the hat. They manage all but the brim. He puts it on anyway and turns to me. I bite my cheeks in an effort not to laugh. He narrows his eyes. “Don’t get too cheeky, little plum. Though your prank may have been irresistibly wicked, I’m still in the lead by a set of wings.”

Just let me grab my thinking cap,” she told him, heading for her locker. The long floppy hat was required during midterms, designed to restrict Telepaths and preserve the integrity of the tests—not that anything could block Sophie’s enhanced abilities. But after the exams, the hats became present sacks, and everyone filled them with treats and trinkets and treasures. “I’ll need to inspect your presents before you open them,” Sandor warned as he helped Sophie lift her overstuffed hat. “That’s perfect,” Fitz said. “While he does that, you can open mine.” He pulled a small box from the pocket of his waist-length cape and handed it to Sophie. The opalescent wrapping paper had flecks of teal glitter dusted across it, and he’d tied it with a silky teal bow, making her wonder if he’d guessed her favorite color. She really hoped he couldn’t guess why. . . . “Hopefully I did better this year,” Fitz said. “Biana claimed the riddler was a total fail.” The riddle-writing pen he’d given her last time had been a disappointment, but . . . “I’m sure I’ll love it,” Sophie promised. “Besides. My gift is boring.” Sandor had declared an Atlantis shopping trip to be far too risky, so Sophie had spent the previous day baking her friends’ presents. She handed Fitz a round silver tin and he popped the lid off immediately. “Ripplefluffs?” he asked, smiling his first real smile in days. The silver-wrapped treats were what might happen if a brownie and a cupcake had a fudgey, buttery baby, with a candy surprise sunken into the center. Sophie’s adoptive mother, Edaline, had taught her the recipe

Exchanging Hats Unfunny uncles who insist in trying on a lady's hat, --oh, even if the joke falls flat, we share your slight transvestite twist in spite of our embarrassment. Costume and custom are complex. The headgear of the other sex inspires us to experiment. Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach with paper plates upon your laps, keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps with exhibitionistic screech, the visors hanging o'er the ear so that the golden anchors drag, --the tides of fashion never lag. Such caps may not be worn next year. Or you who don the paper plate itself, and put some grapes upon it, or sport the Indian's feather bonnet, --perversities may aggravate the natural madness of the hatter. And if the opera hats collapse and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps, he thinks what might a miter matter? Unfunny uncle, you who wore a hat too big, or one too many, tell us, can't you, are there any stars inside your black fedora? Aunt exemplary and slim, with avernal eyes, we wonder what slow changes they see under their vast, shady, turned-down brim.

He grabs a white hard hat from behind the barrier and places it on my head. My nose scrunches. “Seriously?” “Safety first.” He turns my headlamp on before setting up his own. Screw guys in backward ball caps and gray sweatpants. Men in hard hats and work boots are my new kink, thanks to Construction Ken standing in front of me with muscular arms and killer cheekbones.

To sit indoors was silly. I postponed the search for Savchenko and Ludmila till the next day and went wandering about Paris. The men wore bowlers, the women huge hats with feathers. On the café terraces lovers kissed unconcernedly - I stopped looking away. Students walked along the boulevard St. Michel. They walked in the middle of the street, holding up traffic, but no one dispersed them. At first I thought it was a demonstration - but no, they were simply enjoying themselves. Roasted chestnuts were being sold. Rain began to fall. The grass in the Luxembourg gardens was a tender green. In December! I was very hot in my lined coat. (I had left my boots and fur cap at the hotel.) There were bright posters everywhere. All the time I felt as though I were at the theatre.

Goodness gracious, Benny, why on earth would you hide this beautiful head of hair all the time?" He looks down sheepishly, sending a couple of dark curls tumbling over his forehead. The top of his head is covered in a thick layer of them, shiny and perfectly tousled in spite of his best efforts to crush them in a structured fabric dome day in and day out. The sides are cut short, which makes it harder to tell that he's hiding anything this gorgeous under those caps of his. "Maybe I thought it'd be too much for you to handle. I didn't even own a hat before this summer," he jokes with a sideways smirk. I bring my hands up and thread them both through his curls slowly before grabbing hold and pulling his head back to mine. Brushing his lips with mine, I say, "On second thought, you might've been onto something.

Victor Noir. He was a journalist shot by Pierre Bonaparte," St. Clair says, as if that explains anything. He pulls The Hat up off his eyes. "The statue on his grave is supposed to help...fertility." "His wang us rubbed shiny," Josh elaborates. "For luck." "Why are we talking about parts again?" Mer asks. "Can't we ever talk about anything else?" "Really?" I ask. "Shiny wang?" "Very," St. Clair says. "Now that's something I've gotta see." I gulp my coffee dregs, wipe the bread crumbs from my mouth, and hop up. "Where's Victor?" "Allow me." St. Clair springs up to his feet and takes off. I chase after him. He cuts through a stand of bare trees, and I crash through the twigs behind him. We're both laughing when we hit the pathway and run smack into a guard. He frowns at us from underneath his military-style cap. St. Clair gives an angelic smile and a small shrug. The guard shakes his head but allows us to pass. St. Clair gets away with everything. We stroll with exaggerated calm, and he points out an area occupied with people snapping pictures.We hang back and wait our turn. A scrawny black cat darts out from behind an altar strewn with roses and wine bottles,and rushes into the bushes. "Well.That was sufficiently creepy. Happy Halloween." "Did you know this place is home to three thousand cats?" St. Clair asks. "Sure.It's filed away in my brain under 'Felines,Paris.

They can’t all be as charming as me,” Vieve replied with a smile. “Or as adorable as me,” added Soap, coming up behind Vieve and nicking her cap. “Good evening, Miss Temminnick; Vieve. To what do we owe this honor? Shouldn’t you be watching a play or something highfalutin in town?” “Give it back!” Vieve made a grab for her hat, but Soap held it out of reach. “Can’t stand the theater.” “And I’m not allowed,” Sophronia added. “But Soap, Vieve and I were wondering if you could help us get out?” “Out?” “We want to pay a visit to Bunson’s.” “But why? No one will be there.” “Exactly,” crowed Vieve. “They’ve got something we want to see.” Soap was suspicious. “What kind of something?” “A communication machine,” Sophronia explained. Vieve nodded, grinning. Soap looked back and forth between them. He ended with Sophronia. “Not you as well? Gone barmy over mechanics, have you? I should never have introduced you two. It’ll all end in tears and oil.

is equally true that throughout his life he retained the small boy’s glee in making mischief, in dressing up, in showing off. He was probably the only man in London who owned more hats than his wife—top hats, Stetsons, seamen’s caps, his hussar helmet, a privy councillor’s cocked hat, homburgs, an astrakhan, an Irish “paddy hat,” a white pith helmet, an Australian bush hat, a fez, the huge beplumed hat he wore as a Knight of the Garter, even the full headdress of a North American Indian chieftain. He had closets full of costumes.

To sit indoors was silly. I postponed the search for Savchenko and Ludmila till the next day and went wandering about Paris. The men wore bowlers, the women huge hats with feathers. On the café terraces lovers kissed unconcernedly - I stopped looking away. Students walked along the boulevard St. Michel. They walked in the middle of the street, holding up traffic, but no one dispersed them. At first I thought it was a demonstration - but no, they were simply enjoying themselves. Roasted chestnuts were being sold. Rain began to fall. The grass in the Luxembourg gardens was a tender green. In December! I was very hot in my lined coat. (I had left my boots and fur cap at the hotel.) There were bright posters everywhere. All the time I felt as though I were at the theatre. I have lived in Paris off and on for many years. Various events, snatches of conversation have become confused in my memory. But I remember well my first day there: the city electrified my. The most astonishing thing is that is has remained unchanged; Moscow is unrecognizable, but Paris is still as it was. When I come to Paris now, I feel inexpressibly sad - the city is the same, it is I who have changed. It is painful for me to walk along the familiar streets - they are the streets of my youth. Of course, the fiacres, the omnibuses, the steam-car disappeared long ago; you rarely see a café with red velvet or leather settees; only a few pissoirs are left - the rest have gone into hiding underground. But these, after all, are minor details. People still live out in the streets, lovers kiss wherever they please, no one takes any notice of anyone. The old houses haven't changed - what's another half a century to them; at their age it makes no difference. Say what you will, the world has changed, and so the Parisians, too, must be thinking of many things of which they had no inkling in the old days: the atom bomb, mass-production methods, Communism. But with their new thoughts they still remain Parisians, and I am sure that if an eighteen-year-old Soviet lad comes to Paris today he will raise his hands in astonishment, as I did in 1908: "A theatre!

CRICKET A poor little cricket Hidden in the flowery grass, Observes a butterfly Fluttering in the meadow. The winged insect shines with the liveliest colors: Azure, purple, and gold glitter on his wings; Young, handsome, foppish, he hastens from flower to flower, Taking from the best ones. Ah! says the cricket, how his lot and mine Are dissimilar! Lady Nature For him did everything, and for me nothing. I have no talent, even less beauty; No one takes notice of me, they know me not here below; Might as well not exist. As he was speaking, in the meadow Arrives a troop of children. Immediately they are running After this butterfly, for which they all have a longing. Hats, handkerchiefs, caps serve to catch him. The insect in vain tries to escape. He becomes soon their conquest. One seizes him by the wing, another by the body; A third arrives, and takes him by the head. It should not be so much effort To tear to pieces the poor creature. Oh! Oh! says the cricket, I am no more sorry; It costs too dear to shine in this world. How much I am going to love my deep retreat! To live happily, live hidden.

If there was one kind of hat Terry despised above all others, it was the baseball cap. There was nothing wrong with children wearing it, of course, but whenever he saw it on the head of an adult it seemed to symbolize everything that he most hated about America, even more potently than the figure of Mickey Mouse or the latest Coke adverts or the hordes of giant yellow ‘M’s which were even now beginning to advance across Britain like an unchecked virus. And even worse, Kingsley was wearing it back to front. This, without doubt, was the ultimate badge of imbecility.

No surprise. I was the only one at Dave and Bubba’s not wearing a Ragland Rattlers cap. Talk about feeling disloyal. And uncomfortable. My discomfort must have shown, because while we were waiting in line to get our food, Jason took off his cap, folded it, and stuck it in his back jeans pocket. “You don’t have to do that on my account,” I said. He shrugged. “I was taught not to wear a hat indoors.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever met anyone who did things with so little fanfare. I thought about telling him to put his hat back on, but the truth was, it made me feel less self-conscious not to be the only one.

She went alone to the vast room where the second-hand clothes were kept. Later, she thought it the happiest hour of her life. There were silks and brocades by the yard, and pile upon pile of hats, wigs, cloaks, and masks. After two years in wretched rags, even the linen shifts felt as soft as thistledown. She whirled from one delight to another- clutching lace, burying her nose in furs, holding flashy paste jewels next to her new-bleached skin. Catching her reflected eye in the mirror she laughed out loud, her red mouth wide and knowing. She put aside a few carefully-chosen costumes and elbow-length mittens. Then, finally, she chose a few costumes of a particular nature: shiny satin, ebony black. Lastly, she gathered the garments she would wear for her journey: a grass-green woolen gown and a lace cap and apron. The effect was somewhat grand for a domestic servant. Her auburn locks were pinned tightly, her figure flattered by a frilled muslin kerchief, crisscrossed in an 'X' over her breast. Pulling out a few auburn tendrils from her cap, she adjusted her bodice to show a little more flesh. Then she grew very still, and smiled slowly into the empty space before her. "How do you do, sir," she said with a graceful curtsy. "Now, what pretty dish might you care for tonight?

One might say that, until now, the social, cultural, and political framework for knowledge of the Gulag has not been in place. I first became aware of this problem several years ago, when walking across the Charles Bridge, a major tourist attraction in what was then newly democratic Prague. There were buskers and hustlers along the bridge, and, every fifteen feet or so someone was selling precisely what one would expect to find for sale in such a postcard-perfect spot. Paintings of appropriately pretty streets were on display, along with bargain jewelry and 'Prague' key chains. Among the bric-a-brac, one could buy Soviet military paraphernalia: caps, badges, belt buckles, and little pins, the tin Lenin and Brezhnev images that Soviet schoolchildren once pinned to their uniforms. The sight struck me as odd. Most of the people buying the Soviet paraphernalia were Americans and West Europeans. All would be sickened by the thought of wearing a swastika. None objected, however, to wearing the hammer and sickle on a T-shirt or a hat. It was a minor observation, but sometimes, it is through just such minor observations that a cultural mood is best observed. For here, the lesson could not have been clearer: while the symbol of one mass murder fills us with horror, the symbol of another mass murder makes us laugh.

He did not look like a pirate. He looked... familiar. There was something there, in the handsome angles and deep, wicked shadows, the hollows of his cheeks, the straight line of his lips, the sharp line of his jaw- in need of a shave. Yes, there was something there- a whisper of recognition. He wore a pin-striped cap dusted with snow, the brim of which cast his eyes into darkness. They were a missing piece. She would never know from where the instinct came- perhaps from a desire to discover the identity of the man who would end her days- but she could not stop herself from reaching up and pushing the hat back from his face to see his eyes. Only later it would occur to her that he did not try to stop her. His eyes were hazel, a mosaic of browns and greens and greys, framed by long, dark lashes, spiked with snow. She would have known them anywhere, even if they were far more serious now than she'd ever seen them before. Shock coursed through her, followed by a thick current of happiness. He was not a pirate. "Michael?" He stiffened at the sound of his name, but she did not take the time to wonder why. She flattened her palm against his cold cheek- an action at which she would later marvel- and laughed, the sound muffled by the snow falling around them. "It is you, isn't it?" He reached up, pulling her hand from his face. He wasn't wearing gloves, and still, he was so warm. And not at all clammy.

There is a lovely old-fashioned pearl set in the treasure chest, but Mother said real flowers were the prettiest ornament for a young girl, and Laurie promised to send me all I want," replied Meg. "Now, let me see, there's my new gray walking suit, just curl up the feather in my hat, Beth, then my poplin for Sunday and the small party, it looks heavy for spring, doesn't it? The violet silk would be so nice. Oh, dear!" "Never mind, you've got the tarlaton for the big party, and you always look like an angel in white," said Amy, brooding over the little store of finery in which her soul delighted. "It isn't low-necked, and it doesn't sweep enough, but it will have to do. My blue housedress looks so well, turned and freshly trimmed, that I feel as if I'd got a new one. My silk sacque isn't a bit the fashion, and my bonnet doesn't look like Sallie's. I didn't like to say anything, but I was sadly disappointed in my umbrella. I told Mother black with a white handle, but she forgot and bought a green one with a yellowish handle. It's strong and neat, so I ought not to complain, but I know I shall feel ashamed of it beside Annie's silk one with a gold top," sighed Meg, surveying the little umbrella with great disfavor. "Change it," advised Jo. "I won't be so silly, or hurt Marmee's feelings, when she took so much pains to get my things. It's a nonsensical notion of mine, and I'm not going to give up to it. My silk stockings and two pairs of new gloves are my comfort. You are a dear to lend me yours, Jo. I feel so rich and sort of elegant, with two new pairs, and the old ones cleaned up for common." And Meg took a refreshing peep at her glove box. "Annie Moffat has blue and pink bows on her nightcaps. Would you put some on mine?" she asked, as Beth brought up a pile of snowy muslins, fresh from Hannah's hands. "No, I wouldn't, for the smart caps won't match the plain gowns without any trimming on them. Poor folks shouldn't rig," said Jo decidedly. "I wonder if I shall ever be happy enough to have real lace on my clothes and bows on my caps?" said Meg impatiently. "You said the other day that you'd be perfectly happy if you could only go to Annie Moffat's," observed Beth in her quiet way. "So I did! Well, I am happy, and I won't fret, but it does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants, doesn't it?

In the deep woods of the far North, under feathery leaves of fern, was a great fairyland of merry elves, sometimes called forest brownies. These elves lived joyfully. They had everything at hand and did not need to worry much about living. Berries and nuts grew plentiful in the forest. Rivers and springs provided the elves with crystal water. Flowers prepared them drink from their flavorful juices, which the munchkins loved greatly. At midnight the elves climbed into flower cups and drank drops of their sweet water with much delight. Every elf would tell a wonderful fairy tale to the flower to thank it for the treat. Despite this abundance, the pixies did not sit back and do nothing. They tinkered with their tasks all day long. They cleaned their houses. They swung on tree branches and swam in forested streams. Together with the early birds, they welcomed the sunrise, listened to the thunder growling, the whispering of leaves and blades of grass, and the conversations of the animals. The birds told them about warm countries, sunbeams whispered of distant seas, and the moon spoke of treasures hidden deeply in the earth. In winter, the elves lived in abandoned nests and hollows. Every sunny day they came out of their burrows and made the forest ring with their happy shouts, throwing tiny snowballs in all directions and building snowmen as small as the pinky finger of a little girl. The munchkins thought they were giants five times as large as them. With the first breath of spring, the elves left their winter residences and moved to the cups of the snowdrop flowers. Looking around, they watched the snow as it turned black and melted. They kept an eye on the blossoming of hazel trees while the leaves were still sleeping in their warm buds. They observed squirrels moving their last winter supplies from storage back to their homes. Gnomes welcomed the birds coming back to their old nests, where the elves lived during winters. Little by little, the forest once more grew green. One moonlight night, elves were sitting at an old willow tree and listening to mermaids singing about their underwater kingdom. “Brothers! Where is Murzilka? He has not been around for a long time!” said one of the elves, Father Beardie, who had a long white beard. He was older than others and well respected in his striped stocking cap. “I’m here,” a snotty voice arose, and Murzilka himself, nicknamed Feather Head, jumped from the top of the tree. All the brothers loved Murzilka, but thought he was lazy, as he actually was. Also, he loved to dress in a tailcoat, tall black hat, boots with narrow toes, a cane and a single eyeglass, being very proud of that look. “Do you know where I’m coming from? The very Arctic Ocean!” roared he. Usually, his words were hard to believe. That time, though, his announcement sounded so marvelous that all elves around him were agape with wonder. “You were there, really? Were you? How did you get there?” asked the sprites. “As easy as ABC! I came by the fox one day and caught her packing her things to visit her cousin, a silver fox who lives by the Arctic Ocean. “Take me with you,” I said to the fox. “Oh, no, you’ll freeze there! You know, it’s cold there!” she said. “Come on.” I said. “What are you talking about? What cold? Summer is here.” “Here we have summer, but there they have winter,” she answered. “No,” I thought. “She must be lying because she does not want to give me a ride.” Without telling her a word, I jumped upon her back and hid in her bushy fur, so even Father Frost could not find me. Like it or not, she had to take me with her. We ran for a long time. Another forest followed our woods, and then a boundless plain opened, a swamp covered with lichen and moss. Despite the intense heat, it had not entirely thawed. “This is tundra,” said my fellow traveler. “Tundra? What is tundra?” asked I. “Tundra is a huge, forever frozen wetland covering the entire coast of the Arctic Ocean.

Then she bent her head over at the waist and tossed her head around to separate the curls. The elevator stopped and she heard the door open. She straightened up to find some big guy in a ball cap and sunglasses right in her face, charging into the elevator before she could even get out of it. He had both hands full of carry-out bags—Mexican food, judging from the smell. She looked at them, her mouth watering. Yep. Enrique’s. The best in town. He whirled around to punch the door-close button. “Hey,” she said. “I’m getting off here.” Some girl outside in the lobby yelled, “We know it’s you, Chase. You shouldn’t lie to us.” Startled, Elle looked at the guy’s face and saw, just before he reached for her, that it really was Chase Lomax in ragged shorts and flip-flops. He grabbed her up off her feet and bent his head. Found her mouth with his. “Wait for us,” another girl yelled. The sound of running feet echoed off the marble floor, slid to a stop. “Oh, no!” Kissing her, without so much as a “Hi, there, Elle.” Burning her up. She tried to struggle but he had both her arms pinned to her sides. And suddenly she wanted to stay right where she was forever because the shock was wearing off and she was starting to feel. A lot more than she ever had before. The door slid closed. The girls began banging on it. “We know your room number, Chase, honey,” they yelled. “See you there.” Loud giggles. “We’ll show you a real good time.” The elevator moved up, the voices faded away. But Chase kept on kissing her. She had to make him stop it. Right now. Who did he think he was, anyway? Somebody who could send lightning right through her whole body, that’s who. Lightning so strong it shook her to her toes. He had to stop this now. But she couldn’t move any part of her body. Except her lips. And her tongue . . . When he finally let her go she pulled back and away, fighting to get a handle on her breathing. “What’s the matter?” he demanded. Her blood rushed through her so fast it made her dizzy. “You’re asking me? It’s more like, what’s the matter with you? How’d you get the idea you could get away with kissing me like that without even bothering to say hello?” She touched her lips. They were still on fire. “You have got a helluva nerve, Chase Lomax.” He grinned at her as he took off his shades. He hung them in the neck of his huge, baggy T-shirt that had a bucking bull and rider with Git’R’Done written above it. He wore ragged denim shorts and flip-flops, for God’s sake. Chase Lomax was known for always being starched and ironed, custom-booted and hatted. “I asked if you’re all right because you were bent over double shaking your head when the doors opened,” he said. “Like you were in pain or something.” “I was drying my hair.” He stared, then burst out laughing. “Oh, well, then.” His laugh was contagious but she wouldn’t let herself join in. He could not get away with this scot-free. He’d shaken her up pretty good. “Oh. I see. You thought I needed help, so you just grabbed me and kissed me senseless. Is that how you treat somebody you think’s in pain?” He grinned that slow, charming grin of his again. “It made you feel better. Didn’t it?” He held her gaze and wouldn’t let it go. She must be a sight. She could feel heat in her cheeks, so her face must be red. Plus she was gasping, trying to slow her breathing. And her heart-beat. “You nearly scared me to death to try to get rid of those girls. And it was all wasted. They’re coming to your room.” Something flashed deep in his brown eyes. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings. I don’t think it was wasted,” he drawled. “I liked that kiss.

So, a little desperate and surprisingly inspired, I bought a cap. Not just any cap. I picked one with a bright-gold visor, a gold button at the top, a crown of navy blue, an American flag on the left temple, and—on the forehead emblem—a spread-winged eagle over a rising sun and a red-and-green tractor-trailer and the white letters “America— Spirit of Freedom.” On the back, over my cerebellum, was a starred banner in blue, white, red, green, and gold that said “Carnesville, GA Petro.” I put on that hat and disappeared. The glances died like flies. I could sit anywhere, from Carnesville to Tacoma. In Candler, North Carolina, while Ainsworth was outside fuelling the truck, I sat inside in my freedom hat saying “Biscuits and gravy” to a waitress. She went “Oooooo wheeeee” and I thought my cover wasn’t working, but a trucker passing her had slipped his hand between the cheeks of her buttocks, and she did not stop writing.

One more question.” Henry waited until Faith put her finger down before continuing. “Do you ever remember your father wearing a baseball hat?” Like a kid flipping through the pages of a scrapbook, she ran through images of her father in her mind. No baseball cap. But it didn’t matter. Faith just wanted to stop seeing the man the world believed killed her sister. Yet the tighter she closed her eyes, the faster the images came. Her father at her horse show, sitting in the stands at Kim’s soccer game, his smiling face as he pushed her on the swing . . . Faith pressed her palms against the sides of her head and started screaming. The office door flew open. Dr. Rodgers, Titus, and two men in navy-blue suits rushed into the room. Like a boxer against the ropes, the images rained down on Faith like blows, but she was helpless to stop them. Each one sent her head reeling until she felt like she was falling—tumbling into oblivion, welcoming the darkness and an end to the pain. She felt Titus’s strong arms around her, carrying her back to her room.

joke around—nothing serious—as I work to get my leg back to where it was. Two weeks later, I’m in an ankle-to-hip leg brace and hobbling around on crutches. The brace can’t come off for another six weeks, so my parents lend me their townhouse in New York City and Lucien hires me an assistant to help me out around the house. Some guy named Trevor. He’s okay, but I don’t give him much to do. I want to regain my independence as fast as I can and get back out there for Planet X. Yuri, my editor, is griping that he needs me back and I’m more than happy to oblige. But I still need to recuperate, and I’m bored as hell cooped up in the townhouse. Some buddies of mine from PX stop by and we head out to a brunch place on Amsterdam Street my assistant sometimes orders from. Deacon, Logan, Polly, Jonesy and I take a table in Annabelle’s Bistro, and settle in for a good two hours, running our waitress ragged. She’s a cute little brunette doing her best to stay cheerful for us while we give her a hard time with endless coffee refills, loud laughter, swearing, and general obnoxiousness. Her nametag says Charlotte, and Deacon calls her “Sweet Charlotte” and ogles and teases her, sometimes inappropriately. She has pretty eyes, I muse, but otherwise pay her no mind. I have my leg up on a chair in the corner, leaning back, as if I haven’t a care in the world. And I don’t. I’m going to make a full recovery and pick up my life right where I left off. Finally, a manager with a severe hairdo and too much makeup, politely, yet pointedly, inquires if there’s anything else we need, and we take the hint. We gather our shit and Deacon picks up the tab. We file out, through the maze of tables, and I’m last, hobbling slowly on crutches. I’m halfway out when I realize I left my Yankees baseball cap on the table. I return to get it and find the waitress staring at the check with tears in her eyes. She snaps the black leather book shut when she sees me and hurriedly turns away. “Forget something?” she asks with false cheer and a shaky smile. “My hat,” I say. She’s short and I’m tall. I tower over her. “Did Deacon leave a shitty tip? He does that.” “Oh no, no, I mean…it’s fine,” she says, turning away to wipe her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I just…um, kind of a rough month. You know how it is.” She glances me up and down in my expensive jeans and designer shirt. “Or maybe you don’t.” The waitress realizes what she said, and another round of apologies bursts out of her as she begins stacking our dirty dishes. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Really. I have this bad habit…blurting. I don’t know why I said that. Anyway, um…” I laugh, and fish into my back pocket for my wallet. “Don’t worry about it. And take this. For your trouble.” I offer her forty dollars and her eyes widen. Up close, her eyes are even prettier—large and luminous, but sad too. A blush turns her skin scarlet “Oh, no, I couldn’t. No, please. It’s fine, really.” She bustles even faster now, not looking at me. I shrug and drop the twenties on the table. “I hope your month improves.” She stops and stares at the money, at war with herself. “Okay. Thank you,” she says finally, her voice cracking. She takes the money and stuffs it into her apron. I feel sorta bad, poor girl. “Have a nice day, Charlotte,” I say, and start to hobble away. She calls after me, “I hope your leg gets better soon.” That was big of her, considering what ginormous bastards we’d been to her all morning. Or maybe she’s just doing her job. I wave a hand to her without looking back, and leave Annabelle’s. Time heals me. I go back to work. To Planet X. To the world and all its thrills and beauty. I don’t go back to my parents’ townhouse; hell I’m hardly in NYC anymore. I don’t go back to Annabelle’s and I never see—or think about—that cute waitress with the sad eyes ever again. “Fucking hell,” I whisper as the machine reads the last line of

If I could sleep with any literary character, I’d love to sleep with The Cat in the Hat. But don’t tell Cap’n, because he might get jealous and meow at me.

At the sight of the dozen assorted cupcakes, as bright and optimistic as party hats, Louise's eyes lit up. "How wonderful!" she said, clapping her hands together again. I handed her one of the red velvet cupcakes that I'd made in the old-fashioned style, using beets instead of food coloring. I'd had to scrub my fingers raw for twenty minutes to get the crimson beet stain off them, but the result was worth it: a rich chocolate cake cut with a lighter, nearly unidentifiable, earthy sweetness, and topped with cream cheese icing and a feathery cap of coconut shavings. For Ogden, I selected a Moroccan vanilla bean and pumpkin spice cupcake that I'd been developing with Halloween in mind. It was not for the faint of heart, and I saw the exact moment in Ogden's eyes that the dash of heat- courtesy of a healthy pinch of cayenne- hit his tongue, and the moment a split-second later that the sugary vanilla swept away the heat, like salve on a wound. "Oh," he said, after swallowing. He looked at me, and I could see it was his turn to be at a loss for words. I smiled. Louise, on the other hand, was half giggling, half moaning her way through a second cupcake, this time a lemonade pound cake with a layer of hot pink Swiss meringue buttercream icing curling into countless tiny waves as festive and feminine as a little girl's birthday tiara. "Exquisite!" she said, mouth full. And then, shrugging in her son's direction, her eyes twinkling. "What? I didn't eat lunch.

Let me make you an offer, little goat. We spar. If you lose, my cap is returned to me, unburnt. I continue to hunt as I have. And you give me your littlest finger.' 'To eat?' I ask, taking the flame away from the hat. 'If I like,' she returns. 'Or to wear like a brooch. What do you care what I do with it? The point is that it will be mine.

Nobody knows a woman as her milliner does. This is because, for a woman, buying a hat is an emotional thing. When she is in the full glory of youth and beauty, she buys a hat to cap the climax of her glamour. When she grows old, she buys a hat to turn back a little the relentless hands of time. When life slips out of the even way, a woman buys a hat. Sometimes in joy, sometimes in sorrow, but always for a purpose that is mixed up with her heart, and always she buys for her figure. Her figure cannot change from one moment to the next – but I have seen her face perform just this miracle. And when I see her eyes brighten and her chin lift as she turns her head, I feel very happy for my hat. Women have come to me for a hat to make their dreams come true. (Sometimes they do.) They have come to me in disappointment or grief, for a hat to take their minds off their troubles. (It very often works.) They have come for a hat to hold a husband. (This is more difficult, but not impossible.) They have come for a hat to catch a husband. (This is easy.) Being a milliner is sometimes like being a doctor. I prescribe a hat covered with pink roses to drive the blues away. I advise a daring hat for the woman who feels that she is in a rut, and wants to get out. For the girl who wants to get her man, I make a young, innocent, romantic hat, to make her look like a flower.

Lorcan, focus.” Praedra snaps her fingers in front of my face. “While Caed was in the Spring Court dungeons, his mark was discovered.” I cock my head to one side. “Seems like a responsible person would cut his hand off to stop that happening again.” Excellent. More blood for my cap. It stiffens in anticipation, becoming a stovepipe top hat. Caed’s fists clench so tightly that the wooden bolt he’s checking snaps in half. “Tempting, but why bother when we could remove the eyes from everyone who saw it?” Oooh, the Fomorian speaks my language, and that offer is tempting. “Eyeballs are fun.

But then, you go and turn a cap backward and give me the full rough-around-the-edges country-boy experi- ence. Do you know how hot that is? I can’t even explain it.” She laughs lightly, like she didn’t just say something that broadsided me. “Hat forward. Cute.” Her free hand mimics grabbing the brim of a cap and turning it backward. “Hat backward? Game on. It’s like a switch.

He’s got a backwards hat on, dark-rimmed glasses, and a toddler in his arms with a matching cap for goodness’ sake. I try my hardest not to look too closely, but I can see the dark hair spilling out around the edges, ice-blue eyes framed by those glasses. Scruff slopes over his jawline, screaming “older man,” and that alone is my kryptonite.

He went out of the restaurant laughing. He liked his friends—one in a crushed broad-brimmed hat, with an affectation of artistic untidiness; the other in a sealskin cap, a man not poor, though he affected to belong to the Bohemia of learning.

Every day, shortly before nine o’clock, a man with a red hat stands in a square and begins to wave his cap around wildly. After five minutes he disappears. One day, a policeman comes up to him and asks: ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m keeping the giraffes away.’ ‘But there aren’t any giraffes here.’ ‘Well, I must be doing a good job, then.’ A

Just ahead, the path was drenched in a puddle that could not be bypassed. The men walked through fearlessly. Colonel Andrews took Miss Charming’s hand and helped her step across. Mr. Nobley placed his hands around Jane’s waist and lifted her over. As he set her down, their bodies were much nearer than was seemly in the early nineteenth century. They held still for a breath, their faces close together. He smelled good enough to kiss. Her thoughts raged--I hate him and he hates me. It’s perfect! Isn’t it? Of course, he isn’t real. Wait, am I supposed to be falling for someone or avoiding it? What was it again, Aunt Caroline? He was the first to step back. She turned away, and there was Martin. She’d forgotten Martin. Off and on, she realized now, she’d been forgetting the entire real world in order to let herself sink into the fantasy. He was on his knees among some rosebushes. His face was shaded by his cap, but she could feel his eyes on her. As the party started to walk again, Martin rose and removed his cap as though the walkers were a funeral barge. None of the others seemed to notice his presence, and they disappeared into the full trees that leaned over the path. Martin took a step forward. “Jane, can we talk?” She realized that she was still standing there, staring at him, as though begging to be rejected again. She started to walk away. “Martin, no, I can’t. They’re waiting for me, they’ll see.” “Then meet me later.” “No, I’m done playing around.” She left him, that awkward line buzzing around her head like a pesky insect. And Jane though, Done playing around, she says, as though she’s not wearing a bonnet and bloomers. Then she saw that Mr. Nobley had stopped to wait for her. His eyes were angry, but they weren’t on her. She looked back. Martin had lowered his hat and thrust his hands back into the upturned earth. Her heart was teeter-tottering precariously, and she almost put out her arms to balance herself. She didn’t like to see them together, Martin, the luscious man who’d made her laugh and kept her standing on real earth, and Mr. Nobley, who had begun to make the fake world feel as comfortable as her own bed. She stood on the curve of the path, her feet hesitating where to go.

...It's a college rule: we must always take off our hats when see a fellow scholar.' I pulled a face and she continued, burning with conviction, 'Oh, come on, Mr Knight. Don't tell me you've never seen someone doff a cap before.' 'I'm familiar with the custom, but not in this context. The normal way to make a man remove his hat in that town is to punch him on the jaw.

Key to the Pronunciations This dictionary uses a simple respelling system to show how entries are pronounced, using the symbols listed below. Generally, only the first of two or more identical headwords will have a pronunciation respelling. Where a derivative simply adds a common suffix such as -less, -ness, or -ly to the headword, the derivative may not have a pronunciation respelling unless some other element of the pronunciation also changes. as in hat //, fashion // as in day //, rate // as in lot //, father //, barn // as in big // as in church //, picture // as in dog //, bed // as in men //, bet //, ferry // as in feet //, receive // as in air //, care // as in soda //, mother /, her // as in free //, graph //, tough // as in get //, exist // as in her //, behave // as in fit //, women // as in time /t/, hire //, sky // as in ear //, pierce // as in judge //, carriage // as in kettle //, cut //, quick // as in lap //, cellar //, cradle // as in main //, dam // as in need //, honor //, maiden // as in sing //, anger // as in go //, promote // as in law //, thought //, lore // as in boy //, noisy // as in wood //, sure // as in food //, music // as in mouse //, coward // as in put //, cap // as in run //, fur //, spirit // as in sit //, lesson //, face // as in shut //, social // as in top //, seat //, forty // as in thin //, truth // as in then //, father // as in very //, never // as in wait //, quit // as in when //, which // as in yet //, accuse // as in zipper //, musician // as in measure //, vision // Foreign Sounds as in Bach // as in en route //, Rodin / / as in hors d’oeuvre //, Goethe // as in Lully //, Utrecht // Stress Marks Stress (or accent) is represented by marks placed before the affected syllable. The primary stress mark is a short, raised vertical line // which signifies that the heaviest emphasis should be placed on the syllable that follows. The secondary stress mark is a short, lowered vertical line // which signifies a somewhat weaker emphasis than on the syllable with primary stress. Variant Pronunciations There are several ways in which variant pronunciations are indicated in the respellings. Some respellings show a pronunciation symbol within parentheses to indicate a possible variation in pronunciation; for example, in sandwich //. Variant pronunciations may be respelled in full, separated by semicolons. The more common pronunciation is listed first, if this can be determined, but many variants are so common and widespread as to be ofequal status. Variant pronunciations may be indicated by respelling only the part of the word that changes. A hyphen will replace the part of the pronunciation that has remained the same. Note: A hyphen sometimes serves to separate syllables where the respelling might otherwise look confusing, as at reinforce //.

Well excuse me! How was I supposed to know that a pink baseball cap with a dildo glued on top isn’t a “hard hat”?


There,” Lucetta proclaimed. “You’re completely buttoned. Now all we have to do is fix your hair, and you’ll be perfect.” “I don’t know how you’re intending to fix my hair, especially since it’s still soaking wet, and . . . stiff with sea salt.” “I’m an actress. Fixing appearances is my specialty.” Lucetta looked a little smug as she adjusted the large hat she’d plopped over her head. “My hair is salt-soaked as well, but no one will notice since I’ve arranged my hat just so, lending me a rather mysterious air.” “You could plop a bowl of fruit on your head and you’d still look mysterious,” Millie said. “I wish I had one of my caps handy. That would solve my hair crisis nicely.” Everett caught Millie’s eye. “I never liked your caps.” “They’re practical.” “And ugly,” Lucetta added, smiling over Millie’s head at him. She pulled a hat from behind her on the seat that was a little squished, and stuck it on Millie’s head, pulling a pin out of the bodice of her dress and sticking it through the hat. “There—you’re adorable.” “I

And the winner is,” he sings. He waits, opening the folded piece of paper slowly, drawing out the suspense. I can barely hear him over my own heartbeat, which is thumping like crazy. Is it too late to back out? Shit. I don’t want to do this. “The winner is the person who guessed twelve hundred and forty-eight!” The crowd is silent, and all the participants look to one another. But then I hear a thump, thump, thump, thump as someone comes up the stairs onto the platform. I see the baseball cap before I see the rest of him, and I hope to God that’s Sean’s cap. But Sean didn’t even buy a ticket. Not a single one. Yet it’s his brown gaze that meets mine. It’s his baseball cap, and they are his tattoos. They’re his broad shoulders and his long strides that eat up the distance between us. He turns his hat backward and looks down at me. He stops with less than an inch to spare between us. “Congratulations,” I squeak out. “You didn’t even buy a ticket. How did you…?” “I bought one hundred and forty-two tickets, dummy,” he says. My heart trips a beat. “You did?” All he had to buy was one. I put the winning number on the piece of paper I gave him. He nods, and he takes my face in his hands. His thumbs draw little circles on my cheeks as his fingers thread into the hair at my temples. “You didn’t look at the paper I gave you….” My heart is pounding like mad. “What paper?” he asks. His smile is soft and inviting, and I want to fall into him. “The one you put in your pocket.” His brow furrows. “Never mind,” I say, breathless. He spent 142 dollars for a kiss he already owned in more ways than one. If I loved this man any more, it would be dangerous. He looks down into my eyes, not moving. He’s going to kiss me, right? “What’s the plan here?” “I’m going to kiss my girl,” he says, smiling at me. My breath hitches. “But you have to say yes, first.” He hasn’t let me go. He’s holding me tightly, forcing me to meet his eyes. “This isn’t going to be a one-time thing.” I can’t even think, and he wants me to commit? “It’s not,” I breathe. “You promise?” His gaze searches mine like he’s going to find the secrets to the universe there. “I swear on your life,” I say. He chuckles. “My life?” I nod. His eyebrows draw together. “Aren’t you supposed to swear on your own life?” “My life means nothing if you’re not in it.” His hands start to tremble against my face, and he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Logan’s brothers start to chant, “Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss…,” and the crowd joins in. “You better kiss me,” I say, “or they’re going to get restless.” A tear rolls down my cheek, and he brushes it back with his thumb, his gaze soft and warm. His eyes open, and he leans closer to me. I step onto my tiptoes to get to him because I can’t wait one more second. He stops a breath away from me, just like he did in the room. He waits. “You have to close the distance,” he says to me. He’s making me choose. I fall into him and press my lips to his. He freezes. But then he starts to kiss me. And all the fireworks at the state fair couldn’t compare to the ones that go off in my head.

Helena let me borrow a silk scarf to go with the green trench and white gloves. When she secured a navy blue cloche hat over my hair, I almost didn’t recognize myself. I felt very much the part, standing next to Blue in his white collar shirt, green sweater vest and tie, caramel-colored suit, and brown flat cap tilted to the side. Helena whistled and said he was the eel’s hips, whatever that meant. When I told him he looked smokin’ hot, he just shook his head and said, “Nah, I’m not hot at all. This suit breathes really well.” I won’t lie. In that moment, my heart melted a little for Nicholas Piasecki.

To me, the best part about opening yourself up to hearing from Spirit is that you can do it just by being yourself. You don’t need tarot cards or crystals. You don’t even need to hold or wear an object with your family member’s energy, like a lot of people think. When I mention a necklace or ring during a session that you’ve brought with you, it’s not because I’m drawn to that energy like a magnet. It’s because Spirit tells me to reference it. In fact, I once did a phone reading for a woman who had a lot of female energy around her that had passed on, including a mom, grandmother, aunt, and cousin. She also had a grandfather and father on the Other Side. Anyway, Spirit showed me a picture I have of Victoria, wearing the most random clothes—a baseball cap, sunglasses, Rug Rat pajamas, holding the pet parakeet that Gram got her, and Mardi Gras beads. So I said, “This is going to sound bizarre, but I feel like you’re wearing a strange mix of items: pajamas, a silk scarf, a man’s hat, gloves, rosary beads, and jewelry that doesn’t match. Are you wearing an article from every dead person you want to hear from?” There was total silence on the phone. I think she was a little embarrassed, but I have to admit that I was actually relieved she didn’t dress like that all the time!

What are some of the things a modern-day knight can do to render service? A chivalrous person will exhibit thoughtful consideration to most everyone he encounters. He will . . . 1. Hold the door open for others. 2. Place others’ needs before his own. 3. Move in to help with heavy lifting. 4. Show up at the time he promised. 5. Brings the car closer when it is raining. 6. Return phone calls when he says he will. 7. Remove his ball cap or hat when indoors. 8. Protect others in threatening situations. 9. Walk around the car to open a lady’s door. 10. Ask for others’ thoughts; consider their opinions. 11. Stand at the table until all ladies have been seated. 12. Remove his sunglasses when speaking face to face. 13. Offer his seat on a bus or in a crowded public place. 14. Defend others’ honor and guard them from humiliation. 15. Anticipate another person’s needs and offer to be of help. 16. Walk on the street side of the sidewalk when with a lady or elder.

I twisted my head to look at the girl.  With one hand she held a wide straw hat to her head.  The other held an umbrella drink in a curvy glass.  She wore big movie-star sunglasses, tall, a reddish-new tan.  White bikini bottoms.  No top.  Just boobies. “Uh . . . hi.” “Hi,” she said. Then there was this shirtless fat guy at her side.  He didn’t have a top either, but his boobies were harrier.  He was hot pink with sun burn, wore a new moustache like a smear of brown crayon.  His ball cap said Kiss the Captain.

Henry had bought a Phillies hat as we'd gotten off the subway at Broad and had tucked his substantial ponytail over the adjustable strap in the back. He could have been from Philadelphia; he could have been a very large Indian from Philadelphia, but he could have been from Philadelphia. I was blending in even better. I had left my hat at the hospital on Lena Moretti's head, had purchased a natty fitted cap and a vast red-satin jacket from the Broad Street vendo, and now approached the major league ballpark looking like a British phone box.

There sat Floyd, naked as a blue jay and not half as pretty. He had the largest head I ever saw on a man, and was wearing a Ford baseball cap that was three sizes too small. Men around these parts don’t take off their hats unless they absolutely have to. “Gertie Johnson,” Floyd exclaimed. “What are you doing?” The difference between men and women is this—if you catch a woman butt-naked, she tries to cover the private parts with her hands. A man will sit there just like you found him even if he doesn’t have much to be proud of. Floyd sat like that, not moving.

But in among all this terrible poverty there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servants to look after them. These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly men with wicked faces, like the one in the picture on the opposite page. You can see that he is dressed in a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. This was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it. The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as “Sir.” The chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and—   But

Education was still considered a privilege in England. At Oxford you took responsibility for your efforts and for your performance. No one coddled, and no one uproariously encouraged. British respect for the individual, both learner and teacher, reigned. If you wanted to learn, you applied yourself and did it. Grades were posted publicly by your name after exams. People failed regularly. These realities never ceased to bewilder those used to “democracy” without any of the responsibility. For me, however, my expectations were rattled in another way. I arrived anticipating to be snubbed by a culture of privilege, but when looked at from a British angle, I actually found North American students owned a far greater sense of entitlement when it came to a college education. I did not realize just how much expectations fetter—these “mind-forged manacles,”2 as Blake wrote. Oxford upholds something larger than self as a reference point, embedded in the deep respect for all that a community of learning entails. At my very first tutorial, for instance, an American student entered wearing a baseball cap on backward. The professor quietly asked him to remove it. The student froze, stunned. In the United States such a request would be fodder for a laundry list of wrongs done against the student, followed by threatening the teacher’s job and suing the university. But Oxford sits unruffled: if you don’t like it, you can simply leave. A handy formula since, of course, no one wants to leave. “No caps in my classroom,” the professor repeated, adding, “Men and women have died for your education.” Instead of being disgruntled, the student nodded thoughtfully as he removed his hat and joined us. With its expanses of beautiful architecture, quads (or walled lawns) spilling into lush gardens, mist rising from rivers, cows lowing in meadows, spires reaching high into skies, Oxford remained unapologetically absolute. And did I mention? Practically every college within the university has its own pub. Pubs, as I came to learn, represented far more for the Brits than merely a place where alcohol was served. They were important gathering places, overflowing with good conversation over comforting food: vital humming hubs of community in communication. So faced with a thousand-year-old institution, I learned to pick my battles. Rather than resist, for instance, the archaic book-ordering system in the Bodleian Library with technological mortification, I discovered the treasure in embracing its seeming quirkiness. Often, when the wrong book came up from the annals after my order, I found it to be right in some way after all. Oxford often works such. After one particularly serendipitous day of research, I asked Robert, the usual morning porter on duty at the Bodleian Library, about the lack of any kind of sophisticated security system, especially in one of the world’s most famous libraries. The Bodleian was not a loaning library, though you were allowed to work freely amid priceless artifacts. Individual college libraries entrusted you to simply sign a book out and then return it when you were done. “It’s funny; Americans ask me about that all the time,” Robert said as he stirred his tea. “But then again, they’re not used to having u in honour,” he said with a shrug.

He slipped his arm around her and pulled her close to keep them in unison. Even so, the tassel on her hat slapped him with each bound. Reluctantly, he had to admit she hadn’t been lying when she said she could ride without a saddle. She kept her back straight, her body in tune with the horse. In another minute, he’d slow them down. But for now, he enjoyed the feel of her in his arms. He wished he could see her costume in daylight. He felt sure she wouldn’t fool anyone. With their positions as such, he could tell she’d bound her chest. Why go to all that trouble only to wear a lady’s shirtwaist? And that stocking cap was about to drive him— The cap flew from her head, releasing a bounty of hair and a burst of cinnamon. She whipped her face around. “My hat!” A thick braid, loosened from the cap’s constant agitation, began to swiftly unravel. He tightened his grip on her. “I’ll go back for it later. First, we get you home.” “But my mother—” “Shush.” Reaching around her neck, she grabbed the remains of her braid and pulled it over her shoulder, holding it tight against her collarbone. Instead of slowing them, he continued at a trot, bouncing as one atop the horse. Finally, when the cottage came into sight, he slowed to a walk, but kept his arm where it was.

10 Ideas For Transforming Advertising 1. No cranberry bagels at meetings. No exceptions. 2. While on duty, copywriters required to wear those Peruvian knit hats with the funny earflaps. 3. Reinstatement of the three martini lunch. After a 6-month trial period, optional upgrade to four. 4. Confiscate all computers and baseball caps from art directors. 5. Use of the following terms will be considered justifiable cause for termination: ecosystem, conversation, engagement, landscape, seared ahi tuna, and quirky. 6. When making presentations, account planners must dress up as pirates and hop around on one foot. 7. Breakthrough idea for tv spots: Animals that talk! 8. Criminalize all products containing pomegranates or acai berries. 9.  Increase touch points from 360 degrees to 380 degrees. 10. Require Sir Martin Sorrell to walk around with his weenie out.

In the old days [it ran], before the glorious Revolution, London was not the beautiful city that we know today. It was a dark, dirty, miserable place where hardly anybody had enough to eat and where hundreds and thousands of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to sleep under. Children no older than you are had to work twelve hours a day for cruel masters, who flogged them with whips if they worked too slowly and fed them on nothing but stale breadcrusts and water. But in among all this terrible poverty there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servants to look after them. These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly men with wicked faces, like the one in the picture on the opposite page. You can see that he is dressed in a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. This was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it. The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as “Sir.” The chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and—

Oh, you may not think I’m pretty, But don’t judge on what you see, I’ll eat myself if you can find A smarter hat than me. You can keep your bowlers black, Your top hats sleek and tall, For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat And I can cap them all. There’s nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat can’t see, So try me on and I will tell you Where you ought to be. You might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell the brave at heart, Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart; You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil; Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, If you’ve a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind; Or perhaps in Slytherin You’ll make your real friends, Those cunning folk use any means To achieve their ends. So put me on! Don’t be afraid! And don’t get in a flap! You’re in safe hands (though I have none) For I’m a Thinking Cap!

I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob—would have embraced him, but that I did not know how he would receive me; so I did what moral cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing—walked deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said: "DR. LIVINGSTONE, I PRESUME?" "Yes," said he, with a kind, cordial smile, lifting his cap slightly.

Hat forward. Cute.” Her free hand mimics grabbing the brim of a cap and turning it backward. “Hat backward? Game on.

You see I have deduced why Sherlock has a deerstalker cap, why Arthur Conan Doyle chose it. If you some the Jack the Ripper reports the suspect is wearing a dirty deerstalker cap. I believe it is likely because the case was unsolvable he left it on Sherlock Holmes mind forever. I hate to hear him whine so I suppose I shall to return take the stupid hat off his head, that funny author put on him over a century ago.

A smarter hat than me. You can keep your bowlers black, Your top hats sleek and tall, For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat And I can cap them all. There’s nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat can’t see, So try me on and I will tell you Where you ought to be. You might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell the brave at heart, Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart; You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil; Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, If you’ve a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind; Or perhaps in Slytherin You’ll make your real friends, Those cunning folk use any means To achieve their ends. So put me on! Don’t be afraid! And don’t get in a flap! You’re in safe hands (though I have none) For I’m a Thinking Cap!

Oh, you may not think I’m pretty, But don’t judge on what you see, I’ll eat myself if you can find A smarter hat than me. You can keep your bowlers black, Your top hats sleek and tall, For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat And I can cap them all. There’s nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat can’t see, So try me on and I will tell you

As for Hank… he was a ball to write, in the way that deplorable fictional characters can be. I always imagined that if Hank had a closet, you’d find a hard hat in there, a white hood, a MAGA cap, and a blister pack of Infowars-branded male enhancement pills.

No shoes and a ball cap are better than steel toes and a hard hat.

Cap Ora sells exclusive dad hats influenced by freedom, self-expression, & culture.Cap Ora | Dad Hats and Baseball Caps

We’ll come up with something. We just need to put our thinking caps on.” She mimed pulling a hat down over her head. “Come on now. Eleventh-hour suggestions, please. We’ve flown by the seat of our pants before, and I happen to think we can do it again.

The vertical viewing slot in the door was thrown back, and a pair of eyes filled it for a moment before it was closed again. There was the sharp report of a bolt being thrown, metal on metal. Then the door opened inward and there was a flood of light silhouetting two figures. Not two, she thought. Three of them. One after the other. Their bodies melded together into a single wide mass but three heads stuck out at the top. The first one wore a cowboy hat with the side brims bent up sharply. The middle one wore a peaked cap of some kind. The last man to enter was hatless but the blocky shape of his head was familiar. He was the trucker who’d brought them here and the man who’d pulled Krystyl out of the room by her hair. Gracie saw the glint of a badge on the second man, and for a brief electric moment her heart soared. The police had come to rescue them. Then she realized the man with the badge was in the middle of the three, not in back where he should be. He wasn’t prodding the men into the room—he was one of them. A voice she’d not heard before, high and twangy, said, “Hello, girls.” Then: “Gimme that flashlight.” A few seconds later Gracie was blinded by a beam. He’d shined it directly into her eyes. She raised her hands up and covered her face. Even through her closed eyelids she knew the bright light was still on her.

Well done," BItterlich said. "You definitely showed those peacocks you're not chicken." Isabelle dragged herself out of her mental cyclone and bestowed him the glower he was looking for. "You've been waiting to say that all day, haven't you?" Bitterlich contrived to look innocent. "I just thought it was another feather in your cap." Isabelle resisted the urge to groan. As handsome and dashing and daring as BItterlich was, his sense of humour drifted toward vile puns. The only way to deal with him when he got like this was to play dumb. She took off her hat and examined it carefully. '"I don't understand. It doesn't have any more feathers than it did this morning." Bitterlich glanced aside at her. "Since when did you become fusty?" Isabelle replaced her hat and said primly, "I heard an atrocity being committed, and I stifled it." "I have no egrets," Bitterlich said.

Though the Drosophilia ovary is a structure with a different purpose - one designed to make fly eggs, not blood cells - the ovary, and specifically, the substructure of the ovary known as the 'germarium', have similarities with what was described for hematopoiesis. The organization of the cells that make up the germarium can be likened to a knitted winter hat pulled over the wearer's head. The extreme end - the pompon - comprises a set of cells called the 'terminal filament' cells; the top of the hat is formed by anterior 'cap' cells; and the sides of the hat are made up of more lateral 'inner sheath' cells that surround the GSCs themselves. Within this small cluster of cells, precise positions matter. When a GSC divides in two, one cell remains in contact with the cap cells and the other loses this immediate proximity. The cell that remains in contact with cap cells remains a GSC. The more posterior-positioned cell, by contrast, goes on to form an egg. A similar setup exists in the Drosophilia testes, in which 'hub' cells sit immediately anterior to the male GSCs. A question arises, what is special about the proximity of a GSC to a cap cell that keeps one daughter of a recently divided stem a stem cell while its sister goes on to form an egg?

Birmingham’s sweatshops supply caps to factory workers in Lancashire and plus-fours to gentleman anglers on the River Tweed, hats to titled ladies and waistcoats to farm labourers. An odd kind of equality in an unequal world.

Peter Lake spurred the horse again, and extended his right arm like a lance, pointing it at the motionless officer. As they went by in a blur of white, he lifted the man’s cap from his head, saying, “Allow me to take your hat.” The enraged policeman pivoted, took out his notebook, and furiously wrote a description of the horse’s buttocks.