red-tails

Updated: May 29, 2025

There was besides, in Montparnasse's sentence, a literary beauty which was lost upon Gavroche, that is mon dogue, ma dague et ma digue, a slang expression of the Temple, which signifies my dog, my knife, and my wife, greatly in vogue among clowns and the red-tails in the great century when Moliere wrote and Callot drew.

Victor Hugo - Les Misérables

She was soon silenced by a stroke from the butt of Francois' gun both barrels of which were now empty for it was Francois that had done the business for the red-tails. What was most singular of all, the squirrel was not killed either by the shot or the fall.

Mayne Reid - The Boy Hunters