the-a

Updated: June 6, 2025

He would catch for his word often, reiterating meanwhile the article, "the-a, the-a, the-a," his gaze meanwhile fixed upon the sky-light, and a nervously gyrating forefinger raised high and brightly illuminated. The thought suggested was that he had a prompter on the roof to whom he was distressfully appealing to supply the true phrase.

James Kendall Hosmer - The Last Leaf : Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America and Europe