table bell

plural table bells

1. historicalA hand-held bell intended to be rung in a dining room to call for service, but also used to call patients in medical clinics, assistants in offices, etc.

   Suddenly Miss Digger looked drunk, rang the table bell drunkenly and without asking Mr. Nut, ordered one glass after another.

   1935, Hsi Tseng Tsiang, chapter 9, in The Hanging on Union Square

   3 more examples

   It is more awful and alarming, thus to startle silence by a deep-toned summoner, than to be brought back into petty life, by the tinkle of a table-bell.

   1825, James Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, page 415

   […] we were waited upon by a tall, very tall woman, young and maiden-looking, yet with a strongly outlined and determined face. Afterwards we found her to be the wife of mine host. She poured out our tea, came in when we rang the table-bell to refill our cups, and again retired.

   1837, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Passages from the American Note-Books, volume 1, published ca. 1868, page 61

   […] they ran about corridors or frantically rang table bells, asking with high voices of querulous eunuchs why form ninety thousand and two wasn’t ready.

   1924, Ford Madox Ford, chapter 6, in Some Do Not ..., page 159