Cat Lap

Real first-rate suppers; not like Lady Jane's bread-and-butter and cat-lap, as Sir Nicholas says, just handed round. ❋ Charlotte Mary Yonge (1862)

English tea, at which Mrs. Houghton laughed, saying, 'Time was, I called it cat-lap! ❋ Charlotte Mary Yonge (1862)

Do you think I'm going to let housekeeper's cat-lap be drunk at my table? ❋ Wilkie Collins (1856)

Sergeant had slept in the stables through the night, and had had his breakfast brought to him, warm, by his own wife; but he had sat up among the straw, and had winked at her, and had asked her to give him threepence of gin with the cat-lap. ❋ Anthony Trollope (1848)

I longed for the days of the Spectator, when I might have laid my penny on the bar, and retired without ceremony — But no — this blessed decoction was circulated under the auspices of some half-crazed blue-stocking or other, and we were saddled with all the formality of an entertainment, for this miserable allowance of a cockle-shell full of cat-lap per head.” ❋ Unknown (2008)

I told old Whiskers that he could go and boil his job and his head together and sell the soup for cat-lap. " ❋ James Stephens (1916)

"I can't say I am particularly attached to the cat-lap," he said, laughing; "I've had rather too much of it when I've been in training -- half-and-half, warm tea, and cold-drawn castor-oil. ❋ Mary Elizabeth (1863)

I longed for the days of the Spectator, when I might have laid my penny on the bar, and retired without ceremony -- But no -- this blessed decoction was circulated under the auspices of some half-crazed blue-stocking or other, and we were saddled with all the formality of an entertainment, for this miserable allowance of a cockle-shell full of cat-lap per head. " ❋ Walter Scott (1801)