The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [59]
For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.
’Tis his turn now;—I have given an ample description of Dr. Slop’s sad overthrow,2 and of his sad appearance in the back parlour;—his imagination must now go on with it for a while.
Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. Slop has told his tale;——and in what words, and with what aggravations his fancy chooses:——Let him suppose that Obadiah has told his tale also, and with such rueful looks of affected concern, as he thinks will best contrast the two figures as they stand by each other: Let him imagine that my father has stepp’d up stairs to see my mother:—And, to conclude this work of imagination,—let him imagine the Doctor wash’d,——rubb’d down,—condoled with,—felicitated,—got into a pair of Obadiah’s pumps,3 stepping forwards towards the door, upon the very point of entering upon action.
Truce!—truce, good Dr. Slop!—stay thy obstetrick hand;4—return it safe into thy bosom to keep it warm;—little do’st thou know what obstacles;—little do’st thou think what hidden causes retard its operation!—Hast thou, Dr. Slop,—hast thou been intrusted with the secret articles of this solemn treaty which has brought thee into this place?—Art thou aware that, at this instant, a daughter of Lucina5 is put obstetrically over thy head? Alas! ’tis too true.—Besides, great son of Pilumnus!6 what can’st thou do?—Thou has come forth unarm’d;—thou hast left thy tire-tête,—thy new-invented forceps,7—thy crotchet,—thy squirt, and all thy instruments of salvation and deliverance8 behind thee.——By heaven! at this moment they are hanging up in a green bays9 bag, betwixt thy two pistols, at thy bed’s head!—Ring;—call;—send Obadiah back upon the coach-horse to bring them with all speed.
—Make great haste, Obadiah, quoth my father, and I’ll give thee a crown;—and, quoth my uncle Toby, I’ll give him another.
CHAP. XII
Your sudden and unexpected arrival, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Dr. Slop, (all three of them sitting down to the fire together, as my uncle Toby began to speak)----instantly brought the great Stevinus into my head, who, you must know, is a favourite author with me.———Then, added my father, making use of the argument Ad Crumenam,1—I will lay twenty guineas to a single crown piece, (which will serve to give away to Obadiah when he gets back) that this same Stevinus was some engineer or other,----or has wrote something or other, either directly or indirectly, upon the science of fortification.
He has so,—replied my uncle Toby.—I knew it, said my father;—tho’, for the soul of me, I cannot see what kind of connection there can be betwixt Dr. Slop’s sudden coming, and a discourse upon fortification;—yet I fear’d it.—Talk of what we will, brother,—or let the occasion be never so foreign or unfit for the subject,—you are sure to bring it in: I would not, brother Toby, continued my father,—I declare I would not have my head so full of curtins and horn-works.—That, I dare say, you would not, quoth Dr. Slop, interrupting him, and laughing most immoderately at his pun.
Dennis the critick could not detest and abhor a pun,2 or the insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father;——he would grow testy upon it at any time;–but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the nose;—he saw no difference.
Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Dr. Slop,——the curtins my brother Shandy mentions here, have nothing to do with bedsteads;—Tho’, I know, Du Cange3 says, “That bed-curtains, in all probability, have taken their name from them;”—nor have the horn-works, he speaks of, any