WHEN Dr. _Slop_ entered the back parlour, where my father and my uncle
_Toby_ were discoursing upon the nature of women,——it was hard to
determine whether Dr. _Slop_’s figure, or Dr. _Slop_’s presence,
occasioned more surprize to them; for as the accident happened so near
the house, as not to make it worth while for _Obadiah_ to remount
him,——_Obadiah_ had led him in as he was, _unwiped, unappointed,
unannealed_, with all his stains and blotches on him.—He stood like
_Hamlet_’s ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a
half at the parlour-door (_Obadiah_ still holding his hand) with all
the majesty of mud. His hinder parts, upon which he had received his
fall, totally besmeared,——and in every other part of him, blotched over
in such a manner with _Obadiah_’s explosion, that you would have sworn
(without mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect.
Here was a fair opportunity for my uncle _Toby_ to have triumphed over
my father in his turn;—for no mortal, who had beheld Dr. _Slop_ in that
pickle, could have dissented from so much, at least, of my uncle
_Toby_’s opinion, “That mayhap his sister might not care to let such a
Dr. _Slop_ come so near her ****” But it was the _Argumentum ad
hominem_; and if my uncle _Toby_ was not very expert at it, you may
think, he might not care to use it.——No; the reason was,—’twas not his
nature to insult.
Dr. _Slop_’s presence at that time, was no less problematical than the
mode of it; tho’ it is certain, one moment’s reflexion in my father
might have solved it; for he had apprized Dr. _Slop_ but the week
before, that my mother was at her full reckoning; and as the doctor had
heard nothing since, ’twas natural and very political too in him, to
have taken a ride to _Shandy-Hall_, as he did, merely to see how
matters went on.
But my father’s mind took unfortunately a wrong turn in the
investigation; running, like the hypercritick’s, altogether upon the
ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door,—measuring their
distance, and keeping his mind so intent upon the operation, as to have
power to think of nothing else,——common-place infirmity of the greatest
mathematicians! working with might and main at the demonstration, and
so wasting all their strength upon it, that they have none left in them
to draw the corollary, to do good with.
The ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, struck likewise
strong upon the sensorium of my uncle _Toby_,—but it excited a very
different train of thoughts;—the two irreconcileable pulsations
instantly brought _Stevinus_, the great engineer, along with them, into
my uncle _Toby_’s mind. What business _Stevinus_ had in this affair,—is
the greatest problem of all:——It shall be solved,—but not in the next
chapter.