—UPON my honour, Sir, you have tore every bit of skin quite off the
back of both my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle _Toby_—and you
have crush’d all my knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly.
’Tis your own fault, said Dr. _Slop_——you should have clinch’d your two
fists together into the form of a child’s head as I told you, and sat
firm.—I did so, answered my uncle _Toby_.——Then the points of my
forceps have not been sufficiently arm’d, or the rivet wants closing—or
else the cut on my thumb has made me a little aukward—or possibly—’Tis
well, quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilities—that
the experiment was not first made upon my child’s head-piece.——It would
not have been a cherry-stone the worse, answered Dr. _Slop_.—I maintain
it, said my uncle _Toby_, it would have broke the cerebellum (unless
indeed the skull had been as hard as a granado) and turn’d it all into
a perfect posset.——Pshaw! replied Dr. _Slop_, a child’s head is
naturally as soft as the pap of an apple;—the sutures give way—and
besides, I could have extracted by the feet after.—Not you, said
she.——I rather wish you would begin that way, quoth my father.
Pray do, added my uncle _Toby_.