Now I find it needful to inform your reverences and worships, that
besides the many nautical uses of long noses enumerated by _Erasmus_,
the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not without its domestic
conveniences also; for that in a case of distress—and for want of a
pair of bellows, it will do excellently well, _ad ixcitandum focum_ (to
stir up the fire.)
Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and
had sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him, as she had
done the seeds of all other knowledge——so that he had got out his
penknife, and was trying experiments upon the sentence, to see if he
could not scratch some better sense into it.——I’ve got within a single
letter, brother _Toby_, cried my father, of _Erasmus_ his mystic
meaning.—You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in all
conscience.——Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on——I might as well be
seven miles off.—I’ve done it—said my father, snapping his fingers—See,
my dear brother _Toby_, how I have mended the sense.——But you have
marr’d a word, replied my uncle _Toby_.—My father put on his
spectacles——bit his lip——and tore out the leaf in a passion.