ZOUNDS!————————————————————————Z——ds! cried _Phutatorius_, partly to
himself——and yet high enough to be heard—and what seemed odd, ’twas
uttered in a construction of look, and in a tone of voice, somewhat
between that of a man in amazement and one in bodily pain.
One or two who had very nice ears, and could distinguish the expression
and mixture of the two tones as plainly as a _third_ or a _fifth_, or
any other chord in musick—were the most puzzled and perplexed with
it—the concord was good in itself—but then ’twas quite out of the key,
and no way applicable to the subject started;——so that with all their
knowledge, they could not tell what in the world to make of it.
Others who knew nothing of musical expression, and merely lent their
ears to the plain import of the _word_, imagined that _Phutatorius_,
who was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the
cudgels out of _Didius_’s hands, in order to bemaul _Yorick_ to some
purpose—and that the desperate monosyllable Z——ds was the exordium to
an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a rough
kind of handling of him; so that my uncle _Toby_’s good-nature felt a
pang for what _Yorick_ was about to undergo. But seeing _Phutatorius_
stop short, without any attempt or desire to go on—a third party began
to suppose, that it was no more than an involuntary respiration,
casually forming itself into the shape of a twelve-penny oath—without
the sin or substance of one.
Others, and especially one or two who sat next him, looked upon it on
the contrary as a real and substantial oath, propensly formed against
_Yorick_, to whom he was known to bear no good liking—which said oath,
as my father philosophized upon it, actually lay fretting and fuming at
that very time in the upper regions of _Phutatorius_’s purtenance; and
so was naturally, and according to the due course of things, first
squeezed out by the sudden influx of blood which was driven into the
right ventricle of _Phutatorius_’s heart, by the stroke of surprize
which so strange a theory of preaching had excited.
How finely we argue upon mistaken facts!
There was not a soul busied in all these various reasonings upon the
monosyllable which _Phutatorius_ uttered—who did not take this for
granted, proceeding upon it as from an axiom, namely, that
_Phutatorius_’s mind was intent upon the subject of debate which was
arising between _Didius_ and _Yorick;_ and indeed as he looked first
towards the one and then towards the other, with the air of a man
listening to what was going forwards—who would not have thought the
same? But the truth was, that _Phutatorius_ knew not one word or one
syllable of what was passing—but his whole thoughts and attention were
taken up with a transaction which was going forwards at that very
instant within the precincts of his own _Galligaskins_, and in a part
of them, where of all others he stood most interested to watch
accidents: So that notwithstanding he looked with all the attention in
the world, and had gradually skrewed up every nerve and muscle in his
face, to the utmost pitch the instrument would bear, in order, as it
was thought, to give a sharp reply to _Yorick_, who sat over-against
him——yet, I say, was _Yorick_ never once in any one domicile of
_Phutatorius_’s brain——but the true cause of his exclamation lay at
least a yard below.
This I will endeavour to explain to you with all imaginable decency.
You must be informed then, that _Gastripheres_, who had taken a turn
into the kitchen a little before dinner, to see how things went
on—observing a wicker-basket of fine chesnuts standing upon the
dresser, had ordered that a hundred or two of them might be roasted and
sent in, as soon as dinner was over— _Gastripheres_ inforcing his
orders about them, that _Didius_, but _Phutatorius_ especially, were
particularly fond of ’em.
About two minutes before the time that my uncle _Toby_ interrupted
_Yorick_’s harangue—_Gastripheres_’s chesnuts were brought in—and as
_Phutatorius_’s fondness for ’em was uppermost in the waiter’s head, he
laid them directly before _Phutatorius_, wrapt up hot in a clean damask
napkin.
Now whether it was physically impossible, with half a dozen hands all
thrust into the napkin at a time—but that some one chesnut, of more
life and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motion—it so fell out,
however, that one was actually sent rolling off the table; and as
_Phutatorius_ sat straddling under——it fell perpendicularly into that
particular aperture of _Phutatorius_’s breeches, for which, to the
shame and indelicacy of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste
word throughout all _Johnson_’s dictionary——let it suffice to say——it
was that particular aperture which, in all good societies, the laws of
decorum do strictly require, like the temple of _Janus_ (in peace at
least) to be universally shut up.
The neglect of this punctilio in _Phutatorius_ (which by-the-bye should
be a warning to all mankind) had opened a door to this accident.——
Accident I call it, in compliance to a received mode of speaking——but
in no opposition to the opinion either of _Acrites_ or _Mythogeras_ in
this matter; I know they were both prepossessed and fully persuaded of
it—and are so to this hour, That there was nothing of accident in the
whole event——but that the chesnut’s taking that particular course, and
in a manner of its own accord—and then falling with all its heat
directly into that one particular place, and no other——was a real
judgment upon _Phutatorius_ for that filthy and obscene treatise _de
Concubinis retinendis_, which _Phutatorius_ had published about twenty
years ago——and was that identical week going to give the world a second
edition of.
It is not my business to dip my pen in this controversy——much
undoubtedly may be wrote on both sides of the question—all that
concerns me as an historian, is to represent the matter of fact, and
render it credible to the reader, that the hiatus in _Phutatorius_’s
breeches was sufficiently wide to receive the chesnut;——and that the
chesnut, somehow or other, did fall perpendicularly, and piping hot
into it, without _Phutatorius_’s perceiving it, or any one else at that
time.
The genial warmth which the chesnut imparted, was not undelectable for
the first twenty or five-and-twenty seconds——and did no more than
gently solicit _Phutatorius_’s attention towards the part:——But the
heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the
point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the
regions of pain, the soul of _Phutatorius_, together with all his
ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment,
resolution, deliberation, ratiocination, memory, fancy, with ten
battalions of animal spirits, all tumultuously crowded down, through
different defiles and circuits, to the place of danger, leaving all his
upper regions, as you may imagine, as empty as my purse.
With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him
back, _Phutatorius_ was not able to dive into the secret of what was
going forwards below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what
the devil was the matter with it: However, as he knew not what the true
cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent in the situation he was
in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the
help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly
accomplished, had his imagination continued neuter;——but the sallies of
the imagination are ungovernable in things of this kind—a thought
instantly darted into his mind, that tho’ the anguish had the sensation
of glowing heat—it might, notwithstanding that, be a bite as well as a
burn; and if so, that possibly a _Newt_ or an _Asker_, or some such
detested reptile, had crept up, and was fastening his teeth——the horrid
idea of which, with a fresh glow of pain arising that instant from the
chesnut, seized _Phutatorius_ with a sudden panick, and in the first
terrifying disorder of the passion, it threw him, as it has done the
best generals upon earth, quite off his guard:——the effect of which was
this, that he leapt incontinently up, uttering as he rose that
interjection of surprise so much descanted upon, with the aposiopestic
break after it, marked thus, Z——ds—which, though not strictly
canonical, was still as little as any man could have said upon the
occasion;——and which, by-the-bye, whether canonical or not,
_Phutatorius_ could no more help than he could the cause of it.
Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took up little
more time in the transaction, than just to allow time for _Phutatorius_
to draw forth the chesnut, and throw it down with violence upon the
floor—and for _Yorick_ to rise from his chair, and pick the chesnut up.
It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the
mind:——What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our
opinions, both of men and things——that trifles, light as air, shall
waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it——that
_Euclid_’s demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in
breach, should not all have power to overthrow it.
_Yorick_, I said, picked up the chesnut which _Phutatorius_’s wrath had
flung down——the action was trifling——I am ashamed to account for it—he
did it, for no reason, but that he thought the chesnut not a jot worse
for the adventure—and that he held a good chesnut worth stooping
for.——But this incident, trifling as it was, wrought differently in
_Phutatorius_’s head: He considered this act of _Yorick_’s in getting
off his chair and picking up the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in
him, that the chesnut was originally his—and in course, that it must
have been the owner of the chesnut, and no one else, who could have
played him such a prank with it: What greatly confirmed him in this
opinion, was this, that the table being parallelogramical and very
narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for _Yorick_, who sat directly
over against _Phutatorius_, of slipping the chesnut in——and
consequently that he did it. The look of something more than suspicion,
which _Phutatorius_ cast full upon _Yorick_ as these thoughts arose,
too evidently spoke his opinion——and as _Phutatorius_ was naturally
supposed to know more of the matter than any person besides, his
opinion at once became the general one;——and for a reason very
different from any which have been yet given——in a little time it was
put out of all manner of dispute.
When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this
sublunary world——the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of a
substance, naturally takes a flight behind the scenes to see what is
the cause and first spring of them.—The search was not long in this
instance.
It was well known that _Yorick_ had never a good opinion of the
treatise which _Phutatorius_ had wrote _de Concubinis retinendis_, as a
thing which he feared had done hurt in the world——and ’twas easily
found out, that there was a mystical meaning in _Yorick_’s prank—and
that his chucking the chesnut hot into _Phutatorius_’s ***——***, was a
sarcastical fling at his book—the doctrines of which, they said, had
enflamed many an honest man in the same place.
This conceit awaken’d _Somnolentus_——made _Agelastes_ smile——and if you
can recollect the precise look and air of a man’s face intent in
finding out a riddle——it threw _Gastripheres_’s into that form—and in
short was thought by many to be a master-stroke of arch-wit.
This, as the reader has seen from one end to the other, was as
groundless as the dreams of philosophy: _Yorick_, no doubt, as
_Shakespeare_ said of his ancestor——“_was a man of jest_,” but it was
temper’d with something which withheld him from that, and many other
ungracious pranks, of which he as undeservedly bore the blame;—but it
was his misfortune all his life long to bear the imputation of saying
and doing a thousand things, of which (unless my esteem blinds me) his
nature was incapable. All I blame him for——or rather, all I blame and
alternately like him for, was that singularity of his temper, which
would never suffer him to take pains to set a story right with the
world, however in his power. In every ill usage of that sort, he acted
precisely as in the affair of his lean horse——he could have explained
it to his honour, but his spirit was above it; and besides, he ever
looked upon the inventor, the propagator and believer of an illiberal
report alike so injurious to him—he could not stoop to tell his story
to them——and so trusted to time and truth to do it for him.
This heroic cast produced him inconveniences in many respects—in the
present it was followed by the fixed resentment of _Phutatorius_, who,
as _Yorick_ had just made an end of his chesnut, rose up from his chair
a second time, to let him know it—which indeed he did with a smile;
saying only—that he would endeavour not to forget the obligation.
But you must mark and carefully separate and distinguish these two
things in your mind.
——The smile was for the company.
——The threat was for _Yorick._