THE corporal, who the night before had resolved in his mind to supply
the grand _desideratum_, of keeping up something like an incessant
firing upon the enemy during the heat of the attack,—had no further
idea in his fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco
against the town, out of one of my uncle _Toby_’s six field-pieces,
which were planted on each side of his sentry-box; the means of
effecting which occurring to his fancy at the same time, though he had
pledged his cap, he thought it in no danger from the miscarriage of his
projects.
Upon turning it this way, and that, a little in his mind, he soon began
to find out, that by means of his two _Turkish_ tobacco-pipes, with the
supplement of three smaller tubes of wash-leather at each of their
lower ends, to be tagg’d by the same number of tin-pipes fitted to the
touch-holes, and sealed with clay next the cannon, and then tied
hermetically with waxed silk at their several insertions into the
_Morocco_ tube,—he should be able to fire the six field-pieces all
together, and with the same ease as to fire one.———
——Let no man say from what taggs and jaggs hints may not be cut out for
the advancement of human knowledge. Let no man, who has read my
father’s first and second _beds of justice_, ever rise up and say
again, from collision of what kinds of bodies light may or may not be
struck out, to carry the arts and sciences up to perfection.——Heaven!
thou knowest how I love them;——thou knowest the secrets of my heart,
and that I would this moment give my shirt——Thou art a fool, _Shandy_,
says _Eugenius_, for thou hast but a dozen in the world,—and ’twill
break thy set.——
No matter for that, _Eugenius;_ I would give the shirt off my back to
be burnt into tinder, were it only to satisfy one feverish enquirer,
how many sparks at one good stroke, a good flint and steel could strike
into the tail of it.——Think ye not that in striking these _in_,—he
might, per-adventure, strike something _out?_ as sure as a gun.——
——But this project, by the bye.
The corporal sat up the best part of the night, in bringing _his_ to
perfection; and having made a sufficient proof of his cannon, with
charging them to the top with tobacco,—he went with contentment to bed.