AS _Susannah_ was informed by an express from Mrs. _Bridget_, of my
uncle _Toby_’s falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it
happened,—the contents of which express, _Susannah_ communicated to my
mother the next day,—it has just given me an opportunity of entering
upon my uncle _Toby_’s amours a fortnight before their existence.
I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. _Shandy_, quoth my mother,
which will surprise you greatly.——
Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and
was musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my
mother broke silence.——
“—My brother _Toby_, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs.
_Wadman._”
——Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his
bed again as long as he lives.
It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked
the meaning of a thing she did not understand.
——That she is not a woman of science, my father would say—is her
misfortune—but she might ask a question.—
My mother never did.——In short, she went out of the world at last
without knowing whether it turned _round_, or stood _still._——My father
had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,—but
she always forgot.
For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt
them, than a proposition,—a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of
which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of
the breeches), and then went on again.
If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us,—quoth my mother.
Not a cherry-stone, said my father,—he may as well batter away his
means upon that, as any thing else,
——To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition—the
reply,—and the rejoinder, I told you of.
It will be some amusement to him, too,——said my father.