As the corporal was entering the confines of _Bohemia_, my uncle _Toby_
obliged him to halt for a single moment; he had set out bare-headed,
having, since he pull’d off his _Montero_-cap in the latter end of the
last chapter, left it lying beside him on the ground.
——The eye of Goodness espieth all things——so that before the corporal
had well got through the first five words of his story, had my uncle
_Toby_ twice touch’d his _Montero_-cap with the end of his cane,
interrogatively——as much as to say, Why don’t you put it on, _Trim?
Trim_ took it up with the most respectful slowness, and casting a
glance of humiliation as he did it, upon the embroidery of the
fore-part, which being dismally tarnish’d and fray’d moreover in some
of the principal leaves and boldest parts of the pattern, he lay’d it
down again between his two feet, in order to moralize upon the subject.
——’Tis every word of it but too true, cried my uncle _Toby_, that thou
art about to observe——
“_Nothing in this world, Trim, is made to last for ever._”
——But when tokens, dear _Tom_, of thy love and remembrance wear out,
said _Trim_, what shall we say?
There is no occasion, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, to say any thing
else; and was a man to puzzle his brains till Doom’s day, I believe,
_Trim_, it would be impossible.
The corporal, perceiving my uncle _Toby_ was in the right, and that it
would be in vain for the wit of man to think of extracting a purer
moral from his cap, without further attempting it, he put it on; and
passing his hand across his forehead to rub out a pensive wrinkle,
which the text and the doctrine between them had engender’d, he
return’d, with the same look and tone of voice, to his story of the
king of _Bohemia_ and his seven castles.
THE STORY OF THE
KING OF BOHEMIA AND
HIS SEVEN CASTLES,
CONTINUED
THERE was a certain king of _Bohemia_, but in whose reign, except his
own, I am not able to inform your honour——
I do not desire it of thee, _Trim_, by any means, cried my uncle
_Toby._
——It was a little before the time, an’ please your honour, when giants
were beginning to leave off breeding:—but in what year of our Lord that
was—