CHAPTER XVI

If my wife will but venture him--brother _Toby_, _Trismegistus_ shall be dress’d and brought down to us, whilst you and I are getting our breakfasts together.------

----Go, tell _Susannah_, _Obadiah_, to step here.

She is run upstairs, answered _Obadiah_, this very instant, sobbing and crying, and wringing her hands as if her heart would break.

We shall have a rare month of it, said my father, turning his head from _Obadiah_, and looking wistfully in my uncle _Toby’s_ face for some time--we shall have a devilish month of it, brother _Toby_, said my father, setting his arms a-kimbo, and shaking his head; fire, water, women, wind--brother _Toby!_--’Tis some misfortune, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----That it is, cried my father--to have so many jarring elements breaking loose, and riding triumph in every corner of a gentleman’s house --Little boots it to the peace of a family, brother _Toby_, that you and I possess ourselves, and sit here silent and unmoved----whilst such a storm is whistling over our heads.------

And what’s the matter, _Susannah?_ They have called the child _Tristram_----and my mistress is just got out of an hysterick fit about it ----No----’tis not my fault, said _Susannah_ --I told him it was _Tristram-gistus_.

----Make tea for yourself, brother _Toby_, said my father, taking down his hat----but how different from the sallies and agitations of voice and members which a common reader would imagine!

--For he spake in the sweetest modulation--and took down his hat with the genteelest movement of limbs, that ever affliction harmonized and attuned together.

----Go to the bowling-green for corporal _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, speaking to _Obadiah_, as soon as my father left the room.

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