CHAPTER XXV

--No doubt, Sir, --there is a whole chapter wanting here--and a chasm of ten pages made in the book by it--but the bookbinder is neither a fool, or a knave, or a puppy--nor is the book a jot more imperfect (at least upon that score)----but, on the contrary, the book is more perfect and complete by wanting the chapter, than having it, as I shall demonstrate to your reverences in this manner. --I question first, by the bye, whether the same experiment might not be made as successfully upon sundry other chapters------but there is no end, an’ please your reverences, in trying experiments upon chapters------we have had enough of it ----So there’s an end of that matter.

But before I begin my demonstration, let me only tell you, that the chapter which I have torn out, and which otherwise you would all have been reading just now, instead of this----was the description of my father’s, my uncle _Toby’s_, _Trim’s_, and _Obadiah’s_ setting out and journeying to the visitation at ****.

We’ll go in the coach, said my father --Prithee, have the arms been altered, _Obadiah?_ --It would have made my story much better to have begun with telling you, that at the time my mother’s arms were added to the _Shandy’s_, when the coach was re-painted upon my father’s marriage, it had so fallen out, that the coach-painter, whether by performing all his works with the left-hand, like _Turpilius_ the _Roman_, or _Hans Holbein_ of _Basil_----or whether ’twas more from the blunder of his head than hand----or whether, lastly, it was from the sinister turn which every thing relating to our family was apt to take----it so fell out, however, to our reproach, that instead of the _bend-dexter_, which since _Harry_ the Eighth’s reign was honestly our due------a _bend-sinister_, by some of these fatalities, had been drawn quite across the field of the _Shandy_ arms. ’Tis scarce credible that the mind of so wise a man as my father was, could be so much incommoded with so small a matter. The word coach--let it be whose it would--or coach-man, or coach-horse, or coach-hire, could never be named in the family, but he constantly complained of carrying this vile mark of illegitimacy upon the door of his own; he never once was able to step into the coach, or out of it, without turning round to take a view of the arms, and making a vow at the same time, that it was the last time he would ever set his foot in it again, till the _bend-sinister_ was taken out--but like the affair of the hinge, it was one of the many things which the _Destinies_ had set down in their books ever to be grumbled at (and in wiser families than ours)----but never to be mended.

--Has the _bend-sinister_ been brush’d out, I say? said my father. ----There has been nothing brush’d out, Sir, answered _Obadiah_, but the lining. We’ll go o’horseback, said my father, turning to _Yorick_. ----Of all things in the world, except politicks, the clergy know the least of heraldry, said _Yorick_. --No matter for that, cried my father ----I should be sorry to appear with a blot in my escutcheon before them. --Never mind the _bend-sinister_, said my uncle _Toby_, putting on his tye-wig. ----No, indeed, said my father--you may go with my aunt _Dinah_ to a visitation with a _bend-sinister_, if you think fit --My poor uncle _Toby_ blush’d. My father was vexed at himself. ------No----my dear brother _Toby_, said my father, changing his tone----but the damp of the coach-lining about my loins, may give me the sciatica again, as it did _December_, _January_, and _February_ last _winter_--so if you please you shall ride my wife’s pad----and as you are to preach, _Yorick_, you had better make the best of your way before----and leave me to take care of my brother _Toby_, and to follow at our own rates.

Now the