CHAPTER XXX

--And pray, said my uncle _Toby_, leaning upon _Yorick_, as he and my father were helping him leisurely down the stairs----don’t be terrified, madam, this stair-case conversation is not so long as the last ----And pray, _Yorick_, said my uncle _Toby_, which way is this said affair of _Tristram_ at length settled by these learned men? Very satisfactorily, replied _Yorick_; no mortal, Sir, has any concern with it----for Mrs. _Shandy_ the mother is nothing at all a-kin to him----and as the mother’s is the surest side ----Mr. _Shandy_, in course, is still less than nothing ------In short, he is not as much a-kin to him, Sir, as I am.----

----That may well be, said my father, shaking his head.

----Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly, quoth my uncle _Toby_, have been some sort of consanguinity betwixt the duchess of _Suffolk_ and her son.

The vulgar are of the same opinion, quoth _Yorick_, to this hour.

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