CHAPTER XXXI

Now my uncle _Toby_ had one evening laid down his pipe upon the table, and was counting over to himself upon his finger ends (beginning at his thumb) all Mrs. _Wadman’s_ perfections one by one; and happening two or three times together, either by omitting some, or counting others twice over, to puzzle himself sadly before he could get beyond his middle finger ----Prithee, _Trim!_ said he, taking up his pipe again, ----bring me a pen and ink: _Trim_ brought paper also.

Take a full sheet----_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, making a sign with his pipe at the same time to take a chair and sit down close by him at the table. The corporal obeyed----placed the paper directly before him----took a pen, and dipp’d it in the ink.

--She has a thousand virtues, _Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_----

Am I to set them down, an’ please your honour? quoth the corporal.

----But they must be taken in their ranks, replied my uncle _Toby_; for of them all, _Trim_, that which wins me most, and which is a security for all the rest, is the compassionate turn and singular humanity of her character --I protest, added my uncle _Toby_, looking up, as he protested it, towards the top of the ceiling ----That was I her brother, _Trim_, a thousand fold, she could not make more constant or more tender enquiries after my sufferings----though now no more.

The corporal made no reply to my uncle _Toby’s_ protestation, but by a short cough--he dipp’d the pen a second time into the inkhorn; and my uncle _Toby_, pointing with the end of his pipe as close to the top of the sheet at the left hand corner of it, as he could get it----the corporal wrote down the word HUMANITY - - - - thus.

Prithee, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, as soon as _Trim_ had done it------how often does Mrs. _Bridget_ enquire after the wound on the cap of thy knee, which thou received’st at the battle of _Landen?_

She never, an’ please your honour, enquires after it at all.

That, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, with all the triumph the goodness of his nature would permit ----That shews the difference in the character of the mistress and maid----had the fortune of war allotted the same mischance to me, Mrs. _Wadman_ would have enquired into every circumstance relating to it a hundred times ----She would have enquired, an’ please your honour, ten times as often about your honour’s groin ----The pain, _Trim_, is equally excruciating, ----and Compassion has as much to do with the one as the other----

----God bless your honour! cried the corporal----what has a woman’s compassion to do with a wound upon the cap of a man’s knee? had your honour’s been shot into ten thousand splinters at the affair of _Landen_, Mrs. _Wadman_ would have troubled her head as little about it as _Bridget_; because, added the corporal, lowering his voice, and speaking very distinctly, as he assigned his reason----

“The knee is such a distance from the main body----whereas the groin, your honour knows, is upon the very _curtain_ of the _place_.”

My uncle _Toby_ gave a long whistle----but in a note which could scarce be heard across the table.

The corporal had advanced too far to retire----in three words he told the rest----

My uncle _Toby_ laid down his pipe as gently upon the fender, as if it had been spun from the unravellings of a spider’s web----

------Let us go to my brother _Shandy’s_, said he.

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