isdom,
and utter grave sentences the rest of my days--and never--never attempt
again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child, the longest day I had
to live.

As for writing nonsense to them--I believe there was a reserve--but that
I leave to the world.

Adieu, Maria!--adieu, poor hapless damsel!--some time, but not now, I
may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips--but I was deceived; for that
moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of woe with it, that I
rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walk'd softly to my chaise.

--What an excellent inn at Moulins!

Chapter 4.LXXXIV.

When we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must all
turn back to the two blank chapters, on the account of which my honour
has lain bleeding this half hour--I stop it, by pulling off one of my
yellow slippers and throwing it with all my violence to the opposite
side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of it--

--That whatever resemblance it may bear to half the chapters which are
written in the world, or for aught I know may be now writing in it--that
it was as casual as the foam of Zeuxis his horse; besides, I look upon a
chapter which has only nothing in it, with respect; and considering what
worse things there are in the world--That it is no way a proper subject
for satire--

--Why then was it left so? And here without staying for my reply, shall
I be called as many blockheads, numsculs, doddypoles, dunderheads,
ninny-hammers, goosecaps, joltheads, nincompoops, and sh..t-a-beds--and
other unsavoury appellations, as ever the cake-bakers of Lerne cast in
the teeth of King Garangantan's shepherds--And I'll let them do it,
as Bridget said, as much as they please; for how was it possible they
should foresee the necessity I was under of writing the 84th chapter of
my book, before the 77th, &c?

--So I don't take it amiss--All I wish is, that it may be a lesson to
the world, 'to let people tell their stories their own way.'

The Seventy-seventh Chapter.

As Mrs. Bridget opened the door before the corporal had well given the
rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle Toby's introduction into the
parlour, was so short, that Mrs. Wadman had but just time to get from
behind the curtain--lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or
two towards the door to receive him.

My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman, after the manner in which women were
saluted by men in the year of our Lord God one th