said my uncle
Toby, it would have broke the cerebellum (unless indeed the skull
had been as hard as a granado) and turn'd it all into a perfect
posset.--Pshaw! replied Dr. Slop, a child's head is naturally as soft
as the pap of an apple;--the sutures give way--and besides, I could
have extracted by the feet after.--Not you, said she.--I rather wish you
would begin that way, quoth my father.

Pray do, added my uncle Toby.

Chapter 2.X.

--And pray, good woman, after all, will you take upon you to say, it
may not be the child's hip, as well as the child's head?--'Tis most
certainly the head, replied the midwife. Because, continued Dr. Slop
(turning to my father) as positive as these old ladies generally
are--'tis a point very difficult to know--and yet of the greatest
consequence to be known;--because, Sir, if the hip is mistaken for the
head--there is a possibility (if it is a boy) that the forceps....

--What the possibility was, Dr. Slop whispered very low to my father,
and then to my uncle Toby.--There is no such danger, continued he, with
the head.--No, in truth quoth my father--but when your possibility has
taken place at the hip--you may as well take off the head too.

--It is morally impossible the reader should understand this--'tis
enough Dr. Slop understood it;--so taking the green baize bag in his
hand, with the help of Obadiah's pumps, he tripp'd pretty nimbly, for
a man of his size, across the room to the door--and from the door was
shewn the way, by the good old midwife, to my mother's apartments.

Chapter 2.XI.

It is two hours, and ten minutes--and no more--cried my father, looking
at his watch, since Dr. Slop and Obadiah arrived--and I know not how it
happens, Brother Toby--but to my imagination it seems almost an age.

--Here--pray, Sir, take hold of my cap--nay, take the bell along with
it, and my pantoufles too.

Now, Sir, they are all at your service; and I freely make you a present
of 'em, on condition you give me all your attention to this chapter.

Though my father said, 'he knew not how it happen'd,'--yet he knew
very well how it happen'd;--and at the instant he spoke it, was
pre-determined in his mind to give my uncle Toby a clear account of the
matter by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of duration and
its simple modes, in order to shew my uncle Toby by what mechanism and
mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid succession of
their ideas, and the