imile)--in this case, I say, there had
been no danger either to master or man, in corporal Trim's peeping in:
the moment he had beheld my father and my uncle Toby fast asleep--the
respectfulness of his carriage was such, he would have retired as silent
as death, and left them both in their arm-chairs, dreaming as happy
as he had found them: but the thing was, morally speaking, so very
impracticable, that for the many years in which this hinge was suffered
to be out of order, and amongst the hourly grievances my father
submitted to upon its account--this was one; that he never folded his
arms to take his nap after dinner, but the thoughts of being unavoidably
awakened by the first person who should open the door, was always
uppermost in his imagination, and so incessantly stepp'd in betwixt him
and the first balmy presage of his repose, as to rob him, as he often
declared, of the whole sweets of it.

'When things move upon bad hinges, an' please your lordships, how can it
be otherwise?'

Pray what's the matter? Who is there? cried my father, waking, the
moment the door began to creak.--I wish the smith would give a peep at
that confounded hinge.--'Tis nothing, an please your honour, said Trim,
but two mortars I am bringing in.--They shan't make a clatter with them
here, cried my father hastily.--If Dr. Slop has any drugs to pound, let
him do it in the kitchen.--May it please your honour, cried Trim, they
are two mortar-pieces for a siege next summer, which I have been making
out of a pair of jack-boots, which Obadiah told me your honour had left
off wearing.--By Heaven! cried my father, springing out of his chair,
as he swore--I have not one appointment belonging to me, which I set
so much store by as I do by these jack-boots--they were our great
grandfather's brother Toby--they were hereditary. Then I fear, quoth my
uncle Toby, Trim has cut off the entail.--I have only cut off the tops,
an' please your honour, cried Trim--I hate perpetuities as much as any
man alive, cried my father--but these jack-boots, continued he (smiling,
though very angry at the same time) have been in the family, brother,
ever since the civil wars;--Sir Roger Shandy wore them at the battle
of Marston-Moor.--I declare I would not have taken ten pounds for
them.--I'll pay you the money, brother Shandy, quoth my uncle Toby,
looking at the two mortars with infinite pleasure, and putting his hand
into his breeches pocket as he viewed them--I'll pay