sink an inch
lower.--If I meet but a woman with child--I do it.--'Tis a heavy tax
upon that half of our fellow-creatures, brother Shandy, said my
uncle Toby--'Tis a piteous burden upon 'em, continued he, shaking his
head--Yes, yes, 'tis a painful thing--said my father, shaking his head
too--but certainly since shaking of heads came into fashion, never did
two heads shake together, in concert, from two such different springs.

God bless / Deuce take 'em all--said my uncle Toby and my father, each
to himself.

Chapter 2.XVLIII.

Holla!--you, chairman!--here's sixpence--do step into that bookseller's
shop, and call me a day-tall critick. I am very willing to give any one
of 'em a crown to help me with his tackling, to get my father and my
uncle Toby off the stairs, and to put them to bed.

--'Tis even high time; for except a short nap, which they both got
whilst Trim was boring the jack-boots--and which, by-the-bye, did my
father no sort of good, upon the score of the bad hinge--they have not
else shut their eyes, since nine hours before the time that doctor Slop
was led into the back parlour in that dirty pickle by Obadiah.

Was every day of my life to be as busy a day as this--and to take
up--Truce.

I will not finish that sentence till I have made an observation upon the
strange state of affairs between the reader and myself, just as things
stand at present--an observation never applicable before to any one
biographical writer since the creation of the world, but to myself--and
I believe, will never hold good to any other, until its final
destruction--and therefore, for the very novelty of it alone, it must be
worth your worships attending to.

I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month;
and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my third
volume (According to the preceding Editions.)--and no farther than to
my first day's life--'tis demonstrative that I have three hundred and
sixty-four days more life to write just now, than when I first set out;
so that instead of advancing, as a common writer, in my work with what I
have been doing at it--on the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes
back--was every day of my life to be as busy a day as this--And why
not?--and the transactions and opinions of it to take up as much
description--And for what reason should they be cut short? as at this
rate I should just live 364 times faster than I should write--It must
follow