ns of
animal spirits, all tumultuously crowded down, through different defiles
and circuits, to the place of danger, leaving all his upper regions, as
you may imagine, as empty as my purse.

With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him
back, Phutatorius was not able to dive into the secret of what was going
forwards below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what the devil
was the matter with it: However, as he knew not what the true cause
might turn out, he deemed it most prudent in the situation he was in at
present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the help
of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly
accomplished, had his imagination continued neuter;--but the sallies
of the imagination are ungovernable in things of this kind--a thought
instantly darted into his mind, that tho' the anguish had the sensation
of glowing heat--it might, notwithstanding that, be a bite as well as a
burn; and if so, that possibly a Newt or an Asker, or some such detested
reptile, had crept up, and was fastening his teeth--the horrid idea of
which, with a fresh glow of pain arising that instant from the chesnut,
seized Phutatorius with a sudden panick, and in the first terrifying
disorder of the passion, it threw him, as it has done the best generals
upon earth, quite off his guard:--the effect of which was this, that
he leapt incontinently up, uttering as he rose that interjection of
surprise so much descanted upon, with the aposiopestic break after it,
marked thus, Z...ds--which, though not strictly canonical, was still
as little as any man could have said upon the occasion;--and which,
by-the-bye, whether canonical or not, Phutatorius could no more help
than he could the cause of it.

Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took up little
more time in the transaction, than just to allow time for Phutatorius
to draw forth the chesnut, and throw it down with violence upon the
floor--and for Yorick to rise from his chair, and pick the chesnut up.

It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the
mind:--What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our
opinions, both of men and things--that trifles, light as air, shall
waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it--that
Euclid's demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach,
should not all have power to overthrow it.

Yorick, I said, pick