failed not to carry his
body perfectly round, just into his former position, without missing one
jot.--Ha! said Tripet, I will not do that at this time,--and not without
cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have failed,--I will undo this leap; then
with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards the right-hand,
he fetched another striking gambol as before; which done, he set his
right hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised himself up, and
sprung into the air, poising and upholding his whole weight upon the
muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and whirled himself
about three times: at the fourth, reversing his body, and overturning it
upside down, and foreside back, without touching any thing, he brought
himself betwixt the horse's two ears, and then giving himself a jerking
swing, he seated himself upon the crupper--'

(This can't be fighting, said my uncle Toby.--The corporal shook his
head at it.--Have patience, said Yorick.)

'Then (Tripet) pass'd his right leg over his saddle, and placed himself
en croup.--But, said he, 'twere better for me to get into the saddle;
then putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before him, and
there-upon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his body,
he incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and strait found
himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat; then
springing into the air with a summerset, he turned him about like
a wind-mill, and made above a hundred frisks, turns, and
demi-pommadas.'--Good God! cried Trim, losing all patience,--one home
thrust of a bayonet is worth it all.--I think so too, replied Yorick.--

I am of a contrary opinion, quoth my father.

Chapter 3.XXX.

--No,--I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making answer
to a question which Yorick had taken the liberty to put to him,--I have
advanced nothing in the Tristra-paedia, but what is as clear as any
one proposition in Euclid.--Reach me, Trim, that book from off the
scrutoir:--it has oft-times been in my mind, continued my father, to
have read it over both to you, Yorick, and to my brother Toby, and
I think it a little unfriendly in myself, in not having done it long
ago:--shall we have a short chapter or two now,--and a chapter or two
hereafter, as occasions serve; and so on, till we get through the whole?
My uncle Toby and Yorick made the obeisance which was proper; and the
corporal, though he was not included in the compli