d made ten thousand times more
of Susannah's accident, than there was any grounds for; so that in a
week's time, or less, it was in every body's mouth, That poor Master
Shandy...entirely.--And Fame, who loves to double every thing,--in
three days more, had sworn, positively she saw it,--and all the world,
as usual, gave credit to her evidence--'That the nursery window had not
only...;--but that.. .'s also.'

Could the world have been sued like a Body-Corporate,--my father had
brought an action upon the case, and trounced it sufficiently; but to
fall foul of individuals about it--as every soul who had mentioned the
affair, did it with the greatest pity imaginable;--'twas like flying
in the very face of his best friends:--And yet to acquiesce under the
report, in silence--was to acknowledge it openly,--at least in the
opinion of one half of the world; and to make a bustle again, in
contradicting it,--was to confirm it as strongly in the opinion of the
other half.--

--Was ever poor devil of a country gentleman so hampered? said my
father.

I would shew him publickly, said my uncle Toby, at the market cross.

--'Twill have no effect, said my father.

Chapter 3.LVIII.

--I'll put him, however, into breeches, said my father,--let the world
say what it will.

Chapter 3.LIX.

There are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as well
as in matters, Madam, of a more private concern;--which, though they
have carried all the appearance in the world of being taken, and
entered upon in a hasty, hare-brained, and unadvised manner, were,
notwithstanding this, (and could you or I have got into the cabinet,
or stood behind the curtain, we should have found it was so) weighed,
poized, and perpended--argued upon--canvassed through--entered into,
and examined on all sides with so much coolness, that the Goddess of
Coolness herself (I do not take upon me to prove her existence) could
neither have wished it, or done it better.

Of the number of these was my father's resolution of putting me into
breeches; which, though determined at once,--in a kind of huff, and a
defiance of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been pro'd and conn'd, and
judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month before,
in two several beds of justice, which my father had held for that
purpose. I shall explain the nature of these beds of justice in my next
chapter; and in the chapter following that, you shall step with me,