n
the contrary, I have much--much to thank 'em for: cheerily have ye made
me tread the path of life with all the burthens of it (except its cares)
upon my back; in no one moment of my existence, that I remember, have
ye once deserted me, or tinged the objects which came in my way, either
with sable, or with a sickly green; in dangers ye gilded my horizon with
hope, and when Death himself knocked at my door--ye bad him come again;
and in so gay a tone of careless indifference, did ye do it, that he
doubted of his commission--

'--There must certainly be some mistake in this matter,' quoth he.

Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be
interrupted in a story--and I was that moment telling Eugenius a most
tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shell-fish, and of
a monk damn'd for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the grounds and
justice of the procedure--

'--Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?' quoth
Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape, Tristram, said Eugenius, taking
hold of my hand as I finished my story--

But there is no living, Eugenius, replied I, at this rate; for as this
son of a whore has found out my lodgings--

--You call him rightly, said Eugenius,--for by sin, we are told, he
enter'd the world--I care not which way he enter'd, quoth I, provided he
be not in such a hurry to take me out with him--for I have forty volumes
to write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body in the
world will say and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest he has
got me by the throat (for Eugenius could scarce hear me speak across
the table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, had I not
better, whilst these few scatter'd spirits remain, and these two spider
legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to support
me--had I not better, Eugenius, fly for my life? 'Tis my advice, my
dear Tristram, said Eugenius--Then by heaven! I will lead him a dance
he little thinks of--for I will gallop, quoth I, without looking once
behind me, to the banks of the Garonne; and if I hear him clattering at
my heels--I'll scamper away to mount Vesuvius--from thence to Joppa, and
from Joppa to the world's end; where, if he follows me, I pray God he
may break his neck--

--He runs more risk there, said Eugenius, than thou.

Eugenius's wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence it
had been some months banish'd--'twas a vile momen