done deeds, or told your honour one story
good or bad--

--Thou hast many excellencies, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and I hold it
not the least of them, as thou happenest to be a story-teller, that of
the number thou hast told me, either to amuse me in my painful hours, or
divert me in my grave ones--thou hast seldom told me a bad one--

--Because, an' please your honour, except one of a King of Bohemia and
his seven castles,--they are all true; for they are about myself--

I do not like the subject the worse, Trim, said my uncle Toby, on that
score: But prithee what is this story? thou hast excited my curiosity.

I'll tell it your honour, quoth the corporal, directly--Provided,
said my uncle Toby, looking earnestly towards Dunkirk and the mole
again--provided it is not a merry one; to such, Trim, a man should ever
bring one half of the entertainment along with him; and the disposition
I am in at present would wrong both thee, Trim, and thy story--It is
not a merry one by any means, replied the corporal--Nor would I have it
altogether a grave one, added my uncle Toby--It is neither the one nor
the other, replied the corporal, but will suit your honour exactly--Then
I'll thank thee for it with all my heart, cried my uncle Toby; so
prithee begin it, Trim.

The corporal made his reverence; and though it is not so easy a matter
as the world imagines, to pull off a lank Montero-cap with grace--or a
whit less difficult, in my conceptions, when a man is sitting squat upon
the ground, to make a bow so teeming with respect as the corporal was
wont; yet by suffering the palm of his right hand, which was towards his
master, to slip backwards upon the grass, a little beyond his body, in
order to allow it the greater sweep--and by an unforced compression, at
the same time, of his cap with the thumb and the two forefingers of his
left, by which the diameter of the cap became reduced, so that it
might be said, rather to be insensibly squeez'd--than pull'd off with a
flatus--the corporal acquitted himself of both in a better manner than
the posture of his affairs promised; and having hemmed twice, to find in
what key his story would best go, and best suit his master's humour,--he
exchanged a single look of kindness with him, and set off thus.

The Story of the King of Bohemia and His Seven Castles.

There was a certain king of Bo...he--As the corporal was entering the
confines of Bohemia, my uncle Toby obliged him to halt for a si