oke to give to finish Corporal Trim's
character,--and it is the only dark line in it.--The fellow loved to
advise,--or rather to hear himself talk; his carriage, however, was so
perfectly respectful, 'twas easy to keep him silent when you had him
so; but set his tongue a-going,--you had no hold of him--he was
voluble;--the eternal interlardings of your Honour, with the
respectfulness of Corporal Trim's manner, interceding so strong
in behalf of his elocution,--that though you might have been
incommoded,--you could not well be angry. My uncle Toby was seldom
either the one or the other with him,--or, at least, this fault, in
Trim, broke no squares with them. My uncle Toby, as I said, loved the
man;--and besides, as he ever looked upon a faithful servant,--but as an
humble friend,--he could not bear to stop his mouth.--Such was Corporal
Trim.

If I durst presume, continued Trim, to give your Honour my advice, and
speak my opinion in this matter.--Thou art welcome, Trim, quoth my uncle
Toby--speak,--speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man, without
fear.--Why then, replied Trim, (not hanging his ears and scratching his
head like a country-lout, but) stroking his hair back from his forehead,
and standing erect as before his division,--I think, quoth Trim,
advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little forwards,--and
pointing with his right hand open towards a map of Dunkirk, which was
pinned against the hangings,--I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with humble
submission to your Honour's better judgment,--that these ravelins,
bastions, curtins, and hornworks, make but a poor, contemptible,
fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your
Honour and I could make of it were we in the country by ourselves, and
had but a rood, or a rood and a half of ground to do what we pleased
with: As summer is coming on, continued Trim, your Honour might sit
out of doors, and give me the nography--(Call it ichnography, quoth my
uncle,)--of the town or citadel, your Honour was pleased to sit down
before,--and I will be shot by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if
I did not fortify it to your Honour's mind.--I dare say thou would'st,
Trim, quoth my uncle.--For if your Honour, continued the Corporal, could
but mark me the polygon, with its exact lines and angles--That I could
do very well, quoth my uncle.--I would begin with the fosse, and if your
Honour could tell me the proper depth and breadth--I can to a hai