e Toby
exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his chair, he
rung the bell, to order Corporal Trim, who was in waiting, to step
home for Stevinus:--my uncle Toby's house being no farther off than the
opposite side of the way.

Some men would have dropped the subject of Stevinus;--but my uncle Toby
had no resentment in his heart, and he went on with the subject, to shew
my father that he had none.

Your sudden appearance, Dr. Slop, quoth my uncle, resuming the
discourse, instantly brought Stevinus into my head. (My father, you
may be sure, did not offer to lay any more wagers upon Stevinus's
head.)--Because, continued my uncle Toby, the celebrated sailing
chariot, which belonged to Prince Maurice, and was of such wonderful
contrivance and velocity, as to carry half a dozen people thirty German
miles, in I don't know how few minutes,--was invented by Stevinus, that
great mathematician and engineer.

You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. Slop (as the
fellow is lame) of going for Stevinus's account of it, because in my
return from Leyden thro' the Hague, I walked as far as Schevling, which
is two long miles, on purpose to take a view of it.

That's nothing, replied my uncle Toby, to what the learned Peireskius
did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to
Schevling, and from Schevling to Paris back again, in order to see it,
and nothing else.

Some men cannot bear to be out-gone.

The more fool Peireskius, replied Dr. Slop. But mark, 'twas out of no
contempt of Peireskius at all;--but that Peireskius's indefatigable
labour in trudging so far on foot, out of love for the sciences, reduced
the exploit of Dr. Slop, in that affair, to nothing:--the more fool
Peireskius, said he again.--Why so?--replied my father, taking his
brother's part, not only to make reparation as fast as he could for the
insult he had given him, which sat still upon my father's mind;--but
partly, that my father began really to interest himself in the
discourse.--Why so?--said he. Why is Peireskius, or any man else, to be
abused for an appetite for that, or any other morsel of sound knowledge:
For notwithstanding I know nothing of the chariot in question, continued
he, the inventor of it must have had a very mechanical head; and tho'
I cannot guess upon what principles of philosophy he has atchieved
it;--yet certainly his machine has been constructed upon solid ones,
be they what they w