whole affair
provoked him so much as the condolences of his friends, and the foolish
figure they should both make at church, the first Sunday;--of which, in
the satirical vehemence of his wit, now sharpen'd a little by vexation,
he would give so many humorous and provoking descriptions,--and place
his rib and self in so many tormenting lights and attitudes in the face
of the whole congregation;--that my mother declared, these two stages
were so truly tragi-comical, that she did nothing but laugh and cry in a
breath, from one end to the other of them all the way.

From Grantham, till they had cross'd the Trent, my father was out of all
kind of patience at the vile trick and imposition which he fancied my
mother had put upon him in this affair--'Certainly,' he would say
to himself, over and over again, 'the woman could not be deceived
herself--if she could,--what weakness!'--tormenting word!--which led his
imagination a thorny dance, and, before all was over, play'd the duce
and all with him;--for sure as ever the word weakness was uttered, and
struck full upon his brain--so sure it set him upon running divisions
upon how many kinds of weaknesses there were;--that there was such a
thing as weakness of the body,--as well as weakness of the mind,--and
then he would do nothing but syllogize within himself for a stage or two
together, How far the cause of all these vexations might, or might not,
have arisen out of himself.

In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out of
this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose up
in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an uneasy
journey of it down.--In a word, as she complained to my uncle Toby, he
would have tired out the patience of any flesh alive.

Chapter 1.XVII.

Though my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the
best of moods,--pshawing and pishing all the way down,--yet he had
the complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to
himself;--which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself
the justice, which my uncle Toby's clause in the marriage-settlement
empowered him; nor was it till the very night in which I was begot,
which was thirteen months after, that she had the least intimation of
his design: when my father, happening, as you remember, to be a little
chagrin'd and out of temper,--took occasion as they lay chatting gravely
in bed afterwards, talking over what was to