rticulated the word, the
minute expired, and Trim let fall the rapper.

My uncle Toby, perceiving that all hopes of a conference were knocked
on the head by it, whistled Lillabullero.

As Mrs. Bridget opened the door before the Corporal had well given the
rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle Toby's introduction into
the parlor was so short that Mrs. Wadman had but just time to get from
behind the curtain, lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or
two toward the door to receive him.

My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman, after the manner in which women
were saluted by men in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred
and thirteen; then facing about, he marched up abreast with her to the
sofa, and in three plain words, tho not before he was sat down, nor
after he was sat down, but as he was sitting down, told her, "he was
in love"; so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the
declaration than he needed.

Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down upon a slit she had been darning up
in her apron, in expectation every moment that my uncle Toby would go
on; but having no talents for amplification, and Love, moreover, of
all others, being a subject of which he was the least a master, when
he had told Mrs. Wadman once that he loved her, he let it alone, and
left the matter to work after its own way.

My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby's,
as he falsely called it, and would often say, That could his brother
Toby to his process have added but a pipe of tobacco, he had
wherewithal to have his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb,
toward the hearts of half the women upon the globe.

My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant; nor will I
presume to extract more from it than a condemnation of an error which
the bulk of the world lie under; but the French, every one of them to
a man, who believe in it almost as much as the Real Presence, "That
talking of love is making it."

I would as soon set about making a black pudding by the same receipt.

Let us go on: Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do
so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on
one side or the other generally becomes indecent; so edging herself a
little more toward him, and raising up her eyes, sub-blushing as she
did it, she took up the gantlet, or the discourse (if you like it
better), and communed with my uncle Toby thus:

"The cares and disquietudes of the