Your sudden and unexpected arrival, quoth my uncle Toby , addressing himself to Dr. Slop (all three of them sitting down to the fire together, as my uncle Toby began to speak)—instantly brought the great Stevinus into my head, who, you must know, is a favourite author with me.—Then, added my father, making use of the argument Ad Crumenam ,—I will lay twenty guineas to a single crown-piece (which will serve to give away to Obadiah when he gets back) that this same Stevinus was some engineer or other,—or has wrote something or other, either directly or indirectly, upon the science of fortification.
He has so,—replied my uncle Toby .—I knew it, said my father, though, for the soul of me, I cannot see what kind of connection there can be betwixt Dr. Slop’s sudden coming, and a discourse upon fortification;—yet I fear’d it.—Talk of what we will, brother,⸺or let the occasion be never so foreign or unfit for the subject,—you are sure to bring it in. I would not, brother Toby , continued my father,⸻I declare I would not have my head so full of curtins and hornworks.—That I dare say you would not, quoth Dr. Slop , interrupting him, and laughing most immoderately at his pun.
Dennis the critic could not detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father;—he would grow testy upon it at any time;—but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the nose;⸺he saw no difference.
Sir, quoth my uncle Toby , addressing himself to Dr. Slop ,—the curtins my brother Shandy mentions here, have nothing to do with bedsteads;—though, I know Du Cange says, “That bed-curtains, in all probability, have taken their name from them;”—nor have the hornworks he speaks of, anything in the world to do with the horn-works