At the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle Toby were left both standing, like Brutus and Cassius , at the close of the scene, making up their accounts.
As my father spoke the three last words,⸺he sat down;—my uncle 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 show 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