⸺By the golden beard of Jupiter —and of Juno (if her majesty wore one) and by the beards of the rest of your heathen worships, which by the by was no small number, since what with the beards of your celestial gods, and gods aerial and aquatick—to say nothing of the beards of town-gods and country-gods, or of the celestial goddesses your wives, or of the infernal goddesses your whores and concubines (that is in case they wore them)⸻all which beards, as Varro tells me, upon his word and honour, when mustered up together, made no less than thirty thousand effective beards upon the Pagan establishment;⸺every beard of which claimed the rights and privileges of being stroken and sworn by—by all these beards together then⸺I vow and protest, that of the two bad cassocks I am worth in the world, I would have given the better of them, as freely as ever Cid Hamet offered his⸺to have stood by, and heard my uncle Toby’s accompanyment.]
⸺“curse him!” continued Dr. Slop ,—“and may heaven, with all the powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him” ( Obadiah ) “unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it,—so be it. Amen.”
I declare, quoth my uncle Toby , my heart would not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness.—He is the father of curses, replied Dr. Slop .⸺So am not I, replied my uncle.⸺But he is cursed, and damn’d already, to all eternity, replied Dr. Slop .
I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle Toby .
Dr. Slop drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return my uncle Toby the compliment of his Whu—u—u—or interjectional whistle⸺when the door hastily opening in the next chapter but one⸺put an end to the affair.