My father had such a skirmishing, cutting kind of a slashing way with him, in his disputations, thrusting and ripping, and giving everyone a stroke to remember him by in his turn—that if there were twenty people in company—in less than half an hour he was sure to have every one of ’em against him.
What did not a little contribute to leave him thus without an ally, was, that if there was any one post more untenable than the rest, he would be sure to throw himself into it; and to do him justice, when he was once there, he would defend it so gallantly, that ’twould have been a concern, either to a brave man or a good-natured one, to have seen him driven out.
Yorick , for this reason, though he would often attack him—yet could never bear to do it with all his force.
Doctor Slop’s Virginity , in the close of the last chapter, had got him for once on the right side of the rampart; and he was beginning to blow up all the convents in Christendom about Slop’s ears, when corporal Trim came into the parlour to inform my uncle Toby , that his thin scarlet breeches, in which the attack was to be made upon Mrs. Wadman , would not do; for that the tailor, in ripping them up, in order to turn them, had found they had been turn’d before⸺Then turn them again, brother, said my father, rapidly, for there will be many a turning of ’em yet before all’s done in the affair⸺They are as rotten as dirt, said the corporal⸺Then by all means, said my father, bespeak a new pair, brother⸺for though I know, continued my father, turning himself to the company, that widow Wadman has been deeply in love with my brother Toby for many years, and has used every art and circumvention of woman to outwit him into the same passion, yet now that she has caught him⸺her fever will be pass’d its height⸺