Chapter 3.XXXIX.

Just as the corporal was humming, to begin—in waddled Dr. Slop.—'Tis not two-pence matter—the corporal shall go on in the next chapter, let who will come in.—

Well, my good doctor, cried my father sportively, for the transitions of his passions were unaccountably sudden,—and what has this whelp of mine to say to the matter?

Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a puppy-dog—he could not have done it in a more careless air: the system which Dr. Slop had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way allowed of such a mode of enquiry.—He sat down.

Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, in a manner which could not go unanswered,—in what condition is the boy?—'Twill end in a phimosis, replied Dr. Slop.

I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle Toby—returning his pipe into his mouth.—Then let the corporal go on, said my father, with his medical lecture.—The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr. Slop, and then delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and radical moisture, in the following words.