You must know, my uncle _Toby_ mistook the bridge—as widely as my father mistook the mortars:——but to understand how my uncle _Toby_ could mistake the bridge—I fear I must give you an exact account of the road which led to it;—or to drop my metaphor (for there is nothing more dishonest in an historian than the use of one)——in order to conceive the probability of this error in my uncle _Toby_ aright, I must give you some account of an adventure of _Trim_’s, though much against my will, I say much against my will, only because the story, in one sense, is certainly out of its place here; for by right it should come in, either amongst the anecdotes of my uncle _Toby_’s amours with widow _Wadman_, in which corporal _Trim_ was no mean actor—or else in the middle of his and my uncle _Toby_’s campaigns on the bowling-green—for it will do very well in either place;—but then if I reserve it for either of those parts of my story——I ruin the story I’m upon;——and if I tell it here——I anticipate matters, and ruin it there. —What would your worship have me to do in this case? —Tell it, Mr. _Shandy_, by all means.—You are a fool, _Tristram_, if you do. O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too)—which enable mortal man to tell a story worth the hearing——that kindly shew him, where he is to begin it—and where he is to end it——what he is to put into it——and what he is to leave out—how much of it he is to cast into a shade—and whereabouts he is to throw his light!—Ye, who preside over this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how many scrapes and plunges your subjects hourly fall into;——will you do one thing? I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us) that wherever in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here——that at least you set up a guide-post in the centre of them, in mere charity, to direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is to take. C H A P. XVII THO’ the shock my uncle _Toby_ received the year after the demolition of _Dunkirk_, in his affair with widow _Wadman_, had fixed him in a resolution never more to think of the sex—or of aught which belonged to it;—yet corporal _Trim_ had made no such bargain with himself. Indeed in my uncle _Toby_’s case there was a strange and unaccountable concurrence of circumstances, which insensibly drew him in, to lay siege to that fair and strong citadel.——In _Trim_’s case there was a concurrence of nothing in the world, but of him and _Bridget_ in the kitchen;—though in truth, the love and veneration he bore his master was such, and so fond was he of imitating him in all he did, that had my uncle _Toby_ employed his time and genius in tagging of points——I am persuaded the honest corporal would have laid down his arms, and followed his example with pleasure. When therefore my uncle _Toby_ sat down before the mistress—corporal _Trim_ incontinently took ground before the maid.