——My father thrust back his chair——rose up—put on his hat——took four long strides to the door——jerked it open——thrust his head half way out——shut the door again——took no notice of the bad hinge—returned to the table—pluck’d my mother’s thread-paper out of _Slawkenbergius_’s book——went hastily to his bureau—walked slowly back—twisted my mother’s thread-paper about his thumb—unbutton’d his waistcoat—threw my mother’s thread-paper into the fire——bit her sattin pin-cushion in two, fill’d his mouth with bran—confounded it;—but mark!—the oath of confusion was levell’d at my uncle _Toby_’s brain—which was e’en confused enough already——the curse came charged only with the bran—the bran, may it please your honours, was no more than powder to the ball. ’Twas well my father’s passions lasted not long; for so long as they did last, they led him a busy life on’t; and it is one of the most unaccountable problems that ever I met with in my observations of human nature, that nothing should prove my father’s mettle so much, or make his passions go off so like gun-powder, as the unexpected strokes his science met with from the quaint simplicity of my uncle _Toby_’s questions.——Had ten dozen of hornets stung him behind in so many different places all at one time—he could not have exerted more mechanical functions in fewer seconds——or started half so much, as with one single _quære_ of three words unseasonably popping in full upon him in his hobby-horsical career. ’Twas all one to my uncle _Toby_——he smoked his pipe on with unvaried composure——his heart never intended offence to his brother—and as his head could seldom find out where the sting of it lay——he always gave my father the credit of cooling by himself.——He was five minutes and thirty-five seconds about it in the present case.