We’ll go in the coach, said my father—Prithee, have the arms been altered, _Obadiah_?—It would have made my story much better to have begun with telling you, that at the time my mother’s arms were added to the _Shandy_’s, when the coach was re-painted upon my father’s marriage, it had so fallen out that the coach-painter, whether by performing all his works with the left hand, like _Turpilius_ the _Roman_, or _Hans Holbein_ of _Basil_——or whether ’twas more from the blunder of his head than hand——or whether, lastly, it was from the sinister turn which every thing relating to our family was apt to take——it so fell out, however, to our reproach, that instead of the _bend-dexter_, which since _Harry_ the Eighth’s reign was honestly our due——a _bend-sinister_, by some of these fatalities, had been drawn quite across the field of the _Shandy_ arms. ’Tis scarce credible that the mind of so wise a man as my father was, could be so much incommoded with so small a matter. The word coach—let it be whose it would—or coach-man, or coach-horse, or coach-hire, could never be named in the family, but he constantly complained of carrying this vile mark of illegitimacy upon the door of his own; he never once was able to step into the coach, or out of it, without turning round to take a view of the arms, and making a vow at the same time, that it was the last time he would ever set his foot in it again, till the _bend-sinister_ was taken out—but like the affair of the hinge, it was one of the many things which the _Destinies_ had set down in their books ever to be grumbled at (and in wiser families than ours)—but never to be mended. —Has the _bend-sinister_ been brush’d out, I say? said my father.——There has been nothing brush’d out, Sir, answered _Obadiah_, but the lining. We’ll go o’horseback, said my father, turning to _Yorick_—Of all things in the world, except politicks, the clergy know the least of heraldry, said _Yorick._—No matter for that, cried my father——I should be sorry to appear with a blot in my escutcheon before them.—Never mind the _bend-sinister_, said my uncle _Toby_, putting on his tye-wig.——No, indeed, said my father—you may go with my aunt _Dinah_ to a visitation with a _bend-sinister_, if you think fit—My poor uncle _Toby_ blush’d. My father was vexed at himself.——No——my dear brother _Toby_, said my father, changing his tone——but the damp of the coach-lining about my loins, may give me the sciatica again, as it did _December, January_, and _February_ last winter—so if you please you shall ride my wife’s pad——and as you are to preach, _Yorick_, you had better make the best of your way before——and leave me to take care of my brother _Toby_, and to follow at our own rates.