Pt . . . r . . . r . . . ing—twing—twang—prut—trut——’tis a cursed bad fiddle.—Do you know whether my fiddle’s in tune or no?—trut . . . prut. . — They should be _fifths._——’Tis wickedly strung—tr . . . a . e . i . o . u .-twang.—The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely down,—else—trut . . prut—hark! tis not so bad a tone.—Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before good judges,—but there’s a man there—no—not him with the bundle under his arm—the grave man in black.—’Sdeath! not the gentleman with the sword on.—Sir, I had rather play a _Caprichio_ to _Calliope_ herself, than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man; and yet I’ll stake my _Cremona_ to a _Jew_’s trump, which is the greatest musical odds that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three hundred and fifty leagues out of tune upon my fiddle, without punishing one single nerve that belongs to him—Twaddle diddle, tweddle diddle,—twiddle diddle,—twoddle diddle,—twuddle diddle,——prut trut—krish—krash—krush.—I’ve undone you, Sir,—but you see he’s no worse,—and was _Apollo_ to take his fiddle after me, he can make him no better. Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle—hum—dum—drum. —Your worships and your reverences love music—and God has made you all with good ears—and some of you play delightfully yourselves—trut-prut,—prut-trut. O! there is—whom I could sit and hear whole days,—whose talents lie in making what he fiddles to be felt,—who inspires me with his joys and hopes, and puts the most hidden springs of my heart into motion.—If you would borrow five guineas of me, Sir,—which is generally ten guineas more than I have to spare—or you Messrs. Apothecary and Taylor, want your bills paying,—that’s your time. C H A P. XVI THE first thing which entered my father’s head, after affairs were a little settled in the family, and _Susanna_ had got possession of my mother’s green sattin night-gown,—was to sit down coolly, after the example of _Xenophon_, and write a TRISTRA-_pædia_, or system of education for me; collecting first for that purpose his own scattered thoughts, counsels, and notions; and binding them together, so as to form an INSTITUTE for the government of my childhood and adolescence. I was my father’s last stake—he had lost my brother _Bobby_ entirely,—he had lost, by his own computation, full three-fourths of me—that is, he had been unfortunate in his three first great casts for me—my geniture, nose, and name,—there was but this one left; and accordingly my father gave himself up to it with as much devotion as ever my uncle _Toby_ had done to his doctrine of projectils.—The difference between them was, that my uncle _Toby_ drew his whole knowledge of projectils from _Nicholas Tartaglia_—My father spun his, every thread of it, out of his own brain,—or reeled and cross-twisted what all other spinners and spinsters had spun before him, that ’twas pretty near the same torture to him.