There was a frankness in my uncle _Toby_,—not the _effect_ of familiarity,—but the cause of it,—which let you at once into his soul, and shewed you the goodness of his nature; to this there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him, so that before my uncle _Toby_ had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him.——The blood and spirits of _Le Fever_, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart—rallied back,—the film forsook his eyes for a moment,—he looked up wishfully in my uncle _Toby_’s face,—then cast a look upon his boy,——and that _ligament_, fine as it was,—was never broken.—— Nature instantly ebb’d again,—the film returned to its place,——the pulse fluttered——stopp’d——went on——throbb’d———stopp’d again——moved——stopp’d——shall I go on?——No. C H A P. LIV I AM so impatient to return to my own story, that what remains of young _Le Fever_’s, that is, from this turn of his fortune, to the time my uncle _Toby_ recommended him for my preceptor, shall be told in a very few words in the next chapter.—All that is necessary to be added to this chapter is as follows.— That my uncle _Toby_, with young _Le Fever_ in his hand, attended the poor lieutenant, as chief mourners, to his grave. That the governor of _Dendermond_ paid his obsequies all military honours,—and that _Yorick_, not to be behind-hand—paid him all ecclesiastic—for he buried him in his chancel:—And it appears likewise, he preached a funeral sermon over him——I say it _appears_,—for it was _Yorick_’s custom, which I suppose a general one with those of his profession, on the first leaf of every sermon which he composed, to chronicle down the time, the place, and the occasion of its being preached: to this, he was ever wont to add some short comment or stricture upon the sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to its credit:—For instance, _This sermon upon the Jewish dispensation—I don’t like it at all;—Though I own there is a world of_ WATER-LANDISH _knowledge in it;—but ’tis all tritical, and most tritically put together.—This is but a flimsy kind of a composition; what was in my head when I made it?_ ——N.B. _The excellency of this text is, that it will suit any sermon,—and of this sermon,——that it will suit any text.——_ ——_For this sermon I shall be hanged,—for I have stolen the greatest part of it. Doctor_ Paidagunes _found me out. => Set a thief to catch a thief.——_