AS _Susannah_ was informed by an express from Mrs. _Bridget_, of my uncle _Toby_’s falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it happened,—the contents of which express, _Susannah_ communicated to my mother the next day,—it has just given me an opportunity of entering upon my uncle _Toby_’s amours a fortnight before their existence. I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. _Shandy_, quoth my mother, which will surprise you greatly.—— Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and was musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother broke silence.—— “—My brother _Toby_, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs. _Wadman._” ——Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives. It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand. ——That she is not a woman of science, my father would say—is her misfortune—but she might ask a question.— My mother never did.——In short, she went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned _round_, or stood _still._——My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,—but she always forgot. For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, than a proposition,—a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches), and then went on again. If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us,—quoth my mother. Not a cherry-stone, said my father,—he may as well batter away his means upon that, as any thing else, ——To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition—the reply,—and the rejoinder, I told you of. It will be some amusement to him, too,——said my father. A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.—— ——Lord have mercy upon me,—said my father to himself——* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * C H A P. LXXXIII I AM now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle _Toby_’s story, and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now, four very squiggly lines across the page signed Inv.T.S and Scw.T.S These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes[32]——In the fifth volume I have been very good,——the precise line I have described in it being this: One very squiggly line across the page with loops marked A,B,C,C,C,C,C,D.