half-moon likewise is a half-moon, and no more, so long as it stands before its bastion;——but was it to change place, and get before the curtin,—’twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is not a half-moon;—’tis no more than a ravelin.——I think, quoth my father, that the noble science of defence has its weak sides——as well as others. —As for the horn-work (high! ho! sigh’d my father) which, continued my uncle _Toby_, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable part of an outwork;——they are called by the _French_ engineers, _Ouvrage à corne_, and we generally make them to cover such places as we suspect to be weaker than the rest;—’tis formed by two epaulments or demi-bastions—they are very pretty,—and if you will take a walk, I’ll engage to shew you one well worth your trouble.—I own, continued my uncle _Toby_, when we crown them,—they are much stronger, but then they are very expensive, and take up a great deal of ground, so that, in my opinion, they are most of use to cover or defend the head of a camp; otherwise the double tenaille—By the mother who bore us!——brother _Toby_, quoth my father, not able to hold out any longer,——you would provoke a saint;——here have you got us, I know not how, not only souse into the middle of the old subject again:—But so full is your head of these confounded works, that though my wife is this moment in the pains of labour, and you hear her cry out, yet nothing will serve you but to carry off the man-midwife.——_Accoucheur_,—if you please, quoth Dr. _Slop._—With all my heart, replied my father, I don’t care what they call you,—but I wish the whole science of fortification, with all its inventors, at the devil;—it has been the death of thousands,—and it will be mine in the end.—I would not, I would not, brother _Toby_, have my brains so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, pallisadoes, ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be proprietor of _Namur_, and of all the towns in _Flanders_ with it. My uncle _Toby_ was a man patient of injuries;—not from want of courage,—I have told you in a former chapter, “that he was a man of courage:”—And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth,—I know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter;——nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts;—for he felt this insult of my father’s as feelingly as a man could do;—but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,—no jarring element in it,—all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncle _Toby_ had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.