Your sudden appearance, Dr. _Slop_, quoth my uncle, resuming the discourse, instantly brought _Stevinus_ into my head. (My father, you may be sure, did not offer to lay any more wagers upon _Stevinus_’s head.)——Because, continued my uncle _Toby_, the celebrated sailing chariot, which belonged to Prince _Maurice_, and was of such wonderful contrivance and velocity, as to carry half a dozen people thirty _German_ miles, in I don’t know how few minutes,——was invented by _Stevinus_, that great mathematician and engineer. You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. _Slop_ (as the fellow is lame) of going for _Stevinus_’s account of it, because in my return from _Leyden_ thro’ the _Hague_, I walked as far as _Schevling_, which is two long miles, on purpose to take a view of it. That’s nothing, replied my uncle _Toby_, to what the learned _Peireskius_ did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from _Paris_ to _Schevling_, and from _Schevling_ to _Paris_ back again, in order to see it,—and nothing else. Some men cannot bear to be out-gone. The more fool _Peireskius_, replied Dr. _Slop._ But mark, ’twas out of no contempt of _Peireskius_ at all;——but that _Peireskius_’s indefatigable labour in trudging so far on foot, out of love for the sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr. _Slop_, in that affair, to nothing:—the more fool _Peireskius_, said he again.—Why so?—replied my father, taking his brother’s part, not only to make reparation as fast as he could for the insult he had given him, which sat still upon my father’s mind;——but partly, that my father began really to interest himself in the discourse.——Why so?——said he. Why is _Peireskius_, or any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that, or any other morsel of sound knowledge: For notwithstanding I know nothing of the chariot in question, continued he, the inventor of it must have had a very mechanical head; and tho’ I cannot guess upon what principles of philosophy he has atchieved it;—yet certainly his machine has been constructed upon solid ones, be they what they will, or it could not have answered at the rate my brother mentions. It answered, replied my uncle _Toby_, as well, if not better; for, as _Peireskius_ elegantly expresses it, speaking of the velocity of its motion, _Tam citus erat, quam erat ventus_; which, unless I have forgot my Latin, is, _that it was as swift as the wind itself._