As for the propagation of Geese --I give myself no concern --Nature is all bountiful --I shall never want tools to work with. --So then, friend! you have got my father and my uncle _Toby_ off the stairs, and seen them to bed? ------And how did you manage it? ----You dropp’d a curtain at the stair-foot --I thought you had no other way for it ------Here’s a crown for your trouble. [Footnote 4.7: According to the original Editions.] CHAPTER XIV --Then reach me my breeches off the chair, said my father to _Susannah_. ----There is not a moment’s time to dress you, Sir, cried _Susannah_--the child is as black in the face as my ----As your what? said my father, for like all orators, he was a dear searcher into comparisons. --Bless me, Sir, said _Susannah_, the child’s in a fit. --And where’s Mr. _Yorick?_ --Never where he should be, said _Susannah_, but his curate’s in the dressing-room, with the child upon his arm, waiting for the name--and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to know, as captain _Shandy_ is the godfather, whether it should not be called after him. Were one sure, said my father to himself, scratching his eyebrow, that the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother _Toby_ as not--and it would be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so great a name as _Trismegistus_ upon him----but he may recover. No, no, ----said my father to _Susannah_, I’ll get up ------There is no time, cried _Susannah_, the child’s as black as my shoe. _Trismegistus_, said my father ------But stay--thou art a leaky vessel, _Susannah_, added my father; canst thou carry _Trismegistus_ in thy head, the length of the gallery without scattering? ------Can I? cried _Susannah_, shutting the door in a huff. ----If she can, I’ll be shot, said my father, bouncing out of bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches. _Susannah_ ran with all speed along the gallery. My father made all possible speed to find his breeches. _Susannah_ got the start, and kept it--’Tis _Tris_--something, cried _Susannah_ --There is no christian-name in the world, said the curate, beginning with _Tris_--but _Tristram_. Then ’tis _Tristram-gistus_, quoth _Susannah_. ----There is no _gistus_ to it, noodle! --’tis my own name, replied the curate, dipping his hand, as he spoke, into the bason--_Tristram!_ said he, &c. &c. &c. &c., so _Tristram_ was I called, and _Tristram_ shall I be to the day of my death. My father followed _Susannah_, with his night-gown across his arm, with nothing more than his breeches on, fastened through haste with but a single button, and that button through haste thrust only half into the button-hole.