Methinks, said _Didius_, half rising from his chair, in order to remove a bottle and a tall decanter, which stood in a direct line betwixt him and _Yorick_----you might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have hit upon a more proper place, Mr. _Yorick_--or at least upon a more proper occasion to have shewn your contempt of what we have been about: If the sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with----’twas certainly, Sir, not good enough to be preached before so learned a body; and if ’twas good enough to be preached before so learned a body----’twas certainly, Sir, too good to light their pipes with afterwards. ----I have got him fast hung up, quoth _Didius_ to himself, upon one of the two horns of my dilemma----let him get off as he can. I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon, quoth _Yorick_, upon this occasion------that I declare, _Didius_, I would suffer martyrdom--and if it was possible my horse with me, a thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such another: I was delivered of it at the wrong end of me----it came from my head instead of my heart------and it is for the pain it gave me, both in the writing and preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it, in this manner --To preach, to shew the extent of our reading, or the subtleties of our wit--to parade in the eyes of the vulgar with the beggarly accounts of a little learning, tinsel’d over with a few words which glitter, but convey little light and less warmth----is a dishonest use of the poor single half hour in a week which is put into our hands--’Tis not preaching the gospel--but ourselves ----For my own part, continued _Yorick_, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.-- As _Yorick_ pronounced the word _point-blank_, my uncle _Toby_ rose up to say something upon projectiles----when a single word and no more uttered from the opposite side of the table drew every one’s ears towards it--a word of all others in the dictionary the last in that place to be expected--a word I am ashamed to write--yet must be written----must be read--illegal--uncanonical--guess ten thousand guesses, multiplied into themselves--rack--torture your invention for ever, you’re where you was --------In short, I’ll tell it in the next chapter. CHAPTER XXVII Zounds! ------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------Z------ds! cried _Phutatorius_, partly to himself----and yet high enough to be heard--and what seemed odd, ’twas uttered in a construction of look, and in a tone of voice, somewhat between that of a man in amazement and one in bodily pain.