Was it my case, said _Gastripheres_, as the main thing is the oil and
lamp-black, I should spread them thick upon a rag, and clap it on
directly. ------That would make a very devil of it, replied _Yorick_.
----And besides, added _Eugenius_, it would not answer the intention,
which is the extreme neatness and elegance of the prescription, which
the Faculty hold to be half in half; ----for consider, if the type is a
very small one (which it should be) the sanative particles, which come
into contact in this form, have the advantage of being spread so
infinitely thin, and with such a mathematical equality (fresh paragraphs
and large capitals excepted) as no art or management of the spatula can
come up to. ------It falls out very luckily, replied _Phutatorius_, that
the second edition of my treatise _de Concubinis retinendis_ is at this
instant in the press. ------You may take any leaf of it, said
_Eugenius_------no matter which. ----Provided, quoth _Yorick_, there is
no bawdry in it.------
They are just now, replied _Phutatorius_, printing off the ninth
chapter----which is the last chapter but one in the book. ----Pray what
is the title of that chapter? said _Yorick_; making a respectful bow to
_Phutatorius_ as he spoke. ------I think, answered _Phutatorius_, ’tis
that _de re concubinariâ_.
For Heaven’s sake keep out of that chapter, quoth _Yorick_.
----By all means--added _Eugenius_.
CHAPTER XXIX
--Now, quoth _Didius_, rising up, and laying his right hand with his
fingers spread upon his breast----had such a blunder about a
christian-name happened before the Reformation ------[It happened the
day before yesterday, quoth my uncle _Toby_ to himself] and when baptism
was administer’d in _Latin_ --[’Twas all in _English_, said my
uncle]------ many things might have coincided with it, and upon the
authority of sundry decreed cases, to have pronounced the baptism null,
with a power of giving the child a new name --Had a priest, for instance,
which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the _Latin_ tongue,
baptized a child of Tom-o’Stiles, _in nomine patriæ & filia & spiritum
sanctos_--the baptism was held null. ----I beg your pardon, replied
_Kysarcius_----in that case, as the mistake was only the _terminations_,
the baptism was valid----and to have rendered it null, the blunder of
the priest should have fallen upon the first syllable of each
noun------and not, as in your case, upon the last.
My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen’d with
infinite attention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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