----No, --I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making answer to a question which _Yorick_ had taken the liberty to put to him, --I have advanced nothing in the _Tristra-pædia_, but what is as clear as any one proposition in _Euclid_. --Reach me, _Trim_, that book from off the scrutoir: ----it has oft-times been in my mind, continued my father, to have read it over both to you, _Yorick_, and to my brother _Toby_, and I think it a little unfriendly in myself, in not having done it long ago: ----shall we have a short chapter or two now, --and a chapter or two hereafter, as occasions serve; and so on, till we get through the whole? My uncle _Toby_ and _Yorick_ made the obeisance which was proper; and the corporal, though he was not included in the compliment, laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow at the same time. ----The company smiled. _Trim_, quoth my father, has paid the full price for staying out the _entertainment_. ----He did not seem to relish the play, replied _Yorick_. ----’Twas a Tom-fool-battle, an’ please your reverence, of captain _Tripet’s_ and that other officer, making so many summersets, as they advanced; ----the _French_ come on capering now and then in that way, --but not quite so much. My uncle _Toby_ never felt the consciousness of his existence with more complacency than what the corporal’s, and his own reflections, made him do at that moment; ----he lighted his pipe, ----_Yorick_ drew his chair closer to the table, --_Trim_ snuff’d the candle, --my father stirr’d up the fire, --took up the book, --cough’d twice, and begun. CHAPTER XXXI The first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves, --are a little dry; and as they are not closely connected with the subject, ----for the present we’ll pass them by: ’tis a prefatory introduction, continued my father, or an introductory preface (for I am not determined which name to give it) upon political or civil government; the foundation of which being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and female, for procreation of the species ----I was insensibly led into it. ----’Twas natural, said _Yorick_.