For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy blow he had sustain’d from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckon’d upon in his mind, and register’d down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case _Bobby_ should fail him. The disappointment of this, he said, was ten times more to a wise man, than all the money which the journey, etc., had cost him, put together, --rot the hundred and twenty pounds, ----he did not mind it a rush. From _Stilton_, all the way to _Grantham_, nothing in the whole affair provoked him so much as the condolences of his friends, and the foolish figure they should both make at church, the first _Sunday_; ----of which, in the satirical vehemence of his wit, now sharpen’d a little by vexation, he would give so many humorous and provoking descriptions, --and place his rib and self in so many tormenting lights and attitudes in the face of the whole congregation; --that my mother declared, these two stages were so truly tragi-comical, that she did nothing but laugh and cry in a breath, from one end to the other of them all the way. From _Grantham_, till they had cross’d the _Trent_, my father was out of all kind of patience at the vile trick and imposition which he fancied my mother had put upon him in this affair-- “Certainly,” he would say to himself, over and over again, “the woman could not be deceived herself----if she could, ----what weakness!” --tormenting word! --which led his imagination a thorny dance, and, before all was over, play’d the duce and all with him; ----for sure as ever the word _weakness_ was uttered, and struck full upon his brain--so sure it set him upon running divisions upon how many kinds of weaknesses there were; ----that there was such a thing as weakness of the body, ----as well as weakness of the mind, --and then he would do nothing but syllogize within himself for a stage or two together, How far the cause of all these vexations might, or might not, have arisen out of himself. In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out of this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose up in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an uneasy journey of it down. ----In a word, as she complained to my uncle _Toby_, he would have tired out the patience of any flesh alive. CHAPTER XVII