Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a story——and I was that moment telling Eugenius a most tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shell-fish, and of a monk damn’d for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the grounds and justice of the procedure——
“—Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?” quoth Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape, Tristram, said Eugenius, taking hold of my hand as I finished my story——
But there is no living, Eugenius, replied I, at this rate; for as this son of a whore has found out my lodgings——
—You call him rightly, said Eugenius,—for by sin, we are told, he enter’d the world——I care not which way he enter’d, quoth I, provided he be not in such a hurry to take me out with him—for I have forty volumes to write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body in the world will say and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest he has got me by the throat (for Eugenius could scarce hear me speak across the table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, had I not better, whilst these few scatter’d spirits remain, and these two spider legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to support me—had I not better, Eugenius, fly for my life? ’Tis my advice, my dear Tristram, said Eugenius—Then by heaven! I will lead him a dance he little thinks of——for I will gallop, quoth I, without looking once behind me, to the banks of the Garonne; and if I hear him clattering at my heels——I’ll scamper away to mount Vesuvius——from thence to Joppa, and from Joppa to the world’s end; where, if he follows me, I pray God he may break his neck——
—He runs more risk there, said Eugenius, than thou.
Eugenius’s wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence it had been some months banish’d——’twas a vile moment to bid adieu in; he led me to my chaise——Allons! said I; the postboy gave a crack with his whip——off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds got into Dover.
[ CHAPTER II]
Now hang it! quoth I, as I look’d towards the French coast—a man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad——and I never gave a peep into Rochester church, or took notice of the dock of Chatham, or visited St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three laid in my way——
—But mine, indeed, is a particular case——
So without arguing the matter further with Thomas o’ Becket, or any one else—I skip’d into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and scudded away like the wind.