We have taken our measures badly, quoth my uncle Toby, looking up interrogatively in Trim’s face.
I would lay my Montero-cap, said Trim——Now Trim’s Montero-cap, as I once told you, was his constant wager; and having furbish’d it up that very night, in order to go upon the attack—it made the odds look more considerable——I would lay, an’ please your honour, my Montero-cap to a shilling—was it proper, continued Trim (making a bow), to offer a wager before your honours——
——There is nothing improper in it, said my father—’tis a mode of expression; for in saying thou would’st lay thy Montero-cap to a shilling—all thou meanest is this—that thou believest—
——Now, What do’st thou believe?
That widow Wadman, an’ please your worship, cannot hold it out ten days——
And whence, cried Slop, jeeringly, hast thou all this knowledge of woman, friend?
By falling in love with a popish clergywoman; said Trim.
’Twas a Beguine, said my uncle Toby.
Doctor Slop was too much in wrath to listen to the distinction; and my father taking that very crisis to fall in helter-skelter upon the whole order of Nuns and Beguines, a set of silly, fusty, baggages——Slop could not stand it——and my uncle Toby having some measures to take about his breeches—and Yorick about his fourth general division—in order for their several attacks next day—the company broke up: and my father being left alone, and having half an hour upon his hands betwixt that and bed-time; he called for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote my uncle Toby the following letter of instructions:
My dear brother Toby,