 Was ever poor devil of a country gentleman so hampered? said my father.
    I would shew him publickly, said my uncle Toby, at the market cross.
    -- 'Twill have no effect, said my father.
 

                                   Chap. XV.

- I'll put him, however, into breeches, said my father, - let the world say what
it will.
 

                                   Chap. XVI.

There are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as well as in
matters, Madam, of a more private concern; - which, though they have carried all
the appearance in the world of being taken, and entered upon in a hasty,
hare-brained, and unadvised manner, were, notwithstanding this, (and could you
or I have got into the cabinet, or stood behind the curtain, we should have
found it was so) been weighed, poized, and perpended -- argued upon -- canvassed
through -- entered into, and examined on all sides with so much coolness, that
the GODDESS of COOLNESS herself (I do not take upon me to prove her existence)
could neither have wished it, or done it better.
    Of the number of these was my father's resolution of putting me into
breeches; which, though determined at once, - in a kind of huff, and a defiance
of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been pro'd and conn'd, and judicially talked
over betwixt him and my mother about a month before, in two several beds of
justice, which my father had held for that purpose. I shall explain the nature
of these beds of justice in my next chapter; and in the chapter following that,
you shall step with me, Madam, behind the curtain, only to hear in what kind of
manner my father and my mother debated between themselves, this affair of the
breeches, - from which you may form an idea, how they debated all lesser
matters.
 

                                  Chap. XVII.

The ancient Goths of Germany, who (the learned Cluverius is positive) were first
seated in the country between the Vistula and the Oder, and who afterwards
incorporated the Herculi, the Bugians, and some other Vandallick clans to 'em, -
had all of them a wise custom of debating every thing of importance to their
state, twice; that is, - once drunk, and once sober: -- Drunk - that their
counsels might not want vigour; -- and sober - that they might not want
discretion.
    Now my father being entirely a water-drinker, - was a long time
