“No, no,” said my father to Susanah, “I’ll get up.”—­“There’s no time,” cried Susanah, “the child’s as black as my shoe.”—­“Trismegistus,” said my father:  “but stay; thou art a leaky vessel, Susanah; canst thou carry Trismegistus in thy head the length of the gallery without scattering?”—­“Can I,” cried Susanah, shutting the door in a huff.—­“If she can, I’ll be shot,” said my father, bouncing out of bed in the dark and groping for his breeches.

Susanah ran with all speed along the gallery.

My father made all possible speed to find his breeches.  Susanah got the start and kept it. “’Tis Tris something,” cried Susanah.—­“There is no Christian name in the world,” said the curate, “beginning with Tris, but Tristram.”—­“Then ’tis Tristram-gistus,” quoth Susanah.

“There is no gistus to it, noodle; ’tis my own name,” replied the curate, dipping his hand as he spoke into the basin.  “Tristram,” said he, etc., etc.  So Tristram was I called, and Tristram shall I be to the day of my death.

VII.—­The Story of Le Fevre

It was some time in the summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken by the Allies, which was about seven years after the time that my Uncle Toby and Trim had privately decamped from my father’s house in town, in order to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest cities in Europe, when my Uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard, when the landlord of a little inn in the village came into the parlour with an empty phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack:  “’Tis for a poor gentleman, I think, of the Army,” said the landlord, “who has been taken ill at my house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a desire to taste anything, till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a thin toast:  ‘I think,’ says he, ‘it would comfort me.’  If I could neither beg, borrow nor buy such a thing,” added the landlord, “I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so ill.  I hope in God he will still mend, we are all of us concerned for him.”

“Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee,” cried my Uncle Toby, “and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman’s health in a glass of sack thyself, and take a couple of bottles with my service and tell him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more if they will do him good.”

“Though I am persuaded,” said my Uncle Toby, as the landlord shut the door, “he is a very compassionate fellow, Trim, yet I cannot help entertaining a high opinion of his guest too; there must be something more than common in him, that in so short a time should win so much upon the affections of his host.”—­“And of his whole family,” added the Corporal, “for they are all concerned for him.”—­“Step after him,” said my Uncle Toby; “do, Trim, ask if he knows his name.”

“I have quite forgot it truly,” said the landlord, coming back to the parlour with the Corporal, “but I can ask his son again.”—­“Has he a son with him, then?” said my Uncle Toby.—­“A boy,” replied the landlord, “of about eleven or twelve years of age; but the poor creature has tasted almost as little as his father; he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night and day.  He has not stirred from the bedside these two days.”