Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/125

Rh groin." "I fear so," replied my uncle Toby, "but I am not at rest in my mind, Trim, since the account the landlord has given me. I wish I had not known so much of this affair," added my uncle Toby, "or that I had known more of it. How shall we manage it?" "Leave it, an' please your Honour, to me," quoth the Corporal. "I'll take my hat and stick, and go to the house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly; and I will bring your Honour a full account in an hour." "Thou shalt go, Trim," said my uncle Toby, "and here's a shilling for thee to drink with his servant." "I shall get it all out of him," said the Corporal, shutting the door.

My uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and had it not been that he now and then wandered from the point, with considering whether it was not full as well to have the curtain of the ténaille a straight line as a crooked one,—he might be said to have thought of nothing else but poor Le Fevre and his boy the whole time he smoked it.

It was not till my uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of his third pipe that Corporal Trim returned from the inn, and gave him the following account:—

"I despaired at first," said the Corporal, "of being able to bring back your Honour any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick Lieutenant." "Is he in the army, then?" said my uncle Toby. "He is," said the Corporal. "And in what regiment?" said my uncle Toby. "I'll tell your Honour," replied the Corporal, "everything straight forwards, as I learnt it." "Then, Trim, I'll fill another pipe," said my uncle Toby, "and not interrupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down at thy