Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 1).pdf/109

 then he would say, The Lord have mercy upon us all.

My father was never able to give the history of this distemper,—without the remedy along with it.

"Was I an absolute prince,prince," [sic] he would say, pulling up his breeches with both his hands, as he rose from his arm-chair, "I would appoint able judges, at every avenue of my metropolis, who should take cognizance of every fool's business who came there;—and if, upon a fair and candid hearing, it appeared not of weight sufficient to leave his own home, and come up, bag and baggage, with his wife and children, farmers sons, &c. &c. at his backside, they should be all sent back, from constable to constable, like vagrants