Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 1).pdf/97

 thing else was the provoking time of the year,—which, as I told you, was towards the end of September, when his wall-fruit and green gages especially, in which he was very curious, were just ready for pulling:—"Had he been whistled up to London, upon a Tom Fool's errand, in any other month of the whole year, he should not have said three words about it."

For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy blow he had sustain'd from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckon'd upon in his mind, and register'd down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case Bobby should fail him. "The disappointment of this, he said, was ten times more to a wise man than all the money which the journey, &c.