Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/133

 Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reached my father's, with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle Toby's curious draw-bridge, constructed and painted after the Dutch fashion, and which went quite across the ditch,—was broke down, and some how or other crush'd all to pieces that very night.

My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle Toby's hobby-horse,—he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever gentleman mounted, and indeed unless my uncle Toby vexed him about it, could never think of it once, without smiling at it,—so that it never could get lame or happen any mischance, but it tickled my father's imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much more to his hu-