Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/75

 purple, superfine, marketable cloth in them,—with large flowing folds and doubles, and in great stile of design.—All which plainly shews, may it please your worships, that the decay of eloquence, and the little good service it does at present, both within, and without doors, is owing to nothing else in the world, but short coats, and the disuse of trunk-hose.—We can conceal nothing under ours, Madam, worth shewing.

Slop was within an ace of being an exception to all this argumentation: for happening to have his green bays bag upon his knees, when he began to parody my uncle Toby,—'twas as good as the best mantle in the world to him: for which purpose, when he foresaw the sentence would end in his new