Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 4).pdf/146

 plied I—But you have trod this moment upon a king.—Kings have bad times on't, said I, to be trod upon by such people as me.

—You have done it, replied my accuser.

I deny it, quoth I, and so have got off, and here am I standing with my bridle in one hand, and with my cap in the other, to tell my story—And what is it? You shall hear in the next chapter.

Francis the first of France was one winterly night warming himself over the embers of a wood fire, and talking with his first minister of sundry