Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 5).pdf/42

 in a kindly way of interruption—but waiting till he finished the account—what year of our Lord was this?—'Twas no year of our Lord, replied my father.—That's impossible, cried my uncle Toby.—Simpleton! said my father,—'twas forty years before Christ was born.

My uncle Toby had but two things for it; either to suppose his brother to be the wandering Jew, or that his misfortunes had disordered his brain.—"May the Lord God of heaven and earth protect him and restore him," said my uncle Toby, praying silently for my father, and with tears in his eyes.

—My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with his harangue with great spirit.

"There is not such great odds, brother Toby, betwixt good and evil, as the world imagines"—(this way of