Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 6).pdf/118

 —Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips of the dumb in his distress, and made the tongue of the stammerer speak plain—when I shall arrive at this dreaded page, deal not with me, then, with a stinted hand.

corporal, who the night before had resolved in his mind, to supply the grand desideratum, of keeping up something like an incessant firing upon the enemy during the heat of the attack,—had no further idea in his fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoaking tobacco against the town, out of one of my uncle Toby's six field pieces, which were planted on each side of his sentry-box; the means of effecting which occurring to his fancy at the same time, though he had pledged his cap, he