The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman · Laurence Sterne
----BOULOGNE!----hah!----so we are all got together----debtors and sinners before heaven; a jolly set of us--but I can’t stay and quaff it off with you--I’m pursued myself like a hundred devils, and shall be overtaken, before I can well change horses:----for heaven’s sake, make haste----’Tis for high-treason, quoth a very little man, whispering as low as he could to a very tall man, that stood next him----Or else for murder; quoth the tall man----Well thrown, Size-ace!_ quoth I. No; quoth a third, the gentleman has been committing------
Ah! ma chere fille!_ said I, as she tripp’d by from her matins--you look as rosy as the morning (for the sun was rising, and it made the compliment the more gracious)--No; it can’t be that, quoth a fourth----(she made a curt’sy to me--I kiss’d my hand) ’tis debt, continued he: ’Tis certainly for debt; quoth a fifth; I would not pay that gentleman’s debts, quoth Ace, for a thousand pounds; nor would I, quoth Size, for six times the sum--Well thrown, Size-ace, again! quoth I;--but I have no debt but the debt of NATURE, and I want but patience of her, and I will pay her every farthing I owe her----How can you be so hard-hearted, Madam, to arrest a poor traveller going along without molestation to any one upon his lawful occasions? do stop that death-looking, long-striding scoundrel of a scare-sinner, who is posting after me----he never would have followed me but for you----if it be but for a stage or two, just to give me start of him, I beseech you, madam----do, dear lady----
----Now, in troth, ’tis a great pity, quoth mine Irish host, that all this good courtship should be lost; for the young gentlewoman has been after going out of hearing of it all along.----
----Simpleton! quoth I.
----So you have nothing else in Boulogne worth seeing?
--By Jasus! there is the finest SEMINARY for the HUMANITIES----
--There cannot be a finer; quoth I.
· · ·
End of part 210 of 315
Continue readingVolume III, Chapter 91
Starvard