Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/22

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[16]

ers!—how could you cut and slash my jerkin as you did?—how did you know, but you would cut my lining too?

Heartily and from my soul, to the protection of that Being who will injure none of us, do I recommend you and your affairs,—so God bless you;—only next month, if any one of you should gnash his teeth, and storm and rage at me, as some of you did last May, (in which I remember the weather was very hot)—don't be exasperated, if I pass it by again with good temper,—being determined as long as I live or write (which in my case means the same thing) never to give the honest gentleman a worse word or a worse wish, than my uncle Toby gave the fly which buzz'd about his nose all dinner time,—"Go,—go poor devil," quoth he, "—get thee gone,—why"should