Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 4).pdf/177

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

[178]

wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly accomplished, had his imagination continued neuter—but the sallies of the imagination are ungovernable in things of this kind—a thought instantly darted into his mind, that tho' the anguish had the sensation of glowing heat—it might, notwithstanding that, be a bite as well as a burn; and if so, that possibly a Newt or an Asker, or some such detested reptile, had crept up, and was fastening his teeth—the horrid idea of which, with a fresh glow of pain arising that instant from the chesnut, seized Phutatorius with a sudden panick, and in the first terrifying disorder of the passion it threw him, as it has done the best generals upon earth, quite off his guard;—the effect of which was this, that he leapt incontinently up, uttering as he rose that interjection of surprise somuch