The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/Volume 3/Chapter 16
CHAP. XVI.
—Upon my honour, Sir, you have tore every bit of the skin quite off the back of both my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle Toby,—and you have crush'd all my knuckles into the bargain with them, to a jelly. 'Tis your own fault, said Dr. Slop,—you should have clinch'd your two fists together into the form of a child's head, as I told you, and sat firm.—I did so, answered my uncle Toby.—Then the points of my forceps have not been sufficiently arm'd, or the rivet wants closing—or else the cut on my thumb has made me a little aukward,—or possibly—'Tis well, quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilities,—that the experiment was not first made upon my child's head piece.—It would not have been a cherry stone the worse, answered Dr. Slop. I maintain it, said my uncle Toby, it would have broke the cerebellum, (unless indeed the skull had been as hard as a granado) and turned it all into a perfect posset. Pshaw! replied Dr. Slop, a child's head is naturally as soft as the pap of an apple,;—the sutures give way,—and besides, I could have extracted by the feet after.—Not you, said she.—I rather wish you would begin that way, quoth my father.
Pray do, added my uncle Toby.