the line—then wheeling about, and charging Conti at the head of it—Brave, brave, by heaven! cried my uncle Toby—he deserves a crown—As richly, as a thief a halter; shouted Trim.

My uncle Toby knew the corporal’s loyalty;—otherwise the comparison was not at all to his mind—it did not altogether strike the corporal’s fancy when he had made it—but it could not be recall’d—so he had nothing to do, but proceed.

As the number of wounded was prodigious, and no one had time to think of any thing but his own safety—Though Talmash, said my uncle Toby, brought off the foot with great prudence—But I was left upon the field, said the corporal. Thou wast so; poor fellow! replied my uncle Toby—So that it was noon the next day, continued the corporal, before I was exchanged, and put into a cart with thirteen or fourteen more, in order to be convey’d to our hospital.

There is no part of the body, an’ please your honour, where a wound occasions more intolerable anguish than upon the knee—

Except the groin; said my uncle Toby. An’ please your honour, replied the corporal, the knee, in my opinion, must certainly be the most acute, there being so many tendons and what-d’ye-call-’ems all about it.

It is for that reason, quoth my uncle Toby, that the groin is infinitely more sensible—there being not only as many tendons and what-d’ye-call-’ems (for I know their names as little as thou dost)—about it—but moreover ...—

Mrs. Wadman, who had been all the time in her arbour—instantly stopp’d her breath—unpinn’d her mob at the chin, and stood upon one leg—

The dispute was maintained with amicable and equal force betwixt my uncle Toby and Trim for some time; till Trim at length recollecting that he had often cried at his master’s sufferings, but never shed a tear at his own— was for giving up the point, which my uncle Toby would not allow—’Tis a proof of nothing, Trim, said he, but the generosity of thy temper—

So that whether the pain of a wound in the groin (cæteris paribus) is greater than the pain of a wound in the knee—or

Whether the pain of a wound in the knee is not greater than the pain of a wound in the groin—are points which to this day remain unsettled.


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