With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him back, Phutatorius was not able to dive into the secret of what was going forwards below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what the devil was the matter with it: However, as he knew not what the true cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent, in the situation he was in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the help of some 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 so much descanted upon, with the aposiopestic break after it, marked thus, Z———ds—which, though not strictly canonical, was still as little as any man could have said upon the occasion;———and which, by the bye, whether canonical or not, Phutatorius could no more help than he could the cause of it.
Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took 237 up little more time in the transaction, than just to allow for Phutatorius to draw forth the chesnut, and throw it down with violence upon the floor—and for Yorick to rise from his chair, and pick the chesnut up.
It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:——What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things——that trifles, light as air, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it——that Euclid’s demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, should not all have power to overthrow it.
Yorick, I said, picked up the chesnut which Phutatorius’s wrath had flung down——the action was trifling——I am ashamed to account for it—he did it, for no reason, but that he thought the chesnut not a jot worse for the adventure—and that he held a good chesnut worth stooping for.———But this incident, trifling as it was, wrought differently in Phutatorius’s head: He considered this act of Yorick’s in getting off his chair and picking up the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in him, that the chesnut was originally his—and in course, that it must have been the owner of the chesnut, and no one else, who could have played him such a prank with it: What greatly confirmed him in this opinion, was this, that the table being parallelogramical and very narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for Yorick, who sat directly over against Phutatorius, of slipping the chesnut in——and consequently that he did it. The look of something more than suspicion, which Phutatorius cast full upon Yorick as these thoughts arose, too evidently spoke his opinion——and as Phutatorius was naturally supposed to know more of the matter than any person besides, his opinion at once became the general one;——and for a reason very different from any which have been yet given——in a little time it was put out of all manner of dispute.
When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this sublunary world——the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of substance, naturally takes a flight behind the scenes to see what is the cause and first spring of them.—The search was not long in this instance.
It was well known that Yorick had never a good opinion of the treatise which Phutatorius had wrote de Concubinis retinendis, as a thing which he feared had done hurt in the world——and ’twas easily found out, that there was a mystical meaning in Yorick’s prank—and that his chucking the chesnut hot into 238 Phutatorius’s ***——*****, was a sarcastical fling at his book—the doctrines of which, they said, had enflamed many an honest man in the same place.
This conceit awaken’d Somnolentus——made Agelastes smile——and if you can recollect the precise look and air of a man’s face intent in finding out a riddle———it threw Gastripheres’s into that form—and in short was thought by many to be a master-stroke of arch-wit.
This, as the reader has seen from one end to the other, was as groundless as the dreams of philosophy: Yorick, no doubt, as Shakespeare said of his ancestor———“was a man of jest,” but it was temper’d with something which withheld him from that, and many other ungracious pranks, of which he as undeservedly bore the blame;—but it was his misfortune all his life long to bear the imputation of saying and doing a thousand things, of which (unless my esteem blinds me) his nature was incapable. All I blame him for——or rather, all I blame and alternately like him for, was that singularity of his temper, which would never suffer him to take pains to set a story right with the world, however in his power. In every ill usage of that sort, he acted precisely as in the affair of his lean horse——he could have explained it to his honour, but his spirit was above it; and besides, he ever looked upon the inventor, the propagator and believer of an illiberal report alike so injurious to him—he could not stoop to tell his story to them—and so trusted to time and truth to do it for him.
This heroic cast produced him inconveniences in many respects—in the present it was followed by the fixed resentment of Phutatorius, who, as Yorick had just made an end of his chesnut, rose up from his chair a second time, to let him know it—which indeed he did with a smile; saying only—that he would endeavour not to forget the obligation.
But you must mark and carefully separate and distinguish these two things in your mind.
——The smile was for the company.
——The threat was for Yorick.
CHAPTER XXVIII
—Can you tell me, quoth Phutatorius, speaking to Gastripheres who sat next to him——for one would not apply to a surgeon in so foolish an affair——can you tell me, Gastripheres, what is 239 best to take out the fire?——Ask Eugenius, said Gastripheres.——That greatly depends, said Eugenius, pretending ignorance of the adventure, upon the nature of the part——If it is a tender part, and a part which can conveniently be wrapt up———It is both the one and the other, replied Phutatorius, laying his hand as he spoke, with an emphatical nod of his head, upon the part in question, and lifting up his right leg at the same time to ease and ventilate it.———If that is the case, said Eugenius, I would advise you, Phutatorius, not to tamper with it by any means; but if you will send to the next printer, and trust your cure to such a simple thing as a soft sheet of paper just come off the press—you need do nothing more than twist it round.—The damp paper, quoth Yorick (who sat next to his friend Eugenius) though I know it has a refreshing coolness in it—yet I presume is no more than the vehicle—and that the oil and lamp-black with which the paper is so strongly impregnated, does the business.—Right, said Eugenius, and is, of any outward application I would venture to recommend, the most anodyne and safe.