--Upon my honour, Sir, you have tore every bit of 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 turn'd 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.
