The table in my Uncle Toby’s room, being somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small instruments of knowledge which usually lay crowded upon it, he had the accident in reaching over for his tobacco box to throw down his compasses, and in stooping to take the compasses up, with his sleeve he threw down his case of instruments and snuffers; and in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in falling, he thrust his books off the table.  ’Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my Uncle Toby was, to think of redressing all these evils by himself; he rung his bell for his man Trim,—­“Trim,” quoth my Uncle Toby, “prithee see what confusion I have been making.  I must have some better contrivance, Trim.”

I must here inform you that this servant of my Uncle Toby’s, who went by the name of Trim, had been a corporal in my Uncle’s own company.  His real name was James Butter, but having got the nickname of Trim in the regiment, my Uncle Toby, unless when he happened to be very angry with him, would never call him by any other name.

The poor fellow had been disabled for the service by a wound on his left knee by a musket bullet at the Battle of Landen, which was two years before the affair of Namur; and as the fellow was well-beloved in the regiment, and a handy fellow into the bargain, my Uncle Toby took him for his servant, and of excellent use was he, attending my Uncle Toby in the camp and in his quarters as valet, groom, barber, cook, sempster, and nurse; and indeed, from first to last, waited upon him and served him with great fidelity and affection.

My Uncle Toby loved the man in return, and what attached him more to him still, was the similitude of their knowledge; for Corporal Trim by four years occasional attention to his master’s discourse upon fortified towns had become no mean proficient in the science, and was thought by the cook and chambermaid to know as much of the nature of strongholds as my Uncle Toby himself.

“If I durst presume,” said Trim, “to give your honour my advice, and speak my opinion in this matter”—­“Thou art welcome, Trim,” quoth my Uncle Toby.  “Why then,” replied Trim, pointing with his right hand towards a map of Dunkirk:  “I think with humble submission to your honour’s better judgement, that the ravelins, bastions, and curtains, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your honour and I could make of it were we out in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood and a half of ground to do what we pleased with.  As summer is coming on,” continued Trim, “your honour might sit out of doors and give me the nography”—­(call it icnography, quoth my uncle)—­“of the town or citadel your honour was pleased to sit down before, and I will be shot by your honour upon the glacis of it if I did not fortify it to your honour’s mind.”—­“I dare say thou wouldst, Trim,” quoth my uncle.  “I would throw out the earth,” continued the corporal, “upon