said he, "do as I do, for the love of God; strip, tear, pull, rend,
flay off all that we may appear as unlike that rogue Peter as it is
possible. I would not for a hundred pounds carry the least mark
about me that might give occasion to the neighbours of suspecting I
was related to such a rascal." But Martin, who at this time
happened to be extremely phlegmatic and sedate, begged his brother,
of all love, not to damage his coat by any means, for he never would
get such another; desired him to consider that it was not their
business to form their actions by any reflection upon Peter's, but
by observing the rules prescribed in their father's will. That he
should remember Peter was still their brother, whatever faults or
injuries he had committed, and therefore they should by all means
avoid such a thought as that of taking measures for good and evil
from no other rule than of opposition to him. That it was true the
testament of their good father was very exact in what related to the
wearing of their coats; yet was it no less penal and strict in
prescribing agreement, and friendship, and affection between them.
And therefore, if straining a point were at all defensible, it would
certainly be so rather to the advance of unity than increase of
contradiction.

Martin had still proceeded as gravely as he began, and doubtless
would have delivered an admirable lecture of morality, which might
have exceedingly contributed to my reader's repose both of body and
mind (the true ultimate end of ethics), but Jack was already gone a
flight-shot beyond his patience. And as in scholastic disputes
nothing serves to rouse the spleen of him that opposes so much as a
kind of pedantic affected calmness in the respondent, disputants
being for the most part like unequal scales, where the gravity of
one side advances the lightness of the other, and causes it to fly