May I be thrown amidst all the devils of hell, even as a great bowl cast athwart at a set of ninepins, or cannon-ball shot among a battalion of foot, in case so many times I do not boult my future wife the first night of our marriage! Of that, forsooth, I make no doubt at all, quoth Pantagruel.

You needed not to have rapped forth such a horrid imprecation, the sooner to procure credit for the performance of so small a business, seeing possibly the first bout will be amiss, and that you know is usually at tennis called fifteen.

At the next justling turn you may readily amend that fault, and so complete your reckoning of sixteen.

Is it so, quoth Panurge, that you understand the matter?
And must my words be thus interpreted?
Nay, believe me never yet was any solecism committed by that valiant champion who often hath for me in Belly-dale stood sentry at the hypogastrian cranny.

Did you ever hitherto find me in the confraternity of the faulty?
Never, I trow; never, nor ever shall, for ever and a day.