Eloquence and witty repartee make up for many things, and Bobby's death gives Walter the chance to make an oration about death and the fall of civilizations. He goes on and on, and poor puzzled Toby is his captive audience. Then, in one of his stories he mentions the word "wife." At that moment, Mrs. Shandy happens to be passing the parlor door, and the word "wife" — "a shrill, penetrating sound of itself" — comes through even more clearly because Obadiah had left the door slightly open. She stops instantly, puts her ear to the door, and listens "with all her powers." Tristram says that he must leave her in that position for "five minutes" in order to tell what has been going on in the kitchen.
The Shandy household is a "simple machine," but, says Tristram, it has "all the honour and advantages of a complex one": "Whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or dissertation, was going forwards in the parlour, there was generally another at the same time, and upon the same subject, running parallel along with it in the kitchen." After Obadiah brought in the letter to Walter, he left the door ajar — ever so little — so that he could hear what the letter was about. "Before my father had well got over his surprize, and entered upon his harangue, Trim is about to speak on the same subject in the kitchen. This system of "communication," Tristram observes, saved "my father the trouble of governing his house." Tristram intends to compare Walter and Trim as orators on the topic of death, "two orators so contrasted by nature and education, haranguing over the same bier."
The announcement by Obadiah in the kitchen — "My young master in London is dead!" — brings a variety of responses: Susannah sees herself acquiring her mistress's colorful wardrobe (since Mrs. Shandy will go into mourning), the "fat foolish scullion" is grateful that she is not dead, and Obadiah himself laments about the work he will have in clearing the Ox-moor (the alternate candidate for Aunt Dinah's legacy). Trim orates on the fleeting quality of life: "Are we not here now," he says, striking the floor with his cane, "and are we not — (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a moment! — " "'Twas infinitely striking," Tristram says admiringly, and the eloquence with which Trim dropped the hat should be a lesson to all men: "Meditate — meditate, I beseech you, upon Trim's hat."
