Tristram really has gotten us back to Toby's interrupted sentence and back to the parlor.
The battle about "midwife vs. Dr. Slop" goes on, and Toby takes Mrs. Shandy's side. His statement about Mrs. Shandy's modesty provides Tristram with the excuse for a bawdy joke: did he or didn't he intend a word after the sentence? These are jokes for Tristram, and they might also be jokes for Walter, but not for Toby. When he alludes to "widow Wadman" and his "shock," we know nothing about that yet; it will be the major part of the plot of Books 8 and 9. But if we remember then the things that Tristram is telling us now about his uncle, we will have full insight into the event and its consequences.
The mention that Toby makes of the affair with Widow Wadman underscores Tristram's time scheme: Tristram is being born this evening, Toby refers to the shock that he received five years before, the novel ends with the events leading up to that shock and its aftermath — five years before Tristram was born.
Tristram again makes fun of critics and rules for writing novels — unity of time and place, in particular. It is diabolically clever, the way he has imposed two periods of time on Obadiah's going for Dr. Slop: the one and one-half hour stretch between Book 1, Chapter 21, and Book 2, Chapter 8, and the two minutes and thirteen seconds between Book 2, Chapter 6, and Book 2, Chapter 8. Either could work, depending on whether or not a critic actually brought up the matter; as it happens, the critic does bring it up, so Tristram resolves it by explaining that Dr. Slop was just outside. Tristram is constantly busy outthinking and outwitting everybody.
The description of Dr. Slop on his pony and the collision with Obadiah is a masterpiece of figure-drawing; every gesture and movement is described with jewel-like precision. We know that Sterne was an amateur artist, and Tristram says the same about himself in the first mention of hobby-horses. Visual description is a constant element in the book; minute details are given so that we see what is going on.
