- After Mr. Shandy finishes his chapter on auxiliary verbs, he gives the book back to Trim. This, Mr. Shandy says, is how Tristram is going to become a genius.
- He and Yorick launch into a discussion of child prodigies, including such whizzes as a ten-year-old who knew 14 languages and a thirteen-year-old who earned a degree in philosophy. Yorick even remembers a certain Lipsius who composed a work the on the day he was born.
- Toby doesn't know much about prodigies, but he does know that they should have wiped up any "works" that newborn Lipsius "created."