Mr. Steele drew up, seemingly a little affronted; but his good-nature conquering the affectation of personal sanctity, which, at the time I refer to, that excellent writer was pleased to assume, he contented himself with nodding to the speaker, and saying,—
"All the world knows, Colonel Cleland, that you are a wit, and therefore we take your fine sayings as we take change from an honest tradesman,—rest perfectly satisfied with the coin we get, without paying any attention to it."
"Zounds, Cleland, you got the worst of it there," cried a gentleman in a flaxen wig. And Steele slid into a seat near my own.
Tarleton, who was sufficiently well educated to pretend to the character of a man of letters, hereupon thought it necessary to lay aside the "Flying Post," and to introduce me to my literary neighbour.
"Pray," said Colonel Cleland, taking snuff and swinging himself to and fro with an air of fashionable grace, "has any one seen the new paper?"
"What!" cried the gentleman in the flaxen wig, "what! the 'Tatler's' successor,—the 'Spectator'?"
"The same," quoth the colonel.
"To be sure; who has not?" returned he of the flaxen ornament. "People say Congreve writes it."
"They are very much mistaken, then," cried a little square man with spectacles; "to my certain knowledge Swift is the author."
"Pooh!" said Cleland, imperiously, "pooh! it is neither the one nor the other; I, gentlemen, am in the secret—but—you take me, eh? One must not speak well of one's self; mum is the word."