‘Pho, pho,’ said she; ‘you mayn’t choose to tell, but you must know.’
‘I don’t, indeed, ma’am,’ answered he; ‘I have no honour in keeping the secret, for I have never been trusted. All I know of the matter is, that it is a gentleman of the other end of the town.’
My mother made a thousand other inquiries, to which his answers were to the following effect: that for a great while, he did not know if it was a man or a woman; but now, he knew that much, and that he was a master of his subject, and well versed in the manners of the times.”
A few days after this, Mrs. Thrale called in St. Martin’s Street, and carried her new acquaintance down to Streatham:
“At night, Mrs. Thrale asked if I would have anything? I answered, ‘No;’ but Dr. Johnson said,—
‘Yes: she is used, madam, to suppers; she would like an egg or two, and a few slices of ham, or a rasher—a rasher, I believe, would please her better.’
How ridiculous! However, nothing could persuade Mrs. Thrale not to have the cloth laid; and Dr. Johnson was so facetious, that he challenged Mr. Thrale to get drunk!
‘I wish,’ said he, ‘my master would say to me, Johnson, if you will oblige me, you will call for a bottle of Toulon, and then we will set to it, glass for glass, till it is done; and after that I will say, Thrale, if you will oblige me, you will call for another bottle of Toulon, and then we will set to it, glass for glass, till that is done: and by the time we should have drunk the two bottles we should be so happy, and such good friends, that we should fly into each other’s arms, and both together call for the third!’
I ate nothing, that they might not again use such a ceremony with me. Indeed, their late dinners forbid suppers, especially as Dr. Johnson made me eat cake at tea; for he held it till I took it, with an odd or absent complaisance.
He was extremely comical after supper, and would not suffer Mrs. Thrale and me to go to bed for near an hour after we made the motion....