“I ask your pardon, sir,” said James; “but i' faith there's many a true word said in jest; and it seems to me that there's a moral in the parable of the young woman who took the flying-fish of the South Seas for her model rather than the herring of the three-fathom coast-line of the Channel; and that moral touches close upon the complaint made by our good mother against Mr. Garrick.”
“Let it be so,” said Mrs. Burney, who was a clever enough woman to perceive that it would be unwise to make a grievance of the impudence of a young naval gentleman. “Let it be so; let it be that we are simple, homely, wholesome herrings, we are none the better for such a flying-fish as Mr. Garrick coming among us, giving us, it may be, the notion that our poor fins are wings, and so urging us to make fools of ourselves by emulating the eagle. The moral of your fable is that we should keep to our own element—is not that so, sir?”
“I' faith, madam, I am not sure but that 'tis so, and I haul down my colours to you, and feel no dishonour in the act,” cried James. “Lord, where should we all be to-day if it were not for the good women who hold fast to the old traditions of the distaff and needle? They are the women who do more for the happiness of men than all who pass their time dipping quills in ink-horns or daubing paint upon good canvas that might with luck be hung from a stunsail boom and add another knot to the log of a frigate of seventy-two! Is there anyone who dines at the table of Sir Joshua Reynolds round the corner that does not wish with all his heart that his sister would sell her palette and buy a wine-glass or two with the proceeds? Why, when we went to dinner at Sir Joshua's yesterday there were not enough glasses to go round the table.”
“There never are—that is well known,” said Mrs. Burney.
“Nay, nay; let us take to ourselves the reproof of Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boswell when he complained, loud enough almost for Sir Joshua himself to hear him, about the scarcity of service. 'Sir,' said Dr. Johnson, 'some who have the privilege of sitting at this table, and you are one of them, sir, will be wiser if they keep their ears open and their mouths shut than they would if they had the means of drinking all that you are longing to drink.'”
“Mr. Boswell, in spite of the reproof, contrived to lurch from the table with more wine than wisdom 'tween decks,” remarked James.
“He must have found a wine-glass,” said Miss Susy Burney, who had been quite silent but quite attentive to every word that had been spoken since breakfast-time.
“And so the honour of Mrs. Reynolds's housekeeping is saved,” said Dr. Burney.
“Nay, sir, is not Mr. Boswell a Scotsman?” cried the irrepressible James.
“That is his lifelong sorrow, since he fancies it to be an insuperable barrier between his idol, Dr. Johnson, and himself,” replied his father. “But how does his Scotsmanship bear upon the wine-glass question?”