“I do not look forward to fighting booksellers,” said Goldsmith. “They have stepped between me and starvation more than once.”
“Would any one of them have taken that step unless he was pretty certain to make money by his philanthropy?” asked Baretti in his usual cynical way.
“I cannot say,” replied Goldsmith. “I don't think that I can lay claim to the mortifying reflection that I have enriched any bookseller. At any rate, I do not mean ever to beat another.”
“'Tis, then, a critic whom you mean to attack? If you have made up your mind to kill a critic, I shall make it a point to find you the best swordsman in Europe,” said Baretti.
“Do so, my friend,” said Goldsmith; “and when I succeed in killing a critic, you shall have the first and second fingers of his right hand as a memento.”
“I shall look for them—yes, in five years, for it will certainly take that time to make you expert with a sword,” said the Italian. “And, meantime, you may yourself be cut to pieces by even so indifferent a fighter as Kenrick.”
“In such a case I promise to bequeath to you whatever bones of mine you may take a fancy to have.”
“And I shall regard them with great veneration, being the relics of a martyr—a man who did not fear to fight with dragons and other unclean beasts. You may look for a visit from a skilful countryman of mine within a week; only let me pray of you to be guided by his advice. If he should say that it is wiser for you to beware the entrance to a quarrel, as your poet has it, you will do well to accept his advice. I do not want a poet's bones for my reliquary, though from all that I can hear one of our friends would have no objection to a limb or two.”
“And who may that friend be?”
“You should be able to guess, sir. What! have you not been negotiating with the booksellers for a life of Dr. Johnson?”