“I shall take good care that you don't, sir,” said she.
“Do not fancy that I shall neglect my own interests!” he cried, bowing as he took a step away from her. When he had taken another step he suddenly returned to her as if a sudden thought had struck him. “Why, if I wasn't going away without asking you what is the name of the gentleman in uniform who was speaking with you just now,” said he. “I fancy I have met him somewhere, and one doesn't want to be rude.”
“His name is Jackson,” she replied. “Yes, Captain Jackson, though the Lord only knows what he is captain of.”
“I have been mistaken; I know no one of that name,” said Goldsmith. “'Tis as well I made sure; one may affront a gentleman as easily by professing to have met him as by forgetting that one has done so.”
When he got outside, he found that Mary Horneck has been so greatly affected by the heat of the playhouse and the excitement of the occasion, she had thought it prudent to go away with the Reynoldses in their coach—her mother had preceded her by nearly half an hour.
The Bunburys found that apparently the excitement of the evening had produced a similar effect upon their guest. Although he admitted having eaten no dinner—Johnson and his friends had been by no means reticent on the subject of the dinner—he was without an appetite for the delightful little supper which awaited him at Mrs. Bunbury's. It was in vain too that his hostess showed herself to be in high spirits, and endeavoured to rally him after her own delightful fashion. He remained almost speechless the whole evening.
“Ah,” said she, “I perceive clearly that your Little Comedy has been quite obscured by your great comedy. But wait until we get you down with us at Barton; you will find the first time we play loo together that a little comedy may become a great tragedy.”
Bunbury declared that he was as poor company during the supper as if his play had been a mortifying failure instead of a triumphant success, and Goldsmith admitted that this was true, taking his departure as soon as he could without being rude.
He walked slowly through the empty streets to his chambers in Brick Court. But it was almost daylight before he went to bed.
All his life he had been looking forward to this night—the night that should put the seal upon his reputation, that should give him an incontestable place at the head of the imaginative writers of his period. And yet, now that the fame for which he had struggled with destiny was within his grasp, he felt more miserable than he had ever felt in his garret.