Johnson: “Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Dilly; I will wait upon him.”
Boswell: “Provided, sir, I suppose, that the company which he is to have is agreeable to you?”
Johnson: “What do you mean, sir? What do you take me for? Do you think I am so ignorant of the world as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gentleman what company he is to have at his table?”
Boswell: “I beg your pardon, sir, for wishing to prevent you from meeting people whom you might not like. Perhaps he may have some of what he calls his patriotic friends with him.”
Johnson: “Well, sir, and what then? What care I for his patriotic friends? Poh!”
Boswell: “I should not be surprised to find Jack Wilkes there.”
Johnson: “And if Jack Wilkes should be there, what is that to me, sir? My dear friend, let us have no more of this. I am sorry to be angry with you, but it is treating me strangely to talk to me as if I could not meet any company whatever occasionally.”[61]
Johnson and Wilkes met not unpleasantly, and Boswell had his triumph. In May he returned to Edinburgh. Before leaving London he repeated to Dr. Johnson his former promise that he would devote a portion of his time to reading. Johnson despatched to him at Edinburgh several boxes of books, thereby relieving his collection of supernumerary volumes, and by placing on the books a marketable value discharging a debt which he owed on the Hebridean journey. After an interval Boswell reported that owing to a renewed attack of melancholy the boxes remained unopened. Johnson in these words administered reproof:
“To hear that you have not opened your boxes of books is very offensive. The examination and arrangement of so many volumes might have afforded you an amusement very seasonable at present, and useful for the whole of life. I am, I confess, very angry that you manage yourself so ill.”
Boswell opened the boxes, and found what he describes as “truly a numerous and miscellaneous stall library thrown together at random.” It was not further disturbed.