‘Sir!’ ejaculated his host.
‘I mean the usquebaugh,’ explained the visitor. ‘Twenty years in bottle at least—did I say at most? and plump.’
Here Margaret was about to beat a retreat, when the gentleman rose. ‘One moment, young lady,’ he said, ‘you do not know who I am. It will be something to tell your children’s children that James Boswell, of Auchinleck, Esq.’ (here he suited the action to the word) ‘chucked you under the chin.’
William Henry felt greatly inclined to resent this liberty, but Mr. Erin only smiled approval.
‘Another glass!’ said Mr. Boswell, and proceeded with his investigations.
Presently, without a word of warning, he threw himself on his knees and pressed his lips to the MS.
‘I kiss these invaluable relics of our bard,’ he said, ‘and thank Heaven that I have lived to see them. Would that my late revered friend, the great Lexi—the great Lexicog—— ‘ Emotion of various kinds prevented his completion of the sentence, and Mr. Erin led him with a gentle violence to the table on which lay the list of signatures; to which he added his name, though, it must be confessed, in a handwriting that was rather illegible.