“I said something like it,” observed Tennyson.
Doctor Johnson looked around to see who it was that spoke.
“You?” he cried. “And who, pray, may you be?”
“My name is Tennyson,” replied the poet.
“And a very good name it is,” said Shakespeare.
“I am not aware that I ever heard the name before,” said Doctor Johnson. “Did you make it yourself?”
“I did,” said the late laureate, proudly.
“In what pursuit?” asked Doctor Johnson.
“Poetry,” said Tennyson. “I wrote ‘Locksley Hall’ and ‘Come into the Garden, Maude.’”
“Humph!” said Doctor Johnson. “I never read ’em.”