“Excuse me,” said Boswell, faintly, “but I—I’ve left my note-bub-book upstairs, Doctor, and I’d like to go up and get it.”
“Certainly,” said Dr. Johnson. “I judge from your color, which is highly suggestive of a modern magazine poster, that it might be well too if you stayed on deck for a little while and made a few entries in your commonplace book.”
“Thank you,” said Boswell, gratefully. “Shall you say anything clever during dinner, sir? If so, I might be putting it down while I’m up—”
“Get out!” roared the Doctor. “Get up as high as you can—get up with Shem on the mizzentop—”
“Very good, sir,” replied Boswell, and he was off.
“You ought to be more lenient with him, Doctor,” said Bonaparte; “he means well.”
“I know it,” observed Johnson; “but he’s so very previous. Last winter, at Chaucer’s dinner to Burns, I made a speech, which Boswell printed a week before it was delivered, with the words ‘laughter’ and ‘uproarious applause’ interspersed through it. It placed me in a false position.”
“How did he know what you were going to say?” queried Demosthenes.
“Don’t know,” replied Johnson. “Kind of mind-reader, I fancy,” he added, blushing a trifle. “But, Captain Holmes, what do you deduce from your observation of the wake of the House-boat? If she’s going to Paris, why the change?”
“I have two theories,” replied the detective.