"Nonsense, my dear sir! 'Tis I who have intruded on your slumbers here. You'll be company for me on the journey. 'Fore gad, I was dead of ennui, for some one to talk to, when we came upon you! Get the gentleman's bag, Wilkins. I must say, sir, your own servant must be a rascal, to have dropped your things and ridden off as he did, when you were attacked."
Dick saw no reason to correct the impression produced, by his clothes and other circumstances, on the cordial young gentleman, and he silently let himself be helped into the chaise, which, his bag having been stowed away and his rescuers having got in, at once started off towards Bath.
Dick gave no more account of himself, beyond announcing his name and the fact that he had recently come from travels abroad, than to say that he had been attacked by the servants of a gentleman whose motive was personal revenge, and left as the Good Samaritan had found him. The Good Samaritan turned out to be Lord George Winston, who was given to letting his private coaches and horses lie idle, and to travelling in his present modest fashion, in order that he might encounter the more amusing people and incidents. He was now hastening, in quest of society, back from his Devonshire estate, whither he had recently hastened in quest of solitude. He was an exceedingly good-natured, self-satisfied, talkative youth, one of those happily constituted persons who are not even their own enemies. Yet he was a man of exceeding animation and wit, as he showed by countless little jests with which he enlivened the talk he rattled off to Dick on the journey.
Dick allowed most of the conversation to his lordship, which circumstance made so agreeable an impression on the latter, that, on learning Dick had no engagements, he gave an imperative invitation to be his guest in Bath for a few days, and afterward to bear him company to London. Dick, philosophically accepting, thus saw his immediate future paved with roses in advance, ere the increasing bustle of converging roads, the sound of the Avon flowing beneath its bridge, and the sight of many roofs and towers told him he was entering the most populous and fashionable pleasure resort in England.
It was late in the afternoon, when they drove into Bath. The chaise rattled through the fine streets of splendid stone houses, its own noise mingling with that of grand coaches and other conveyances. On every side were finely dressed people, strutting with an air of consequence, while Dick got a glimpse of a fair face, more or less genuine in color, in many a carriage and chair. The chaise let out its passengers at the Three Tuns, where Lord George engaged rooms for the night, and where Dick carefully repaired all damage to his person and attire, donned fresh linen, had his hair powdered by a man whom Lord George had caused to be summoned, dined with his gay companion, and sauntered forth afoot with him at evening, glowing with the newly stimulated love of pleasure.
At the door of the Pelican Inn, Lord George introduced Dick to a pompous but good-natured little gentleman named Boswell, who greeted my lord obsequiously but tarried only so long as to mention that he was on his way to meet Doctor Johnson at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.
"Does he mean the great Doctor Johnson, the author?" asked Dick, looking back after him with curiosity.
"Yes," said Lord George; "he is a harmless, conceited Scotchman that comes to town a few weeks every year and follows at the heels of Johnson, who treats him as if he were the spaniel he is. 'Tis amusing to consort now and then with those writing fellows, if you can endure their vanity. As for Johnson, he says a good thing sometimes, and might be good company but for his sweating and grunting, his dirty linen and his beastly way of eating, and his desire of doing all the talking himself."
They went to the Assembly Rooms, where his lordship introduced Dick to numerous people of both sexes and then sat down to cards; while Dick looked on, or walked about among the promenaders, the gay talkers, and the chatting tea-drinkers, and thought he was in a kind of paradise.
The next day Lord George moved with his guest to a floor in a fine house on the South Parade, where there was comparative quiet from the noise of wheels. There established, Dick, as he listened to the bells of the Abbey church,—which sound carried to him a mental vision of the venerable Cathedral itself, with its fine western front and its countless windows,—resolved that he would ever after wear the clothes of a gentleman, as his birth and mind entitled him to do; that his future way should lie amidst fine surroundings; that he should thereafter contrive to sip only of the honey of this world.