Foote and Macklin
One night, when Macklin was formally preparing to begin a lecture, hearing Foote rattling away at the lower end of the room, and thinking to silence him at once, he called out in his sarcastic manner, "Pray, young gentleman, do you know what I am going to say?"
"No, sir," said Foote quickly: "do you?"
Baron Newman
This celebrated gambler (well known about town thirty years ago by the title of the left-handed Baron), being detected in the rooms at Bath in the act of secreting a card, the company in the warmth of their resentment threw him out of the window of a one-pair-of-stairs room, where they were playing. The Baron, meeting Foote some time afterward, loudly complained of this usage, and asked him what he should do to repair his injured honor.
"Do?" said the wit; "why, 'tis a plain case: never play so high again as long as you live."
Mrs. Abington
When Mrs. Abington returned from her very first successful trip to Ireland, Foote wished to engage her for his summer theatre; but in the mean time Garrick secured her for Drury Lane. Foote, on hearing this, asked her why she gave Garrick the preference.
"I don't know how it was," said she: "he talked me over by telling me that he would make me immortal, so that I did not know how to refuse him."
"Oh! did he so? Then I'll soon outbid him that way; for come to me and I will give you two pounds a week more, and charge you nothing for immortality."