One day, when some friends were expected to dine with Mr. Nollekens, poor Bronze (the servant), labouring under a severe sore throat, stretching her flannelled neck up to her mistress, hoarsely announced "_all the Hawkinses_" to be in the dining-parlour! Mrs. Nollekens, in a half-stifled whisper, cried, "Nolly, it is truly vexatious that we are always served so when we dress a joint. You won't be so silly as to ask them to dinner?" _Nollekens_--"I ask them! Let 'em get their meals at home; I'll not encourage the sort of thing; or, if they please, they can go to Mathias's; they'll find the cold leg of lamb we left yesterday." _Mrs. Nollekens_--"No wonder, I am sure, they are considered so disagreeable by Captain Grose, Hampstead Steevens, Murphy, Nicolls, and Boswell." At this moment who should come in but Mr. John Taylor, who looked around, and wondered what all the fuss could be about. "Why don't you go to your dinner, my good friend?" said he; "I am sure it must be ready, for I smell the gravy." Nollekens, to whom he had spoken, desired him to keep his nonsense to himself. A dispute then arose, which lasted so long, that perhaps the Hawkinses overheard it, for they had silently let themselves out without even ringing the bell. Smith, the grocer, of Margaret Street, was frequently heard to declare that whenever Mrs. Nollekens purchased tea and sugar at his father's shop, she always requested, just as she was quitting the counter, to have either a clove or a bit of cinnamon to take some unpleasant taste out of her mouth; but she never was seen to apply it to the part so affected; so that, with Nollekens's nutmegs, which he pocketed from the table at the Academy dinners, they contrived to fill the family spice-box, without any expense whatever. For many years Nollekens made one at the table of the Royal Academy Club; and so strongly was he bent upon saving all he could privately conceal, that he did not mind paying two guineas a year for his admission ticket, in order to indulge himself with a few nutmegs, which he contrived to pocket privately: for as red-wine negus was the principal beverage, nutmegs were used. Now it generally happened, if another bowl was wanted, that the nutmegs were missing, Nollekens, who had frequently been seen to pocket them, was one day requested by Rossi, the sculptor to see if they had not fallen under the table; upon which Nollekens actually went crawling beneath, upon his hands and knees, pretending to look for them, though at the very time they were in his waistcoat-pocket. He was so old a stager at this monopoly of nutmegs, that he would sometimes engage the maker of the negus in conversation, looking at him full in the face, whilst he slyly and unobserved, as he thought, conveyed away the spice; like the fellow who is stealing the bank-note from the blind man in the admirable print of the Royal Cockpit, by Hogarth.