_Tuesday._--Mr. Boswell waited upon me about noon. He was of pallid aspect, and had suffered some temporary discoloration to the cuticle in the region of his right eye. He chose to enlighten me as to the cause, and explained that the men who conveyed him home on the previous night were responsible. BOSWELL: “Chairmen and coachmen always ask too much.” JOHNSON: “No, sir, they never ask _me_ too much.” BOSWELL: “But the exception proves the rule. If it is a question of weights and measures, you----” JOHNSON (_taking him up sharply_): “Stay, sir! To what a pitiable extremity must that wretch be reduced who thrusts personality upon his argument. Know this, sir: all dead weight is heavier than that which lives, and folly dead drunk must ever cause a chairman more labour than wisdom sober.” He made haste to assure me that he had intended no impertinent allusion, and he proceeded to deplore his conduct on the preceding evening with such humility and regret that my choler subsided. JOHNSON: “Alas, sir, if regret could but banish the consequences of folly! But religion testifies and experience proves that no ill deed escapes from due exaction of penalty.” BOSWELL: “I visit Mrs. Thrale’s anon to express the utmost sorrow for my conduct.” JOHNSON: “Do so, sir.” BOSWELL: “And yet, dear sir, if you consider, there appears nothing very singular in the course which I pursued. What gentleman of quality can say he has never been the worse for good wine? And who is there would wish so to declare even if he could?” JOHNSON: “This is not regret for an offence, but rather a rebellious attempt to palliate it.” BOSWELL: “Then I will never drink wine again if you so advise me.” JOHNSON: “Sir, this is the puerile irresponsibility of a babbling infant. Yet, if years be the standard by which we estimate your age, you are no longer a child. At least, I am not your schoolmaster.” BOSWELL: “I would you had been, sir, then I should have been a wiser man.” JOHNSON: “I know not that; but you might have been a sorer boy.” BOSWELL: “Nay, sir, chide no more. I am heartily sorry for my misdeeds, and my punishment is severe enough, for it chiefly lies in the thought that I have given you pain.” JOHNSON: “Only the pain, sir, of seeing my own species reduced below the level of those lower orders of beasts whose control was given to humanity at creation.” He proceeded to whine about the profound depression of his spirits and the particular depths of misery in which he always discovered himself to be plunged after consciousness of having played the fool in a public place. JOHNSON: “Repetition will blunt the edge of most emotions. If folly publicly displayed occasions you such uneasiness, you should be accustomed by this time to the mental condition you describe. But I will scold no more. Come, sir, let us take a walk down Fleet Street.” BOSWELL: “It rains, sir.” JOHNSON: “What then, sir? Does too much wine make a man afraid of water?” We walked out to the tavern known as “The