Cheshire Cheese,” and it afforded me some entertainment to observe, despite his recent utterances, that Mr. Boswell’s first mandate to the drawer was a pint of red wine. We ate of veal and prunes, and during the progress of our repast he invited me to express an opinion on a certain individual who enjoyed high office as the result of interest rather than merit. JOHNSON: “Sir, I entertain no opinion of him.” BOSWELL: “Is that to say, sir, that you hold a bad opinion of him?” JOHNSON: “No, sir, it is not. Had I held him in bad opinion I should have so expressed myself. To entertain no opinion of a man is to deny the mind all consideration of him.” He left me soon afterwards, but had evidently forgotten his penitential visit to Mrs. Thrale. I, however, restored the matter to his memory, and he thanked me with effusion, and went his way. _Wednesday._--Mr. Boswell called and drank tea with Mrs. Williams and me. The propinquity of my cat evidently occasioned him some discomfort, and I reproved him. JOHNSON: “How vain is it in you, sir, to let a poor dumb beast affect your ease and interfere with your comfort!” BOSWELL: “But it is _not_ dumb, sir; it mews and shows in a dozen ways that it desires my friendship.” JOHNSON: “Why, then, deny it such a simple boon? If the cat is worthy of the intimacy of Samuel Johnson, surely James Boswell need not scorn its society.” Mrs. WILLIAMS: “I’ll wager you know many bigger rascals, Mr. Boswell.” JOHNSON: “Nay, madam, we are not concerned with morals, but breeding. This cat is a gentleman. After a friendship extending over a considerable portion of his life, and no small fraction of my own, I find that the epithet of ‘gentleman’ may be bestowed upon him without offence to truth. He can hold his peace, and he never bores me with ill-timed reflections on human or feline affairs.” Boswell, though the condition is rare with him, was moody, a state into which the presence of my harmless tabby hath aforetime thrown him. He either failed to appreciate my humorous treatment of the beast and sly allusion to himself, or, of set purpose, overlooked both. Such conduct in my presence is unlike him; for, though apt to hold his place in most conversation, and ready enough with comment and quotation (of a sort usually obvious enough, scarce to escape the charge of superfluity), yet he willingly suffers occultation in my presence, and rarely exhibits to my observation any mood other than one of obsequious reverence and studious attention. Upon my dismissal of the cat to that private or nocturnal phase of his career which he conceals from his master, yet which is not of such an esoteric nature but that the flight of human imagination may create a phantasmagorial image of it, Boswell recovered a little of his customary high spirit. He pressed me as usual to accompany him on a journey to the islands of the Hebrides, and expatiated, not without elegance, on their savage situation and the ferocity and nobility of