How ridiculous! However, nothing could persuade Mrs. Thrale not to have the cloth laid; and Dr. Johnson was so facetious, that he challenged Mr. Thrale to get drunk! ‘I wish,’ said he, ‘my master would say to me, Johnson, if you will oblige me, you will call for a bottle of Toulon, and then we will set to it, glass for glass, till it is done; and after that I will say, Thrale, if you will oblige me, you will call for another bottle of Toulon, and then we will set to it, glass for glass, till that is done: and by the time we should have drunk the two bottles we should be so happy, and such good friends, that we should fly into each other’s arms, and both together call for the third!’ I ate nothing, that they might not again use such a ceremony with me. Indeed, their late dinners forbid suppers, especially as Dr. Johnson made me eat cake at tea; for he held it till I took it, with an odd or absent complaisance. He was extremely comical after supper, and would not suffer Mrs. Thrale and me to go to bed for near an hour after we made the motion.... Now for this morning’s breakfast. Dr. Johnson, as usual, came last into the library; he was in high spirits, and full of mirth and sport. I had the honour of sitting next to him: and now, all at once, he flung aside his reserve, thinking, perhaps, that it was time I should fling aside mine. Mrs. Thrale told him that she intended taking me to Mr. T——’s. ‘So you ought, madam,’ cried he; ‘’tis your business to be cicerone to her.’ Then suddenly he snatched my hand, and kissing it, ‘Ah!’ he added, ‘they will little think what a tartar you carry to them!’ ‘No, that they won’t!’ cried Mrs. Thrale; ‘Miss Burney looks so meek and so quiet, nobody would suspect what a comical girl she is; but I believe she has a great deal of malice at heart.’ ‘Oh, she’s a toad!’ cried the doctor, laughing—‘a sly young rogue! with her Smiths and her Branghtons!’ ‘Why, Dr. Johnson,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘I hope you are very well this morning! If one may judge by your spirits and good-humour, the fever you threatened us with is gone off.’ He had complained that he was going to be ill last night. ‘Why, no, madam, no,’ answered he, ‘I am not yet well; I could not sleep at all; there I lay, restless and uneasy, and thinking all the time of Miss Burney. Perhaps I have offended her, thought I; perhaps she is angry; I have seen her but once, and I talked to her of a rasher!—Were you angry?’ I think I need not tell you my answer. ‘I have been endeavouring to find some excuse,’ continued he, ‘and, as I could not sleep, I got up, and looked for some authority for the word; and I find, madam, it is used by Dryden: in one of his prologues he says—“And snatch a homely rasher from the coals.” So you must not mind me, madam; I say strange things, but I mean no harm.’