“I shall look for them--yes, in five years, for it will certainly take that time to make you expert with a sword,” said the Italian. “And, meantime, you may yourself be cut to pieces by even so indifferent a fighter as Kenrick.” “In such a case I promise to bequeath to you whatever bones of mine you may take a fancy to have.” “And I shall regard them with great veneration, being the relics of a martyr--a man who did not fear to fight with dragons and other unclean beasts. You may look for a visit from a skilful countryman of mine within a week; only let me pray of you to be guided by his advice. If he should say that it is wiser for you to beware the entrance to a quarrel, as your poet has it, you will do well to accept his advice. I do not want a poet's bones for my reliquary, though from all that I can hear one of our friends would have no objection to a limb or two.” “And who may that friend be?” “You should be able to guess, sir. What! have you not been negotiating with the booksellers for a life of Dr. Johnson?” “Not I, sir. But, if I have been doing so, what then?” “What then? Why, then you may count upon the eternal enmity of the little Scotchman whom you once described not as a cur but only a bur. Sir, Boswell robbed of his Johnson would be worse than--than----” “A lioness robbed of her whelps?” “Well, better say a she-bear robbed of her cubs, only that Johnson is the bear and Boswell the cub. Boswell has been going about saying that you had boasted to him of your intention to become Johnson's biographer; and the best of the matter is that Johnson has entered with great spirit into the jest and has kept his poor Bossy on thistles--reminiscent of his native land--ever since.” Goldsmith laughed, and told Baretti how he had occasion to get rid of Boswell, and had done so by pretending that he meant to write a life of Johnson. Baretti laughed and went on to describe how, on the previous evening, Garrick had drawn on Boswell until the latter had imitated all the animals in the farmyard, while narrating, for the thousandth time, his first appearance in the pit of Drury Lane. Boswell had felt quite flattered, Baretti said, when Garrick, making a judicial speech, which every one present except Boswell perceived to be a fine piece of comedy, said he felt constrained to reverse the judgment of the man in the pit who had shouted: “Stick to the coo, mon!” On the whole, Garrick said, he thought that, while Boswell's imitation of the cow was most admirable in many respects, yet for naturalness it was his opinion--whatever it might be worth--that the voice of the ass was that which Boswell was most successful in attempting. Goldsmith knew that even Garrick's broadest buffoonery was on occasions accepted by Boswell with all seriousness, and he had no hesitation in believing Baretti's account of the party on the previous evening.