[12] Boswell afterwards found he was mistaken. Mrs Williams "had acquired such a niceness of touch, as to know, by the feeling on the outside of the cup, how near it was to being full." [13] She was the daughter of Johnson's godfather. [14] Poll was Miss Carmichael. See page 49. _His daily Life_ Johnson could tolerate the quarrels of his household and the anarchy of his kitchen better than most men, for the simple reason that he generally dined out at about 2 o'clock and stayed in a club or a tavern or a friend's house until bedtime. A tavern chair was for him "the throne of human felicity" and we shall shortly see him as he loved best to be--"folding his legs and having his talk out" with his friends. First, let us see something of his daily habits and manner of life. Here is Boswell's description of him in later years: "His person was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantick, and grown unwieldy from corpulency. His countenance was naturally of the cast of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured by the scars of that _evil_, which, it was formerly imagined, the _royal touch_ could cure. He was now ... become a little dull of hearing. His sight had always been somewhat weak; yet, so much does mind govern, and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. His head, and sometime also his body shook with a kind of motion like the effect of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions, of the nature of that distemper called _St Vitus's dance_. He wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair-buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stockings, and silver buckles." His day began late with a breakfast consisting of a penny-loaf and a large pot of tea. It was not usually a very tidy meal, for Johnson often appeared "in deshabille, as just risen from bed"; Levet poured out the tea, while Johnson clumsily divided the bread. When there was a guest, however, his "tea and rolls and butter, and whole breakfast apparatus were all in such decorum, and his behaviour was so courteous" that the visitor "was quite surprised, and wondered at his having heard so much said of Johnson's slovenliness and roughness." Once, when Boswell called unexpectedly before he was up, he called briskly "Frank, go and get coffee, and let us breakfast _in splendour_." But these splendid occasions were exceptional.