"The great in France live very magnificently, but the rest very miserably. There is no happy middle state as in England.... The French are an indelicate people; they will spit upon any place. At Madame ----'s, a literary lady of rank, the footman took the sugar in his fingers, and threw it into my coffee. I was going to put it aside; but hearing it was made on purpose for me, I e'en tasted Tom's fingers[32]. The same lady would needs make tea _à l'Angloise_. The spout of the tea-pot did not pour freely; she had the footman blow into it. France is worse than Scotland in everything but climate." This was Johnson's only foreign tour. Though he often talked of expeditions to other countries of Europe, he was generally content with a post-chaise on an English road and a friend's house or a tavern at the end of it. On March 19, 1776 he met Boswell at the Somerset coffee-house in the Strand, where they were taken up by the Oxford coach. In his old college his thoughts wandered back to his early days: "We walked with Dr Adams into the master's garden, and into the common room. JOHNSON. (after a reverie of meditation,) 'Ay! Here I used to play at draughts with Phil. Jones and Fluyder. Jones loved beer, and did not get very forward in the church. Fluyder turned out a scoundrel, a Whig....' BOSWELL. 'Was he a scoundrel, Sir, in any other way than that of being a political scoundrel? Did he cheat at draughts?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, we never played for _money_.'" "Next morning ... we set out in a post-chaise to pursue our ramble. It was a delightful day, and we rode through Blenheim Park.... I observed to him, while in the midst of the noble scene around us 'You and I, Sir, have, I think, seen together the extremes of what can be seen in Britain:--the wild rough island of Mull, and Blenheim Park.' We dined at an excellent inn at Chapel-house, where he expatiated on the felicity of England in its taverns and inns.... 'There is no private house, (said he,) in which people can enjoy themselves so well, as at a capital tavern.... The master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are anxious to be agreeable to him: and no man, but a very impudent dog indeed, can as freely command what is in another man's house, as if it were his own. Whereas, at a tavern, there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome: and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.'"