While I was listening to a tall lusty gentleman, who was abusing Dogget,
the actor, a well-dressed man entered, and immediately attracted the
general observation. He was of a very flat, ill-favoured countenance,
but of a quick eye, and a genteel air; there was, however, something
constrained and artificial in his address, and he appeared to be
endeavouring to clothe a natural good-humour with a certain primness
which could never be made to fit it.

"Ha, Steele!" cried a gentleman in an orange-coloured coat, who seemed
by a fashionable swagger of importance desirous of giving the tone to
the company,--"Ha, Steele, whence come you? from the chapel or the
tavern?" and the speaker winked round the room as if he wished us to
participate in the pleasure of a good thing.

Mr. Steele drew up, seemingly a little affronted; but his good-nature
conquering the affectation of personal sanctity, which, at the time I
refer to, that excellent writer was pleased to assume, he contented
himself with nodding to the speaker, and saying,--

"All the world knows, Colonel Cleland, that you are a wit, and therefore
we take your fine sayings as we take change from an honest
tradesman,--rest perfectly satisfied with the coin we get, without
paying any attention to it."

"Zounds, Cleland, you got the worst of it there," cried a gentleman in a
flaxen wig. And Steele slid into a seat near my own.

Tarleton, who was sufficiently well educated to pretend to the character
of a man of letters, hereupon thought it necessary to lay aside the
"Flying Post," and to introduce me to my literary neighbour.