Coming out of his burrow one dark night, he encountered an old beggar-woman who importuned him for alms.  He was brushing past her, when one of her exclamations caught his ear.

“Sir,” said the woman, “I am an old struggler!”

“Madam,” replied Johnson, “so am I!” And he gave her his last sixpence.

But life in London was cheap in those days—­it is now if you know how to do it, or else have to.  Johnson used to maintain that for thirty pounds a year one could live like a gentleman, and as proof would quote an imaginary acquaintance who argued that ten pounds a year for clothes would keep a man in good appearance; a garret could be hired for eighteen pence a week, and if any one asked your address you could reply, “I am to be found in such a place,” Threepence laid out at a coffeehouse would enable one to pass some hours a day in good company; dinner might be had for sixpence, and supper you could do without.  On clean-shirt day you could go abroad and call on your lady friends.  Among Johnson’s first literary tasks in London was the work of reporting the debates in Parliament.  In order that the best possible results might be obtained, he resorted to the rather unique, but not entirely original, method of not attending Parliament at all.  Two or three young men would be sent to listen to the debates; they would make notes giving the general drift of the argument, and Johnson would write out the speech.  His style was exactly suited to this kind of work, being eminently rhetorical.  And as at the time no public record of proceedings was kept and Parliament did not allow the press the liberty it now possesses—­all being as it were clouded in mysterious awe—­these reports of debates were eagerly sought after.  To evade the law, a fictitious name was given the speaker, or his initials used in such a way that the individual could be easily recognized by the reading public.

Some of Johnson’s best work was done at this time, and in several instances the speaker, not slow to appreciate a good thing, allowed the matter to be reissued as his own.  Long years after, a certain man was once praising the speeches of Lord Chesterfield and was led on to make explanations.  He did so, naming two speeches, one of which he zealously declared had the style of Cicero; the other that of Demosthenes.  Johnson becalmed the speaker by agreeing with him as to the excellence of the speeches, and then adding, “I wrote them both.”

The gruffness of Ursa Major should never be likened to that of the Sage of Chelsea.  Carlyle vented his spleen on the nearest object, as irate gentlemen sometimes kick at the cat; but Johnson merely sparred for points.  When Miss Monckton undertook to refute his statements as to the shallowness of Sterne by declaring that “Tristram Shandy” affected her to tears, Johnson rolled himself into contortions, made an exasperating grimace, and replied, “Why, dearest, that is because you are a dunce!” Afterward, when reproached for the remark, he replied, “Madam, if I had thought so, I surely would not have said it.”