Enjoying the benefits of this arrangement upon the evening in question were Shakespeare, Cicero, Henry VIII., Doctor Johnson, and others.  Of course Boswell was present too, for a moment, with his note-book, and this fact evoked some criticism from several of the smokers.

“You ought to be up-stairs in the lecture-room, Boswell,” said Shakespeare, as the great biographer took his seat behind his friend the Doctor.  “Doesn’t the Gossip want a report of the debate?”

“It does,” said Boswell; “but the Gossip endeavors always to get the most interesting items of the day, and Doctor Johnson has informed me that he expects to be unusually witty this evening, so I have come here.”

“Excuse me for saying it, Boswell,” said the Doctor, getting red in the face over this unexpected confession, “but, really, you talk too much.”

“That’s good,” said Cicero.  “Stick that down, Boz, and print it.  It’s the best thing Johnson has said this week.”

Boswell smiled weakly, and said:  “But, Doctor, you did say that, you know.  I can prove it, too, for you told me some of the things you were going to say.  Don’t you remember, you were going to lead Shakespeare up to making the remark that he thought the English language was the greatest language in creation, whereupon you were going to ask him why he didn’t learn it?”

“Get out of here, you idiot!” roared the Doctor.  “You’re enough to give a man apoplexy.”

“You’re not going back on the ladder by which you have climbed, are you, Samuel?” queried Boswell, earnestly.

“The wha-a-t?” cried the Doctor, angrily.  “The ladder—­on which I climbed?  You?  Great heavens!  That it should come to this! . . .  Leave the room—­instantly!  Ladder!  By all that is beautiful—­the ladder upon which I, Samuel Johnson, the tallest person in letters, have climbed!  Go!  Do you hear?”

Boswell rose meekly, and, with tears coursing down his cheeks, left the room.

“That’s one on you, Doctor,” said Cicero, wrapping his toga about him.  “I think you ought to order up three baskets of champagne on that.”

“I’ll order up three baskets full of Boswell’s remains if he ever dares speak like that again!” retorted the Doctor, shaking with anger.  “He—­my ladder—­why, it’s ridiculous.”

“Yes,” said Shakespeare, dryly.  “That’s why we laugh.”

“You were a little hard on him, Doctor,” said Henry VIII.  “He was a valuable man to you.  He had a great eye for your greatness.”

“Yes.  If there’s any feature of Boswell that’s greater than his nose and ears, it’s his great I,” said the Doctor.

“You’d rather have him change his I to a U, I presume,” said Napoleon, quietly.

The Doctor waved his hand impatiently.  “Let’s drop him,” he said.  “Dropping one’s biographer isn’t without precedent.  As soon as any man ever got to know Napoleon well enough to write him up he sent him to the front, where he could get a little lead in his system.”