We walked around these precincts several times, while Miss Corke told me interesting stories that reminded me of Collier's 'English Literature' at school, and asked me if by any chance I had ever heard of Boswell. I loved to find myself knowing something occasionally, just to annoy Peter, and when I said certainly, he was the man to whom Dr. Johnson owed his reputation, it had quite the usual effect.
'We shall now go to Bolt Court,' said my friend, 'where Samuel spent the last of his days, surrounded by a lot of old ladies that I don't see how he ever put up with, and from which he was carried to Westminster Abbey in 1784. Hadn't you better put that down?'
Now Peter Corke would never have permitted me to call Dr. Johnson 'Samuel.'
I looked round Johnson's Court with lingering affection, and hung back. 'There is something about this place,' I said, 'some occult attraction, that makes me hate to leave it. I believe, Peter, that the Past, under your influence, is beginning to affect me properly. I dislike the thought of remaining for any length of time out of reach, as it were, of the memory of Dr. Johnson.'
Peter looked at me suspiciously. 'He lived at Bolt Court as well,' she said.
'Nowhere between here and there?' I asked. 'No friend's house, for instance, where he often spent the night? Where did that lady live who used to give him nineteen cups of tea at a sitting? Couldn't we pause and refresh ourselves by looking at her portals on the way?'
'Transatlantic impertinence,' cried Miss Corke, leading the way out, 'is more than I can bear!'
'But,' I said, still hanging back, 'about how far------?'
When my dear friend gave vent to the little squeal with which she received this, I knew that her feelings were worked up to a point where it was dangerous to tamper with them, so I submitted to Bolt Court, walking with humility all the way. When we finally arrived I could see no intrinsic difference between this court and the others, except that rather more--recently--current literature had blown up from an adjacent news-stall. For a person who changed his residence so often, Dr. Johnson's domestic tastes must have undergone singularly little alteration.
'He went from here to Westminster Abbey, I think you said,' I remarked, respectfully, to Peter.