t aware that I ever heard the name before," said Doctor Johnson.
"Did you make it yourself?"

"I did," said the late laureate, proudly.

"In what pursuit?" asked Doctor Johnson.

"Poetry," said Tennyson. "I wrote 'Locksley Hall' and 'Come into the
Garden, Maude.'"

"Humph!" said Doctor Johnson. "I never read 'em."

"Well, why should you have read them?" snarled Carlyle. "They were
written after you moved over here, and they were good stuff. You needn't
think because you quit, the whole world put up its shutters and went out
of business. I did a few things myself which I fancy you never heard
of."

"Oh, as for that," retorted Doctor Johnson, with a smile, "I've heard of
you; you are the man who wrote the life of Frederick the Great in nine
hundred and two volumes--"

"Seven!" snapped Carlyle.

"Well, seven then," returned Johnson. "I never saw the work, but I heard
Frederick speaking of it the other day. Bonaparte asked him if he had
read it, and Frederick said no, he hadn't time. Bonaparte cried,
'Haven't time? Why, my dear king, you've got all eternity.' 'I know
it,' replied Frederick, 'but that isn't enough. Read a page or two, my
dear Napoleon, and you'll see why.'"

"Frederick will have his joke," said Shakespeare, with a wink at Tennyson
and a smile for the two philosophers, intended, no doubt, to put them in
a more agreeable frame of mind. "Why, he even asked me the other day why
I never wrote a tragedy about him, completely ignoring the fact that he
came along many years after I had departed. I spoke of that, and he
said, 'Oh, I was only joking.' I apologized. 'I didn't know that,' said
I. 'And why should you?' said he. 'You're English.'"

"A very rude remark," said Johnson. "As if we English were incapable of
seeing a joke!"

"Exactly," put in Carlyle. "It strikes me as the absurdest notion that
the Englishman can't see a joke. To the mind that is accustomed to snap
judgments I have no doubt the Englishman appears to be dull of
apprehension, but the philosophy of the whole matter is apparent to the
mind that takes the trouble to investigate. The Briton weighs everything
carefully before he commits himself, and even though a certain point may
strike him as funny, he isn't going to laugh until he has fully made up
his mind that it is funny. I remember once riding down Piccadilly with
Froude in a hansom cab. Froude had a copy of _Punch_ in his hand, and he
began to laugh immoder