Yesterday in the afternoon Mr. Lovelace made me a visit at my lodgings.
As I was in expectation of one from Colonel Morden about the same time,
I thought proper to carry him to a tavern which neither of us frequented,
(on pretence of a half-appointment;) ordering notice to be sent me
thither, if the Colonel came; and Mr. Lovelace sent to Mowbray, and
Tourville, and Mr. Doleman of Uxbridge, (who came to town to take leave
of him,) to let them know where to find us.
Mr. Lovelace is too well recovered, I was going to say. I never saw him
more gay, lively, and handsome. We had a good deal of bluster about some
parts of the trust I had engaged in; and upon freedoms I had treated him
with; in which, he would have it, that I had exceeded our agreed-upon
limits; but on the arrival of our three old companions, and a nephew of
Mr. Doleman's, (who had a good while been desirous to pass an hour with
Mr. Lovelace,) it blew off for the present.
Mr. Mowbray and Mr. Tourville had also taken some exceptions at the
freedoms of my pen; and Mr. Lovelace, after his way, took upon him to
reconcile us; and did it at the expense of all three; and with such an
infinite run of humour and raillery, that we had nothing to do but to
laugh at what he said, and at one another. I can deal tolerably with
him at my pen; but in conversation he has no equal. In short, it was his
day. He was glad, he said, to find himself alive; and his two friends,
clapping and rubbing their hands twenty times in an hour, declared, that
now, once more, he was all himself--the charming'st fellow in the world;
and they would follow him to the farthest part of the globe.