Foote's Last Joke


WHEN Foote was on his way to France, for change of air, he went into the

kitchen at the inn at Dover, to order a particular dish for dinner. The

true English cook boasted that she had never set foot out of her

country. On this, the invalid gravely observed, Why, cookey, that's

very extraordinary, as they tell me up stairs that you have been several

times all over grease!--They may tell you what they please above or

below stairs, replied the cook, but I was never ten miles from Dover

in my life!--Nay, now, that must be a fib, says Foote, for I have

myself seen you at Spithead! The next day (October 21, 1777) the

exhausted wit shuffled off this mortal coil.



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