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.