ed
feathers still remained unsmoothed, and then stood by them for an
instant, intending to take his departure.

There was one remaining chair. It was at the side of Theodosia Alston.
She herself looked up at him eagerly, and patted it with her hand. He
seated himself at her side.

Thus at last was filled the pell-mell table of Mr. Thomas Jefferson.
To this day no man knows whether all present had been invited, or
whether all invited had opportunity to be present.

There were those--his enemies, men of the opposing political party,
for the most part--who spoke ill of Mr. Jefferson, and charged that he
showed hypocrisy in his pretense of democratic simplicity in official
life. Yet others, even among his friends, criticised him severely for
the affair of this afternoon--July 4, in the year of 1803. They said
that his manners were inconsistent with the dignity of the highest
official of this republic.

If any of this comment injured or offended Mr. Jefferson, he never
gave a sign. He was born a gentleman as much as any, and was as fully
acquainted with good social usage as any man of his day. His life had
been spent in the best surroundings of his own country, and at the
most polished courts of the Old World. To accuse him of ignorance or
boorishness would have been absurd.

The fact was that his own resourceful brain had formed a definite
plan. He wished to convey a certain rebuke--and with deadly accuracy
he did convey that rebuke. It was at no enduring cost to his own fame.

If the pell-mell dinner was at first a thing inchoate, awkward,
impossible, criticism halted when the actual service at table began.
The chef at the White House had been brought to this country by Mr.
Jefferson from Paris, and no better was known on this side the water.

So devoted was Mr. Jefferson known to be to the French style of
cooking that no less a man than Patrick Henry, on the stump, had
accused him of having "deserted the victuals of his country." His
table was set and served with as much elegance as any at any foreign
court. At the door of the city of Washington, even in the summer
season, there was the best market of the world. As submitted by his
_chef de cuisine_, Mr. Jefferson's menu was of no pell-mell sort. If
we may credit it as handed down, it ran thus, in the old French of
that day:

Huitres de Shinnecock, Saulce Tempete
Olives du Luc
Othon Marine a l'Huile Vierge
Amandes et Cerneaux Sales
Po