dinner, the president's only apology was,
'Gentlemen (or sir) we are too punctual for you. I have a cook who never
asks whether the company has come, but whether the hour has come.' The
company usually assembled in the drawing-room, about fifteen or twenty
minutes before dinner, and the president spoke to every guest personally
on entering the room."

Maclay attended several of the dinners, and has left descriptions of them.
"Dined this day with the President," he writes. "It was a great dinner--
all in the tastes of high life. I considered it as a part of my duty as a
Senator to submit to it, and am glad it is over. The President is a cold,
formal man; but I must declare that he treated me with great attention. I
was the first person with whom he drank a glass of wine. I was often
spoken to by him." Again he says,--

"At dinner, after my second plate had been taken away, the President
offered to help me to part of a dish which stood before him. Was ever
anything so unlucky? I had just before declined being helped to anything
more, with some expression that denoted my having made up my dinner. Had,
of course, for the sake of consistency, to thank him negatively, but when
the dessert came, and he was distributing a pudding, he gave me a look of
interrogation, and I returned the thanks positive. He soon after asked me
to drink a glass of wine with him." On another occasion he "went to the
President's to dinner.... The President and Mrs. Washington sat opposite
each other in the middle of the table; the two secretaries, one at
each end. It was a great dinner, and the best of the kind I ever
was at. The room, however, was disagreeably warm. First the soup; fish
roasted and boiled; meats, sammon, fowls, etc.... The middle of the table
was garnished in the usual tasty way, with small images, flowers,
(artificial), etc. The dessert was, apple pies, pudding, etc.; then iced
creams, jellies, etc.; then water-melons, musk-melons, apples, peaches,
nuts. It was the most solemn dinner I ever was at. Not a health drank;
scarce a word was said until the cloth was taken away. Then the President
filling a glass of wine, with great formality drank to the health of every
individual by name round the table. Everybody imitated him, charged
glasses, and such a buzz of 'health, sir,' and 'health, madam,' and 'thank
you, sir,' and 'thank you, madam,' never had I heard before.... The ladies
sat a good while, and the bottles passed about; but