Part One Chapter 5 The Pell-Mell and Some Consequences

It was late in the afternoon when the secretary to the President looked up from the crowded desk. "Mr. Jefferson," ventured he, "you will pardon me----"

"Yes, my son?"

"It grows late. You know that today the British minister, Mr. Merry, comes to meet the President for the first time formally--at dinner. Señor Yrujo also--and their ladies, of course. Mr. Burr and Mr. Merry seem already acquainted. I met them riding this morning."

"Hand and glove, then, so soon? What do you make of it? I have a guess that those three--Burr, Merry, Yrujo--mean this administration no special good. And yet it was I myself who kept our Spanish friend from getting his passports back to Madrid. I did that only because of his marriage to the daughter of my friend, Governor McKean, of Pennsylvania. But what were you saying now?"

"I thought perhaps I should go to my rooms to change for dinner. You see that I am still in riding-clothes."

"And what of that, my son? I am in something worse!"

The young man stood and looked at his chief for a moment. He realized the scarce dignified figure that the President presented in his long coat, his soiled waistcoat, his stained trousers, and his woolen stockings--not to mention the unspeakable slippers, down at the heel, into which he had thrust his feet that morning when he came into the office.

"You think I will not do?" Mr. Jefferson smiled at him frankly. "I am not so free from wisdom, perhaps, after all. Let this British minister see us as we are, for men and women, and not dummies for finery. Moreover, I remember well enough how we cooled our heels there in London, Mr. Madison and myself. They showed us little courtesy enough. Well, they shall have no complaint here. We will treat them as well as we do the others, as well as the electors who sent us here!"