"I give you my promise, Mr. Jefferson," said Meriwether Lewis.

CHAPTER V

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.

Senor 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 pa.s.sports 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!"

Meriwether Lewis allowed himself a smile.

"Go," added his chief. "Garb yourself as I would have you--in your best. But there will be no precedence at table this evening--remember that! Let them take seats pell-mell--the devil take the hindmost--a fair field for every one, and favor to none! Seat them as nearly as possible as they should not be seated--and leave the rest to me. All these--indeed, all history and all the records--shall take me precisely as I am!"

An hour later Meriwether Lewis stood before his narrow mirror, well and handsomely clad, as was seeming with one of his family and his place--a tall and superb figure of young manhood, as proper a man as ever stood in buckled shoes in any country of the world.

The guests came presently, folk of many sorts. With Mr. Jefferson as President, the democracy of America had invaded Washington, taking more and more liberties, and it had many representatives on hand. With these came persons of rank of this and other lands, dignitaries, diplomats, officials, ministers of foreign powers. Carriages with outriders came trundling over the partially paved roads of the crude capital city. Footmen opened doors to gentlemen and ladies in full dress, wearing insignia of honor, displaying gems, orders, decorations, jewels, all the brilliant costumes of the European courts.

They came up the path to the door of the mansion where, to their amazement, they were met only by Mr. Jefferson's bowing old darky Ben, who ushered them in, helped them with their wraps and asked them to make themselves at home. And only old Henry, Mr. Jefferson's butler, bowed them in as they pa.s.sed from the simple entrance hall into the anteroom which lay between the hall and the large dining-saloon.

The numbers increased rapidly. What at first was a general gathering became a crowd, then a mob. There was no a.s.signed place for any, no presentation of one stranger to another. Friends could not find friends. Mutterings arose; crowding and jostling was not absent; here and there an angry word might have been heard. The policy of pell-mell was not working itself out in any happy social fashion.

Matters were at their worst when suddenly from his own apartments appeared the tall and well-composed figure of Mr. Jefferson's young secretary, social captain of matters at the Executive Mansion, and personal aide to the President. His quick glance caught sight of the gathering line of carriages; a second glance estimated the plight of those now jammed into the anteroom like so many cattle and evidently in distress.

In a distant corner of the room, crowded into some sort of refuge back of a huge davenport, stood a small group of persons in full official dress--a group evidently ill at ease and no longer in good humor.

Meriwether Lewis made his way thither rapidly as he might.

"It is Mr. Minister Merry," said he, "and Mme. Merry." He bowed deeply. "Senor and Senora Yrujo, I bring you the respects of Mr.

Jefferson. He will be with us presently."

"I had believed, sir--I understood," began Merry explosively, "that we were to meet here the President of the United States. Where, then, is his suite?"

"We have no suite, sir. I represent the President as his aide."

"My word!" murmured the mystified dignitary, turning to his lady, who stood, the picture of mute anger, at his side, the very aigrets on her ginger-colored hair trembling in her anger.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Mistah Thomas Jeffahson!' was his sole announcement"]

They turned once more to the Spanish minister, who, with his American wife, stood at hand. There ensued such shrugs and liftings of eyebrows as left full evidence of a discontent that none of the four attempted to suppress.

Meriwether Lewis saw and noted, but seemed not to note. Mr. Merry suddenly remembered him now as the young man he had encountered that morning, and turned with an attempt at greater civility.

"You will understand, sir, that I came supposing I was to appear in my official capacity. We were invited upon that basis. There was to have been a dinner, was there not--or am I mistaken of the hour? Is it not four in the afternoon?"

"You were quite right, Mr. Minister," said Meriwether Lewis. "You shall, of course, be presented to the President so soon as it shall please his convenience to join us. He has been occupied in many duties, and begs you will excuse him."

The dignity and courtesy of the young man were not without effect.

Silence, at least, was his reward from the perturbed and indignant group of diplomats penned behind the davenport.

Matters stood thus when, at a time when scarce another soul could have been crowded into the anteroom, old Henry flung open the folding doors which he had closed.

"Mistah Thomas Jeffahson!" was his sole announcement.

There appeared in the doorway the tall, slightly stooped figure of the President of the United States, one of the greatest men of his own or of any day. He stood, gravely unconscious of himself, tranquilly looking out upon his gathered guests. He was still clad in the garb which he had worn throughout the day--the same in which he had climbed to the pigeon loft--the same in which he had labored during all these long hours.

His coat was still brown and wrinkled, hanging loosely on his long frame. His trousers were the stained velveteens of the morning; his waistcoat the same faded red; his hose the slack woolen pair that he had worn throughout the day. And upon his feet--horror of horrors!--he wore still his slippers, the same old carpet slippers, down at the heel, which had afforded him ease as he sat at his desk.

As Thomas Jefferson stood, he overtopped the men about him head and shoulders in physical stature, as he did in every other measure of a man.

Innocent or unconscious of his own appearance, his eye seeking for knowledge of his guests, he caught sight of the group behind the davenport. Rapidly making his way thither, he greeted each, offering his hand to be shaken, bowing deeply to the ladies; and so quickly pa.s.sed on, leaving them almost as much mystified as before. Only Yrujo, the Spanish Minister, looked after him with any trace of recognition, for at this moment Meriwether Lewis was away, among other guests.

An instant later the curtained folding doors which separated the anteroom from the dining-saloon were thrown open. Mr. Jefferson pa.s.sed in and took his place at the head of the table, casting not a single look toward any who were to join him there. There was no announcement; there was no _pas_, no precedence, no reserved place for any man, no announcement for any lady or gentleman, no servant to escort any to a place at table!

It had been worse, far worse, this extraordinary scene, had it not been for the swiftness and tact of the young man to whom so much was entrusted. Meriwether Lewis hastened here and there, weeding out those who could not convince him that they were invited to dine. He separated as best he might the socially elect from those not yet socially arrived, until at length he stood, almost the sole barrier against those who still crowded forward.

Here he was met once more by the party from behind the davenport.

"Tell me," demanded Mr. Merry, who--seeing that no other escort offered for her--had given his angry lady his own arm, "tell me, sir, where is the President? To whom shall I present the greetings of his British Majesty?"

"Yonder is the President of the United States, sir," said Meriwether Lewis. "He with whom you shook hands is the President. He stands at the head of his table, and you are welcome if you like. He asks you to enter."

Merry turned to his wife, and from her to the wife of the Spanish minister.

"Impossible!" said he. "I do not understand--it cannot be! That man--that extraordinary man in breeches and slippers yonder--it cannot be he asks us to sit at table with him! He _cannot_ be the President of the United States!"

"None the less he is, Mr. Merry!" the secretary a.s.sured him.

"Good Heavens!" said the minister from Great Britain, as he pa.s.sed on, half dazed.

By this time there remained but few seats, none at all toward the head of the table or about its middle portion. Toward the end of the room, farthest from the official host, a few chairs still stood vacant, because they had not been sought for. Thither, with faltering footsteps, ere even these opportunities should pa.s.s, stepped the minister from Great Britain and the minister from Spain, their ladies with them--none offering escort.