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 assured him.
“Good Heavens!” said the minister from Great Britain, as he passed 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 pass, stepped the minister from Great Britain and the minister from Spain, their ladies with them—none offering escort.
Well disposed to smile at his chief’s audacious overturning of all social usage, yet not unadvised of the seriousness of all this, Meriwether Lewis handed the distinguished guests to their seats as best he might; and then left them as best he might.
At that time there were not six vacant places remaining at the long table. No one seemed to know how many had been invited to the banquet, or how many were expected—no one in the company seemed to know anyone else. It was indeed a pell-mell affair.