Would it interest you to know how these intimes amuse themselves? Life is so simple in Washington, and there are so few distractions outside of society, that we only have our social pleasures to take the place of theaters and public entertainments. It is unlike Paris and other capitals in this respect.
We have organized a club which we call "The National Rational International Dining Club," to which belong Mrs. Bigelow Lawrence, her sister Miss Chapman, Mr. de Schlözer, Carl Schurz, Aristarchi Bey (the Turkish Minister), Count Dönhoff (Secretary to the German Legation), and ourselves. So when we are free, and not invited elsewhere, we dine together at one another's houses. I am the president, Mrs. Lawrence the vice-president, Schurz the treasurer, Schlözer the sergeant-at-arms, and Johan has the most difficult—and (as Mr. Schurz calls it) the "onerous"—duty of recognizing and calling attention to the jokes, which in his conscientious attempts to seize he often loses entirely.
The "rational" part is the menu. We are allowed a soup, one roast, one vegetable and dessert, and two wines, one of which, according to the regulations, must be good. We do not even need so much, for there is more laughing than eating. A stuffed goose from the Smithsonian Institution serves as a milieu de table, and is sent, on the day of the dinner, to the person who gives it.
We always have music. Schurz and Schlözer play the piano alternately, and I do the singing. I must say that a more appreciative audience than our co-diners cannot be imagined.
We have laws and by-laws written on large foolscap paper, bearing a huge seal which looks very official. Mr. Schurz carries it in his inside pocket, and sometimes at large dinners he pulls it out and begins reading it with the greatest attention, and every one at the table believes that there is something very important going on in politics. But we, the initiated, know that the document is the law of the N.R.I. Dining Club. Then, when all eyes are fastened on him, he puts the paper deliberately back in his pocket, with a sly wink at the members.
Mr. Schurz is now Secretary of the Interior, and a great personage. When one thinks that he hardly knew a word of our language when he came to this country (a young man of twenty), and that now he is one of our first orators, one cannot help but admire him. Because he has entirely identified himself with the politics of our country he has risen to the high position which he now holds. You said, when you heard him deliver that oration at Harvard College, that you were astonished that any foreigner could have such complete command of the language. He is integrity itself, with a great mind free from all guile, and is filled with the enthusiasm and vivacity of youth. During the revolutionary movement in Germany in 1848 he helped a political friend escape from the Schandau prison, and on account of that was himself condemned to death. However, he managed to evade pursuit and took refuge in America, where he has lived ever since.
Le Chevalier, as we call Senator Bayard, because he is so entirely sans reproche, sent his photograph to Mrs. T. and wrote on the back of it, "Avec les regards de T. Bayard." She showed it to her friends with the scathing remark, "People should not write French if they don't understand the language." Others, who understood the language, thought it very clever.
Schlözer has let it be known in the Foreign Office in Berlin that a secretary who has money to spend is more desirable in America than one who has not. He thinks that it is more advantageous for a young man to travel through the country and learn things than to sit copying despatches in the chancellerie in Washington.
In this respect Count Dönhoff, his new secretary, ought to satisfy him, for never was a person so determined to see everything, know everybody, and do all that is doing. He begged Mr. Schurz to give him permission to accompany General Adam, who, because he knew the Indians and their little ways and how to deal with them, was sent out to Montana to rescue the family of one of the commissioners who had been captured.
These two gentlemen (Adam and Dönhoff) went to the place where the women and children were concealed, and remained there a week, trying to induce the Indians to give them up. They were finally successful, but it was known afterward that the Indians during the time they were there were holding council every night to decide whether or not they would hang the two "pale-faces" to the first tree in the morning.