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Show How the President and His Cabinet Spend Their Evenings I called on Postmaster-General Key the other evening and found him engaged in a hot game of cards with - himself. He is probably one of the most inveterate solitaire players in the country. Well, didn't Napoleon play solitaire? Key says he likes the game, first, because he likes to play with a sensible man, and second, because he likes a skillful man for an opponent. After leaving the judge I met in the Ebbitt house rotunda a cabinet sharp (that is, one who knows all about cabinet officers), and I asked him how the several gentlemen pass their evenings. "Well," said he, "you have already seen how Key passes a weary hour. You will find him that way every evening, unless he is out spending the evening. He never misses an invitation to dinner, and he is very sociable. He will go and play seven-up with anybody who is respectable, and he will drink his share of the whisky and smoke his share of cigars. A very good old fellow is Key!" "How do the other cabinet roosters spend their time?" "Oh, well, Scharz? Generally reads, and, when his eyes trouble him from overwork, he goes to the piano, shuts his eyes, and improvises. He is the only man in the cabinet who knows anything of music. His style is sometimes weird and mournful and sometimes it is the gayest. He and Henry Watterson will sit together and sing and play a whole evening. The piano is Schurz's diversion, as horses were Grants. "How about Sherman? How does he spend his evenings?" "Well, Sherman is a great newspaper reader, and just now he is making himself amiable with the southern politicians. He frequently finds them at his house of evenings. Sherman is more of a social man than you would think, He is full of anecdote, and his reminiscences are very entertaining. He is cold only in official life. At home he is really very pleasant. He is also fond of a good dinner and a glass of wine. The Shermans all are. The Secretary very often gets his shorthand writer at his house and spends the whoe evening writing letters. His correspondence is very large." "How about Uncle Dick Thompson? Does he work evenings?" "No. He is very domestic, and passionately fond of young people, and he has always a troop of children about him. He has always a houseful of company, and he likes to romp with the little ones. Besides, the Secretary of the Navy has reached the age when he likes to go to bed early. He is an early riser too, and then he pitches into his official work. There is not a man in the cabinet who devotes more hours to his office than he. He doesn't trust everything to subordinates, and you will never find his table piled a foot thick with papers of an important character, as Robeson's used to be. "How about Attorney-General Devens?" "Well, he is another hard worker. He studies a good deal at night. He is not particular so he gets to bed at twelve, one or two o'clock at night. He is a jollier fellow than he generally gets credit for. He likes whist and Boston and he is fond of theater [unreadable line] him, and he can tell a good story. He likes, withal, the study of literature, and is, in this regard, a man of ??? and correct tastes. He is not a man of strong character, for, like many Boston men, he cares too much for appearances. But he is honest, and is a conscientious officer." "Is Secretary McCrary a great student?" "I am afraid McCrary is a little fat and lazy. He is a great lover of the law, and likes to read cases. He is a slow, heavy man, who does not like to go out of evenings, but he is good-natured, and always treats people politely although reservedly. He is better fitted for a judge than for jumping political fences. In the War Department he is little more than a clerk, but, in the cabinet, when a big law question comes up, I had rather have his opinion than all the rest put together. He is old common sense. But he is not Secretary of War. General Sherman runs the War Department, and in this respect the military power is above the civil. Belknap is the only man who ever brought Sherman to terms. Belknap made Sherman a subordinate and drove him to St. Louis." "Well, how does Evarts spend his evenings?" "Oh, Evarts is so rarely here that I can hardly tell. You had better ask some New York client of his. Evarts is, however, fond of company, and he is the best story-teller in the cabinet. He is also a big eater, although he is one of the thinnest men I ever saw. I really don't know how he passes his evenings. The chances are that if he has company he will talk to them as long as they will stay. He gives fine dinner parties, and has the best house for entertaining in Washington. He does not by any means disgrace the standard established by Mr. Fish in thi respect." "How does the President pass his evenings?" "Now, look here," said my friend, "you are going too far, and are guying me." I assured him I was not. "You must surely know, then," said he, "that the President is the jolliest man in the world in his home circle. He is in the private rooms in the White House every evening, where Mrs. Hayes receives all who call. He says pleasant things to everybody, and makes himself very agreeable. When it rains, or when from other causes nobody calls during the evening, he plays ‘pussy wants a corner' with the young ladies, for there are always young ladies visiting at the White House." "Now, honestly, does the President play ‘pussy wants a corner?" "Upon my word he does, for I have seen him do it, and he seemed to enjoy it." - Philadelphia Times |
