Profusion and elegance were displayed in the arrangements, with none of that long-drawn foolishness of courses so dear to Whigs and Federals and other imitators of an English nobility. Black servants came and went to shift one's plate and knife, or to aid in carving at the call of a guest. At hopeful intervals along the tables reposed huge sirloins and smoking rounds of beef; there were quail pies and chickens fried and turkeys roasted; there stood pies of venison and rabbit and pot-pies of squirrels; soups and fishes and vegetables; boiled hams and giant dishes of earthenware holding baked pork and beans; roast suckling pigs and each with a crab-apple in its mouth. There were corn breads and flour breads and pancakes rolled with jellies; sideboards upheld puddings--Indian, rice and plum--quaking custards, and scores of kindred dainties. Everywhere bristled ranks and double ranks of bottles and decanters, and a widest range of drinks, from whisky to wine of the cape, were at one's call. There, too, stood wooden bowls of salads on side tables, supported of weighty cheeses; and to close in the flanks were pies, mince and pumpkin and apple, with final coffee, and slim long pipes with tobacco of Trinidad for folk who would smoke. Before we were seated, and while we stood to our places, the sentiment was proposed: “The memory of Thomas Jefferson.” The toast was drunk in silence; all could agree on Jefferson; and then with clatter of knife and fork, the thirsty clink of glasses, and the murmurous hum of conversation over all, the work of the night commenced. As the moments roved on, Nullification and Secession became so much the open objects of many present, and were withal so loosely in the common air, that sundry gentlemen--more timorous than loyal, perhaps--made excuses and withdrew. The General's presence was a plain surprise to more than one; they could not construe it. For himself, he carried it off as though his being there were the most expected of possible things. The General sat on the right hand of the presiding Lee. I was, myself, to the General's right hand. Opposite was Calhoun with that Calhoun triangle of the cabinet, Berrien, Branch and Ingham. The quartet got on most beamingly. The General, as we came up, rendered them a sweeping bow which they might share among them. “Calhoun,” whispered the General, indicating the Vice-President with a nod, “is, you see, openly claiming his half of my cabinet. I'll startle him some day by making him a present of the three.” An hour passed on; the banquet reached that glass-and-bottle stage which Noah anticipated. There were a round score of regular toasts; each would smell of secession, while the speeches were even more malodorous of that villainy.