A social being Jefferson certainly was. He liked company, and his former residence in France had cultivated his taste for the good things of the table, including light wines and olives. He once said that he considered olives the most precious gift of heaven to man, and he had them on his table whenever he could get them. He was also fond of figs and mulberries, and his household records bristle with purchases of crabs, pineapples, oysters, venison, partridges, and oranges--a pretty fair list for a man devoted to plain living. One of his hobbies as a host at very small and confidential dinners was to insure to his guests the utmost privacy, so he devised a scheme for dispensing as far as practicable with the presence of servants and avoiding the needless opening and closing of doors. Beside every chair was placed a small “dumb-waiter” containing all the desirable accessories, like fresh plates and knives and forks and finger-bowls; while in a partition wall was hung a bank of circular shelves, so pivoted as to reverse itself at the pressure of a spring, the fresh viands entering the dining-room as the emptied platters swung around into the pantry. The company at table rarely exceeded four when this machinery was called into play. At big state dinners the usual array of servants did the waiting. The first great reception in Jefferson’s administration occurred on the fourth of July next following his inauguration. For some reason, possibly because the novelty of his sweeping invitation prevented its being generally understood by the populace, only about one hundred persons presented themselves. A luncheon was served, in the midst of which the Marine Band entered, playing the “President’s March,” or, as we call it, “Hail Columbia.” The company fell in behind and joined in a grand promenade, with many evolutions, through the rooms and corridors of the ground floor, returning at last to the place whence they had started and resuming their feast of good things. As he was a widower when he succeeded Adams at the head of the Government, and it was not feasible, most of the time, for either of his daughters to preside over his public hospitalities, Jefferson naturally turned for aid to Mrs. James Madison, wife of his Secretary of State. He despised empty precedent; and when, at a diplomatic dinner, he led the way to the dining-room with Mrs. Madison instead of offering his arm to Mrs. Merry, wife of the British Minister and dean of the corps, he defied all the old-world canons. Mrs. Merry withdrew in high dudgeon, and her husband made the incident the subject of a communication to the Foreign Office in London.