It was a habit of Adams to take a plunge in the Potomac, at the foot of his garden, every morning “between daybreak and sunrise,” the weather permitting. Once he had all his clothing stolen, and had to catch a passing boy and send him home for enough raiment to cover him. But this was by no means his most embarrassing adventure. It was during his administration that the first woman newspaper correspondent turned up in Washington. She was resolved to procure an interview with the President, who did not care to gratify her. So she rose early one morning and repaired, notebook and pencil in hand, to the river bank, and planted herself beside his clothes till he started to come out. Standing almost neck-deep in the water, he tried first severity and then persuasion to induce her to go away, but she held her ground till he surrendered and answered her most important questions. [Illustration: _Tudor House, Georgetown_] The billiard table was not the only basis for charges of prodigal living brought against Adams. When he ran for reëlection, his enemies made effective use of a letter written by a member of Congress who had attended a New Year’s reception at the White House and who mentioned the “gorgeously furnished east room.” The truth was that the east room, except for three marble-topped tables and a few mirrors, did not contain fifty dollars’ worth of furniture of any sort. A Washingtonian of the period has written that there were no chandeliers, and that the great room depended for its lighting on candles held in tin candlesticks nailed to the wall, which “dripped their sperm upon the clothes of those who came under them, as I well know from experience.” Adams sometimes aroused personal hostility by his peppery temper. He had to dine with him one evening a Southern Senator who was notorious for his dislike of everything in New England but prided himself on his knowledge of wines. The Senator had the bad manners to remark that he had “never known a Unitarian who did not believe in the sea-serpent.” This aroused the ire of Adams, who later, when his guest said that Tokay and Rhine wine were somewhat alike, turned upon him with the exclamation: “Sir, I do not believe that you ever drank a drop of Tokay in your life!” He afterward apologized, but the Senator would not accept the apology and became the implacable foe of his administration.