m we
like best. I wish you knew him! I do not know anything more delightful
than to see him and Carl Schurz together. They are not unlike in
character; they are both witty, refined, always seeing the beautiful in
everything, almost boyish in their enthusiasm, and clever, _cela va
sans dire_, to their finger-tips. They bring each other out, and they
both appear at their best, which is saying a great deal. We consider
that we are fortunate to number them among our _intimes_.

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 Schloezer, Carl Schurz, Aristarchi Bey (the
Turkish Minister), Count Doenhoff (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, Schloezer 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 Schloezer 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.