e
to my codfish dinner on Thursday next?" We of course accepted and went.
General Burnside and Senator Anthony are great friends and live
together. I never could understand, and never dared to ask, why such a
little state as Rhode Island needed two Senators. However, that is
neither here nor there. The other guests were Mr. Bayard, Mr. Blaine,
Mrs. Blaine, Mrs. Lawrence, General Sherman. According to the rules of
a codfish dinner, every one was provided with the same amount of boiled
codfish, hard-boiled eggs, beets, carrots, and potatoes, and every
English sauce ever made. Every one made his own mixture, which was
passed about and "sampled." The lucky person who got the greatest
number of votes received a beautiful silver bowl. The dining-room was
arranged as if it were a camp. There were no ornaments of any kind, and
we sat on little iron tent-chairs. You may imagine after we had
finished with the codfish that our appetites were on the wane, and we
felt that we had dined sumptuously, if monotonously, when, lo! our
genial host surprised us with an enormous turkey (reared on his own
estate), twenty-seven pounds in weight, with its usual accompaniments
of cranberry sauce, sweet-potatoes, and so forth. Mr. Blaine and Mr.
Bayard were fountains of wit.

Then another entertainment, a sort of _mardi-gras maigre_ feast, was a
champagne tea given for us at the Capitol by Mr. Blaine. He had invited
a great many of the Senators and the Ministers, his wife, and some
other ladies. These mighty people talked politics and had prodigious
appetites. Sandwiches and cake disappeared in a hazy mist, and they
drank oceans of champagne. They took cocktails before, during, and
after! I amused myself--as I can't talk politics, and would not if I
could--by noticing the ingenuity and variety of the spittoons placed
about in convenient spots. The spittoons that tried to be pretty were
the most hideous. I liked best the simplicity of the large, open,
ready-to-receive ones filled with clean, dainty sand. There was no
humbug about them, no trying to be something else; whereas the others,
that pretended to be Etruscan vases or umbrella-stands or flower-pots,
were failures in my eyes. Why are they ashamed of themselves? Why do
they call themselves by the graceful name of "cuspidor"--suggestive of
castanets and Andalusian wiles? Why such foolish masquerading?
Spittoons will be spittoons--they risk not being recognized. I said as
much as this to Mr. B