ne dollar and seventy-five cents per day, ten dollars
per week, or thirty-five dollars per month. Transient guests were
charged fifty cents for breakfast, the same for supper, and seventy-
five cents for dinner. Brandy and whisky were placed on the dinner-
table in decanters, to be drink by the guests without additional
charge therefor. A bottle of real old Madeira imported into
Alexandria was supplied for three dollars; sherry, brandy, and gin
were one dollar and a half per bottle, and Jamaica rum one dollar.
At the bar toddies were made with unadulterated liquor and lump
sugar, and the charge was twelve and a half cents a drink.

On the Fourth of July, the 22d of February, and other holidays,
landlord Brown would concoct foaming egg-nogg in a mammoth punch-
bowl once owned by Washington, and the guests of the house were
all invited to partake. The tavern-desk was behind the bar, with
rows of large bells hanging by circular springs on the wall, each
with a bullet-shaped tongue, which continued to vibrate for some
minutes after being pulled, thus showing to which room it belonged.
The barkeeper prepared the "drinks" called for, saw that the bells
were answered, received and delivered letters and cards, and answered
questions by the score. He was supposed to know everybody in
Washington, where they resided, and at what hour they could be seen.

The city of Washington had then been called by an observing foreigner
"the city of magnificent distances," an appellation which was well
merited. There was a group of small, shabby houses around the Navy
Yard, another cluster on the river bank just above the Arsenal,
which was to have been the business centre of the metropolis, and
Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Capitol to Georgetown, with the
streets immediately adjacent, was lined with tenements--many of
them with shops on the ground floor. The Executive Departments
were located in four brick edifices on the corners of the square,
in the centre of which was the White House. The imposing building
now occupied by the Department of the Interior had not been begun
nor had the General Post-Office replaced a large brick structure
intended for a hotel, but which the pecuniary necessities of the
projector forced him to dispose of in a lottery before it was
completed. The fortunate ticket was held by minors, whose guardian
could neither sell the building nor finish it, and it remained for
many years in a dilapidated condition.