ge, cleared it, and landed in
a quagmire on the other side up to his horse's girths; whereupon
Washington rode up, stopped, and looking blandly at his struggling
friend, remarked, "Ah, colonel, you are too deep for me." "Take care,"
he wrote to young Custis, when he sent him money for his college gown,
"not to buy without advice; otherwise you may be more distinguished by
your folly than your dress."

We find in his letters here and there a good-natured raillery, and
jesting, which show a sense of humor that goes beyond the limits of
mere fun and horse-play. Here is a letter he wrote toward the close of
the war, asking some ladies to dine with him in his quarters at West
Point:--

"WEST POINT, August 16, 1779.

"Dear Doctor: I have asked Mrs. Cochran and Mrs. Livingston to
dine with me to-morrow; but ought I not to apprise you of their
fare? As I hate deception, even where imagination is concerned, I
will.

"It is needless to premise that my table is large enough to hold
the ladies: of this they had ocular demonstration yesterday. To
say how it is usually covered is rather more essential, and this
shall be the purport of my letter.

"Since my arrival at this happy spot, we have had a ham, sometimes
a shoulder of bacon, to grace the head of the table. A piece
of roast beef adorns the foot, and a small dish of green
beans--almost imperceptible--decorates the centre. When the cook
has a mind to cut a figure,--and this I presume he will attempt
to-morrow,--we have two beefsteak pies, or dishes of crabs, in
addition, one on each side of the centre dish, dividing the space,
and reducing the distance between dish and dish to about six feet,
which without them would be nearly twelve feet apart. Of late he
has had the surprising luck to discover that apples will make
pies; and it is a question if, amidst the violence of his efforts,
we do not get one of apples instead of having both of beef.

"If the ladies can put up with such entertainment, and submit to
partake of it on plates once tin, but now iron, not become so by
the labor of hard scouring, I shall be happy to see them."

We may be sure that the ladies found their dinner a pleasant one, and
that the writer of the note was neither a stiff nor unsocial host. A
much more charming letter is one to Nellie Custis, on the occasion of
her first ball. It is too long for quotati