CHAPTER III: WASHINGTON GIVES A DINNER


It was Washington's Birthday, and the gentleman who had the pleasure of
being Father of his Country decided to celebrate it at the Associated
Shades' floating palace on the Styx, as the Elysium _Weekly Gossip_, "a
Journal of Society," called it, by giving a dinner to a select number of
friends. Among the invited guests were Baron Munchausen, Doctor Johnson,
Confucius, Napoleon Bonaparte, Diogenes, and Ptolemy. Boswell was also
present, but not as a guest. He had a table off to one side all to
himself, and upon it there were no china plates, silver spoons, knives,
forks, and dishes of fruit, but pads, pens, and ink in great quantity. It
was evident that Boswell's reportorial duties did not end with his labors
in the mundane sphere.

The dinner was set down to begin at seven o'clock, so that the guests, as
was proper, sauntered slowly in between that hour and eight. The menu
was particularly choice, the shades of countless canvas-back ducks,
terrapin, and sheep having been called into requisition, and cooked by no
less a person than Brillat-Savarin, in the hottest oven he could find in
the famous cooking establishment superintended by the government.
Washington was on hand early, sampling the olives and the celery and the
wines, and giving to Charon final instructions as to the manner in which
he wished things served.

The first guest to arrive was Confucius, and after him came Diogenes, the
latter in great excitement over having discovered a comparatively honest