The State Dining Room is furnished in green. The heavy curtains with bright borders and lambrequins are themselves pretty enough to excuse their shutting off the river view. The table will seat forty persons as it is, but when arranged in the form of a cross, fifty-four. Only three state dinners are ordinarily given during a season, but nine were interspersed through the last. A sideboard contains wine glasses of every shape, size and description. Some one laughingly explained his by saying: “You know when the little friends of the President’s daughter come to see her, he likes for them to have a real good time, and these are for their dolls’ tables.”
Apropos of the wine question, a colored employe, seeing a visitor taking a copious draught of ice-water just within the vestibule, and return from his explorations through the East Room soon after, complaining of being sick, exclaimed in a triumphant voice: “Boss, I tole you dat stuff wuz only fit to wash clothes in.” Turning to me he added, “Dat’s so, missus, ’cept to cool your head when you got a ra’al bad headache, and can’t git no cabbage leaves to wrap ’round it.”
It is said to be quite a general impression that the expense of state dinners is borne by the government. This is not true, and President Arthur keeps his own horses, coachman, and cook.
The table is ornamented by a center-piece for flowers, the bottom of which represents a miniature lake, and mirrors the floral beauties above and around it. The President’s chair is on one side, at the middle. In speaking of this I am reminded of a young American girl, who, like myself, was upon a certain occasion being shown through one of the numerous abodes of a crowned head. Entering the _salon_ in which foreign ambassadors were received, we perceived that the throne chair stood upon a sort of dais which was entirely covered with superb crimson velvet. This adventurous little spirit inadvertently let fall a profane footstep upon the sacred fabric, when she was immediately reprimanded in an awful voice and solemnly admonished to keep a respectful distance. Proceeding further in this princely residence, we reached the dining room. The king’s chair, like our President’s, stood in the middle, and unlike it was of entirely different and of more elaborate workmanship than the others. Whilst the extremely loyal and obsequious attendant was looking in another direction, young America silently and swiftly drew out the chair from its place and seated herself with a comical assumption of dignity that was very amusing, a perilous position, which even she was not audacious enough to maintain more than a few seconds.