He took a spoonful or two of soup but refused everything else "from the roast beef down to the lobsters." Everyone was concerned, for that was a day of trenchermen, and only serious illness kept people from eating their dinners.

At last the door opened and his own private _chef_,--quaintly described by Verplanck as "his body-cook,"-- rushed into the room pushing the waiters right and left before him, and placed triumphantly upon the table an immense pie of game and truffles, still hot from the oven.
This obviously had been planned as a pleasant surprise for the hosts.
Du Moustier took a small helping himself and divided the rest among the others.

The chronicler adds, "I can attest to the truth of the story and the excellence of the _pate_!" No one doubts the courteous intentions of the Count, but something tells me that that excellent housewife and incomparable hostess, Mistress Adams, was not enchanted by the unexpected addition to her delicious and carefully planned menu! It is Verplanck, by the bye, who has put in a peculiarly succinct way one of the most signal characteristics of New York--its lightning-like evolution.
"In this city especially," he says, "the progress of a few years effect what in Europe is the work of centuries." A shrewd and happily tongued observer, is Mr.Verplanck; we shall have occasion, I believe, to refer to him again.
The Adams' occupancy of Richmond Hill House was, we must be convinced, a very happy one.

It was a house of a flexible and versatile personality, a beautiful home, an important headquarters of many state affairs, a brilliant social nucleus.

Washington and his wife often went there to call in their beloved post-chaise, and there was certainly no dignitary of the time and the place who was not at one time or another a guest there.