He carried the same nicety of detail into his domestic life.

He managed his own household expenses, and at a time when bountiful stores were the fashion in every household he insisted on a rigid observance of the more precise French system.

He made an appropriation of a certain sum each day for his expenses, and required from his purveyor a strict daily account of disbursements.

An amusing story is told of him at his own table.

On an occasion when entertaining a company at dinner, he was dissatisfied with the menu and expressed his disapprobation to his maitre d'hotel, a Frenchman, who replied to him in broken English, that it was not his fault, but that of the "mal-appropriations." The example set by Mr.Gallatin in this particular was never forgotten, and from his day to this strict accountability has been the tradition of the Treasury Department, now greatly increased in detail, but in structure essentially as it was originally organized.