“The President’s table is well enough,” he used to say, to the loafers who gathered about him at Willard’s, “well enough for a man on a salary, but God bless my soul, I should like him to see a little old-fashioned hospitality—­open house, you know.  A person seeing me at home might think I paid no attention to what was in the house, just let things flow in and out.  He’d be mistaken.  What I look to is quality, sir.  The President has variety enough, but the quality!  Vegetables of course you can’t expect here.  I’m very particular about mine.  Take celery, now —­there’s only one spot in this country where celery will grow.  But I an surprised about the wines.  I should think they were manufactured in the New York Custom House.  I must send the President some from my cellar.  I was really mortified the other day at dinner to see Blacque Bey leave his standing in the glasses.”

When the Colonel first came to Washington he had thoughts of taking the mission to Constantinople, in order to be on the spot to look after the dissemination, of his Eye Water, but as that invention; was not yet quite ready, the project shrank a little in the presence of vaster schemes.  Besides he felt that he could do the country more good by remaining at home.  He was one of the Southerners who were constantly quoted as heartily “accepting the situation.”

“I’m whipped,” he used to say with a jolly laugh, “the government was too many for me; I’m cleaned out, done for, except my plantation and private mansion.  We played for a big thing, and lost it, and I don’t whine, for one.  I go for putting the old flag on all the vacant lots.  I said to the President, says I, ’Grant, why don’t you take Santo Domingo, annex the whole thing, and settle the bill afterwards.  That’s my way.  I’d, take the job to manage Congress.  The South would come into it.  You’ve got to conciliate the South, consolidate the two debts, pay ’em off in greenbacks, and go ahead.  That’s my notion.  Boutwell’s got the right notion about the value of paper, but he lacks courage.  I should like to run the treasury department about six months.  I’d make things plenty, and business look up.’”

The Colonel had access to the departments.  He knew all the senators and representatives, and especially, the lobby.  He was consequently a great favorite in Newspaper Row, and was often lounging in the offices there, dropping bits of private, official information, which were immediately, caught up and telegraphed all over the country.  But it need to surprise even the Colonel when he read it, it was embellished to that degree that he hardly recognized it, and the hint was not lost on him.  He began to exaggerate his heretofore simple conversation to suit the newspaper demand.

People used to wonder in the winters of 187- and 187-, where the “Specials” got that remarkable information with which they every morning surprised the country, revealing the most secret intentions of the President and his cabinet, the private thoughts of political leaders, the hidden meaning of every movement.  This information was furnished by Col.  Sellers.