clined to “sit after dinner,” whether the wine was good or bad; and, while willing to work, also bent on having his full share of the enjoyments of this world. “Just before rising,” Adams wrote in his Diary one day, “I heard Mr. Clay's company retiring from his chamber. I had left him with Mr. Russell, Mr. Bentzon, and Mr. Todd, at cards. They parted as I was about to rise.” John Quincy Adams played cards, too, but it was that solemn whist, which he sometimes went through with the conscientious sense of performing a diplomatic duty. No wonder the prim New Englander and the lordly Kentuckian, one the representative of eastern, the other of western, ways of thinking, when they had struck points of disagreement, would drift into discussions much more animated than was desirable for the task they had in common. Russell, a man of ordinary ability, was much under the influence of Clay, while Bayard, although not disposed to quarrel with anybody, showed not seldom a disposition to stick to his opinion, when it differed from those of his colleagues, with polite but stubborn firmness. “Each of us,” wrote Mr. Adams, “takes a separate and distinct view of the subject-matter, and each naturally thinks his own view of it the most important.” A commission so constituted would hardly have been fit to accomplish a task of extraordinary delicacy, had it not been for the conspicuous ability, the exquisite tact, the constant good-nature, the “playfulness of temper,” as Mr. Adams expressed it,
