he could not dress himself without leaving about his clothing some mark of his carelessness. The Judge good-humoredly accepted the wager. A supper was to be given to him upon these conditions. If his dress was found faultless upon that occasion, the other parties were to pay for the entertainment; but if any carelessness could be detected about his dress or in his appearance, the expense was to fall upon him. Upon the appointed evening the gentlemen and the Judge met at the place agreed upon, and to the surprise of all, the Judge's dress seemed faultless. He appeared the very perfection of neatness and taste. The supper followed, the Judge being in high glee over his victory. Near the close of the repast, however, one of the guests, who sat next to Judge Marshall, chanced to drop his napkin, and stooping down to pick it up, discovered that the Judge had put on one of his stockings with the wrong side out. Of course the condition of affairs was immediately reversed, and, amid roars of laughter, the Chief Justice acknowledged his defeat.
The means of locomotion in the Southern States being limited in the days of Judge Marshall, it was his custom to travel about the country, when holding his circuit courts, in an old-fashioned and very much dilapidated gig. His plain and even rusty appearance often led him into ludicrous adventures, which he related to his friends with keen enjoyment. At other times people to whom he was personally unknown were astonished to find that this shabbily-dressed old man was the famous Chief-Justice Marshall. One of his adventures is thus related by an eye-witness:
"It is not long since a gentleman was traveling in one of the counties of Virginia, and about the close of the day stopped at a public-house to obtain refreshment and spend the night. He had been there but a short time when an old man alighted from his gig, with the apparent intention of becoming his fellow-guest at the same house. As the old man drove up, he observed that both the shafts of his gig were broken, and that they were held together by withes formed from the bark of a hickory sapling.