QUOTE : After Jefferson was done, they reconvened in the House chamber on the ground floor of Congress Hall for the presidential inauguration of John Adams.49 As Adams recalled it, George Washington seemed cheerful—even relieved: “Methinks I heard him think ‘Ay, I am fairly out and you fairly in! See which of us will be happiest.’ ”50 Jefferson thought Washington a lucky man. “The President is fortunate to get off just as the bubble is bursting, leaving others to hold the bag,” he wrote Madison.51 Privately, Jefferson repeated his claims of satisfaction at the results of the election. “The second office of this government is honorable and easy,” Jefferson said.52 “The first is but a splendid misery.