was saying to her own clients and was being said to her, well, he sent her a shipment in 1780 of barcelona hander chis. they were a women's item, and they happened to the hit right in the middle of a terrible shortage of that particular item when they were at high fashion. she sold them for enough money to buy it, and what could john say? she bought it with her own money. [laughter] in that same year, 1780, john adams had an idea. still in paris he says to abigail, maybe having had some of our shipments seized what i should do is instead of putting them in these big chests and shipping them across the atlantic, i'll dispurse them and ask everybody who goes from france to matts to take a little -- matts to take a little thing for you. that way we're spreading the risk. and he sent the first presents, he called it, with the marquee delafayette. you may know he went home every winter. the army's not fighting, no reason to stick around here. so he went home. when he came back in the spring of 1780, he brought some stuff for abigail to sell. and once again abigail wrote her husband saying, your