The domestic accommodations at the White House were already so limited that, when the Prince of Wales visited it in 1860, the President had to give up his bedchamber to his guest and sleep on a cot in the anteroom of his office. As I recall the Prince he was not [Illustration: _Old City Hall_] inordinately tall, but for some reason--possibly because the legs of royalty were supposed to need more space than those of common folk--the old bedstead in the President’s room was replaced by one of extra length. Society in Washington was agog over the Prince’s advent, and the reigning belles insisted that his entertainment must include a ball at least as brilliant as that given in his honor in New York; but Mr. Buchanan, whose ideas on certain subjects were rigid, would not listen to the suggestion of dancing in the White House, and the ball was turned over to the British legation. Miss Harriet Lane, the President’s niece, who managed his household affairs, gave instead a large musicale, at which was performed for the first time the once favorite song, “The Mocking Bird,” its composer having dedicated it to her. Trained as attorney, diplomatist, and politician, to regard the letter of the law rather than its spirit, Buchanan found himself in an unhappy situation when the preliminary mutterings of sectional warfare grew loud. In January, 1861, he was urged by some of the Cabinet to recall Major Robert Anderson from Charleston Harbor as a rebuke for having removed the Fort Moultrie garrison to the stronger Fort Sumter without orders from Washington, and he was holding the matter under advisement when Justice McLean of the Supreme Court came to dine with him one evening. After the ladies had left the table, the Justice drew the President aside and inquired what was going to be done about the Major. “Anderson has exceeded his instructions,” answered Buchanan, “and must be disciplined.” McLean raised his hand and fairly shook it in the President’s face as he ejaculated: “You dare not do it, sir! You dare not do it!” This unique defiance of the executive by the judiciary had an immediate effect: Major Anderson was left undisturbed, to become within a few weeks the first hero of the Civil War.