If it be possible to imagine anything worse in its way than this scene, it was Jackson’s farewell entertainment, given on the twenty-second of February, 1837. The chief feature was the cutting of a mammoth cheese which had been sent to the President by admirers in a northern dairy district. It weighed fourteen hundred pounds, and nothing would satisfy Jackson but to give a piece to every man, woman, and child who would come for it. As a result, the paths leading to the White House, and the portico itself, were thronged that afternoon with people going in to get their chunks and coming out with greasy parcels in their hands. “We forced our way over the threshold,” wrote one of the adventurous souls, “and encountered an atmosphere to which the mephitic gas over Avernus must be faint and innocuous. On the side of the hall hung a rough likeness of General Jackson, emblazoned with eagle and stars, and in the center of the vestibule stood the fragrant gift, surrounded by a dense crowd who had in two hours cut and purveyed away more than a half-ton of horribly smelling ‘Testimonial to the Hero of New Orleans.’ A small segment had been reserved for the President’s use, but it is doubtful if he ever tasted it.” The cutting was done by two able-bodied laborers, armed with big knives extemporized from hand-saws. In the White House, Jackson lived a good deal apart. He was always glad to see any one who came on a friendly errand, and loved to frolic with children; but one of his chief pleasures was sitting by himself in the big south room of the second story and smoking. An aged friend who, as a boy, visited the White House with his father while Jackson was there, told me that the President bade them draw up with him by the fireside, offered a clean clay pipe to the elder of the visitors, and, lighting his own well-seasoned corn-cob, puffed the smoke up the chimney, explaining that Emily Donelson--the wife of his secretary, who kept house for him--disliked the smell of tobacco.