present.

I was boarding at the White House at the time, and as President LINCOLN
assured me it would be rather interesting, I was persuaded to attend.
"The fact is, the crisis reminds me," said he, of a little story of a
horse-trot in Arkansas--"

"Sir," interrupted I, "it reminds me of a dozen stories, one of AEsop's
fables, and two hundred lives of CHAUCER."

He was afraid to continue.

As the clock struck twelve, he called the meeting to order and remarked:
"Gentlemen, ANDERSON is in Sumter. The question now is,--what will he do
with it?"

South Carolina was out. BUCHANAN had done nothing. Everywhere was
distrust. (That very day they had refused, on Pennsylvania avenue, to
trust me for a spring overcoat.) STANTON was getting his dark lantern
ready for nightly interviews with SUMNER and WENDELL PHILLIPS in a
vacant lot upon the outskirts of the Capitol. Universal gloom prevailed.

SEWARD opened the discussion. He said it was contemplated to throw four
thousand men into Fort Sumter. We couldn't do it. If we did, it would
only be one of the first throes of a civil conflict, a war long and
bloody, which he would venture to predict might be protracted even to
the extent of ninety days. Were we prepared for that? He would like to
hear from that pure patriot, the Secretary of War, on this point.

Amid murmurs of applause, Gen. CAMERON rose to say that he was wholly