“I well remember,” said McAllister, “the enormous form of old Isaac Brown, sexton of Grace Church, rushing around and encouraging the workmen.”

In the course of the evening the Prince danced with Miss Fish, Miss Mason, Miss Fannie Butler, and others, and was conceded to have danced well.  The supper was served at a horseshoe table.  At one end of the room was a raised dais, where the royal party supped.  At each stage door a prominent citizen stood guard; the moment the supper room was full, no one else was admitted.  “I remember,” confesses Mr. McAllister, “on my attempting to get in through one of these doors, stealthily, the vigilant eye of John Jacob Astor met mine.  He bid me wait my turn.”

Despite the assiduity with which McAllister danced after the figure of the Prince, he was not among those presented.  That honour he sought the next day, on the trip to West Point: 

“As General Scott was presenting Colonel Delafield’s guests to the Prince I approached the General, asking him to present me to his Royal Highness.  A giant, as he was in height, he bent down his head to me, and asked sharply, ‘What name, sir?’ I gave him my name, but at the sound of ‘Mc,’ not thinking it distinguished enough, he quietly said, ’Pass on, sir,’ and I subsequently was presented by the Duke of Newcastle.”

Forty-three years after that clamorous greeting of New York to the young Prince of Wales the present writer was to witness in Paris the visit of Edward VII. for the purpose of cementing the Entente Cordiale.  The tired face told the story of the hardest-worked public servant in the world.  In 1860, on Fifth Avenue, he had already begun to pay the price of the royal privilege of his exalted birth to bear the arduous burden of royal responsibility.

There are extant many old wood-cuts showing the Prince at the Academy of Music ball.  But the following morning, that brought repose to so many, brought none to him.  There were visits to be paid to Brady’s photographic studios at the corner of Tenth Street and Broadway, to Barnum’s Museum, to General Scott at his Twelfth Street residence, and the Broadway store of Ball, Black & Company.

That night a great torchlight parade in honour of the Prince was given by the New York firemen.  The Prince, with his suite and a number of city officials, stood on the hotel balcony, while five thousand men in uniform, with apparatus and many bands, marched by.  Fireworks were set off, the brilliant beams of the calcium light—­then a novelty—­were thrown upon the standing, boyish figure of the Prince, thousands of flaring torches danced and waved against the darkness of the opposite square.

The next day, Sunday, October 14th, brought some rest.  In the morning there were services at Trinity, where Dr. Vinton preached; then a quiet afternoon at the hotel.  With Monday came the Prince’s departure.  At half-past nine he left the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and in company with the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of St. Albans, and Mayor Wood, was driven down to the harbour where the “Harriet Lane” was waiting to take him to West Point and Albany.