Last Wednesday, I read the list of fat cats who had stayed overnight at the White House since 1992. How much had they paid to stay there? I was prepared to be shocked. Then I saw my wife's name. And mine. Yes. Will there be a Senate investigation of the people who stayed there? How will I explain my sleepover to Senator Alfonse D'Amato?

Scene: A Senate hearing room. Yes, we had stayed overnight at the White House -- yes, in the Lincoln Bedroom. Yes, I was a donor. In 1992, I gave $25 to the Clinton campaign. In 1993, my wife, Adele Chatfield-Taylor, and I were invited to a dinner at the White House. No, we didn't know the Clintons. Why was the President trying to get on my good side? I don't know. We were among a hundred who were invited that evening. No sir, no heads of state, no stars, no speeches. Yes, the food was good.

Who else was there? I remember meeting Margaret Truman. Is she an arms dealer? I don't know. She was staying overnight in Lincoln's bedroom and that was the first night she had been back to the White House since she had lived there. Our favorite moment was falling into a walk around the second floor with the President, alone for some reason, and having him point out to us his favorite picture of Abraham Lincoln, with no beard, but with the brains and the weight of the world on his shoulders.

After dinner, the Marine Corps Band played for dancing. Adele, believing that opportunity knocks over and over, told Mr. Clinton that as President of the American Academy in Rome, she had a dream that he would hand out the coveted Rome Prize to the winning painters, composers, writers and scholars from across America on the occasion of the academy's 100th birthday in April 1994. And President Clinton said sure. She slipped no envelope into his pocket.