across the way, but when I went away a few weeks ago there was only
a one-story house there and now there is a two-story house in its place.
I think I must be lost."

The neighbors then explained that Mrs. Lincoln had added another story
during his absence. And Mr. Lincoln laughed and went to his remodeled
house.

MENACE TO THE GOVERNMENT.

The persistence of office-seekers nearly drove President Lincoln wild.
They slipped in through the half-opened doors of the Executive Mansion;
they dogged his steps if he walked; they edged their way through the
crowds and thrust their papers in his hands when he rode; and, taking it
all in all, they well-nigh worried him to death.

He once said that if the Government passed through the Rebellion without
dismemberment there was the strongest danger of its falling a prey to
the rapacity of the office-seeking class.

"This human struggle and scramble for office, for a way to live without
work, will finally test the strength of our institutions," were the
words he used.

TROOPS COULDN'T FLY OVER IT.

On April 20th a delegation from Baltimore appeared at the White House
and begged the President that troops for Washington be sent around and
not through Baltimore.

President Lincoln replied, laughingly: "If I grant this concession, you
will be back tomorrow asking that no troops be marched 'around' it."

The President was right. That afternoon, and again on Sunday and Monday,
committees sought him, protesting that Maryland soil should not be
"polluted" by the feet of soldiers marching against the South.

The President had but one reply: "We must have troops, and as they can
neither crawl under Maryland nor fly over it, they must come across it."

PAT WAS "FORNINST THE GOVERNMENT."

The Governor-General of Canada, with some of his principal officers,
visited President Lincoln in the summer of 1864.

They had been very troublesome in harboring blockade runners, and they
were said to have carried on a large trade from their ports with the
Confederates. Lincoln treated his guests with great courtesy.

After a pleasant interview, the Governor, alluding to the coming
Presidential election said, jokingly, but with a grain of sarcasm: "I
understand Mr. President, that everybody votes in this country. If we
remain until November, can we vote?"

"You remind me," replied the President, "of a countryman of yours, a
green emigrant from Ireland. Pat arrived on electi