ompanion. I may never
see you again, and I don't want to offend you, but I want to say this:
My experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has d----d few
virtues. Good-day."

LINCOLN'S DUES.

Miss Todd (afterwards Mrs. Lincoln) had a keen sense of the ridiculous,
and wrote several articles in the Springfield (Ill.) "Journal"
reflecting severely upon General James Shields (who won fame in the
Mexican and Civil Wars, and was United States Senator from three
states), then Auditor of State.

Lincoln assumed the authorship, and was challenged by Shields to meet
him on the "field of honor." Meanwhile Miss Todd increased Shields' ire
by writing another letter to the paper, in which she said: "I hear the
way of these fire-eaters is to give the challenged party the choice of
weapons, which being the case, I'll tell you in confidence that I never
fight with anything but broom-sticks, or hot water, or a shovelful of
coals, the former of which, being somewhat like a shillalah, may not be
objectionable to him."

Lincoln accepted the challenge, and selected broadswords as the weapons.
Judge Herndon (Lincoln's law partner) gives the closing of this affair
as follows:

"The laws of Illinois prohibited dueling, and Lincoln demanded that
the meeting should be outside the state. Shields undoubtedly knew that
Lincoln was opposed to fighting a duel--that his moral sense would
revolt at the thought, and that he would not be likely to break the
law by fighting in the state. Possibly he thought Lincoln would make a
humble apology. Shields was brave, but foolish, and would not listen to
overtures for explanation. It was arranged that the meeting should be
in Missouri, opposite Alton. They proceeded to the place selected, but
friends interfered, and there was no duel. There is little doubt that
the man who had swung a beetle and driven iron wedges into gnarled
hickory logs could have cleft the skull of his antagonist, but he had
no such intention. He repeatedly said to the friends of Shields that in
writing the first article he had no thought of anything personal. The
Auditor's vanity had been sorely wounded by the second letter, in regard
to which Lincoln could not make any explanation except that he had had
no hand in writing it. The affair set all Springfield to laughing at
Shields."

"DONE WITH THE BIBLE."

Lincoln never told a better story than this:

A country meeting-house, that was used once a month, was