s best. At all events, in attempting to whisper to Lincoln he
trumpeted his rebuke in about these words, and in rasping tones that
could be heard all over the court-room: 'Lincoln, I have been watching
you and Lamon. You are impoverishing this bar by your picayune charges
of fees, and the lawyers have reason to complain of you. You are now
almost as poor as Lazarus, and if you don't make people pay you more for
your services you will die as poor as Job's turkey!'

"Judge O. L. Davis, the leading lawyer in that part of the State,
promptly applauded this malediction from the bench; but Lincoln was
immovable.

"'That money,' said he, 'comes out of the pocket of a poor, demented
girl, and I would rather starve than swindle her in this manner.'"

DON'T AIM TOO HIGH.

"Billy, don't shoot too high--aim lower, and the common people will
understand you," Lincoln once said to a brother lawyer.

"They are the ones you want to reach--at least, they are the ones you
ought to reach.

"The educated and refined people will understand you, anyway. If you aim
too high, your idea will go over the heads of the masses, and only hit
those who need no hitting."

NOT MUCH AT RAIL-SPLITTING.

One who afterward became one of Lincoln's most devoted friends and
adherents tells this story regarding the manner in which Lincoln
received him when they met for the first time:

"After a comical survey of my fashionable toggery,--my swallow-tail
coat, white neck-cloth, and ruffled shirt (an astonishing outfit for a
young limb of the law in that settlement), Lincoln said:

"'Going to try your hand at the law, are you? I should know at a glance
that you were a Virginian; but I don't think you would succeed at
splitting rails. That was my occupation at your age, and I don't think I
have taken as much pleasure in anything else from that day to this.'"

GAVE THE SOLDIER THE PREFERENCE.

July 27th, 1863, Lincoln wrote the Postmaster-General:

"Yesterday little indorsements of mine went to you in two cases of
postmasterships, sought for widows whose husbands have fallen in the
battles of this war.

"These cases, occurring on the same day, brought me to reflect more
attentively than what I had before done as to what is fairly due from
us here in dispensing of patronage toward the men who, by fighting our
battles, bear the chief burden of saving our country.

"My conclusion is that, other claims and qualifications being equal,