salary that he represented some Society
for the Easy and Speedy Repression of Rebellions.

The caller talked fluently, but at no time did he give advice or suggest
a way to put down the Confederacy. He was full of humor, told a clever
story or two, and was entirely self-possessed.

At length the President inquired, "You are a clergyman, are you not,
sir?"

"Not by a jug full," returned the stranger heartily.

Grasping him by the hand Lincoln shook it until the visitor squirmed.
"You must lunch with us. I am glad to see you. I was afraid you were a
preacher."

"I went to the Chicago Convention," the caller said, "as a friend of Mr.
Seward. I have watched you narrowly ever since your inauguration, and
I called merely to pay my respects. What I want to say is this: I think
you are doing everything for the good of the country that is in
the power of man to do. You are on the right track. As one of your
constituents I now say to you, do in future as you d---- please, and I
will support you!"

This was spoken with tremendous effect.

"Why," said Mr. Lincoln in great astonishment, "I took you to be a
preacher. I thought you had come here to tell me how to take Richmond,"
and he again grasped the hand of his strange visitor.

Accurate and penetrating as Mr. Lincoln's judgment was concerning men,
for once he had been wholly mistaken. The scene was comical in the
extreme. The two men stood gazing at each other. A smile broke from the
lips of the solemn wag and rippled over the wide expanse of his homely
face like sunlight overspreading a continent, and Mr. Lincoln was
convulsed with laughter.

He stayed to lunch.

FORGOT EVERYTHING HE KNEW.

President Lincoln, while entertaining a few friends, is said to have
related the following anecdote of a man who knew too much:

During the administration of President Jackson there was a singular
young gentleman employed in the Public Postoffice in Washington.

His name was G.; he was from Tennessee, the son of a widow, a neighbor
of the President, on which account the old hero had a kind feeling for
him, and always got him out of difficulties with some of the higher
officials, to whom his singular interference was distasteful.

Among other things, it is said of him that while employed in the General
Postoffice, on one occasion he had to copy a letter to Major H., a
high official, in answer to an application made by an old gentleman in
Virginia or Pennsylvania, for th