o remember. It suddenly
came to him that he had read a few days before of Mrs. Abraham
Lincoln's arrival in New York at Doctor Holbrook's sanitarium. Thither
Edward went; and within half an hour from the time he had been talking
with General Grant he was sitting at the bedside of Mrs. Lincoln,
showing her the wonderful photograph just presented to him. Edward saw
that the widow of the great Lincoln did not mentally respond to his
pleasure in his possession. It was apparent even to the boy that
mental and physical illness had done their work with the frail frame.
But he had the memory, at least, of having got that close to the great
President.

The eventful evening, however, was not yet over. Edward had boarded a
Broadway stage to take him to his Brooklyn home when, glancing at the
newspaper of a man sitting next to him, he saw the headline: "Jefferson
Davis arrives in New York." He read enough to see that the Confederate
President was stopping at the Metropolitan Hotel, in lower Broadway,
and as he looked out of the stage-window the sign "Metropolitan Hotel"
stared him in the face. In a moment he was out of the stage; he wrote
a little note, asked the clerk to send it to Mr. Davis, and within five
minutes was talking to the Confederate President and telling of his
remarkable evening.

Mr. Davis was keenly interested in the coincidence and in the boy
before him. He asked about the famous collection, and promised to
secure for Edward a letter written by each member of the Confederate
Cabinet. This he subsequently did. Edward remained with Mr. Davis
until ten o'clock, and that evening brought about an interchange of
letters between the Brooklyn boy and Mr. Davis at Beauvoir,
Mississippi, that lasted until the latter passed away.

Edward was fast absorbing a tremendous quantity of biographical
information about the most famous men and women of his time, and he was
compiling a collection of autograph letters that the newspapers had
made famous throughout the country. He was ruminating over his
possessions one day, and wondering to what practical use he could put
his collection; for while it was proving educative to a wonderful
degree, it was, after all, a hobby, and a hobby means expense. His
autograph quest cost him stationery, postage, car-fare--all outgo. But
it had brought him no income, save a rich mental revenue. And the boy
and his family needed money. He did not know, then, the value of a
backgroun