Abe had often heard of Smoot and Smoot had often
heard of Abe. They had been as anxious to meet as ever two celebrities
were, but hitherto they had never been able to manage it. 'Smoot,' said
Lincoln, after a steady survey of his person, 'I am very much
disappointed in you; I expected to see an old Probst of a fellow.'
(Probst, it appears, was the most hideous specimen of humanity in all
that country). 'Yes,' replied Smoot, 'and I am equally disappointed, for
I expected to see a good-looking man when I saw you.' A few neat
compliments like the foregoing laid the foundation of a lasting intimacy
between the two men, and in his present distress Lincoln knew no one who
would be more likely than Smoot to respond favorably to an application
for money." After he was elected to the Legislature, says Mr. Smoot, "he
came to my house one day in company with Hugh Armstrong. Says he,
'Smoot, did you vote for me?' I told him I did. 'Well,' says he, 'you
must loan me money to buy suitable clothing, for I want to make a decent
appearance in the Legislature.' I then loaned him two hundred dollars,
which he returned to me according to promise."

Lincoln's old friend W.G. Greene relates that while he was a student at
the Illinois College at Jacksonville he became acquainted with Richard
Yates, then also a student. One summer while Yates was his guest during
the vacation, Greene took him up to Salem and made him acquainted with
Lincoln. They found the latter flat on his back on a cellar door reading
a newspaper. Greene introduced the two, and thus began the acquaintance
between the future War-Governor of Illinois and the future President.

Lincoln was from boyhood an adept at expedients for avoiding any
unpleasant predicament, and one of his modes of getting rid of
troublesome friends, as well as troublesome enemies, was by telling a
story. He began these tactics early in life, and he grew to be
wonderfully adept in them. If a man broached a subject which he did not
wish to discuss, he told a story which changed the direction of the
conversation. If he was called upon to answer a question, he answered it
by telling a story. He had a story for everything; something had
occurred at some place where he used to live that illustrated every
possible phase of every possible subject with which he might have
connection. He acquired the habit of story-telling naturally, as we
learn from the following statement: "At home, with his step-mother and
t