he age of miracles has passed! Take it over to old
Neptune's office. He's a sad man at times and I like him. This ought to
cheer him."

The next one was a man of unusually interesting face. A typical Yankee
farmer with whiskers spilling over his collar from his neck and
bristling up against his clean shaven chin. He handed the President a
model of a new musket. He examined it with care and fixed the man with
his gaze:

"Well, sir?"

"Hit's the rekyle, sir," he explained softly. "Hit's the way she's hung
on the stock."

"Oh----"

"Ye see, sir," he went on earnestly, "a gun ought not to rekyle, and ef
hit rekyles at all, hit ought to rekyle a leetle forred----"

"Right you are!" the President roared with laughter. "Your logic's sound
whether your gun kicks or not. I say so, too. A gun ought _not_ to
rekyle at all, and if it does rekyle, by jinks, it ought to rekyle and
hit the other fellow, not us!"

The tall figure dropped into the chair by his desk and laughed again.

"Come in again, Brother 'Rekyle' and we'll talk it over when I've got
more time."

The stocky, heavy set figure of the Secretary of War suddenly pushed
through the crowd and up to the desk. Stanton's manner had always been
rude to the point of brusqueness and insult. The tremendous power he was
now wielding in the most important Department of the Government had not
softened his temper or improved his manners. The President had learned
to appreciate his matchless industry and sterling honesty and overlooked
his faults as an indulgent father those of a passionate and willful
child.

Stanton's eyes were flashing through his gold rimmed glasses the wrath
he found difficult to express.

The President looked up with a friendly smile:

"Well, Mars, what's the trouble now?"

Stanton shook his leonine locks and beard in fury at the use of the
facetious word. He loathed levity of any kind and the one kind he could
not endure was the quip that came his way.

He regarded himself seriously every day, every hour, every minute in
every hour. He was the incarnate soul of Mars on earth. He knew and felt
it. He raged at the President's use of the term because he had a
sneaking idea that he was being laughed at--and that by a man who was
his inferior and yet to whom he was rendering indispensable service.

An angry retort rose to his lips, but he suppressed the impulse. It was
a waste of breath. The President was a fool--he would only laugh again
as he h