The Judge and his Coachman.
One day, when Mr. Bates was remonstrating with Mr. Lincoln against the appointment of some indifferent lawyer to a place of judicial importance, the President interposed with, “Come, now, Bates, he’s not half so bad as you think. Besides that, I must tell you, he did me a good turn long ago. When I took to the law, I was going to court one morning, with some ten or twelve miles of bad made road before me, and I had no horse. The judge overtook me in his waggon. ‘Hello, Lincoln, are you not going to the court-house? Come in, and I’ll give you a seat.’ Well, I got in, and the judge went on reading his papers. Presently the waggon struck a stump on one side of the road; then it hopped off to the other. I looked out, and I saw the driver was jerking from side to side in his seat, so, says I, ‘Judge, I think your coachman has been taking a little drop too much this morning.’ ‘Well, I declare, Lincoln,’ said he, ‘I should not much wonder if you were right, for he has nearly upset me half-a-dozen times since starting.’ So, putting his head out of the window, he shouted, ‘Why, you infernal scoundrel, you are drunk!’ Upon which, pulling up his horses, and turning round with great gravity, the coachman said—‘By gorra! that’s the first rightful decision you have given for the last twelvemonth.’”
Concerning the President Personally.
Some one was smoking in the presence of the President, and complimented him on having no vices, neither drinking nor smoking.
“That is a doubtful compliment,” answered the President, “I recollect once being outside a stage in Illinois, and a man sitting by me offered me a segar. I told him I had no vices. He said nothing, smoked for some time, and then grunted out, ‘It’s my experience that folks who have no vices have plagued few virtues.’”
The President’s Vanity.
Old Abe is rather vain of his height, but one day a young man called on him who was certainly three inches taller than the former; he was like the mathematical definition of the straight line—length without breadth. “Really,” said old Abe, “I must look up to you; if you ever get in a deep place you ought to be able to wade out.” That reminds us of the story told of Lincoln, when called from an hotel. He at once obeyed the command of the assembled Yankees, with his wife (somewhat below medium height), and made the following quizzical remarks: “Here I am, and here is Mrs. Lincoln. That’s the long and short of it.”
Tremendous answer.
“How old is that tree, Abe?” said a friend of the now President, when the latter was engaged in the occupation of rail-splitting. “Well, I am not sure; but I am just about to axe him.”