"Clergymen from Chicago?"
"Yes, sir."
"I didn't know they ever used such things in Chicago!"
He caught his knee in his big hands, leaned back and laughed heartily. The doorman looked straight ahead and managed to keep his solemn countenance under control.
"All right, let them in, Edward."
The reverend gentlemen solemnly filed into the executive office. They looked around in evident amazement at its bare poverty-stricken appearance. They had been shocked at the threadbare appearance of the White House grounds as they entered. This room was a greater shock—this throbbing nerve centre of the Nation. In the middle stood the long, plain table around which the storm-racked Cabinet were wont to gather. There was not a single piece of ornamental or superfluous furniture visible. It appeared almost bare. A second-hand upright desk stood by the middle window. In the northwest corner of the room there were racks with map rollers, and folios of maps on the floor and leaning against the wall.
The well-dressed, prosperous-looking gentlemen gazed about in a critical way.
Their spokesman was a distinguished Bishop who knew that he was distinguished and conveyed the information in every movement of his august body.
"We have come, Mr. President," he solemnly began, "as God's messengers to urge on you the immediate and universal emancipation of every slave in America."
The faintest suggestion of a smile played about the corners of the big, firm mouth as he rose and began a reply which greatly astonished his visitors. They had come to lecture him and before they knew it the lamb had risen to slay the butchers.