Next morning the policeman was on the lookout. “I beg your pardon, General,” he said, “but I must arrest you. Your dog is not muzzled.”
“Not muzzled?” shouted Butler. “Not muzzled? Well, look at him.”
The policeman looked more carefully at the dog and found a tiny, toy muzzle tied to its tail.
“General,” he expostulated, “this dog is not properly muzzled.”
“Yes, he is, sir,” asserted Butler. “Yes, he is. I have examined that idiotic statute and I find it says that every dog must wear a muzzle. It doesn’t say where the dog shall wear the muzzle, and I choose to decorate the tail of my dog instead of the head with this infernal contraption.”
A LINCOLN STORY
“One day,” said General Howard, “Mr. Lincoln saw Senator Fessenden coming toward his office room. Mr. Fessenden had received the promise of some appointment in Maine for one of his constituents. The case had been overlooked. As soon as Mr. Lincoln caught sight of the Senator he saw he was angry, and called out: ‘Say, Fessenden, aren’t you an Episcopalian?’ Mr. Fessenden, somewhat taken aback, answered, ‘Yes, I belong to that persuasion, Mr. President.’ Mr. Lincoln then said, ‘I thought so. You swear so much like Seward. Seward is an Episcopalian. But, you ought to hear Stanton swear. He can beat you both. He is a Presbyterian.’”
ANOTHER LINCOLN STORY
Some one once called on President Lincoln during the war to suggest some change of command for General B——, who did not seem to do well as a commander anywhere. “Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that’s so. General B—— doesn’t fit in well anywhere. He reminds me of an experience I once had with a piece of iron I found while at work in the woods. I thought it would make a good axe-head, and took it to a blacksmith. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘it’ll make a good axe.’ So he put it into the fire, made it red-hot and pounded away on it on his anvil. After hammering it a good while, he stopped and said, ‘No, it won’t make an axe, but I tell you, it’ll make a mighty good clevis.’ So I told him to make a clevis out of it. Then he heated it again, and again pounded away at it a great while, and then stopped and looked at it and said, ‘No, it won’t make a clevis neither. But,’ said he, holding it red-hot in his pincers over his tub of water, ‘I’ll tell you what it will make. It will make a blame’ good fizzle.’ And here he dropped it into the tub—and it fizzled.”