The attendant promptly related that a woman with a babe was without, who had been losing her time three days.
"Go at once, and send her to me," he ordered, expressing regret that she should have been overlooked.
As there were several extenuating points in her plea, or the benign official leaned that way, he wrote his pardon and gave it to the woman, whose still plaintive smile shone through tears of gratitude.
"Take that, my poor woman, and it will bring you back your husband," he said, going so far as to direct her to what authority to apply for the action.
In showing her forth, the old usher, who knew his employer's tender heart where children were concerned, whispered:
"It was the baby that did it!"--(Told by "Old Dan'el," the good-natured Irish usher.)
"IT RESTS ME TO SAVE A LIFE!"
Schuyler Colfax, then Speaker of the House, pleaded with Lincoln for the life of an elector's son, sentenced to be shot. Though he intruded on the arbiter very late after a long spell of official duties, Lincoln accorded the boon.
"Colfax," explained he, "it makes me rested after a hard day's work, if I can find some good excuse for saving a man's life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him, and his family, and his friends."