"That is true, but I have larger resources."
(The three thousand millions spent on the war vividly contrasts with the Colonies fighting rich England with an empty treasury and barefoot, ragged soldiers.)
STEEL AND STEAL.
President Lincoln asked a friend, a senator, immediately on his taking office, upon an embarrassed condition of affairs:
"Have you seen that prophecy about my administration in the papers? A prophet foretells that my rule will be one of steel! To which the wags retort: 'Well, Buchanan's was one of steal.'"
The Georgian slave-holder, late secretary of the treasury, was accused of "diverting" some millions to the South, as that for the war office similarly "diverted" ordnance and munitions to the same quarter; the head of the navy, with what "looked" like collusion, had scattered the war-vessels so as to be long delayed in concentrating.
"THAT'S WHAT'S THE MATTER."
In a Spiritualist performance at the White House, which seemed to have been "edited" by the President himself--as often royalty revises plays--for his special entertainment, the Cabinet being invited, after a rigmarole of stilted phrases purporting to be by Washington, Franklin, Napoleon, and other past celebrities, Mr. Welles, secretary of the navy, remarked: "I will think this matter over, and see what conclusion to arrive at!" (His set phrase.)
There was a smile at this, as the aged minister's prolonged meditations were the laughing-stock of the country, he being the clog on the wheels of the car of state. Instantly raps were heard in the spirit-cabinet, and, the alphabet being consulted, the result was spelled out as:
"That's what's the matter!"