HOW MANY SHORT BREATHS?
In the nearest town to the Lincolns lived a man called "Captain" Larkins. He was short and fat, and consequently "puffing." He was logically fond of "blowing." For example, if he bought any object, he would proclaim that it was the best article of its sort in the settlement. His favorite orating-ground--in fact, the only theater for displays was the front of the village store, where, among the farmers who came in to dicker and purchase stores, he would dilate. Lincoln did not like the pompous little fellow whose rotund and diminutive figure was in glaring contrast to his own--a young man, but colossal, while his stature was augmented by his meagerness.
"Gentlemen," bawled Larkins, "I have the best horse in the county! I ran him three miles in two-forty each and he never fetched a long breath!"
"H'm!" interrupted Lincoln, looking down at the man panting with excitement; "why don't you tell us how many short breaths you drew?"
LINCOLN'S HEIGHT.
One of the committee appointed to acquaint Mr. Lincoln formally with the decision of the Chicago Presidential Convention of 1860 was Judge Kelly, a man of unusual stature. At the meeting with the nominee he eyed the latter with admiration and the jealousy the exceptional cherish for rivals. This had not escaped the curious Lincoln; he asked him, as he singled him out: "What is your height?"
"Six feet three. What is yours?"
"Six feet four." [Footnote: This will probably never be exactly settled now. Speaker Reed agreed with this statement. But Miss Emma Gurley Adams, in a position to know, published in the New York Press: "Mr. Lincoln told my father that he was exactly six feet three inches." This was at the end of his life. The contrariety of the assertions simply baffles one.]
"Then, sir, Pennsylvania bows to Illinois," responded the judge. "My dear sir, for years my heart has been aching for a President I could look up to, and I have found him at last in the land where we thought there were none but little giants."
(Stephen Douglas, leader of the Democratic party, was a pocket Daniel Webster and bearing the by-name of "the Little Giant.")