"Hello, Nelson! do you think, after all, the whole world is going to follow that darned comet [Footnote: Donati's comet.] off?"
The words were Nelson's own in reply to the supposed Reuben's question in the stage-coach twelve years before!
No joke of a memory, that--for a joke!
A GOOD LISTENER.
The invidious who would themselves get a word in, accused Lincoln of monopolizing the conversation where he wished to reign supreme. This is contradicted in several instances. Rather his confraternity describe their meetings as "swapping stories," the flow circulating.
Mr. Bowen pictures Lincoln as getting up half-dressed, after a speech at Hartford, in his hotel bedroom at Mr. Trumbull, of Stonington, rapping at the door. Trumbull had just thought of "another story I want to tell you!" And the tired guest sat up till three in the morning "exchanging stories." This does not resemble monopoly.
A clerk, Littlefield, in the Lincoln-Herndon office, prepared a speech, and said to his senior employer:
"It is important that I get this speech correct, because I think you are going to be the presidential candidate. I told him I would like to read it to him. He consented, sitting down in one corner of the room, with his feet on a chair in front of him.
"'Now,' said he, in his hearty way, 'fire away, John! I think I can stand it.' As I proceeded, he became quite enthusiastic, exclaiming: 'You are hitting the nail on the head.' He broke out several times in this way, finally saying: 'That is going to go.'"
It did go, as the fellow clerk, Ellsworth, of Chicago Zouaves fame, borrowed it, and it disappeared--wads for his revolver, perhaps.