"'I don't know much about this censorship, but come downstairs and I will show you the origin of one of the pet phrases of you newspaper fellows.'
"Leading the way down into the basement, he opened the door of a larder and solemnly pointed to the hanging carcass of a gigantic sheep.
"'There,' said he; 'now you know what "Revenons à nos moutons" means. It was raised by Deacon Buffum at Manchester, up in New Hampshire. Who can say, after looking at it, that New Hampshire's only product is granite?'"
When William Lloyd Garrison came to Washington to thank the President for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, he visited Baltimore expressly for the purpose of inspecting the old jail in which he was confined for several weeks for being an abolitionist, but, much to his disappointment, the police in charge would not admit him. During his interview with the President he complained of this, and Lincoln remarked,—
"You have had hard luck in Baltimore, haven't you, Garrison? The first time you couldn't get out of prison and the second time you couldn't get in."
A woman called at the White House one day to ask the release from prison of a relative whom she declared was suffering from great injustice. She was very handsome and attractive and endeavored to use her attractions upon the President. After listening to her a little while, he concluded, as he afterwards explained, that he was "too soft" to deal with her, and sent her over to the War Department with a sealed envelope containing a card upon which he had written,—
"This woman, dear Stanton, is smarter than she looks to be."
Another woman came to the White House one day on an unusual errand which the President suspected was a pretext, but he took her at her word and gave her the following note to Major Ramsey, of the Quartermaster's Department.
"My Dear Sir:—The lady—bearer of this—says she has two sons who want to work. Set them at it if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.
A. Lincoln."
A member of Congress from Ohio, and a famous man, by the way, once entered the Executive Chamber in a state of intoxication,—just drunk enough to be solemn,—and, as he dropped into a chair, exclaimed in dramatic tones the first line of the President's favorite poem: