"What do the boys call the General?" he asked.
I told him "Uncle Billy." And, thinking the story of the white socks might amuse him, I told him that. It did amuse him.
"Well, now," he said, "any man that has a nickname like that is all right. That's the best recommendation you can give the General—just say 'Uncle Billy.'" He put one lip over the other. "You've given 'Uncle Billy' a good recommendation, Steve," he said. "Did you ever hear the story of Mr. Wallace's Irish gardener?"
"No, sir."
"Well, when Wallace was hiring his gardener he asked him whom he had been living with.
"'Misther Dalton, sorr.'
"'Have you a recommendation, Terence?'
"'A ricommindation is it, sorr? Sure I have nothing agin Misther Dalton, though he moightn't be knowing just the respict the likes of a first-class garthener is entitled to.'"
He did not laugh. He seldom does, it seems, at his own stories. But I could not help laughing over the "ricommindation" I had given the General. He knew that I was embarrassed, and said kindly:— "Now tell me something about 'Uncle Billy's Bummers.' I hear that they have a most effectual way of tearing up railroads."
I told him of Poe's contrivance of the hook and chain, and how the heaviest rails were easily overturned with it, and how the ties were piled and fired and the rails twisted out of shape. The President listened to every word with intense interest.