To a deputation who urged that his Cabinet should be reconstructed after the retirement of Secretary Cameron, the President told this story: "Gentlemen, when I was a young man I used to know very well one Joe Wilson, who built himself a log cabin not far from where I lived. Joe was very fond of eggs and chickens, and he took a very great deal of pains in fitting up a poultry shed. Having at length got together a choice lot of young fowls,--of which he was very proud,--he began to be much annoyed by the depredations of those little black-and-white-spotted animals which it is not necessary to name. One night Joe was awakened by an unusual cackling and fluttering among his chickens. Getting up, he crept out to see what was going on. It was a bright moonlight night, and he soon caught sight of half a dozen of the little pests, which, with their dam, were running in and out of the shadow of the shed. Very wrathy, Joe put a double charge into his old musket and thought he would 'clean Out' the whole tribe at one shot. Somehow he only killed one, and the balance scampered off across the field. In telling the story Joe would always pause here and hold his nose. 'Why didn't you follow them up and kill the rest?' inquired his neighbors. 'Blast it,' said Joe, 'it was eleven weeks before I got over killin' one. If you want any more skirmishing in that line you can do it yourselves!'" On one occasion some of Lincoln's friends were talking of the diminutive stature of Stephen A. Douglas, and an argument as to the proper length of a man's legs. During the discussion Lincoln came in, and it was agreed that the question should be referred to him for decision. "Well," said he, reflectively, "I should think a man's legs ought to be long enough to reach from his body to the ground." A day or two before his inauguration a delegation of merchants and bankers who had been sent to the Peace Congress called upon Lincoln to remonstrate against the use of force to restrain the South, and to plead for a conciliatory policy towards the slave-holders. Mr. William E. Dodge declared that the whole world was anxiously awaiting the inaugural address, and added, "It is for you, sir, to say whether the nation shall be plunged into bankruptcy, and whether the grass shall grow in the streets of our commercial cities." "Then I say it shall not," Lincoln answered coolly, with a twinkle in his eye. "If it depends upon me, the grass will not grow anywhere except in the fields and meadows." "Then you must yield to the just demands of the South," declared Mr. Dodge." You must leave her to control her own institutions. You will admit slave States into the Union on the same conditions as free States. You will not go to war on account of slavery."