A witness of the above incident said: “It is doubtful if an English ambassador was ever addressed in this manner before, and it would be interesting to learn what success he met with in putting the reply in diplomatic language, when he reported it to her Majesty.”--From Lincoln’s Stories, by J. B. McClure. HOW LINCOLN ANSWERED A DELICATE QUESTION. At the time when the Union soldiers were hunting for Jeff Davis, some one asked the President: “Mr. Lincoln, suppose they were to find Davis, and, in order to capture him, it was necessary to shoot him. Would you want them to do so?” Mr. Lincoln said: “When I was a boy, a man lecturing on temperance stayed at our house over night. It was a cold, stormy night, and the man was quite chilled when he reached home after the meeting. He said if they would give him a hot lemonade he thought it would prevent his taking cold. Some one suggested that some spirits added would be beneficial. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you might put in some unbeknown to me!’” LINCOLN ILLUSTRATES A CASE HUMOROUSLY. On one occasion, exasperated at the discrepancy between the aggregate of troops forwarded to McClellan and the number the same general reported as having received, Lincoln exclaimed, “Sending men to that army is like shoveling fleas across a barnyard--half of them never get there.” To a politician who had criticized his course he wrote, “Would you have me drop the war where it is, or would you prosecute it in future with elder stalk squirts charged with rosewater?” When, on his first arrival in Washington as President, he found himself besieged by office seekers, while the war was breaking out, he said, “I feel like a man letting lodgings at one end of the house while the other end is on fire.” WHY LINCOLN MISTOOK A DRIVER TO BE AN EPISCOPALIAN. The first corps of the army commanded by General Reynolds was once reviewed by the President on a beautiful plain at the north of Potomac Creek, about eight miles from Hooker’s headquarters. The party rode thither in an ambulance over a rough, corduroy road, and as they passed over some of the more difficult portions of the jolting way the ambulance driver, who sat well in front, occasionally let fly a volley of suppressed oaths at his wild team of six mules. Finally, Mr. Lincoln, leaning forward, touched the man on the shoulder, and said: “Excuse me, my friend, are you an Episcopalian?” The man, greatly startled, looked around and replied: “No, Mr. President; I am a Methodist.” “Well,” said Lincoln, “I thought you must be an Episcopalian, because you swear just like Governor Seward, who is a church warden.” A CLERGYMAN WHO TALKED BUT LITTLE. A clergyman of some prominence was one day presented to Lincoln, who gave the visitor a chair and said, with an air of patient waiting: “I am now ready to hear what you have to say.” “Oh, bless you, sir,” replied the clergyman, “I have nothing special to say. I merely called to pay my respects.”