"REV. J. T. HOBSON, DEAR SIR:—Your letter of August 26th, was duly received, and contents noted. I wish to state to you that William Duff Armstrong was duly and jointly indicted with James H. Norris in the Circuit Court of Mason County, Illinois, for the murder of Metzker, October 3, 1857. Hugh Fullerton, of Mason County, was State's attorney and prosecutor, and is long since deceased. Norris was unable to employ an attorney, not having the necessary means. According to the laws of Illinois, in such case the circuit judge appoints an attorney at law to defend him, and the attorney is obliged to defend the prisoner without compensation. Accordingly the court appointed William Walker, my law partner, to defend Norris, which he did. Norris was tried before a jury of twelve men in Mason County, and said jury, on the 5th of November, convicted him of manslaughter, and fixed the time he should serve in the penitentiary as eight years, and the judge sentenced him to serve that time in the penitentiary at hard labor, which he did, less time gained by good behavior. "William Duff Armstrong was granted a change of venue, November 5, 1857, to Cass County, Illinois, and was tried the next spring. William Walker and myself were employed by Hannah Armstrong and Duff to defend him in Cass County, Illinois. I cannot state for certain whether 'Aunt Hannah' first sought the advice and help of Lincoln, or whether Lincoln first volunteered his services, but my recollection is that she first sought his aid. I understood after the trial of Duff that Mr. Lincoln told her he would make no charge for his services, because, he told her, she had spent more time, while he boarded with her, in darning his stockings and mending his clothes, than he had in defending her son in the trial, and as she never charged him anything, he would not charge her for his services. "You know that 'Old Abe,' as he was called, was a humorous kind of a man. At one time when I was in Beardstown, at a term of court, looking after the Armstrong case, Lincoln was also there, and the judge, who had to come down on a steamboat from Pekin on the Illinois River, was long delayed. Lincoln and myself were at the same hotel in Beardstown, waiting for the judge, when Lincoln became very uneasy, and walked backward and forward, slowly, at the door of the hotel, when finally he spelled out—'t-e-j-u-s, t-e-j-u-s,' pronouncing the word as spelled twice.