"'Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my possession which belongs to you.' "'How is that?' I asked, considerably astonished. "The stranger took a jack-knife from his pocket. 'This knife,' said he, 'was placed in my hands some years ago, with the injunction that I was to keep it until I found a man uglier than myself. I have carried it from that time to this. Allow me now to say, sir, that I think you are fairly entitled to the property.'" "FOOLING" THE PEOPLE Lincoln was a strong believer in the virtue of dealing honestly with the people. "If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens," he said to a caller at the White House, "you can never regain their respect and esteem. "It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time." LINCOLN'S NAME FOR "WEEPING WATER" "I was speaking one time to Mr. Lincoln," said Governor Saunders, of Nebraska, "of a little Nebraskan settlement on the Weeping Waters, a stream in our State." "'Weeping Water!'" said he. "Then with a twinkle in his eye, he continued. "'I suppose the Indians out there call it Minneboohoo, don't they? They ought to, if Laughing Water is Minnehaha in their language.'" LINCOLN'S CONFAB WITH A COMMITTEE ON GRANT'S WHISKY Just previous to the fall of Vicksburg, a self-constituted committee, solicitous for the morale of our armies, took it upon themselves to visit the President and urge the removal of General Grant. In some surprise Mr. Lincoln inquired, "For what reason?" "Why," replied the spokesman, "he drinks too much whisky." "Ah!" rejoined Mr. Lincoln, dropping his lower lip. "By the way, gentlemen, can either of you tell me where General Grant procures his whisky? because, if I can find out, I will send every general in the field a barrel of it!" MILD REBUKE TO A DOCTOR Dr. Jerome Walker, of Brooklyn, told how Mr. Lincoln once administered to him a mild rebuke. The doctor was showing Mr. Lincoln through the hospital at City Point. "Finally, after visiting the wards occupied by our invalid and convalescing soldiers," said Dr. Walker, "we came to three wards occupied by sick and wounded Southern prisoners. With a feeling of patriotic duty, I said: 'Mr. President, you won't want to go in there; they are only rebels.' "I will never forget how he stopped and gently laid his large hand upon my shoulder and quietly answered, 'You mean Confederates!' And I have meant Confederates ever since. "There was nothing left for me to do after the President's remark but to go with him through these three wards; and I could not see but that he was just as kind, his hand-shakings just as hearty, his interest just as real for the welfare of the men, as when he was among our own soldiers." X FROM LINCOLN'S SPEECHES AND WRITINGS LINCOLN'S LIFE AS WRITTEN BY HIMSELF