I called the foreman, and said, "Mr. Chapin, please to set this up and pull half-a-dozen proofs." It was done, and I sent one to the autograph- chaser. He was angry, and answered impertinently. Others I sent to Holmes and Lowell. The latter thought that the applicant was a great fool not to understand that such a printed document was far more of a curiosity than a mere signature. I met with Chapin afterwards, when in the war. He had with him a small company of printers, all of whom had set up my copy many a time. Printers are always polite men. They all called on me, and having no cards, left cigars, which were quite as acceptable at that time of tobacco-famine. Amid all the horrors and anxieties of that dreadful year, while my old school-mate, General George B. McClellan, was delaying and demanding more men--_mas y mas y mas_--I still had as many happy hours as had ever come into any year of my life. If I made no money, and had to wear my old gloves (I had fortunately a good stock gathered from one of Frank Leslie's debtors), and had to sail rather close to the wind, I still found the sailing very pleasant, and the wind fair and cool, though I was _pauper in aere_. Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis held a ladies' sewing-circle to make garments for the soldiers, at which my wife worked zealously. There were many social receptions, readings, etc., where we met everybody. It was very properly considered bad form in those early days of the war to dance or give grand dinners or great "parties." It was, in fact, hardly decent for a man to dress up and appear as a swell at all anywhere. Death was beginning to strike fast into families through siege and battle, and crape to blacken the door-bells. There was a dark shadow over every life. I had been assured by an officer that my magazine was doing the work of two regiments, yet I was tormented with the feeling that I ought to be in the war, as my grandfather would surely have been at my age. The officer alluded to wrote to me that he on one occasion had read one of my articles by camp-fire to his regiment, who gave at the end three tremendous cheers, which were replied to by the enemy, who were not far away, with shouts of defiance. As for minor incidents of the war-time, I could fill a book with them. One day a young gentleman, a perfect stranger, came to my office, as many did, and asked for advice. He said, "Where I live in the country we have raised a regiment, and they want me to be colonel, but I have no knowledge whatever of military matters. What shall I do?" I looked at him, and saw that he "had it in him," and replied, "New York is full of Hungarian and German military adventurers seeking employment. Get one, and let him teach you and the men; but take good care that he does not supplant you. Let that be understood." After some months he returned in full uniform to thank me. He had got his man, had fought in the field--all had gone well.