The beam of hilarity left his countenance at once. He put the greenback into his vest pocket, and walked the floor; after awhile he stopped, heaved a long breath and said, "This thing frightens me!" He then rang for a messenger, and told him to ask the Secretary of the Treasury to please come over to see him. Mr. Chase soon put in an appearance. Mr. Lincoln stated the cause of his alarm, and asked Mr. Chase to explain in detail the _modus operandi_, the system of checks in his office, etc., and a lengthy discussion followed,--Lincoln contending that there were not sufficient checks to afford any degree of safety in the money-making department, and Mr. Chase insisting that all the guards for protection were afforded that he could devise. "In the nature of things," he said, "somebody must be trusted in this emergency. You have entrusted me, and Mr. Spinner is entrusted with untold millions, and we have to trust our subordinates." Words waxed warmer than I had ever known them to do between these distinguished gentlemen, when Mr. Lincoln feelingly apologized by saying,-- "Don't think that I am doubting or could doubt your integrity, or that of Mr. Spinner; nor am I finding fault with either of you; but it strikes me that this thing is all wrong, and dangerous. I and the country know you and Mr. Spinner, but we don't know your subordinates, who are great factors in making this money, and have the power to bankrupt the government in an hour. Yet there seems to be no protection against a duplicate issue of every bill struck, and I can see no way of detecting duplicity until we come to redeem the currency; and even then, the duplicate cannot be told from the original." The result of this conversation was, that Lincoln became so impressed with danger from this source that he called the attention of Congress to the matter, and a joint committee was appointed. Senator Sprague of Rhode Island was its chairman; but the result of the investigation, like many others during the war, was never made public to my knowledge. Considering the crippled financial condition of our country, and the importance of first-class credit abroad during our war, as little publicity on the subject as possible was doubtless the best for us politically. _Apropos_ of greenbacks, Don Piatt gave a description in the "North American Review," a few years ago, of the first proposition to Mr. Lincoln to issue interest-bearing notes as currency, which was as follows:-- "Amasa Walker, a distinguished financier of New England, suggested that notes issued directly from the government to the people, as currency, should bear interest. This for the purpose, not only of making the notes popular, but for the purpose of preventing inflation, by inducing people to hoard the notes as an investment when the demands of trade would fail to call them into circulation as a currency.