“So the two old friends were on even and easy terms, and had their ride after their old fashion.” The President of the United States can afford to be more unconventional than kings and emperors, but I should not be surprised to learn that they too, at times, would be glad to escape from the rigid rules of etiquette and enjoy the freedom of a private citizen. Even Queen Victoria, it is related, can unbend when she meets her early friends, and forget for the time that she must maintain the dignity of a Queen. CHAPTER XXV. MR. LINCOLN AND THE LITTLE BOY--A GROUP OF ANECDOTES. Ex-Governor Rice, of Massachusetts, tells a story of President Lincoln, which will prove of especial interest to my young readers. I transcribe it from the _Union Signal_: On an occasion (while he was in Congress) he and Senator Wilson found it necessary to visit the President on business, he says: “We were obliged to wait some time in the anteroom before we could be received; and, when at length the door was opened to us, a small lad, perhaps ten or twelve years old, who had been waiting for admission several days without success, slipped in between us, and approached the President in advance. “The latter gave the Senator and myself a cordial but brief salutation, and turning immediately to the lad, said, ‘And who is the little boy?’ “During their conference the Senator and myself were apparently forgotten. The boy soon told his story, which was in substance that he had come to Washington seeking employment as a page in the House of Representatives, and he wished the President to give him such an appointment. To this the President replied that such appointments were not at his disposal, and that application must be made to the door-keeper of the House at the Capitol. “‘But, sir,’ said the lad, still undaunted, ‘I am a good boy, and have a letter from my mother, and one from the supervisors of my town, and one from my Sunday-school teacher; they all told me that I could earn enough in one session of Congress to keep my mother and the rest of us comfortable all the remainder of the year.’ “The President took the lad’s papers and ran his eye over them with that penetrating and absorbent look so familiar to all who knew him, and then took his pen and wrote upon the back of one of them. ‘If Capt. Goodnow can give a place to [Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SIGNING THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. PAGE 267] this good little boy, I shall be gratified,’ and signed it ‘A. Lincoln.’ “The boy’s face became radiant with hope, and he walked out of the room with a step as light as though all the angels were whispering their congratulations. “Only after the lad had gone did the President seem to realize that a Senator and another person had been for some time waiting to see him.