"Let me write the songs of a nashun," sed I, "and I don't care a cuss who goes to the legislater!  But I ax your pardon--how's things?" "Comfortable, I thank you.  I have here," he added, "a copy of the Middletown "Weekly Clarion" of February the 15, containin a report that there isn't much Union sentiment in South Caroliny, but I hardly credit it." "Air you well, Mr. Secky," sed I. "Is your liver all right?  How's your koff?" "God bless me!" sed the Secky, risin hastily and glarin wildly at me, "what do you mean?" "Oh, nothin partickler.  Only it is one of the beauties of a Republican form of gov'ment that a Cabnet offisser can pack up his trunk and go home whenever he's sick.  Sure nothin don't ail your liver?" sed I, pokin him putty vilent in the stummick. I called on Abe.  He received me kindly.  I handed him my umbreller, and told him I'd have a check for it if he pleased.  "That," sed he, "puts me in mind of a little story.  There was a man, out in our parts who was so mean that he took his wife's coffin out of the back winder for fear he would rub the paint off the doorway.  Wall, about this time there was a man in a adjacent town who had a green cotton umbreller." "Did it fit him well?  Was it custom made?  Was he measured for it?" "Measured for what?" said Abe. "The umbreller?" "Wall, as I was sayin," continnered the President, treatin the interruption with apparent comtempt, "this man sed he'd known that there umbreller ever since it was a pyrasol.  Ha, ha, ha!" "Yes," said I, larfin in a respectful manner, "but what has this man with the umbreller to do with the man who took his wife's coffin out of the back winder?" "To be sure," said Abe--"what was it?  I must have got two stories mixed together, which puts me in mind of another lit--" "Never mind, Your Excellency.  I called to congratulate you on your career, which has been a honest and a good one--unscared and unmoved by Secesh in front of you and Abbolish at the back of you--each one of which is a little wuss than the other if possible! "Tell E. Stanton that his boldness, honesty, and vigger merits all praise, but to keep his under-garments on.  E. Stanton has appeerently only one weakness, which it is, he can't allus keep his under-garments from flyin up over his hed.  I mean that he occasionally dances in a peck-measure, and he don't look graceful at it." I took my departer.  "Good-bye, old sweetness!" sed Abe, shakin me cordgully by the hand. "Adoo, my Prahayrie flower!" I replied, and made my exit.  "Twenty-five thousand dollars a year and found," I soliloquized, as I walked down the street, "is putty good wages for a man with a modist appytite, but I reckon that it is wuth it to run the White House." "What you bowt, sah?  What the debble you doin, sah?"