“The next morning I met him at the railroad station, where he was conversing with our Mayor, every few minutes looking up the track and inquiring, half impatiently and half quizzically, ‘Where’s that ‘wagon’ of yours? Why don’t the ‘wagon’ come along?’ On being introduced to him, he fixed his eyes upon me, and said: ‘I have seen you before, sir!’ ‘I think not,’ I replied; ‘you must mistake me for some other person.’ ‘No, I don’t; I saw you at the Town Hall, last evening.’ ‘Is it possible, Mr. Lincoln, that you could observe individuals so closely in such a crowd?’ ‘Oh, yes!’ he replied, laughing; ‘that is my way. I don’t forget faces. Were you not there?’ ‘I was, sir, and I was well paid for going;’ adding, somewhat in the vein of pleasantry he had started, ‘I consider it one of the most extraordinary speeches I ever heard.’ “As we entered the cars, he beckoned me to take a seat with him, and said, in a most agreeably frank way, ‘Were you sincere in what you said about my speech just now?’ ‘I meant every word of it, Mr. Lincoln. Why, an old dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, who sat near me, applauded you repeatedly; and, when rallied upon his conversion to sound principles, answered, “I don’t believe a word he says, but I can’t help clapping him, he is so _pat_!” That I call the triumph of oratory,-- “When you convince a man against his will, Though he is of the same opinion still.” Indeed, sir, I learned more of the art of public speaking last evening than I could from a whole course of lectures on Rhetoric.’ “‘Ah! that reminds me,’ said he, ‘of a most extraordinary circumstance which occurred in New Haven the other day. They told me that the Professor of Rhetoric in Yale College,--a very learned man, isn’t he?’ “‘Yes, sir, and a fine critic too.’ “‘Well, I suppose so; he ought to be, at any rate,--they told me that he came to hear me, and took notes of my speech, and gave a lecture on it to his class the next day; and, not satisfied with that, he followed me up to Meriden the next evening, and heard me again for the same purpose. Now, if this is so, it is to my mind very extraordinary. I have been sufficiently astonished at my success in the West. It has been most unexpected. But I had no thought of any marked success at the East, and least of all that I should draw out such commendations from literary and learned men. Now,’ he continued, ‘I should like very much to know what it was in my speech you thought so remarkable, and what you suppose interested my friend, the Professor, so much.’