After the "race," still smarting from the mortification of defeat, and the disappointment of a cherished hope, he took his old friend Jim Matheny away off to a solitary place in the woods, "and then and there," "with great emphasis," protested that he had not grown proud, and was not an aristocrat. "Jim," said he, in conclusion, "I am now, and always shall be, the same Abe Lincoln that I always was." CHAPTER XII IN 1844 Mr. Lincoln was again a candidate for elector on the Whig ticket. Mr. Clay, as he has said himself, was his "_beau-ideal_ of a statesman," and he labored earnestly and as effectually as any one else for his election. For the most part, he still had his old antagonists to meet in the Springfield region, chief among whom this year was John Calhoun. With him and others he had joint debates, running through several nights, which excited much popular feeling. One of his old friends and neighbors, who attended all these discussions, speaks in very enthusiastic terms of Mr. Calhoun, and, after enumerating his many noble gifts of head and heart, concludes that "Calhoun came nearer of whipping Lincoln in debate than Douglas did." Mr. Lincoln made many speeches in Illinois, and finally, towards the close of the campaign, he went over into Indiana, and there continued "on the stump" until the end. Among other places he spoke at Rockport on the Ohio,--where he had first embarked for New Orleans with Gentry,--at Gentryville, and at a place in the country about two miles from the cabin where his father had lived. While he was in the midst of his speech at Gentryville, his old friend, Nat Grigsby, entered the room. Lincoln recognized him on the instant, and, stopping short in his remarks, cried out, "There's Nat!" Without the slightest regard for the proprieties of the occasion, he suspended his address totally, and, striding from the platform, began scrambling through the audience and over the benches, toward the modest Nat, who stood near the door. When he reached him, Lincoln shook his hand "cordially;" and, after felicitating himself sufficiently upon the happy meeting, he returned to the platform, and finished his speech. When that was over, Lincoln could not make up his mind to part with Nat, but insisted that they must sleep together. Accordingly, they wended their way to Col. Jones's, where that fine old Jackson Democrat received his distinguished "clerk" with all the honors he could show him. Nat says, that in the night a cat "began mewing, scratching, and making a fuss generally." Lincoln got up, took the cat in his hands, and stroking its back "gently and kindly," made it sparkle for Nat's amusement. He then "gently" put it out of the door, and, returning to bed, "commenced telling stories and talking over old times."