An old acquaintance of the President's visited him at Washington. Each man's wife insisted on the gentleman, her lord, donning gloves. For they were going as a square party out in the presidential carriage, and the Washingtonians would not accept a king as such unless he dressed as a king. Mr. Lincoln, as a shrewd politician, and married man, put his gloves in his pocket, not to don them until there was no wriggling out of the fix; the other one had his on at the hotel where the carriage came to take that couple up. They went out and took seats in the vehicle, whereupon the newcomer, seeing that his host was ungloved, went on the rule of leaving the fence bars as you find them. He set to drawing off his kids at the same time as Mr. Lincoln commenced to tug at his to get them on. "No, no, no!" protested the caller, fetching away his kids, one at a time, "it is none of my doings! Put up your mittens, Lincoln!" And so they had their ride out without their hands being in guards. * * * * * THE USE OF BOOKS. "Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new, after all."--(By an Illinois clergyman, knowing Lincoln in the 'Fifties.) * * * * * LINCOLN'S BOOK CRITICISM. "For those who like this kind of book, this is the kind of book they will like."--(New York _Times Book Review_, July 7, 1901.) * * * * * THE HAND-TO-HAND ENCOUNTER. Toward the evident close of the struggle an English nobleman came to Washington, credited to the embassy. This was somewhat impudent and imprudent of him, too, as, in early times, he was prominent among the British aristocrats who had supported the Confederate States. He had assisted in their being declared belligerents--a sore point. He had invested in the "Cotton Loan," and voted in sustenance of the Lairds getting the rebel pirates out of the Mersey. Altogether, he must have attended the regular White House reception from thinking his hostility was unrecorded. But the President was clearly prepared for the _fox-paw_! He spoke to the Briton smoothly enough, but when the unsuspecting hand was placed in his grasp he gave it one of those natural and not formal grips which left an impression on him forever. The balladist's line was realized for him: "It is _hard_ to give the hand where the heart can never be." * * * * * BETTER SOMETIMES RIGHT THAN ALL TIMES WRONG. In 1832, when candidate for the Illinois legislative chambers, Lincoln said he held it "a sound maxim better only sometimes to be right than at all times wrong." * * * * * MAKING THE DAGGER STAB THE HOLDER. Upon the first debate of the Lincoln-Douglas series, an admirer of the former, having no doubt now "the stump speaker" would defeat the meretricious parliamentarian, said: "I believe, Abe, you can beat Douglas for the Senate."