He was so stupefied that, on recovery, he hurried upstairs and got Hammond to levant with him. But he was not to remain unpunished. Years after, when Hammond was governor of the State, and he to become minister to Chile, Nelson, was at the same hotel-Browning's--at the capital, when looking over the party welcoming and accompanying the President-elect to Washington, he saw a long arm reached out to his shoulder; a shrill voice pierced his ear: "Hello, Nelson! do you think, after all, the whole world is going to follow that darned comet [Footnote: Donati's comet.] off?" The words were Nelson's own in reply to the supposed Reuben's question in the stage-coach twelve years before! No joke of a memory, that--for a joke! * * * * * A GOOD LISTENER. The invidious who would themselves get a word in, accused Lincoln of monopolizing the conversation where he wished to reign supreme. This is contradicted in several instances. Rather his confraternity describe their meetings as "swapping stories," the flow circulating. Mr. Bowen pictures Lincoln as getting up half-dressed, after a speech at Hartford, in his hotel bedroom at Mr. Trumbull, of Stonington, rapping at the door. Trumbull had just thought of "another story I want to tell you!" And the tired guest sat up till three in the morning "exchanging stories." This does not resemble monopoly. A clerk, Littlefield, in the Lincoln-Herndon office, prepared a speech, and said to his senior employer: "It is important that I get this speech correct, because I think you are going to be the presidential candidate. I told him I would like to read it to him. He consented, sitting down in one corner of the room, with his feet on a chair in front of him. "'Now,' said he, in his hearty way, 'fire away, John! I think I can stand it.' As I proceeded, he became quite enthusiastic, exclaiming: 'You are hitting the nail on the head.' He broke out several times in this way, finally saying: 'That is going to go.'" It did go, as the fellow clerk, Ellsworth, of Chicago Zouaves fame, borrowed it, and it disappeared--wads for his revolver, perhaps. * * * * * CARRIED THE POST-MATTER IN HIS HAT. It is to Abraham Lincoln is fastened the joke that as postmaster he carried the mail in his hat. This was at New Salem, postmaster of which he was appointed by President Jackson, as he was the best qualified of any of the burgesses. Indeed, he often had to read letters to their ignorant receivers, and habitually acted as town clerk in reading out newspapers for the general good, on the stoop. * * * * * PRESIDENT LINCOLN DUBBED THEM THE "WIDE-AWAKES."