Lincoln's quick wit never contained any sting and he lost no friends by it. On one occasion several of his friends got into an argument about the proper proportions of the body. They could agree on their theories in all respects excepting the relative length of the legs. Lincoln listened gravely to their arguments, and, as usual, some one asked him his opinion. "It is of course one of the most important of problems, and doubtless was a source of great anxiety to the maker of man. But, after all is said and done, it is my opinion that man's lower limbs, in order to combine harmony and service, should be at least long enough to reach from his body to the ground." At another time a very unhandsome man stopped Lincoln and peered offensively into his face. "What seems to be the matter, my friend," inquired Lincoln. "Well," replied the stranger, "I have always considered it my duty if ever I came across a man uglier than myself to shoot him on the spot." Lincoln took his hand in friendly agreement. "Stranger, if this is really true, shoot me. If I thought I was uglier than you, I'd want to die." Senator Voorhees of Indiana said that he once heard Lincoln defeat a windy little pettifogging lawyer by telling a story. After showing how the fellow's arguments were only empty words, he said, "He can't help it. When his oratory begins it exhausts all his force of mind. The moment he begins to talk his mental operations cease. I never knew of but one thing that was similar to my friend in that respect. Back in the days when I was a keel boatman I became acquainted with a puffy little steamboat, which used to bustle and wheeze its way up and down the Sangamon River. It had a fivefoot boiler and a seven-foot whistle, so that every time it whistled that boat stopped." Even in business Lincoln could not refrain from expressing himself in a humorous way. A New York firm wrote him to know the financial reliability of one of their customers. He replied: "I am well acquainted with your customer and know his circumstances. First, he has a wife and baby: these ought to be worth not less than $50,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth $1.50, and three chairs at, say, $1.00. "Last of all, there is in one corner a large rathole, which will bear looking into. "Respectfully, "A. LINCOLN." All the great contemporaries who heard Lincoln tell stories agree that he never told one merely for the sake of the story or to raise a laugh, but always to carry some useful point or impress an idea. The aptness and wit of his stories often were more convincing than any argument or logic. We may be assured that any other kind of a Lincoln story is spurious, and none of his.