"No, sir," was the reply, and the words fell like the lead of a plumb line; "I won't take it. Good morning, sir." It has been sometimes said, indulgently, of Col. Ingersoll that he is indolent, but no one can hold that view who is at all familiar with him or his work. As a matter of fact, his industry is phenomenal, though, indeed, it is not carried on after the fashion of less brainy men. When he has an important case ahead of him his devotion to the mastery of its details absorbs him at once and completely. It sometimes becomes necessary for him to take up a line of chemical inquiry entirely new to him; again, to elaborate genealogical researches are necessary; still again, it may be essential for him to thoroughly inform himself concerning hitherto uninvestigated local historical records. But whatever is needful to be studied he studies, and so thoroughly that his mind becomes saturated with the knowledge required. And once acquired no sort of information ever leaves him, for he has a memory quite as marvelous as any other of his altogether marvelous characteristics. It is the same when he has an address to prepare. Every authority that can be consulted upon the subject to be treated in the address, is consulted, and often the material that suggests some of the most telling points is one which no one but Ingersoll himself would think of referring to. Here again his wonderful memory stands him in good stead for he has packed away within the convolutions of his brain a lot of facts that bear upon almost every conceivable branch of human thought or investigation. His memory is quite as retentive of the features of a man he has seen as of other matters; it retains voices also, as a war time friend of his discovered last summer. It was a busy day with the Colonel, who had given instructions to his office boy that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed; so when his old friend called he was told that Col. Ingersoll could not see him "But," said the visitor: "I must see him. I haven't seen him for twenty years; I am going out of town this afternoon, and I wouldn't miss talking with him for a few minutes for a good deal of money." "Well," said the boy, "he wasn't to be disturbed by anybody." At this moment the door of the Colonel's private office opened, and the Colonel's portly form appeared upon the scene. "Why, Maj. Blank," he said, "come in. I did tell the boy I wouldn't see anybody, but you are more important than the biggest law case in the world." The Colonel's memory had retained the sound of the major's voice, and because of that, the latter was not obliged to leave New York without seeing and renewing his old acquaintance.