"Without delay" he "proceeded to discharge the duty which brought" him "into his presence." What took place at this "confidential interview" (as Holt calls it) can never be precisely known; the distinguished interlocutors having subsequently risen into unappeasable quarrel over the presence or absence of the petition, and given contradictory versions. Whatever the truth may be, it is evident that everything went smoothly at the moment. The Judge-Advocate was not disappointed. No difficulty was encountered. What was done was done quickly and at once. The record may have been read over; but this was hardly necessary, as the bare mention of the several sentences would convey a correct summary of its contents. He may have read the "brief review of the case" he had prepared. As Judge Holt relates, he said to the President, "frankly, as it was his official duty to do," that in his judgment "the proceedings of the Court were regular, and its findings and sentences justified by the evidence, and that the sentences should be enforced." And this was what he had written in his "Brief Review." What more could the successor of the murdered Lincoln want? His approval must have been spontaneous and immediate. As Holt says, "at that time Mr. Johnson needed no urging." Mention may have been made of the curious weakness infecting some members of "our Court" towards the wicked woman, who, as Johnson seems then to have thought, "had kept the nest that hatched the egg;" but only to be scouted by both Judge-Advocate and President as most reprehensible and actually _disloyal_. Their unanimity over the salutary effect of the hanging of this one woman on the female rebels was more than fraternal. And it is probable that no more explicit mention of an actual petition was made by Judge Holt in his conversation with the President than was made in his written report to the President, dated the same day, and which he had with him at the time. The day of execution was fixed upon with the same alacrity. "Make it as soon as possible, so that the disagreeable business may be over; say the day after to-morrow--Friday, the seventh." And, thereupon, everything being agreed upon, Judge Holt turns over the papers to the last page of the record and spreads it upon the table. Beginning, a few lines below the signature of "D. Hunter, President" which closes the record, with the date, "Executive Mansion, July 5th, 1865,"