“Well—­now,” said Mr. LINCOLN, after patiently waiting, “this reminds me of the man in Pomeroy, Ohio, who kept what he called an ‘eating saloon.’  One morning, a tall hoosier came in and called for ham and eggs.  ’Can’t giv ’em to ye, stranger,’ said the proprietor, ‘but what’ll ye hav’ t’drink?—­don’t keep nothin’ but a bar.’  ’Yer don’t?  Then what’n thunder yer got that sign out thar for?’ for the fellow was a little mad.  ’Why yer see I call her a eating saloon, ’cos I reckon she eats up all the profits.”

This beautiful and appropriate anecdote, which seemed to throw a flood of light upon the critical State question under consideration, pleased every one except FLOYD, who swore it was ungenerous and unchivalric.  Hastily withdrawing, he threatened to telegraph it verbatim to the insurgents; it would fire the Southern heart.

SEWARD said he was going home, as he had already sent the Powhatan to PICKENS.

Mr. LINCOLN yawned, and turning to me, inquired:  “Well, SARSFIELD, you see what a man’s got to do to run this machine,—­now what’s your advice?”

“Your Excellency,” I replied, “there’s a man in the tanning business at Galena, in your State.  Telegraph him at once.  His name is GRANT, and if you give him the tools to work with, he’ll straighten everything out for you as neat as a pin.”

The meeting dissolved without taking heed of my suggestion, and the world knows the result.  However, there’s one thing I am proud of.  I claim to have discovered GRANT four years before WASHBURN did.  That’s the secret why I can have any office I want under the present administration.

SARSFIELD YOUNG.

* * * * *

THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

The popularity of opera among fashionable people in this city varies inversely as the intelligibility of the language in which it is sung.

To illustrate!  The Italian opera is fashionable, though not one in ten of the people composing an average audience understand a word that is said or sung.  The French opera is less fashionable, but perhaps one-third of the audience can understand the less ingenious of the indelicate jokes.  The English opera is not fashionable, but every one can understand every word that Miss RICHINGS or Miss HERSEE pronounces.  These facts undoubtedly stand in the relation of cause and effect.  Wherefore the axiom with which this column begins.

To be sure, the words of an opera are a matter of very little consequence, the music speaking as plainly as the clearest of Saxon sentences.  But the fashionable public knows less of music than it knows of languages, and would be quite capable of mistaking “Gran Dio” for a comic song, and “Libiamo” for a lover’s lamentation, were not the translated libretto of Traviata at hand to supply them and the critics of the minor papers, with the cue for the display of appropriate emotion.  Singers,