change of programme.  Naturally the objection of seeming timid and of exciting ridicule was present in the minds of all, and it was put somewhat emphatically by Colonel Sumner.  Mr. Lincoln at last settled the dispute; he said:  “I have thought over this matter considerably since I went over the ground with Pinkerton last night.  The appearance of Mr. Frederick Seward, with warning from another source, confirms Mr. Pinkerton’s belief.  Unless there are some other reasons besides fear of ridicule, I am disposed to carry out Judd’s plan.”

This plan was accordingly carried out with the success which its simplicity insured.  Mr. Lincoln and his stalwart friend, Colonel Lamon, slipped out of a side door to a hackney carriage, were driven to the railway station, and returned by the train to Philadelphia.  Their departure was not noticed, but had it been, news of it could not have been sent away, for Mr. Felton had had the telegraph wires secretly cut outside the town.  He also ordered, upon a plausible pretext, that the southward-bound night train on his road should be held back until the arrival of this train from Harrisburg.  Mr. Lincoln and Colonel Lamon passed from the one train to the other without recognition, and rolled into Washington early on the following morning.  Mr. Seward and Mr. Washburne met Lincoln at the station and went with him to Willard’s Hotel.  Soon afterward the country was astonished, and perhaps some persons were discomfited, as the telegraph carried abroad the news of his arrival.

Those who were disappointed at this safe conclusion of his journey, if in fact there were any such, together with many who would have contemned assassination, at once showered upon him sneers and ridicule.  They said that Lincoln had put on a disguise and had shown the white feather, when there had been no real danger.  But this was not just.  Whether or not there was the completed machinery of a definite, organized plot for assault and assassination is uncertain; that is to say, this is not proved; yet the evidence is so strong that the majority of investigators seem to agree in the opinion that probably there was a plan thoroughly concerted and ready for execution.  Even if there was not, it was very likely that a riot might be suddenly started, which would be as fatal in its consequences as a premeditated scheme.  But, after all, the question of the plot is one of mere curiosity and quite aside from the true issue.  That issue, so far as it presented itself for determination by Mr. Lincoln, was simply whether a case of such probability of danger was made out that as a prudent man he should overrule the only real objection,—­that of exciting ridicule,—­and avoid a peril which the best judges believed to exist, and which, if it did exist, involved consequences of immeasurable seriousness not only to himself but to the nation.  For a wise man only one conclusion was possible.  The story of the disguise was a silly slander, based upon the trifling fact that for this night journey Lincoln wore a traveling cap instead of his hat.