with a good deal of seriousness that he had forgotten to write a very important letter before leaving.  It was too late to remedy the omission, and Mr. Lincoln at once drove the thought of it from his mind by telling him that a man was sometimes lucky in forgetting to write a letter, for he seldom knew what it contained until it appeared again some day to confront him with an indiscreet word or expression; and then he told a humorous story of a sad catastrophe that happened in a family, which was ascribed to something that came in a letter—­a catastrophe so far beyond the region of possibility that it set us all laughing, and Mr. Chase lost his anxious look.  That reminded Mr. Stanton of the dilemma he had been placed in, just before leaving, by the receipt of a telegram from General Mitchell, who was in Northern Alabama.  The telegram was indistinct, and could not be clearly understood; there was no time for further explanation, and yet an immediate answer was required; so the Secretary took the chances and answered back, ‘All right; go ahead.’  ‘Now, Mr. President,’ said he, ’if I have made a mistake, I must countermand my instructions.’  ‘I suppose you meant,’ said Mr. Lincoln, ’that it was all right if it was good for him, and all wrong if it was not.  That reminds me,’ said he, ’of a story about a horse that was sold at the cross-roads near where I once lived.  The horse was supposed to be fast, and quite a number of people were present at the time appointed for the sale.  A small boy was employed to ride the horse backward and forward to exhibit his points.  One of the would-be buyers followed the boy down the road and asked him confidentially if the horse had a splint.  ‘Well, mister,’ said the boy, ’if it’s good for him he’s got it, but if it isn’t good for him he hasn’t.’  ‘And that’s the position,’ said the President, ’you seem to have left General Mitchell in.  Well, Stanton, I guess he’ll come out right; but at any rate you can’t help him now.’ ...  Mr. Lincoln always had a pleasant word to say the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning.  He was always the first one to awake, although not the first to rise.  The day-time was spent principally upon the quarter-deck, and the President entertained us with numerous anecdotes and incidents of his life, of the most interesting character.  Few were aware of the physical strength possessed by Mr. Lincoln.  In muscular power he was one in a thousand.  One morning, while we were sitting on deck, he saw an axe in a socket on the bulwarks, and taking it up, he held it at arm’s length at the extremity of the helve with his thumb and forefinger, continuing to hold it there for a number of minutes.  The most powerful sailors on board tried in vain to imitate him.  Mr. Lincoln said he could do this when he was eighteen years of age, and had never seen a day since that time when he could not.[E]