Amid the shouts, Mr. Lincoln stood up, his long body swaying to and fro as he lifted high the improvised tongs.  They heard a terrified squeal, and there was the rat squirming and wriggling,—­it seemed before their very eyes.  And Stephen forgot the country tavern, the country politician, and was transported straightway into the Quaker’s smithy.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH STEPHEN LEARNS SOMETHING

It was Mr. Lincoln who brought him back.  The astonishing candidate for the Senate had sunk into his chair, his face relaxed into sadness save for the sparkle lurking in the eyes.  So he sat, immobile, until the laughter had died down to silence.  Then he turned to Stephen.

“Sonny,” he said, “did you want to see me?”

Stephen was determined to be affable and kind, and (shall we say it?) he would not make Mr. Lincoln uncomfortable either by a superiority of English or the certain frigidity of manner which people in the West said he had.  But he tried to imagine a Massachusetts senator, Mr. Sumner, for instance, going through the rat story, and couldn’t.  Somehow, Massachusetts senators hadn’t this gift.  And yet he was not quite sure that it wasn’t a fetching gift.  Stephen did not quite like to be called “Sonny.”  But he looked into two gray eyes, and at the face, and something curious happened to him.  How was he to know that thousands of his countrymen were to experience the same sensation?

“Sonny,” said Mr. Lincoln again, “did you want to see me?”

“Yes, sir.”  Stephen wondered at the “sir.”  It had been involuntary.  He drew from his inner pocket the envelope which the Judge had given him.

Mr. Lincoln ripped it open.  A document fell out, and a letter.  He put the document in his tall hat, which was upside down on the floor.  As he got deeper into the letter, he pursed his mouth, and the lines of his face deepened in a smile.  Then he looked up, grave again.

Judge Whipple told you to run till you found me, did he, Mr. Brice?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is the Judge the same old criss-cross, contrary, violent fool that he always was?”

Providence put an answer in Stephen’s mouth.

“He’s been very good to me, Mr. Lincoln.”

Mr. Lincoln broke into laughter.

“Why, he’s the biggest-hearted man I know.  You know him, Oglesby,—­Silas Whipple.  But a man has to be a Daniel or a General Putnam to venture into that den of his.  There’s only one man in the world who can beard Silas, and he’s the finest states-right Southern gentleman you ever saw.  I mean Colonel Carvel.  You’ve heard of him, Oglesby.  Don’t they quarrel once in a while, Mr. Brice?”

“They do have occasional arguments,’ said Stephen, amused.

“Arguments!” cried Mr. Lincoln; “well, I couldn’t come as near to fighting every day and stand it.  If my dog and Bill’s dog across the street walked around each other and growled for half a day, and then lay down together, as Carvel and Whipple do, by Jing, I’d put pepper on their noses—­”