“They’re unfortunate ways, sir,” I said, “if they lead you to misjudge me.”

He laid his hand on my shoulder, just as he had done at Freeport.

“I know you, Steve,” he said.  “I shuck an ear of corn before I buy it.  I’ve kept tab on you a little the last five years, and when I heard Sherman had sent a Major Brice up here, I sent for you.”

What I said was boyish.  “I tried very hard to get a glimpse of you to-day, Mr. Lincoln.  I wanted to see you again.”

He was plainly pleased.

“I’m glad to hear it, Steve,” he said.  “Then you haven’t joined the ranks of the grumblers?  You haven’t been one of those who would have liked to try running this country for a day or two, just to show me how to do it?”

“No, sir,” I said, laughing.

“Good!” he cried, slapping his knee.  “I didn’t think you were that kind, Steve.  Now sit down and tell me about this General of mine who wears seven-leagued boots.  What was it—­four hundred and twenty miles in fifty days?  How many navigable rivers did he step across?” He began to count on those long fingers of his.  “The Edisto, the Broad, the Catawba, the Pedee, and—?”

“The Cape Fear,” I said.

“Is—­is the General a nice man?” asked Mr. Lincoln, his eyes twinkling.

“Yes, sir, he is that,” I answered heartily.  “And not a man in the army wants anything when he is around.  You should see that Army of the Mississippi, sir.  They arrived in Goldsboro’ in splendid condition.”

He got up and gathered his coat-tails under his arms, and began to walk up and down the cabin.

“What do the boys call the General?” he asked.

I told him “Uncle Billy.”  And, thinking the story of the white socks might amuse him, I told him that.  It did amuse him.

“Well, now,” he said, “any man that has a nickname like that is all right.  That’s the best recommendation you can give the General—­just say ‘Uncle Billy.’” He put one lip over the other.  “You’ve given ’Uncle Billy’ a good recommendation, Steve,” he said.  “Did you ever hear the story of Mr. Wallace’s Irish gardener?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, when Wallace was hiring his gardener he asked him whom he had been living with.

“‘Misther Dalton, sorr.’

“‘Have you a recommendation, Terence?’

“’A ricommindation is it, sorr?  Sure I have nothing agin Misther Dalton, though he moightn’t be knowing just the respict the likes of a first-class garthener is entitled to.’”

He did not laugh.  He seldom does, it seems, at his own stories.  But I could not help laughing over the “ricommindation” I had given the General.  He knew that I was embarrassed, and said kindly:—­ “Now tell me something about ‘Uncle Billy’s Bummers.’  I hear that they have a most effectual way of tearing up railroads.”

I told him of Poe’s contrivance of the hook and chain, and how the heaviest rails were easily overturned with it, and how the ties were piled and fired and the rails twisted out of shape.  The President listened to every word with intense interest.