"Abe," said the friend, "I'm almighty glad there somebody in this town's
got notorious at last."

In the early morning of their return from Chicago Judge Whipple and
Stephen were standing in the front of a ferry-boat crossing the
Mississippi. The sun was behind them. The Judge had taken off his hat,
and his gray hair was stirred by the river breeze. Illness had set a
yellow seal on the face, but the younger man remarked it not. For
Stephen, staring at the black blur of the city outline, was filled with a
strange exaltation which might have belonged to his Puritan forefathers.
Now at length was come his chance to be of use in life,--to dedicate the
labor of his hands and of his brains to Abraham Lincoln uncouth prophet
of the West. With all his might he would work to save the city for the
man who was the hope of the Union.

The bell rang. The great paddles scattered the brow waters with white
foam, and the Judge voiced his thoughts.

"Stephen," said he, "I guess we'll have to put on shoulders to the wheel
this summer. If Lincoln is not elected I have lived my sixty-five years
for nothing."

As he descended the plank, he laid a hand on Stephen's arm, and tottered.
The big Louisiana, Captain Brent's boat, just in from New Orleans, was
blowing off her steam as with slow steps they climbed the levee and the
steep pitch of the street beyond it. The clatter of hooves and the crack
of whips reached their ears, and, like many others before them and since,
they stepped into Carvel & Company's. On the inside of the glass
partition of the private office, a voice of great suavity was heard. It