stopped him. Now they're coming to ask him to be President, and I've
told him to go.

_Mr. Stone_: If you please, ma'am, I should like to apologise for
smoking in here.

_Mrs. Lincoln_: That's no matter, Samuel Stone. Only, don't do it
again.

_Mr. Cuffney_: It's a great place for a man to fill. Do you know how
Seward takes Abraham's nomination by the Republicans?

_Mrs. Lincoln_: Seward is ambitious. He expected the nomination.
Abraham will know how to use him.

_Mr. Stone_: The split among the Democrats makes the election of the
Republican choice a certainty, I suppose?

_Mrs. Lincoln_: Abraham says so.

_Mr. Cuffney_: You know, it's hard to believe. When I think of the
times I've sat in this room of an evening, and seen your husband come
in, ma'am, with his battered hat nigh falling off the back of his
head, and stuffed with papers that won't go into his pockets, and
god-darning some rascal who'd done him about an assignment or a
trespass, I can't think he's going up there into the eyes of the
world.

_Mrs. Lincoln_: I've tried for years to make him buy a new hat.