The whirligig of time brings about strange revenges, for a truth.
General McClellan was chosen to visit the seat of the Crimean War
to study the siege operations about Sebastopol. Returning and
seeing no prospects in the air--of his professional line--he became
superintendent of the Illinois Central Railroad Company. He was acting
for its president in December, 1855, when a bill was laid under his
eyes. It was the demand of Abraham Lincoln, of the law firm of Lincoln
& Herndon, Springfield, Illinois.

The firm had offered in October to act for the company to defend a
suit brought by McLean County. Lincoln had won it. To prevent any
demurrer about the fee of one thousand dollars, a fourth of that
having been paid for the retainer, he had six members of the bar
append their names to testify the charge was usual and just.
Nevertheless Superintendent McClellan refused to pay, alleging that:

"This is as much as a first-class lawyer would charge!"

You see, Mr. Lincoln was still but "the one-horse lawyer of a
one-horse town."


* * * * *


KENTUCKIANS ARE CLANNY.

Senator John C. S. Blackburn, of the United States Supreme Court,
began his life as a lawyer at the age of twenty. This should have won
him sympathy in his first case. It was before Justice McLean. Opposed