to Mr. Blackburn was the chief of the Chicago bar, I. N. Arnold,
afterward member of Congress, and author of the first biography of
Abraham Lincoln. Blackburn was a Kentuckian, but the stereotyped
reputation for courage does not include audacity in a court of
law. He was nervous with this first attempt and made a mull of his
presentment, when a gentleman of the bar, rising, and extending a
tall, ungraceful figure, intervened and laid down the case on the
young Kentuckian's lines so feebly offered and entangled that the
hearers might be glad to be so disembarrassed of a feeling for the
novice floundering. The bench sustained Blackburn's demurrer. Arnold
was so vexed that he objected to the volunteer intervener, whereupon
the befriended man learned it was one Abraham Lincoln, as unknown to
him as he was to fame. Lincoln defended himself against the senior's
spite, by saying he claimed the privilege of giving a newcomer the
helping hand. No doubt the fellow Stateship backed his prompting.
--(Related by Judge Isaac N. Arnold, member of Congress.)


* * * * *


NOT TO BE THOUGHT OF!

It has been seen that creditors treated the struggling Lincoln with
the utmost forbearance, countering the adage that "forbearance is not
acquittance." He was given the occasion to show how he was neighborly
when the turn came. A client of his was long deferring settlement when
the lawyer met him by chance on the courthouse steps, at Springfield.

He accosted him cordially, and remarked about an accident that had