"NICE CLOTHES MAY MAKE A HANDSOME MAN--EVEN OF YOU!"

In 1832, Lincoln, elected to the Illinois legislative chamber, found
himself in one of those anguishing embarrassments besetting him in all
the early stages of his unflagging ascent from the social slough of
despond. Unlike eels, he never got used to skinning. For the new
station, however well provided mentally, he had no means to procure
dress fit for the august halls of debate.

He was yet standing behind the counter in Offutt's general shop at New
Salem, when an utter stranger strolled in, asked his name, though his
exceptional stature and unrivaled mien revealed his identity, and
announced his own name. Each had heard of the other. The newcomer
was not an Adonis, perhaps, but he was one compared with the awkward,
leaning Tower of Pisa "cornstalk," who carried the jack-knife as "the
homeliest man in the section." Lincoln was doubly the _plainest_
speaker there and thereabouts.

"Mr. Smoot," began the clerk, "I am disappointed in you, sir! I
expected to see a scaly specimen of humanity!"

"Mr. Lincoln, I am sorely disappointed in you, in whom I expected to
see a _good-looking_ man!"

After this jocular exchange of greeting, the joke cemented friendship
between them. The proof of the friendship is in the usefulness of it.
Lincoln turned to this acquaintance in his dilemma.

This future President may have divined the saying of the similarly
martyred McKinley--about "the cheap clothes making a cheap man."