"I RECKON I TOOK MORE THAN MY SHARE."

Lincoln confessed at the outset of life that he was going to avoid
society, as its frequentation was incompatible with study. He avowed
at the same time that he liked it, which enhanced the sacrifice. No
doubt so, since his Washington sojourn and his legal and legislative
company earned him the title of the prince of good fellows. To be
coupled with the genial Martin van Buren with the same epithet was,
indeed, a compliment.

At Washington he had, in 1848, made acquaintance with the fashionable
world. He preferred the livelier and less strait ways of the
Congressional boarding-house table, the Saturday parties at Daniel
Webster's, and the motley crowd at the bowling-alley, as well as
the chatterers' corner in the Congressional post-office. Still, as
chairman of a committee, and by reason of his being a wonder from the
hirsute West, he was invited to the receptions and feasts of the first
families. Green to the niceties of the table, he committed errors--so
frankly apologized for and humorously treated that he lost no
standing.

At one dinner the experience was new to him of the dish of currant
jelly being passed around for each guest to transfer a little to his
plate. So he took it as a sweet, oddly accompanying the venison,
and left but little on the general plate. But after tasting it, he
perceived that the compote-dish was going the rounds, and suddenly
looking pointedly at his plate and then at the hostess, with a
troubled air, he said, with convincing simplicity: