error in
saying that the chief authority he quotes--a document owned by Dr.
A.W. French of Springfield, Ill.--is an "official return." It is
a copy of the official return made out in Lincoln's writing and
certified to by the county clerk. The official return is on file in
the Springfield court-house.]

[Footnote 4: "Get books and read and study them carefully. Begin with
Blackstone's Commentaries, and after reading carefully through, say
twice, take up Chitty's Pleadings, Greenleaf's Evidence, and Story's
Equity in succession. Work, work, work, is the main thing."

A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL.

BY IAN MACLAREN,

AUTHOR OF "BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH," ETC.

Never had I met any man so methodical in his habits, so neat in
his dress, so accurate in speech, so precise in manner as my
fellow-lodger. When he took his bath in the morning I knew it was
half-past seven, and when he rang for hot water, that it was a quarter
to eight. Until a quarter-past he moved about the room in his slow,
careful dressing, and then everything was quiet next door till
half-past eight, when the low murmur of the Lord's Prayer concluded
his devotions. Two minutes later he went downstairs--if he met
a servant one could hear him say "Good morning"--and read his
newspaper--he seldom had letters--till nine, when he rang for
breakfast. Twenty-past nine he went upstairs and changed his coat,
and he spent five minutes in the lobby selecting a pair of gloves,
brushing his hat, and making a last survey for a speck of dust.
One glove he put on opposite the hat-stand, and the second on the
door-step; and when he touched the pavement you might have set your
watch by nine-thirty. Once he was in the lobby at five-and-twenty
minutes to ten, distressed and flurried.

"I cut my chin slightly when shaving," he explained, "and the wound
persists in bleeding. It has an untidy appearance, and a drop of blood
might fall on a letter."

The walk that morning was quite broken; and before reaching the
corner, he had twice examined his chin with a handkerchief, and shaken
his head as one whose position in life was now uncertain.

"It is nothing in itself," he said afterwards, with an apologetic
allusion to his anxiety, "and might not matter to another man. But any
little misadventure--a yesterday's collar or a razor-cut, or even an
inky finger--would render me helpless in dealing with people. They
would simply look at the weak spot, and one would lose all au