''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories - University of Macau Library

Yarns and Stories, by Alexander K. McClure 313HAPPY FIGURES OF SPEECH.On one occasion, exasperated at the discrepancy between the aggregate oftroops forwarded to McClellan and the number that same general reportedas having received, Lincoln exclaimed: "Sending men to that army is likeshoveling fleas across a barnyard--half of them never get there."To a politician who had criticised his course, he wrote: "Would you haveme drop the War where it is, or would you prosecute it in future with elderstalk squirts charged with rosewater?"When, on his first arrival in Washington as President, he found himselfbesieged by office-seekers, while the War was breaking out, he said: "I feellike a man letting lodgings at one end of his house while the other end is onfire."A FEW "RHYTHMIC SHOTS."Ward Lamon, Marshal of the District of Columbia during Lincoln's time inWashington, accompanied the President everywhere. He was a good singer,and, when Lincoln was in one of his melancholy moods, would "fire a fewrhythmic shots" at the President to cheer the latter. Lincoln keenly relishednonsense in the shape of witty or comic ditties. A parody of "A Life on theOcean Wave" was always pleasing to him:"Oh, a life on the ocean wave, And a home on the rolling deep! With ratlinsfried three times a day And a leaky old berth for to sleep; Where thegray-beard cockroach roams, On thoughts of kind intent, And the ravingbedbug comes The road the cockroach went."Lincoln could not control his laughter when he heard songs of this sort.He was fond of negro melodies, too, and "The Blue-Tailed Fly" was a greatfavorite with him. He often called for that buzzing ballad when he andLamon were alone, and he wanted to throw off the weight of public and