him, if possible, one of General Jackson's pipes, and that is the favor I now ask of you."

"Oh, certainly," said the General, laughing and ringing the bell.

When the servant came, he told him to bring two or three clean pipes.

"Excuse me, General," said the member, "but may I ask you for that very pipe you have just been smoking?" "This one?" asked the General, "By all means, if you prefer it."

The President was proceeding to empty it of the ashes, when the member once more interrupted him.

"No, General, don't empty out the tobacco. I want that pipe just as it is, just as it left your lips."

The member took the pipe to the table, folded it carefully and reverently in a piece of paper, thanked the General for the precious gift with the utmost warmth, and left the room with the air of a man whose highest flight of ambition had just been more than gratified.

In a little less than three weeks after, that man departed on a mission to one of the South American States, and it was that pipe that did the business for him. At least I thought so; and if there is any meaning in a wink, he thought so too. It was also a fact, as he in confidence assured me, that his old father did revere General Jackson, and would be much gratified to possess one of his pipes. I once heard a pillvender say to one who had laughed at his extravagant advertisements:

"Well, these pills of mine, to my certain knowledge, have cured some people."

Speaking of office-seeking, I will relate to you the singular process by which a clerk in the War Department was transformed into a Senator of the United States. If I had not been an eye-witness of this man's extraordinary proceedings, I could not believe the story. He was a loud, blustering, fluent, idle politician from the north, a protégé or friend of one of the Burrites. He was sitting on the piazza of a

hotel, one afternoon (an employment he was much addicted to), when a young man from the south began to declaim against the administration, and to denounce with particular warmth the Burrite just referred to.

"Sir," said the war-clerk, "if you feel it necessary to speak in that way, I will thank you to speak in a lower tone. The gentleman whom you are abusing is a friend of mine." "I don't care a who's your friend. I shall say what

I please of the scoundrel, and as loud as I please.”

The clerk flew at the young southerner; but the bystanders interfered before much damage was done. In a few minutes, an officer of the army presented to the clerk a challenge from the young gentleman, which the clerk accepted. He asked me to be his second. I knew just as much of the dueling science as he did, which was nothing at all; nor did I think it proper for an employée of the government to bring discredit upon it by engaging in an affair of that kind. I declined peremptorily; and advised him to procure the assistance of a military man who understood such things. He started in pursuit of the only officer with whom he had exchanged a syllable in Washington, a captain to whom he had been casually introduced the evening before in a bar-room. He found his man and induced him to serve.

"What are your weapons ?" asked the second. "You have the choice, you know."

"Have I ?" exclaimed the clerk. "By Heaven, then, I have him on the hip. I choose small swords. Time, to morrow morning at sunrise."

The second remonstrated. The principal insisted. The second of the Southerner protested. The clerk was inflexible. A postponement was asked, that weapons might be procured, and the young gentlemen instructed in their use. But, no; the next morning at the rising of the sun was the only time the clerk would hear of. Late in the evening, after many hours of negotiation and the interchange of notes innumerable, the second of the Southerner formally declined the meeting. The next morning the clerk posted the young man as a

coward on all the walls of Washington. In the course of the day I met the victorious clerk and asked him where he had learned the use of the small sword.

"Small sword ?" said he. "I never had one in my hand. I don't know what it is. And I knew he didn't."

He gained great eclat by this proceeding. He was regarded as a champion of the administration; and the President, who could no more help sympathizing with a fight than a duck can help liking water, was intensely gratified. The same day news came that an important vacancy had occurred in a remote Territory, and my fighting friend saw that his hour had come. He immediately wrote a resignation of his clerkship, dating it on the day of the challenge, and presented it to the chief of his department with these words,

"Of course, sir, before accepting the challenge yesterday, I resigned my place in the department. I am not the man to connect the administration with a duel. Here it is, sir, dated as you will perceive, yesterday."

The Secretary was delighted. The President was completely won. Rather than not reward a partisan who had fought for him, or who had shown a willingness to fight, he would almost have resigned his own office in favor of the champion. He gave the ex-clerk the vacant place. He gave him nine letters of introduction to personal friends in the Territory. Shortly after, that Territory was admitted into the Union as a sovereign State, and my fighting friend came back to Washington as one of its Senators. He served out his whole term without once revisiting the State he represented, and then retired to private life.

This incident reminds me of a conversation I once had with the President upon the subject of party appointments. I said,

"I want to ask you, General, about your advice to Mr. Monroe, that politics should not influence appointments. How do you reconcile that doctrine with the conduct of your administration ?"

His countenance assumed a knowing, slightly waggish expression, as he replied,

66 Young man, we are never too old to learn."

On another occasion he said,

"I am no politician. But if I were a politician, I would be a New York politician."

I had not held my clerkship long before I discovered that the accounts of all the departments were kept in the most antiquated and awkward manner. Custom and tradition ruled supreme. Some accounts in the treasury department were kept just as they were in the days of Alexander Hamilton, and according to modes devised and established by him. I did all I could for years to get the system of book-keeping by double entry introduced, but I met with insuperable difficulty. Not a man in high place knew what double entry was, or could be made to know. After a long struggle, I succeeded so far as to induce a certain Secretary of the Treasury to promise to examine a treatise on the art of book-keeping by double entry. I sent him one instantly, and hoped much from his well-known zeal and supposed intelligence. Some days after I received a message from the Secretary, asking me to call at his office, as he had made up his mind upon the subject of double entry, and wished me to learn his conclusions. I waited upon him.

"Ah, Mr. Clark, walk in. I am now prepared to show you, sir, that double entry is no better than single."

He took down a volume of English parliamentary reports, turned to the evidence given by the inventor of a new system of book-keeping before a committee, and pointed to these words: "Double entry itself is no safeguard against omissions and false entries."

"There!" said the Secretary, triumphantly. "You see? High authority, sir. A professor of book-keeping! No safeguard against omissions and false entries!"

"Why, Mr. Secretary," said I, utterly confounded at the man's simplicity, "no system can prevent omissions and false entries. If your clerk sells five hundred barrels of flour, and enters four hundred, or omits to enter them at all, how can any system of book-keeping prevent it? The same dishon

esty can make the book balance, no matter how false the entries may be. All book-keeping presupposes a desire on the part of the book-keeper to make an honest record, and all we claim for double entry is, that it enables him to do so with greater convenience, certainty, and expedition. Double entry is a self-corrector. Your book-keeper knows, to a certainty, whether he has or has not made an exact record."

The Secretary scratched his wise noddle with the end of his pen for a minute or two, and then delivered himself thus: "Mr. Clark, I will frankly admit that you have explained away that difficulty with a great deal of ingenuity. I grant the force of your reasoning. But, sir, there is a difficulty in the way that is perfectly insurmountable. You can not argue it down. It excludes argument."

"Indeed, sir!" said I.

"What is that ?"

"Well, sir," he rejoined, "this is an economical government, and no Congress will ever consent to double the number of clerks in this department!"

I am well aware that in telling this story I draw largely upon the credulity of the listener. Nevertheless, it is true. And this very Secretary held his office longer, I believe, than it has ever been held by any other incumbent since the foundation of the government. I gave up double entry after that, and I presume they are keeping accounts in Washington in the good old way to this hour.

It is not an entirely pleasant thing to be a member of the Cabinet. All feel the pressure from above. All feel that a breath unmakes them, as a breath hath made. Men feel alike whose place and preferment depend upon the will of another man. Whether they be Cabinet ministers or Cabinet porters, the moral effect of the position is the same.

I will relate one more of my interviews with General Jackson, which left an indelible impression upon my mind, and, I think, had an effect upon my fortunes. It was a trifling affair, but it is trifles that show character.

In the Northeast boundary dispute, the king of the Netherlands offered his arbitration. The offer was accepted, and