Page:Behind the scenes, or, Thirty years a slave and four years in the White House.djvu/357

This page has been validated.
Appendix.
355

paper. If it continues for a few days longer, it will soon be right. It is a secesh paper—says Congress gave me $25,000 as a present, besides $20,000 of remaining salary. The $25,000 you know to be utterly false. You can show this note to B. & K., also the scraps sent. Let no one see them but themselves, and then burn them. It is all just as I expected—that when the division took place, a 'mountain would be made of a mole-hill.' And I fear it will succeed in injuring the premeditated plans. If the war rages, the Evening News might simply say that the sum assigned each was false; that $75,000 was the sum the administrator, Judge Davis, filed his bonds for. But by all means my authority must not be given. And then the Evening News can descant on the $25,000 each, with income of $1,700 each, and Mrs. Lincoln's share, she not being able to touch any of her sons' portion. My word or testimony must not appear in the article; only the paper must speak