officer I know, from General Grant down. I hope Mr. Lincoln will expel him from the Cabinet for this insult."
When they were again ushered into the President's office, Elsie hastened to inform him of the outrageous reply the Secretary of War had made to his order.
"Did Stanton say that I was a fool?" he asked, with a quizzical look out of his kindly eyes.
"Yes, he did," snapped Elsie. "And he repeated it with a blankety prefix."
The President looked good-humouredly out of the window toward the War Office and musingly said:
"Well, if Stanton says that I am a blankety fool, it must be so, for I have found out that he is nearly always right, and generally means what he says. I'll just step over and see Stanton."
As he spoke the last sentence, the humour slowly faded from his face, and the anxious mother saw back of those patient gray eyes the sudden gleam of the courage and conscious power of a lion.
He dismissed them with instructions to return the next day for his final orders and walked over to the War Department alone.
The Secretary of War was in one of his ugliest moods, and made no effort to conceal it when asked his reasons for the refusal to execute the order.
"The grounds for my action are very simple," he said, with bitter emphasis. "The execution of this traitor is part of a carefully considered policy of justice on which the future security of the Nation depends. If I am to administer this office, I will not be hamstrung by constant
