The President had made arrangements to visit New York, and was told that President Garrett, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, would be glad to furnish a special train.

“I don’t doubt it a bit,” remarked the President, “for I know Mr. Garrett, and like him very well, and if I believed—which I don’t, by any means—all the things some people say about his ‘secesh’ principles, he might say to you as was said by the Superintendent of a certain railroad to a son of one my predecessors in office. Some two years after the death of President Harrison, the son of his successor in this office wanted to take his father on an excursion somewhere or other, and went to the Superintendent’s office to order a special train.

“This Superintendent was a Whig of the most uncompromising sort, who hated a Democrat more than all other things on the earth, and promptly refused the young man’s request, his language being to the effect that this particular railroad was not running special trains for the accommodation of Presidents of the United States just at that season.

“The son of the President was much surprised and exceedingly annoyed. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘you have run special Presidential trains, and I know it. Didn’t you furnish a special train for the funeral of President Harrison?’

“‘Certainly we did,’ calmly replied the Superintendent, with no relaxation of his features, ‘and if you will only bring your father here in the same shape as General Harrison was, you shall have the best train on the road.”’

When the laughter had subsided, the President said: “I shall take pleasure in accepting Mr. Garrett’s offer, as I have no doubts whatever as to his loyalty to the United States government or his respect for the occupant of the Presidential office.”