Stick to Your Business
Among the bores who assailed the President was a Western stranger who had another plan to end the war. Lincoln listened to him all the way, and then obliged him and the crowd with a story:
“You may have heard of Mr. Bounce, of Chicago? No; well, he was a gentleman of so much leisure that he had no time to do anything! This superb loafer went to a capitalist at the time of a wheat flurry, when speculators reckoned to make fortunes, and he informed Mr. Blank Check how his project would make them both terribly rich. The reply came sharp as a bear-trap: ‘My advice is that you stick to your business!’
“‘But I have no business—I am a gentleman.’
“‘Whatever that is, I advise you to stick to that!’
“And now, my friend,” proceeded the President, “I mean nothing offensive, for I know you mean well—but I think you had better stick to your business and leave the war-threshing to those who have the responsibility.”