Long after my arrival in New York the mystery remained unsolved. I applied to literary friends for its solution, but all they seemed to know was that various smart things had run the round of the papers with the signature of "_Josh Billings_" to them, but in what paper they had originated or by whom they were written none could give me information. My friend George Arnold, a well-known wit of the _New York Leader_, knew of my anxiety. Meeting me one day at Crook and Duff's Restaurant, the mid-day rallying point of most of the genial spirits of New York, he drew me aside and gravely asked--
"Have you found out yet who _Josh Billings_ is?"
"Yes; but keep it dark. Only five of his friends have been let into the secret. It would not do to let the world know. His position would be damaged."
"Who is it?" I demanded eagerly. "Is it Hosea Biglow under a new name?"
"Horace Greeley?" I suggested, interrogatively.
"No. A still greater man. Can't you guess?"
"Really, I cannot. Don't keep me in suspense. Tell me."
"The author is ----" and my friend paused--"the author of _Josh Billings_ is none other than--President Lincoln!"
My informant made the communication so gravely, that for the moment I believed it; especially as some few days previous, being down in Washington, I had occasion to know that Barney Williams, the actor, was summoned to the White House on a Sunday afternoon, that he spent some hours with the President, and that on his return in the evening to Willard's Hotel he assured me that the President had beaten him in telling funny stories, and had said the drollest things he had heard for many a day. That my information was nothing more than a hoax the reader will readily suppose; but I felt bound to "pass it on" to my acquaintances, with a like injunction to secresy, until at length I had the amusement of hearing that it had reached the ears of Mr. Lincoln, who laughed heartily at the joke, and pleasantly observed that his shoulders were hardly broad enough to bear the burdens of the State, without having to carry the sins of all its wits and jesters.
Time passed on and business called me to take a trip one day up the Hudson River to the pleasant little town of Poughkeepsie. What a quiet, charming little town it is, those who have visited it can well remember. I selected the steamer _Armenian_ for my trip up the river. The Rhine of America never was seen to more advantage than it was on that bright summer's day, and Poughkeepsie never looked fairer than as I saw it from the middle of the stream. I landed at a town on the left bank, crossed the river, went down to Poughkeepsie by rail, and arrived there late in the evening, I knew of only two staple products of the place, and they were--whiskey and spiritualism. The whiskey I tasted, and the spiritualism I went in search of in the person of Andrew Jackson Davis, the Swedenborg of the United States, whose books on the unseen world have been introduced to the British public by Mr. Howitt. A kindly Poughkeepsian volunteered to conduct me to where the great mysticist had lived; but I found, to my disappointment, that he was then absent from the town. To console me for my ill-luck, in not being able to see so great a celebrity, my guide soothingly observed that there was another great writer resident in and belonging to Poughkeepsie.