The Lincoln Story Book / A Judicious Collection of the Best Stories and Anecdotes of the Great President, Many Appearing Here for the First Time in Book Form

by Unknown

STRUCK BY THE DEAD HAND.

Edwin Booth, the tragedian, brother of the regicide Wilkes, was at a friend's house. By the purest chance, dallying over the knickknacks, he picked up a plaster-cast of a hand. It was something more than a paper-weight, he was intuitively prompted, for he said, handling it reverently as Yorick's relict:

"By the way, whose is this?"

Before the cue could be given to hush or utter a subterfuge, some one blurted out:

"Abraham Lincoln's! Don't you know?"

"The murder was out!" and the distinguished guest, who suffered a long term for a crime wholly out of his ken, was silent for the evening.--(W. D. Howells.)