Mr. Cuffney: I have a very large selection just in from New York. Perhaps Abraham might allow me to offer him one for his departure.
Mrs. Lincoln: He might. But he'll wear the old one.
Mr. Stone: Slavery and the South. They're big things he'll have to deal with. "The end of that is not yet." That's what old John Brown said, "the end of that is not yet."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN comes in, a greenish and crumpled top hat leaving his forehead well uncovered, his wide pockets brimming over with documents. He is fifty, and he still preserves his clean-shaven state. He kisses his wife and shakes hands with his friends.
Lincoln: Well, Mary. How d'ye do, Samuel. How d'ye do, Timothy.
Mr. Stone and Mr. Cuffney: Good-evening, Abraham.
Lincoln (while he takes of his hat and shakes out sundry papers from the lining into a drawer): John Brown, did you say? Aye, John Brown. But that's not the way it's to be done. And you can't do the right thing the wrong way. That's as bad as the wrong thing, if you're going to keep the state together.
Mr. Cuffney: Well, we'll be going. We only came in to give you good-faring, so to say, in the great word you've got to speak this evening.
Mr. Stone: It makes a humble body almost afraid of himself, Abraham, to know his friend is to be one of the great ones of the earth, with his yes and no law for these many, many thousands of folk.
Lincoln: It makes a man humble to be chosen so, Samuel. So humble that no man but would say "No" to such bidding if he dare. To be President of this people, and trouble gathering everywhere in men's hearts. That's a searching thing. Bitterness, and scorn, and wrestling often with men I shall despise, and perhaps nothing truly done at the end. But I must go. Yes. Thank you, Samuel; thank you, Timothy. Just a glass of that cordial, Mary, before they leave.