Not to Be Thought Of!
It has been seen that creditors treated the struggling Lincoln with the utmost forbearance, countering the adage that “forbearance is not acquittance.” He was given the occasion to show how he was neighborly when the turn came. A client of his was long deferring settlement when the lawyer met him by chance on the courthouse steps, at Springfield.
He accosted him cordially, and remarked about an accident that had befallen him.
Cogdale had been blown up by gunpowder and lost a hand. He began to apologize for the business delay, showing that he was crippled manually as well as in his pursuits.
Lincoln plainly expressed his sympathy and sorrow.
“I have been thinking about that note of yours,” faltered the unhappy man.
The lawyer drew the paper in question out of his wallet and forced it upon him.
“It is not to be thought of!” replied he, laughing in his droll yet saturnine mode.
Cogdale honestly added that he did not know when he really could pay.
But the donee hurried away, saying:
“If you had the money, I would not take it out of your only hand!”
“SKIN WRIGHT AND CLOSE!”
In more than one event the Lincolnian snappy and headlong manner was the fruit of study and deliberation. Apparently holding aloof from politics after his return from Washington, in 1849, Lincoln was earning a great name at the bar. His popularity was the wider as he did not disdain poor clients and often won a case without permitting any remuneration. There came to Lincoln & Herndon’s office one day a poor widow. She was entitled to a pension of four hundred dollars, but the agent, one Wright, who had drawn it for her, retained one-half as his fee. This greed so stirred Mr. Lincoln that he at once went to the agent to demand disgorging of the money. On refusal, a suit was instituted for the recovery.
At the trial, with his buoyancy, Lincoln said to his partner:
“You had better stay, and hear me address the jury, as I am going to skin Wright and get the money back.”
He pleaded that there was no contract between the parties; that the man was not an authorized agent; his charge was unreasonable; he had never given the money due to the soldier’s widow, but retained one-half. Next he expatiated on her husband, during the Revolutionary War, experiencing the hardships of the old Continentals at Valley Forge in the winter; barefoot in the deep snows; ill-clad against the rigors; their feet, cut by ice staining the ground, and so on.
The men in the box were also affected to tears, like the spectators, while the pension “shark” wriggled under the invectives. The verdict was in favor of the relict. Her advocate not only remitted his costs, but paid her fare home and for her stay in Springfield, so that she went off rejoicing.
Lincoln’s partner had the curiosity to look at his brief, which concluded:
“Skin Wright! Close!”—(Related by Mr. Herndon, present at the trial.)