Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced by the Levin family, Englewood, CO. Like many plays, there is no authoritative version and it evolved over the course of time, indeed in multiple directions. The 1869 printing upon which this etext is primarily based was poorly printed and we have corrected outright punctuation and grammatical errors while maintaining its original, whimisical use of capitalization and punctuation. This version contains very few "Dundrearyisms" such as "birds of a feather gather no moss" for which the play gained much of its popular appeal.

Abraham Lincoln was watching this play when he was assassinated. (Act III, halfway through Scene 2.)