He counted upon audacity to reach the small
passage behind the President's box. Once there, he guarded
against interference by arranging a wooden bar, to be fastened by
a simple mortice in the angle of the wall and the door by which
he entered, so that once shut, the door could not be opened from
the outside. He even provided for the chance of not gaining
entrance to the box by boring a hole in the door, through which
he might either observe the occupants, or take aim and shoot. He
hired at a livery stable a small fleet horse.
A few moments before ten o'clock, leaving his horse at the rear
of the theatre, in charge of a call-boy, he entered the building,
passing rapidly to the little hallway leading to the President's
box. Showing a card to the servant in attendance, he was allowed
to enter, closed the door noiselessly, and secured it with the
wooden bar he had made ready, without disturbing any of the
occupants of the box, between whom and himself yet remained the
partition and the door through which he had bored the hole.
No one, not even the actor who uttered them, could ever remember
the last words of the piece that were spoken that night--the last
that Abraham Lincoln heard upon earth; for the tragedy in the box
turned play and players alike to the most unsubstantial of
phantoms. For weeks hate and brandy had kept Booth's brain in a
morbid state.
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