The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
"I was once accosted . . . by a stranger, who said, "Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my possession which belongs to you." "How is that?" I asked, considerably astonished.
The stranger took a jackknife from his pocket. "This knife," said he, "was placed in my hands some years ago with the injunction that I was to keep it until I found a man uglier than myself.
I have carried it from that time to this. Allow me to say, sir, that I think you are fairly entitled to the property." -Anecdote about the period when Lincoln practiced law on the Illinois State circuit, told to his portrait painter Francis Carpenter, 1864
(This knife was offered to Sumner Phelps, who refused it. See History of Henderson County 1911, p. 69)