In his book, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Garry Wills recounts an intriguing argument that Lincoln had with his young secretary, John Hay, after the two had taken in a performance of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1.

The part of Falstaff had been played by the noted Victorian actor, James Hackett, with whom Lincoln corresponded and occasionally invited to the White House. There is a broadly comic scene in the second act of the play where Falstaff gives a lurid account to Prince Hal and his drinking buddies of how he and a companion were set upon by a large band of robbers and how he heroically defended himself. The humor arises from the fact that Falstaff is unaware that the “robbers” were Prince Hal and one of his friends in disguise, and that they know perfectly well that Falstaff turned tail and ran at the sight of them, even though the odds were equal.

The argument between Lincoln and Hay involved Hackett’s delivery of Falstaff’s line, “These four came all affront, and mainly thrust at me.”

Hackett had emphasized the word “thrust”, whereas Lincoln thought he should have emphasized “me.”

Pedantically, Hay disagreed. In this instance, he argued, “mainly” meant “strongly or fiercely,” so Falstaff is saying that with all their might his assailants thrust at him.

But Lincoln held his ground. He felt the line was funnier if Falstaff had said, “mainly they thrust at me.” In other words, Falstaff is saying, “poor me.” This pretended gang of cutthroats is going after him rather than his companion. This would recall his earlier line, “two or three or fifty upon poor old Jack.”

Hay may have been right, at least in terms of semantics. But Wills points out that when Orson Welles played Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight, his 1965 movie version of Henry IV, Welles read this line Lincoln’s way, not Hay’s. He adds that there was very little that Hay or anyone else could teach Lincoln about milking a line for laughs.