Francis Bret Harte

The Thought-Reader of Angels

     REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES

We hev tumbled ez dust
  Or ez worms of the yearth;
Wot we looked for hez bust!
  We are objects of mirth!
They have played us--old Pards of the river!--they hev played us for
   all we was worth!

Was it euchre or draw
  Cut us off in our bloom?
Was it faro, whose law
  Is uncertain ez doom?
Or an innocent "Jack pot" that--opened--was to us ez the jaws of the
   tomb?

It was nary!  It kem
  With some sharps from the States.
Ez folks sez, "All things kem
  To the fellers ez waits;"
And we'd waited six months for that suthin'--had me and Bill Nye--in
   such straits!

And it kem.  It was small;
  It was dream-like and weak;
It wore store clothes--that's all
  That we knew, so to speak;
But it called itself "Billson, Thought-Reader"--which ain't half a
   name for its cheek!

He could read wot you thought,
  And he knew wot you did;
He could find things untaught,
  No matter whar hid;
And he went to it, blindfold and smiling, being led by the hand like
   a kid!

Then I glanced at Bill Nye,
  And I sez, without pride,
"You'll excuse US.  We've nigh
  On to nothin' to hide;
But if some gent will lend us a twenty, we'll hide it whar folks
   shall decide."

It was Billson's own self
  Who forked over the gold,
With a smile.  "Thar's the pelf,"
  He remarked.  "I make bold
To advance it, and go twenty better that I'll find it without being
   told."

Then I passed it to Nye,
  Who repassed it to me.
And we bandaged each eye
  Of that Billson--ez we
Softly dropped that coin in his coat pocket, ez the hull crowd
   around us could see.

That was all.  He'd one hand
  Locked in mine.  Then he groped.
We could not understand
  Why that minit Nye sloped,
For we knew we'd the dead thing on Billson--even more than we
   dreamed of or hoped.

For he stood thar in doubt
  With his hand to his head;
Then he turned, and lit out
  Through the door where Nye fled,
Draggin' me and the rest of us arter, while we larfed till we
   thought we was dead,

Till he overtook Nye
  And went through him.  Words fail
For what follers!  Kin I
  Paint our agonized wail
Ez he drew from Nye's pocket that twenty wot we sworn was in his own
   coat-tail!

And it WAS!  But, when found,
  It proved bogus and brass!
And the question goes round
  How the thing kem to pass?
Or, if PASSED, woz it passed thar by William; and I listens, and
   echoes "Alas!

"For the days when the skill
  Of the keerds was no blind,
When no effort of will
  Could beat four of a kind,
When the thing wot you held in your hand, Pard, was worth more than
   the thing in your mind."