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."

THE SPELLING BEE AT ANGELS

(REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES)

Waltz in, waltz in, ye little kids, and gather round my knee,
And drop them books and first pot-hooks, and hear a yarn from me.
I kin not sling a fairy tale of Jinnys* fierce and wild,
For I hold it is unchristian to deceive a simple child;
But as from school yer driftin' by, I thowt ye'd like to hear
Of a "Spelling Bee" at Angels that we organized last year.

It warn't made up of gentle kids, of pretty kids, like you,
But gents ez hed their reg'lar growth, and some enough for two.
There woz Lanky Jim of Sutter's Fork and Bilson of Lagrange,
And "Pistol Bob," who wore that d