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"Plain
Language from Truthful James"
or
"The Heathen Chinee"
by Bret
Harte (1870)
Which I wish to remark
And my language is plain
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are
vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar:
Which the same I would rise
to explain.
Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny
In regard to the same
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive
and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to
Bill Nye.
It was August the third,
And quite sort was the skies,
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day
upon William
And me in a way I despise.
Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was euchre. The same
He did not understand,
But he smiled, as he sat
by the table,
With the smile that was
childlike and bland.
Yet the cards they were
stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of
aces and bowers,
And the same with intent
to deceive.
But the hands that were
played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to
see,
Till at last he put down
a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt
unto me.
Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, "Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese
cheap labor,"
And he went for that heathen
Chinee.
In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed,
Like the leaves on the strand,
With the cards flint
Ah Sin had been hiding
In the game "he did not
understand."
In his sleeves, which were
long,
He had twenty-four jacks,
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts.
And we found on his nails,
which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers,
that's wax.
Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are
vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I am free
to maintain |