No doubt, McAllister, you can explain
How honorable ’tis to lie for gain,
Provided only that the jury’s made
To understand that lying is your trade. 
A hundred thousand volumes, broad and flat,
(The Bible not included) proving that,
Have been put forth, though still the doubt remains
If God has read them with befitting pains. 
No Morrow could get justice, you’ll declare,
If none who knew him foul affirmed him fair. 
Ingenious man! how easy ’tis to raise
An argument to justify the course that pays!

I grant you, if you like, that men may need
The services performed for crime by greed,—­
Grant that the perfect welfare of the State
Requires the aid of those who in debate
As mercenaries lost in early youth
The fine distinction between lie and truth—­
Who cheat in argument and set a snare
To take the feet of Justice unaware—­
Who serve with livelier zeal when rogues assist
With perjury, embracery (the list
Is long to quote) than when an honest soul,
Scorning to plot, conspire, intrigue, cajole,
Reminds them (their astonishment how great!)
He’d rather suffer wrong than perpetrate. 
I grant, in short, ’tis better all around
That ambidextrous consciences abound
In courts of law to do the dirty work
That self-respecting scavengers would shirk. 
What then?  Who serves however clean a plan
By doing dirty work, he is a dirty man!

ACCEPTED

Charles Shortridge once to St. Peter came. 
“Down!” cried the saint with his face aflame;
“’Tis writ that every hardy liar
Shall dwell forever and ever in fire!”
“That’s what I said the night that I died,”
The sinner, turning away, replied. 
“What! you said that?” cried the saint—­“what! what!
You said ’twas so writ?  Then, faith, ’tis not!
I’m a devil at quoting, but I begin
To fail in my memory.  Pray walk in.”

A PROMISED FAST TRAIN

I turned my eyes upon the Future’s scroll
And saw its pictured prophecies unroll.

I saw that magical life-laden train
Flash its long glories o’er Nebraska’s plain.

I saw it smoothly up the mountain glide. 
“O happy, happy passengers!” I cried.

For Pleasure, singing, drowned the engine’s roar,
And Hope on joyous pinions flew before.

Then dived the train adown the sunset slope—­
Pleasure was silent and unseen was Hope.

Crashes and shrieks attested the decay
That greed had wrought upon that iron way.

The rusted rails broke down the rotting ties,
And clouds of flying spikes obscured the skies.

My coward eyes I drew away, distressed,
And fixed them on the terminus to-West,

Where soon, its melancholy tale to tell,
One bloody car-wheel wabbled in and fell!