In ardent conversation ere long the three were steeped, And in that good man’s confidence the younger party deeped. The p’liceman, as he shadowed them, exclaimed in blooming rage, “They’re stuffin’ of that duck, I guess, and leavin’ out the sage.” He saw the game distinctly, and inspected how it took, And watched the reappearance of that brownsome pocket-book, And how that futile ancient, ere he buttoned up his coat, Had interchanged, obliging-like, a greensome coloured note. And how they parted tenderly, and how the happy twain Went out into the Infinite by taking of the train; Then up the blue policeman came, and said, “My ancient son, Now you have gone and did it; say what you have been and done?” And unto him the good old man replied with childish glee, “They were as nice a two young men as I did ever see; But they were in such misery their story made me cry; So I lent ’em twenty dollars—which they’ll pay me by-and-bye. “But as I had no twenty, we also did arrange, They got from me a fifty bill, and gimme thirty change; But they will send that fifty back, and by to-morrow’s train——” “That note,” out cried the constable, “you’ll never see again.” “And that,” exclaimed the sweet old man, “I hope I never may, Because I do not care a cuss how far it keeps away; For if I’m a judge of money, and I _reether_ think I am, The one I shoved was never worth a continental dam. “They hev wandered with their sorrers into the sunny South, They hev got uncommon swallows and an extry lot of mouth. In the next train to the North’ard I expect to widely roam, And if any come inquirin’, jist say I ain’t at home.” The p’liceman lifted up his glance unto the sunny skies, I s’pose the light was fervent, for a tear were in his eyes, And said, “If in your travels a hat store you should see, Just buy yourself a beaver tile and charge that tile to me.” While the robins were a-robbing acrost the meadow gay, And the pigeons still a-pigeoning among the gleam of May, All out of doors kept out of doors as suchlike only can, A-singing of an endless hymn about that good old man. ----- [9] _Gonoff_, a Scriptural term for a Member of the Legislature, or suchlike. CARRYING COALS In the gloomsome abysses where darkness is kept, And the spirit of silence for ages has slept, In the great shaft of Pottsville, way down in the hole, There came seven parties, all dealers in coal; But they never had been in that chasm before, Nor had the sensation of darkness all o’er, Which so greatly expandeth the soul.