Part 5

His Confidant’s Countenance

A dreadful legend you might trace In SIMPLE JAMES’S honest face, For there you read, in Nature’s print, “A Scoundrel of the Deepest Tint.”

His Character

A deed of blood, or fire, or flames, Was meat and drink to SIMPLE JAMES: To hide his guilt he did not plan, But owned himself a bad young man.

The Author to his Reader

And why on earth good BAILEY BEN (The wisest, noblest, best of men) Made SIMPLE JAMES his right-hand man Is quite beyond my mental span.

The same, continued

But there—enough of gruesome deeds! My heart, in thinking of them, bleeds; And so let SIMPLE JAMES take wing,— ’Tis not of him I’m going to sing.

The Pasha’s Clerk

Good PASHA BAILEY kept a clerk (For BAILEY only made his mark), His name was MATTHEW WYCOMBE COO, A man of nearly forty-two.

His Accomplishments

No person that I ever knew Could “yödel” half as well as COO, And Highlanders exclaimed, “Eh, weel!” When COO began to dance a reel.

His Kindness to the Pasha’s Wives

He used to dance and sing and play In such an unaffected way, He cheered the unexciting lives Of PASHA BAILEY’S lovely wives.

The Author to his Reader

But why should I encumber you With histories of MATTHEW COO? Let MATTHEW COO at once take wing,— ’Tis not of COO I’m going to sing.

The Author’s Muse

Let me recall my wandering Muse; She shall be steady if I choose— She roves, instead of helping me To tell the deeds of BAILEY B.

The Pasha’s Visitor

One morning knocked, at half-past eight, A tall Red Indian at his gate. In Turkey, as you’re p’raps aware, Red Indians are extremely rare.

The Visitor’s Outfit

Mocassins decked his graceful legs, His eyes were black, and round as eggs, And on his neck, instead of beads, Hung several Catawampous seeds.

What the Visitor said

“Ho, ho!” he said, “thou pale-faced one, Poor offspring of an Eastern sun, You’ve never seen the Red Man skip Upon the banks of Mississip!”

The Author’s Moderation

To say that BAILEY oped his eyes Would feebly paint his great surprise— To say it almost made him die Would be to paint it much too high.

The Author to his Reader

But why should I ransack my head To tell you all that Indian said; We’ll let the Indian man take wing,— ’Tis not of him I’m going to sing.