{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-social-call",
 "title": "A Social Call",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
 "book_slug": "shapes-of-clay",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Shapes of Clay (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Less redness in the nose⁠—nay, even some blue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would not, I think, particularly hurt you.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When seen close to, not mounted in your car,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You look the drunkard and the pig you are.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No matter, sit you down, for I am not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a gray study, as you sometimes find me.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Merry? O, no, nor wish to be, God wot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But there’s another year of pain behind me.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That’s something to be thankful for: the more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There are behind, the fewer are before.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I know you, Father Christmas, for a scamp,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But Heaven endowed me at my soul’s creation",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With an affinity to every tramp",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That walks the world and steals its admiration.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For admiration is, like linen left",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the line⁠—got easiest by theft.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Good God! old man, just think of it! I’ve stood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With brains and honesty, some five-and-twenty",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Long years as champion of all that’s good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And taken on the mazzard thwacks a-plenty.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet now whose praises do the people bawl?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those of the fellows whom I live to maul.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Why, this is odd!⁠—the more I try to talk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of you, the more my tongue grows egotistic",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To prattle of myself! I’ll try to balk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its waywardness and be more altruistic.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So let us speak of others⁠—how they sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what a devil of a state they’re in!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That’s all I have to say. Good-bye, old man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Next year you possibly may find me scolding⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Or miss me altogether: Nature’s plan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Includes, as I suppose, a final folding",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of these poor empty hands. Then drop a tear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To think they’ll never box another ear.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}