{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/the-bosss-choice",
 "title": "The Boss’s Choice",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "book_slug": "black-beetles-in-amber",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 49,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1892,
  "venue": "Black Beetles in Amber (1892)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier"
  ]
 },
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  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 35,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Listen to his wild romances:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He advances foolish fancies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each expounded as his “view”⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gu.",
    "indent": 8
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In his brain’s opacous clot, ah",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He has got a maggot! What a",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man with “views” to overwhelm us!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gulielmus.",
    "indent": 5
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hear his demagogic clamor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hear him stammer in his grammar!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See him laboring to spell⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gulielmus L.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Slave who paid the price demanded⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With two-handed iron branded",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the boss⁠—pray cease to dose us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gulielmus L. Jocosus.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}