{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/two-delegates",
 "title": "Two Delegates",
 "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": null,
 "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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   "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": {
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  "last_checked": "2026-08-20",
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  [
   {
    "text": "In that fair city by the inland sea",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where Blaine unhived his Presidential bee",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Frank Pixley’s meeting with George Gorham sing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Celestial muse, and what events did spring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the encounter of those mighty sons",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of thunder, and of slaughter, and of guns.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Great Gorham first, his yearning tooth to sate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And give him stomach for the day’s debate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Entering a restaurant, with eager mien",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Demands an ounce of bacon and a bean.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The trembling waiter, by the statesman’s eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smitten with terror, hastens to comply;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor chairs nor tables can his speed retard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For famine’s fixed and horrible regard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He takes for menace. As he shaking flew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lo! the portentous Pixley heaved in view!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before him yawned invisible the cell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unheard, behind, the warden’s footsteps fell.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thrice in convention rising to his feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He thrice had been thrust back into his seat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thrice had protested, been reminded thrice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The nation had no need of his advice.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Balked of his will to set the people right,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His soul was gloomy though his hat was white.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So fierce his mien, with provident accord",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The waiters swarmed him, thinking him a lord.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He spurned them, roaring grandly to their chief:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Give me (Fred Crocker pays) a leg of beef!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His wandering eye’s deluminating flame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fell upon Gorham and the crisis came!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For Pixley scowled and darkness filled the room",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till Gorham’s flashing orbs dispelled the gloom.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The patrons of the place, by fear dismayed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sprang to the street and left their scores unpaid.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So, when Jove thunders and his lightnings gleam",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To sour the milk and curdle, too, the cream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And storm-clouds gather, o’er the shadowed hill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ass forsakes his hay, the pig his swill.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hotly the heroes now fell to⁠—their breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came short and hard, as in the throes of death.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They clenched their hands, their weapons brandished high,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cut, stabbed, and hewed, nor uttered any cry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But gnashed their teeth and struggled on! In brief,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One ate his bacon, t’other one his beef.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}