{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/tom-beatty",
 "title": "Tom Beatty",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edgar Lee Masters",
 "poet_slug": "edgar-lee-masters",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spoon River Anthology",
 "book_slug": "spoon-river-anthology",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 147,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1916,
  "venue": "Spoon River Anthology (1916)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/edgar-lee-masters_spoon-river-anthology",
  "file": "spoon-river-anthology.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://web.archive.org/web/20080723131115/http://spoonriveranthology.net/spoon/river/originalOrder/",
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 21,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I tried the rights of property,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although by lamp-light, for thirty years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that poker room in the opera house.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I say to you that Life’s a gambler",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Head and shoulders above us all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No mayor alive can close the house.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And if you lose, you can squeal as you will;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ll not get back your money.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He makes the percentage hard to conquer;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He stacks the cards to catch your weakness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not to meet your strength.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he gives you seventy years to play:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For if you cannot win in seventy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You cannot win at all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So, if you lose, get out of the room⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Get out of the room when your time is up.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s mean to sit and fumble the cards,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And curse your losses, leaden-eyed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whining to try and try.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}