{
 "id": "ring-lardner/an-appreciative-audience",
 "title": "An Appreciative Audience",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ring Lardner",
 "poet_slug": "ring-lardner",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Bib Ballads",
 "book_slug": "bib-ballads",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 3,
 "container": "Bib Ballads",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1915,
  "venue": "Bib Ballads (1915)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
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   "https://archive.org/details/per_chicago-daily-tribune_1913-06-03_72_132",
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   "https://archive.org/details/sim_cosmopolitan_cosmopolitan_1922-12_73_6",
   "https://archive.org/details/boston-evening-globe-1924-02-23-1",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_the-new-yorker_1925-04-18_1_9",
   "https://archive.org/details/the-atlanta-journal-1929-01-16-1"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
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 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My son, I wish that it were half",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As easy to extract a laugh",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From grown-ups as from thee.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then I’d go on the stage, my boy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While Richard Carle and Eddie Foy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Burned up with jealousy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I wouldn’t have to rack my brain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or lie awake all night in vain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pursuit of brand new jokes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor fear my lines were heard with groans",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of pain and sympathetic moans",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From sympathetic folks.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I’d merely have to make a face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just twist a feature out of place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be the soul of wit;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or bark, and then pretend to bite,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, from the screams of wild delight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be sure I’d made a hit.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}