Ballads: The Speculators

The Speculators

The night was stormy and dark,
The town was shut up in sleep:
Only those were abroad who were out on a lark,
Or those who'd no beds to keep.

I pass'd through the lonely street,
The wind did sing and blow;
I could hear the policeman's feet
Clapping to and fro.

There stood a potato-man
In the midst of all the wet;
He stood with his 'tato-can
In the lonely Hay-market.

Two gents of dismal mien,
And dank and greasy rags,
Came out of a shop for gin,
Swaggering over the flags:

Swaggering over the stones,
These shabby bucks did walk;
And I went and followed those seedy ones,
And listened to their talk.

Was I sober or awake?
Could I believe my ears?
Those dismal beggars spake
Of nothing but railroad shares.

I wondered more and more:
Says one--"Good friend of mine,
How many shares have you wrote for,
In the Diddlesex Junction line?"

"I wrote for twenty," says Jim,
"But they wouldn't give me one;"
His comrade straight rebuked him
For the folly he had done:

"O Jim, you are unawares
Of the ways of this bad town;
I always write for five hundred shares,
And then they put me down."

"And yet you got no shares,"
Says Jim, "for all your boast;"
"I would have wrote," says Jack, "but where
Was the penny to pay the post?"

"I lost, for I couldn't pay
That first instalment up;
But here's 'taters smoking hot--I say,
Let's stop, my boy, and sup."

And at this simple feast
The while they did regale,
I drew each ragged capitalist
Down on my left thumbnail.

Their talk did me perplex,
All night I tumbled and tost,
And thought of railroad specs,
And how money was won and lost.

"Bless railroads everywhere,"
I said, "and the world's advance;
Bless every railroad share
In Italy, Ireland, France;
For never a beggar need now despair,
And every rogue has a chance."

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