A Man by Ambrose Bierce — Read

Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon, / Casting to South his eye across the bourne / Of his dominion (where the Palmiped, / With leathers 'twixt his toes, paddles his marsh, / Amphibious) saw a rising cloud of hats, / And heard a faint, far sound of distant cheers / Below the swell of the horizon. "Lo," / Cried one, "the President! the President!" / All footed webwise then took up the word -- / The hill tribes and the tribes lacustrine and / The folk riparian and littoral, / Cried with one voice: "The President! He comes!" / And some there were who flung their headgear up / In emulation of the Southern mob; / While some, more soberly disposed, stood still / And silently had fits; and others made / Such reverent genuflexions as they could, / Having that climate in their bones.

Then spake / The Court Dunce, humbly, as became him: "Sire, / If thou, as heretofore thou hast, wilt deign / To reap advantage of a fool's advice / By action ordered after nature's way, / As in thy people manifest (for still / Stupidity's the only wisdom) thou / Wilt get thee straight unto to the border land / To mark the President's approach with such / Due, decent courtesy as it shall seem / We have in custom the best warrant for."