not understand any of them. No doubt this is true of the majority of
Chinamen in the United States. In thinking of the Chinese and gambling
one always recalls Bret Harte's "Plain Language From Truthful James of
Table Mountain," popularly known as "The Heathen Chinee," one of the
best humorous poems in the English language. You can fairly see the
merry eyes of the author of the "Argonauts of '49" dancing with
pleasure as he describes the game of cards between "Truthful James,"
"Bill Nye" and "Ah Sin."

"Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand;
It was euchre: the same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table
With a smile that was childlike and bland.

"Yet the cards they were stacked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.

"But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made.
Were quite frightful to see--
Till at last he put down the right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.