The truly bad are often pleasant folk,
and purposeful in craft and vice,
with all the sympathy of poison oak,
yet cheerful when there is no price.

But there are symptoms to beware,
which can be gleaned from little things.
Due care is needed with their icy stare,
and their company comes with strings.

For they assume the great I am
refers to them and not to us,
and we are often pascal lambs,
and otherwise superfluous.