shoveling madly, only soon to discover himself in a pit.
* * *
"Now I see how essential material things are," said the man, as he
looked at the ashes of his burned down house.
* * *
"How dare you, who are nothing but a low worm, try to tell me what
to do," said the man, as he stood there unmoving, just before the
piano landed on him.
How the King Learned about Love
Back in the days of knights and chivalry and courtly love, a
beautiful young woman fell in love with a man of noble birth, who,
however, was already married. Their love continued to grow until
the woman granted and the man took more than virtue could properly
countenance and one morning the woman awakened with the right to use
the pronoun "we" whenever she spoke.
She realized that she could not inform her lover because of his
position, for he was not only married but also a very prominent
member of the court. So she concealed the matter remarkably over
many months, until, in the fullness of time, it could be concealed
no longer. At that point she resolved to throw herself on the mercy
of her mistress, the king's daughter, to whom she was a lady in
waiting. She took her newborn son to the princess and begged quite
pathetically for her help.
The king's daughter, knowing that he was a hard man who had never
hesitated to crush, kill, or otherwise persecute anyone who offended
him in the slightest, realized that she could not tell the truth or
say simply that the child had been found during one of the princess'
walks, because the king would then send it to a harsh life in an
orphanage--and that would be if she found him in a good mood. She
decided instead to declare to the king that the child was her own
and take the guilt, together with any other consequences, upon
herself, for she loved her lady in waiting very much.
When the king learned that his daughter had given birth (or so he
believed), he was unutterably furious, and spent the better part of
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