NOT A GRIM FAIRY TALE
August 29, 2010
The Smoke King
A youthful king set out one day to find a bride. He vowed to discover a maiden neither like an ax handle nor surrounded by a flock of beetles. After wading through flocks and flocks of wenches surrounded by beetles and elbowing his way through hordes of ax handle-shaped maidens, he encountered in a glade a poor orphan girl who had been raised by a renegade tobacconist. He bowed low before her.
The orphan girl blushed crimson, curtsied, and said, “Care for a smoke?”
“Verily yes, and you shall be my bride,” replied the young king.
And so they were wed and smoked happily ever after. And they liked playing cards, too.
