In connection with the life and works of this distinguished ruler is
told an interesting legend well worthy of being repeated here. It would
seem that King Verboten was the first crowned head of Europe to learn
the value of keeping his name constantly before the reading public.
Rameses the Third of Egypt--that enterprising old constant advertiser
who swiped the pyramids of all his predecessors and had his own name
engraved thereon--had been dead for many centuries and was forgotten
when Verboten mounted the throne, and our own Teddy Roosevelt would not
be born for many centuries yet to come; so the idea must have occurred
to King Verboten spontaneously, as it were. Therefore he took counsel
with himself, saying:
"I shall now erect statues to myself. Dynasties change and wars rage,
and folks grow fickle and tear down statues. None of that for your Uncle
Dudley K. Verboten! No; this is what I shall do: On every available site
in the length and breadth of this my realm I shall stick up my name;
and, wherever possible, near to it I shall engrave or paint the names
of my two favorite sons, Ausgang and Eingang--to the end that, come what
may, we shall never be forgotten in the land of our birth."
And then he went and did it; and it was a thorough job--so thorough a
job that, to this good year of our Lord you may still see the name of
that wise king everywhere displayed in Germany--on railroad stations and
in railroad trains; on castle walls and dead walls and brewery walls,
and the back fence of the Young Ladies' High School. And nearly always,
too, you will find hard by, over doors and passageways, the names of
his two sons, each accompanied or underscored by the heraldic emblem of
their house--a barbed and feathered arrow pointing horizontally.
And so it was that King Verboten lived happily ever after and in the
fullness of time died peacefully in his bed, surrounded by his wives,
his children and his courtiers; and all of them sorrowed greatly and
wept, but the royal signpainter sorrowed most of all.
I know that certain persons will contest the authenticity of this
passage of history; they will claim Verboten means in our tongue
Forbidden, and that Ausgang means Outgoing, and Eingang means
Incoming--or, in other words, Exit and Entrance; but surely this could
not be so. If so many things were forbidden, a man in Germany would be
privileged only to die--and probably not that, unless he died according
to a given formula; and certainly no human being with the possible
exception of the comedian who used to work the revolving-door trick
in Hanlon's Fantasma, could go out of and come into a place so often
without getting dizzy in the head. No--the legend stands as stated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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