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.
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