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.
