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A little jest can lift a heavy soul and even light the room.

But what is a joke without an audience?

What is a king without a court?

Untamed, mad, wild like a beast.

A crown of cap and bells befalls the one who sells their carefulness for crass.

No one is immune to sin, not even sovereign kin,

and a ruler who gluts on glee will despairingly leave his party in Ashfield anguish.

In this story, even the most downtrodden fool holds a candle to their king whose mockery of monarchy begs to be disposed. And there to ascend is Hopfrog. Hopfrog, or the eight-chained Urangutangs, by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1849.

I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was.

He seemed to live only for joking, to tell a good story of the joke kind,

and to tell it well was the surest road to his favour.

Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers.

They all took after the king too in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well as inimitable jokers.

Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself,

which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine,

but certain it is that a lean joker is a rarer avis in Terrace.

About the refinements, or as he called them, the ghost of wit, the king troubled himself

very little. He had a special admiration for breadth in a jest and would often put up with

length for the sake of it. Over niceties wearied him. Upon the whole practical jokes suited his

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