Once there was a great king who ruled all of Hawaii. He was a good and benevolent ruler, and much admired by his people. One day, a ship landed on his biggest island, and men wearing strange clothing disembarked. Approaching the king, they bowed and offered many beautiful presents. The king accepted them and welcomed the men from the ship to his island.

One of the men from the ship, Niles, caught the eye of a beautiful woman among the admiring crowd. The two fell instantly in love. Alas, the woman from the crowd was the king's youngest daughter Mai. When Niles approached the king for Mai's hand in marriage, the king would have none of it.

Niles formulated a plan to win the king's permission to marry Mai.   One night, while the king was presiding over an important ceremony, Niles had some of the men from the ship build a second story onto the king's one story grass house. Then, he and the other men went to the ship and fetched from it a handsomely carved ebony throne they had been given as a gift for saving the life of a king in the great jungle forests of Africa.

When they were finised, Niles climbed up into a tree just outside the window of the second story of the king's grass house, and waited for the king to return from the ceremony, hoping to see the look of surprise and joy upon his face when he beheld the magnificant throne.

BUT, when the king returned, he got no farther than the middle of the room just below where the throne was positioned on the second floor. Just as the king was passing beneath the throne, the ceiling above him gave a horrible groan and caved in, the throne landing right on top of the king. He was killed instantly, and thus we have the moral of our story...

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People who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones.

Art Thieme (by proxy)