THE PARABLE OF THE KING
Once upon a time the King of Spades got it into his head that he was the Whole Thing and by his vanity made himself very objectionable to the rest of the Pack. He became thoroughly confirmed in his high opinion of himself, when one evening he, with a couple of other Kings and a pair of deuces, beat a Queen Full on Aces.
His boasting became so tiresome that everyone gave him a wide berth and he frequently found himself in the Discard. This did not cure him, however, and he continued to be boastful, bragging of the great hands he had been in and the Queens he had captured until all the cards up to the nines left the Pack, leaving him in a Euchre Deck where he was nightly captured by Knaves.
Finally, he got so low, dirty, greasy and disreputable, that he represented the dark man in the pack the cook used to tell fortunes with.
Bragging is such an objectionable form of vanity that even a King cannot afford to indulge in it.