Cinderallice

                   
Smog and the various sorts air pollution which we experience
today are bad enough;  a couple of hundred years ago, at the
onset of the industrial revolution, from time to time and from
place to place, they were worse.  It often happens, in fact,
that items from those days will radio-carbon date as if from the
early middle ages, because the assumption of present ratios of
ordinary and radio-carbon in the air is simply that far off in
such cases, due to all of the smoke and debris which was in the
air then.

You can imagine that the worst places to be were in the close
backwaters of the British empire, and the hero of our present
tale, King Phillip the Filthy, ruled one such place.  King
Phillip had been crowned at what we might regard as the tender
age of 15, because nobody, his predacessor included, lived past
35 or so under such conditions.  The business of finding a bride
to help produce heirs for the young king became an immediate
priority, because there was no particular reason to believe that
he might live past 35.

Phillip had never really seen the sun, or anything resembling a
clear sky, and the matter was made worse by the fact that the
main fireplace and chimney in Phillip's palace hadn't really
worked in the last 70 years, and by the further fact that many
of the subjects of the realm smoked cigars and pipes to try to
clean their lungs.  "You almost need a miner's lantern inside
this frickin palace!" exclaimed the young king.  "How am I ever
gonna get any respect?"

Despite any such problems, however, on the occasion of the young
king's 16'th birthday, a grand ball was arranged for the purpose
of chosing a bride for the king.  All of the fairest young women
of the realm were expected to be in attendance.  The hustle and
bustle of preparation for the ball began to resemble the motion
of a vast herd of beaurocrats scrambling over, under, and around
eachother like mice or lemmings.  "These creatures have somehow
or other got to be a big part of the problem around here..."
thought the young king to himself.

At this time, in one of the poorer districts of King Phillip's
realm, there lived an old chimney-sweep named John, who had no
sons to assist in his business, but only a young daughter named
Alice.  Alice was a willowy and graceful girl with raven hair
and classical features;  in fact a strikingly beautiful girl,
but nobody would have had any way of knowing that.  She spent
her days cleaning chimneys, as often as not from the inside, and
outwardly resembled nothing so much as the tar baby of the Joel
Chandler Harris tale.  

John and Alice lived with John's second wife and her two
daughters, who ran a small dress shop in the better district of
the capital, but you could forget either of them helping with
the chimney business.  "Perhaps just this once I could help John
with the chimneys..." giggled one of these two; "why, then I
could attend the ball as a tar-baby and, even if I didn't marry
the King, I'd be assured of the prize for best costume!"  

"I wish I had some way of getting into that formal ball..." 
Alice thought to herself.  "Not that the king would want to
dance with a chimney sweep, but I'd just like to get a look at
all of the fine, clean people and all of the pretty costumes!"  

The girl's fairy godmother overheard this silent prayer and, the
next morning, a state beaurocrat approached John concerning the
contract for the palace chimney and heating system. 

"That son-of-a-bitch ain't never worked right for the last
hunnert' years..." the beaurocrat explained.  "Smoke and soot
just go everywhere, inside, outside, pretty much wherever they
feel like...  it'd take an act of God an' a thousan' years time
to ever get the place really clean again even if anybody could
make the fireplace and chimney work.  We'd heard you had
somebody who was really good and might could get inside that
chimney and actually clean it.  Pay's good if you can actually
do it, but th' onest truth is, I wouldn't wish that on a South
African wild dog."

"No problem!" replied John.  "Situations like you're describin'
are our specialty!"  

Kings, of course, don't have fairy godmothers, and have to make
do with outside consultants, in this particular case, a certain
Dr. Franklin from the American colonies.  "I just don't seem to
get any respect around here..."  Phillip was saying, "and
there're enough reasons floating around, that it's hard to
figure out what the serious problem really is.  It could be
simply that nobody lives long enough in this stupid place to
work up a whole lot of respect for anything in particular, and
then it could be the air inside the palace here, which is
gettin' to be kind of like a coal mine, and then again it could
be the whole state of affairs in this sorry kingdom in general. 
That asshole cousin of mine (meaning King George) sees this
place as one big coal mine and a supply of cheap labor which
doesn't live long enough to worry about pensions or anything
like that, and the whole picture sort of goes downhill from
there."

Ben Franklin took a look around, as much as was possible, and
drew a kind of a long breath and then sighed.  "Every now and
then, we have to sort of stand back, stop whatever we're doing,
and take a look around..."  he said.  "This whole country is set
up for George's benefit, not yours, and the biggest part of the
problem appears to be the beaurocratic system that runs the
place.  The only person who possibly could get any respect here
is George, and that's ill-earned.  The beaurocrats aren't going
to get anything out of any of this in the long run.  I'll tell
you what.  You've got the occasion of this grand ball as an
excuse;  shut the entire country down by decree for the week
leading to the ball, and see what happens.  You can play it by
ear from there.  One other thing I'll tell you 's for certain,
the girls at that ball will be mostly beaurocrats' daughters..."

"That couldn't hurt the air around here!" replied Phillip,
obviously relishing the idea of shutting down King George's coal
mines for an entire week.  "All he could do is hang us, and
nobody here'd lose any more than 35 years on account of that! 
The other thing you're telling me is that this figures to be a
sort of a packed party, and that it might be fun to try to
unpack it.  I'll see what I can do..."  

Phillip thereupon sent out invitations not only to a number of
the locals, including common people, but to a Jamaican band,
representatives of an American Indian tribe who were on tour, a
Zaporozhnoe Cossack band into which a distant cousin had
married, and two of Phillip's girl cousins from Sweden.  These
later were tall girls and pretty in a lanky, raw-boned sort of a
way, but both capable of playing outside linebacker for the
Chicago Bears.  "Beaurocrats'll need somebody to dance with
too!" Phillip noted.

"I've seen lots of chimney sweeps in my day...", the fairy
godmother was saying to Alice, "and you're the best I ever saw,
but nobody on this earth is goin' to 'ave a prayer against that
palace chimney wi' out a bit of 'elp and some sort of a plan. 
I'm going to play just a little bit of a game with time 'ere,
and we're going to use this motor-compressor and a number of
air-tools which I've brought with me and, once we've got that
chimney 'alfway clear, you can drop this mirror down into the
fireplace and get a look at the ball and all the fancy costumes!"

Alice was examining the sand-blasters and pneumatic
wire-brushes.  "Not much in this world I couldn't clean out wi'
this rascal!" she exclaimed, with a low whistle of
admiration...", "cludin' me two wicket' step-sisters!"

"Don't worry 'bout them." replied the fairy godmother.  "They'll
be lucky to 'ave the dogcatcher come after-em fer pleasure
rather than fer business!"

To the horror of the beaurocrats, the order went out to cease
all mining operations and all factory work which generated smoke
for the week before the ball.  As if by decree of heaven, a
strong wind blew from the West all that week and, by the eve of
the ball, the air over the kingdom was very nearly clear. 
Phillip was walking outside the palace and a little boy walked
up to him:  "Pardon sire, but you're a king and kings know
everything...  whot's that 'uge bright thing up in the air
there???"  "I suppose that has to be the sun." replied Phillip, 
"looks like it goes around the Earth, but the fact is we go
'round it!"

Efforts to air out the palace, however, were considerably less
successful, since the only real way for large volumes of air to
exit the building was the chimney, and that hadn't worked in 70
years.  Allowing more air in via windows and doors did not
really help.  Thus, the night of the ball arrived.  "I can tell
you right now..." said Phillip, "that the woman I'm going to
marry is not at this party..."

"That's ok." replied Dr. Franklin.  "No law of physics or
protocol says you have to marry any of these girls...  just
dance with them.  You can get married whenever you feel like it."

Amongst those who were at the party, were Alice's two step
sisters, and the dancing began with  waltzes, Phillip dancing
first with one of these, and then the other, when the Jamaican
band subtly changed the music into one of their own old
favorites:


If you wanna be, happy for the rest o' your life,

Jus' make an ugly woman yore' wife,

So from a personal point of view,

get an ugly woman to marry you...


"Ey mon, deed you see dat' woman de King was dancin' wit' last
night at de' party mon?"

"No, mon, but I heard about eet' mon.  Day' say she shore was
ugly, mon.  He gonna be one happy fellow!!"
   
The dancing was in full swing and a few final guests were still
arriving, and Phillip's attentions were required for a few final
introductions.  "Whew!  I don't need to be that happy..." he
exclaimed.  

"Dr. Franklin, meet my cousins, Helga and Sieglinda!" exclaimed
Phillip, embracing one of the pretty amazons, while the other
picked Dr. Franklin up and embraced him.  "Their specialty is
stepping on dance-parters' toes!"

"That's the reason for the spiked shoes?"

"No, just that you need spiked shoes for plowing where they live
and nobody there can afford two pairs of shoes...  Get out there
and mingle, you two!!"

"These last two are representatives of  your cousin, King
George."  the head butler noted.  

"Excellent!" replied Phillip, noting yet another subtle change
in the music.  "They say cossacks enjoy skinning tax collectors,
but the funny thing is, they enjoy dancing more.  As long as you
two idiots keep dancing, they might not skin you.  You know how
to do the Kazatski, of course??"

Present for the ball also, was the very fashionable young Count
Henry of Herforth, reputedly one of the ablest dancers anywhere
in Europe. 

"I begin to reckon a man a serious dancer, firlefan, when he can
do the Kazatski with a jump-rope, and switch the rope!"  noted
Phillip and, suiting actions to words, began to do just that,
much to the consternation of the two tax collectors who were
having difficulty enough simply dancing.  

"Not a bad way to work up a good sweat before dancing with all
the rest of these beaurocrats' daughters and neices and what
not!"  

The count was managing the Kazatski, but could not seem to get
the jumprope (provided by a butler who appeared to have a
quantity on hand) going, and other guests were dancing
Scottisches and jigs to the combination of Cossack and Jamaican
music which were in progress at the same time.

Of course, as has been noted, all of this was going on in an
atmosphere which resembled the inner reaches of a coal mine or
the environs of Krakatoa, and there was sufficient noise from
the music and the stamping of feet and what not that nobody
heard the motor-compressor or the activity of the high-powered
pneumatic tools on the roof.  It thus came as a total shock to
the participants when at length, Alice managed to excavate a
fairly wide passage through the clogged reaches of the ancient
chimney.  A torrent of air rushed up the ancient chimney, and
the vacume pressure blew a number of the windows open in the
great dancing hall of the palace; as if by an act of God, the
air inside the palace was utterly clean.  

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Phillip.  "I can actually see in
here!"

"Now, all I gotta' do is drop this mirror what me fairy
godmother gave me down into that fireplace..." thought Alice,
"an I can see all of the fine people and their pretty costumes!"

In doing so, however, she lost her footing on the protruding
piece of brick she was standing on, and the chimney itself, due
to her own good efforts, was no longer sufficiently encrusted
with caked carbon and debris to prevent her from slipping
straight down it.  The mirror, which hadn't broken, protected
her from the fire and she glanced off of its shiny surface at an
angle, straight under the feet of the astounded young king and
of his American guest.

"Oh, SHIT!"  exclaimed one of the two wicked stepsisters, it's
the tar-baby!"

"Whoever you are..." exclaimed Phillip, "you have just
accomplished more for this sorry realm than any person, noble or
common, ever has in the last hundred years.  You have earned
yourself a good bath and, if male, you shall be made a knight of
the realm, and if female, you shall be my bride and become the
queen!  GUARDS!!  Fetch a large oaken bathtub and two barrels of
mineral spirits here immediately!!"

The guests returned to their dancing, while Phillip and Dr.
Franklin remained to see what might emerge from the tub of
solvant.  A number of palace maids went to work on Alice and
what actually did begin to emerge after four or five minutes
brought looks of astonishment from the king and his guest.  

"There are prettier women out there in the world, noted Dr.
Franklin, but not a whole hell of a lot of them, and you'd have
to search pretty far and wide..."

"You were just jokin' bout' wantin' me for your' queen??"
queeried Alice.

"I WAS just joking ten minutes ago."  replied Phillip.  "Right
now, I'm not so sure..."

"The permanent coating of tar and charcoal and what not seems to
have protected her skin from the acid rain and the atmosphere
here, almost the same way tar protects a ship's timbers from the
ocean." noted Franklin.  

"What would me poor father do wi'out me to clean chimneys for
'im?" asked Alice.

"That's the easy part..." replied Phillip.  When all of those
yuppie girls in there see what chimney cleaning has done for
your complection, they'll be fighting for your old job tooth and
nail!  Your father might end up taking all of them on as
apprentices!!  Get a dress on her and let's see if she can
dance!"

When guests again noticed Alice some fifteen minutes later, she
was doing the Kazatski with a jumprope in one of Phillip's
mother's party dresses with the two tax-collectors whose
marathon still continued.

"That's pretty good!" noted Phillip.  "I can manage it without
the dress, I don't rightfully know if I could do it with it! 
I'm going to borrow this young lady for awhile...  if you two
can hold out until all of those cossacks pass out from whatever
that is they're drinking, you've got a chance!"

Phillip and Alice danced together for the remainder of the
evening and, in a ceremony several months later, were married. 
The cossacks managed to carve  knight's cross insignias on the
two tax-collectors on a spot which I won't mention, but passed
out from the Vodka before managing to skin them outright.  They
reported to King George that Phillip's kingdom was no longer a
reliable source of tax revenues.  Count Henry (the firlefan)
ended up marrying one of Phillip's Swedish cousins and was happy
for the rest of his life, and Dr. Franklin returned to the
ordinary routines of his ambassador's duties.