A drunkard’s remedy

"Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour."
-William Shakespeare

Once upon a time, in a far away kingdom there lived a man, a drunkard, who spent all his rich inheritance on alcohol, parties and in the end, found himself in poverty. Only thing left to him was an old blanket to cover and protect him from winter frost. One day, dead drunk, he stumbled in front of the king walking through the city. The king, seeing his sorry state started cussing him “Shame on you! Look what you look like!”
“Why do you care?” answered the drunkard. “If I am drinking, I am buying with my own money! If you think that I am poor, tell me for how much are you going to sell me your kingdom?”
The king hearing this thought that maybe somebody has set him up, somebody could send this drunkard to cheat him out of kingdom. “I can not sell you entire kingdom” he told him “but I will sell you one half for a ten wagons of gold!”
“Good” responded the drunkard. “Early in the morning I will bring you the gold!”

Since he didn’t showed at the agreed time in the morning, the king send guards to bring him. Now sober, the drunkard admitted that he had no single coin, let alone ten wagons of gold. The king, enraged, ordered his execution for this offense. Seeing that the king is going to go through with this the drunkard asked for a favor. “Before you execute me, please do me one favor. Find three men in your kingdom, a beggar who has nothing, a blind man that cannot see and a cripple with no legs. Dine them and wine them, and two of us will watch what happens.” The king agreed to this and immediately ordered that such three men be found. He then placed them at the king’s table and best food and best wines were brought in front of them.
After they ate and were drinking for some time the blind man said,”I thank the great king for providing us with this excellent white bread and even greater red wine.”
“You blind idiot! How can you tell if the bred is white or wine red? I’m going to kick your ass for that idiocy!” yelled the cripple.
“Kick him for me too!” said the beggar “I will pay for your trouble!”

“You see my lord what alcohol does to men”, the drunkard explained, “Neither the blind man has sight, no cripple legs or the beggar money but after drinking your wine, they were changed. Suddenly, the blind man can see, the cripple can kick and the beggar can pay. In this way I was changed yesterday and thought to have money to buy a kingdom.” Understanding now, the king pardoned him and let him leave.

Thinking about this, the king decided to test himself the power the wine has over men. One night, he ordered the best wine and drunk himself unconscious. In the morning, the king woke up with enormous headache. Since no doctor could help him, he ordered that the drunkard be found and brought to him. When he arrived, the king asked him “What am I going to do? I am dying from this splitting headache since I was drinking wine entire night! Is there any remedy for this?”
“That is easy;” answered the drunkard, “just drink some more wine!”
“But what am I going to do if I have a headache again after I sober up?” asked the king.
“Just continue drinking,” advised the drunkard.
“Until when do I need to drink?” asked the distressed king.

“Until all you have left is an old blanket, just like mine!” was the drunkard’s answer!