Cabbages and Kings. [1917]

Cabbages and Kings is a short story by American author O. Henry, first published in the September 1917 issue of Pearson's Magazine, and later included in his collection The Four Million. The year was 1905. The place was New York, and the world had never seen anything like this before: a man of great wealth in a barber's chair, chatting amiably with an old bootblack, with a new-born infant at the breast of the latter. This short story, as well as its title, was inspired by the phrase "Cabbages and Kings". The phrase is made up of two English expressions meaning "something that is extremely unimportant" and "all the King's horses and all the King's men." O. Henry once wrote in a letter to his editor, "I am myself a Cabbage.".