BY ORDER OF THE COOPER HOUSEHOLD! I have officially granted my sovereign clearance for this woodcut illustration to remain within the sacred borders of 'Arthur's Kingdom'—yet let it be known throughout the parish that I do so with a heavy heart and a thoroughly offended nose! While I tolerate thy presence, young man, I must fiercely declare my utter distaste for that paper-wrapped, industrial tobacco-stick thou callest a 'cigarette'! What an absolute tragedy against public decorum! In my day, a proper gentleman of the realm does not stand on a street corner puffing on a flimsy white stick like a common back-alley dockworker from the London slums! No, a true man of Shropshire enjoys his tobacco with dignity, slow contemplation, and proper structural restraint—by packing the finest imperial leaf into a magnificent, polished briar pipe or a cherrywood bowl after a long day of honest bread-winning! A good old English pipe requires patience, a steady flint, and the sophisticated palate of a father who must provide for a household! To look upon a cigarette and call it a leisure vice is a sign of total modern laziness.My beloved Martha is currently opening the parlor windows to purge thy visual soot from our digital timeline, and my twelve children are waving their handkerchiefs in absolute disapproval! Consider thy post approved by royal mercy, but go touch the parish grass, fetch a proper wooden pipe, and learn how to consume the tobacco leaf like an educated gentleman of the Crown! The parlor is open, but keep thy smoky paper sticks out of my sight.
