Popping the Question

° No sooner had little Akbar shown me the fotos of his brother's wedding, and of himself dancing, stripped to the waist, through the fountain jets of the plaza later that evening, than I popped the question.
° Well, it wasn't that question.
° Said I to little Akbar: "To whom did the oil belong, in Goin' to Town (Paramount, 1935)? To Buck, the cattle rustler who'd parlayed other folks' critters into a gigantic Wild West ranch? To Mae, the danseuse who'd won his spread fair and square, by losing at craps? To British Petroleum, whose employee had discovered and drilled the oilfields? To Taho the manservant, whose ancestors had owned the land for millennia, till it was stolen from them by the application of Chinese gunpowder and European steel? To all Americans in common? To all humans in common? To all generations of all humans in trust? To the timber rattlers and scorpions too?
° He was too wise to answer such a mug's question, and reran the flicklet.--Giac to Maurizio