Blueblood entered the audience room with a smug smile and eyes full of anticipant triumph. "You called me, Aunt?" he said with ratherly acted innocence. "Are you going to complain to me about card debts again?" "You know very well why you are here, Blueblood," Celestia said coldly. "Explain to me the meaning of the incidents on the Canterlot Drawbridge." "Incidents, incidents," Blueblood pondered, exaggeratedly tapping hoof against chin. "A hundred apologies, but I can't recall any particular incident at this time. If dear aunt could...?" Celestia shot him a dirty look and unrolled a paper scroll. "I have received news that you ordered a pair of statues delivered to the drawbridge, depicting, and I quote, 'some sort of a hideous crocodilian creature.'" Blueblood's smile waned slightly. "I'll definitely track down whoever's insulted my handsome visage in such a way," he muttered. Out loud, he added, "Yes, I'm afraid the common rabble doesn't appreciate true art and fears anything new." "They take up half of the bridge's width," Celestia added annoyedly. "Surely you see the merits of decorating the entry to the capital, to awe visitors and foreign dignitaries?" "I believe there's more 'eww' than 'awe' to it," Celestia said under her breath, then unrolled another scroll. "In any case, I also hear that you have sent your cronies to the bridge in order to... collect an entry tax. The guards had to threaten them with jail to keep them from harassing the travellers." She looked at her nephew over the scroll's edge. "We have no entry tax." Blueblood's smile began to wax once more. "You may not, but [i]I[/i] do." "What does it mean?" Now it was Blueblood's grand hour. Slowly, deliberately, he took the most prized of his smug smiles out of his endless basement of self-satisfaction, and put it upon his face for all to see. "The drawbridge, you see, is [i]mine[/i]." The guards in the room gave each other surprised glances. Celestia's face was a mask of stone. "Explain." "As it happens, aunt, [i]I[/i] am the owner of the Canterlot River," Blueblood continues, "and I have the right to regulate its use. Since the drawbridge that provides the sole access to Canterlot happens to cross [i]my[/i] river and impede the flow of [i]my[/i] waterfall, I have the right to tax all movement across it, and make use of its space." Puffing up like a blowfish and putting on his most prized smile, long maturated in the basement of his self-satisfaction, Blueblood held out a particularly elegant, floridly decorated paper. Celestia floated over the paper to herself and examined it closely. "This says that you've been sold the river by..." Celestia's eyes narrowed. "Flim-Flam Associates Co.?" She let out a quiet relieved sigh. "Yes," Blueblood answered. "A pair of honest business partners if I've ever seen any." "And you truly believed they had the right to sell you the river?" Celestia said more idly, scanning the document closely. "No doubt about that. They wouldn't have dared to cheat me, even if they" -- a sarcastic snort -- "had [i]wanted[/i] to. Frankly, aunt, you may prize yourself on being a good judge of character, but neither am I deficient in this regard. I have an eye for trustworthy ponies." "But it would seem you lack an eye for crucial detail," Celestia said, still looking at the paper. Blueblood suddenly became aware of a grin budding on his aunt's face. "W-What do you mean?" he asked, suddenly unsure of himself in the face of that portentous grin. "This is a legitimate transaction! It's got all the requisite signatures and..." "That, I admit, is true," Celestia responds. "Misters Flim and Flam had every right to issue to you this paper." This was not reassuring at all, not with the damnable grin. "See! So you admit it!" Blueblood responded with rising panic. There was an invisible, increasing tension in the air, like that of a punchline waiting to-- "Because... as it says down here in an [i]astoundingly[/i] small typeface, in dark-purple letters on a black background... this is, and I quote, 'a novelty item, not for official use. Flim-Flam Assn. Co. is not responsible for any consequences stemming from the attempt to use this as a legitimate document of any sort...'" --punch. Blueblood opened and closed his mouth a few times, his babble blazing new ground in developmental linguistics, but doing nothing to improve his dignity. "You will remove the statues from the bridge at your own cost," Celestia concluded.