This anecdote was sort of funny.
FREDERICK THE GREAT took large quantities of snuff. To save himself the trouble of extracting it from his pocket, he had large snuff-boxes placed on each mantel-piece in his apartments, and from these would help himself as the fancy took him. One day he saw, from his study, one of his pages, believing himself unobserved, put his fingers unceremoniously into the open box on the adjoining mantelpiece. The King said nothing at the moment, but after the lapse of an hour he called the page, made him bring the snuffbox, and bidding the indiscreet youth take a pinch from it, said to him, “What do you think of the snuff?” “Excellent, sire.” “And the box?” “Superb, sire.” “Oh, well, sir, take it, for I think it is too small for both of us!”
(from Tobacco Talk and Smokers’ Gossip: An Amusing Miscellany of Fact and Anecdote relating to the "Great Plant’’ in all its Forms and Uses including a Selection from Nicotian Literature, 1884).
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