Summary
The King's son has waited a whole year for his bride, a Russian Princess as pale as the Snow Palace she has lived in, who drives from Finland in a golden swan-shaped sledge drawn by six reindeer. When the Prince tells her she is more beautiful than her picture she blushes, and a Page remarks that the white rose has become a red rose; the King doubles his salary, though he receives none. After the wedding comes a five-hour banquet, where the couple drink from a crystal cup that clouds at the touch of false lips, then a ball, with the King playing the flute badly, and at midnight a display of fireworks, because the Princess has never seen one.
In the King's garden the fireworks talk. A little Squib says travel improves the mind, a big Roman Candle talks sense, and a Catherine Wheel insists that Romance is dead. Then a tall Rocket coughs for attention. He says the Prince is lucky to marry on the day he is to be let off, describes his celebrated parents and claims to be the most sensitive person in the world. He scolds a Cracker for laughing simply because he is happy, declares that he is sustained by 'the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else', and weeps over the drowning of a son the royal couple might one day have, soaking himself though the others beg him to keep dry.
At midnight the Royal Pyrotechnist lights the display. The Catherine Wheel spins, the Roman Candle booms, the Crackers bang and the Fire-balloon soars away, but the Rocket is so wet with tears that he cannot go off. He decides he is being reserved for some grand occasion. Next day a workman calls him a bad rocket and throws him over the wall into a ditch; he hears 'Grand Rocket' and supposes he has been sent to a fashionable watering-place to rest his nerves.
In the ditch a Frog talks without stopping and swims off, a Dragonfly suggests the Rocket should lecture on Philosophy, and a White Duck asks whether he was born that shape, then leaves when he tells her that a person of his position is never useful. Two boys in white smocks pick him out as an old stick, which he hears as 'Gold Stick', and put him on their fire to boil a kettle before falling asleep. When he finally goes off, sure he will fly higher than the sun, nobody sees or hears him. His stick falls on a Goose, who thinks it is going to rain sticks, and the Rocket goes out, gasping that he knew he would create a great sensation.