The short story "The Lady or the Tiger?" by Francis Richard Stockton tells of a semi-barbaric king with a unique method of justice. When an accused person is brought to the king, he does not bother to hear the details of the crime and render a decision. Instead, he places the accused in an arena in which two identical doors stand side by side. Out of one of the doors would come a hungry tiger, which would quickly devour the accused. Out of the other door would come a lady to whom the accused would be immediately wed. This brings about the dilemma that the courtier encounters at the end of the story as to whether his former lover has directed him to the lady or the tiger.

In the opening paragraphs, the king's nature is described in detail so that readers can discover why he would indulge in such a barbaric and unfair form of justice. Stockton explains that because he is "every barleycorn a king," he has created this arena for the purpose of pleasing his fancy. In other words, in the king's estimation, the king should be allowed to do anything he wants, for no other reason that that he is the king. The word "barleycorn" in this phrase refers to a unit of measurement. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes it as "an old unit of length equal to a third of an inch." The phrase "every barleycorn a king" means that, along every bit of him, he is a king. The modern equivalent would be "every inch a king." This means that he fully identifies as a king and makes all his decisions according to this identification, including how to judge and sentence his subjects.