Narrow

Crack! went a revolver. Ping! went a bullet. Plop! answered the woodwork of a Hungarian train as the lead buried itself.

Inside a compartment, Admiral Nagybanya von Horthy, Regent of Hungary, removed his hat, wiped his brow. He had narrowly escaped assassination.

The would-be assassin made good his escape.

Possibly there are few more unpopular figures in Hungary than Admiral Nicholas Horthy von Nagybanya, present Regent of Hungary (whatever that may mean), son of a rich Protestant farmer in the district of Szobiok.

As a naval officer, there is no denying that Horthy was able; he rose rapidly, was transferred to the General Staff, became a naval aide-de-camp to Kaiser and Konig Franz Josef. In the early part of the War, he proved himself as brave and loyal an officer as ever the Emperor had and, when the Germans crushed a mutiny at Cattaro, he proved himself astute enough to take the credit.

The Admiral was selected in 1918 to fulfill the baneful task of handing over the stricken Empire's fleet to the enemy. To men whose whole lives had been spent in the Navy, this meant great shame and dishonor. Most of the high naval officers sadly put their clothes away with moth balls and tried to forget their humiliation. Not so Horthy. Morning, noon and night, breakfast and dinner found him bedecked as an admiral. If he went shooting in the Royal Forest near Goedoelloe, his uniform was with him; he took it off when he went to bed and upon the rare occasions when he played tennis. And, as if a uniformed Admiral of a non-existent Navy were not ridiculous enough, he took to riding a white horse, a grotesque proceeding for an Admiral which earned him well-merited derision.

Most people believe that it was Horthy that crushed the Bolsheviki. This is not so for when, in 1919, he entered Budapest on his white charger at the head of the 'National Army, the Bolsheviki had already fallen under the coup de grace delivered by the Rumanian Army. But, none the less, Horthy has consented to take the credit.

Today he is Regent of Hungary. For whom he is Regent is not clear; many believe for himself, although lit declared at one time that he was holding the fort for banished Kaiser Karl. But, when the latter returned for the first time, Horthy successfully opposed him and, on his second attempt, to seize the throne, the Admiral fought him, had him handed over to the Allies, who took him to Madeira. In all fairness, Horthy was obliged to oppose the return of his Monarch, for the armies of the Little Entente were mobilizing on Hungary's frontiers. His alleged insolent attitude toward the Kaiser and the shelling of the Imperial train were unnecessary acts; and the royal state in which he now lives has firmly impressed upon a large percentage of the Hungarian people that the cavalry Admiral Inquisitioner of the White Terror, the Protestant apostate (he embraced Roman Catholicism when he became Regent, ''not unmindful," say some, "of the Hungarian basic law" which, limits succession to the throne to Roman Catholics") is not only a traitor to his King, but a man deserving the utmost contempt from the country and the world at large.