"C'est Interditr

"C'est Interdit!

At Brussels two gendarmes lolled last week near a corner of the famed Avenue de Louise, perhaps the most impeccable residential street in Europe. From the leafy Bois de la Cambre a motorcycle sped into the quiet Avenue, its exhaust rat-tatting raucously. The gendarmes' whistles screamed. . . . "Your papers, Monsieur, your license? It is not permitted to circulate upon the Avenue de Louise at such a speed. C'est interdit!"

"Mais certainement, here is my license," smiled the begoggled motorcyclist. "Mon dieu, Le Roi!" cried the gendarme. "Ah, Votre Majeste. . .' . . ."

"Pas un mot! No apologies!" said Albert, King of Belgians, and let in the royal clutch, "you did right to stop me. Mais je suis un peu en retard. I must hurry. I am late for work. Au revoir!"

Belgian editors, lauding this new evidence of royal democracy, pointed proudly to the royal garage last week. There His Majesty's three sleek, Belgian-made Minervas have stood without aspirating so much as a drop of gasoline since the King, as Dictator (TIME, July 26), demanded national economy to save the Belgian franc.