Amir's Progress

A massive bed, once tossed upon by that tempestuous bedfellow the Emperor Napoleon, was formally occupied at Paris, last week, by the Amir of Afghanistan, now touring Europe (TIME, Jan. 23). The bed, richly caparisoned, stands in a suite of Royal Apartments fitted up at the palatial French Foreign Office and placed last week at the disposal of smart, militant Amir Amanullah and his Consort, petite, pearl-skinned, Paris-gowned Queen Thur-aya. As they lay them down to sleep, members of the aboriginal Afghan Royal Suite possessed material as follows for diverting dreams.

P: La Roulette, most seductive of poules de luxe, had successfully tempted Amir Amanullah to stop off for two days at Monte Carlo, while en route to Paris from Rome. Shrewd, the Moslem Amir risked not a chip at this infidel's game, but watched with attention while his Chamber- lain lost large sums.

When the Afghans had gone, Roszicka ("Dolly Sisters") Dolly sat down and piled chips on numbers 17 and 20 for two hours, then stood up possessed of half a million francs ($20,000). P: Chuffing on to Paris, the Afghan royal train arrived amid a 21 gun salute at Gare du Bois de Boulogne, the small, special station where once France welcomed Woodrow Wilson.

Said Queen Thuraya, briefly, shyly, cautiously, as President Gaston Doumergue bowed over her hand: "Bon jour." Followed fulsome orations by President and Amir, then whisking State motor cars, more welcomes, a Presidential banquet of 209 covers--and so to Imperator Bonaparte's bed. P: Because pious Moslems touch not wine, Amir Amanullah raised a glass full of Vichy water to his lips during all banquets, last week, exclaiming at toast-time: "It is in this spirit of friendship that I raise my glass and drink the purest and most limpid water of France." P: "I too am a journalist," said Amir Amanullah tactfully, last week, to newsgatherers, then revealed that in his palace at Kabul he personally supervises and edits a newspaper designed to enlighten his people, and entitled the Amani Afghan.