Royalty

Last week, while George V, dreadfully thin and pale, lay watching white fingers of frost on his window pane at Bognor. Edward of Wales, acting for the King-Emperor, conducted his first state levee.

With admirable tact H. R. H. cited a light snowfall as his excuse for not riding ceremoniously from Buckingham Palace to St. James's Palace in the ornate state coach. The Prince lives in York House, which is really one wing of the intricate collection of buildings that make up St. James's Palace. He had been expected to motor to Buckingham Palace and ride back in the state coach. Instead, he merely clapped on his head an enormous, extinguisher-like fur busby of the Welsh Guards, and walked round the corner, unescorted, from York House to St. James's proper.

D/Queen Mary, accompanied by Princess Mary and the 60-year-old Princess Victoria, the King's sister, descended at Bognor upon the local Woolworth's threepenny and sixpenny shop.

Feeling perhaps that the King's favorite book, Boswell's Johnson, was not all suitable for a very tired invalid, Her Majesty sought the sixpenny book counter, picked out The Hundredth Chance by Ethel M. Dell; also four of prolific Edgar Wallace's blood-drenched thrillers: The Flying Fifty-Five, The Missing Million, Room 13 and A King by Night. She bought a thrip'ny rubber sponge and a thripiny packet of nail polish.

D/Sold in Berlin by a heartless auctioneer was a letter written by the Queen-Empress when she was just Princess Mary of Teck. It was written in 1893, shortly after the death of her first fiance, the Duke of Clarence, and her engagement to his younger brother, the present George V. "The last year has been such a terribly sad one for me," wrote the 26-year-old princess. "It almost seems strange that any kind of happiness could come into my life again. But Georgie is such a dear. The great sorrow we shared has made our bond a union that nothing can break."

D/In Bognor village a carpenter stood tip-toe on the counter of a toyshop, nailing shelves to the wall. Glancing casually down under his arm, he was aghast to see his Queen. Her Majesty had just entered with Princess Mary in search of gifts for a charity bazaar. The carpenter, anxious to show respect, tried to doff his cap, but only succeeded in knocking it off. Grabbing for it, he dropped his hammer. The hammer struck his saw, lying on a board, and all crashed to the floor with a great clatter of ironmongery. In an agony of mortification, the carpenter fell off the counter himself.

Springing up, he bowed deeply. The Queen bowed. The shopkeeper rushed forward nervously babbling, "I--I trust-- that--that Your Majesty will pardon--all this--all this noise."

Queen Mary made sure that the carpenter was unhurt.

"As for the noise he made," said she right royally, "we liked it."