Princesses with Daggers

The solemn public duty of being whimsical weighs a little heavier each year on Sir James Matthew Barrie. Last week the aging Baronet again consented to do his whimsiest. A good many people hoped it would be better than last year, when the creator of Peter Pan opened a fair in his native Scotland with a long story about how he had passed the evening with Mary Queen of Scots and would have brought her along to the fair, only she vanished.

The occasion of Sir James's effort last week was a banquet-benefit staged for the Newspaper Press Fund. Major the Hon. John Jacob Astor, M.P., presided. Present was Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin who, as everyone knows, is addicted to detective fiction.

"My one desire tonight, and I am sure it is yours also -- " began Author Barrie when called upon by Major Astor, "my one desire is to be nice to Mr. Baldwin. It is not his fault that he is a Worcestershire man -- after all Shakespeare came very near being a Worcestershire man, but his mother slipped across into Warwickshire to give the boy a chance. How hard on me it is to make a speech when I know the Prime Minister would far rather I told him a detective story."

Interrupted at this point by the startling din of an electric bell under the table, Sir James picked up two empty wine glasses, held them like the receiver and transmitter of a telephone, and spoke with concentrated whimsy thus:

"Hello! Hello! Hello! Yes, I'm here. I'm speaking. Who are you? It's Scotland Yard! The Yard asks you a favor, ladies and gentlemen, not to wipe your wine glasses, as the waiters and plain-clothes men are taking fingerprints.

"Who? Number One? [looking at Mr. Baldwin] Yes, he's here. He is in great danger. They want to know if he is carrying a gun -- they say it is the most astounding case the Yard has ever had and had to call me in to help them.

"A complete change has come over London since we sat down to dinner. The streets are seething with men in masks and princesses with daggers in their stockings.

"They have broken out of every detective story that Number One has ever had and all of them are after him.

"He will never return to Downing Street alive unless I can bring him. He and I must leave the hotel first and alone, and as soon as we two leave it is to be blown up--the end of the chapter of the 'Strange Affair at the Chequers.'

"Amid prodigious applause the Baronet resumed his seat. He had done it again. As the charity auction began he bid in for 150 guineas ($763) a letter written by Oliver Cromwell to the Admiralty. Then the original manuscript of his own one-act play The Twelve Pound Look was offered, Barrie watched in silent complacence while bid capped bid until Manhattan Bookman Gabriel Wells took it for 2.300 guineas ($11,707).