The Crown

On June 3, King George's 64th birthday, there will be trooping of colors, hoisting of flags, prayers of thanksgiving for his health throughout the Empire. Last week Queen Mary was 62. Few people, except the royal family, did much about it.

For royalty it was a real family party. Down to Windsor went royal Dukes and Duchesses, Princes and Princesses. Only the Duke of Gloucester, en route from Japan to Canada, failed to appear at the dinner table. Earliest bringers of birthday presents were the Queen's three grandchildren, chubby blonde "P'incess Lilybet and her cousins, Hubert and Gerald Lascelles, Princess Mary's two boys.

A crowd of subjects jostled happily on the castle terrace, a band blared. In response, the royal family appeared within, forming an animated family portrait framed in an enormous sextuple bay window. They did not bow or speak to the crowd but stood as though unobserved. The King, looking greatly improved, chatted briskly with the duke of Connaught. "P'incess Lilybet's" small, creamy elbows rested on the window ledge. Sober, fussy, coatless, were the Lascelles boys, clad in tan shirts, maroon cravats. Princess Mary wore pink. The Queen, wearing blue and the royal pearls, was vexed by a noisome blue bottle fly on the window pane. Taking a sheet of paper she squashed the offender, after four tries. Edward of Wales talked with his father, not his mother. When Viscount Lascelles lingered in the window, a voice in the crowd chirped: "'Oo wants to see 'IM?'' After ten minutes the Queen spoke decisively to the King and royalty withdrew from sight.

Edward of Wales provided Cora, who always sleeps in his room, with a portable kennel last week. Cora, a Cairn terrier, deserves more luxurious quarters, it was felt, because six weeks ago she became the mother of five. Her new kennel is an ingenious affair of canvas with collapsible struts, the whole folding into a neat bundle that can travel with the Prince and Cora wherever they go.

Shortly after purchasing Cora's kennel, Edward of Wales attended a luncheon in his honor, presided over by the 71-year-old Duke of Portland.

"The Prince," said the septuagenarian, bending over broadcasting microphones, "often has to listen to long. . . ."

"And boring speeches," whispered the Prince, forgetting the broadcaster's electric ear. His whisper boomed aloud through the room.

"That's just what I was going to say," piped His Grace the Duke of Portland.