Reporter Romanov

Before a court at Bayonne last week appeared two sallow Spanish youths. On a tip from Spanish authorities at San Se bastian, French police had raided a little blue-timbered white house at St. Jean-de-Luz, had captured the two sallow youths and a large store of arms and ammunition fresh from U. S. factories. They confessed, and one more plot to restore long-jawed Alfonso XIII to the throne of Spain was bud-nipped.

In New York, Editor Edwin Balmer of Red Book magazine beamed all over his pink and pleasant face. He was about to release a news scoop for which a dozen publishers would have given the bronze elephants off their desks: the first authorized story of ex-King Alfonso's reign & exile.

Ever since the last of the Bourbons reached sanctuary in Paris last April, the U. S. Press has angled intently for his story. One magazine, as Alfonso ex plained, bluntly cabled $10,000 for a 1,000-word article. Alfonso XIII probably would like $10,000 as well as the next man, but he is also one of the proudest members of a proud race. Said he:

"He wanted 1,000 words when there is just one worthwhile word left in my vocabulary, and that word is not for sale. Spain! Nothing else interests me; nothing else concerns me."

Editor Balmer understood better the royal mind. He had already contracted for a series of articles from that lank Romanov, the Grand Duke Alexander, who has been earning a precarious living in the U. S. by lecturing ladies' clubs on the Better Life. Filled with journalistic zeal, H. I. H. wrote to his editor and suggested that he might go out to Fontainebleau to talk to Alfonso, might persuade his former Majesty to allow a transcript of that conversation to be published. He did. The first instalment of the transcription is on U. S. newsstands this week.

Grand Duke Alexander found the Spanish royal family in the Hotel Savoy on the edge of the forest at Fontainebleau. The faithful Duke of Miranda led him first to the salon of ex-Queen Victoria Eugenie who was gracious and more than a little sorry for herself.

"Oh, Alexander, if you could have seen those people!" she cried. ". . . The mob invaded our palace. Thousands of them! Breaking the doors, shouting insulting remarks, ready to kill. . . . Myself and my poor children, we could not attempt to leave the palace by the front entrance. . . . We had to run through the garden and use the small back door!"*

Entered Alfonso. Nothing could have been better chosen or more tactful than the words with which he greeted his royal cousin who 14 years ago lost his coronet and all his money in a far more violent upheaval:

"So here we are, Alexander, both in the same position! . . . We are about to enter the preparatory class of that very severe school which is obligatory for all exiles of our calibre, and we are looking for a good experienced tutor. Will you help us?"

They went down to lunch, Alfonso much put out by the fact that their private dining room was the former billiard room of the hotel with the cue rack still in the corner. They ate wild strawberries and cream.

Reporter Romanov found it a little difficult to ask questions, for the Bourbons were much more anxious to learn about the U. S. and in particular Chicago. Had he ever seen a "pineapple" being thrown? Did he know any gangsters? Did all Chicagoans have to pay extra-high premiums on life insurance policies? Alfonso XIII thumped on the table:

"Wait, wait, wait! Let me ask a question of Alexander: What is the latest news of ... my namesake; I believe they call him 'King Alfonso of Chicago.' . . . Have you ever seen him, or perhaps met him socially?"

"How in heaven's name do you find time to follow all these things?" asked the Grand Duke. ''How do you know so much about Mr. Capone?"

"Now Alexander, how could you! Fancy a man living in this year of grace and not following the career of Al Capone! Good gracious me, I should hope I do know everything about him. I get the clippings!''*

Alfonso of Spain denied categorically that he had abdicated, or intended to, or that, in spite of the young men arrested in Bayonne, he was making an attempt to bring about his restoration.

"The very moment I put my foot on the friendly and hospitable soil of France, I told the French Government: 'I am not a conspirator.' ... If my people want me back now or at any future time, I shall go back and serve my country in the same way I did since I was 16. . . . Please understand it clearly once and forever: I AM A KING, NOT A CONSPIRATOR."

Editor Balmer was sitting like a plump joss last week on the concluding parts of the Alfonso-Alexander conversations, but before reporters he dangled tempting bait. Concluding instalments would take up Alfonso's version of the cause of the de Rivera dictatorship, his own financial situation and the reasons for his decision not to live in England.

* As far as Madrid correspondents have been able to discover, nobody broke into the palace, smashed any doors.

* Gangster King Alfonso of Chicago was convicted (of U. S. income tax evasion) four weeks before Bourbon King Alfonso of Spain was formally convicted of "high treason, of heading a military rebellion, of lese majeste against of the sovereignty of the Spanish people" (TIME, Nov. 30).

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