First Visit

The aplomb of His Majesty King Ananda Mahidol of Siam, aged 13, was first manifest two years ago when the snub-nosed, sloe-eyed little monarch requested a franc from a cameraman for chocolate before he would pose at his private school in Switzerland. The photographer demurred: "Chocolate might give Your Majesty a stomach ache." To which King Ananda majestically replied: "I never permit myself to become stomach-ached." The cameraman paid.

Last week the little King's aplomb was again a matter for comment, this time by his 14,000,000 subjects in Siam, where he arrived for his first visit since his accession to the throne. King Ananda was designated constitutional monarch in 1935 by Siam's Strong Man, Premier and Army Chief Colonel Phya Phahol Pholphayuha Sena, when King Ananda's uncle, childless King Prajadhipok, abdicated. King Ananda Mahidol was allowed to remain in Switzerland to complete his schooling and build up his frail physique, thought unfitted for the wet May-to-October monsoon of Siam. Few months ago Strong Man Phya Phahol "suggested" that King Ananda return to his kingdom at least for a visit.

Last week the little King, Supreme Arbiter of the Ebb & Flow of the Tide, Brother of the Moon, Half-Brother of the Sun, Possessor of the Four & Twenty Golden Umbrellas, stood at attention aboard a bedecked Siamese cruiser as it slid up to Bangkok's water front. Popping his stork neck under the traditional nine-tiered umbrella, symbol of regal power, King Ananda strode down the red-carpeted gangplank to greet the three royal Regents who have ruled in his absence. Strong Man Phya Phahol judiciously kept in the background. Along the city streets, as His Majesty jounced and saluted on his way to the royal palace, 500,000 of his flat-faced, olive-skinned subjects cheered and showed their betel-reddened teeth in wide grins of welcome.

King Ananda Mahidol will spend not more than six months in Siam and head back to Switzerland before the monsoon season gets around again. Strong Man Phya Phahol has set 1945 as the King's Coronation Year.

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