Gunning for an endowment fund ($50,000,000) for Columbia University, aged (77) President Nicholas Murray ("Nicholas Miraculous") Butler quipped: "If anybody wants to kill me, he can give us that $50,000,000, and I'll die from joy."

Because he was annoyed by the noise of WPA pneumatic drills near his Kansas City house, Dr. Logan Clendening ran amuck, smashed with an ax the valve and feed pipe of the air compressor supplying the drills, was jailed (TIME, Feb. 20). Last week he pleaded guilty to charges of destroying property and disturbing the peace, was fined $50.

In Manhattan, Frieda Mierse Wynn, 27, filed suit for separation from Funnyman Ed ("The Perfect Fool") Wynn, 52, charged him with being a "constant nag." Extracts from his 140-page answer: "First I bought her a dictionary. ... I trained her along the lines of the social graces.. . . The bliss I hoped for lasted only five days "

Gushed the Texan mother of Singer Mary Martin (My Heart Belongs to Daddy) after watching her daughter's strip-tease number in Leave It To Me: "I never saw a strip-tease . . . but now I know that the number is very, very artistic."

Visiting a brewery in Hackney (London outskirts), King George VI was presented with a bottle of beer that had been brewed by his brother. Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1932. Flustered, the King handed the bottle to an equerry, hedged: "I can't very well carry the bottle around."

In San Francisco, Australian-born Longshoreman Alfred ("Harry") Renton Bridges, West Coast C. I. O. leader, for the third time filed his intention of becoming a U. S. citizen ("first papers"). Absentminded, he forgot to get his final papers by 1928 and again 1935, or he would be in no danger of deportation now.

Since 1935 wealthy residents of Hollywood and its swank suburbs have been apprehensive of an unapprehended "phantom burglar." Last week in San Francisco the phantom, one Ralph R. Graham, was finally captured, readily identified the looted houses. A few of his victims: Packer George A. Hormel; Cinemactors Gary Cooper, Tyrone Power, Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard; Director Frank Capra. Complained the phantom: "All of ... the movie boys and girls whose playthings I swiped . . . except Fanny Brice exaggerated the amount of stuff taken." Estimated total loot: $2,500,000.

On the eve of their "proxy" divorce hearing in Los Angeles, Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone met at Manhattan's swank "21," embraced tearfully, dined together, later danced fervidly together at a night club. Next morning Judge Benjamin Scheinman denied Actress Crawford's deposition charging Husband Tone with "extreme cruelty." Said the judge: "The courts in this State look with disfavor on mail-order divorces."

In Marx Brothers pictures, Harpo (real name: Arthur) Marx, 45, makes standard practice of bounding like a bandersnatch after pretty blondes. He married (1936) a pretty brunette, Cinemactress Susan Fleming. Year ago the Marxes took in an infant on approval, last week legally adopted him. His name: William Woollcott (after their good friend Alexander Woollcott, devoted Marxist).

From his carefully exotic travels, carefully ebullient Richard Halliburton makes a lucrative living, writing books (The Flying Carpet, The Glorious Adventure) and lecturing before college students and women's clubs. Early in March, Rover Boy Halliburton set out from Hong Kong in a Chinese junk for San Francisco, intending to make a fashionably late appearance at the Fair. Fortnight ago the junk was reported lost in mid-Pacific, at week's end was still missing.

Columnist Dorothy Thompson, after scanning her acquaintances, listed those she considers top-notch ''party material." Among them: Englishman Noel Coward, Playwright Clare Boothe, Cinemactor W. C. Fields, Critic Clifton ("Kip") Fadiman, Beatrice Lillie, Mrs. Ogden Reid, Henry L. Mencken, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Sinclair Lewis. Rejected flatly by Columnist Thompson: Orson Welles, Neville Chamberlain, Mme Chiang Kaishek, Dorothy Thompson.

Appointed queen of the annual Shenandoah (Va.) Apple Blossom Festival was Genevieve Garner, granddaughter of Vice President John Nance Garner.

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