Radio Comic Fred Allen, having hugely annoyed Philadelphia's Chamber of Commerce by wisecracking about the smallness of a Philadelphia hotel room he once put up in (TIME, Dec. 18), tried to make amends by explaining that times had changed; but that old room, said he, "was so small it had a digest phone book, the calendar on the wall showed only half a day, the ceiling was so low that if you ordered a three-decker sandwich, the waiter brought one deck at a time."

To Manhattan, to supervise her $200,-ooo suit against Disney Productions, Ltd. and RCA Manufacturing Co., went glucose-voiced Adriana Caselotti, who spoke as Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She charged breach of contract, said her voice had been used on phonograph records without her consent, that she had been paid a pittance of less than $1,000.

Settled out of court was a suit for $50,000 brought by a Putnam, Conn. State highway worker against young (21) Manhattan Socialite Audrey ("Giddy") Gray, niece of the Duchess of Marlborough. Last July Audrey Gray knocked his two sons off their bicycles, drove on without stopping. To Wilfred Martineau Jr., 14 (left arm amputated), went $17,500; to Gerard (fractured skull), $11,000.

Creaky-Greeky Raymond Duncan (expatriate Paris-dwelling brother of the late Isadora Duncan), who so admires Attic culture that he wears a homespun chlamys (tunic) and sandals in all weather and all company, announced to Paris' Left Bank that he gave not one Hellenic hoot for France's war, said he would carry on as usual his courses in antique cloth-weaving, basketmaking, and rhythmics.

Reginald ("Red") Rowland, 53-Year-old British cinema manager who claims to be the author of the dirty war ditty Mademoiselle from Armentieres (pronounced--for the purposes of the song--"armentaire"), told a newsreporter at his home in Sutton, Surrey, England: "I am trying to do a piece for the lads in this war. You know, though, they say it's only once in a lifetime that you do a masterpiece. But that wasn't a masterpiece, of course. The fact is, it was the utterest tripe, old boy, the utterest tripe."

From Lisbon, Portugal, World's Fairer Grover Whalen embarked for the U. S. after a three-month European tour to shore up his next year's show with foreign expositionists. Said Salesman Whalen: "My visit was satisfactory. I believe I can say all countries I visited will reopen their pavilions at the World's Fair, as well as Poland and Czecho-Slovakia."

Wrinkled, doggy, 74-year-old Townsend Scudder, retired New York State Supreme Court Justice, won a Connecticut State Supreme Court injunction allowing him to maintain 27 cocker spaniels on his Round Hill, Greenwich, Conn, estate. Thus ended a litigious two years in which neighbors, annoyed by barking, had sought to hold Judge Scudder down to a measly ten spaniels.

Finnish Composer Jean Julius Christian Sibelius refused offers of haven all over Europe, said he would sit tight at his Ainola estate near Helsinki. Finnish Runner Paavo Nurmi taped the windows of his Helsinki sporting goods shop, went ofi to enlist as a chauffeur. Finnish Author Frans Eemil Sillanpda, his seven offspring at his heels, left for Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize for literature. Unable to stand drinks en route, Author Sillanpaa excused himself: "It's a little awkward at the moment but I'll soon have some money, for I'm on my way to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize." Pehr Evind Svinhuvud, 78, ex-President of Finland, also enlisted.

Professorial, omni-opinionated Walter Boughton Pitkin, author, at 54, of Life Begins at Forty (1932), was a "guest expert" on Canada Dry's Information Please program, sat clam-mum throughout the entire half-hour quiz. Afterwards, he explained apologetically why he had not opened his mouth: he is hard of hearing, heard not a single question.

At opening of The Taming of the Shrew in Los Angeles, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne gave swishy latecomers the works. As each laggard strolled or strutted down the aisle, Lunt & Fontanne stopped dead in their lines, she to bow graciously, he to cry "Welcome!" Once he said: "For the benefit of those people who just came in, I'll play the scene again," did so.

Febrile, fantastic Jean Cocteau, France's No. i playboy of the intellect, left the Paris Ritz to live on a houseboat and do war work. His war work, said he, would be writing a play about love, explained: "Love and War are the only two eternal themes. But when making one it is best to talk about the other."

Because a Brussels, Belgium, golfer named King Leopold III once gave U. S. Ambassador Joseph E. Davies a lesson in chip-shots, and a trimming (Davies, 85, Leopold, 69), last week grateful Mr. Davies made the King an honorary member of Washington's swank Burning Tree Golf Club.

To Harry Hershfield, Manhattan cartoonist (Abie the Agent), went Charter No. 1 and chairmanship of the New York City chapter of the Grouch Club of America. Grouch Hershfield obligingly posed for news photographers, put his worst face forward (see cut).

Denied a further extension of his four-month alien visitor's permit, rabbity British Earl Bertrand Arthur William Resell, famed libertarian logician, found he must leave the U. S. by year's end. Not anxious for U. S. citizenship, but wishing to qualify for a permanent chair of philosophy at the University of California (where he has been lecturing), Earl Russell will go to Ensenada, Mexico, try to persuade the U. S. consul there to admit him permanently.

In a Los Angeles hospital lay Georgia Coleman, onetime (1932) Olympic champion diver, whose career was snipped short by infantile paralysis. Badly in need of an operation for a liver ailment, she was too weak to have it, too poor to pay for it. Promoters of the California's women's football championship game hoped that a third of the gate receipts (pledged to defray Georgia's operation costs) would amount to the needed $2,000.

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