New Houri

If Japanese bombs had begun raining down last week on the British naval base at Singapore and the adjoining native State of Johore, they would have had no chance of hitting its Sultan. With rare courage for an Oriental potentate, he has insisted upon living in blitzed London. There, at swank Grosvenor House, which puts on one of the flashiest girl shows in the British Isles, the 67-year-old Sultan of Johore spends the sort of life that few 20th-century sultans live outside the sultry cartoons of Esquire. Last week Johore rejoiced in a new houri, the shift being directly due to Adolf Hitler's war against England.

Showgirl Lydia Hill was the favorite of the Sultan up to last month, when she was killed by a German bomb while shopping for a fur coat in Canterbury. Said the Sultan of Johore: "I am heartbroken." Exactly six days later his old eyes kindled again as he bought a Red Cross flag from Miss Marcella Mendl, mellow Rumanian blonde who speaks five languages, is distantly related to cafe society's famed Sir Charles Mendl, has lately been driving an A. R. P. ambulance in London.

"I fell in love with the Sultan as soon as I saw him," cooed Miss Mendl. The lightning courtship of Miss Mendl lasted just twelve days, during which time the Sultan continued to pay occasional visits to the bereaved parents of Miss Hill in efforts to cheer them up. Then last week he put on his khaki and gold uniform as Colonel Commandant of the Johore Military Forces and marched into Caxton Hall Registry Office to marry Miss Mendl. She turned up in silver fox and orchids, wearing a diamond brooch in which the Crown of Johore was flanked by the Sultan's crest, two tiger claws. Wailed the parents of never-married Miss Hill, "It has come as a great shock to us!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.