Herbert George Wells, 79, Britain's cantankerous, senescent pamphleteer-historian, dug into his files, came out swinging with an updated version of a favorite theme: an attack on the royal family. In an article in the diminutive weekly Socialist Leader, he raised a pointed question: was the King involved in Mussolini's prewar financial support of British Fascist Sir Oswald Mosley? If so, "there is every reason why the House of Hanover should follow the House of Savoy into exile."

Everyone seemed to agree that this time old H. G. had really put his foot in his gabby mouth. Snorted Mosley: "Absolute nonsense." The Keeper of the Privy Purse (treasurer to the King) thought it "most amusing." Most Britons ignored it; H. G. Wells simply did not understand a king who was neither tyrant nor snob, who merely served his people as a symbol of their past, their pride and their good manners.

George VI of England became the first British monarch to crash Chicago-published Who's Who in America. Among 8,918 other newcomers to the 1946-47 edition: Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Chiang Kaishek, Charles de Gaulle. Longest entry: International Business Machines Corp. President Thomas J. Watson's 155 lines, an alltime record. Baby of the book: nine-year-old Cinemoppet Margaret O'Brien. Missing: many generals and admirals, who had had two editions (1942-45) of glory.

Princess Elizabeth, as profiled by a friend recently turned journalist, looked more than ever like a pretty, highly eligible London girl of 20. She likes dancing, housework (especially washing-up), Errol Flynn, pink, the historical novels of Daphne du Maurier, medium-high heels, jazz (on a constantly playing bedroom radio), ginger beer (better than wine or liquor), hats. She is good at ballroom chatter; hasn't a car, but sometimes borrows father's; hands down dresses to sister Margaret Rose; takes it for granted that she will some day marry and have children. And she can cook.

Motions

Greta Garbo, shy nonpareil of the screen, boarded the Gripsholm for her first trip to Sweden since 1939. There were rumors that she planned to direct a Swedish picture (she has not played in one for Hollywood since 1941). Demure in a beige suit and hat, she gave reporters only a slow smile, a characteristically languid line: "I'm awfully tired. I had to get up very early this morning."

Field Marshal Karl von Rundstedt, generally considered Nazi Germany's ablest military strategist, wished aloud that people would stop referring to the 1944 Ardennes counterattack as the "Rundstedt offensive." It was entirely Hitler's baby, he said.

Benito Mussolini's wife & daughter, granted amnesty by the new Italian Republic, were now technically on the loose. But they were in no hurry to go anywhere. Daughter Edda Mussolini Ciano, who had grown fond of her "haven" on Lipari Island, hoped for a passport to Argentina, meanwhile talked about moving to Lucca instead of to her husband's native Leghorn, which might prove to be "too hot for the Ciano family." Donna Rachele Mussolini, Benito's widow, stayed right where she was--on the island of Ischia.

Emotions

Norah Carpenter's introduction to the U.S. was just what she might have expected from the grade-B cinemas she had seen back home in Heanor, England. The British barmaid who bore wartime quadruplets to Sergeant William H. Thompson (now a Pittsburgh pressman) deplaned in New York with three surviving children to join her "Red" and to marry him at last (his wife divorced him last April). But Red was not at the airport. Hearst-men hustled Norah and the kids to a house in nearby Elmhurst, where Red was waiting, and got a juicy exclusive of the reunion. In a supervised clinch, Norah breathed: "My darling, I'm so happy to see you." Red murmured: "Hello." Moppet Maureen obligingly popped out with: "Daddy!" The kids seemed to feel right at home from the first; but when the party got to Pittsburgh next day to meet Red's family, Norah, her head full of reporters and crowds, fainted dead away.

Mistinguett, ancient (past threescore & ten) musicomedienne whose face admits it but whose imperishable legs don't, was the cause of a rare brouhaha in Paris. The story came from southern France that she was at last remarried--to Lino Carenzio, a young Italian tenor. But the darling of the Casino de Paris spoiled the fun by saying that it just wasn't so; only "a charming joke."

Delayed Action

Al Capp, cartoonist creator of Li'l Abner (see PRESS), arrived in Halifax with hot news for his fans: he had been in Britain, collecting atmosphere for a forthcoming visit there by the Yokums of Dogpatch. The plot: Mammy & Pappy Yokum will see something in an old newspaper about a varmint named Hitler, and will hurry overseas to warn their British cousins of the danger.

Kathleen Winsor's jumbo platter of sex, Forever Amber, finally off the bestseller lists after nearly two years, got an extra helping of publicity. It had abruptly disappeared from Boston bookstores the week of publication in October 1944; last week the rest of Massachusetts legally banned it.

Antagonists

W. Lee ("Pappy") O'Daniel, Texas' hillbilly Senator, and his good-looking, screen-tested son Mike got off a well-coordinated one-two punch. While Pappy filibustered against OPA extension, Landlord Mike, in Dallas, upped a veteran's rent from $67.50 to $100, then served an eviction notice. The local American Veterans Committee chapter, fighting mad, slapped a 60-man picket line around Mike's property, hired a lawyer to fight the eviction.

Chester Bowles, four days before the effective date of his resignation as Stabilization Director, was off from Portland (Me.) to spend a month on a 39-ft. yawl, out where the only ceiling is the sky.

Cold Cash

Major Edward ("Amateur Hour") Bowes, late radio showman, willed an estimated $3 million to Manhattan's St. Patrick's Cathedral, in care of his good friend Cardinal Spellman. The money, Bowes directed, should be used for charity and for "beautification of the interior and exterior of St. Patrick's" (already in process of exterior beautification and strengthening on account of "the ravages of time").*

Bing Crosby, whose annual gross earnings run well into six figures, stopped off at Boise, Idaho to pay a college classmate, now a sporting-goods storekeeper, the $11.04 he had owed him since 1924.

Flyers

Hermann Goering was all set for a go at dollar diplomacy in 1940, said Assistant Attorney General O. John Rogge. The fat Nazi had had a huge sum salted away in the Washington embassy for a political campaign against Franklin D. Roosevelt's reelection, but "the opportunity never presented itself."

Howard Hughes had one consolation: he had predicted it. After test-taxiing the XF11, a fast, twin-fuselaged, Lightning-like photo reconnaissance plane he designed and built for the Army, the manufacturer-sportsman commented: "I wouldn't worry about those rudders if I were sure an engine wouldn't conk out. If that happened, I don't think I could keep the plane in the air." Two days later he took off on the maiden test flight; within an hour an engine conked out. The plane crashed, sheared the roof off one house, ricocheted a block further and piled into a $100,000 mansion, which burned to the ground; Hughes landed in a Beverly Hills hospital with a fractured skull, a collapsed lung, a better-than-even chance.

*The Cathedral was built in 1879.

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