"THE KING WHO SMILES."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8651, 16 June 1906, Page 2

"THE KING WHO SMILES."

(By EDGAR WALLACE, in the " Daily Mail.") MADRID, March 29. There is in Spain a tall, slim, sallow youth with a perpetual smile. It is the frank smile of undisguised delight at the joy of living and finding things out. For him life is a birthday, with thousands of presents still unopened. His smile— were I less respectful I might call it a delighted grin, ior such it is in very truth— is for the joy oi discovery. Alfonso's salute. I saw him standing up in hia carriage once at Burgos, responding to the hoarse "vivas" of the country folk. He might have saluted gravely, ta_.en his seat solemnly, and driven away in the pomp and circumstance of, hi- m__ —that would have been kingly But he kept to his feet with that annwed smile' which is chuckle suppressed, aud i waved his hand cheerily. He waved it to the ladies crowding the balconies, Ito the children perilously perched on unsuitable elevations, to the swartfaced peasants wrapped in their shawls. And the love of his people, the people who had watched the fatherlesboy grow towards manhood, was his first discovery. Then he discovered other good things, riding and tiie joy of the hunt, and the delight of travel ; and he went on smiling. •''.__ Then he discovered that, given the nerve, a man might flrive a car over a straight road at 100 kilometres au hourf and that was nearly the greatest discovery of all. (^incidentally with this, the Spanish people, who did not share his enthusiasm For rounding dangerous corners at full speed, •.•emar..ed mildly, but with that mordant humour which is characteristic of the race, tnat there was no heir to the throne. They say of Alfonso XIII. that he was the best-ruled child in fh_ wond, and if this be so, to-day be vindicates the Latin proverb, which may be found in the appendices of most oheap dictionaries, and which is to the ef*oct that the best-ruled! is the Test ruler.So that when it came to choosing a i wife, and when before him were ar- ! rayed the dozen or so of uninteresting but eligible princesses of royal blood, Alfonso, who, as an amateur photographer, realises the fallibility of re--1 touched photographs, started forth on a tour of inspection. "the sweetest or all." The eligibles of Europe were mostly concentrated in Berlin, but the young man— we may suppose that he carried !it off with that smile of his— was po--1 litely indefinite, and went outside the list, and chose a lady of England, who had certainly never been included. Therefore the King has made yet another discovery, and that is the sweetest of all. , , , ' " _11 Royal matches- are love matches. It'is part of our eternal hypocrisy to bail them as such, but here is a match which comes to the hardened cynic as rain following a drought. Here is a rpal love match, an infatuation tnat is eminently boyish in its intensity, an eager love-making that would satisfy the most exacting of sentimentalistsr— notice the King's smile in the photographs—and a match-making sp rnucfc at first hand that, if the truth be told, it almost estranged the boy King from his mother. „ „ „ „ _ Spain is the home of Catholic m maiestv. In these days of agnosticism the* wave of free thought has passed over Spain and left it untouched; indeed, if anything, it has closed the ranks of Roman Catholicism against the heretical intruder. . The news of the match was received with genuine enthusiasm by the people of Spain. One hears of little else throughout the country ; one sees their portraits exhibited in every other shop. Ena of Battenberg entered the hearts of the common people, of- the bourgeois, and of the thinking classes— and I say this without gush and without cant. If the truth be pursued, the match found. no favour in the ultra-Catholic circle of the Court. Queen Maria Crietina had hoped that tho choice. would have fallen upon a trmcess of Austria, of her faith ; and the great officers of ! State, who have for years stood next to the throne and who through the King have ruled Spain, were at one in that^opuiwn.^ „ _ and though they were in the^ minority yet they formed the minority that rules and has governed Spain for years. Wo may, without stretching our imagination, imagine the King smiling S For S thfs P King from the first has had his way ia things that count. ALFONSO AND VELASQUEZ. Thev tell a story about .him, a story of 'a small boy standing before the portrait of Philip TV., by Velasquez, m the gallery here. He looked long and earnestly at the picture. . Then . . "I also will have a chin like that, he said, and set himself to work from dav to day, despite many smacking, to pinch and mould his face to the shape of his ancestor s. That It was an ugly chin does not matter— it was the chin of Philiß, and to-day when I saw the picture by Velasquez I was almost startled by the remarkable likeness between the two j. monarchs. . , . . i So that having altered the face to I suit his pleasure— l can see him smiling las he did it— it was not to be expected Übat he should alter his life to please others. If this sounds inconsequential it is because I am dealing with a boy whose life is made up of inconsequences. "Ehe weightiest opinions were gossamer before this smiling youth, who could not spare one eye for logic when both were for love. He wore down opposition gradually but surely, and todav finds Spain enthusiastic and the Spanish Court more than tolerant. A few days ago I went from Algeciras to Cadiz to see him 'leave for the Canaries. T- was his last bachelor and all Cadiz was there to wish him " Bod-

speed." As the launch went throbbing from the shore he stood in the steri. waving his hand and smiling as though a trip to the Canaries were really tne joke of all jokes.