THE PRINCE OF WALES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20740, 6 December 1930, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE PRINCE OF WALES.

RIGHT ROYAL HUMOUR. BY W. L. ROBERTS. The Prince of Wales has shown on the platform, at dinner tables and elsewhere, that he has a decided sense of humour, and can say really funny things. When he addressed the Londou Medical Association, his speech was quite in serious vein, but he opened with rather a good jest. " The medical profession," said Ilis Royal Highness, "is one of the most ancie/it and honourable of all callings, but there was no doctor. I believe, in tho Garden of Eden. Perhaps Eve knew of thp old adage, * An apple a day keeps tho doctor away" The Prince's jest succeeded in its ob object; it made his audience laugh, and put them all in a good humour. Enjoys His Joke. The Prince is always quietly, never boisterously funny, but his jokes' are, none the less,.effective. A joke ho made during one of his visits to tho East End is still repeated there. His Royal Highness got into talk with the owner of an old clothes .shop. "How is business?" asked the Prince. •" None too good, sir." was the reply. " You see, my stock is a bit too old, but I'll have some better things coming in soon." The Prince scanned the old clothes that were ,in the window critically. " Oh, don't call them too old." ho eaid. " They are like myself—middleaged." The Prince once administered a reproof to ohe of his friends in the form of a joke, but the reproof was none tho less severe on that, account. ~* His Royal Highness was leaving a dance club ,one evening on a bitterly cold night, and the cloak-room attendant could, not find his overcoat. " Someone must have gone off with it by mistake, I suppose," said His Royal liigh^ess. " Whoever did," put in one of the Prince's friends, who was with him, " will feel honoured when he finds whose coat he has been wearing." Ntnv, this is the kind of flattery the Prince simply detests, and turning to his frieud, lie replied: "I know I shall feel verv cold, for a much better reason." Tfye Prince's coat, however, had not been/taken, but had onlv got mislaid! /■ The Prince and the Porter. When talking to the door-keeper of one ef his London clubs, the Prince asked him how he liked his job. 14 Well," replied the man, " I would get into bad trouble if I stopped a member from passing into the club whose faco I had forgotten. There is no job in which it is so important to remember faces as it is in my job." "Oh,'yes, there is," said His Royal Highness. " And what may that job be, sir 1" asked/jthe man. " My job," said the Prince quietly. The Prince can laugh, too, when the laugh is against himself. Once, when dining with sonpe friends in New York, a lady asked him, rather stupidly, what he would do when he became King. " Oh," replied the Prince, " I shall try to follow my father's example." . " Then, you ought to begin doing so now, sir," said the lady, rather triumphantly, " and get married." Royal Highness joined in the laughter the lady's observation raised. The King, though naturally seriousminded, can enjoy a keen sense of tho humorous side of things. His sense of humour greatly helped His Majesty to keep up his cheerfulness of spirits during his illness. Queen Mary does not often indulge in making jests, but she has an undeniable lively sense of humour. Queen Mary can always enjoy a good joke, and her laugh has been described by one who often heard it as being "so hearty and so sincere." Thti Duchess of York has a keen sense of humour, though, when anything appeals to it, she usually smiles, rather than laughs. Humorous drawings always a muse her. end has quite a good collection of " joke" drawings cut from various weekly papers.