THE WHOLE WORLD COMES TO LONDON

Southland Times, Issue 23610, 10 September 1938, Page 13

THE WHOLE WORLD COMES TO LONDON

By

H. H. M.

LONDON. SELDOM do you meet the sisters of a king and practically never are they the sisters of a king named Zog, but the day comes when you go down to the hotel in Picadilly and mince past a quartet playing that sad piece to which movie heroes always die and come into the presence of Myzeyen, Ruhije and Maxhide, sisters of the young King Zog. Zog is the king of Albania. All I know about Albania is that it was against us in the last war, but I forgave her this ’when I saw Myzeyen, Ruhije and Maxjljide—no relation of Shadrach, Meshak

and Abednego—the three beautiful sisters of Zog. Myzeyen is 28, Ruhije is 27, Maxhide is 26, and all three are dark, lovely beauties wearing tiny hats with gossamer veils over eyes that are half-moons of delight. “Do you like England?” I asked wittily, speaking to Princess Ruhije because she seemed so gemutlich, or sympathique. Her teeth flashed in a brilliant smile. “I no speak English,” she said. The three beautiful princesses had never been out of Albania until King Zog decided to get married. The girls and their mother then packed their bags and went abroad buying clothes. They went to Paris and shopped in the rue de la Paix. They to New York

and shopped in Fifth avenue, where they got six trunks and 20 suitcases full of clothes. Now they are shopping in Bond street, and I hope King Zog has a good chancellor of the exchequer. “You see,” said Princess Ruhije, speaking French, “we are to be brides-

maids at our brother’s wedding. So it was only right that he should let us go shopping, don’t you think?” “Go shopping!’* . . . Paris, New York, London. I know some girls who’d like a shopping trip like that. . . . “Did you consult the finance Minister of Al-

bania?”' I asked as someone approached with a basket of flowers. The girls laughed. I thought the interview was about to begin. I was going to ask, believe it or not, what Albanian women think of their western sisters and other breathtaking thinks like that. Looking at the three pairs' of flashing black eyes I thought of all sorts of questions. But their guardian angel approached suddenly, scandalized, to tell me it was' all a mistake. “It is a mistake,” she gasped. “King Zog would never permit an interview.” The princesses laughed again and whisked themselves daintily away. In high dudgeon I went up the street to another high-powered hotel and didn’t do much better with his Highness the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, Beloved of God, lord and master of the hottest place in the world.

The two Arabian provinces of Muscat and Oman are on the edge of the Persian Gulf in the far south-eastern corner of Arabia, and it seems that the coming of aeroplanes has made ' this parched and far-off land the half-way house to India, brightest jewel in the crown. Behind Oman is the Great Waterless Desert. In front of it is the waste of seas. On it, week in and week out for 10 months of-the year, beats a pitiless sun. But today there are aerodromes there and this wasteland of pearl fishers and date growers has found a place in the imperial scheme of things. The sultan’s bodyguard consisted of two tall, fierce-looking, bespectacled black Arabs with jewelled daggers in their belts. More important, it consisted of three detectives from the criminal intelligence department of Scotland Yard. “What do you want to

see the sultan for?” asked the chief detective when I showed him my card. “What do you think I want to see him for—to buy pearls?” I replied. He smiled the smile which detectives always smile and which I believe they think is sardonic, and held me off. Then the sultan came striding down the hall and shook my hand. _ z He wore long oriental robes and a heavy turban. He, too, wore at his belt a big glittering dagger. He spoke excellent English. “I would be very happy to talk to you,” he said, “if only I had time. You can say that London is magnificent and that this morning I travelled at 40 miles an hour in a British army tank.” I . passed another “luxury hotel,” as the English say, and saw a crowd of about 100 women standing there dumbly and looking at the door. I stopped and looked, too, but didn’t see anything. I pushed my way into the hotel and asked the doorman what it was all about. “Film star or something?” I said. “No,” he replied; “Hope Chandler.” “Hope Chandler?” “You know, that American, ‘the most beautiful girl in the world.’ ” I remembered. Mr Hearst’s son, David Hearst, has brought his 17-year-old cabaret-dancer bride to London on their honeymoon; and here was this crowd of English women hoping she would show her face. I felt like telling them to go home. “Hope Chandler is brilliantly intelligent as well as gorgeously beautiful,” raved one newspaper. Work that in wool.

Not far from the hotbed of society called Mayfair there is Belgrave square, last stronghold of the English aristocracy, and in this square there is a great mansion which must be haunted by sad ghosts today. For 50 years it has been the Austrian embassy. Today the hooked cross flies over it. For a> mystic’s dream has been fulfilled amid scenes of horror and now again after 1000 years Austria is only “Ostmark eastern province of the German realm. I sat in that mansion and talked to Baron George Franckenstein, last Minister in history from Vienna to the Court of St. James. He is a very tall man, an artist as well as a diplomat, incredibly gentle and civilized. He pointed out some of his beloved and priceless art treasures on the cabinets and walls. He told me of some of the masked balls and concerts and brilliant banquets that he has presided over in these rooms. ... I asked him if he had formal letters of recall from the new Government in Vienna. Then there were tears in the eyes of this fine old man. “I have not even had that courtesy,” he said bitterly. “They have merely ordered me out” “What?” I said. He nodded slowly, not trusting himself to speak. “The only orders I received,” he said, “were to get out of here as quick as I could.’’ As he shook hands at last he said: “There is one consolation. The spirit of pur Vienna can never die ”