COONTZ COMES BACK

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19365, 23 July 1925, Page 9

COONTZ COMES BACK

ADMIRAL IN HIS DEN. BIG- MAN MINUS SWANK. MERRY EYES, STRONG FACE, EASY WAYS. HONOLULU, .Tune 20. Big, broad-chested, furrowed of face, twinkling of eye; full of questions; interviewing the interviewer; informal of manner; swinging a leg over the arm of his chair; a workaday, admiral, suiting the workaday air of his ctibin. There is a brief impression of Admiral Coontz, at first acquaintance, as seen on the way to pay his second visit to Australia, where he has just arrived. The first thing that you notice about Admiral Coontz are his eyes. There is a merry light in them; a m.isehievous twinkle. He gives you the impression thbt ho can enjoy a joke; and ho can. All through the fleet you notice that a most wonderful feeling exists between the men and the officers. Moot Admiral Coontz and you know why. He is a friendly man and an understanding one. He seems to exist in an ch Sy atmosphere, a man who has a natural aversion to 'officialdom —on the social ■ side. His one wish is the comfort of his mon and the e'ager manner in which I he questions you shows that ho wants • to make sure that in Australia they will be given the time in which to on- I joy themselves in a healthy manner. 1 For himself? Well, he is at the dis- ' postal of his entertainers to do with him ! what they will. Admiral Coontz is readily accessible. 1 You no sooner tread the well-worn I decks of the old*Soattlc—2o years obi ! they say affectionately in the navy, (and < young yet—than you are shown into his quarters. Immediately you foe] ah homo. You are in a mtn’s room. Not untidy; not tidy. There is no air of newness

i about it. Admiral Coontz would scorn 'to have the renovator in. Everything is well and cosily worn. Nothing ol the drawing-room about it; rather is •it the smoke-room. IMpers—American .papers—are piled up on a big sofa as . if they had been dumped there; a few i books are scattered about. A pipe [rests anyhow on the edge of the Hable; there are many ashtrays. i It is the sort of room that puts you at your ease at once. You realise that j you aiv not expected to stand in the I doorway, bowing, but that you should [“walk right in,” toss your hat on the (•hair in the corner, lake a seat, and <)ffer a cigarette. I Admiral Coontz is a big. broad'chested man. handsome in a powerful way, in the white uniform naval men wear in the tropics. He believes in sitting in a chair, in the most comfortable manner that ho can think of. No sitting up stiffly for this big man of the American Navy; but easily, almost lazily, and yet. gracefully, he lolls in it, one log cocked over the arm of it swinging carelessly. ! You note the twinkle in the eyes, the hair parted severely in the centre, and plastered well down over the fore head on either side, the moustache so straightly cropped (and the deep lines that furrow the striking face adding to its natural attractiveness he evidences jOf well assimilated work 1-wide experience. You foe] that you have mol a mbn who is intensely human; a mar; who would give yon a ‘‘ st raight-doa I ' ’ if you ever “toed the carpet” before him—and just the sentence you de served.