Burnt Tsar

A brave monarch does not hesitate when a great forest and grain fire is ravaging his realm. Last week Little Tsar Boris sallied forth to Southern Bulgaria, over which hung a wispish smoke pall. For three days green forests had been turning into fields of black stumps, white villas into red embers, and fields of ripe grain into roaring bonfires. Naturally His Majesty the Tsar, a bachelor, was accompanied into the fire zone by his good and faithful sister, Her Royal Highness the Princess Eudoxia. She, too, is brave.

Peasants and military reservists fought the flames mightily, inspired by the actual participation of Royalty in the sousing and beating out of Fire, and in the lighting of controlled counter fires to check the progress of the conflagration. That His Majesty's participation was not "bunk" shortly appeared, when a sudden gust of wind drove a shower of sparks in his direction, burning him painfully about the face, singeing royal hair. Thus the Tsar who has never been crowned, because he declares that his people are too poor to bear the expense of Coronation, stood forth, once more, primarily as a Man.

When the great fire was finally extinguished there were, of course, no stories printed about Princess Eudoxia. Her flair for doing good and avoiding praise amounts to genius. She will never be a popular figure, except among grateful Bulgarians, who know of her by word of mouth. Her meticulously written Memoirs are the confessions of a very earnest soul which has nothing to confess: "Upon rising in the morning it is my custom to go at once to my brother and help him with his fairly bulky correspondence. . . . We partake of ... breakfast and frequently dine together at about 2 p. m. After dinner I play some athletic game. ... I deplore the fact that so many of my girlhood friends have moved to other countries upon their marriage, leaving me few intimates."