Cocobo, Ibrahim & Petain

The finest motor car smashups in all the World happen at little crossroads in rural France. For one thing there are no speed laws and barely any traffic. Why then drop below 100 kilometers per hour (62 m. p. h.), just because the perfect road down which one is whizzing must soon cross another? Sacre bleu! If one is a French chauffeur, and if one has waited in the sun all morning at the wheel of a Bugatti or a Farman* then what joy, what exhilaration, when one's fat Spanish employer and a couple of his "little girls" scramble into the tonneau, crying, "En route Henri! Nous sommes pour Biarritz!"

Elements precisely such as these produced a magnificent whizz-smash, last week, when Don Alfonso Cocobo, a Grandee of Spain, set out for Biarritz and ended up in a de luxe private suite at the Hospital of Bayonne.

On the same afternoon a similar whizz-smash befell H. H. Prince Ibrahim of Egypt and retinue of five, near Montelimar. Death spared all, but bruises raised big spots of black & blue. Tout Paris was inclined to mock at Ibrahim,--at Cocobo, --even at "little girls" all ruefully bruised and tender. Ere nightfall, however, Tout Paris caught breath over a third accident.

Whizz! Whirr! With humming tires and throbbing motor there sped down a deserted road near Epernay the great Marshal Petain--who once held Verdun against Germany's Crown Prince.

Not a French chauffeur could be found who would knowingly refuse right of way to the Marshal of France Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Petain.

However, in the gloaming, two whizzing cars can approach very near a crossroad without becoming aware of each other. Fortunately the Marshal's chauffeur is a talented swerver. He broke the force of the whizz-smash by a cool, adroit skid-swerve. When the man at the wheel turned around with blanched face to explain, he received from Marshal Petain a little nod and a typical, paternal phrase of encouragement, "Bien fait, mon fils." ("Well done, my son.")

*Slogan: "A Car Rolls, A Farman Glides."