Brideless Boris

Little Tsar Boris of the Bulgarians lay abed in Vienna last fortnight with a pain in the ear, and in Bulgaria many a cafe owner knew not what to call his groggery and it all seemed to be the Pope's fault.

Some weeks back bachelor Tsar Boris left Sofia in cheerful mood. Traveling incognito as Count Stanislaw Rilski of Warsaw, he joked with railway officials, and hoped that this would be his last journey alone. It was understood in Sofia that Tsar Boris's official matchmaker, gallant General Ivan Wolkoff, was in Rome arranging for the marriage of Tsar Boris with the King of Italy's daughter Giovanna. Pictures of Princess Giovanna appeared in Sofia shopwindows. Newspapers said that a compromise had been reached with the Vatican whereby the first male child of Princess Giovanna and Tsar Boris might be educated in the Orthodox faith if the other children were Roman Catholic, and so comply with the Bulgarian Constitution which expressly states that the heir to the throne must be a member of the Bulgarian Church. The match seemed so certain in Sofia that many cafes were hastily renamed Konditorei Giovanna.

For two days Tsar Boris was his usual cheerful self in Vienna, waiting for word to proceed to Rome. But no word came. Instead came General Wolkoff, glum and forbidding. The Vatican had not agreed to any compromise, it appeared. Unless all offspring of the union were brought up as Roman Catholics the Pope would not sanction or bless the marriage, and Princess Giovanna would automatically become excommunicate.

General Wolkoff, baffled, withdrew, and King Boris went to bed with an earache. In Sofia the various Konditorei Giovanna are now named Konditorei .

Two days later Tsar Boris went to Prague and attended a performance of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw. The manager of the theatre, glancing through a prompt copy of the play, noticed that the scene was laid in Bulgaria, and read the line: "My father never had a bath in his life." Bulgaria was hastily changed to Albania, and the performance was given with great success.

The ears of little Tsar Boris were soon well enough to permit his visiting Berlin, where he paid a formal call on President von Hindenburg, and the old warrior, convalescent himself from a light attack of influenza, received Tsar Boris in his bedroom.