"Perfect U. S. Gentleman"

"Put up your hands! Get out of your car! Lie down in the road!"

These brusque commands the leader of a Rumanian robber band addressed, last week, to the occupants of the last of some dozen limousines to bear guests home from a dinner at Castle Mogoshoioa, sumptuous summer palace of Prince Jan Bibesco and his spouse, socialite authoress Princess Marthe (Catherine Paris) Bibesco.

A heavy steel wire stretched across the road had forced the last limousine to halt with screaming brakes. One of its occupants was the present Rumanian Minister to the U. S., sleek Charles A. Davila. In vain he tried diplomatic blandishments on the robbers. "Shut up and lie down!" they ordered, brandishing clubs. Diplomatist Davila lay down.

Next the Countess Szembeck, wife of the Polish Minister at Bucharest, was forced to ruin her lace evening gown by reclining in some particularly squelchy mud. "Outrageous!" she stormed, sobbed.

Last to step from the limousine and lie down under the robbers' guns, was Charles Schuveldt Dewey, financial adviser to Poland for the last two-and-a-half years. Aside from Mr. Dewey's letter of credit, which the Rumanian robbers scorned, they took from his well-lined pockets $2,000 in cash.

Countess Szembeck's justly praised "swanlike neck" yielded a $7,000 string of pearls. Diplomat Davila's fat roll of banknotes amounted, he later claimed, to "more than $5,000."

"Get up!" barked the robber chieftain at last. "Get back into your car. Tell your chauffeur to drive to Bucharest without stopping, quick!"

Rumanian censorship is famed. The robbery was kept secret for two days, though private apology was made by the Government to Mr. Dewey. On the third day the story leaked out, and in pompous full dress a whole troop of high officials arrived at Mr. Dewey's hotel to make official, abject apology, promise vengeance, restitution.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen! Spare your apologies!" soothed genial Mr. Dewey. "You forget that my country has its Chicago. Perhaps your bandits are preferable to ours. When ours 'take us for a ride' we never return. Your robbers spared our lives and gave us the very good advice that we should drive as fast as possible to your splendid capital."

In the eulogies of Mr. Dewey which burst forth next day in Bucharest papers he was called "true sportsman . . . generous, understanding friend . . . perfect American gentleman. . . ."

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