Rounders & Bounders

Of the exalted persons who tarried briefly in London last week after walking sedately behind the coffin of His late Majesty (TIME, Feb. 3), two scandalized their British hosts by behaving as thoroughgoing rounders & bounders. One was the Vice-Chancellor of Austria, Prince von Starhemberg, who raised altogether too many British beakers during the week to impress favorably British bankers from whom he sought a loan for his anti-Nazi "Fatherland Front." The other was His Majesty King Carol II of Rumania, "The Horrible Hohenzollern."

His Majesty was nightly the focus of gay revels, and on the morning of King George's funeral was in such condition that a masseur named Stoebs was hastily summoned from a fashionable West End Turkish bath. He worked over King Carol and produced some results but it was considered necessary to continue the massage in the royal limousine as it sped to Westminster Hall. In ensuing confusion Masseur Stoebs, in his white duck trousers and civilian coat from beneath which peeped a white masseur's sweater, fell into step after groggy and bloodshot-eyed Carol II behind the coffin of George V. Mr. Stoebs wore the only fedora hat in the procession and around his neck on a gold chain mysteriously dangled what appeared to be a Rumanian religious cross.

Only London paper to print these facts was the Communist Daily Worker. Since picture editors of other London dailies could not spread before their loyal public the panoply of marching kings without also showing Masseur Stoebs, they got over the difficulty with captions identifying him variously as "a representative of Transylvania" and "a representative of Armenia." Unwilling to take refuge in such a downright lie, one editor merely captioned: "Picturesque uniforms worn by some of the suites of the foreign royalties."

After the funeral, at which his demeanor was temperately described as having been "anything but regal," the Horrible Hohenzollern enjoyed more gay parties, meeting at one of these a pretty lady for whom he bought jewelry next day in Bond Street. Afterward he dined with Foreign Secretary and Mrs. Anthony Eden, then made such a night of it that next morning frantic Rumanian attaches went about bleating . "Our King is lost!" and only found him just in time to rush His Majesty aboard his special boat train. Dover Castle gave him a farewell 21-gun salute as he stepped aboard the British destroyer Montrose. Of the five kings attending the funeral only two, Carol of Rumania and Boris of Bulgaria, were ferried across the Channel on a British destroyer; in addition they both received the honor of an escort of two more British destroyers.

Friends of Carol II excused his London spree by saying that his Jewish mistress Magda Lupescu, whom he left behind in Paris, exerts a "motherly influence" upon the King, and that with this suddenly removed his "boyish and highly susceptible nature" got out of hand. At the Ritz in Paris the King soon sobered. "I do not believe war is imminent," he wisely told correspondents. "In fact, I am confident peace can be maintained. In this respect I have great hopes for the reign of Edward VIII. He is a man endowed with rare equilibrium -- rare equilibrium ! My own country, my beloved Rumania, each day becomes more like the country it models -- I mean France, that admirable woman! I cannot but feel the brother of all French men. France and Rumania! One can say they are two countries with a single heart." In London meanwhile a sober departure was taken by Prince von Starhemberg. Said he: "I greatly treasure the talk I had with Mr. Stanley Baldwin."

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