Peter Passes

"We have paid no regard to His Majesty's exalted rank," declared the grave examiners of Belgrade College last week to Dowager Queen Marie and the Regents of Yugoslavia. "Unanimously we report that King Peter has passed his entrance examination for the third class of Belgrade College with great distinction."

Twelve-year-old King Peter II heard this verdict with visible relief. A serious, bookwormish boy, His Majesty has been plugging hard not only at his studies but in his carpentry shop. This started when the King told his mother the Queen that he needed more spending money and Her Majesty replied that by making small wooden articles and selling them to courtiers His Majesty could make as much pocket money as would be good for him.

On the King's birthday last September his sales were going so well that the Queen raised his regular allowance from $3 to $15 per week, the raise being granted on condition that Peter II keep accounts on his shop. During the winter this fretted His Majesty even more than his cramming for examinations. Last week the court physician described the King as "over-worked," approved a vacation which His Majesty will spend this year bathing, fishing and mountain-climbing on the Dalmatian seacoast until mid-September.

Royal tutors meanwhile told anecdotes in Belgrade about the.ir pupil. "Why do trees have leaves?" asked His Majesty. "To breathe," explained English Tutor C. C. Parrott. "Indeed?" said King Peter. "Then how do trees breathe all winter after they have lost their leaves?"

Another time Peter II asked his Spanish great-aunt, the Infanta Beatrice, cousin by marriage of ousted Alfonso XIII, "What is a revolution?"

"Revolution, Peter dear, is when the people go mad," explained Great-aunt Beatrice.

"It was during a revolution that the Spaniards drove out their King, wasn't it?" persisted Peter II. "Why did they do that?"

"As I told you, Peter--because they were mad," replied the flustered Infanta.

"It seems to me there is something wrong in what you say, Great-aunt Beatrice," observed His Majesty. "I think if people drive away a king he must have done something he should not have done."

"Naughty Tomislav." Eight-year-old Prince Tomislav, brother of 12-year-old King Peter, easily holds all records for successfully teasing members of the Royal Family.

Not long ago Her Majesty, the sorrowing and widowed Dowager Queen, was surprised to hear suppressed titters on her appearance at a public function. Reason: H. R. H. Prince Tomislav was closely following his mother with exaggerated strides, apparently trying to see how near he could come to treading on the Queen's train without actually doing so.

Few days ago the palace sentries broke up a game between H. R. H. Prince Tomislav inside the royal iron fence and Belgrade street urchins outside. Object of the game was to see who could spit farthest. According to a Belgrade dispatch last week some Orthodox priests have asked pious Serbs when praying for good King Peter to add "and may God be kind to his naughty brother!"

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