Evening Star Newspaper, June 7, 1925, Page 74

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUN A MESSAGE TO THE MAHARAJA BY GEORGE F. WORTS. St A Romance With Incidents Developed in the Far East. YLVESTER VAN DORN had not | not the stars in their courses that wanted to bring his daughter to Bangkok; Judy was too yOUNR. teo beautiful, and too romautic. He feared that she might fall & prey to some worthless but fascinat- ing young man whose days were des- tined to be spent in this or some other equally septic jungle town. But he srought her to Bangkok, none the less. Mr. Van Dorn often told himsell that he was not the kind of father who forces his will, his preferences, and his dislikes upon his offspring. But he was | always willing to make suggestions. | Ané his suggestion fhat Billy Gibson | would make an acceptable son-in- was almost emphatic. Billy w g0 getter. Billy was well liked by his associates. Billy had no vices. did not smoke. He did not drink. He did| not gamble. And he played a corking | game of golf. “In other words,” Judy coldly re-| marked on one occasion, “you want | me to marry so you can find out pre- | cisely what is wrong with your mash- ie_shot . Mr. Van Dorn sputtered, and the conversation ended there. When Mr. Van Dorn was informed by the directors of the banking cor- poration of which he was a vice pres dent that he had been chosen to go| to Siam to straighten out an Asiatic bank failure, he did two things: he cabled an old boyhood friend in Bang' kok that he was coming, and he in structed Judy to pack her things. Judy almost swooned with sheer rapture She was only 19. Bangkok blazed up from the jungle, & memory from the Arabian Nights Natives in gorgeous costumes crowded the water front. The gilded and rain- bow-colored spires of temples thru themselves into the blazing blue sky, and through the dark green banks of mahogany and olive trees white walls peeped and red roofs gleamed. Ele phants and black men, Chinese coolies and dusky maidens, Jjinrikishas and gharries paraded with the fascinating languor of the East behind the Borneo Company’s wharf where the coast- ing steamer made fast. The only thing lacking was the smell of incense and spice; and in place of this were the hot, ripe smell of steaming vegetation and the strange sour smell which is characteristic of Oriental river cities and no other cities in the world. A funny-looking old gentleman in ill- fitting white drill was the first man up the gangplank. His beardless face was the color of milk chocolate; his eyes were of the pale, opaque blue that distinguished the eyes of the numer- ous Slamese cats on the ship, and his smile was catlike. too. Judy was aroused by the voice of her father, who was presenting her to the funny old gentleman. She knew some- thing of Dr. Dill from remarks her father had dropped. He had come to Bangkok 40 years ago to practice surgery: had devised some wonderful cure for asqueer disease caused by eating unhusked rice; had retired from practice to build up one of the largest American fortunes in South. eastern Asia: his young men were scattered throughout the jungles, rep- resenting him in the trading, teak wood, rubber, rice and mining indus- tries, in all of which, and many others, he dakbled He was smoking the strangest looking thing she had ever seen in a man's mouth. Her education, she announced, ‘was complete, when Dr Dill informed her that the long white cylinder—it must have been eight inches in length—was a white Burmese cheroot and that he had a Japanese ! spaniel at his house that followed him around licking up the sashes. After she had seen the curly-haired, beady- eyed little beast hungrily licking up cigar and cheroot ashes she confided | to her father that if the social life of Bangkok were as amusing as the animal life, she would be content to remain here forever. “I want to warn you, honey. Sylvester Van Dorn took this splendid opportunity to say, ‘‘that the white men you are going to meet in Bang- kok bear watching. You will find | that they are different from any of the men you have known. There's a certain fascination about them that's misleading. Very few of them are of Dr. Dill's character. Men come out to places of this kind for all sorts of shady reasons, Judy; many of them stay because they're lotus eaters or daren’t be seen in civilization. Of course, I'm not saying they're all that kind. But I want to put you on your guard.’ PEEE 'HE men Judy met were uniformly uninteresting to her: slowed down mentally and physically by the in-| tense perpetual heat. On her firs night in Bangkok she went to a dance at the Sports Club and her first glimpse of the dancers made her laugh outright. They reminded her of a slow-motion movie She waited in vain for a really attractive man to appear. And one day a tall young man came down from the interior and to Dr. Dill's house with the hollow foreleg of an elephant under one arm, a small, hammered-silver casket lined with brought their meeting about. One morning, while the liner on which Sylvester Van Dorn and his daughter were sailing to the Far East was plowing a double smile upon the unwrinkled blue face of the eastern Pacific, Sammy Bonifer was en route to a village in the Lao in search of ivory and uncut sapphires. He was paying, his regular monthly trading visits fo the villages in his district. With his sun helmet jammed down tightly about his shoulders, he sat in the stern of a canoe, which was being driven at a leisurely pace through the tawny water by six paddlers. Oc casionally he glanced at the compass at his feet. According to the disk the canoe was heading due south when the trader’s attention was arrested by a droning far overhead. He glanced up to per- ceive that an enormous bird with fixed wings was swooping down upon him. Sammy Bonifer knew, of course, that the huge bird was an airplane, although it was the first one he had seen in five vears, and from the markings on its wings he knew that the plane was an American one. His six Lao boy however, had been denfed the benefits of travel and edu- cation, and, as the great mechanical vulture swooped closer and closer, one by one they committed them selves, splashing and howling, to the comparative safety of the alligator- infested water. The plane was now coasting low over the river. Suddenly the roaring of its engine was reduced to a purring and a clicking: and on it came with a sound of rushing wind From the cockpit a hand reached out and waved. and Sammy Bonifer looked upward into hepmggled eyes. “Compass jammed!” the elled down. “Which wa buddy?" Sagpmy Bonifer recovered from his amazement only in time to be of serv- jce. Glancing at his compass, he swept off his huge sun helmet, waved it riolently southward, and shouted “What's doing?"” “Round the world!"” floated back to him; the motor was roaring again. He watched the winged marvel shrink to a speck against the low thunder clouds. His paddlers clambered back into the canoe, babbling. “Bai bahng! Wai-wai he roared. which, translated freely. meant, “We're going home, you lazy rascals, as fast as we can t el % * x GAMMY BONIFER entered Bankok one evening on the train from Chengmei in a red-and-blue checked sarong which hung from waist to boot tops, suspended seemingly by nothing but its own initiative, as sarongs gen- erally are; a jacket of pale-green hand- embroidered silk, and a sun helmet that resembled the largest and most elderly mushroom in existence. That bizarre picture was the first that Judy Van Dorn had of Sammy Bonifer, and one that she would re- member always; a tall young man in a brilliant Oriental costume, with nut brown skin, a shock of sun-bleached, corn-colored hair, fine blue eves with laughter in them, the lacquered two. foot lower section of an elephant's foreleg under his left arm, and a small hammered-silver casket clasped in his large brown right hand. Judy, Dr. Dill and Mr. Van Dorn were discussing the American fyers who had recently stopped in Bangkok | en route to Rangoon on their round- the-world flight and waiting for the number one boy to summon them to dinner, when Sammy Bonifer silhouet ted himself against the grape-colored sky. Judy in a filmy white dress, immacu- late and lovely and serene in a pea- cock chair which made an_ effective background for her slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty. The elephant leg dropped with a thump to the floor, and he looked at her with dismay, as if he might burst into tears. Judy was the first white girl he had séen in five vea Dr. Dill presented Sammy Bonifer to the Van Dorns, and Sammy remov- ed the contents of the lephant's leg. There were a_half-dozen of the gilded castiron Buddhas with which Judy was quite familiar and one strange- looking skinny one which Dr. Dill promptly pounced upon. “This is a very fair example of the Starvation Buddha,” he explained, turning the ugly little piece of gilded st iron about in his hands. “Are these mine, Sam?” Z sir, and I'd like to have you keep one for me until I know just where I will be”; and he opened the s 1t ‘was filled with odds He poked around in the little box then nervously dumped its contents on the floor, kneit down and pawed them over. Judy could not restrain an ex- clamation of rapture. “How perfectly gorgeous!” The trader looked up at her with a shy, frightened grin. From the mass he extricated a lump of carved amber, which he handed to Dr. Dill. It was sandalwood in his right hand and |a tiny amber goddess, perhaps an inch that very indescribable something shining in his eves. The moment she saw him Judy wanted to take Sammy Bonifer’s head in her hands and kiss Bim; and it was a lost airplane and | N> y \\7 and a half in height. The eyes were tiny inset sapphires, and in the dusk of the evening they seemed to twinkle with life. 1 think it's the mother of Buddha,” The laughter in his eyes and the| eager grin vanished when he beheld | the young man hesitantly explained, and his volce was edged with embar- rassment. “I picked it up three years ago from a Chink in Nakawn Sawan, who probably stole it out of the ruins at Angkor. At least, it looks Cam- bodian.” “I don't agree with you, Sammy: don’t agree with you at all,” the doctor answered in so excited a voice that Judy gazed at him with surprise. “It doesn’t look Buddhistic to me. My guess is that it's a flake from some other religion, perhaps some forgotten one. From the workmanship, I'd say a thousand yedrs old, at least. These markings on the base look Arabic, but they're too worn to say for sure. I'll have Dr. Billings examine it when he returns from Japan. “The natives had a great deal of awe for it,” Sammy Bonifer added. Dr. Dill fondied the amber princess lovingly. “T'll give you fifteen hun- dred ticals for it,” said he promptly. “I'm sorry, Doctor. 1'd like you to keep it for me, though.” “I never saw such lovely things! Judy sald. “What is that flat piece of jade?" Sammy Bonifer’s face became bril- liant with an uprush of blood. *“Why, that—" he began and halted. “It's a love charm, Judy;” Dr. Dill helped him out. ‘““The Lao and Morn girls wear them at the throat so the man they want will fall in love with them. Those three little inlaid copper ideographs stand for chastity, intelll- gence and congeniality.” ! “Will you sell it to me?” Judy cried. “Oh, please do!” Sammy Bonifer wrenched his eves from the vivid beauty of her face. He gathered up the objects and replaced them in the little casket. He then closed the lid and laid the casket in her hands. ““Please take them. I've had good fun collecting them. Now I don't know what to do with them “I wouldn't dream of it!" Judy ex- claimed, drawing back and looking hastily at her father. ““Certainly not!” he snorted. “Put a fair price on the lot, Bonifer, and I'll take them off your hands.” The young man looked hurt. He shook his head. *No: I don't need money. I made up my mind coming down that this box and everything in it but the amber goddess was to g0 to the first American girl I saw. You are the first American girl I've seen.” “But—but I can't accept it—can I, daddy?” “No!" sputtered Mr. Van Dorn. “Of course not!" “It strikes me,” Dr. Dill put in im- patiently, “that you are spoiling your appetites over a handful of trash. Judy, my dear, accept the casket in the spirit in which it is offered and be thankful to Buddha that you are not the second American girl Sammy has seen.” Dr. Dill sharply clapped his hands. The number one boy glided in. “Show the nal hong to that topside garden side room,” he directed briskl “You'll find clothes there to fit, Sam my. Come down to the dining room when you're ready. We won't wait.” The trader darted a half-frightened, half-triumphant look at Judy and withdrew. “Handsome scoundrel,” Mr. Van Dorn commented judicially. “Re- markable eyes—like a light shining behind them™; and was unaware of the rapturous sigh with which Judy confirmed him. “You modernists would label him a queer egg, wouldn't you, Judy?" No,” Judy snapped. ‘‘He is not a queer egg.’ The ruby spark of the doctor’s che- root brightened in the purple dark- ness. ‘‘He's been in the Lao for five vears. Considering that, Slyvester, I wouldn't call him queer. This is the first time out.” “Another fugitive from justice, I suppose.” Jot a bit of it. Sam’s a fine, straight boy. Old New England stock. He came out here soon after the war, a disgruntled idealist, and begged for a post as far from civilization as I could put him. I gave him a hill sta- tion in the Lao. That's why he's so healthy. Sam’s really an exceptional man “In what way?" Judy promptly asked. “Gerferally the country gets the: but you can see it hasn't got Samm He's level-headed. And he's a go-get- te: Judy nodded approvingly. “Any one can see how real he is.” “1 can’t,” Mr. Van Dorn muttered. “I think he’s half-baked.” * ok ok % UDY was nibbling a Siamese olive <" as big as a plum_ when Sammy Bonifer, handsome and distinguished as any soldier of -fortune who ever donned white duck, entered the din- ing room, sat down, and smiled shyly | at her across the unflickering candles. The whiteness of his new clothing made his skin seem almost the color of mahogany. Against that dusky background his eyves were blazing blue, his teeth startlingly white. Judy noticed that his jaw was square and firm and that the line sweeping down from ear to chin was long, an indica- tion, she had always believed, of cour- age. He would look well, she decided, with a small mustache. He had evidently overcome some of his terror of her, but he was still struggling to be at ease. He twitched his bleached eyebrows when she look- IN THE ENSUING DAYS THEY EXPLORED QUAINT, OUT-OF- KI BOEK.VAY CORNERS OF BANG- ed at him and further delighted her by stammering and stuttering when- ever ghe shot a question at him. A glow warmed her when she learned that he would be in Bangkok indefi- nitely. He had no plans, but he was never going back to the jungles. In the ensuing days they explored quaint, out-of-the-way corners of Bangkok which Judy 'iad overlooked. It was thrilling to have Sammy pilot her about, to translate her endless questions to” the natives into the strange, caressing language, to have him point out funny little things she would have overlooked. Through the American legation Sammy obtained passes to _the grounds of King Rama's palace. They saw a solid gold urn for containing royalty embalmed in mercury and honey while awaiting the pyre: they inspected the royal white elephants, which were not white at all, but a mottled gray, with mean little pale pink eyes; they attended a native fu- neral, where every one laughed and had a jolly time, and limes containing silver coins were thrown to the chil dren, and a prize was given to the bov who captured a greased and in- furfated pig, and a Siamese version of Jjazz was played on weird instruments to a rhythm that started her heart to pounding, so savavely exhilarating it was. They did not fall in love. As Judy some time later expressed it, they al- ways were in love. In the twilight gloom of the Wat Phra Keo, under the great jade Buddha with its canopy which is changed with the seasons, from gold, to silver, to straw, he took Judy in his arms and kissed her for the first time. It was not the first time that Judy had been kissed, but her thumping heart told her that it was the first time that had ever really counted. For several days thereafter they speclalized in the darker, less fre- quented temples. Mr. Van Dorn, absorbed in sifting mountains of cunningly compiled fig- ures to find a grain of truth, sensed vaguely, with the seventh sense of a Jealous father, that Judy was seeing a little too much of that Bonifer fel- low. And one evening he found the o:;ponunlty to call it to Judy's atten- tion, “Judy,” he said suddenly ,"I'd rather you wouldn’'t be with this Bonifer fellow quite so much. You know I don’t like him, honey.” Judy glanced up with a candid smile from the knitting she had re- sumed. “I do, dear. I'm going to marry him.” It wasn't fair, perhaps, to give him the news with so little warning, but, to Judy the faét that she was going to marry Sammy Bonifer was a little more important than all the other current news items in the world to- gether. “I warned you this would happen,” he stormed. “I told you to look out for these tricky beachcombers. “He isn't a beachcomber. “He's loafing, isn't he? He hasn't got a job, has he? He's not much bet- ter than a bum, is he?” her father sputtered. “You don’t see in him what I see, Daddy. Sammy is real. He i8 the realest man I have ever known. You'll see it for yourself some day. He's ten times the man Billy Gibson will ever be. And I love him.” “You shan't marry him!” her father panted. “I shall marry him, Daddy. Do you want to know what is the matter with you? I've intended never to tell you, but vou've forced me. You're just selfish. You don't want any man to marry me whom you can't boss around. You want me tied down to some one who will obey your slightest whim. _You don’t want a real son-in- law. You want a house dog and a golf partner. Well, Sammy isn’t that kind. I think he's a perfect peach.” Mr. Van Dorn said something un- mentionably profane under his breath, walked down the steps into the com- pound with great dignity, and took his jinrikisha to Dr. Dill's office. The Aespoiler of his home had departed some time before he arrived, but the doctor was in, and Mr. Van Dorn was ushered immediately into Dr. Dill's sanctum sanctorum. * k% % UDY's father blew off steam for 10 or 15 minutes; then these two sea- soned men of the world put their gray heads together and in no time at all devised a brilliant, bullet-proof solution. They would separate the lovers by sending Sammy away. “Whenever I want a man out of my way here for a few weeks,” the doc- tor said, chuckling. “I always send a message to the Maharaja of Johor. The Maharaja of Johor privately owns a mountain of tin ore in Negri Sembilan that I've been trying to get my hands on for the past 18 years and mine for him on a royalty basis, but he won't listen to reason, and he never will. He spends his time build- ing Mohammedan mosques and tem- ples. It takes a man about two weeks to get an audience with the Maharaja, and another three weeks to a month for the Maharaja to say no with suitable embellishments. We can count on Sam's being gone, in- cluding the time consumed by the trip down and back, six weeks or maybe a little longer. I can send the Maharaja a present, and that will materially lengthen the ceremony of saying no. This is the wildest wild- goose chase I know of. The best dip- lomats in Siam have bent their swords on that mountain of tin ore; and the Maharaja heartily dislikes Americans. My message to the Maha- raja will give Sam Bonifer a pleas- ant little vacation.” Mr. Van Dorn slapped his knee. His wrath had slipped from him. The two_conspirators chuckled. “By the time he returns,” Judy's father amplified, “Judy and I will, with any luck at all, be homeward bound.” Dr. Dill introduced the subject at dinner that evening. “I am going to send you to Johor on an important mission,” he told Sammy. “You are the only man I can trust. It is a message to the Maharaja.” And he told Sammy what message was. Sammy and Judy exchanged a look of sheer horror, both then glanced !intuitively at Mr. Van Dorn. A self- satisfied smirk hovered about his thin- lipped mouth. And at sight of this tell-tale sign Judy's big brown eyes narrowed. . “If you are successful,” Dr. Dill proceeded chirpily, “I will do well by you, Sam. There's practically no job 1 control, including my own, that you can't have.” | Sammy saw the catlike grin, knew what it meant, and bowed his tow head in acceptance of banishment. i His five year contract with the doctof would not elapse for two months or more. He knew all about the mes- sage to the Maharaja of Johor. It was one of the standing jokes of Bangkok. tive session with her father. She was white with anger, but she mana- ged to control her temper. G “It is the most cowardly thing I ever heard of” she told his in a deadly little voice. *You don't dare fight him in the open; you've got to strike from behind. It's the first time in my life you've ever been un- derhanded with me, Daddy, and—" “I have acted only in your own in- terests, honey,” he interrupted, fright- After dinner Judy went into execu-! ened a little by the look in her eyes. “You mean,” she said in the same dull, toneless voice, “you have acted in the interests of your own selfish- ness. You know that sending Sammy to Johor is only an excuse to separate us. You know that any one who takes a message to the Maharaja becomes a laughing-stock. It isn't like you to be so unfair and so cruel. From the very beginning you haven't tried to be friends with Sammy. You've antagonized him; you've accused him of being things that he isn’t; you—you've deliberately | gone out of your way to—to force me to love him!" “You're at the romantic age, honey,” he said uneasily. “You're full of lots of illusions. At this moment it seems dreadful and—and brutal. But you'll get over it!" he said cheerily. “I want you to tell me,” Judy re- plied stonily, “exactly what it is you have against Sam. If it's honest and just and real, I'll promise to give him up without another word.” Mr. Van Dorn could only sputter. He mentioned emphatically but hazily the shiftless life that Sammy had led and his present state of unemploy- ment. Judy heard him through, then gravely shook her small dark head. Not one of your arguments holds water, Dad. He hasn’t led a shiftless life in the Lao. He turned in more profits than any man who ever held the post. And he isn’t unemployed. His contract with Dr. Dill has another two months to run. He couldn’t a cept another position if he wanted to." * x % ¥ AMMY BONIFER left early to catch the train for Penang, where he would change to the Singapore Ex press for Johor Bharu, the Maharaja's residence. When breakfast was later served for the others Judy did not ap. pear. What promised to become an ab. sorbing mystery was solved when Dr. Hibbard of the Bangrap mission came flashing into Dr. Dill's compound in a blue jinrikisha. He breathlessly an- nounced that Judy Van Dorn and Samtel Bonifer had been married by his hands and book 30 minutes before train time. His suspicions had not been aroused until the girl requested him to acquaint her father; she and Sammy had decided to elope! There was only one train a day into the Federated Malay States. Next morning came a telegram dis- patched from the Imperfal Siamese Railway rest station at Chum Pon, where the Bangkok-Penang train al- ways stops for the night, surrendering the right of way to herds of wild elephants and other beasts which roam that newly opened reglon of Siam when the sun has gone: “Divinely happy. Having thrilling time. Saw tiger trying to crawl through the window bars into our bed- room at rest station last night, but Sammy says it was nothing but a black panther. My husband sends heartiest congratulations. Forgive- ness by wire will reach us at Eastern and Oriental Hotel, Penang. Dearest love. “JUDY BONIFER."” Mr. Van Dorn did not avail himself of the opportunity generously afford ed him to wire forgiveness. He as- saulted the problem which had brought him to Bangkok with such energy, however, that within a week the trail grew hot. Within another week, he was possessed of document- ary evidence which would, when given | to’ the world by the great banking corporation of which he was a vice president, shake Orfental banking cir- cles to the roots. This fortunate coup somewhat soft- ened him toward the erring Judy. but he would never, so long as he lived, forgive her husband. * ok % "THEY returned from their honey- moon at the end of a_month, radi- ant with happiness. Mr. Van Dorn re. turned Judy's kiss coolly, subtly con veying that what she had done had in jured him almost beyond repair. He ignored the bridegroo “Tlt{ :\'\'(;ER. | r first words he released her | ity, and vou were rather vague, you e had stabbed him mmy made the Maharaja say | N 2 T told vou this boy w: in the background, reeled | getter, “He was lucky “He did it with his little amber prin- | uncompromis Judy broke in sweetly ke that wornout old message | to the Mahara, thinking about the prince: you said about her being a flake from than Buddhism | were going to give Samm: some other and the inscription Arabic and then about the Maharaja tired surgeon faintly | “Well, we understand that the man-| " - { agership of vour York office is | We've decided we'd like that, | - “The Maharaja, as X Sammy Bonifer beamed played a hunch We want to get ba The princess turned purpose, we e want to be close | be s0 Jonesome without. the darling. when Sammy Wouldn't you, have given us anything He was a perfect love about ve us a banquet and panther hunting loaded me up with the prettiest things It was just like a scene | Mr. Van Dorn sputtered for the last | time in many Van Dorn, and his voung son-in-l ge from Hongkong to n th Pacific Mail line took Sammy v booked pas- n Francisco when we lef! The banker “I've got it in writing,” Sammy add- | y. But you'll have to go down there | personally, Doc, to arrange terms. e that much au pung man who had looted his heart of ure, ‘but that he might I|do so at almost any hour was Judy's | been goir rm conviction and a s.fondest tr | communion o |after de Judy * Mr. Van Dorn said | was about tc | band's per: end of t her fath | friendly | mark on nd w . do wid said in a Judy steps into dignantly how Sudden American Paris Survivals Center About Men Who Won Fame BY STERLING HEILIG. Paris, May 28. OBERT FULTON, the Ameri- can inventor of the steamship, has become a sudden person. ality to Parisians by reason of the greatest real estate im- provements they have made in modern times. Paris is now completing the Boule- vard Haussmann, cutting through three solid blocks of high rental busi- ness buildings, at immense expense— but it will pay!'—to join the broad ave- nue begun in 1857 with “the” old Paris boulevard, at last! She point of junction is spacious and smart, with new hotels, triangular square, and rich shops. It is the boulevard rejuvenated—just where Robert Fulton bujit his Panorama! Paris talks about the Passage des Panoramas—will it become fashion- able again? It is a long arcade. It is high-roofed with glass, and full of shops which have become rather an- tiquated. But formerly, it was the most elegant shopping and ‘“tea” place in Paris. Did you know that_the illustrious American inventor, Robert Fulton, built the first parorama—to raise money to make his steamship demon- strations in the river Seine, before the eyes of Napoleon? Coming abroad as a painter (pupil of Benjamin West), Fulton was the Paris guest of the rich American Joel Barlow. With immense energy, while constructing his steamship, he built on this spot of the boulevard the first of those great circular panorama edi- fices which everybody knows today. It was a panorama of Rome and Jerusalem. To do the painting he employed the artist Prevost and his student Daguerre—inventor of the daguerreotype and all photography! And Fulton made enough money from the speculation to operate successfully a steamboat on the Seine, the date { being August 10, 1803. Other speculators used the success of Fulton’s Panorama to construct the Passage des Panoramas beside it, which still exists. And now, again, the historic old ar- cade becomes smartly situated by reason of the vast street improvement which opens a direct line from it to the Arc de Triomphe. Yet the Passage des Panoramas remains, all the same, on “the” Paris boulevard, rejuyenated! Two great inventors started it to- gether — Fulton, inventor of steam navigation, and Daguerre, inventor of hoto; hy! P graphy: e 2 IOUSLY, the famous old Paris house of Benjamin Franklin is the center of other immense real es- tate improvements further west. ‘The hoyse itself, of course, will be saved, aniid the cutting of broadened streets and the building of new apart- ment house blocks. It was, in truth, Franklin's office, for official business, in the Rue Penthievre. Immemorially, it has borne in great ‘Benjamin Franklin, window of the third floor shaped like a Greek portico. thievre is a few blocks off the Champs in an old-fashioned central- west district astonishingl rative tablet h: Rue de Pen- Its turn has come. The movement is, toward the Champs Ely- sees—certain rich retail business mov- westward and modern apartment houses bidding for ground space in this promising area. Benjamin Franklin's real residence was outside Paris in his day, in the A great commemo- lin to have a Paris village of Passy. are three hotels, been placed on the |edly the most expensive and hig site of his Passy villa, at the corner |puted, which enjoy celebri of the present Rue Raynouard and the Rue Singer—another vival, from the inventor of the sewing |known guests of “our best people machine, who married three wives inland are very careful pect “not admitting everybody.” Put { hat they are overrun with already- to other applicants. They are the So Singer merited more than Frank- |Ritz, the Plaza-Athenee and the street named for | Meurice. The last two are extremely him—on the precise spot where Amer- |guiet, but top-line expensive, all the icans come running, nevertheless, to see Iranklir's garden! same. _Surel is curious that the Meu- rice was, in his day, “the cheap ho- |tel in Paris” which the poet. Long fellow wrote so about in |letters as a voung man, “agreea |easy on the pocketbook Longfellow lived at the Hotel Meu |rice at $1.20 per day, full board ankl {room, like Thackery, the novelist, and Charles mb, the essayist, wh a getting upstair The Meurice in those days had no stair carpet, and, of cou vator. Lamb v his aunt; but no nings the negotiated the stair: They were waxed and slipper Later, when the Meurice became a favorite with Americans like St Gaudens, the sculptor; Whistler, the painter, and Simon Newcomb, the astronomer, it may have raised its prices a bit: but Longfellow hit it early, as soon as he had “learned French” at Mme. Potet'’s boarding house. * % ¥ % CONSIDERABLE Parls topic i the American dentists. French dentists complain that, once again, too. many Americans are admitted to practice in France. “In Paris, they skim the cream of the profession, while “even in the watering places they live free in the most fashionable hotels during the season, with a nota- ble cash bonus, advertised as an at- traction— American dentist’ France had put up the bars, pretty high, against newcoming Ameri dentists; but the war z certain number,” against whon nevertheless, there was no great kick among French dentists. How refuse to let those men take their practicing license, when they had notoriously “made new jaws™ for 50 French Idiers, “furnishing their own silver"? But., as time passed after armistice, a disquieting number of applicants turned up—young Americans who had done surgical and general dentistry attached to French war hospitals, even by release froth the A. E. F. for the purpose French dental examinations cause these men no fear. The preliminaries have always been the easiest—thes: merely, for the ‘“secondary brevet, which any 14-year-old Frenca achool- boy can pass, and for which Amer- :ican college and high school gradu- BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S HOUSE IN PARIS, WHICH HAS BECOME THE CENTER OF A BIG REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT. ‘ations have been accepted as “equrivz: lents” when no professional practice is In view!