ROYAL SURPRISE

Hokitika Guardian, 2 March 1933, Page 2

ROYAL SURPRISE

FOR TWO AMERICAN TOURISTS.

Two Americans were journeying from India to England by Imperial Airways not long ago, and at Basra- two Iraki gentlemen boarded the machine. After it had taken oif one of the Americans went over to the Irakis, and asked whether they would care for a game of brkj'ge. They consented, and the four played bridge steadily all the way to Bagdad. When the machine alighted at Bagdad it was received by a guard or honour, and a body of functionaries, and a band and banners. The two Iraki .gentlemen stepped out, everybody sprang smartly to attention, the band played, and the two drove off in a magnificent Rolls-Royce. The rather astonished American turned to one of the Imperial Airways officials and said, “Say, who are those two guys?” ana the Imperial Airways man replied, “Don’t you know? That is King Feisal, and the other is his aide-de-camp.” “Gee,” said the American “If anybody had told me in my little home town in Oklahoma that I should play bridge in the air, over the Garden of Eden, with a reigning monarch—and that he would take 150 good American dollars off me lat a -gam e that I thought I knew—l should have called him a liar I”