"I'M A KING"

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 225, 17 May 1932, Page 7

"I'M A KING"

EXILED ALPHQNSO TAKES HIS TROUBLES QUIETLY. SHOCKED A SENTRY. King. Alfonso playing hridge for a whole evening, and winning ninepence, is one of the glimpses into the private life of a dethfoned monarch af~ fofded by an article which appears in Le Matiu wriften by M. Pierre Hambourg, who was on board the French liner Champollion during the Mediterranean cruise which the King has just completed. "I am so poor now that it is a pleasure to win," said King Alfonso j smiling, as he picked up his hridge winnings. "I Am Nobody." M. Hamhourg told King Alfonso how pleased he was to have the opportunity of talking to him, and the , King laughed. "Why?" he answered. "I am nobody. I have come unstuck!" Then he spoke of his travels since he went into exile. "I am a queer kind of traveller. I have no pass- 1 port, no papers. When I arrive at a frontier, I say, 'King Alfonso XIII, and I am undesirable.' Then the passport officer or ' the Customs man smiles and lets me through. "The only time I had any difficulty was at the German frontier. The noncommissioned officer scrutinised me for ten minutes. Then I could stand it no longer, so I said to him: "You may like to know that I am an Admiral of the German Fleet, a Colonel of German Hussars, and a Colonel of Uhlans. I am a King. Stand to attention! "My German is terrible, but he understood!" ' Speaking of his life when a hoy, he confessed: "When I was 14 I had to inspect troop.s and carry out other duties which devolve on a King, and I was shy. All round were generals, looking at me. But f had a real friend, an old sergeant, and Jxe used to whisper to me what to do."