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If I Were Queen
By
DONALD CALHOUN •
Would you do what Ruth Townley did if you were Queen?
U
1 SUPPOSE all girls dream of being a princess and having a handsome prince with shoulders like the men in the clothing ads singing serenades to them under their balcony, but I m sure that when I used to sit at the window of my little room in a Vermont village and imagine a deep voice murmuring, passionately, “My Beautiful One! My Princess!” while the shivers went deliciously up my spine, I never would have had the nerve to dream the things that have happened to me since !
Have the nerve — I can just imagine Madame Manonne’s despair if she could hear me say that after all her efforts (at two thousand francs per annum) to make me into a lady. “ Arve ze ncr-rr-ve! Mais, cc n’est pas gentil, Mademoiselle ! C’est affreux! Vous paries comme les sanvages amcricains !” But I guess I shall be an American till they put a lily in my hand, no matter what happens to me. Which brings me back to my story of what did happen to me. It all began with the letter Pop got one morning from a firm of lawyers . in Colorado, saying that his Uncle Pete had shuffled off this mortal coil, leaving a fortune in mining properties, one hard boiled Sunday shirt, a choice collection of brandy bottles — empty, and no relatives closer than Pop. Pop had been about to start back to the store, but when he read the letter he took off his linen duster solemnly as tho he were performing some
rite. “Daughter,” he said to me, “it’s too late to do much for me, but we’re going to make a lady of you. You’re an heiress now. Just as soon as that money comes, you’re going to Paris to be eddicated !”
So that’s how I happened to be at Madame Manonne’s on the Rue Saint Michel instead of winding up my education at the Garryville High School with Joe Plunkett, the lawyer’s son, as my One Best Bet. There were all nationalities at the Madame’s: prim English girls with the most beautiful manners you ever saw ; fat, stolid Germans with vons in their names, who ate caramels and read sentimental novels ; Parisians who knew more than it seemed to me quite nice for girls to know, and talked about “love” and “the grand passion” and put perfume behind their ears. And then there was a quiet little girl who came from Kosnia — which is one of those little kingdoms stuck into the map of central Europe like raisins in pudding, and with a standing army, all gold braid.
• Her name was Oluf. I guess I haven’t mentioned it but mine is Ruth Townley, and there aren’t any of my ancestors hanging to any of the branches of our family tree that I know of, still we never pretended to be anybody in especial. Pop used to say that it was honor enough for anybody to be a good American. He wore one of the Eagle’s tail feathers in his cap, Pop did. Well, Oiuf and I roomed
IF I WERE QUEEN
Fictionized by
permission from the F. B. O. re
lease of the story by Duvernet Rabell. Directed by
Wesley Ruggles
and starring Ethel Clayton.
The cast:
Ruth Townley . . .
Oluf
Valdemir
Aunt Ollie
Duke of Wortz . .
Sister Ursula ....
(Fifty-two)
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