Candid Prince

Newsgatherers boarded the liner France in New York harbor last week, prepared to interview a personage

He was Wilhelm of Ponte Corvo, second son of King Gustaf of Sweden, Duke of Sodermanland, divorced husband of the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia. To boot, this personage is a lion hunter, a poet, a successful dramatist and a descendant of Jean Bernadotte, Napoleon's great marshal.

The very tall young man who is all these things grinned at the reporters and refused to be a personage. "I am here on a lecture tour," he said. "My purpose is to talk about lion hunting--as a hunter, not a scientist. I shall show motion pictures, and lantern slides, and generally conduct myself like any other lecturer." Questions flowed. Q: "Do you like to dance?"

A: "Look at me. Don't you think I am too tall for dancing?"

Q: "Do you drink?"

A: "Thank God there is no prohibition in Sweden!"

Q: "Do you gamble?"

A: "Poker is the greatest game of chance; but I very seldom win at it."

Q: Is it true that your plays are produced all over Scandinavia and net you large royalties?"

A: "I am able to make my living like the rest of you. You might say that I am a self-made man."

Q: "Do you approve of divorce?"

A: "I am divorced."

Nonchalant, His Royal Highness took a six-room suite at the Waldorf, paid for it a week in advance, then left for a week-end visit at Pawling, N. Y., with a fellow explorer-huntsman, Lowell Thomas, partial biographer of Britain's mysterious hero of the Palestine campaigns, Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence (TIME, July 26).