Thrice-Slapped Cheek

Five thousand Russians paid $6,000 to hear famed Menshevik* Alexander Feodorovitch Kerensky, onetime Russian Dictator, speak at the Century Theatre, Manhattan. Amid furious excitement a half-ton bronze candelabra was uprooted and flung down in the lobby by the sheer pressure of the crowd. Bolsheviks/- yelled. Tsarists brandished canes. Both factions detest M. Kerensky because he is more radical than the Tsarists and less radical than the Bolsheviks. . . .

Soon a pretty Tsarist girl, who has Americanized her lame into "Miss Catherine Bary" and became a designer, mounted the stage with a bunch of roses which she extended toward Speaker Kerensky. As he bent forward to accept them she struck him three times across the left cheek with her gloves, screamed in Russian: "By your order my fiance was shot in Russia! I do this to avenge him!"

"Let her go," said M. Kerensky through an interpreter to the police. Then,"in Russian, to the audience: "Oh, you poor little monarchists. You have lost your manhood. Not one of your ex-officers dares to come upon this stage! Instead you send a woman. . . ."

Soon, amid pandemonium, 25 Russians were ejected, including Andrew Tolstoy who was marched roughly into the street by Patrolman Higginson. "He says," the patrolman told reporters, "that he is related to some Wop Count that's dead, and used to write books."

With his audience thus quelled the onetime Dictator spoke: "The Tsarists were the first to come sniveling to us, swearing loyalty to the Revolution. . , The Bolsheviks stole the freedom of the Russian people. . . Both enemies of Russia. . . Someday a new freedom. . . Help for the cause. . . Dawn. . ."

*A right wing "Social Democrat.

/-Left wing "Social Democrats."