Poof!

Last week Commander Francesco de Pinedo, swart, pouting but good-natured Fascist ace, bade goodbye to the steep shores of Roosevelt Lake, Ariz. But he did not leave them as expected. His seaplane, the Santa Maria, in which he had skirted Africa, spun over the Atlantic, swooped over the jungles of Brazil, threaded the West Indies, visited New Orleans and Texas, and which he was now refueling for the next hop, to San Diego and the Pacific, lay in still water surrounded by a Joseph's coat of many colors--spilled oil. From a rowboat full of boys nearby fluttered a yellow butterfly, a lighted match. Poof! The Joseph's coat burst into flaming flags.

Standing on the shore, Commander de Pinedo watched his two globe-trotting comrades dive from the plane and swim to safety. But soon the Santa Maria was a charred mass of wire and twisted metal. The heavy engine plunged hissing from its supports into 60 feet of water. Sick at heart, Commander de Pinedo cabled Premier Mussolini for another plane in which to carry on, for the glory of Fascismo, his four-continent itinerary, of which there remained to be completed a flight to the Pacific coast and up it to Seattle, thence east via Chicago, New York, Boston, Newfoundland and the Azores to Rome. Word came back that an identical ship would reach New York late this month, ready to fly.

Commander de Pinedo could scarcely help gritting his teeth at the young matchflicker who had undone him, but he detected no anti-Fascist plot. Not so the Roman press. There, where Fascist de Pinedo is regarded as a fit first mate for Christopher Columbus, headlines snarled: "VILE CRIME AGAINST FASCISM," "ODIOUS ACT OF ANTI-FASCISTS." A villain was even named by name, one Vacirca, an exile. Proudly piped Il Piccolo: "STRONG WILL OF MUSSOLINI WILL CONTINUE FLIGHT." Commander de Pinedo proceeded to Los Angeles (and doubtless to Hollywood), to wait.