Iced In

Denmark's elongated King, Christian X, dislikes hitches. Things can never run too smoothly to suit the precise mind of the six-foot-five-inch ruler, and yet recently a number of annoying little accidents have happened to His Majesty. A fat Frenchman fell over his feet in the theatre at Cannes (TIME, Feb. 25). He paid a State Visit to Madrid, only to have the Queen-Mother of Spain die suddenly (TIME, Feb. 18). So it has gone. Last week King Christian returned to Denmark from the Riviera, determined that if possible, this voyage should be uneventful.

Promptly at the appointed time His Majesty, Queen Alexandrine, and Prince Knud boarded their train. Promptly the train left. It rolled smoothly across France to Paris, from Paris to Berlin, Berlin to Warnemunde, on the Baltic; and at Warnemunde slid on the ferry that was to carry the train across an arm of the sea to Denmark. Six hours more, and they would be in Copenhagen. Practically nothing more could happen, unless the royal car should slip off the ferry into the sea. This very nearly had occurred on a previous occasion and worried trainmen roped and chained the train securely to the track. The ferry left the pier, King Christian sighed with relief, inserted himself in the royal berth, went to sleep.

Three hours passed, when the King awoke and realized that he was not in motion.

"What seems to be the trouble?" cried His Majesty, thrusting himself for some distance out of the sleeping car window.

"A little accident, Majestaet," quavered an unfortunate railway official, "we are iced in!"

It was true. So heavy were the ice jams in the Baltic that train and ferry were caught fast in the midst of the frozen sea. King Christian and his consort and their son were forced to spend the night marooned on a motionless ferryboat until released by Government icebreakers in the morning.