Alexander Cancelled

Some twenty days of hard work by the Rumanian Foreign Office ended last week when effeminate Count Alexander ("Lexel") von Hochberg, descendant of the ancient and glorious Piast Kings of Poland, son of the German Prince of Pless, at last--in the words of the official Rumanian communique--"consented to permit the breaking of his engagement with H. R. H. Princess Ileana of Rumania" (TIME, Feb. 10).

Bucharest papers confidently asserted that Dowager Queen Marie, who was houseboating on the Nile with Princess Ileana last week, had persuaded her daughter, who is of age and has a private fortune of $260,000, that she must not marry the Count.

If it has done nothing else the Ileana-Alexander faux pas has boosted the sale of Alexander's mother's book: Daisy, Princess of Pless, by Herself (Button,

$5) Through its 529 pages prurient persons are searching feverishly for an allusion to the Count's effeminate practices, cause of the matchruptcy. Shrewd, the Button sales department led them in as deep as possible last week with this brand new blurb:

"He was a sensitive lad, for while his mother was writing these memoirs he reminded her of the repugnance he felt at the age of 15 toward a practise he then encountered in his uncle's country house in Silesia.

" 'The establishment was maintained on very old fashioned lines. Ugly blue-glass finger bowls, with a blue-glass tumbler inside them containing the necessary mixture, were placed in front of each guest and at the end of each meal, conscientiously and noisily used. After this revolting gargling, the party entered the drawing room and, before coffee was served, all the relations gave each other a resounding kiss, at the same time saying, "Mahlzeit," meaning "good digestion."

" 'Lexel adds that, horrid as the gargling in the dining room was, it at least served to mitigate the beastliness of being kissed by a lot of people whose mouths and beards smelled and tasted of dinner! But then Lexel never did like promiscuous embraces, and, as a very small boy, once flatly refused to kiss even the Emperor's hand!":

But when the houseboat Mayflower left Aswan, last week, keen eyed Egyptians saw that the solitaire diamond Princess Ileana accepted from "Lexel" still twinkled on H.R.H.'s engagement finger.

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