On an Iowa road a posse stopped Iowa's corn-fed Poet Paul Engle, warned him that two jailbirds, self-sprung from a nearby prison farm, might be lurking around Engle's summer home, a rambling old stone house near Cedar Rapids. Quipped Engle's car companion, daughter Mary, 18: "Oh, we'll probably find them at our house!" They did. The fugitives, a forger and an auto thief, had already held Engle's wife for nearly five hours, also had daughter Sara, 14, at kitchen-knifepoint. In the three hours that followed, the resourceful Engle family kept its nerve, calmed and steadied the jittery convicts, followed Papa Engle's strategy to "just have an ordinary evening." Engle banged out .a couple of Chicago Tribune book reviews on his typewriter. Mrs. Engle ironed incessantly (so that she could strike while it was hot), Mary lectured on insects and entertained with some Bach piano selections ("They didn't like it, so they made me stop"), and Sara foresightedly hid some scissors in a bird cage. Finally the upstaged crooks trussed up all four in plastic clothesline and departed in Poet Engle's clothing and his station wagon. The Engles quickly freed themselves, and both fugitives were rounded up next day. Complained their involuntary host: "They were completely devoid of a sense of humor." But Poet Engle, far from humorless, is now, according to his friends, perfectly situated to write a farce version of The Desperate Hours, presumably with some very realistic Ransom of Red Chief overtones.

One of the comeliest beauty queens of the Orient, Sirikit Kitiyakara, who is also Queen of Thailand, turned up to open a new hospital in Bangkok, enchanted her subjects with her quiet charm.

Asked by the Cuban Tourist Commission for ideas on how to stimulate Miami-to-Havana tourist traffic, a relative trickle ever since Fidel Castro and his supporters took power, Miami's Mayor Robert King High gave the whiskered Cubans some terse " advice: "Shave!"

Of a Dublin midnight in Groome's Hotel, a haunt of actors and other free souls, the grog flowed as from a well. Then Cinemale Robert Mitchum, in Ireland to star in an Irish Republican Army epic titled A Terrible Beauty, walked in. The facts were hard to come by, but burly (220 Ibs.) Bob Mitchum hazily allowed that he had been approached by an insistent autograph hound. Heavy-lidded ex-Truck Driver Mitchum scrawled a mild obscenity and got socked squarely in the eye for his unfriendly inscription. The story grew hazier from then on, but most agreed that Mitchum had poured a smoky slug of Irish whisky over somebody else's head, butted his new adversary on the jaw, got kicked in the face in reply. Next morning Pugilist Mitchum turned up for moviemaking with a cut nose, fast-blackening eye, aching jaw and a wry admission that "he certainly hurt me."

Elder Statesman Herbert Hoover, clear-eyed, poker-backed and 85 this week, returned to New York City from San Francisco to celebrate his birthday and catch up on his awesome workload (writing four books, answering scores of letters, being chairman of the Boys Clubs of America). That afternoon he went to Yankee Stadium to toss in the first ball in a nostalgic two-inning game between Yankee oldtimers and their erstwhile opponents from the National League foes.

Flitting back into New York International Airport after a six-week tour of Russia, mop-chinned Author Patrick (Auntie Mame) Dennis, 38, ran afoul of immigration sleuths. His vaccination certificate was out of date. Unable to prove that he had not contracted smallpox, Traveler Dennis (real name: Edward Everett Tanner III) was whisked off to the U.S. Public Health Service hospital on Staten Island to get vaccinated and wait to see if it took. Cost of his 48-hour stay was footed by the Federal Government. "It's very pleasant here," glowed healthy Patient Dennis while quarantined. "Private room, fine food, good service, restful atmosphere."

In a Pentagon ceremony, a posthumous Medal of Freedom, highest U.S. decoration for civilians, was awarded the late Deputy Defense Secretary Donald A. Queries (TIME, May 18) in recognition of his "outstanding contribution to the security of the United States and of the whole free world."

The U.S. Air Force dropped another straw on the already overburdened back of Louisiana's ailing Democratic Governor Earl K. Long (TIME, May 18 et seq.). He was sent a $4.251 bill for a total of 45 hr. 45 min. "unauthorized" flying time in two transport planes assigned to Louisiana's Air National Guard. The "misuse'' of the aircraft involved unofficial business flights during the past four months, but the Air Force allowed that Ole Earl was not necessarily the blameworthy party--just the man who has to pay up within 30 days. "All ah can keep from paying, ah will." grumped he. "Ah might leave a down payment on the bill in my will."

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