A King For A Day

Thrill for Tourists in French Oceania

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, May 5.

PROBABLY there is no man in all the forty-eight States of the American Republic who —having witnessed the pageant of a civic welcome to a base-ball hero, the annual spectacle of the tinsel robed figure of the Imperial Potentate of the Mystic Shrine receiving the plau dits of some metropolis, or the divine honours accorded the highest paid cine ma actor of the period—does not har bour in the secret recesses of his mind the ardent wish that Fate, one day, may grant him one brief hour of glory.

Our Tahitian psychologists have sensed this longing and have set a stage to satisfy this hidden desire.

The tourist, residing at one of the country inns, is informed that the na tives of the district wish to show him honour. He is conducted to a shady palm grove near the shore of the sea, or to a delectable glen in the heart of the hills.

There he is received with princely cour tesy, crowned with flowers, garlanded with fragrant maire, and seated at a sumptuous feast.

Replete with food and wassail, he is installed in a chair of state and blossom ed-decked singers and dancers appear.

The wassail-bowl is placed near at hand and his glass kept full by an obsequious attendant.

The exotic surroundings, the mounting exhilaration from his libations, the rhy thm of the drums, the memory of the

romances he has read, waft him to a world of illusion where he is a noble cast away on a primitive island, receiving the homage and entertainment accorded to high chiefs and Polynesian kings. He is kept in this dream world until the sun goes down.

When, a few days later, he comes into Papeete, he is aglow with the memory.

On the steamer, he recounts his apothe osis daily to the lady passengers. Ar rived at home, he lectures about it in the Town Hall, to his fellow citizens (carefully deleting any reference to the wassail-bowl, lest the Ladies’ Temperance Auxiliary cast him into outer darkness), and writes a full account for the county newspapers.

He never knows that the expenses of his royal day have been craftily inter woven into the ordinary items of his hotel bill.

It would make little difference if he did. A dream of a lifetime has come true.

He has been a king for a day.