Imaginary Interviews: Nov. 5, 1923

Benito Mussolini: ” My brother Arnaldo protested against my lending my name to a favorite race horse owned by Frank Turner, an Englishman. Said I: ‘Let him have my name so long as he wins!'”

Stanley Baldwin, British Premier: ” The students of Edinburgh University have elected me Lord Rector in succession to Mr. George. My first cousin, Rudyard Kipling, was recently installed as Rector of St. Andrews in succession to James M. Barrie.”

Otto H. Kahn, banker: ” I dropped $15,000 in the musical comedy production Jack and Jill, which featured Lew Fields, Ann Pennington, Dorothy Enright. This became known when the producers went into bankruptcy.”

Jack Dempsey, champion pugilist: ” Some months ago my brother John went to a dentist. The dentist now claims I promised to pay my brother’s bill. The bill ($624.50) has not been paid. The dentist has gone to court.”

King Haakon (Norway): ” Prohibition agents were rumored to be sleuthing me. Members of my Royal entourage were darkly accused of smuggling French liquor into my Kingdom, contrary to its anti-alcoholic laws. My ambassador at Paris denied all such rumors and accusations.”

Franklin Pierce Adams, famed editor of The Conning Tower, comic column of The New York World: ” One William McAndrew, writing in the November World’s Work, adjured me to compose verses that, if memorized, would serve as a reminder to children to be careful when crossing the streets. Wrote I:

If mamma, when a little girl,

Had walked into a truck,

I wouldn’t be around today,

Doggone my rotten luck.

Miss Glenna Collett, former national women’s champion: “At a country club near Boston, my father, George H. Collett, and I had the best gross score (88) in the first round of a father-and-daughter tournament.”

Countess Laszlo Szechenyi (née Gladys Vanderbilt): ” In late Summer, at Newport, I lost a pearl necklace valued at $30,000. Last week newspapers told how a Scandinavian maid found my necklace in the gutter, returned it, received $100 reward. The pearls were given to me when I married Count Szechenyi, who is now Hungarian Minister at Washington.”