Evening star., 1925-06-07
A MESSAGE TO THE MAHARAJA
F.
Romance With Incidents Developed in the Far East.

not the stars in their courses that
brought their meeting about.
One morning, while the liner on
which Sylvester Van Dorm and his
daughter were sailing to the Far East
was plowing a double smile upon the
unwrinkled blue face of the eastern
Pacific. Sammy Bonifer was en- route
to village in the Lao in search of
ivory and uncut sapphires. He was
paying, his regular monthly trading
visits to the villages in his district.
With his sun helmet jammed down
tightly about his shoulders. he sat in
the stern of a canoe, which was being
driven at a leisurely pace through the
tawny water by six paddlers. Oc-
casionally he glanced at the compass
at his feet
According to the disk the canoe was
heading due south when the traders
attention was arrested by droning
far overhead. He glanced up to per-
ceive that an enormous bird with
fixed wings was swooping down upon
him. Sammy Bonifer knew, of course,
that the huge bird was an airplane.
although it was the first one he had
seen in five years, and from the
markings on it's wings he knew that
the plane was an American one. His
six Lao boys, however, had been
denied the benefits of travel and edu-
cation. and, as the great mechanical
vulture swooped closer and closer,
one by one they committed them
selves, splashing and bowling, to the
comparative safety of the alligator
infested water.
The plane was now coasting low
over the river. Suddenly the roaring
of its engine was reduced to purring
and a clicking; and on it came with
a sound of rushing wind.
From the cockpit a hand reached
out and waved. and Sammy Bonifer
looked upward into begoggled eyes.
Compass jammed." the pilot horse
" yelled down Which ways Bang
kok, buddy?'
Sammy Bonifer recovered from his
amazement only in time to be of serv-
ice. Glancing at his compass, he swept
off his huge sun helmet, waved it
violently southwark, and shouted:
Whats doing?'
Round the world!' floated back to
him; the motor was roaring again. He
watched the winged marvel shrink to
a speck against the low thunder
clouds. His paddlers clambered back
into the canoe, babbling.
"Bai bahng! Wai-wai. he roared.
which, translated freely. meant.
"e re SOlIS NOIilc, SOu i1Zy ioSNoAo'
as fast as we can travel.
CAMMY BONIFER entered Bankok
~ one evening on the train from
Chengmei in a red-and-blue checked
sarong which hung from waist to boot
tops, suspended seemingly by nothing
but its own initiative. as sarongs gen
orally are; a jacket of pale-green hand
Il zil ND Cyfr hQlnnat
that resembled the largest and most
elderly mushroom in existence.
That bizarre picture was the first
that Judy Van Dorm had of Sammy
Bonifer, and one that she would re-
member always; a tall young man IN a
brilliant Oriental costume. with nut
brown skin, a shock of sun-bleached.
corn-colored hair, fine blue eyes with
laughter in them, the lacquered two
foreleg under his left arm, and small
hammered-silver casket clasped in his
large brown right hand.
Judy, Dr. Dill and Mr.. Van Dorm
were discussing the American flyers
who had recently stopped in Bangkok
en- route to Rangoon on their round
the-world fight and waiting for the
number one boy to summon them to
dinner, when Sammy Bonifer silhouet-
ted himself against the grape-colored
sky
The laughter in his eyes and the
eager grin vanished when he beheld
Judy in a filmy white dress, immacu-
late and lovely and serene in a pea
cock chair which made an effective
background for her slim, dark-eyed,
dark-haired beauty. The elephant leg
dropped with thump to the floor, and
he looked at her with dismay, as if
he might burst into tears.
Judy was the first white girl he had
seen in five years.
DIR. Dill presented Sammy Bonifer
to the Van Dorns, and Sammy remov-
ed the contents of the lephant's leg.
There were a half-dozen of the gilded
cast iron Buddhas with which Judy
was quite familiar and one strange
looking skinny one which DR.. Dill
promptly pounced upon.
This is a very fair example of the
Starvation Buddha." he explained,
turning the ugly little piece of gilded
cast iron about in his hands. Are
these mine, SAM"
Yes, sir. and I'd like to have you
keep one for me until / know just
where l will be-; and he opened the
silver casket. 1t was filled with odds
and ends.
He poked around in the little box.
then nervously dumped it's contents on
the floor, knelt down and paved them
over. Judy could not restrain an ex
clamation of rapture. How perfectly
gorgeous
The trader looked up at her with a
shy, frightened grin. From the mass
he extricated a lump of carved amber,
which he handed to DR.. Dill. 1t was
a tiny amber goddess, perhaps an inch
and a half in height. The eyes were
tiny inset sapphires, and in the dusk
of the evening they seemed to twinkle
with life.
Il think it's the mother of Buddha,"