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Back to Bled next day went George and Marina. Correspondents who followed them into the Balkans were stood off by Inspector Evans with lavish treats of Serbian beer. He made copy with such jokes as "Now there, keep away. I have a policeman stationed behind every tree. No photographs!" When the correspondents grew restless Major Humphrey Butler. Adjutant to Prince George, joined Inspector Evans in describing at length the prowess of His Royal Highness. "He can outwalk either of us," they said. "Once the Prince climbed to Prince Paul's hunting hut in an hour and 45 minutes. Even the native mountaineers consider it good going to make the hut in two hours and a quarter."
To the Empire this was brave news, for Prince George, cheerful, popular and hand some, has all his life been rated physically below par. Organic indigestion drove him from the Royal Navy into the Foreign Office where he was made a third secretary. This proved too strenuous. Sympathetic Edward of Wales took him along on a tour of South America, did all the heavy speech-making himself. Prince George seemed to perk up and catch on. Senoritas praised his dancing, called him "more fascinating than the Prince of Wales." His digestion seemed to improve. He seemed to be able to drink his royal quota of champagne. By careful practice he learned to speak so exactly like the Prince of Wales that equerries to the royal brothers vow that with their eyes shut they cannot tell which prince is which.
Vastly encouraged about Prince George, King George sent him out last winter to do South Africa and Australia. Seventeen thousand miles of South Africa was all he could stand (TIME. Jan 29). Sadly King George announced that the "heavy strain" of Australia would be too much for his fourth son, appointed his third son the Duke of Gloucester to do Australia this autumn. Last week loyal London editors hinted that perhaps Prince George's romance was the real reason for the substitution. They were confident that he will be equal to the strain of marriage. When Prince George got back from South Africa, they recalled, his gruff old uncle, the Earl of Athlone, told him publicly at a banquet: "You had better think of marrying soon!"