People: Jan. 3, 1927

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Had they been interviewed, some people who figured in last week's news might have related certain of their doings as follows:

Albert Bushnell Hart, onetime professor of history at Harvard: "Authors William E. Woodward of George Washington: The Image and The Man, whom, together with Author Rupert Hughes of George Washington: The Human Being and The Hero (1732-1762), I lately characterized as 'tyros,' amateurish, falsifying historians, last week retorted: 'I had rather be a tyro than a dodo.' I soon answered Tyro Woodward, suggesting a jury to decide the relative merits of 'tyros not yet out of the shell as against dodoes who at least are hatched.' "

James Joseph Tunney, champion fisticuffer: "Crossing ice-covered Moosehead Lake, Me., with friends, to attend early Christmas mass, I took a running jump at a ten-foot 'wrinkle' (slush bank pushed up by expansion). My feet shot from under me, I sat in water 100 feet deep. Forming a human chain, my friends dragged me out and one of them ran ashore with me. My teeth chattering, I rushed to a hotel, draped my clothes on a radiator, crept into bed, downed a mug of hot chicken broth, snuggled for hours."

George Bernard Shaw, playwright: "A young British actor who had been called upon to impersonate me in a new farce (His Wild Oat) had the temerity to ask if I would coach him in the part. To his great surprise I acceded, received him at my house, said, 'We are all in the theatre business, my boy, and we must do what we can to help one another.' For an hour and a half I was friendly, helpful, even excited over the boy's problem. I taught him my most characteristic gesture—fluffing the ends of my mustache, my most characteristic pose—gripping my coat lapels. I examined his lines. One read: George Bernard Shaw: Would you be after thinkin' that I'd so far demean myself as to visit a play by that spalpeen, William Shakespeare?' Said I, 'No, no, no, that won't do at all,' and changed the line to read: 'George Bernard Shaw: I frequent the Old Vic to encourage William Shakespeare, me forerunner, sir."

General Umberto Nobile, famed Fascist transpolar flyer: "Major Pomarici, one of my most distinguished colleagues in the transpolar flight preparations, went to sleep, last week, in a first class compartment of the Naples-Potenza express. He was awakened when a masked youth seized him by the hair, jerked him to his feet, stabbed him in the throat and then jumped out of the car into the night and made off. Major Pomarici lay near death at Naples last week."

Fred Stanek, world champion corn husker: "Below an illustration of my smiling face, in New York Journal, I read this: 'You can see in this man's face that he was born to be a CHAMPION of some kind. He might have been a high-class ball player, with his picture in every paper, each season. He might have been a "high-class" prize-fighter . . . a wonderful billiard player, a fast runner. But these things did not interest Fred Stanek. He preferred to EARN his living and a championship in some useful way. . . .' "*