could not be for me. Essences and powders wholesale are not in my
line, nor is my acquaintance so extensive among the Fair as these
quantities would imply.

A moment later all my anxieties dispersed and tragedy turned to comedy
when I realised that the bill was for the hairdresser with the same
name as my own, who lives next door but one and gets so much of my
correspondence.

I therefore put the bill on my desk, intending to take it into the
shop when I went out; and forgot it.

The Russian Corps de Ballet at the Alhambra is an assemblage of
charming and gifted people who are at last giving their admirers full
measure. Now that they have a vast theatre of their own and perform
three ballets every night the old frustrated feeling that used to
tantalise us at the Opera and the Coliseum has vanished. But I have
still a grievance, and that is that the programme is so rarely the
programme that I myself would have arranged. In other words the three
ballets that form it are seldom the Big Three that are nearest my
heart. To be explicit, I want _Petroushka_, and instead I find myself
not knowing where to look while _Scheherazade_ unfolds its appalling
freedoms; I want _Les Sylphides_, and instead am given _Les
Papillons_, which is very lovely but not of an equal loveliness; and I
want _Carnaval_, and instead am offered the perplexities of _The
Fire Bird_. It happened, however, that one night recently the perfect
programme was given--_Carnaval, Les Sylphides_ and _Petroushka_; but
there was not a seat in the house, and I therefore had to stand in
great discomfort, so that half the joy evaporated.