A few mornings ago I found among my letters a tragic document--a
bill. A first quick glance at it filled me with despair, because I was
luxuriating in that Fools' Paradise produced by the illusion that one
is all paid up. Of course one never is; there is always something that
one forgets, and this must have been it; so that, instead of perfect
freedom from liability, here I was apparently still owing no less a
sum than £5 9_s_.
The figures looked familiar enough, although disconcerting, but I
rubbed my eyes when I found that they were made up of two items that
had never come my way; the first being one-and-a-half dozen essences,
£3 15_s_., and the second, a dozen _poudre assortie,_ £1 14_s_. It
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.
"Meanwhile" (I seem to hear you say) "what of the hairdresser who has
the same name as yourself and plies his trade next door but one? This
story--which so far is a poor enough thing--was surely to have been
about him." (So I seem to hear you say.)
Patience! It is about him, but it is also about the evils of
procrastination. In short, it is a kind of tract.
On the morning after my disappointing evening at the Alhambra, while
moving some papers on my desk, I brought to light the bill for the
powder and the essences. "Good Heavens!" I murmured, "the poor
fellow will be distracted not to have this;" and I took it in to him
straightway.