T TIME WE STARTED FIGHTING AGAIN?"

Turkey. "YES, I DARESAY. HOW SOON COULD YOU BEGIN?"

Greece. "OH, IN A FEW WEEKS."

Turkey. "NO GOOD FOR ME. SHAN'T BE READY TILL THE AUTUMN".]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "We're giving our pastor a new drawing-room carpet on the
occasion on his jubilee. Show me something that looks nice but isn't too
expensive."

"Here is the very thing, Madame--real Kidderminister."]

* * * * *

EGYPT IN VENICE.

"_La Legende de Joseph._"

Those who know the kind of attractions that the Russian ballet offers in
so many of its themes could have easily guessed, without previous
enlightenment, what episode in the life of Joseph had been selected for
illustration last week at Drury Lane. But they could never have guessed
that Herr Tiessen, author of a shilling guide to the intentions of the
composer, would attach a transcendental significance to the conduct of
_Potiphar's Wife_. "Through the unknown divine," he informs us, "which
is still new and mysterious to her, an imperious desire awakens in her
to fathom, to possess this world"--the world, that is to say, which
_Joseph's_ imagination creates in the course of an exhibition dance. If
this is so, I can only say that her behaviour is strangely misleading.

The scene opens at a party given by _Potiphar_ in Venice. Venice, of
course, was not _Potiphar's_ home address; and I marvel a little at the
change of _venue_ when I think how much more harmony could have been got
out of an Egyptian setting. But then I remind myself that the Russian
ballet is nothing if not _bizarre_. The long banqueting-table recalls
the canvases of Veronese, but with discordant notes of the Orient and
elsewhere. _Potiphar_ himself, seated on a dais, has the air of an
Assyrian bull. By his side _Mme. Potiphar_ wears breeches ending above
the knee, with white stockings and high clogs.

For the entertainment of the guests there was a dance of nuptial
unveiling and a bout between half-a-dozen Turkish boxers. But it was a
decadent and _blaze_ company, and something more piquant was needed for
their titillation. This was supplied in the shape of an original dance
by the fifteen-year-old _Joseph_, whom my guide describes as "graceful,
wild and pungent." He was introduced in a recumbent posture, and asleep,
on a covered stretcher, and at first I had the clever idea that he was
the customary corpse that appeared at E