THE MUSE. How truly fascinating! Do let us have some more, my dear Satan!

SATAN. It is rather good fun, all those delicious old boys, isn't it? Now you shall hear quite another bit, when the Ballet is in full swing.

SATAN puts by a lot of gramophone discs in a drawer, and locks it very carefully.

SATAN (to THE MUSE). To prevent confusion, dear Clio, please make it quite clear to our friends, the Ages-to-Come, that what they have just witnessed was a retrospect. The first scenes took place years before the opening of the Ballet you so much enjoyed; and even the very last of the set preceded it by some days. The first one, for instance, was quite, if I may say so to Clio, ancient history.

SATAN unlocks another drawer and begins arranging a heap of discs which he takes out..

SATAN. I wish we had had time for a larger selection of pre-war incidents, as you, dear Muse, will call them when you set it all forth with the necessary "Style Noble." I should have liked to show you the gradual preparation for my Ballet, not merely in the last few years, but all through a century— indeed, all through all the centuries, since every war has been prepared by every other war-indeed, by every other treaty of peace; the needful feelings and prejudices accumulating through the ages in my storehouse, ready to shift about, as an earthly manager shifts the same old properties, from one side of the stage to the other. However, even these few samples will have served to illustrate a thing I told you during our preliminary talk in Hell. I mean that calamities—since Mankind feels my Ballets to be calamities-of this kind do not spring from the small and negligible item which suffering and angry men call guilt. My excellent Minion, Confusion-that is to say, muddle-headedness, perfunctoriness, and apathycontrives the necessary entanglements and deadlocks during

years. But once these preparations are made, Delusion bursts in, inventing plausible motives, helped by enthusiasm, fear, and hatred, reasons so called for what are in reality mere idiotic bungles left to chance. Well, my kind friends, now we have done with the pre-war selection, and we'll have a few scenes which you must imagine taking place behind the World's Stage when the Ballet is already raging. Indeed, the first is just about the moment when Pity and Indignation came on, with, as you will remember, such a fine effect and to such good purpose. Attention!

SATAN sets his double apparatus in motion. The cinema shows distant cupolas, pines, and broken columns through wide-open windows. Several elderly gentlemen at coffee and cigarettes.

IST VOICE. What's this absurd story that I hear! They surely haven't the impudence to offer you Gog and Magog, my dear Prime Minister?

2ND AND PLACID VOICE. They do indeed, my dear Excellency. Needless to say, my heart is entirely on your side, but, as you know, in the case of a great historical people the claims of the Ego are holy.

IST VOICE. In that case, tell them to go to the Devil for a pack of liars. If you remain neutral they won't give you anything.

2ND AND PLACID VOICE. Will you if I leave off being neutral ?

IST VOICE. We! Of course we shall. Why, you shall have Gog and Magog.

2ND AND PLACID VOICE. I can have Gog and Magog merely by sitting tight, my dear sirs.

IST VOICE. Well! And what else can you possibly want? Let's hear! Only don't be listening to their tomfoolery. Besides, we all know how unpopular they are with your people.

2ND AND PLACID VOICE. (blander than ever). Not so unpopular as going to war.

IST VOICE. Oh, your people only require to be told the real facts. A little propaganda will suit them. I don't believe they've been properly informed about the atrocities.... That child with cut-off hands, for instance

2ND AND PLACID VOICE (bland). The child with cut-off hands has already been shown to us. But our people don't mind cut-off hands or gouged-out eyes. We had a lot of that of our own recently in Carthage. Besides, our most celebrated living littérateur always has some in each of his works.

IST VOICE. Ha! Your immortal, though perhaps a little décolleté, Angelo! The very thing! A few dozen of his splendid odes in the principal papers

2ND AND PLACID VOICE. Good for the students at the café! dear Excellency. We statesmen don't live off odes. Machiavelli already said as much.

IST VOICE. Well, then, what are your terms, confound you?

THE BLAND VOICE (very quickly). Gog and Magog, and all their territory; Maraschino, of course; the complete set of border glaciers; the kingdoms of the late Croesus and Polycrates, with the islands of the Cyclops for their classic associations; Prester John's Empire, which is mentioned in Marco Polo; the heritage of our glorious sea-kings as shown by their still existing flagstaffs, including, naturally, the seaboard of Bohemia, so much embellished by our valiant fellow-countryman, Diocletian.

IST VOICE. Seaboard of Bohemia! Come, come! You know to whom that belongs! And as to Prester John, why, he's neutral.

THE BLAND VOICE. So are we for the moment, my dear sirs!

ANOTHER VOICE (aside). Oh, throw in Prester John-he had a bite at him thirty years ago and broke his teeth on him. And let him have the flagstaffs of his sea-kings.

IST VOICE. All right! But not the seaboard of Bohemia; that has been promised to our poor dear Ladislaus by right of nationality.

THE BLAND VOICE. Poor dear Ladislaus is already in, or rather already out, since he's squashed. He needn't have anything. Enfin, gentlemen, is it to be or not to be?

SEVERAL VOICES (mutter together). I suppose we shall have to promise him something. And there's not much harm so long as he gets it for himself. After all, we haven't got any of it in our hands. All right. The kingdom of the late Croesus and-what's the other name? And Prester John, although he is a neutral. And the flagstaffs. . . there-you may make out a memorandum for our joint consideration.

THE BLAND VOICE. A memorandum? (Singing.) Un biglietto? Eccolo quà! Here's your memorandum ready to hand. Suppose all you gentlemen just put your signatures to it before we finish this excellent café noir? The fact is, the other side are going to call for an answer at four o'clock.

3RD VOICE. Wouldn't you like us to throw in a pair of trousers, my dear Minister? Mine, as you see, are almost as good as new.

THE BLAND VOICE (laughs). Ah, what it is to be the most spirituel nation in the world!

The gramophone wheezes. SATAN changes the disc. The cinema shows a council-table. Many Councillors who remain mute.

IST VOICE. They insist that we must really push on to Cæsarea.

G

2ND VOICE. But our Fleet can't get through.

3RD VOICE. Oh, yes, it can, if supported by our Army. 4TH VOICE. But our Army can't get there by land.

5TH VOICE. Oh, yes, it can, if it is supported by our Fleet. IST VOICE. Anyhow, they insist that we should do something to get them Cæsarea.

6TH VOICE. If neither the Army nor the Fleet can do it, what do you say to a joint effort of both?

The gramophone wheezes. The cinema shows the terrace of a château in the war zone. A group of elderly men in various uniforms, to which some seem neither suited nor accustomed.

IST VOICE. As your experts have doubtless informed you, my Government finds itself under the necessity of somewhat raising the ground-rent of such portions of our territory as are occupied by your troops.

I had not heard any

2ND VOICE. Oh . . . Indeed thing about that.. In fact . to tell the plain truth I had always taken for granted that as

in fact

if I may say so . . . our lines are helping to defend

IST VOICE. Alas! à qui le dites-vous, my dear friend, à qui le dites-vous! For this very reason, as ground rents invariably tend to rise in war-time, enfin ...

2ND VOICE. But . . . considering that . . .

IST VOICE. Ah, my dear friend. . . how do you put that maxim of your national greatness? Business (you say as I think)-business as us-u-al!

2ND VOICE. Surely not in case of

in short, we imagined

IST VOICE. What a number of quite unimaginable eventu ́alities we all have witnessed! Unimaginable, I say. Enfin, we have so far had only to congratulate ourselves on your great nation's . . . how do you say? . . . procédés, which,