I had never been happier. Mrs. Hurok and I got ourselves aboard the _Normandie_ for our annual summer solstice in Europe. On board we found the Julius Fleischmanns. At dinner the first night out, our joint toast was in thanks for the merger and to the Biggest and Best of all Ballets. Although Fleischmann showed me one mildly disturbing wireless message, I had five days of peace. It was not destined to continue. When I stepped down from the boat train at London’s Waterloo Station, I was greeted by the news that the merger was off. The “Colonel” had changed his mind. Massine also had become resentful at a division of authority. Confusion reigned. As an immediate result, almost overnight de Basil lost control and the authoritative voice in his own company. Altogether, it was a complicated business. A new holding company, calling itself Educational Ballets, Ltd., headed by Baron “Freddy” d’Erlanger, banker and composer, whose bank had a large interest in the de Basil company, had taken over the operation of the company, and had placed a new pair of managing directors in charge: Victor Dandré, Anna Pavlova’s husband and manager, jointly with “Gerry” Sevastianov, the husband of Irina Baronova. The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which was to have been the scene of the debut of the Big Merged Company, had been taken for the original organization. It was all a bad dream, I felt. This impression was intensified a hundred fold when I sat in the High Court in London’s Temple Bar, as be-wigged counsel and robed judge performed an autopsy on my dream ballet. Here, with all the trappings of legality, but no genuine understanding, a little tragicomedy was being played out. Educational Ballets, Ltd., announced the performance of all the Massine ballets in the de Basil repertoire. This spurred Massine into immediate legal action. Massine went into court, not for damages, not for money, but for a declaratory judgment to determine, once for all, his own rights in his own creations. The court’s decision, after days of forensic argument, conducted with that understatement and soft but biting insult that is the prerogative of British learned counsel, was a piece of legalistic hair-splitting. Under British law, unlike the American, choreographic rights are protected. Would that the choreographic artist had a like protection under our system! By virtue of having presented the works in public performance, the court decided that de Basil had the right to continue such presentation: any works Massine had created as an employee of de Basil, while receiving a salary from him, Massine could not reproduce for a period of five years. Only the three works he had originally created for Diaghileff: _The Three-Cornered Hat_, _The Fantastic Toy-Shop_, and _Le Beau Danube_, could be reproduced by him for himself or for any other company.