You wouldn't think, after this, that my Jemmy, who had shown such a horror at the bally, as they call it, should ever grow accustomed to it; but she liked to hear her name shouted out in the crush-room, and so would stop till the end of everything; and, law bless you! in three weeks from that time she could look at the ballet as she would at a dancing-dog in the streets, and would bring her double-barrelled opera-glass up to her eyes as coolly as if she had been a born duchess. As for me, I did at Rome as Rome does, and precious fun it used to be, sometimes. My friend the Baron insisted, one night, on my going behind the scenes, where, being a subscriber, he said I had what they call my _ontray_. Behind then I went; and such a place you never saw nor heard of! Fancy lots of young and old gents, of the fashion, crowding round and staring at the actresses practising their steps. Fancy yellow, snuffy foreigners, chattering always, and smelling fearfully of tobacco. Fancy scores of Jews, with hooked noses, and black muzzles, covered with rings, chains, sham diamonds, and gold waistcoats. Fancy old men, dressed in old night-gowns, with knock-knees, and dirty flesh-coloured cotton stockings and dabs of brickdust on their wrinkled old chops, and tow wigs (such wigs!) for the bald ones, and great tin spears in their hands, mayhap, or else shepherd's crooks, and fusty garlands of flowers, made of red and green baize! Fancy troops of girls, giggling, chattering, pushing to and fro, amidst old black canvas, Gothic halls, thrones, pasteboard Cupids, dragons, and such like; such dirt, darkness, crowd, confusion, and gabble of all conceivable languages was never known! If you _could_ but have seen Munseer Anatole! Instead of looking twenty, he looked a thousand. The old man's wig was off, and a barber was giving it a touch with the tongs; Munseer was taking snuff himself, and a boy was standing by, with a pint of beer from the public-house at the corner of Charles-street. I met with a little accident, during the three-quarters of an hour which they allow for the entertainment of us men of fashion on the stage, before the curtain draws up for the bally, while the ladies in the boxes are gaping, and the people in the pit are drumming with their feet and canes in the rudest manner possible, as though they couldn't wait.