The Nautch dancers, mentioned in the preceding chapter, are consecrated to the temple from childhood, and the graceful and fascinating poses to which the people of this country have been introduced by an enterprising American, are portions of their sacred dances before the shrines of their dizzy deities. I think four of these girls came to this country originally, and all but one died. Still, there were forty so-called Nautch dancers put upon the variety stage and in specialty troupes, ordinary but clever American ballet girls being painted for the occasion, and dressed in a semi-oriental costume. They made no pretensions to do the Nautch dance, in which the swaying of the body, keeping time with the feet, and howling a lugubrious hymn are the features, there being no hopping or whirling around; but the fraudulent Nautch girls of the specialty troupes pirouetted and pranced in the steps of the old-time ballet, with which we all ought to be familiar if we are not. CHAPTER XVII. TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. "Well, now, I don't think that's so awful hard," said a fellow knight of the pencil, one evening as we both leaned upon the rear row of chairs in the old Theatre Comique at St. Louis, since destroyed by fire, and bent our heads forward in an inquisitive look at the ballet of "The Fairy Fountain," or something of that sort. The remark was meant to apply to the evolutions of the premiere as she spun around on one toe and threw a graceful limb up towards the roof of the house every time she gave a whirl. "If you don't," said I, "you just try it once, and you'll find out exactly how hard it is." I had made this retort wildly and without knowing, myself, anything much about the difficulties of ballet dancing. It dawned on me that here was an excellent field for inquiry, so having obtained the permission of Manager W. C. Mitchell, who was running the Comique, to go behind the scenes to interview the ballet master; next evening found me early at the stage door. I was soon inside picking my way through the labyrinth of scenery, stage properties, scene shifters, supers, actors and people generally who crowd and jostle each other in this mimic world, and I was in imminent danger every now and then of an _impromptu_ debut before the public, and of finding myself standing figuratively on my head before an unappreciative audience. At last the ballet master--Sig. J. F. Cardella, a thin, wiry man who seemed to be in the decline of life--was found in his tights, leaning in an easy attitude against one of the "wings." "_Bona sera, Signor_," I said in the best Italian I could muster. "_Grazia_," returned the _maitre_ in the most welcoming manner in the world, as he invited me to a quiet corner where we sat down on a cracker-box.