_Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II., Scene 3._ ] "Yes; we have four lines of dancers in Italy. You have only three here. We place our coryphees fartherest off from the premiere; you put them alongside. The beginners at La Scala go into the coryphee class, from which they are gradually advanced to the _secunda lina_, then to the _prima lina_, and, afterwards, to solo parts, when they practically become premieres." "But eight years," I suggested, "is a long time to be working without any return in the shape of either money or glory?" "Ah, there you are mistaken," Cardella answered, pleased to find that newspaper men sometimes make mistakes. "The pupils at La Scala are paid something from the time they enter the academy. They first, while mere coryphees, get thirty francs a month; in the second line, sixty francs; in the third, eighty; and when advanced to solo parts, two hundred francs a month. At this they stop until they finish their schooling, when they take places in the principal theatres, make the usual tour of the provinces and of the continent, and finally settle down, if they have not become famous, to some solid competency, just as I have done myself." "So much for the dancing boys and girls of Italy; but how about the ballet in this country?" "Oh, it is nothing like what Europe produces. You have no schools here except the theatres, and girls when they come to learn the ballet, as they have often came to me, ask: 'Do you think I can dance in a week or two?' It is absurd the way they want to do. Why, in my country I practised for eight years before I would be allowed to appear publicly in the theatre, and had practised two years before that at home, and yet these American girls think they can become good dancers in a week or two." "What do you say to such applicants?" "I say, 'No, you can't dance in a week or two, nor in a month or two; but if you want to practice for several months I can place you on the stage.' And I say this because I know American girls can make good dancers if they are in earnest and apply themselves hard; they can make passable ballet girls even if they give only a fair share of their attention to the study." "What do you think of the American ballet?" [Illustration: MEASURING FOR THE COSTUME.] "It cannot be good, of course, as long as the public does not give it the attention and patronage it requires to make it good. In the old country the ballet is everything; in this it is comparatively nothing. They make it subservient to everything else on the stage. Managers do not care to pay for good troupes, and the troupes are consequently small and poor." "But is there not plenty of employment for good ballet dancers?"