"Yes, the invariable question is, 'Can I dance in a few weeks?' and then they want me to show them the 'steps' and to let them try to duplicate them. I tell them there is no use; if they want to dance they must, as the Irishman says, begin at the beginning. You can't know music without learning the notes; you can't read without knowing the A B C; and so with the ballet, you can't dance without first having acquired its alphabet." [Illustration: M. B. CURTIS, IN SAM'L OF POSEN.] "How do you generally start a pupil out?" "They have got to go to what we call the 'sideboard' practice first; that is, they must take hold of something for a rest, and go through the first five steps"--and here the _maitre_ got up from the cracker-box, and taking hold of a "wing," placed his feet heel to heel, turned them out straight without bending the knees into an unsightly attitude, and said this was the first step; the four others were much the same as the attitudes taken at different times by elocutionists, one foot being pushed forward and then another. "Then I show them how to do this," and he began twisting one leg after another backward and forward until I thought he would twist both off, but he didn't. "After that," continued Sig. Cardella, "which in this country takes about a month, but in La Scala takes six months, I begin to show them a step or two at a time, and gradually lead them up until they know a little." "But now and then we see a very fresh and green foot, if I may use the expression, on the stage." "Oh, of course; we've got to make up a fair number for a troupe sometimes, and I then allow a girl to go on, whom I think smart enough not to make a fool of herself. You see although the American girl is smart and sharp, and pretty original in many other things, she is entirely imitative in dancing. She watches the other girls, and although she may not even be fairly grounded in the fundamental principles of ballet dancing, she frequently faces an audience and does well--sometimes astonishingly well in fact. Some of these girls climb up out of the ranks very fast; others who are lazy and give too much time to flirting and drinking wine, remain in the same line, usually the last, for years, and are really in a ballet master's way all the time." "How are ballet girls as a class?" "Some of them," said Cardella, with a shake of his head and an expression of pity on his face, "are a little fond and foolish at times." "And they have their admirers who bother them, in and out of the theatre, and send them pretty presents, big boquets and such?" [Illustration: A PREMIERE BEFORE THE AUDIENCE.]