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"SIR, I have just read in the Cornhill Magazine for January, the first portion of a Tale written by you, and entitled Lovel the Widower. When you imply that the majority of ballet-girls have villas taken for them in the Regent's Park, I SAY YOU TELL A DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD.
Thereupon little Giry the girl with eyes black as sloes, hair black as ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little skin stretched over poor little bones little Giry added: "If that's the ghost, he's very ugly!" "Oh, yes!" cried the chorus of ballet-girls. And they all began to talk together.
And you have secured such bales of transparent white muslins, that one would think you intended to furnish a whole troupe of ballet-girls with saucer petticoats. Catalan lace you have got, to trim curtains, sheets, pillow-cases, and kitchen-towels with.
Nobody dances so well as children; no grace is equal to their grace: but to go into a hotel at ten o'clock at night, and see little things, eight, ten, twelve years old, who ought to be in bed and asleep, tricked out in flounces and ribbons and all the paraphernalia of ballet-girls, and dancing in the centre of a hollow square of strangers, I call it murder in the first degree.
And on the third night, strange to say, there was applause for everything and everybody; all the performers had "ovations" in turn; even the ballet-girls had a share in the general glory so liberally bestowed. "What is the meaning of this?" demanded Lemaitre and Dorval of the manager: "did you not promise that your claque should be discharged?" The manager shrugged his shoulders.
"All these revivals make him lazy. Heavens! what his fees must tot up to! If I were not sustained by the presence of you two girls, I should no more survive the fifth act than most of the characters. Why don't they brighten the piece up with ballet-girls?" "Yes, I suppose you blessed Mr. Leon when you got his telegram," said Esther. "What a bore it must be to you to be saddled with his duties!"
The pair, strange to relate, squandered the property in the dullest, stupidest, most commonplace fashion, in Strasbourg brasseries, in the company of ballet-girls of the Strasbourg theatres, and little Alsaciennes who had not a rag of a tattered reputation left. Every morning they would say, "We really must stop this, and make up our minds and do something or other with the money that is left."
Axes were raised over the heads of a crowd of hapless prisoners, who were barons, bishops, monks, and grand ladies. In the wings, balanced on their skates, all the ballet-girls were waiting the right moment to "Effleurer la glace Sans laisser de trace." I respectfully begged one of the young Westphalian peasant-girls to point out to me the man named Morin.
What strange pictures! those ballet-girls; they remind me of the pantomime. Did you buy those pictures?" "No; they are wonderful, aren't they? A friend of mine bought them in France." "Mr. Escott?" "Yes; I forgot you knew him how stupid of me! Had it not been for him I shouldn't have known you I was thinking of something else." "Where is he now? I hope he will not return while I am here.
"But!" said he gayly, "to fall from power is nothing, provided one falls into the arms of ballet-girls." Molina burst out laughing ... when he ran his eye over the list and found accompanying the names of ballet-dancers and members of the chorus, the distinguished particles of some habitués. Madame Marsy was awaiting Guy de Lissac's return from the greenroom.
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