One day Mr. Vergoe came downstairs to ask his landlord if he would let Jenny and Alfie and Edie accompany him to the pantomime of "Aladdin" at the Grand Theater. Charlie saw no harm in it, and the party was arranged. It appeared that Miss Lilli Vergoe had been temporarily released from the second line of girls at the Orient Theater of Varieties in order to make one of a quartette of acrobatic dancers in the pantomime. Under the circumstances, her grandfather considered himself bound to attend at least one performance, although he felt rather like a mute at his own obsequies.
It was a clear winter's evening when they set out, a rosy-cheeked, chattering, skipping party. Mr. Vergoe, wrapped in a muffler almost as wide as a curtain, walked in the middle. Jenny held his hand. Edie jigged on the inside, and Alfie, to whom had been intrusted the great responsibility of the tickets, walked along the extreme edge of the curb, occasionally jolting down with excitement into the frozen gutter. They hurried along the wide raised pavement that led up to the theater. They hurried past the golden windows of shops still gay with the aftermath of Christmas. They hurried faster and faster till presently the great front of the theater appeared in sight, when they all huddled together for a wild dash across the crowded thoroughfare. Ragged boys accosted them, trying to sell old programmes. Knowing men inquired if they wanted the shortest way to the pit.
"No, thank you," said Mr. Vergoe proudly. "We have seats in the dress circle."
The knowing men looked very respectful and moved aside from the welded plutocracy of Edie, Alfie, Jenny and Mr. Vergoe. Fat women with baskets of fat oranges tried to tempt them by offering three at once, but Mr. Vergoe declined. Oranges would not be polite in the dress circle.
In the vestibule Alfie was commanded to produce the tickets. There was a terrible moment of suspense while Alfie, nearly as crimson as the plush all around him, dug down into one pocket after another. Were the tickets lost? Edie and Jenny looked daggers. No; there they were: Row A, numbers 7, 8, 9, and 10. "Upstairs, please," said a magnificent gentleman in black and gold. "This way, please," said a fuzzy-haired attendant. The children walked over the thick carpet in awed silence. A glass door swung open. They were in the auditorium of the Grand Theater, Islington, in the very front row, by all that was fortunate; and, having bestowed their hats and coats beneath the elegant and comfortable tip-up chairs, they hung over the red-plush ledge of the circle and gazed down into what seemed the whole of the population of London. The orchestra had not yet come in. Down in the pit the people were laughing and talking. Up in the gallery they were laughing and talking. Babies were crying; mothers were comforting them. Everybody down below seemed to be eating oranges or buns or chocolate. Alfie let his programme flutter down, and Jenny nearly burst into tears because she thought they would all be turned out of the theater.
The whole of the vast audience was there for enjoyment. Enjoyment was in the air like a great thrill of electricity. What could be more magnificent than the huge drop curtain, with its rich landscape and lightly clothed inhabitants? What could be more exciting than the entrance, one by one, of the amazingly self-possessed musicians?
The orchestra was tuning up. The conductor appeared to the welcoming taps of fiddle-bows. One breathless moment he held aloft his baton and looked round at his attentive company, then altogether the fiddles and the drums and the flutes and the cornets, the groaning double-bass and the 'cello and the clarinets and the funny little piccolo and the big bassoon and the complicated French horns and the trombones and the triangle (perhaps the best-enjoyed instrument of all) and the stupendous cymbals started off with the overture of the Christmas pantomime of the Grand Theater, Islington.
Could it be borne, this enthusiastic overture? Was it not almost too much for children, this lilting announcement of mirth and beauty? Would not Jenny presently fall head-foremost into the pit? Would not Alfie be bound to break the seat by his perpetual leaps into the air? Would not Edie explode in her anxiety to correct Jenny, devour bull's-eyes and see more of a mysterious figure that kept peering through a little square hole in the corner of the proscenium?
The orchestra stopped for a moment. A bell had rung, shrill and pregnant with great events. Green lights appeared, and red lights: there was hardly a sound in the house. Was anything the matter?
"They're just ringing up," said Mr. Vergoe.