"But hasn't it ever occurred to you," I said, "that children in a theatre at Christmas time are entitled to have a little fun that is not wholly connected with sordid domestic affairs and pothouse commonness?"
"Never," he said, and I believed him.
"Haven't you children of your own?"
"Several."
"And is that how you amuse them at home?"
"Of course not. They're too young."
"How old are they?"
"From six to thirteen."
"But that's the age of the children who go to pantomimes," I suggested.
"Well, it's different in your own home," he said. "Besides," he added, "it isn't children I aim at in my jokes. There's other things for them: the fairy ballets, the comic dog."