at serious inconvenience and a tremendous sacrifice of time. To
be sure, I used occasionally to watch them decorously eating their
strictly supervised suppers in the presence of the governess; but the
perfect arrangements made possible by my financial success rendered
parents a superfluity. They never bumped their heads, or soiled their
clothes, or dirtied their little faces--so far as I knew. They never
cried--at least I was never permitted to hear them.

When the time came for them to go to bed each raised a rosy little cheek
and said sweetly: "Good night, papa." They had, I think, the usual
children's diseases--exactly which ones I am not sure of; but they had
them in the hospital room at the top of the house, from which I was
excluded, and the diseases progressed with medical propriety in due
course and under the efficient management of starchy trained nurses.

Their outdoor life consisted in walking the asphalt pavements of Central
Park, varied with occasional visits to the roller-skating rink; but
their social life began at the age of four or five. I remember these
functions vividly, because they were so different from those of my own
childhood. The first of these was when my eldest daughter attained the
age of six years. Similar events in my private history had been
characterized by violent games of blind man's buff, hide and seek, hunt
the slipper, going to Jerusalem, ring-round-a-rosy, and so on, followed
by a dish of ice-cream and hairpulling.

Not so with my offspring. Ten little ladies and gentlemen, accompanied
by their maids, having been rearranged in the dressing room downstairs,
were received by my daughter with due form in the drawing room. They
were all flounced, ruffled and beribboned. Two little boys of seven had
on Eton suits. Their behavior was impeccable.

Almost immediately a professor of legerdemain made his appearance and,
with the customary facility of his brotherhood, proceeded to remove tons
of debris from presumably empty hats, rabbits from handkerchiefs, and
hard-boiled eggs from childish noses and ears. The assembled group
watched him with polite tolerance. At intervals there was a squeal of
surprise, but it soon developed that most of them had already seen the
same trickman half a dozen times. However, they kindly consented to be
amused, and the professor gave way to a Punch and Judy show of a
sublimated variety, which the youthful audience viewed with mild
approval.

The entertainm