ss Matilda Hemmings, to allow the matter to drop; otherwise criminal
proceedings would at once be commenced against us.

We took the letter to our own solicitors and explained the circumstances
to them. They said it seemed to be a very sad case, but advised us to
pay the 50 pounds, and we borrowed the money and did so.

Since then we have lost faith, somehow, in the British drama as a guide
to the conduct of life.

THE CHILD.

It is nice and quiet and it talks prettily.

We have come across real infants now and then in the course of visits to
married friends; they have been brought to us from outlying parts of the
house and introduced to us for our edification; and we have found them
gritty and sticky. Their boots have usually been muddy, and they have
wiped them up against our new trousers. And their hair has suggested the
idea that they have been standing on their heads in the dust-bin.

And they have talked to us--but not prettily, not at all--rather rude we
should call it.

But the stage child is very different. It is clean and tidy. You can
touch it anywhere and nothing comes off. Its face glows with soap and
water. From the appearance of its hands it is evident that mud-pies and
tar are joys unknown to it. As for its hair, there is something uncanny
about its smoothness and respectability. Even its boot-laces are done
up.

We have never seen anything like the stage child outside a theater
excepting one--that was on the pavement in front of a tailor's shop
in Tottenham Court Road. He stood on a bit of round wood, and it was
fifteen and nine, his style.

We thought in our ignorance prior to this that there could not be
anything in the world like the stage child, but you see we were
mistaken.

The stage child is affectionate to its parents and its nurse and is
respectful in its demeanor toward those whom Providence has placed in
authority over it; and so far it is certainly much to be preferred to
the real article. It speaks of its male and female progenitors as
"dear, dear papa" and "dear, dear mamma," and it refers to its nurse as
"darling nursey." We are connected with a youthful child ourselves--a
real one--a nephew. He alludes to his father (when his father is
not present) as "the old man," and always calls the nurse "old
nut-crackers." Why cannot they make real children who say "dear, dear
mamma" and "dear, dear papa?"

The stage child is much superior to the live infant in every way. The
s