things I want to ask you. Why, for instance, do you always pretend to
be a grimy slum woman?"

"It seems to be expected," he said.

"Who expects it? The children?"

"What children?"

"The children who go to pantomimes," I said.

"Oh, those! Well, they laugh," he replied evasively.

"They like to see you quarrelling with your husband and getting
drunk?"

"They laugh," he said.

"They like to hear you, as an Ugly Sister in _Cinderella_, singing
'Father's on the booze again; mother's off her chump'?"

"They laugh," he said.

"They like to see you as the wife of Ali Baba, finding pawntickets
in your husband's pockets and charging him with spending his money on
flappers?"

"They laugh," he said.

"They like to see you, as The Widow Twankay, visit a race meeting and