"Go on!" he said derisively. "I haven't got time to mug _that_ up.
I've got my living to get. You don't suppose I invent my jokes, do
you? I collect them. I'm on the Halls the rest of the year, and I hear
them there. There hasn't been a new joke in a pantomime these twenty
years. But what you don't seem to get into your head, mister, is the
fact that I make them laugh. Laugh. I'm a scream, I tell you."

"And laughter is all you want?" I asked.

"I must either make people laugh or get 'the bird.'"

"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."