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
stage child does not go rampaging about a house and screeching and
yelling till nobody knows whether they are on their heads or their
heels.