When it has done upsetting its mother it fishes out some broken-hearted maid, who has just been cruelly severed forever from her lover, and asks her in a high falsetto voice why she doesn't get married, and prattles to her about love, and domestic bliss, and young men, and any other subject it can think of particularly calculated to lacerate the poor girl's heart until her brain nearly gives way. After that it runs amuck up and down the whole play and makes everybody sit up all round. Everybody loves the stage child. They catch it up in their bosoms every other minute and weep over it. They take it in turns to do this.
Nobody ever clumps the stage child over the head.
When the real child goes to the theater it must notice these things and wish it were a stage child. The stage child is much admired by the audience. We should not be angry with them. We should the rather pity them. We ourselves had a friend once who suffered from this misfortune.