Perhaps if they clapped loudly enough, the elephant would hear, and
would take a call like the others.
What sort of pantomime do children like? It is a strange thing that we
never ask ourselves "What sort of plays--or books or pictures--do
public-school men like?" You say that that would be an absurd
question. Yet it is not nearly so absurd as the other. For the real
differences of thought and feeling between you and your neighbour were
there when you were children, and your agreements are the result of
the subsequent community of interests which you have shared--in
similar public-schools, universities, services, or professions. Why
should two children want to see the same pantomime? Apart from the
fact that "two children" may mean such different samples of humanity
as a boy of five and a girl of fifteen, is there any reason why
Smith's child and Robinson's child should think alike? And as for your
child, my dear sir (or madam), I have only to look at it--and at
you--to see at once how utterly different it is from every other child
which has ever been born.
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