Some would say: 'Oh yes, of course we all know the Zoo, but that's for small children; _we_ are quite tired of a dull place like that, where everyone goes; we like balls, with good floors for dancing, and programmes, and everything done as it is at grown-up balls; and we like theatres, where we can sit in the front row and look through opera-glasses and eat ices. Madame Tussaud's? Yes, it's there still; we went to it when we were quite little babies, but it's not at all fashionable.'
And another child might say: 'I don't mind driving with mother in the Row when I'm really beautifully dressed.'
But I'll tell you a secret about the little boys and girls who talk like this: they are not really children at all, they never have been and never will be; they are grown-up men and women in child shapes, and by the time their bodies have grown big they won't enjoy anything at all. Master Augustus will be a dull young man, who hates everybody, and does not know how to get through the long, dreary day; and Miss Ruby will be a mere heartless woman, who only cares to please herself, and does not mind how unhappy she makes everyone else. And all this will be because their foolish father and mother let them have everything they wanted, and allowed them to go everywhere they liked, and that is not at all good even for grown-up people, and it is very, very much worse for children.
There are, however, many other sorts of children in London, and it is rather interesting to hear what they think of the town in which they live. For instance, there are the children of people who are not at all poor, who have nice houses and plenty of money, but who are yet sensible enough to know that their children must have something else besides pleasure. If we asked one of their children what he thought of London, he might say: 'I've seen the Zoo, of course, and Madame Tussaud's, and I've been to Maskelyne's Mysteries and the Hippodrome, and they're all jolly, especially the Zoo; but those things generally happen in the holidays: we don't have such fun every day.' A boy or a girl of this sort has really a much duller time than one who lives in the country. London is so big, so huge, that he sees only a wee bit of it.