The great event came about because Mrs. Raeburn, in return for similar favors in the past, went to superintend the behavior of pasty-faced Claude and Percy so that her sister could spend a fortnight with a brother-in-law lately elected to the Urban Council of an unimportant town in Suffolk. So, with some misgivings on the side of his wife, Charlie was left in charge of 17 Hagworth Street. One day Mr. Vergoe came downstairs to ask his landlord if he would let Jenny and Alfie and Edie accompany him to the pantomime of "Aladdin" at the Grand Theater. Charlie saw no harm in it, and the party was arranged. It appeared that Miss Lilli Vergoe had been temporarily released from the second line of girls at the Orient Theater of Varieties in order to make one of a quartette of acrobatic dancers in the pantomime. Under the circumstances, her grandfather considered himself bound to attend at least one performance, although he felt rather like a mute at his own obsequies. It was a clear winter's evening when they set out, a rosy-cheeked, chattering, skipping party. Mr. Vergoe, wrapped in a muffler almost as wide as a curtain, walked in the middle. Jenny held his hand. Edie jigged on the inside, and Alfie, to whom had been intrusted the great responsibility of the tickets, walked along the extreme edge of the curb, occasionally jolting down with excitement into the frozen gutter. They hurried along the wide raised pavement that led up to the theater. They hurried past the golden windows of shops still gay with the aftermath of Christmas. They hurried faster and faster till presently the great front of the theater appeared in sight, when they all huddled together for a wild dash across the crowded thoroughfare. Ragged boys accosted them, trying to sell old programmes. Knowing men inquired if they wanted the shortest way to the pit. "No, thank you," said Mr. Vergoe proudly. "We have seats in the dress circle." The knowing men looked very respectful and moved aside from the welded plutocracy of Edie, Alfie, Jenny and Mr. Vergoe. Fat women with baskets of fat oranges tried to tempt them by offering three at once, but Mr. Vergoe declined. Oranges would not be polite in the dress circle.