DEARTH. A might-have-been? They are ghosts, Margaret. I daresay I 'might have been' a great swell of a painter, instead of just this uncommonly happy nobody. Or again, I might have been a worthless idle waster of a fellow. MARGARET (laughing). You! DEARTH. Who knows? Some little kink in me might have set me off on the wrong road. And that poor soul I might so easily have been might have had no Margaret. My word, I'm sorry for him. MARGARET. So am I. (She conceives a funny picture.) The poor old Daddy, wandering about the world without me! DEARTH. And there are other 'might-have-beens'--lovely ones, but intangible. Shades, Margaret, made of sad folk's thoughts. MARGARET (jigging about). I am so glad I am not a shade. How awful it would be, Daddy, to wake up and find one wasn't alive. DEARTH. It would, dear. MARGARET. Daddy, wouldn't it be awful. I think men need daughters. DEARTH. They do. MARGARET. Especially artists. DEARTH. Yes, especially artists. MARGARET. Especially artists. DEARTH. Especially artists. MARGARET (covering herself with leaves and kicking them off). Fame is not everything. DEARTH. Fame is rot; daughters are the thing. MARGARET. Daughters are the thing. DEARTH. Daughters are the thing. MARGARET. I wonder if sons would be even nicer? DEARTH. Not a patch on daughters. The awful thing about a son is that never, never--at least, from the day he goes to school--can you tell him that you rather like him. By the time he is ten you can't even take him on your knee. Sons are not worth having, Margaret. Signed W. Dearth. MARGARET. But if you were a mother, Dad, I daresay he would let you do it. DEARTH. Think so? MARGARET. I mean when no one was looking. Sons are not so bad. Signed, M. Dearth. But I'm glad you prefer daughters. (She works her way toward him on her knees, making the tear larger.) At what age are we nicest, Daddy? (She has constantly to repeat her questions, he is so engaged with his moon.) Hie, Daddy, at what age are we nicest? Daddy, hie, hie, at what age are we nicest? DEARTH. Eh? That's a poser. I think you were nicest when you were two and knew your alphabet up to G but fell over at H. No, you were best when you were half-past three; or just before you struck six; or in the mumps year, when I asked you in the early morning how you were and you said solemnly 'I haven't tried yet.' MARGARET (awestruck). Did I? DEARTH. Such was your answer. (Struggling with the momentous question.) But I am not sure that chicken-pox doesn't beat mumps. Oh Lord, I'm all wrong. The nicest time in a father's life is the year before she puts up her hair. MARGARET (topheavy with pride in herself). I suppose that is a splendid time. But there's a nicer year coming to you. Daddy, there is a nicer year coming to you. DEARTH. Is there, darling? MARGARET. Daddy, the year she does put up her hair!