He becomes our sheet-anchor, so to speak.

There are plays in which at first sight it would almost appear there was nobody to blame--nobody, except the heroine herself.

It all seems to happen just because she is no better than she ought to be: clearly, the father's fault! for ever having had a daughter no better than she ought to be.

As the Heroine of a certain Problem Play once put it neatly and succinctly to the old man himself: "It is you parents that make us children what we are." She had him there.

He had not a word to answer for himself, but went off centre, leaving his hat behind him.
Sometimes, however, the father is merely a "Scientist"-- which in Stageland is another term for helpless imbecile.