Page:Dream days.djvu/263

 A DEPARTURE Poor old Leotard! I said nothing, of course; I was not on in this piece. But, surely, had Leotard heard and rightly understood all that was going on above him, he must have sent up one feeble, strangled cry, one faint appeal to be rescued from unfamiliar little Annies and retained for an audience certain to appreciate and never unduly critical.

"Now I've got to the Noah's Ark," panted Harold, still groping blindly.

"Try and shove the lid back a bit," said Charlotte, "and pull out a dove or a zebra or a giraffe if there's one handy."

Harold toiled on with grunts and contortions, and presently produced in triumph a small grey elephant and a large beetle with a red stomach.

"They're jammed in too tight," he complained. "Can't get any more out. But as I came up I'm sure I felt Potiphar!" And down he dived again.

Potiphar was a finely modelled bull with a suède skin, rough and comfortable and warm in bed. He was my own special joy and pride, and I thrilled with honest emotion when 223