Page:My father as I recall him (IA cu31924013473610).djvu/54

 suddenly: "But what about an audience?" "Why, bless my soul," said my father, "I'd forgotten all about that." Invitations were quickly dispatched to our neighbours, and additional preparations made for supper. In due time the audience came, and the charade was acted so successfully that the evening stands out in my memory as one of the merriest and happiest of the many merry and happy evenings in our dear old home. My father was so extremely funny in his part that the rest of us found it almost impossible to maintain sufficient control over ourselves to enable the charade to proceed as it was planned to do. It wound up with a country dance, which had been invented that morning and practised quite a dozen times through the day, and which was concluded at just a few moments before midnight. Then leading us all, characters and audience, out into the wide hall, and throwing wide open the door, my father, watch in hand, stood